Yes! Totchos are tater tot nachos and we love them now😋 Tomorrow are steak tacos 🌮 👏🎉

Title says it all! 😆

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tonight we had totchos using this recipe without the tomatillos, with corn, mozzarella cheese, tajin crema. So good! You guys gave me some great links!

Gold Star Dip! This is our very favorite appetizer, snack, whateveR Crab Rangoon , we’ve also made them with chicken and with no meat at all and they are a hit. Plus they are super easy as you bake instead of fry and taste fine at room temperature Asian slaw Veg tray, broccoli salad, pickle tray

Aww, I’m sorry

@Ting Tang I have been almost exactly where you are not that long ago, feel free to pm me if I can be helpful

Sloppy joes/pulled pork, chips, veg tray meatball subs (meatballs and sauce in crockpot, make own subs)

PS Please keep the ideas and recipes coming! Your favorite meat, sauces, pickles, anything! Asian fusion, any fusion, whatever. We are here for it! 😆😋

Ok! So for my first Taco attempt I made Chipotle Honey chicken tacos with cilantro lime crema, raw and pickled cabbage, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese (it was all I had). It was a hit! It was so very very good! We decided with the crema, it didn’t really need the cheese. I bought several different powdered chilis and chipotle in adobo. I’ve got a line up of recipes to try and i am so happy! Thanks for giving me the confidence to branch out and try something new! While munching the tacos dd16 rolled her eyes up in her head and said “I love moms new hobby!” 😆

Yay!

Yeah, so jungle Jim’s is this huge store that imports all kinds of fresh produce from all over the world and has rows and rows of imported shelf stable foods and sells every kind of crash fish and exotic meats and cuts. Only place I know you can buy a whole hogs head off the refrigerator shelf. It’s not what you would think of as an ethnic store but a huge clearing house

1 recipe calls for chipotle paste and one for chipotle in adobo, can they be interchangeable?

Any suggestions for sweet elements? We are definitely not trying to stay strictly traditional, just want something delicious in a tortilla

It’s good to know that the Individual powdered chilis work, I can get some of those there. is queso fresco like sour cream? I’ve seen the cotija cheese in recipes. I’ve never tried Monterey but we have had pepper jack, I have bought pepper jack not sure if our store carries Monterey. I have easy access to tomatoes, green and jalapeño peppers, and white and red onions. and cumin. Is mango salsa good? It and pineapple salsa keep popping up in my searches. I figured out that what stood out to us during our life changing Taco experience was the sweet/tangy additions. We’ve had homemade tacos and tacos from the Mexican restaurant where no one speaks much English, but these ones at Condado‘a were very different. So trying to figure out the magic combination. Dd21 came home from college last night and I was talking about our day trip today. She looked at me funny and dh said tacos is your mom’s new hobby 😆

There are a lot of ingredients in some of these recipes I can’t get in our county, so road trip today! We are headed to Jungle Jims to see what international ingredients we can find. What should I prioritize? We tried a bottled cilantro lime aioli from helmans, it was gross. I followed one of the recipes linked so far as I could not having access to some ingredients and it was good! I followed the pickling directions and pickled some cabbage as it was all I had and we discovered pickled and fresh green cabbage are both good on tacos. So going to an international market today, what should I prioritize? The prices here aren’t like what people say when they say, go to the Asian markets, they are cheaper, but I don’t know where any of those markets are and don’t want to venture downtown. we are on a very limited budget so want to put my money where it will make the most impact. Some of the chilis from the beef recipe? Something for a sweet salsa? Is there any packaged sauces, salsas, aiolis that are good? What kind of cheese?

I agree. I talked to dh about job sharing or maybe split shift, like if her mom or dh could watch the twins more easily in the evening or whatever. A few ideas, but we’ll see. I think I fell victim to hormonal sympathy feelings, but having everyone on the same page was super helpful

Well, looks like it will be a moot point . New lady called sil today and said that after talking to her dh she would need x dollars, which was way more than they are willing to spend. Thanks everybody for helping me pause long enough to not let my emotions get involved and do something silly

Thanks everybody! There is sooo much wrapped up in all this family stuff. I had offered several times to take the care coordinator spot for sil, since I had been doing so much of it before she hired aide, but she wanted to be in charge of everything. I also offered to spear head the candidate search but she also declined that. Trying to keep my emotions out of it. And you are right, it’s not a charity, we don’t owe aide anything. It’s unfortunate she may lose her job right before Christmas, but she’s had a year to work out the kinks and show up. I am going to float the job share idea to dh, that would definitely soften the blow and ease any transition that needs to be made.

A year ago sil hired a very young stna who had just had twins that had just come home from the nicu as an aide for mil. 40 hours a week. I advised against it and have not been happy with her this whole time, but I’m not in charge. Aide never actually worked a 40 hour week, calling off at least once a week because she was sick, or one of the babies, or no childcare etc. she is 21 and just figuring out how to adult. Recently sil decided the calling off was getting excessive and she is tired of having to rely on nephew or the other lady she found as a back up. Nephew doesn’t really want to be his grandmother’s care giver either, but will “babysit” her in a pinch since he’s the only bone without a job. So sil, bil and dh just interviewed last night a replacement. Sil hasn’t told aide she is looking or that because she calls off so much her job is in danger. The candidate wants to work a couple of days to see what it’s like before she decides. Dh asked sil how that would work with current aide. Sil said she’s just going to text aide and tell her not to come those days, they have company. And if the lady wants the job, she is going to text her and tell her we do t need you anymore. No notice. This lady is the only person sil has found so far that’s interested. So she doesn’t want to tell aide in case the other lady doesn’t take the job and the aide gets mad and quits. Here is where I come in. Dh and I both think this is wrong. She is a young mom, her dh lost his job and for whatever reason hasn’t gotten another one and is driving for the Amish. Cutting her loose with no warning at all seems kind of mean. There has to be a better way to do this. My friend is very close to aide, like a mother figure, and will be mad when she finds out they cut her loose with no warning. My friend has to deal with sil regularly as their children are married to each other. It’s sticky. Anyway, dh and I discussed this. He tried to bring up to sil that that seems harsh, but she wasn’t hearing it. My options at this point are to put a bug in friend’s ear that they are looking, dh suggested we set some money aside ourselves to give to aide if/when sil cuts her loose (a weeks pay would be a hardship for us as she makes more an hour than I do) but he feels really bad about way sil is thinking of going about it, or to mind my own business because no one has ever asked my opinion about anything. Thanks in advance

Oh man, I’m sorry for your poor ds. Poor guy just trying to do the right thing

Exactly, I don’t think negative thoughts about people venting here. I do plenty of venting

When I told the kids the plan for thanksgiving, ds13 said “I wonder if that little electric guitar is still there…”😆

Hahaha, I like it!

Honestly, if it was at all feasible to host my sister here at my house or for her to host our big family, I would do that not at thanksgiving, and then just skip thanksgiving with my mom. But it wouldn’t work to have her here or for us to stay with her so we meet at moms. She can stay at moms with all her animals and it’s only an hour from here, so I can visit with her and leave when it’s too much. so as long as she keeps wanting to do this, I will, but the second she is done, I am too.