Holiday Treats!

Da Bears kicked off the holidays with their 5th win! Now that's something to be thankful for. The game began as a battle with each score being met by points from the Chargers. But Special Teams, interceptions and Fun-Tastic play resulted in a 31-20 win!

Today's winning menu was Menudo - an uber traditional Mexican soup using an unusual ingredient - tripe. This blogger visited my local Mexican grocery store to purchase tripe. During my purchase I consulted with another customer who owns a local Mexican restaurant - Cactus Grill. This charming and helpful young man was Chinese - the diversity in Champaign truly Rocks!. Anyway, apparently tripe is also popular in Chinese cuisine.

Mexican lore has it that Menudo is a hangover cure. I expect this is due to the combination of spice and a slight greasiness. As I put my soup together, the color was wrong. It was too clear. Usually Menudo has an orange color to it. I punted by adding some canned Menudo. Here's the recipe without the canned Menudo.

Menudo
Ingredients:
2 Lbs honeycomb tripe - cut in 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 Lbs Veal knuckles (or pork cut in 1 inch pieces)
3 Cups water
3 Cups beef broth
3 chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp coriander seed
1/4 tsp crushed oregano
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
15 oz can hominy

Directions:
1.  Add everything but hominy in large pot
2.  Simmer covered at least 3 hours
3.  Remove veal knuckle, discard bone and add the meat back into the soup
4.  Add undrained hominy, cover and simmer 20 minutes