How could I forget to include a Cinco de Mayo dinner in this week’s menu?!  Christian and I love going to Mexico and in fact spent our honeymoon about 6 years ago there.  We also work Mexican inspired dishes into rotation so regularly that we often joke that we must have been Mexican in a past life…so we simply can’t skip the Cinco de Mayo festivities even if we do stay home.  That means I’ll be swapping out the White Bean & Kale Soup on this week’s menu for the Cinco de Mayo menu below (since I have the ingredients for the soup though I’ll make that next week….thankfully kale lasts forever!).

In an ideal world, Cinco de Mayo would be on a weekend because the the dinner and dessert I want to make are pretty labor/time intensive.  So I’m going to break up the work over 2 days (we’ll eat leftovers tomorrow night so no work for the actual dinner leaving me free to prep for the following night’s Cinco de Mayo dinner.)  Therefore, on May 4th I am going to make the dessert and make the filling for the tamale pie.  Then Cinco de Mayo itself will be a cinch…just make the cornmeal topping for the pie and throw it in the oven, whip up some margaritas and fiesta!

Pork and Poblano Tamale Pie

Mango-Chile Ice

Margarita of your choice….lots of great recipes at MissionMargarita.com. I’m thinking I may either try the “Best Ever Margarita” or the “Blood Orange Margarita.”