Username;
PaintLily
Name;
Eremandzīah "Mandy"
Meaning; Loved by God before being worthy
Gender;
Female
Prompt;
MMIt was a slow last day at the festival, and many hours elapsed between customers. Mandy was out-of-her-mind bored, and a bit hungry, so she thought through her menu, but nothing sounded interesting.
'Nothing but your average, every day festival food.' she mumbled, and decided to dig through her stock, hoping she could make
something good out of them.
'Funnel cake, popcorn, tacos, nachos, lemons... Wait, nacho tacos!' Mandy muttered.
MMWith an empty stomach, and a full mind, she got to it. In a short while, she had a pile consisting of nachos, taco meat, lettuce, diced tomatoes, and lemon slices. It was good, but it felt like something was missing. She couldn't place what it needed, however, and went home that night puzzling over it. After looking through her fridge and her pantry, and finding nothing, she finally gave up and decided to go to bed.
MMUpon walking into her bathroom to grab her hair brush, she noticed in the mirror how messy her hair was, and laughed,
'What a mess of colour.' Then her mind wandered, the red in her hair reminding her of the tomatoes, and yellow of the lemons, and green the lettuce. Mandy chuckled at herself for equating her hair to food, but then she began to think.
Hmm, maybe that's what my nacho tacos need; more colour. Not food colouring, though, that's cheap, and overused. More importantly, it adds nothing to the flavour. Perhaps I can find some food items of various colours at the market tomorrow... With that in mind, Eremandzīah went to bed.
MMThe next morning Mandy got up early, excited for her quest to find new ingredients! She tied her hair back in a quick bun, snagged her money pouch, and ran down to the farmer's market to find fresh fruits and veggies for her Nacho Tacos. She browsed countless stalls, picking only the most vibrantly coloured things she could find--and she may have bought a pie or two. After nearly an hour of searching, she came home with oranges, blueberries, limes, and rhubarb. She threw together her previous concoction with the addition of her new, colourful ingredients, and raced over to her friend's house to try them with her.
MMShe banged on her door in the excitement, and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, her friend opened up, and said groggily
"What are you doing here at this hour? I was asleep."MM'Oh, I, um... made something new..' Mandy said sheepishly as she held up the nacho tacos; she had forgotten how early it was still.
MM"Interesting..." Her friend said, staring at the peculiar dish,
"Well, come on in, and let's try it." Returning to her bubbly, happy self, Eremandzīah bounced into the house and headed straight for the dining table. She waited patiently for her friend to be seated and then pushed the concoction over to her. Slowly, the other kalon lifted a bite up to her mouth, and barely held back a cough as she tasted it.
"It's, um..."MMHer friend's hesitancy made Mandy wonder, so she took a bite of her own nacho taco, and immediately spit it out,
'It's terrible!' She paused in shock, then began to rant.
'Sweet and meat do not go together, and definitely not with the cheese! The sour is alright, but far too strong! What was I thinking?!'MM"It's not all bad. The rhubarb is good, and the tomatoes, I really like the tomatoes." her friend tried to calm her.
"What do you call it, anyway?"MM'Nacho tacos.' She responded more quietly.
MM"If they're supposed to be tacos, shouldn't they have a shell, or something? Maybe you could make a nacho shell?"MM'You're right! I'll go home and see what I can do!' Eremandzīah said, checking the time to see if there was any chance she could make it back to the farmer's market before it closed.
'Bummer, no time to make it to the market, I'll just have to go tomorrow. Byyyeee!!!' She thought she heard her friend mutter something about going back to bed as she dashed out the door, and that made her wonder
Why does the farmer's market close so early?, but she brushed it off; she had enough to think about as it was.
MMIt was when she got home that realization hit Mandy,
I don't know how to make tortilla chips. A hard blow it was, indeed.
How am I going to make nacho taco shells if I can't make nacho chips? Frustration and near admission of defeat hit her, then her stomach growled. That explained how all over the place her emotions were, she had only had one bite of food all day--okay, let's face it, she's a bit emotionally unstable to begin with, but hunger amplifies it.
'Silly me! I forgot to eat.' Mandy giggled as she grabbed one of the pies she bought at the farmer's market, cut a slice of it, and neatly placed it on her plate.
MMWith her energy replenished by the pie, Eremandzīah set upon the task of finding a recipe for tortilla chips. She looked through her plethora of cookbooks until she found one; it was relatively simple, actually, only consisting of frying or baking cut up corn tortillas. Of course, Mandy would not be cutting her corn tortillas, she was making taco shells with them. She realized as she picked up her corn tortillas--thankfully she loves corn tortillas, so she had some on hand--that hard taco shells are always made of corn tortillas.
Oh well, I'm sure they'll taste better fresh; I should've done this a long time ago!MMMandy spread some vegetable oil an lime juice on a few tortillas, dusted them with salt, and hung them on the bars of the oven rack. She baked the for ten or so minutes, and then let them cool. Trying one, she was delighted to find them much tastier than the store bought shells she used in her stand, and felt a little silly for not thinking of this before.
'These would be perfect dipped in nacho cheese.' She mused.
MMQuickly, she fixed herself a meal, and sat down at her computer to do some research on colourful fruits and vegetables. Mandy spent many hours reading about several different things, and finally settled on trying sweet persimmon, yellow bell peppers, and green apples. Finally done with her work for the day, she settled in to bed and set her alarm for early the next morning.
MMThe next day, after Mandy had gotten home from the market with her newly chosen ingredients, her work began. She sliced the rhubarb and the green apples, then set the meat to cook and the nacho cheese to melt while she diced the persimmon, bell peppers, and tomatoes. After everything else was ready, she prepared and baked the corn tortillas, then dipped them in the nacho cheese. She filled the shells with the meat, lettuce, rhubarb, sweet persimmon, green apple, yellow bell pepper, and tomatoes, and looked at her creation.
'I just miss the blue..' she said dejectedly, wishing the blueberries had not been a flop.
MMEremandzīah set off once more for her friend's house, hoping this time to be met with success--she also came a bit later in the day this time. Her friend greeted her warmly and invited her in. They both sat down and with near perfect synchronization, each took a bite of the taco.
"It's good! I'm not too big on taco meat, myself, though." Mandy's friend smiled.
MM'It is.. I just. I don't know, the lettuce doesn't fit in with all the colours, does it? But you can't have tacos without lettuce, can you? And I miss the blue from the blueberries...'MM"Well, I can't help you with the blue, but I have some purple cabbage, if you'd like to try that instead of lettuce. I thought it looked good, but I don't have anything to put it in." her friend spoke as she walked to her kitchen. She produced a head of purple cabbage and pulled some pieces off to put in the two tacos.
MMMandy's eyes lit up with delight at the colour of it, and took a bite.
'I love it! Thank you so much!'MM"You can have the whole head, I won't be needing it." her friend laughed. Mandy thanked her, and, after staying awhile to chat, brought the cabbage home.
MMIt wasn't until the next week, when Eremandzīah needed to go to the store to get more corn tortillas, that she decided to look for something blue to add to her nacho tacos. She decided to try blue cheese, then stumbled upon blue corn tortillas in the tortilla section. She also remembered her friend's comment about not being big on taco meat,
I'm more into fish anyway, perhaps some flounder? Mandy quickly found the first flounder she could; yellow tail flounder, and went home to try it.
MMMandy marinated the flounder in a mild hot sauce, and prepared the rest of the ingredients--which, sometime in between she had traded out diced tomatoes for cherry tomatoes--and melted the blue cheese to pour on top.
'It's a win from me!' she said, finally satisfied with her nacho tacos.
'They're definitely "Nacho Average Tacos"'MMSince then she learned about
masa harina, and started making her own corn tortillas with blue corn masa harina. Nowadays, she even makes her own masa harina with dried blue corn, but it's been a long time since she came up with "Nacho Average Tacos", and she has come a long way. They are, however, still her favorite thing to make--and eat, of course.
Nacho Average Tacos Ingredients
Homemade blue corn tortilla taco shell dipped in nacho cheese,
Yellow tail flounder marinated in mild hot-sauce,
Cherry tomatoes,
Diced Sweet Persimmon,
Diced Yellow Bell Peppers
Sliced Green Apples,
Sliced Rhubarb,
Purple Cabbage,
Melted Blue cheese