Hot, Cool, and Limey

This weekend, to get out of town a little, we went to the Chile Festival in Hatch, NM-- about a half hour away from here. I think we first heard of this on a food network show called Glutton for Punishment in which the host entered a hot chile-eating contest. The contest we saw was a speed-eating contest for 10 mild green chiles (the winner ate all 10 in 40 seconds). The hot chile contest was the next day, so we didn't see any grown men crying or retching. Maybe next year. Oh, and Zips eschewed the entire focus of the GREEN CHILE festival, and bought a 2lb. bag of jalapenos. We had a dwindling supply. This should last us-- a little while. I have grown enamored of ristras, though. Especially those that include green and yellow chiles along with the red ones. I think I'll use a photo of these for our holiday cards this year. Especially since I'll be gloating about enjoying warm weather during the coldest time of year. I still don't know if the ristras merely decorative, or if and how to consume the chiles. I'll also be finding out if the green and yellow ones eventually turn red or not. Zips bought the smallest ristra we could find-- at least until we figure out what we can make with them.
In our latest culinary adventures, having given up on local restaurants, at least until we have more jingle in our pockets, Zips and I have set about approximating favorite recipes. The best veggie tacos in town have now been reproduced in our top secret kitchens. Okay.. it wasn't that complicated. Just some heated up corn tortillas, a swipe of good homemade guacamole (and I've finally caved to the practice of including some chopped tomato, onion, and even cilantro in my guac-- instead of just lime and salt), some finely sliced lettuce, chopped tomato and cucumbers, your favorite pico de gallo, a little shredded cheese, and *alfalfa and/or spicy radish sprouts. The sprouts are the key!
I realize it may have little, if any food value, but everything's fresh, cool, crisp, crunchy

And to go with it, I've decoded my favorite beverage of the south-- aside from margaritas-- Sonic cherry limeades. Impoverished as we are now, we made off like bandits at a 7-up and Coke sale at our grocery store before we moved. So we have a tower of 12 packs. So I found a recipe for my favorite pink drink. It's basically the juice of one lime (I like to include pulp), maraschino cherry juice (yes, just pour it off tiny jar of cherries you have in the fridge for your banana splits), and a can of 7-up. Really. The recipe I found said use Sprite, but 7-up works too!
In a vain attempt to preserve the cherries shriveling in their jar, and ration out the remaining syrup, I found an alternative recipe online-- substituting grenadine for the cherry juice-- but the result, while entirely drinkable and even enjoyable, is more like a sophisticated, bartender's invention of Big Red (another southwestern fave, but this one requires moderation. Or I turn into the energizer bunny). Either way, bottoms up!