Mexican-ish Dinner

A Greek cooking Mexican? Yes, but not authentic Mexican, unless you count the rice dish. If I haven't confused you yet, stick around. It's like one of those silly "three people walk into a bar" jokes, but not as funny. Just looking for recipes? Click here. And here.

What are we cooking? Mexican rice- that's the authentic recipe, but I invite any Mexican to correct me. Seriously, if it's not true to traditional Mexican cooking, please tell me. Okay, one down, and two more recipes to go. We also have black beans and chicken with salsa verde.

My friend Mike Sonntag has always been a wonderful cook. We've been friends since he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to our little Southern town. Dewey and I have enjoyed many memorable meals that came out of his kitchen. Mike has a way of sizing up a recipe and amending it for more flavor and often for ease of preparation. He served the chicken recipe when we were visiting recently. It was so good! He shared the recipe, but it didn't turn out quite the same when I cooked it. After a bit of texting, it seems that he had changed it up a bit! So, this chicken with salsa verde is my take on Mike's take of an internet recipe that begged to be improved. I imagine that there are many similar Mexican-ish recipes all over the World Wide Web. It's pretty basic, but very good.

That's Mike in the French 75 t-shirt with wife, Jennifer, and friends.

Black beans deliver lots of nutrition and fiber. As long as you salt them enough, there's not much more that needs to be done. In my recipe, the canned beans are dressed lightly, but you can customize my recipe by adding more onion, cilantro or jalapeño at the end. Here's that recipe, along with the Mexican rice.

The chicken prior to adding the salsa verde

Buy the hot version or add one jalapeño.

Browning the chicken

Massaging chicken thighs with seasoning and oil.

And just so you don't get the wrong impression about my friend Mike, not only is he a seasoned cook, he is also a seasoned higher education professional who recently had the USC Sumter Science Building named after him in honor of his dedicated time at the school.