Como se dice "yum"?

I was in the mood for Mexican tonight, and getting ready with a kick-anatomy Cinco de Mayo menu for next week. There were a few varieties of meat in the fridge from which to choose: shrimp, surimi (aka faux crab), chicken. Since we had chicken last night, and since the shrimp have a short shelf life, it wasn't a hard decision.

I had a menu for tacos, but realized after I got out my food processor to get together some stuff for salsa that I had forgotten to pick up the tomatillos. So that brought about my first "back up 10 yards and punt" episode connected to this meal. I knew I wanted to make a flavored sour cream so I chopped up one chipotle pepper from the can of same in adobo sauce, and grabbed a couple teaspoons of the sauce while I was in there. Then I squeezed half a lime into the bowl and stirred it up and tasted it. It had a kick but it wasn't going to burn down our mouths. I decided to semi-ceviche the shrimp so I peeled them and put them into a bowl with the juice from the other half of the lime and some cilantro. Let them bathe in that for awhile as I got other components ready. I also chopped up a couple of tomatoes, some purple cabbage - very thinly - and at the last minute an avocado.

In the meantime, I made the salad. I peeled and julienned a jicama (exotic ingredient du jour) then cut up a cucumber in like fashion. The recipe (here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/crunchy-jicama-and-mango-salad-with-chile-and-lime-recipe/index.html ) called for peeled and wedged mangos. I had only one on hand but was sizing down the recipe in general anyway since there's just two of us. But as I got into the mango, I got worried. It was mushy. And overripe. Way overripe. It fell apart in my hands as I tried to cut it up. Punt time again. I haven't been watching Top Chef for years without reason. I mentally did inventory in my head as to what I had on hand that might have similarities to a mango. How about that cantaloupe sitting on the counter over there? I had another use in mind for it, but... I think I can use that. I followed the recipe closely other than that emergency swap of orange-fleshed fruit. It actually worked pretty well!

I did cook the shrimp for a couple minutes before putting them in the taco. Served it with the cabbage, avocado, tomatoes, spiked sour cream (low fat, I might add - but not the nasty fat free stuff) - all tasted pretty good.

Then for dessert. John had, on more than one occasion, mentioned how delicious he thought tres leches cake was. With some assertive flavors in the meal, I thought it'd be a nice soothing dessert. Not to mention I had too much cream in the house from making ice cream. Now, I not only had never made tres leches cake before, I'd never even HAD it. So I needed a recipe I could trust. I found one from Alton Brown, but ran into a problem. I love Alton. He cracks me up. But I don't have all the gadgets he has. And I never will have. His recipe called for a certain weight of cake flour. I found a conversion into cups, but it was just too much math for me to do in my head, and I am not interested in getting out the calculator (especially at 10am) to bake. So I found another recipe. I think this one worked well. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tres-leches-milk-cake/detail.aspx

I did substitute some of the fat. I used Eggbeaters instead of 5 eggs (1 1/4 cups of Eggbeaters). I used 1 cup of fat-free milk and 1 cup half-and-half instead of 2 cups whole milk (probably came out to about the same damage). Both the evaporated milk and the sweetened condensed milk, I used fat-free. But I did use heavy cream for the whipped cream on top.

It is just stupid good. Then again, very little that's covered in about an inch of whipped cream tastes poorly.

I have found some very interesting things to try for Cinco de Mayo next week.