Mushroom Onion Vegan Pozole Rojo for those of you who had one to many drinks last night. It’s the perfect plant based cure for the crudo head spins. This lovely vegan pozole rojo is made up of delicious red chile broth and laced with hominy, mushrooms and sauteed onions. I hope you’ll dig in.

Mole Mushroom Tamales: I remember when I first became a vegetarian years ago it’s was the hardest adjustment to make during Christmas time…. because TAMALES. I was taught at a young age to make my own tamales and wanted to continue on with that tradition… but prepared masa 99.9% of the time has lard in it. I was going crazy calling every Mexican market that sold prepared masa and googling vegan tamales to see if I could buy 10 pounds of  lard-less masa. No luck. It was something the city was in desperate need of, and yet no one was doing it. I ended up making my own masa that year.

Picadillo Sopes En Salsa Roja is a plant based fantasy! It’s exactly what every vegan and vegetarian Mexican food aficionado dreams about and I don’t say that lightly. Heck, even meat-eater would lose their yayas over them. So good, I can sing about my picadillo. The perfectly crisp fried sope is dipped in a homemade salsa roja, then filled with refried beans, plant-based picadillo con papas, and topped with queso fresco, and all the other condiments.

Potato Chip Mac and Cheese is the recipe my friends have been requesting since before I even started my website. This is the one I turn to when I wanna overindulge.  It’s holiday table worthy and extraordinary for an ‘any-day’ food hug. This recipe has a way of making you feel like you just chatted with your oldest friend. I pull out of my hat when I’m feeling a need for pure comfort or a bowl of cheesy happiness that words just can’t pinpoint…..  I’d much rather let my potato chip mac and cheese say it for me, and it does.

I have a friend named Mely Martinez. I met her on Instagram @MexicoInMyKitchen a few years ago and we started following each other. What I noticed right away about Mely from watching her stories is that she is the queen of practicality and knows everything about freezing food and making a delicious meal out of a few key ingredients. She’s also a serious badass in the kitchen and knows the history of Mexican food like the back of her hand (she was born and raised in Tampico, Mexico). I love watching her prepare her breakfast meals and wish I could be invited one day to take a seat at her kitchen table, but she lives in Texas and I live in Los Angeles… so WAH!

Are you the type that makes a list of the food you need for the week with a set schedule of planned meals or do you just grab basics and then get imaginative with what you have on hand? I used to be the type that stuck to a planned list and scheduled meals. These days I feel like I am thinking outside the box and falling more into the latter. I was excited to learn that Northgate Market now offers ‘Pronto Curbside’ in both Norwalk and La Habra locations which makes life so much more convenient.  The way I see it, I’m one less person in the market making it safer for the working associates, and customers, and I’m still able to stock up on all my favorite items.

My Mom loves a hearty plate of tofu smothered in sauce. Her name on Instagram is Tofupansa for gawdSSSSsakes… what more do I need to say to convince you she LOVES tofu. Anyhow, she’s always asking me to make her a batch and I kinda blow it off. Not because I’m trying to ignore her wishes, but more because I hadn’t really dreamed up the perfect way to serve it up.