Enchiladas

Mom makes great food, as long as it's something she already knows how to make. Unfortunately. the rebel in her comes in pretty strong whenever she sees a recipe. Mom is not a follower. She never has been, never will be.  

So if she offers you adobo, or afritada, or anything that tends to hail from an Asian country, dig in. It's when she makes "new" things that you really have to worry. Unfortunately, because it's new, chances are: she doesn't just have all the ingredients on hand. I get it; she's a busy woman. So she substitutes. Unfortunately, she does so to the point of completely compromising the integrity of the recipe.

On one week in particular, she decided to try making new things with ingredients we already own. I too, sometimes like to play this game, trying to figure out what I can make with whatever we have in the fridge. I tend to be less...(what's a nicer word for it?) creative about my concoctions. Mom's food tends to always look pretty appealing, so it's pretty hard to know what you're getting into until it's already too late. 

For a whole week, she had tortured my cousins with quesadillas filled with sliced american cheese, broccoli and cheese omelets (with leftover broccoli from last night's stir fry...in soy sauce), and various other interesting and equally disgusting meals.

I took pity on them, making sure that they were armed with snacks and occasionally brought them junk food.

Friday came, and she used the remaining tortillas to make enchiladas. Now this was a big gamble, because we couldn't see what was inside, and at this point she wouldn't tell us,

One of the cousins decided to be brave and try it, quickly verifying that the dish was not as edible as it looked. He, somewhat painfully, swallowed the bite and said "SPAM."

We all had thought there was no way you could ruin enchiladas. We were so wrong.