so last night we threw our “unpredictably annual” fajita party and had a great time. we saw friends that we haven’t seen for a long time (it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter…) and ate super yummy food. the fajita party is unpredictably annual because it’s not focused on any particular time of year (as long as it’s warm enough to grill) and because, since the meat comes directly from our infrequent trips to san antonio (or trips of generous friends and family) we can never guarantee that there will ever be another fajita party. the thing is, this meat comes pre-marinated from a particular grocery store in san antonio and is usually packaged in 5 lb. portions–waaaaay too much meat for two people to prep for a meal together. plus, you sort of have to make a big batch of borracho beans (because of the size of the crockpot and the fact that they take all day to make and it’s just not worth it if you’re only making a little bit) so….. you might as well have a party.
every year, we run out of something. it’s never the same thing two years in a row (except we almost always run out of guacamole), but it’s always something. sometimes it’s the meat, sometimes the beans….. this year, we had plenty of meat (note to self–ten pounds of meat is generally plenty for twenty or so people. no need to cook 15 pounds. or thaw all twenty.) but rather quickly ran out of almost everything else. for one thing, i tried something new on the tortilla front–homemade. i usually buy them from a local restaurant, but i decided to try to make them myself. the ones i made were quite delicious…. but there were only about enough for maybe one per person. oops! and the dough takes an hour to sit (i’d made a double batch! there were 8 cups of flour and two sticks of butter involved!), so i couldn’t really “whip up more” so… mr. h-s and another friend kindly made an emergency tortilla run. then, apparently, the party has outgrown the single pound of dried beans and the rice cooker, even when filled to capacity, doesn’t make quite enough rice. not that anyone went hungry!  i’m pretty sure that most people were quite satisfied (as evidenced by the leftover brownies).
oh, by the way, the reason it was called a “wii-jita” party this year was because we had games for the wii downstairs for people to play. just to add a little more chaos to our full house. it was soooooo nice to have a houseful of friends again. hooray for spring!
*note–the party last night was too busy for me to remember to take any pictures (boo!) but i did have this photos of the “good mother stallard” beans from rancho gordo that i cooked last week. i didn’t use these beans for my borracho beans (so much extra flavoring goes into the borracho beans that it seemed like a waste to use fancy beans noted for their distinctive flavor), but aren’t they pretty? they cooked up huge! like big fat jelly beans! and they were tasty too!
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