The long-term family recipients of my cooking could testify that nothing sets me off more than a blown cooking session, if it’s my fault. I get so upset with myself when something should have been good and wasn’t because I didn’t pay enough attention. (I’ve never been more mortified than cooking a former boss and friend early in my academic career where I just completely forgot about a salty marinade for something that should have only been in it for an hour and it was just inedible as a result. I felt like I was eight years old and making a mistake with an Easy-Bake Oven recipe.)
Anyway, I’m not quite proportionately as pleased with myself when everything goes right, but I can be at least medium on the I-am-chuffed-with-me scale if so. Consider me semi-chuffed then. The mole was great—not too strong, not too hot, a lot of depth to the taste. I feel slightly bad about wasting fresh summer tomatoes on it but maybe they’re part of what makes the flavor worth it, who knows? I did save two little ones from the garden for a quick salad since I also discovered there was some romaine lettuce and an avocado that needed eating up. So now I’m in the groove for pork enchiladas later this week, which is one of the major reasons to roast or grill a bigger piece of meat on Sundays—it’s a chance to use it iteratively in small amounts with vegetable-and-carb dominated dishes later in the week.
That looks delicious!