San Miguel at Home: Black Bean Quesadillas

I visited my family Sunday night to regale them with stories of Mexico, and show off my photos of San Miguel.  My mum and sister kept saying: “oh, I’ve seen that one on your blog” so some of the surprise was already gone!

I thought that Mexican food was in order, and so settled on quesadillas (with corn tortillas, I’ve changed forever away from wheat ones!) and many sauces.  We started out with mushroom & monterey jack quesadillas (anyone know about Mexican cheese?  it seems so much milder than anything I can find here…), with roasted tomatillo sauce and roasted tomato sauce (stay tuned for recipes).

We then warmed some more of the corn tortillas in the oven, and did a make-your-own assembly line:

Options included the roasted tomatillo and tomato sauces, as well as guacamole made from 3 really ripe avocados, the juice of two limes, and just a hint of onion, cilantro and tomatoes.  (Did you know that if you leave the pips in the guacamole it keeps it from going brown?  I saw this all over the markets in San Miguel, and it works a treat!)

As well as nopales.  Yes, I managed to find cactus leaves, dethorned them (ow!), cut them into strips, boiled them, and finally sautéed them with a little olive oil, dried oregano, and onion.

And I cooked up some black beans (boiled for about an hour in water with a few whole garlic cloves, half an onion, some oregano, and serrano chile).

To drink?  Agua de flor de Jamaica — also known as Hibiscus iced tea (if you frequent Starbucks, this is the base of the Tazo ‘Passion’ tea).  I boiled some water, steeped some hibiscus flowers, and poured the warm tisane over some ice cubes.  I think this will be permanently in a pitcher in my fridge, along with some ginger and lemon slices.  Yumm.

All in all, a perfect recollection of a great week of food in San Miguel!  And I’m so glad I can get it all here!