Week #whatever (22?): Northern Mexican

Yeah yeah yeah, I'm hopping back in on an easy week.  So sue me.  Even though this week I'll likely end up making more than one meal from NoMex, I'm recalibrating the goal of this blog to be something a little more attainable.  I'm going to aim for cooking 5 times a week, but only ONE of those meals needs to be ethnic.  Sure, I won't get a "true taste" of that region, but I'll be about 100 times more likely to actually achieve this goal. 

In any case, Mexico.

Specifically, northern Mexico. 

Mexican cuisine is known for its intense and varied flavors, colorful decoration, and variety of spices. Most of today's Mexican food is based on pre-Columbian traditions, including the Aztecs and Maya, combined with culinary trends introduced by Spanish colonists.
The conquistadores eventually combined their imported diet of rice, beef, pork, chicken, wine, garlic and onions with the native pre-Columbian food, including maize, tomato, vanilla, avocado, papaya, pineapple, chili pepper, beans, squash, sweet potato, peanut and turkey.
Mexican food varies by region, because of local climate and geography and ethnic differences among the indigenous inhabitants and because these different populations were influenced by the Spaniards in varying degrees. The north of Mexico is known for its beef, goat and ostrich production and meat dishes, in particular the well-known Arrachera cut.

Without further ado (so this post will go out at the beginning of the week), the lineup.

Recipes:
The Mexican one
The "We're branching out from the usual tamale casserole recipe" one
The one that I'll love but Nick probably won't like much
The fancy one
The "I'll compare this one to La Caretta tomorrow night" one