It’s official (and somewhat unfortunate, though that’s
debatable): I have fallen victim to The Pinterest Effect. It’s been about 4 years
now. Those behind the scenes ninjas that are the users, abusers and pinners of the
social media site have had their effect on industries around the world—the cookbook
publishers, the interior designers, the real photographers, the bloggers, the
thrift store shuckers, the Etsy shoppers, and the at-home bakers (that's me!)
It’s a basic admission. I have at least 10 cookbooks
scattered throughout my home that now play the role of coffee table décor, lamp
stands and more. You can thank Pinterest for that. You see, with a virtual bulletin
board enticing my iPhone to a site of Asian fusion appetizers and mouth-watering photography, it’s hard to pull out the
trusty paperback under a pile of 17-pound September issue magazines. The first step is admittance.
Let me tell you that the Food & Drink section of
the $5 billion social media networking brand is overwhelming. Truly. Sure, many are re-pinned and copied
among users, but there’s no shortage of dinner images that read 25 Casserole
Bakes You Must Make this Week or 19 Healthy One-Pot Dinners.
I ended at a recipe for Fire Roasted Stacked Enchiladas—quite convenient as I had just picked up the Tres Hermanas Fire Roasted RedSauce, which is a firey, spicy Mexican cooking sauce that transports your taste
buds across the border for a second.
Nestled in Southern New Mexico among a pretty
picturesque mountainside—portrayed on the packaging—Tres Hermanas got its name from
the three small mountains that it sits below. Authentic products made in the
border state, Tres Hermanas developed its latest flavors to meet a growing
consumer need for specialty ethnic items. “Our family-farm
grown food will deliver the flavors and honestly sourced qualities that
consumers demand,” says Mark Majewski, president and chief operating officer of
Mizkan Americas.
They delivered, all right. In a saucepan, I mixed
some heavy cream with the family-made sauce, some water and shredded chicken. I
proceeded to fill the dish like a lasagna—one layer of sauce, a bottom layer of sauce-dipped tortilla
halves, one layer of pepper pepper jack cheese and green onion,
one layer of chicken, a layer of caramelized onions, another layer of sauce and so on. I baked the
casserole covered for 30 minutes, and voila, a stacked enchilada
bake straight from the farms of New Mexico--and maybe Pinterest.
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