me-li-le-pi om!

"Me-li-le-pi Om!" Is a Zen mantra...not!

The weather on Thursday was cold and rainy so I stayed indoors and tried to keep myself entertained by making some sunshine.

The "mantra" stands for Mexican Lime Lemon Pistachio Olive oil Muffins...I shortened it because, well, it was too long! (See what happens when I stay indoors all day long??...)

I've been intrigued with many posts about olive oil cakes/muffins. Looking at the many online recipes, it seems as though they use olive oil in place of butter, so using a muffin recipe that I always use, I subbed a Mexican Lime Olive Oil which I had received from my cousin way back when.

The oil was amazingly still good and very fragrant.

I had intended to also put some lemon juice into the batter (squeezed the lemon and everything) but totally forgot to, so the recipe only has the zest of a lemon in there (and I had a nice yet sour apertif while waiting for these to bake).

The muffins came out very moist, citrus flavors are strong with a little crunch from a handful of pistachios (should've added a little more!). (I received the pistachios from Rowena, thank you!)

Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it: makes 6
150 grams flour
6 grams baking powder
1 egg
80 grams sugar
50 grams Queen Creek Mexican Lime Olive Oil
70 mililiters milk
handful of pistachios
zest of 1 lemon, minced

Sift flour and baking powder, set aside.
Throw in zest and pistachios into flour mixture to coat

With a hand mixer, beat egg and sugar
Add in oil and milk, beat a little longer

Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix well with a rubber spatula

Bake at 180C (350F) for about 25 minutes.

NOTES: Actually, I was envisioning a lemon poppy olive oil muffin, but couldn't find black poppy seeds, only white. Then I got to thinking about the pistachios I received from Rowena and lemon. And then remembered I had the lime olive oil tucked away in my cupboard.

Anyway, this was very citrusy and moist. I would definitely make this again especially when I am too lazy to defrost some butter.

Even though the weather outside was miserable, I'd say there was a lot of sunshine in my kitchen.

from omiyage comes fajitas

Recently when my cousin came to visit us, he brought with him some local products as omiyage (gifts) from where he lives in Arizona.

I have not seen agave nectar here but have seen it recently on many blogs, so I think I will use them as reference when I use this. This product was actually a product of Mexico but distributed by the Patagonia Honey Company.

The Fistiki Farms pistachios that he gave us were delicious. I love the hickory mesquite flavor. We had them along side our fajitas.

The tequila lime fajita recipe came from the Queen Creek Olive Mill website. They make olive oil and infused olive oils. The Mexican lime infused olive oil was perfect in their fajita recipe. While cooking, the citrusy aroma filled the air.

I didn't have white balsamic vinegar so I used dark balsamic vinegar. I also didn't have tequila so I left it out as it was optional. The recipe was easy to follow and there was not much prep work to do either, just slicing the veggies. I added more colored peppers than the recipe indicated and also added some white onion too. We also had some salsa, cheese and olives in our fajitas.

We had our fajitas and pistachios with a glass of Frei Brother's 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. Since we don't have many chances to eat Mexican food here, this was a great way to fill our craving for it. It was a great dinner. (Thank you!!)