Hola! We're Back From Mexico!

Ernesto and I returned earlier this week from our long Mexico trip.  What a great experience! If it is even possible, I am more in love with Mexico than before.  If you are interested in all the details, I have written quite a bit about the different cities we visited on  VivaCindy. We ate so much and truly enjoyed the food in Mexico and were inspired by so many dishes, and I can't wait to share them with you on Viva la Cocina. I ate several things that I had never tried before too. I thought I would share some photos of the food highlights of our trip first, and I promise to get a recipe up here soon!

(note: some of these pictures are not the best quality, as I only had my small camera, and sometimes low light)

{pulpo, or octopus grilled with a spicy chile sauce}

{fruta, or fruit served with lime, salt and chile powder}

{elote or corn, served with your choice of mayo,cheese, chile powder, lime, salt}

{granada, or pomegranate seeds, served in a cup with chile powder, lime and salt}

{chapulines, or grasshoppers, served dry with lime and hot sauce}

{espiropapas, or spiral chips, served with, you guessed it, hot sauce}

{pozole, or meat stew served with raw cabbage, onion, chiles, radishes, oregano}

{huarache, a foot long tortilla taco that is folded in half to eat}

{churros, Mexican donut being cooked up on the street}

{escamoles, or ant larvae, served in a green sauce, eaten in a tortilla}

{torta ahogada, a sandwich stuffed with carnitas [fried pork] and drowned in a spicy salsa}

{tacos de pastor, pork tacos served with onion, cilantro and lime and a tomatillo salsa}  

{huitlacoche quesedillas, a fungus that grows on corn with cheese in a tortilla}

{chiles en nogada, a chile stuffed with ground beef and dried fruits, covered in a white walnut sauce and topped with pomegranate seeds. Red, white and green, a patriotic Mexican dish}

{La Ideal Panederia, a bread store in Mexico City as big as a Kroger}

I love to visit the fruit and vegetable markets in Mexico, they are a feast for the eyes with so much color. A photographers dream. If only I had had a better camera with me. 

 {limones, limes}

{nopales, cactus}

{chiles, a mountain of serrano peppers}

{chiles secos, bags of dried chiles}

{mole, balls of paste are sold for many different kinds of mole}

{nueces garapinadas, candied walnuts and pecans}

Please stay tuned as I have some great new recipes coming your way.  If you would like to see the non-food side of Mexico please check out VivaCindy

SEE YOU BACK HERE IN A MONTH

Well it is midnight and we are finally packed for our trip to Mexico tomorrow morning! (please give us first class Delta!) One small roller bag for a one month trip? I hope I am not forgetting anything. Ha! Im the lightest packer ever, and really, as long as I have my camera, we are good to go. I am so excited to see new things, meet new people and of course [as always] document it all!

This trip will be a bit different though, I will be using the old fashioned method of documentation. A pen and paper! That's right my friends, I will be taking break from blogging here and at Viva Cindy while in Mexico. [but still taking many notes and hundreds of pictures to share with you later] My brother Brrrian suggested this to me earlier tonight when I was telling him that I wasn't taking my laptop with me. I don't want to live in internet cafes. I just want to live! (ok, you may see a post here and there, I would probably go into withdrawal if I totally abandon blogging)

If you are curious as to what Ernesto and I will be getting into for the next month, you can follow me on Twitter Ernesto will have his touchy-touch and we will keeps the tweets current!

We will be picking up lots of new recipes for VLC, so please check back with us! 

My tweets are also posted on the right sidebar of my non-food blog!

Adios Amigos! Que tengan un buen mez!

**Picture taken on our last trip to Mexico in December 2007. We were in the Riviera Maya just south of Cancun.