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I didn’t cook many new dishes in May, although I did have some encores of dishes that the family enjoyed. Since there are too few dishes to group them by theme, I’ll just go chronologically this month.

Ever since getting America’s Test Kitchen’s book on Mexican dishes, I’d made some great enchiladas a few times. Both their beef and ground beef enchiladas bring some great flavors to the table. The former is a bit more flavorful, but it also takes longer. So I wanted to see how the casserole version would come out. Overall, it’s very similar in flavor and tastes very good. Where it excels is as a party or potluck food. In the same dish that only makes about 12 conventional enchiladas, you can feed a lot more people because individual squares can be cut to any size. Also, like a lasagna, it has layers so there’s more to eat for a given amount of space on the dish.

It was my first time both making and eating huevos rancheros. It reminds me a lot of the egg curry dish I’ve made a few times. In fact that dish, huevos rancheros, and shakshuka are all basically the same thing. Just different regional spices and flavors involved. I liked it, as did my wife and father.

I’d never made or eaten any cobblers before, but in the past few years I’d started enjoying blueberries raw. I decided to make this summer picnic staple and eat it with some ice cream. It was delicious. Cooking the blueberries brought out a lot of flavor while mellowing out the sharpness of the blueberries. If it wasn’t for the fact that baked goods aren’t so healthy, I’d be making this all the time.

Finally, from America’s Test Kitchen Dinner Illustrated I made sumac lamb loin chops with carrots, mint, and paprika. It had me make a tahini sauce, a first for me. Overall it was a great compliment to the lamb. It’s not something I’ll be clambering to make again, but it was a nice new flavor profile.