Travels to Tucson

Over Labor Day weekend I headed west to visit family in Tucson, Arizona.  The landscape is so vastly different than that of the Northeast.  It is such a dramatic change to go from lush green to the stark brown of the dessert.  For those tired of mowing lawns and trimming trees, this is the place to live.  It takes a few days to adjust and then you really begin to enjoy the desert and the mountains that surround Tucson.

My first adventure was to travel to El Charro Cafe where the chimichangas was   invented.  I did try the El Charro Carne Seca, the original chimichangas that made the El Charro Cafe famous.  I thought it as a little greasy, but had a lot of flavor.  What we did have as an appetizer that was absolutely delicious was a Cheese Crisp.  It is basically a tortilla with cheese on top baked in the oven.  Consider it a pizza made with a tortilla. 

On Sunday, we headed up Mt. Lemmon in the Coronado National Forest.  It is a 9,167 feet above sea-level.  We drove up the Catalina Highway which starts on the eastern side of Tucson.  The views on the ride up are absolutely spectacular.  Near the top is the town of Summerhaven which was burned out in the Aspen Fire in 2003.  Many of the homes have been re-built.  We had lunch at the Iron Door Restaurant near the top with hummingbirds enjoying the sugar water near out table.  While there the temperature dropped 35 degrees and it rained.  However, go a few hundred feet down the mountain and there was no rain.  At 4,000 feet Saguaro cactus and other desert plants are once again visible.

Know as the "White Dove of the Desert," San Xavier Mission, the oldes European structure in Arizona, was founded as a Catholic mission by Father Eusebio Kino in 1692.  The current church began in 1783 and was completed in 1797.  The interior is filled with marvelous statuary and mural paintings.  In 1783, Franciscan missionary Fr. Juan Bautista Velderrain was able to begin contruction on the present structure using money borrowed from a Sonoran rancher. He hired an architect, Ignacio Gaona, and a large workforce of O'odham, a group of aboriginal Americans who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona, to create the present church.

Cheese Crisp

1 (10-inch) tortilla                    

 

 1-1 1/2 cup grated cheese (Cheddar, Monterey, Queso Quesadilla  and Asadero) or your favorite

 

1. Place the tortilla on a large, dark cookie sheet. Spread butter all over the top of the tortilla, making sure to get the butter all the way out to the edges. (The butter is very important! Don't omit.)  Sprinkle top

2.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and cook for 6 minutes, or until the tortilla begins to visibly brown. Remove from oven, sprinkle cheese over the top and return to oven for another 2-3 minutes.  Be careful not to burn the tortilla.