When Pizza Night Turns Into Mexican Night

I had announced our plans for Pizza Night on the morning blog, spent 30 min carefully plotting the grocery list, waited for Hubby to finish working on his latest Jeep obsession (laying down on the soaking wet ground to work on it, I might add), and then waited 5 extra minutes for a couple of teenagers to put their shoes on because they had breathlessly asked, "canigotothestorewithyoupleasehuh?"

No prob, I had it all under control!

We cruised through the store parking lot once before determining that particular store was too crowded for our liking. We decided to head off to Fresh Market down the street. Much less crowded, even if it does smell a little fishy... maybe because it does smell a little fishy? Somewhere between store A and store B, we no longer wanted pizza night. It was unanimously agreed that Mexican night sounded SO much better! So I grabbed my carefully planned grocery list and my trusty gel pen and got to work on a new list right there in the Fresh Market parking lot.

Sweet!

With renewed interest we headed home to cook up a storm. We had planned on making guacamole, beef burritos, chicken burritos, chicken enchiladas, all served with chile verde, beans and rice and margaritas for us grown ups... the kids had cactus coolers. And just because I still had it stuck in my head, I wanted to make the spring greens raspberry walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I didn't really care that it wasn't exactly Mexican fare!

Before you think we're on a different orbit, I know that is a freakishly huge amount of food. We had heard a rumor that my brother and his family were coming to visit, AND we love to cook.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I prepared the salad, the beef and the cheese enchiladas while Hubby made the guacamole, chile verde, the beans and rice, and the chicken for the burritos. I was also the mixologist for the night and I happen to think my margaritas were pretty nom!

Spring Mix salad with craisins and walnuts, dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette that I bought in a bottle but then added half and half plus Dijon mustard to make it perfect.

Hubby's famous guacamole. I talk him into adding a smidge of lime juice when he makes it for extra freshness.

I recently learned a bartender's secret to margaritas... use frozen Limeaid concentrate instead of margarita mix. It tastes so much better that way! We also add Triple Sec (Just a splash) and a dash of lime juice. Nom!

Hubby thought I was nutso when I told him I wanted it all on one platter for a picture. Seriously, this is too much food for even two people! But I wanted to pretend I was in a Mexican restaurant.. with jumbo size portions apparently. Haha!

Here's a cross section of the burritos. Hubby made the shredded chicken by adding picante sauce and just a hint of salt.I made the beef with enchilada seasoning and added a can of nacho cheese sauce and half an onion. You can't see it in the pictures, but the burritos were smothered in Hubby's special chile verde.  It was really tasty!

I forced him to hold still and pose for me because he was blurry in all of the other action shots I attempted. 

 I should have taken a picture of the heaps of dishes that needed to be washed when we were through! But we had a great time singing, dancing, laughing and being our silly selves! My favorite little brother and his family did come over later and they enjoyed the feast with us. It was a fantastic evening and we were drained by the time we finally put our feet up.. at 10pm! But the best part is that we didn't have to cook a single thing yesterday because we have burritos a plenty left over!