I'm 3/5ths, or maybe 75%, done with my main prep for tomorrow night

[thewayne]

Spousal unit is working Sunday/Monday, so like last year I'm making a taco bar. Ground beef tacos, chipotle cilantro shredded chicken tacos (that is AMAZING), and pork tacos with raisins and toasted almonds. Next up are the chocolate eggnog cookies, and tomorrow or possibly later tonight I'm going to try and crank out a batch of madolines and hopefully dip some of 'em in chocolate.

I prefer NYE cooking to Christmas as it's a lot more informal. It's also a lot more work! Christmas this year was amazingly easy, that mango ham that Elizabeth supplied the recipe for was crazy simple to make, as were my glazed carrots. Even the flourless chocolate cake is actually pretty easy. I'm sure the others put in a lot more work in to our Christmas dinner than I did.

I think I over-reduced the sauce for the chicken tacos which just made it even more concentrated and yummy.

Comments

[kellan_the_tabby]

Om NOM!

[thewayne]

Yea verily!  I make the beef tacos for us most often as it's the easiest recipe and I like the flavor, but I've taken to doing the toasted almonds and raisins in it because they add so much and you just don't expect that in a taco. :-) If you're interested, I'd be happy to share recipes.  The chicken is a little bit of work because you need to chop up 3/4ths of a cup of cilantro and shred 1.5 lbs of chicken breast, but the results are so worth it!

[kellan_the_tabby]

I'd love recipes, thank you!

[thewayne]

I need to do some editing, but I'll post 'em probably later in the week.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Awesome. Thank you!

[bibliofile]

Over-reduced sauce, is that even possible? I mean, as long as it's still liquidish and not burned.

It all sounds very tasty.

[thewayne]

only over-reduced in terms of thicker than I had intended and less volume than I'd wanted. I still had enough volume to cover all the chicken, so it's still a win. :-)

The first time that I made the chicken, which was for last year's NYE taco bar, it was a bit of a PITA. I've never cooked with cilantro before, and I didn't know that the stems are edible, so I spent a ridiculous amount of time picking the leaves. Try getting 3/4ths of a cup that way! This year went much faster. And I have so much cilantro left over that I'm thinking about buying more chicken and making another batch for the wife and I. The one problem that I had this year was a tough chicken breast. You build this sauce, nestle the chicken breasts in it, cook them, remove them to a bowl, tented, and let them rest, meanwhile you finish the sauce and begin reducing it. While the sauce is reducing, you shred the breasts. One of 'em just did not want to be shredded. I checked them all for 165f temperature and they were all cooked properly, I guess one carried the Resistant to Shredding mutation.

[moxie_man]

If it wasn't so far from Maine to New Mexico, I'd be tempted to try and crash your party with the food you're offering. :)

[thewayne]

I do have in-laws in Maine, two of my wife's sisters, so it's entirely likely we'll be back there some day. Maybe we can have a cook-out.

I plan on posting the recipes, I need to do a little bit of editing.