In my eternal quest to find new and exciting combinations of old familiar ingredients to top tacos with, Since I'm making a big-ass batch of green chile chicken tacos tomorrow for the gaming crowd, I thought I'd try something to go with it - and since Rainbow had both tomatillos and, somehow, RIPE avocados on the shelf today, that was gonna be my basis. You'll need:

This recipe came to us via Cathy's mom, from a newspaper article, from a Sacramento restaurant called "SooHoo's". You can buy the pork from a Chinese market or deli, or use my recipe and make your own if you wanna show off. You'll need:

Dough:

• 1 envelope dry yeast
• 1/3 C sugar
• 1 C milk (105 - 110 degrees F)
• 4 T shortening
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 6 C all-purpose flour

Char Su filling:

No picture, because they haven't actually been filled and cooked yet, but today I worked up the lemongrass-shrimp dumpling filling for the anniversary party, and it has been tested and stored in the fridge for near-future use.

I will warn you in advance that this is a somewhat imprecise recipe, due to circumstances beyond my control, but where it's imprecise, I should be able to get you pretty close. For this filling, you'll need:

We are in that phase of Minnesota Winter known to all, or at least to me, as the Deep Fuckety Shit. There is snow, there is ice, and for the better part of two weeks, it's been hovering around zero, with wind chills stripping flesh from bone, then stripping bone from marrow, then stripping marrow from the empty nothingness of existence.

Me, September 28:

"Chinese barbecued pork is one of the greatest meat products or byproducts known to man. Even more so because I can't make it, and I can't even buy it that easily."

My kitchen, yesterday:

A few weeks ago, I told you what to do if you wanted a lamb curry, but only had about half an hour to make it. And that's all well and good.

As has been painfully obvious since I started Forkbastard, I am on a quest. A noble quest. A quest to stuff as many different things into taco shells as I can. OK, it's a noble, filthy-sounding quest. But a quest nonetheless.

This is not carne asada. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not. However, a few years ago, at a Lake St. taqueria that may not even exist anymore, I ordered one carne asada taco, and what I got was lightly seasoned, very very browned ground beef and onions, and it was delicious. So I've been trying to make it for a while.

I love a rich, complicated curry. I once spent hours and hours over the course of two days making a deep, rich lamb curry that had nearly disintegrated cubes of lamb leg in a thick sauce.

That, however, is wildly impractical for everyday cooking, so I have a simple lamb curry that uses ground lamb, comes together in about half an hour, start to finish, and still tastes good.

So thanks to the ability of virii to migrate from person to person, I'm spending the weekend somewhat under the weather. I can keep myself going if necessary with the holy trinity of caffeine, ibuprofen, and willpower, but I am not chock full of the energy.