Trying to Eat Healthy in Mexico? The Lazy Expat Cookbook Comes to the Rescue!
I’m proud to announce the release of The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes that Translate in Mexico.
The project’s cord has run through my life for more than six years, bringing me closer to expat and Mexican contributors, healthy eating friends who participated in its focus groups, and Mexican friends who are still shaking their heads at the idea of kale in an enchilada. It’s designed as a cookbook for travelers, snowbirds and expats trying to shop, eat and cook healthy in a foreign culture.
The Lazy Expat cookbook contains over 150 recipes. All ingredients can be found in any chain grocery store, American or Mexican. For those who need to cook in Mexico, it’s a treasure trove, a book you won’t want to be without.
In addition to healthy, delicious recipes, the book explains how to shop in Mexico, what to always have in the pantry (Spanish/English), kitchenware lists in English/Spanish, and advise on using staple ingredients that taste differently in Mexico. Ingredients are translated into Spanish in every recipe rather than provided as a vocabulary list, which makes shopping much easier.
I want to share some of the behind-the-scenes of the book’s methodology which, given the logistics, was different from any cookbook you’ll run across. Recipes had to meet five criteria.
First, not a single recipe idea in the book was sourced from the internet. All recipes had to be healthy, preferably containing Superfoods. They had to be easy to prepare. They had to use ingredients common to both the U.S. and Mexico.
Given that rental and new kitchens are often barebones, they couldn’t require gadgetry such as food processors or woks. Most gabachos/as arrive in Mexico in ones and twos. Any promising recipe serving more than four people had to be scaled down to serve 2-4 (not as easy as you think, it’s often not just a matter of division).
Given all the situational hurdles selections had to leap over more, many dishes in the cookbook are what I call “bulletproof.” You can screw them up, but it’s hard (The only time I botch them is when I forget to review the recipe before starting.). I was pleased to see how well many of the dishes keep well. No one wants to cook every day, not even me.
In 2018, around 300 ideas were presented to a focus group of eight of friends, healthy eaters all, who ranked the recipes for their appeal (I didn’t want to fall into a rut of my likes and dislikes). About 200 recipes were chosen for testing/modifying based on their cumulative scores. Contributor Fabiola Rodriguez Licona and Gustavo Michelle Mejia Félix contributed Mexican-inspired recipes.
Recipes had to be tested multiple times in a variety of rental and temporary kitchens, which made a huge difference in outcomes. In Mexico, at times I was cooking over an electric stovetop, other times a gas burner. In Denver, with its abundant grocery stores and Whole Foods, I had to discipline myself to never modify a dish with an ingredient not available in Mexico, even lemon juice or green onions. In Virginia, pasta cooked up differently.
Carry-out meals in Mexico rarely have any appreciable vegetable side dish. Vegetables in many side dishes in the cookbook can be pre-cut and on hand to accompany those meals (or a pizza in the U.S.). This way you can enjoy convenience without giving up on a balanced meal.
Why aren’t photos included? Two reasons. Pictures would have made the book twice as large, and heavier to pack. I know in my own life as a part-time expat, every ounce counts when packing for my extended stays in Mexico. The second reason was that color photography would make it a more expensive book to produce and purchase.
Maybe the most important thing I can say about this cookbook is that I have cooked exclusively from it since 2018. I still use it almost every day both in Mexico and in the US.
About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of four books If Only I Had a Place about renting in Mexico. The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico is about how to move to Mexico part-time and what to expect.