• Queezle Sister April 2012

  I thought I'd start a thread specific to this challenge. I spent a good hour reading through this challenge cookbook - its fabulous. I have so much to learn about Mexican cuisine.
• andrew April 2012

  Good idea! I just posted a link to a Canadian dried chili connection, so I'll cross-post it here:
  
  I was lucky to make a trip into Vancouver yesterday and found a great store there with dried chilis, for those Canadians taking part. South China Seas Trading (http://southchinaseas.ca/Pages/order.html) has an amazing selection of fresh Asian and Mexican ingredients - I got some lovely looking Ancho, Guajillo, Pasilla and Chipotle Morita peppers. I don't yet have the book, so was flying a bit by the seat of my pants on these - though I saw on Rick's website that these are among his favourites, and the packages said the first three are considered the main dried chilis in Mexican cooking. They do mail orders for Canadians if you're stuck wherever you happen to live. Though shipping is not cheap, so you better be serious - or add in other items to make it worthwhile.
• Zosia May 2012

  I've found a good source for the dried chiles, herbs, spices etc much closer to home than I expected, but my problem now is fresh tomatillos. I've never seen them in any grocery store I've been to, including the Mexican. Do you think I can get away with canned?
• andrew May 2012

  Oddly enough, here on Vancouver Island I can also find fresh tomatillos in the supermarket. I didn't realize how fortunate we are - maybe it's being closer to California than the rest of Canada.
  
  Anyway, @Zosia - canned tomatillos will not taste quite as good, but should be acceptable. In this recipe http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/fresh-green-tomatillo-sauce Rick has canned as a substitute if you can't find fresh, so if he's okay with it, then I think you'll be okay.
  
  Have you tried Whole Foods? I'd think they might carry them. You may also have a better chance in the summer when they're in season more locally.
• Zosia May 2012

  andrew said:

  Have you tried Whole Foods? I'd think they might carry them. You may also have a better chance in the summer when they're in season more locally.

  
  
  Thanks for the suggestion, Andrew....I called and Whole Foods does have them. Unfortunately, the 1 store we have is not in a particularly convenient location but I'll keep it in mind when I'm next in the area.
  
  One produce manager suggested I plant them in my own garden as there's still time and apparently they're quite easy to grow! :)
• Queezle Sister May 2012

  I've grown tomatillos a couple times. Either I get lots or I get none. I have new appreciation for tomatillos with this challenge - previously I only used them in an LA times pork chili recipe and on goat cheese pizza. Unfortunately I won't help in time for this challenge.
• Zosia May 2012

  I'd really like to taste one before I commit to a crop of them!
  I'd rather just commit a 1/2 day to going downtown where there are lots of specialty markets and grocers that are sure to have them.
• Queezle Sister May 2012

  I certainly love the specialty markets! Best of luck.
• Queezle Sister June 2012

  This has been a great challenge! I have loved reading everyone's reviews. I have learned so much about Mexican food - yet feel that I am still just starting. Perhaps best of all, this challenge led me to explore Rancho Market, a local chain (6 stores) with fun and interesting ingredients. It is now my favorite place to shop!
• BethNH June 2012

  I've enjoyed reading about the challenge but have been unable to participate as it has been impossible to find ingredients locally. There is not a Mexican market within an hours drive and, perhaps, not within the entire state.
• southerncooker June 2012

  I too have enjoyed reading the challenge reviews and seeing the photos. I'm sorry I wasn't able to participate since I fell right after the challenge started and I am just now able to stand long enough to cook a bit. My daughter and other family members have been cooking and grocery shopping.
• Queezle Sister June 2012

  Beth - I remember trying to cook Mexican food in Rhode Island, and the great frustration I experienced trying to find ingredients. ~X(
  So sorry!
• Zosia June 2012

  I really enjoyed cooking from this book: I had a few misconceptions about Mexican cuisine going into the challenge, and happily, they've been dispelled.
  
  @ Beth - And I thought finding fresh tomatillos was an issue!
  I did eventually put my hands on some and was quite surprised (and somewhat annoyed) to find that they were locally grown.
  
  @ southerncooker - I'm glad to hear you're feeling better...hopefully you'll be up for the next challenge.
• southerncooker June 2012

  Thanks Zosia.
• BethNH June 2012

  About the only thing I can find is tomatillos. I was planning on making a trip to one of the cities in NH (we don't really have big cities here) and did some research to find some Mexican groceries. I found nothing. I searched on Chowhound and found others coming up with the same result.
  
  I had way too much on my plate this month with my oldest son graduating from high school to plan a trip to someplace in Massachusetts to buy ingredients. Someday ...
• andrew June 2012

  Glad that this was a good challenge for (almost) everyone. Sorry to hear about your ingredients issues @BethNH. Perhaps there's a business opportunity in there somewhere! I'm a little delayed on the end of the challenge, but I'll sort it out today and post the winners very soon.
  
  Thanks for participating! I ended up not being able to cook as much as I'd have liked from this book, but I did buy it, and I have a big pile of dried peppers to work my way through now, and your reviews will be very helpful.
• andrew June 2012

  The winners have been posted now. Sorry for the delay on this. I'm happy to congratulate sturlington and jencc, who were picked by our fancy pants winner-picking system. They'll get the book of their choice from Rick Bayliss's back catalog.
  
  Thanks to everyone for taking part. We'll do another challenge in a little while, though I'm taking a little bit of a hiatus for the rest of June and early July.
• Queezle Sister June 2012

  Congratulations to the winners. I certainly feel as if we all won - this is a really interesting cookbook, I have learned much about Mexican cuisine, and I hope to try a few more recipes before I need to return it to the library.
  
  While Andrew is on hiatus, I will also return to my personal challenge - to use all of my cookbooks, and review at least a few recipes from each. I have a separate thread on this (not posted to in a while), and I welcome anyone to join me.
• Zosia June 2012

  I second the congratulations to the winners!
  
  Queezle Sister,
  I think I've already, unconsciously, joined you in your challenge to cook through your books. I became aware of the number of cookbooks I owned but had never cooked from when I joined Cookbooker in Oct and compiled my bookshelf! With the Moroccan and Mexican challenges, I realized just how easy and how much fun it was to focus on 1 cookbook for a short period of time and give it a good test run by trying recipes from different chapters.
  
  I've started to do that. So far, the focus has been on Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet and the 2 Baked books. I still have some baking to do to reach my goal of (at least) 6 recipes from each book but I'm ready to move on from the first.
  
  Thank you for the invitation to join you....I'll post about my progress in the other thread.
  
  
• Queezle Sister June 2012

  I am thrilled to have you on board. I find it much easier to decide what to prepare if I limit myself to one or two cookbooks. It will be a lot of fun to have you with me. I am afraid I am accumulating new cookbooks faster than I am working my way through the shelf - so I'm actually moving backwards! I'm also trying to cut my calorie intake, so perhaps that will help me in my cookbook selections.
• southerncooker June 2012

  I too would like to congratulate the winners.
  
  Queezle Sister, I'm also trying to cut my calorie intake and eat a bit healthier so I've been concretrating on using my cookbooks that fit that description.
• Queezle Sister June 2012

  Hmmm, I wonder if a low-cal cookbook might be a popular challenge? I call it my "cookbooker 15", but probably that's unfair.
• Zosia June 2012

  I would definitely participate in a challenge like that....I'm tired of constantly adjusting recipes to make them lower in fat, wondering if I'm also compromising flavour. It would be nice to use recipes that someone else has already tweaked to make tasty, but low-cal.
  This was actually one of the things I enjoyed about the Mexican challenge - most of the recipes were relatively low in fat.
• andrew June 2012

  Good idea for a future challenge, if we can find a suitable book that's lo-cal without being a 'fad' diet type of book; something that would fit the quality of the other books we've been doing as challenge titles. I'll start a new topic and ask people for suggestions.

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