BIRRIA WHAT??

BIG SIGH.  There have been lots of them around here lately.  Mr. Cooper sat down too close to the fridge and could not get up, hurting his leg once again.  I spent almost the entire day in the sewing room because he lays down and sleeps.  He's better this morning, but basically we are starting all over again.   That put most everything else on the back burner.  

Thankfully, Miss Kitters hasn't brought in any critters lately, adding to the mayhem.  Yup ... I see the same black blob.  It used to scare me, but now I'm used to it.

She loves to play in the mornings, so I try to give her five minutes with the feather.  She's so fast, she snags it every time!

When you're sitting for long hours, you think up weird stuff.  Hey ... let's cook up some Mexican Birria.  Where that came from, I have no idea.  I found a great instant pot recipe and figured I would give it a shot.  It would keep my mind off everything else going on at the moment.

I made a quick trip to Save Mart.  This could cause a heart attack.  No wonder people can't afford food.  This is just as ridiculous as it comes.  A cheap chuck roast should cost $2.99 a pound.  Check out the $14.99/lb price tag.  They don't really think they are going to sell this stuff, do they?  What happens to all the product they DON'T sell??

This one is even worse.  I laughed out loud and got an ugly look from the meat case guy.  $13.49 a pound for hamburger????  NO ONE IS GOING TO BUY THIS!!  My idea of Birria or meatloaf went right out the window.

Even this one was ridiculous.  Hamburger for $5.99 a pound.  It was the cheapest thing they had in the meat case.  

Maybe I'll check out the local Mexican/Korean market and see what they have.  Sure enough ... there it was, two beautiful chunks of pot roast for $4.99 a pound.  STILL too expensive, but I bought both of them.  Birria is once again on the menu.  

That's when I smelled it.  Roast chicken.  I should have gone to Costco, but I was hungry, and with the price of fuel, it would have cost me the same to drive there.  The tortillas were hot, but the sauce was a scorcher.  They must have put ghost peppers in that stuff.  It went straight into the trash can.  There's no way I could eat it and survive.

I admit, rarely do I ever make anything that is absolutely delicious.  Probably because I'm always missing an ingredient or two.  This time however, my salsa came out perfect.  This is an old ranch favorite.  On rare occasions, we would make deep pit barbecue.  The best stuff you've ever tasted.  We always made salsa to go with it.  This brings back memories of the back yard pit and wet gunny sacks which we wrapped the meat in to cook over the coals.

Then I began cutting and hacking up the birria ingredients.  Peppers, lots of spices including cinnamon, loads of onions and FIVE garlic cloves.  My eyes watered until I couldn't see!! 

Once done you take out the meat and blend the sauce until everything is liquid.  Oops ... I forgot to take the bay leaves out.  Back goes the meat, now shredded, stir it up and it's ready to taste.  Really, I'm not a fan of cinnamon with meat, but boy does this stuff have GREAT flavor.  

Now to make the tacos.  It almost went wrong here ... dip the tortillas in the fat from the pot, but there WAS no fat ... only sauce.  Put them in a hot frying pan with lots of cheese and spoon on the meat.  Fry until crispy.  Yeah well they didn't get very crispy before almost getting too well done.  

As I said, rarely do I ever make anything spectacular ... but THIS ... this was amazing!!  I relished every single bite!!  Finally, a success in two weeks worth of trials and tribulations.

I'm exhausted from all the problems hitting me at once.  I guess the good news is it's not from slinging 25 heavy pans of food in and out of the hot ovens at the lodge on Mothers Day.  I'm smiling over that one!!!

Here's hoping Mr. Cooper gets better again.  I have one more big rug in the garage I will bring out today and try to cover the entire kitchen floor.  I'll do just about anything for this sweet boy!!

Big thanks to Mr. Ed for sending me an email with all things Mercedes REGEN on it.  I'll do some more research and maybe more driving today.  Hopefully I can find the instructions on how to use the OBDII reader and not erase anything that will make it start all over again.  It seems there may even be a way to check it on the steering wheel controls.  I won't hold my breath!