Before Baby J was born, my husband and I had the most amazing weekly ritual. You see, we both love Mexican food and drinking margaritas (What Texan doesn’t?), so we would spend the better half of a Sunday indulging in just that. We’d cook. We’d laugh. We’d nap if we wanted to nap. We knew we had it good… We just didn’t know how good we had it.

Prior to the inception of this weekend ritual, I spent every Sunday moping around the house, depressed that I had a full work week ahead of me. The Sunday Blues I called it. I wasted an entire day each week dreading the following day… That’s no way to go through life! So B (my husband’s pseudonym) and I decided that we were through mourning the premature death of a weekend, and that is how Mexican Sunday was born.

And then Baby J came along, and everything inevitably changed.

After a few weeks passed and the “newborn” dust settled, we attempted to recreate our sacred Sunday ritual. We just knew that if we could get this right, there was hope that the rest of our lives had a chance of normalizing, too.

It was early-ish on an otherwise ordinary Sunday morning, and we opted for our usual brunch selection… Migas. If you have never had migas, make them this weekend, and while you’re at it, smother them in the Queso Blanco recipe provided below, because a sprinkling of cheese simply will not do.

Here is the play-by-play of our first post-baby Mexican Sunday:

Baby screams.

Margarita round 1.

Baby refuses to nap.

Margarita Round 2.

Miraculously, Mama and Baby nap.

Dada eats migas and continues drinking.

Mama wakes up to dirty dishes, cold migas, and a sleeping husband.

Baby cries. Again.

Mama cleans the kitchen and opts out of migas altogether, because quite frankly, nothing sounds grosser than cold eggs. Needless to say, we tabled Mexican Sunday for awhile.

Now that Baby J is almost 6 months old, we thought it was time to try our luck with Mexican Sunday again. But instead of Sunday, we decided on last Saturday night, as “Date Night” just ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. On the menu: Queso, chips, corn tortillas, and of course, margaritas.

Surprisingly, Mexican Saturday was perfect, and not just because Baby J slept like a little angel through the night. It exceeded our expectations because we were able to share the food we love, in a home we love, with the understanding that life will never quite be the same again… And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Our new Sunday ritual.

This queso recipe is a collaboration of sorts between my husband, Ro*tel, and myself. And I use the word recipe loosely… It is more of an add ingredients, taste, and adjust kind of thing.

Queso Blanco

I actually took this picture myself, y’all. 

Ingredients

1/4 white onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 roasted jalapenos, skinned and diced

1 raw jalapeno, diced

1 handful of cilantro, stemmed and roughly chopped

16 oz queso blanco

1 can of Ro*tel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilis

Instructions

Cut cheese into large cubes for easy melting, toss into crock pot on medium heat. Saute onion and red bell pepper 3-5 minutes. Add sauteed veggies and Ro*tel to crock pot, stir. Add roasted and raw jalapenos into cheese mixture. Allow cheese mixture to melt. Stir in cilantro. Serve hot with chips and/or tortillas.

Margarita on the Rocks 

serving size: 1 drink

Ingredients

3 TBS Tequila

1 tsp agave nectar

2 TBS fresh squeezed lime juice

Instructions

Mix in a cocktail shaker. Serve over ice. Garnish with fresh lime and salt, if desired.

Love my margarita glasses from Crate & Barrel. 

And for all of you Northerners, let’s be very clear about one thing. Queso is neither “cheese dip” nor “cheese whiz,” and to claim otherwise is just flat out insulting. I hope y’all try it, because once you do, you’ll never settle for “cheese dip” again.

XO,

Elleigh