Kevin is staying with me (yay!) for large portions of his Christmas break, and so he fueled my resolve along the way. It started with a harmless trip to Safeway to get groceries -- our base idea being steak tacos, with the steak marinated with chipotle chiles somehow -- and ended several hours later after visits to several other groceries. Safeway did not have chipotle chiles, not even in cans and not even in jars. Not even dried. Not even anything.
Our revised game plan was to put away our groceries and go to Ranch 99 to look for it there, as well as drop off my disposable camera at the Walgreens across the street, both of which are on El Camino near where I live. Oh, but first, we drove up El Camino to get hairball remedy for Cisco. There was a Cost Plus World Market across the street from that, so Kevin suggested we try over there. They did have dried chipotle chiles, but I thought canned/jarred ones in adobo sauce would be more fitting for making marinade, and the line was uuuuuuber long, so I decided to hold out for Ranch 99. But while we were there, Kevin was like, "I still need to find Pepsi Natural" (the new line of Pepsi that uses natural sugar instead of artificial sweeteners) and iPhoned the nearest Trader Joe's. So we continued down El Camino to Trader Joe's. They did not have either of what we wanted, but they did have chipotle salsa, and that seemed good enough to me for marinade, so I got that along with some tasty looking tortilla chips that were a mixture of rice and whole grain and other things -- they were good!
There was an Asian dollar store in the same shopping center, so we stopped in and I almost got a tea set but got a big back of straws instead. There was a Whole foods or something across the street and Kevin said, "we should just go there and check all the grocery stores in the area off our list!" but that was silly so back down El Camino towards home we went! We skipped Ranch 99 since we already had our chipotle solution, but stopped at Walgreens to drop off my disposable camera from Senior Fountain Run back in April. But lo! A Smart and Final right next to Walgreens! So we picked up a handle of tequila and some margarita mix. Oh, but the Asian supermarket nextdoor, we have to! Mostly, I wanted to check out if they had any sushi grade fish (for future culinary adventures!) and if they had this one macaroni my old roommate Patti used to make for me.
At long last, we returned home. I don't quite remember the recipe for my chipotle-marinated steak tacos, but I pretty much winged it anyway.
I mixed the sauce in sandwich bags to marinate the thin steak strips. It was probably 1/2 to 1 cup of the chipotle salsa from Trader Joe's + 2 table spoons of soy sauce. I think that was it? I marinated the steak for about an hour.
In the meantime, Kevin made margaritas -- and they were the last my blender would ever make, for Kevin fucked it up and the rubber teeth that spun the blade inside the blender, and it was no more. They were good margaritas, though?
I seared the steak while Kevin cut and grilled the onions.
We toasted the small corn tortillas on a frying pan to warm them up. Finally, the marinated and grilled steaks were sliced and added to the tortillas with the grilled onions, cilantro, and a sprinkling of grated Mexican cheese (from Smart and Final!).
Mmmmmmm so tasty! Enjoyed with strawberry margaritas!
~*~
