Perhaps I did not begin in the best mood for cooking tonight’s dish. Perhaps I was too tired. But tonight’s chillaquilles  did not begin on the right note. First of all, almost everything in the recipe seems to require immediate attention at the same time – frying tortillas! Chopping onion! Mincing garlic! Blending tomato sauce! Shredding cheese! I only have two hands and only one sous chef. The other problem may have been that I was not entirely clear with myself whether I was halving the recipe or not, so I appeared to be doing a mix of both depending on how I felt about the ingredient…thus, a whole measure of garlic and cheese and a half measure of tortilla and tomato. And to make things more complicated, I decided that, in the spirit of more-with-less, I should try to use up the remaining tomato paste in the fridge – so why not throw that in? What resulted initially was what I believe Tim Gunn of Project Runway would refer to as “a big hot mess”. Literally. Now, I don’t know how this is supposed to look…but this did not seem to be right. It does not actually taste bad but it does not look good. It does add credence to my theory that anything tastes better with cheese added to it.

Music of the evening: Esa Noche by Cafe Tacuba, Nichim Viul by Claudia Martinez and….Mexico by James Taylor.