Inspired by Arizona
THE MEAL
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Wow. This is it! The last meal of my state meal challenge. I made this goal all the way back in 2021, and my life has gone through so many ups and downs since then. But even though it took me a long time, I can definitely say that I fulfilled my goal of teaching myself how to cook new things. I learned a ton about my home country, made too many new recipes to count, tried all sorts of unique ingredients, and bought lots of new kitchen appliances.
I really appreciate everyone who reads these posts and lets me know that they enjoy them. I didn’t start this blog to go viral or make money or anything, just to hold myself accountable, collect my recipes, and share fun things I learned with anyone who might be interested. That said, if you’ve read this far and enjoyed the site, please be warned that I’m probably going to shut it down soon. It’s just not worth the upkeep, and I’ll probably make myself a cookbook with these recipes instead of dealing with the spam comments and continuing the pay the website fees. So if there’s anything you would like to try, be sure to save them somewhere soon!
Without further ado, my last meal, inspired by the state I called home for 5 years.
Baked Chimichangas
While I’ve never been tempted to move back to Arizona (it’s WAY too hot), one thing I do miss is the food. I’ve been to some good Mexican restaurants here in Indiana, but it’s just not the same. Tex-Mex is what I tend to crave the most whenever I go visit the West. So I was glad to make some homemade Tex-Mex food to end this state challenge!
The chimichanga is basically just a fried burrito. It was almost definitely invented in Arizona, but the exact origin is debated. One fun story is that a woman accidentally dropped a burrito into a deep-fryer and was going to swear but instead said “chimichanga” (a nonsense word that just means “thingamajig”) to not cuss in front of nearby children. There’s another story that they were purposefully invented by someone in Phoenix in 1952, and that personally seems more likely to me. We Americans just love to deep-fry whatever we can think of, and it seems natural to try it with a burrito after we already did it with taquitos and such.
There’s no prescribed way to fill a chimichanga, any more than there’s only one way to make a burrito. I went with a chicken filling because it’s what I had on hand, and I decided to bake instead of fry just to save myself time and oil. It still had a great crunch to it, and the chicken/cheese/refried beans inside were super filling and flavorful. I’ll have to make these again sometime, especially since they were so quick and would be easy crowd-pleasers.
Tex-Mex Rice
Of course a natural side dish to go with chimichangas was Tex-Mex rice, a little different than Spanish rice in that it’s simmered in salsa instead of plain tomato paste. I loved the extra kick from the salsa—I usually find Spanish rice to be kind of bland. There’s no clear history of how this dish was invented, but it’s now one of the most common side dishes you’ll find in Mexican restaurants, so I ate a lot of it in Arizona.
Nopalitos Salad
What I’d never tried before and was excited to make for this meal was nopalitos. “Nopal” is the Spanish word for prickly pear cactus, which has been cultivated in Mesoamerica for millennia, and isn’t just eaten but is also used for medicine, fuel, and alternative leather. Apparently it’s a great source of Vitamin C.
One of the first things people think about when you talk about Arizona is the cacti, so naturally I had to include them in the meal! I didn’t have any whole cactus paddles on hand to cut up and boil myself, but I was surprised and happy to find them jarred at my local grocery store!
It’s really hard to describe what nopal tastes like if you’ve never had it before. They were a little slimy out of the jar but after rinsing them weren’t so bad. The texture was kind of like a well-cooked green bean. The flavor, though, is unique and hard to describe. But paired with onion, tomato, cilantro, oregano, lime, and queso fresco, it was so vibrant and colorful and fresh (despite being jarred). I really enjoyed eating it and am happy to have leftovers!
Mom’s Lemon Bars
A more traditional Arizona-centric dessert would’ve been sopapillas, but they’re very similar to beignets and I wanted to avoid deep-frying. But Arizona has a huge citrus industry (one of the things I miss about living there), and the state drink is lemonade, so it seemed appropriate to incorporate lemons somehow.
Mostly I just wanted to make my final dessert for my final state-inspired meal using a recipe passed down from my mom. When we lived in Arizona, we had lemon trees and made a LOT of lemonade and lemon bars. This dessert was so easy and so flavorful that I went on to make lemon bars all the time during college and in my early 20s. It had been a while since I’d made them, and the process and the flavor was so nostalgic. They’re basically just lemon curd on shortbread—light and sunny and delicious.
And well, that does it! We made it all the way around the whole United States, including inhabited territories and Washington, DC! I goofed up a lot and know I didn’t even come close to accurately representing all the different cultures there are in our country, but I’m so happy that I undertook this challenge. I feel very accomplished and hope that you had a fun time following along.