Week Two: Mexican & Latin — Caution, Hombre.

The Week’s Dinners

• Mole Negro — make this first, on Sunday if you can. Everything else builds from it.
• Pulled Pork Carnitas — braise once, crisp twice in cast iron, serve with mole negro and rice. Uses the pork shoulder.
• Chicken Mole Enchiladas — shredded chicken, the shared mole, corn tortillas, crema finish. Worth every drop of mole you made.
• Citrus Roasted Pork & Sweet Potato — five ingredients, one pan: pork shoulder, orange juice, lime, garlic, cumin. The easiest thing on the list.
• Black Bean & Sweet Potato Tacos — plant-based, one-pan roast, on the table in under thirty minutes. This is the Friday option.
• Spicy Shrimp Fajitas — citrus-soy marinade, cast iron, done in twenty minutes. Bold enough to not need any apology.

The Desserts

• Flan with Rich Caramel Sauce — see above. Make it the day before and do not rush the caramel.
• Quick Churros & Chocolate Sauce — choux dough, cinnamon sugar, a dark chocolate dipping sauce. The kids will absolutely not hate this.
• Tres Leches Bread Pudding — three-milk soak, makes the night before, finishes with cinnamon cream. Another make-ahead that rewards patience.

The Extras — Make These Too

• Pickled Red Onions — make these on day one. They get better every day they sit. They go on everything this week.
• Roasted Chile Salsa — pasilla and arbol chiles, toasted garlic, tomatillo. Blended smooth. Serve with chips, the carnitas, or the citrus pork.
• Guacamole — ripe avocado, lime, cilantro. It takes five minutes and there is truly no excuse not to make it fresh. Make the kids do it. It’s so easy it might be the most teachable thing in this whole week.

Before we dive into the recipes too deep, let me first issue a kitchen caution for the mole negro sauce, should you plan to brave it instead of getting a nice jarred stand-in from the grocery. Before the dried chiles get oven charred, open a kitchen window. Get that old box fan out of your attic and maybe put it in that kitchen window. Turn on the hood vent. A gas mask might sound overzealous, but if you’ve got one handy have it on standby. There will be smoke. If not watched like a hawk, your chiles will light up. To make the mole 100% authentic, smoke must rise. Rest assured, it is worth the trouble. After watching Colin broil the pasilla negros, the anchos, and the cute morita chiles, I thought about upping the homeowner’s policy. Definitely glad we have the fire extinguisher nearby in the laundry closet.

See, this charring is not optional. It is what gives the mole its incredible depth and a pleasant bitterness that beside the chocolate-cinnamon-smoky goodness will prove worth the risk. If you’re super risk-averse, then go with store bought. I know we said we wouldn’t do that, that we’d make our own wonderful sauces each week, but I don’t want to have to issue this recipe with a health waiver, so please choose knowing the inherent risk involved. The oils become aerosolized and small children and people with asthma shouldn’t hang around.

The mole takes about two hours total and yields 8–9 cups — enough to carry the pulled pork carnitas, the chicken enchiladas, and still have some left to freeze. Make it on a Sunday and the rest of the week’s cooking becomes almost effortless.

Now: the flan.

Caramel sauce is our specialty. The flan calls for a caramel that is just water and sugar, and we are cooking it way past simple syrup phase but not at all to hard crack phase. This level of cooking at medium-high heat produces, in about 12 minutes — with the amount of sugar and water we call for — the caramel with the most depth but zero burn. There is a cutoff point, right when you catch the first whiff of amber, where you pull it off the heat. (Like literally, I can only describe it as “amber,” and it’s a smell that emanates from caramel about 10 seconds before it scorches.) ▶ Watch Colin make the caramel.

It’s a delicate balance. If crossed past “deep amber,” be prepared for burned and bitter, and not in the good mole way — in the bad scrub-pan-and-scowl way.

If it comes out dark, glossy and smelling perfect, the presentation of the flan when it’s flipped will be worth all the patience invested watching a pot of sugar — promise.