Mexican Grilling & Culture with Maggie Unzueta

In Episode 024 Taryn talks with Maggie Unzueta from Mama Maggie’s Kitchen about Mexican grilling recipes and some of the differences in culture between Mexico and the US. Maggie reminisces about the meals she and her family made over the fire at her father’s ranch in Durango, Mexico, and also remembers her grandmother’s wonderful cooking which was the inspiration for her blog. She gives advice for some starter Mexican grilling recipes as well as some more advanced ones, and even mentions some fun fusion grilling recipes combing Mexican and Southern California cuisine!

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

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Bio: Maggie Unzueta is the creator behind In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen, a recipe website where she posts authentic Mexican food recipes for people to recreate and also learn a little bit about Mexican culture. In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen has been featured in Bravo TV, CBS news, and Parade community table among others. Maggie currently lives in San Diego, California with her family.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Some of the following are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

RECIPES MENTIONED

These are some of the recipes mentioned by Maggie in the episode. They are on her website, Mama Maggie’s Kitchen.

TRANSCRIPT

Taryn Solie: Hello grillers! I’m so excited for you to listen to this episode because I got a lot out of it and I think you will too. In it I talk with Maggie from Mama Maggie’s Kitchen, who discusses the foods she ate growing up in Mexico and gives a peek at what life was like there. It’s so interesting and provides a different perspective that I appreciated hearing. There are also a ton of recipe options for you, so be ready to hear some fun ideas.

Before we begin, if you’re enjoying this podcast I’d love for you to share it with someone who is into grilling and outdoor cooking! As a newer podcast, it helps spread the word and I would really appreciate it. Now, let’s get into the episode.

Taryn Solie: Today on the podcast, we have Maggie Unzueta. Maggie is the creator behind In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen, a recipe website where she posts authentic Mexican food recipes for people to recreate and also learn a little bit about Mexican culture. In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen has been featured in Bravo TV, CBS news, and Parade community table among others. Maggie currently lives in San Diego, California with her family. Maggie, welcome to the podcast.

Maggie Unzueta: Hi, thanks for having me.

Taryn Solie: I’m really excited to have you here and, um, hear more about the types of dishes you cook. Normally I ask people like, well, first before we start our conversation, let’s hear about your food background, but that’s kind of what we’re gonna be talking about today.

So I would love to just dive right in and hear, you know, your, how you grew up with food, your f- your family background with food, and we’ll just like, get right into.

Maggie Unzueta: Sure. So I grew up, well, yes, here in the United States, but also in Mexico. I’ve always said that tengo un pie en Mexico, I have a foot in Mexico, a foot in the United States and I, I live like right by the border.

So I go back and forth. And there’s, there’s a point actually, where you can see both countries and I’m like, yeah, that’s that’s my life in a nutshell. Yeah. Growing up, I would spend summers, uh, long holidays, Christmases in Mexico. So there was a lot of cooking involved. Lot of families, big Mexican families.

So lot of cooking, lots of chopping, dicing, um, grating cheese, if not running out to go get the ingredients that we need. Um, yeah, so it was next to my grandmother, next to my aunts, next to my mom. Um, food was the center of our lives and it still, is it still is, it was the best. It was the best place, especially when it’s cold. That’s where you, that’s where you wanna be. You wanna be in that kitchen.

Taryn Solie: I wanna say, well, yes, the kitchen, but also like. You know, I would assume Mexico probably has more temperate temperatures than maybe like where I am in Seattle.

Maggie Unzueta: Well, my family’s from Durango. Durango’s a Northern state. It’s up in the mountains. It’s yeah. High altitude. Really cold in the winters. Oh, um, freezing cold winter. I’ve spent some really cold winters in Durango. Um, yeah. It’s uh, and in the summers it gets hot. Don’t get me wrong. It does get hot. Cuz it’s deserty.

Taryn Solie: Gotcha. Okay. Well, it sounds like you have quite the food background and the food experiences. I’d love to hear a little bit more about, um, kind of your family influence on, um, your cooking.

Maggie Unzueta: So in it’s it was just like second nature to us, you know, it’s like, oh, Hey, uh, take off the thorns off the cactus.

Taryn Solie: Sure.

Maggie Unzueta: Like, I never really realized how unusual it is for other people. Like, uh, you know, Mexican street corn, everybody knows it now, you know, but it was just like corn and we, we made rice. It was Mexican rice, you know, the red rice or Spanish rice, whatever you wanna call it. Mm-hmm , you know, it was just, that was our food.

Um, my father’s family, I’m mainly talking about mom’s family right there. My dad’s family. They’re from a ranch, um, outside of Durango center, the city of Durango where they’re from a small, small ranch town, and that’s a different style of cooking, like next level.

Taryn Solie: Really okay.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah, because what happens is, is, oh, so here we have something called gas lines. You turn on the stove and boom. In Mexico. Even to this day, you don’t have that. You have gas brought in, even into the cities. Okay. Not just the ranch. Yeah. You have gas brought in and you’ll hear, oh, this is great. You’ll hear. Um, these, uh, these people like vendors, “gas”. Seriously. Okay. “Gas” or “agua” because water, you know, we also have water brought into the home. So you, oh, Hey, the gas guys here, you know, and you, some people, you know, um, use up their gas in, I don’t know, a week or two weeks or whatever.

So you, they, they know, they know who needs the gas, who doesn’t. Mm. Um, yeah, so that. That’s pretty crazy. Cause, um, on the ranch, um, sometimes you don’t have gas or someone coming by. You, I mean, you, you have to use a grill and um, open fire pit to cook mm-hmm yeah.

Taryn Solie: So what are some of the things? Well, I should say where I am, I’m kind of like, suburban rural. And we, like, there are people in our neighborhood who have to have gas brought in. So that is not as like, I’m a, somewhat more familiar with that. But I think in general, most people are probably, may not be. Um, so that’s very interesting and I could see where if you, I mean, especially if you like run outta gas, you’re like, okay, I guess we’re cooking over a fire tonight.

And that would be what it is. So what are some of the things that, um, your I, your father’s family or your mother’s family kind of made growing up that, that you kind of grew up on, grew up eating.

Maggie Unzueta: Oh man. Growing up. Okay. Yes, we had enchiladas, tamales, and you- tacos, numerous types of quesados. I mean, yes, but I know this is a grilling podcast, so I wanna talk to you about the ranch cuz on the ranch. Uh, my, my family owns this huge large ranch with, and we grow stuff, mainly apples. Catalan, where my father’s name is known for its apples, but we have this area, uh, it’s about, um, Uh, an acre or so where we grow corn.

And, um, what else is there? Beans and well, anyway, so I remember many, many times, you know, going out and having like this weekend of just, you know, family and, uh, and we would go and grill by next to the, uh, well, not grill. Sorry, we call it an asado. Asado is I guess, grilling. Um, but it’s an open pit and you would take whatever it is that you got or you, you yourself harvested, you know, from the, from this acre of, you know, here’s a corn here’s, you know, some, some other, whatever it is that you grabbed, he was like, whatever you wanna eat, put in your basket.

And then you go to this open flame. And it’s just beautiful land where it’s just open fields and next to this, like, uh, reservoir and you know, my grandfather chopping up wood and you know, oh man, God, sorry. Just remembering those eyes.

Taryn Solie: No, this is great.

Maggie Unzueta: The smell of just, yes, you would smell for days afterwards. You know, just, uh, you know, the fire, the fire going and yeah, it was so much fun and you just stay there for hours, hours, just cooking and eating and, you know, potatoes. They have potatoes there too. So of course they take forever to cook, you know, people take naps or swimming.

Taryn Solie: Oh my gosh. Gosh. Yeah. It was like a whole experience is what it sounds like.

Maggie Unzueta: Yes. Yes. In fact, on the ranch we have, um, well it, you know, my grandparents passed away, but I remember this one, because you know, again, there was no gas, mm-hmm gas lines right there. And you know, occasionally you wouldn’t have gas for your stove. Mm-hmm so, and there are people still like this who have this, where they have like this open pit when it’s contained, don’t get me wrong. Yeah. And they have it within their homes and that’s how they cook.

Taryn Solie: Oh.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah. And you could even see this on YouTube. There’s very famous woman. Um, gosh, what’s it called? De…De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina, something like that. And she cooks like that and that’s intense. That’s intense just to, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love it that you grill like a mo- a mother , you know, cause that’s the women are the ones who are for the most part cooking and doing the grilling.

Taryn Solie: Oh, that’s interesting. I love that. That’s so, okay. So you talked about, you mentioned a lot of like produce like potato, um, corn, apple, what sort of, I guess meats were they were, do you remember eating, growing up or have you, have you. Grilled or cooked, um, in that kind of pit before?

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah. With, with them. I mean, you had to, yeah.

Taryn Solie: Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: You were cooking with a, you know, big, huge fam. My dad is one of, uh, 10 living.

Taryn Solie: Oh, wow. That is a big family.

Maggie Unzueta: Huge. That’s my dad. On my mom’s side we’re one of six or she’s one of six. Wow. So yeah. Huge families, huge Mexican families. So there’s a lot of cooking involved. Yeah, I remember I remember cooking on, on that, you know, we would, well, there’s a lot of prepping involved.

Mm-hmm tamales, tamales were made on, on those stoves that I’m talking about because it is the stove. So you have the open, the flame and above it, you have, um, well around, excuse me around it. You have like, uh, bricks. And then on top, you would have like a flat top and it’s a huge flat top. We’re talking about maybe a good eight, um, eight feet? Uh, no, let’s go six. About six feet in diameter. Yeah. Okay. Pretty big. Yeah. And, um, inside the, the brick area, that’s where you put the, the flame or not the flame. What am I thinking? Lena is, um, firewood. You put the firewood in there. Sorry, I’m trying to-

Taryn Solie: No, that’s okay!

Maggie Unzueta: Native Spanish speaker, sorry! I’m just like, Bilingual brain. I tell people I speak Spanglish. I’m like, I’m sorry. I hope you, you speak another language. I hope you speak Spanish.

Um, the firewood goes in and that’s where, you know, mm-hmm, fire. You put, you light it up and that’s the flat top is you cook everything on that. Um, so yeah, tortilla, if you’re warming up tortillas or if you’re, you know, You have your tamales, you put your big steamer pot on top of that.

And, um, yeah, that’s, that’s how a lot of people still cook to this day. If you’re living, if you’re not living in the city.

Taryn Solie: Yeah. Oh gosh. It sounds like something that would be amazing to A. Grow up with, but also just to experience, you know, as an adult, like yeah, that sounds really amazing. Um, so I wanna get into a little bit more about the specific recipes that, um, either you remember from growing up or specific recipes on your website that maybe people can cook to have a little bit of that, um, not the same experience, but a little bit of the flavors that kind of you grew up with, and that you’re used to.

Maggie Unzueta: So, okay. Let me go back. Yeah. So I named my blog, Mama Maggie’s Kitchen after my grandmother.

Taryn Solie: Oh, okay.

Maggie Unzueta: And she, I have had to tell this, I, I stopped telling the story cuz it used to make me sad, but now I’m like, okay, I’ve told it so many times. It’s just like second nature. But yeah. So she passed away in 2009 and I was writing down her recipes and uh, Yeah, that was, I realized that I could put it into a blog and in 2010, that’s when it started.

And I was trying to be cute too. Especially back then 2010. I didn’t, nobody knew what blogging really was.

Taryn Solie: No.

Maggie Unzueta: Like I , it was, nobody knew what was going. Now there are academies and all kinds. You, you can easily figure out how to blog. Anyways back, so I was trying to be cutesy, I didn’t really know what I was doing.

I wanted to name it after my grandmother. I, I go my mother, my mama, Maggie mm-hmm cause we’re we’re we have the same name. She’s- I’m namesake. And um, yeah. So then I just kind of just adopted that name as Mama Maggie and it’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll be Mama Maggie, may you? No problem. um, But those are her recipes for the most part.

So if you wanna see, uh, anything that I grew up with, just look at the blog. She used to say, um, nobody makes tamales I do. And my red pork tamales are- that’s her recipe. Mm-hmm it’s insane. Oh God, I’m sorry. Forgive me. I know it’s-

Taryn Solie: Nothing to forgive. You make them sound amazing. I wanna go check them out.

Maggie Unzueta: They’re so good. Oh my God. I love her tamales, they’re just so good, but here’s something else. One of my, uh, so I have, I, uh, you see where I could show you since, you know, I know no one here can see it, but this is one of the books that I inherited with cutouts of recipes.

Taryn Solie: Oh gosh.

Maggie Unzueta: And some of these are so old, they’re 50, 80 years old. Like they’re really, really old. These are talk about authentic Mexican recipes right here.

Taryn Solie: Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: Um, but her. Uh, I have two recipes or no two, I think I have three, but only one of them is published. That is really, really old. That’s a family, family recipe. Mm-hmm, like we’re talking from the, we date it, um, to the late 17 hundreds to early 18 hundreds are my flan recipe or her flan recipe, which is-

Taryn Solie: Wow.

Maggie Unzueta: -one of my most popular recipes. And then that’s on the blog.

Taryn Solie: Wow. That is a very historical recipe. I mean, that’s, that’s quite old,

Maggie Unzueta: But the other thing about that one is that I didn’t wanna publish it originally. Mm. Um, I didn’t wanna publish it because again, it’s my family’s recipe. I was like, oh yeah, you know, should I publish this recipe?

But I thought about my son, so why I do anything is my son. You know. Why I get up in the morning. He doesn’t know this, you know, he’s a teenager. It’s like, I, why I get up in the morning. Why I cook. You know, I, why I wanna be a better person for me. It’s like, mm-hmm, , he’s my driver. He’s my everything. And any mom knows this, you know.

Taryn Solie: Mm-hmm.

Maggie Unzueta: He’s, yeah. So I, you know, I continue this blog, why I’ve continued for almost 12 years, this blog.

Taryn Solie: I know. I say it’s been a while. Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: He’s the reason I, there are so many recipes that I have not published yet. Like I said, I’ve got three that are this old and I’ve only published one.

Taryn Solie: Wow.

Maggie Unzueta: Um, so I have two more that I really need to publish. Um, but I published it for him. I wanted to make sure that he had it. Oh, my God, you better like this .

Taryn Solie: So now what are some of the other, cuz you mentioned before growing up and you would like pick needles off the cactus and like that just seemed like a normal thing to you. Whereas like for me, like I have never picked needles off a cactus. I don’t typically eat cactus. So what are some things that may be more unique to an American audience, um, that you have eaten or you have cooked, um, on the grill?

Maggie Unzueta: Oh, something that’s unique. Okay. Well, hold on, let me actually, if, Mexican is listening to this, they’ll know what I’m talking about. sorry. Um, you don’t, so you take the pa- the cactus paddle, right? Mm-hmm and you take a knife and you shave it off. Or they have like special instruments where you take off, you kind of just like shave it off as opposed to picking, oh my God.

Taryn Solie: Oh good. Cause I was like, that would take forever.

Maggie Unzueta: I would hurt yourself. I hate doing that. I. By them already pre-made so something unusual.

The cactus also has the, the, the plant, they have these things called tunas, which are, um, these, this fruit, so sweet, delicious.

Taryn Solie: Oh, Uh-huh.

Maggie Unzueta: Something else that’s also grilled. Um, uh, yeah, so we eat a lot of, uh, and it’s weird here, in the United States, I can’t find goat. I love goat. We-

Taryn Solie: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: So for my quinceanera, my 15th birthday, I had it in Mexico and they, uh, my dad bought a baby goat and they fattened it up and they killed it and they grilled it and yeah, everybody ate like kings and it was unbelievable.

It was so good. We still talk about it. Remember your quinceanera? Yes. Forget that, that it was my quinceanera and I was like, and it was this amazing. The, the goat that we made that day. We still talk about it in my family, cause it’s so good.

Taryn Solie: Oh, that’s so funny.

Maggie Unzueta: Um, so goat, some of the stuff that I’ve other seen that’s grilled. Hang on. Let me think about this. Oh, well grilling cactus, grilled cactus is delicious.

Taryn Solie: Yeah. Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: Um, what else can I talk about? Let me see. We have some interesting fruits down there that you just don’t find. I also lived in Southern Mexico for a while. I lived in Tabasco, which is the last state before you get to the Yucatan peninsula and it also has a border to Guatemala.

Mm-hmm. and, uh, that is all, I mean, the fruits there. Oh, mango. Oh, the pineapple, the it’s tropic. It’s a tropical area. Mm-hmm so my, my tia, my aunt outside of her house has a mango tree.

Taryn Solie: Oh, I’m jealous.

Maggie Unzueta: Cause she lives on the top floor. So I would run downstairs to go, you know, to school or whatever. And, um, oh, I forgot my, yeah, I don’t know my sandwich or whatever it was for lunch. And I’m like, I’ll just pick up a couple of mangoes and just go.

Taryn Solie: I love it.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah. Fish, fish that you just can’t find here. There’s a fish in Tabasco called pejelagarto, it’s um, it’s this long it’s historic. It’s not historic. What’s what do they call that? Um, it’s related to like the dinosaur ages.

Taryn Solie: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah, and it’s delicious. That’s also grilled. That’s great. We also have this other thing in Mexico where you take a fish and you butterfly it open and you grill it, um, with sea- season-. Oh, what it’s called? Oh, I can’t remember off the top of my head. Something with a Z. Um, I can’t remember. Mayo with mustard and worcestershire sauce.

Taryn Solie: Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re talking about.

Maggie Unzueta: But yeah, they slather- so they take the, the fish, they open it up. They slather it with that and, uh, that sauce and they grill it and, uh, that smokiness is delicious. Or clams. Sorry. I’m here at, by Baja, which has the most amazing, oh gosh, amazing seafood.

Yeah. But clams. Oh, clams, you open them up. You put cheese and you, oh yeah, you, you put cheese, um, you mix it up. When you put the cheese, you wrap them up and foil and you stick them back into the grill. So the meat, uh, the cheese melts mm-hmm of like salivating.

Taryn Solie: That sounds so good. We have a- cuz I’m in Seattle, and so we have like, seafood is a big deal up here, right? Like we have thank- you know, we’re right, like all the Alaskan seafood comes, usually comes in through Seattle. Um, so we have a lot in like clams, muscles, oysters, all that sort of stuff like that. My family loves to grill that sort of thing. So I’m with you on that. Although I’ve never done cheese in clams. That sounds amazing.

Maggie Unzueta: You gotta try that. That’s something.

Taryn Solie: I will have to.

Maggie Unzueta: We also have this, uh, here, here in Baja. There’s um, smoked marlin. Marlin, oh, mainly in this area and that’s one of those things, that’s just, oh, it has this unique texture and taste. And you’ll just have, that’s one of my favorite things to order, um, Marlon tacos, tacos de marlin. Oh yeah. So, so, so delicious.

Taryn Solie: I have never had marlin. I’ve eaten a ton of fish, but I have never had marlin. That’s so interesting. Is it it a white meat or no?

Maggie Unzueta: You know, it’s a reddish color.

Taryn Solie: Okay.

Maggie Unzueta: Um, yeah, it’s got again with the smokiness. It’s just it’s uh, so, so tasty. Um, yeah, I, I think, uh, gosh, what, what else can I think of that’s down there? That’s that would be something that’s unusual.

Taryn Solie: Oh, here, go ahead. Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: I just thought of this. Hmm. Um, are those called- I think they’re called stingrays. Give me a second. Let me look this up. Stingray. . Yeah, that’s it. Stingray. Sorry. Yes. Um, grilled stingray.

Taryn Solie: Oh, interesting.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh, that’s something that’s here. It’s very close to, um, again, Baja food.

Taryn Solie: Yeah, I have ne- I, I have, would’ve never thought to eat a stingray or let alone to grill one but that’s so interesting.

Maggie Unzueta: They also, um, make it in a birria style, um, here in Baja. That one I’ve never had, I’ve only seen it grilled. Um, yeah.

Taryn Solie: Wow. Okay. So, okay. So these are some of the more unique kind of grilled recipes. What are some of your, um, like on your, so I’m trying to think, like on your website. Like something maybe that you would make for your family, a grilling recipe that, um, your family loves, um, or something that somebody who, um, was on your website and wanted to make some, one of your recipes, um, grilled. Like what is something that you’d be like, yes, this is a great one. Start with this.

Maggie Unzueta: Okay. The easiest of all. Um, it’s very, very common on all Mexicans, like in Mexican barbecues, you’ll see these onions. It’s, a cambray onion. It’s got a very big bulb and. Just stick it on the grill. Uh, I mean it takes minutes really to grill. You don’t want the, I mean, it will happen the green part of, of these onions. Cause they’re bigger than green onions. That’s all it is.

Taryn Solie: Okay.

Maggie Unzueta: And the green onion part of it will, um, will get toasted and that’s fine. It’s okay. Yeah. I don’t have a problem with it. Some people put some like, um, aluminum foil around them.

Taryn Solie: To protect it a little bit. Yeah.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah. So, but I really like it charred, so once you’re nice and charred, take ’em off and then just season them with, um, uh, soy sauce, soy sauce and lemon.

Taryn Solie: Oh, okay. All right.

Maggie Unzueta: Easy. That’s probably the easiest recipe, grilling recipe that I have on my site. The other one, and, um, that you have, there is, um, oh, chiles toreados. Those are at any taco stand here in Tijuana we have tons and tons of taco stands, right? Like every corner has a taco stand and you’ll always find chiles toreados.

These are, uh, blistered peppers. So, uh, you can find them in as jalapenos or serranos or any, or if you wanna do, if you’re you can’t handle spice. Um, duetos are the yellow peppers. Um, just again, on the grill, get them nice and blistered, skin blistered, and again, seasoned with soy sauce and, uh, lemon. Done.

Taryn Solie: Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay.

Maggie Unzueta: So those are the easiest recipes. Yeah. Now if you wanna get a little more advanced, um, personally, I love grilled achiote chicken. That is oh, cool. Okay. That’s one of my fave, fave, fave. Achiote, a lot of people are like, huh? What’s that?

Taryn Solie: That’s what I was just gonna ask you was what that is so good. Yeah. Please explain.

Maggie Unzueta: So achiote is, uh, it’s um, it’s it’s from the annato seed. So it’s a it’s reddish. Oh, Uhhuh. And it’s just got tons of spices with it and it. So if you’ve ever had like cochinita pibil or if you’ve had, um, anything achiote will, will have that reddish color to it. Mm. And it just brings tons of flavor to it.

So, um, I have quite a few achiote recipes on there of, um, you know, not just chicken, pork, uh, yeah. That stuff is great. Uh, cochinita pibil-. Sorry. I’ll tell you what that is. Cuz that’s also fire-ish. OK. It’s a big pit. Okay. Um, that, you know, you just. It’s a big pit. You make a big pit. Yeah. Um, you have a, you have a pig and it’s usually a whole pig. This is Mexico’s version of, um, the Hawaiian God, what’s that?

Taryn Solie: The pig rose the Hawaiian pig, like, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Maggie Unzueta: And they just dress it in an achiote paste.

Taryn Solie: Oh, okay.

Maggie Unzueta: It’s not a paste. It’s a marinade. It’s a marinade. Okay. And yeah, you just cover just this pig. Right. And you need people. I mean, you need people to help you with that.

Taryn Solie: Oh, I’m sure. That’s not a one man job.

Maggie Unzueta: And then it gets wrapped in banana leaves. Oh, and they stick the pig into the pit. And of course they cover it with like hot coals. They leave it there all day. Mm-hmm um, yeah, you go and , it would come back a few hours later and yeah. There you go, you get, you get yourself.

Taryn Solie: Oh, wow.

Maggie Unzueta: It is so good. Oh my God.

Taryn Solie: I mean, that is definitely like, probably like a, a once or twice a year sort of thing, especially for somebody who may not be familiar with that type of cooking.

Maggie Unzueta: So I have, I have an easier version made in the slow cooker on my website. Yeah, I there’s no way I’m. I mean, who has a pig and banana leaves in their backyard?

Taryn Solie: That’s why I was like, I’m like, I don’t know how I would do that. That sounds amazing. But that would be a whole task

So I think these are some really great recipes to try for like good, some good, easy recipes. Some maybe a little bit more advanced, some like proteins, what are- before we kind of end, cause we’re kind of nearing the end here. What are some of your family’s favorite recipes for you to grill?

Maggie Unzueta: Um, okay. Let’s see. Well, we, we love to grill in my house. We mm-hmm . Yeah. In fact, yesterday, my husband was like, oh, I found some steaks for sale. I had to buy them and he wants, he, he wants to go to the store right now to go grab, uh, another steak. I’m like, okay, fine. So yeah, we, we are huge grillers here.

Mm-hmm um, so definitely Mexican street corn it’s on there. That’s one of our favorites. I mean, can’t go wrong with that corn grilled.

Taryn Solie: I know.

Maggie Unzueta: Smothered with mayo and lime and chili and just yum. That, um, I gave you those two, the chiles toreados and the, um, the I love the onions. I love the onions. Mm. Um, we, we do a lot of, uh, pork, steak.

Um, let me, let me see, what else do we do? We did tri tip for fourth of July, it was so good. Oh, that was so good. Uh, ribs. Oh man. Carne asada of course. Yeah. Oh my God. Carne asada.

Taryn Solie: Do you make yours typically with like a flank cut or like a skirt steak?

Maggie Unzueta: Skirt.

Taryn Solie: Skirt.

Maggie Unzueta: If I, if I were to, I mean, if I were to choose, I would do skirt. Yeah. Um, one of, yeah, if you ever have left over carne asada, mm-hmm um, in San Diego. Cause I’m in San Diego. Yeah. We have something called, uh, the California burrito. Did you try it? Have you tried it?

Taryn Solie: I don’t think I have.

Maggie Unzueta: Okay. This okay. Takes up carne asada to a whole- and I was such, I’m a purist. Right. Cause you know, I grew up in Mexico. I live in Mexico. Yeah. And, um, And so when I, how are you gonna go ahead carne- no, I refuse to try it, but finally, when someone got me to taste it Uhhuh and basically it’s burrito.

Okay. So you got your flour tortilla. You’ve got your carne asada, you’ve got your, um, uh, French fries. Okay. Guacamole, salsa. You’ve got onions. You name it, it goes into this huge burrito, but the French fries is the big deal. So carne asada.

Taryn Solie: Yeah. I was like French fries in a burrito.

Maggie Unzueta: Rolled up and it’s just, it’s massive. Yeah. And. Oh!

Taryn Solie: Very good. I’m gonna take that sound to mean very good.

Maggie Unzueta: It’s insane. I, of course I have that recipe on the blog. I, um, I had to write it, cuz it was just so good. I remember-

Taryn Solie: I have never heard of that. And I, I mean, I haven’t been to San Diego very often, but I have been to Southern California and I have never heard of a California burrito. So that’s very interesting.

Maggie Unzueta: Yeah. This is the home of California burritos and also carne asada um, fries, if you’ve ever had, have you had those?

Taryn Solie: No.

Maggie Unzueta: Oh, my God where have you been?

Taryn Solie: I don’t know! The wrong places!

Maggie Unzueta: Next time you’re in San Diego. I will show you or to the food places to eat cuz car-. So basically it’s fries. Okay. Tell you now what its yeah. Yeah. Fries, carne asada, and, um, you know, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, you name it. It’s on top of it.

Taryn Solie: All the toppings. Oh, that would be so, I mean, like you put all that stuff on anything. It’s probably gonna be good, but like fries inherently are good. So you, I could see mixing it all together would be pretty much delicious.

Maggie Unzueta: It’s insane. It’s like next level. It’s so, so good.

Taryn Solie: Oh, I love it. Oh my gosh. Well this, this has been so fun, Maggie. I’m so glad we got to have a conversation today. I think we have given people lots of great ideas for grilling. I do wanna give you a chance to tell people where they can connect with you online.

Maggie Unzueta: Sure. So Maggie mom, Mama Maggie’s Kitchen. You’ve got the website. You’ve got Instagram. You’ve got Facebook, Pinterest, uh.

Taryn Solie: All the places.

Maggie Unzueta: YouTube. You name it. I’m there. I’m, I’m everywhere.

Taryn Solie: Well, good. Good. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

Maggie Unzueta: Thanks. Thanks for having me. It was fun.

Taryn Solie: Okay, how amazing do all of Maggie’s recipes sound? And how cool that she has been able to take her grandmother’s recipes that are obviously passed down between generations and post them for her future generations to make? I think that’s such a wonderful idea and a great way to look at recipe websites. I’m also going to have to try the California burrito and carne asada fries she mentioned – I love me some carne asada so those are right up my alley.

I’m including links to the recipes Maggie talked about on the show notes page. To get to all of those, you can either go to my main website at Hot Pan Kitchen dot com and click on podcast in the main menu, or you can click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening on.

That’s it for today, thank you so much for listening and until next time, keep grilling like a mother.