Expanding horizons

So freaking excited. I think Australia is finally embracing Mexican food! Not that I'm an expert, mind you. But I would like to have things like masa, tomatillos, chipotle, ancho, etc be readily available at the supermarket. But no, just El De Paso. Recently, they have started bringing in some Mission products, which up until the beginning of the year, I didn't take much notice of. They appeared to be the only brand which carried plain-ish tasting corn chips.. and they are delish!

But I digress...

Someone told me that I could get Mexican products from a little shop in town. As I didn't work in town, it was a bit of a trip for me, but once I was in there, I was like a kid in a candy store. I got most excited when I saw pinto beans. I had to blink twice to make sure that I wasn't seeing borlotti beans. PINTO BEANS. How exciting - my dreams of making my own refried beans, cowboy beans and just plain boiled beans can now be a reality. One kilo in my trolley, thanks.

Then a can of tomatillos... WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY ARE $7?? Oh well, I'll take two thanks... I'm hardly in here and I want to make a tomatillo salsa dammit.

I could go on and on about the different products I saw, got excited by and purchased. But I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say, I bought a lot of things that day. And the tomatillo salsa I made that weekend was delicious. Cut to the week after my big shopping expedition and we were in the Mexican aisle at the supermarket grabbing some Mission chips and my husband pointed this out to me on the shelf:

I can't decide whether I'm mad because I went through all that trouble of finding tomatillos in some obscure shop in town, or happy because now I don't have to trek into town to get this, or go through the effort of making some from scratch. I think I'm going to go for the latter. :)

Woolies and Coles, if you could stock pinto beans too, that would be super. But you have time... I bought quite enough on my last trip to last a couple of months. ;)

xoxo