Huevos con Chorizo - 162

So we've been waiting and waiting to eat HUEVOS CON CHORIZO ever since we started this project, but I was holding fast to the idea that I would NOT cook fatty old chorizo made with pork and would look all over for a chicken or turkey variety. I finally found some fresh, chicken chorizo a week or two ago at Whole Foods, and today we fixed it for breakfast with scrambled eggs and corn tortillas.

Chorizo can be one of two things: the spicy soft variety which usually comes from Mexico (or is inspired by a recipe from Mexico) and yields a lot of grease when fried, or the hard-sausage variety from Spain which more closely resembles a small salami and can be used in soups, stews, and in paellas. It is also loaded with fat, but more about that later...maybe another blog.

I am so glad that I waited. When I cooked up the chicken chorizo this morning, it didn't let off an ounce of fat. I actually had to spray the skillet a little so the scrambled eggs wouldn't stick to the pan when I put them in to mix them together with the now cooked pieces of chorizo. The lack of any visible grease or fat made me wonder if it was any good, but it was delicioso.

The next time I see this chicken chorizo at Whole Foods (because they don't make it on a regular basis) I'm going to by several links and keep them handy.

Tacos de Pescado - 163

TACOS DE PESCADO is usually a recipe that we reserve for warmer weather. The best part of the meal is the mango (or peach) salsa that goes into each taco, so it makes sense to wait until certain fruits are in season. Now that fruits are available year round, specifically mangoes, we decided to liven up our dinner table with something light and healthy that would remind us of warmer days ahead.

(I actually prefer peach or nectarine salsa, but there have been muchos mangos in the grocery stores lately. I'm going to have to look up the mango growing seasons since I'm pretty sure that any time we eat a mango in the US it's coming from somewhere else)

Javier made the salsa de mango using diced mangoes, red onion, serrano chiles, cilantro and lemon juice. I added a tiny pinch of salt. I also thinly sliced some cabbage while Javier grilled fish indoors on the range top. Not exactly the tropical surroundings we'd rather visit this time of year, but the fish got cooked nicely.

We made our tacos at the table out of fresh corn tortillas, fish, salsa, shredded cabbage, and had some sliced avocados on the side. Javier likes the avocado on his taco, but I prefer it to the side. Los tacos fueron muy ricos y esperamos repetir esta comida otro día.

Mole verde - 164

I still have tons of turkey in the freezer from last November. We went to a potluck dinner on Thanksgiving, but still cooked a turkey of our own here at home just so we could enjoy the leftovers later. I was also thinking ahead as there are many delicious Mexican meals that are centered around turkey. Mole - any kind of mole - is the one that first comes to mind.

In my opinion MOLE VERDE is not a true mole because it doesn't involve the complicated sophistication of multiple ingredients and cooking techniques. There is no grinding or chopping involved in the process, and a minimal amount of the toasting of seeds and a few nuts (pumpkin and peanuts) go into the process. Thickened with a stale corn tortilla, it can have the consistency of the darker red, brown and black moles.

Back to the leftover turkey...I took all of it out of the freezer yesterday and began some weekend cooking by making broth out of some of the parts. I chose the dark meat for last night's dinner and reserved most of the white meat for another meal you'll read about in a few days. Once I had my turkey broth, I was ready to begin.

GREEN MOLE is the combination of toasted pepitas de calabaza (pumpkin seeds) and peanuts; cooked tomatillos and chiles serranos, cilantro, garlic and peppercorns. To this mixture of ingredients which have now been blended, I added the stale corn tortilla and some of the turkey broth and continued blending it all into a smooth sauce before adding a pinch of salt. This was poured over the re-heated cooked turkey and served over brown rice and with corn tortillas on the side. It might sound complicated, but with the turkey already cooked, it only took me about an hour from start (making the broth) to finish (blending the ingredients) while the brown rice cooked.

Sobras sabrosas - 165

Once again - sobras sabrosas - meaning "delicious leftovers." If today's picture looks a lot like yesterday's CARNE ADOBADA, that's because it is (or it was).

We had two of the chuletas de puerco (pork chops) left over, and with the weekend looming ahead, decided to use them for dinner again. So, we rummaged through the refrigerator and when we discovered lettuce, salsa, and some crema, we decided to make tacos. By the way, ever since we discovered that tortillería several blocks from home, we have become regulars. Their tortillas are really the best in town, and they make them fresh 4 days a week.

So, we grilled up some onions, thinly sliced the chuletas, and heated them together in a skillet. If they look greasy, it's only through the "magic of photography." They were anything but greasy, and what you're seeing is probably the adobo sauce that was used to marinate them the night before - or maybe some glare.

Served with thinly shredded lettuce, queso fresco, crema y salsa, these were really good tacos! Anything else - such as guacamole - would have taken away from the flavor of the meat.

Carne adobada - 166

I know what it looks like, but it's NOT pork chops in barbecue sauce! Tonight's dinner was something we ate years ago on a trip to New Mexico - CARNE ADOBADA - and it was well worth the wait to eat it again tonight so many years later.

Last week we bought some beautiful boneless pork chops (chuletas de puerco). Some people say that the bone gives meat more flavor, especially when it's grilled, and I would normally agree. However, the price on these boneless chops was actually less than the bone-in variety, so we decided to give them a try knowing that they might be dry and / or tasteless.

Javier used a recipe for the adobo paste from an old cookbook. It is made from a combination of dried red chiles (some of the same varieties that are used for mole), spices and vinegar. The recipe asks you to marinate the meat for 1-3 days, but for shorter periods of time "if that's all the time you have." Following the marinating process, the chops are grilled.

I was SO worried about dry, flavorless chops, but I was surprised to eat some of the best boneless pork chops I'd ever eaten tonight! They were juicy on the inside and delicious with the adobo paste on the outside. No complaints from me!

Enchiladas rojas y verdes - 167

What to do with leftover chicken? Se hace unas enchiladas, por supuesto...

We had some delicious roast chicken breasts that we bought at the deli last week, and after using some of the meat in a chicken vegetable soup, we had enough leftover to still make another meal. Burrowing through the cupboards and the refrigerator we found some canned enchilada sauce, some fresh tomatillos, chiles y fresh garlic to use in another salsa.

Javier shredded the meat off the chicken breasts (pechugas de pollo) and I made the sauces. Claro, one came out of a can, but we were trying it out. Javier still makes the best salsa de enchiladas roja and I can make a pretty mean salsa de enchiladas verde. While I was at work today he roasted the tomatillos, chile serrano, y el ajo and when I got ready to collaborate with dinner, I made a salsa verde de tomatillos, chile serrano, ajo y cilantro. Javier opened the can of red sauce and heated it in an appropriate pan!

Let's move quickly here to the finished product: enchiladas rojas y verdes. We had sprinkled some shredded mozzarella on them before baking, and once they came out of the oven and were ready to serve, we plated them with chopped red onion and a small amount of sour cream.

Look at the picture ... they were perfect! No rice and no beans on the side were necessary! I had three - dos verdes y una roja and Javier had four - dos y dos. I can't remember a dinner on a Monday evening that has been so memorable...

Chili vegetariano - 168

I've heard this recipe called Winter Vegetable Chili, but if you're a vegetarian, or a person in search of more meatless meals, you could make it any time of the year. I made it yesterday because we were having a group over for dinner, and two of the people present were vegetarians.

The basis for chili when I make it is three kinds of beans: pintos, rojos y riñones (kidney). I soak my beans overnight, and then rinse them in clean water before cooking them most of the day on the stove top or in the large crock pot. I cook them with water and epazote, which is a Mexican seasoning.

When the beans are tender - and not one moment before - I add canned chopped tomatoes and tomato sauce. Note: if you add tomatoes before the beans are cooked, they will usually remain hard and difficult to digest. At the same time, I sauté cut up winter squash, zucchini, carrots, bell peppers and onions. When they are just fork-tender, I add them to the bean and tomato mixture, and then start in with the seasonings. I like to use good quality chile powder, cumin, some crushed red peppers, salt, and a tablespoon of sugar. I find that the bell peppers and onions do the rest.

I served the CHILI VEGETARIANO in bowls at the table, and in the middle of the table I had arranged chopped fresh onions, grated queso fresco, sour cream, and a very hot salsa for those who like their chili muy picante.

I had also made my favorite corn muffin recipe - the one from La Ciudad de Mexico which I call "Featherlight Indeed." Here is the history behind that unusual name: years ago I clipped the recipe from a magazine in which people could write in and ask the writers / editors for recipes from their favorite restaurants around the world. Someone had written in requesting this recipe for corn muffins from a restaurant in Mexico City, saying that the muffins had been "featherlight." When I clipped the recipe out of the magazine, I neglected to clip the name, but went right to the recipe and instructions where the writer had written "These are featherlight indeed." Since I don't have the real name, this is the one that has always been at the top of my clipped magazine recipe for corn muffins, which are also my favorite - and probably because they're full of butter!

Pescado a la Veracruzana - 169

OK, so we were naughty yesterday morning. We went out for breakfast and ate eggs, ham, sausage, bacon, pancakes and an English muffin. We sort of divided it between the two of us. Javier ate a big stack of pancakes and a slab of ham; I ate one scrambled egg, one strip of bacon, one sausage, and a toasted English muffin. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

We spent the rest of the day doing penance. For lunch we had a plain vegetable soup made with fat free chicken stock. For dinner we had defrosted some of our favorite fish (cod) and had been contemplating what to do with it all day. We finally decided to cook it A LA VERACRUZANA because there were no heavy sauces or ingredients involved as you can see from the picture. We also happened to have all of the ingredients on hand. Finally, we decided that we'd just have the fish in it's VERACRUZANA preparation along with a little salad and NO rice, beans, or potatoes.

It turned out perfectly, tasted good, and hit the spot. It also erased some of our earlier guilt about having eaten such a big breakfast at one of our favorite spots.

PESCADO A LA VERACRUZANA can be made with any kind of fish or shrimp. In fact, the most traditional recipes call for huachinango (red snapper), but I haven't seen any of that in the store for ages. The other main ingredients are sliced peppers (either hot or mild bell peppers), sliced onions, tomatoes, chopped garlic and Spanish olives. Some recipes call for alcaparras (capers), but Javier doesn't care for them and we didn't use them. Once the chopping and slicing are done, it's quick and easy to fix, too.

Let's talk guac / Guacamole 170

Having grown up in Southern California, and before I went to Mexico the first time at age 15, I thought guacamole was dip. My mother made it with mayonnaise (or more likely Miracle Whip) and our next door neighbor made it with sour cream. You could buy it in little tubs from the grocery store which actually called it "guacamole dip" and the only thing similar to the real thing may have been the color. Some of it was awful.

On my first trip to Mexico at age 15, I was sent to live with a family in Guadalajara. Every day around 2PM we ate a large meal - la comida - with the family at a long dining room table. There were four American students, three of teen-aged their children, and the father that always sat with us to eat each day. The mother, Doña Meche (short for Mercedes), never joined us as she served the meal course by course and plate by plate each day to each one of us. We always started with a soup, then moved to a vegetable dish served on a separate plate, then a main course followed by dessert, which was always something very simply.

One thing that was always on the table was real guacamole. Todos los días. She mixed avocados with chopped tomato, onions, and cilantro, then seasoned it with salt and some lime juice, and that was all - no mayonnaise, no sour cream. It was delicious! Muy delicioso. Also in the middle of the table every day was a bread basket with bolillos, tostadas and saladitas (saltine crackers) so that we could eat our guacamole with any one of those, or wait for the hot corn tortillas that were served with the meal and eat little guacamole tacos.

Every home I have stayed in since, and every time we have visited Mexico - be it to a restaurant or to my mother-in-law's home - we have been served a similar guacamole, although most of the places that weren't catering to young American students always add a chopped serrano pepper to the mix to spice it up. I have had creamy guacamoles, and some very chunky guacamoles served with large pieces of avocado, tomatoes, serranos, cilantro and onions just barely tossed together with seasonings. I have bought aguacates (avocados) in the marketplace by the kilo, and I hate to tell you that sometimes one kilo of avocados cost me less than one single avocado costs here in the winter.

One of the best guacamoles we ever had on a trip with our kids was one that was served in Guaymas, Sonora. It was the usual variety of avocado, tomatoes, peppers, onions and seasonings mixed with crumbled queso fresco. (See today's picture) Another one that was memorable was one served to me in Monterrey, Mexico on a platter. To one side of the platter was smoothly mounded mashed avocado, and around the avocado were little piles of diced tomatoes, onions, peppers, cilantro, and cut-up limes. This made it possible to mix your own guacamole at the table to your personal taste.

A number of Mexican restaurants are now featuring guacamole which is mixed table-side by a waiter performing a routine. Since the charge for this guacamole can be $10 or more, you are paying for the show - believe me. A good guacamole should be (and still is) one of the most economical and satisfying accompaniments and/or light meal choices you can make, and goes well with so many Mexican meals.

Carne encebollada - 171

Javier took over this evening and made dinner on his own. We had some thin-cut sirloin steaks in the freezer and he wanted to fix them in a way that was very Mexican, but not so picante. (Still recovering from the chiles rellenos - but boy were they good).

This isn't really a recipe, but rather it's a method of cooking beef, especially thin, inexpensive steaks. It's sort of like a stir-fry with the other main ingredient - the onions - being well-done. The tomato slices are added at the end simply for color, and the seasonings are minimal to non-existent.

CARNE ENCEBOLLADA, which means "meat cooked with LOTS of onions" consists of beef strips, onions and tomatoes cooked with a little olive oil, salt and beer. We served it with some warm corn tortillas and a smooth guacamole, beans on the side. Nothing fancy tonight.

Both of us remarked that the meat was a bit tough. Not inedible, but it required some chewing. Javier thought it would have been better having been marinated before stir-frying with the onions. I thought it was good, but I would have pushed for more salt and/or seasoning.

Quesadillas de Queso Fresco - 172

I am really watching what I eat these days, so this morning I decided to make a couple of QUESADILLAS DE QUESO FRESCO and a half of an apple for my breakfast. It's not all about diets and weight loss, though. It's more about eating good food that's filling, but not made with fats, flour, sugar and additives.

We have some nice queso fresco in the refrigerator, so I sliced it thin and put it into a fresh corn tortilla (from that great tortillería) on the grill. When the tortilla was nice and hot, but not toasted to a crisp, and the queso felt melted on the inside, I served the QUESADILLAS with some sliced apple for dessert. Actually, a side of any fruit you like would work. Apples happened to be all that I had on hand this morning, but I usually have either oranges or berries around as well.

Sometimes we eat our QUESADILLAS for breakfast with a nice salsa, but last night we ate the leftover CHILE RELLENOS DE PICADILLO and they were muy picantes y muy bravos. This morning my stomach was pleading for a nice, bland breakfast and the QUESADILLAS DE QUESO FRESCO did the trick!

Hongos en Salsa de Tomatillo - 173

Javier and I went back to the books for some inspiration the other day. We were starting to feel in a rut, as one often does in January, and wanted to look at the pictures and recipes in our Mexican cookbooks for some inspiration and/or memory helpers. We have about 5-6 very good and comprehensive Mexican cookbooks, and all of them but one have colorful pictures. However, the one without the colorful pictures, an older book by Diana Kennedy, has some of the best recipes and ideas. It was after flipping through the vegetable section of this old (but favorite) cookbook that I remembered a way to cook mushrooms, otherwise known as hongos o champiñones in Mexico.

I just happened to have all of the ingredients on hand! Not that I normally keep tomatillos, chiles serranos y hongos in the house, but I had been produce shopping a few days before and had picked up a number of things just because they looked so good. This is also a January thing.

HONGOS EN SALSA DE TOMATILLO is a simple combination of mushrooms, sliced chile serrano and onions in a tomatillo salsa made with garlic. It is made to be eaten on rice, in tortillas, or as a side dish to meat. Javier and I remembered a trip through New Mexico years ago where potatoes were served with chile verde ladled over them. The HONGOS EN SALSA DE TOMATILLO could also be served this way as a simple and inexpensive meal.

Chile Relleno de Picadillo - 174

There are two good news items to mention today:

One is the CHILES RELLENOS DE PICADILLO that we made for dinner last night (we actually made 8 of them), and the other is the fresh tortillas that we picked up from the local tortillería. They both fall into the asombroso (awesome) category.

When Javier grilled chicken the other evening, he also charred and peeled 8 chiles poblanos. These are the same kind that I used back in December for the Chiles en nogada and last week for the Huevos con migas. He charred, peeled and seeded them for me so that we could make CHILES RELLENOS DE PICADILLO this weekend.

Traditional recipes for any variation of a chile relleno (stuffed chile) can be quite fattening as they're usually egg-batter coated, stuffed with meat and/or cheese fillings that are high in calories, and then fried. We have come up with a lower call stuffing - the picadillo in this recipe - and we make an egg-white batter before baking them in the oven.

Picadillo is a ground meat filling to which diced potatoes, carrots, onions and other vegetables can be added. It can be highly seasoned, and I learned to make it with a handful of raisins thrown into the mixture. I learned this from an older cook in Guadalajara, Doña Sara, but saw it repeated in several restaurants and other homes over the years. Other homes I've stayed in simply filled the chile poblano with a slice of white cheese, and there is a restaurant in Houston that fills them with nuts, squash and raisins.

Once the chile relleno is stuffed, we lay them side-by-side in a greased casserole dish. We then whip the egg-whites into a frothy foam and add one of the egg yolks in at the end just to give the batter some color. We pour this mixture over the chiles in the greased casserole, then bake them while we make a sauce out of a little of the leftover picadillo, tomato sauce, and onions.

CHILE RELLENOS DE PICADILLO are good served with rice on the side, but last night we went without the rice so that we could eat more of the good, fresh corn tortillas. We had been at the tortillería at the right moment. The fresh tortillas were literally coming right off the press, and someone came out to ask us if we'd like some fresh ones and how many of them did we want. We took two dozen and then ate 2-3 of them on our way home!

Pollo a la Parilla - 175

Several weeks ago Javier and I made a new batch of limoncello. I know, I know - not exactly Mexican, but bear with me for a moment or two. I learned how to make limoncello, an Italian lemon flavored liqueur, while I was in Argentina last summer, and now we love the stuff. It's not a very complicated process, but rather time consuming. You soak lemon peels in vodka for a couple of weeks, add a simple sugar syrup, let it stand another week (or two) and then strain it through cheesecloth into decanters. It's a wonderful dessert (and digestive) drink.

So, we end up with all of these peeled lemons which we then proceeded to juice. Now we had about 2 cups of straight lemon juice sitting in a jar in the refrigerator, and we start to look for a recipe - a Mexican recipe - that calls for lemon juice. Nothing comes to mind from the years of living in Mexico, and nothing pops out of the cookbooks except for a few fajita marinades that call for lime juice. This reminded us of the fact that we had received the lovely set of Mexican cooking spices from our daughter at Christmas, including on called fajita seasoning. We look on the side of the jar, and there it is...mix the seasoning with some olive oil and lemon juice, marinate the chicken, and grill for fajitas.

We weren't in the mood for the whole fajita routine of grilling the meat, peppers, and onions plus the tortillas, salsa, etc etc, last night, so we just marinaded a ton of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and breasts in the lemon juice / olive oil / fajita seasoning marinade, and then we grilled the chicken and served it along with some grilled calabacitas (Mexican squash). I have to say - that was the best chicken I've had in a long time, and I didn't feel that I was loading on the calories. We ate it hot off the parilla (grill) with the calabacitas and some leftover mashed potatoes.

A friend of ours, Teresa, joined us for dinner last night, so I also made a FLAN for dessert. FLAN is probably the most famous Mexican dessert, and it goes so good as a finish and a flourish to so many Mexican meals. Over the years I have learned to make it with fewer eggs and more nonfat or lowfat milk in attempt to cut the calories.

Sincronizadas - 176

The picture looks like a quesadilla, but it's really a SINCRONIZADA. ¿Cuál es la diferencia?

A quesadilla is your basic tortilla - either flour or corn - with melted cheese on the inside. They can be cooked on a grill, or fried in oil (usually the corn variety). You can add a number of ingredients to the quesadilla, such as meat, peppers, sliced tomatoes, squash blossoms, or salsa while they're cooking.

The quesadilla comes close to being the Mexican answer to our grilled cheese sandwich. Almost everyone knows how to make them, and loves to eat them. Personally, I prefer the corn tortilla variety with a good queso Chihuahua or queso Oaxaca. My favorite kind of salsa is a dark red one made from chile chipotles y tomatillos.

Restaurants have taken notice and are making a killing these days on quesadillas. Have you checked out the prices lately? A couple of our well-known local Mexican restaurants charge $7.95 and up for a plain cheese one, and if you add grilled chicken or beef, plan on paying around $10.95. Some places will also add grilled mushrooms, spinach, crabmeat, or shrimp, but at higher price point.

We make quesadillas here at home when we're too tired to cook anything else, or when we're finishing up some old tortillas and cheese. Any kind of cheese that melts nicely will do. Tonight's SINCRONIZADAS were a simple variation on this theme: they include thinly sliced ham and tomato with the cheese on the inside of the flour tortilla. We used some Monterrey Jack cheese and finished up the whole wheat, low-carb tortillas we've had for the past week.

We always serve quesadillas or SINCRONIZADAS with guacamole y salsa, and tonight was no exception. Tomorrow evening will be something much more exiting!

Caldo de mariscos - 177

Hola everyone...I'm running a little behind as I was under the weather for a few days and couldn't bring myself to think about food - much less write about it.

But, the night before the chills and fever began, we made a wonderful seafood soup known simply as CALDO DE MARISCOS. It's a rich seafood broth with garlic, onions, tomatoes, squash and carrots. I also added some hot peppers (see CALDO MICHI back in November) and added some cilantro towards the end when I added the mixed mariscos.

Mariscos is the general term for seafood. Rather than running around from seafood counter to seafood counter in a number of different grocery stores, I was able to buy a small bag of shellfish at our local Trader Joe's. It was a mixture of scallops, shrimp and squid. I add them right at the end so that they don't shrivel up too much, and don't lose their flavor.

It's traditional to serve a CALDO DE MARISCOS with arroz y tortillas, but since we'd already had rice a time or two in the previous week, we just went for the soup. Javier had tortillas, but I had seconds! El caldo fue muy sabroso y quedé satisfecha.

Burritos - 178

What's better than a burrito when you're hungry and in a hurry to eat something good?

Yesterday Javier had cooked up some lean pork in a Chile Colorado sauce, some frijoles pintos, and arroz. As soon as I got home from work, he heated up the comal where we always heat our tortillas, and we both assumed the position to assemble the BURRITOS for a quick supper.

Last night's BURRITOS featured a whole wheat, low-carb tortilla with beans, rice, and the Chile Colorado sauce. We also served some guacamole on the side. Gone are the days when we smothered our BURRITOS with sauce, chopped lettuce, diced tomatoes, grated cheese, sour cream AND guacamole. These days we're cooking with lean pork, beans cooked in water with seasonings (epazote, sal y pimienta), and brown rice cooked in water, a tiny bit of olive oil, and salt. Once you wrap everything together in the warmed tortilla - be it whole wheat or not - it's all good. You really can't tell that you're eating something totally healthy!

BURRITOS seem to enjoy more popularity in the US than in Mexico. I'm guessing, but I'd say the principal reason is the flour tortilla. I remember a time in Mexico when flour tortillas were hard to find in the interior of Mexico, and a BURRITO just isn't a burrito made in a corn tortilla. It would be more like an enchilada. Burritos have been popular in Northern Mexico for a longer period of time given the proximity to the US and the availability of wheat flour.

One of these days we may break the diet and eat a good, smothered burrito. In the meantime, we enjoyed picking up our burritos with our hands and enjoying a delicious meal!

Mexican Casserole #1 - 179

Sooner or later I knew that I'd have to confront the fact that I grew up in Southern California, and I grew up eating Mexican recipes that had been adjusted to appeal to north-of-the-border tastes. This might not be the appropriate forum for launching into a discussion of my mother's attempts to create "interesting and diverse" meals in our home. However, no discussion on this topic would be complete without a sidebar discussion on the ever-popular Mexican casserole that was served in hundreds of permutations during my childhood. My mother was responsible for about 5% of them, and they had names like Enchilada Casserole and Tamale Pie.

BUT - today's recipe came to me through my friend Mindy. When I was 17 years old, I had returned from an extended stay in Mexico and was invited to her home for dinner. In "honor" of my stay in Mexico, Mindy's mother served a Mexican casserole with salad and bread on the side. I have always remembered this delicious casserole and her mother's way of saying "welcome home." Mindy's mother, Suzanne, got this recipe from the Pasadena Prefers (1965) cookbook.

Mindy sent me the recipe when I started this porject. It is a combination of simple ingredients: ground beef, tomatoes, tortillas, green chiles, cheese and seasonings. Javier and I made one major adjustment to the recipe: we used LEAN ground turkey rather than ground beef because that's what we had on hand. It was still delicious, and Javier - the real Mexican in the family - gave it a 10 on a scale of 10. When I asked him if he thought any Mexican would enjoy eating this kind of casserole, he said - yes, of course. I also thought it was quite spicy, and not bland like some Mexican-style casseroles.

We ate the casserole with some guacamole on top of each serving. It is easy to cut it into squares and serve it out of the casserole dish in the same way you'd serve lasagne.

By the way, if you have a great recipe for a Mexican casserole, please send it along. I'd love to try several others during this project, and I'll give your recipe a plug.

Pechugas de Pollo en Crema Poblana - 180

If you read yesterday's blog about HUEVOS CON MIGAS, you may have noticed that I mentioned having charred and peeled some chiles poblanos. We had done so because I had been planning to make the PECHUGAS DE POLLO EN CREMA POBLANA for a few days, and the main ingredient for the crema were the chiles poblanos. In case you've never done this grilling / charring process followed by the peeling and seeding of the chiles, I will include a link at the end of today's blog.

Before I launch into the recipe and techniques, I need to give some credit to Señora Lourdes en Morelia, Michoacán, México. I stayed with Lourdes, her husband Carlos, and her two grandchildren for three weeks while I was chaperoning a group to Morelia. She was a very good cook, and I don't think we ever had the same meal twice in three years. When I left, she made me a gift of a nicely photocopied version of her favorite cookbook, which had gone out of print years before. She will never know how much that gift has meant to me. The PECHUGAS DE POLLO EN CREMA POBLANA is a recipe from her kitchen.

Since our skies had cleared up considerably yesterday, Javier was able to light the grill to do the chiles outdoors, but an added "bonus" was being able to grill the chicken breasts - las pechugas de pollo - on the grill, too. As soon as they were done grilling (having been very lightly seasoned with sal y pimienta) we locked them into a plastic container with their own juices to keep them moist for dinner.

The CREMA POBLANA is made by blending the charred and peeled chiles poblanas (about 2-3 of them) with 1 clove of garlic, 1/2 cup of cream, a small amount of the juices that were retained in the plastic container (about 1 T), some sea salt, cilantro, and a tiny bit of oregano. The idea is to blend it all into a creamy, smooth sauce to serve over the grilled chicken breasts. I reheated them in a non-stick skillet, thenpoured the blended sauce over all, covered the skillet, and allowed it all to heat through for about 20 minutes.

Normally I would serve this dish with rice, but since we'd had rice (and even an ARROZ CON POLLO dinner a couple of nights before) I decided to make some boiled potatoes. They were boiled in between a just done and an about-to-fall-apart stage that made them perfect for absorbing the CREMA POBLANA sauce. I also sauteed some onions and yellow and green squash to go on the side. Javier ate his pollo with some corn tortillas, but I'm still trying to mount a successful defense against the holiday pounds! No es tan fácil...

Here is a link for roasting (charring) and peeling the chiles poblanos:
http://www.learn2grow.com/projects/edibles/recipes/RoastedGreenChiles.aspx

Huevos con migas - 181

Breakfast was Mexican this morning. Javier had roasted some chile poblanos on the grill for a recipe I'm making for dinner tonight, and I spotted them sitting in the refrigerator awaiting their trip into the blender as part of a poblana sauce that will be served over chicken.

HUEVOS CON MIGAS is a good breakfast recipe that we discovered for the first time on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, TX years ago. They were so good that we found a recipe and made them over and over again for several years, but then somehow forgot about them.

To start with, you need 1-2 chiles poblanos. These are the large, dark green "waxy" looking kind found in the chile pepper area of a produce department in most grocery stores. Once the chiles poblanos have been roasted, blistered, and peeled you can cut the limp flesh of the pepper into strips, which become the migas in this recipe. If you find seeds or veins on the inside of the roasted peppers, it's a good idea to discard them.

Next, you sauté the migas in a little olive oil while you beat some eggs. I usually beat 3 eggs for the two of us and add 1-2 T of water as I'm beating them full of air.

Finally, you scramble the eggs into the migas, which by now have heated through nicely and are probably causing you to cough mildly as you sauté them. When the eggs are scrambled the way you like them ( barely or well done) you can serve the HUEVOS CON MIGAS with some hot corn tortillas, salsa, and some crumbled queso fresco. It's an easy, healthy breakfast that we should eat more often - and one that I hadn't thought about in years.

Arroz con pollo - 182

This has been a hard week to come up with ideas for meals. Coming off of the holidays, all I could think about was eating less, not more. Our budget was tight, so we couldn't go out and buy all of the ingredientes we wanted to use. It was also my first week of the Winter term (I teach Spanish at the local community college), and so my mind was on work and not so much on food. All of the meals we ate and that I've written about were good, but I was eating to live and not the other way around. Now I'm ready to rebound, and have already started searching the back of my brain for other recipes that we have used and enjoyed.

ARROZ CON POLLO is sort of a Latin American (and Spanish) standard. There are as many versions as there are cooks, I'm sure. Javier used to make ARROZ CON POLLO with white rice, tomato sauce, cooked vegetables (carrots, celery, onions and bell peppers) and then put it all into a casserole dish, top it with cheese, and then bake it until the cheese had melted. This got the kids enthused about ARROZ CON POLLO, but being a cheese lover, it made me happy, too.

For last night's version, Javier used brown rice and the few tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, garlic, and some celery that we had on hand. Yes, we are still watching a budget AND eating things from the freezer, so he didn't run out and pick up any other ingredients. The chicken was some of the shredded breast meat we made in early December when we made our own chicken stock. It was time to finish it up as we continue to clean out the freezer.

As I watched him make this dish and sipped my wine, I couldn't muster a lot of enthusiasm for another night of cleaning out the freezer and using what we have on hand. But - the meal turned out great y fue muy delicioso. Se lo recomiendo a todos! (And when I say that I recommend it to everyone, I don't mean just the ARROZ CON POLLO. I also think that the using things up / cleaning things out combos actually work well sometimes)

Chuletas de Borrego - 183

Let's not be mysterious here...CHULETAS DE BORREGO means "lamb chops." We had some trouble finding a Mexican recipe for grilled lamb chops, so if you know of one, please pass it along. What we ended up doing was grilling them, and then making a sauce of yerba buena (mint leaves) and charred jalapeños to serve on the side. They were absolutely delicious, as was the sauce, and we served them with some grilled butternut squash, potatoes and onions on the side. Wish I had more to say about this dinner, but simplicity ruled the day. If I had any comment to make on the negative side it would be that the mint / jalapeño sauce was really spicy. It didn't overpower the flavor of the lamb, but came close. Maybe one half of a pepper will do the trick next time!

In Guadalajara the best way to eat lamb is in birria. I'll write more about that recipe and where you can eat it in Guadalajara when we make it some day. Chops are not the right kind of meat to use, and we didn't have the time or ingredients yesterday to make it...

Sopa de Lentejas - 184

Javier and I met when we worked together at a Mexican restaurant years ago. Javier worked in the kitchen and I worked in the office, although before that I had waited tables and seated guests as a hostess. No matter what job you're paid to do in a restaurant, you somehow end up learning several others. If I'd had to, I could have bussed tables, mixed drinks, and probably cooked up a few of the orders behind the line. (In a variation of this idea that everyone in a restaurant can do another's job, I remember our regular maintenance man coming by to work on something one day, then dropping by the office to tell us how to increase our sales in the dining room).

When I started at this job, we were told we could eat anything off the menu for half price, OR we could eat all of the soup and salad that we liked. The problem with this arrangement in a Mexican restaurant is that after a couple of weeks, everything starts tasting the same. Even the soup and salad start tasting like enchiladas. The soup we could help ourselves to was SOPA DE LENTEJAS, so after several years of eating this soup several times every week, it was years before I could eat it again. The first time I re-introduced myself to LENTEJAS was in Spain. Their lentils are not quite as flat (or lens shaped) as the kind I was used to in the Mexican restaurant. The were round little beads, and the soup was made with sausages (chorizos) and chunks of potatoes. It was really good, and I made it this way for several years after returning from Spain. Trouble was, the Spanish lentejas were very expensive. So, I recently bought some of the usual, run-of-the-mill variety and decided to cook some SOPA DE LENTEJAS just like the one we used to eat at the restaurant and like the ones that are typically served in homes.

Ours is a totally vegetarian variety made with the lentejas, onions, carrots, celery, garlic and some zucchini squash that we put in at the last along with 1/2 cup of a thin tomato puree. The SOPA DE LENTEJAS turned out very rich, thick and delicious - perfect for a cold winter day in Central Oregon - and with no bad memories attached to the Mexican restaurant!

Hamburguesas Yurirenses - 185

One of the things that the kids used to always like about traveling to their Dad's hometown in Mexico was the opportunity to eat better hamburgers than they could eat in the U.S. I have to concur...those hamburguesas in Yuriria (Javier's hometown in the state of Guanajuato) were very good. They were sold off a cart on the corner of a street in the central area of Yuriria, a town at that time of about 15,000 people. Someone told me recently that they guys (they're twins) who run this cart have occupied this same corner for over 30 years.

First I'll tell you about the HAMBURGUESAS YURIRENSES in their classical, Mexican preparation and then I'll tell you about the adjustments we've made to make them fit into our new way of eating. On the cart, the vendor has a freezer compartment where he keeps the hamburger patties. They are wafer thin and separated by small sheets of waxed paper. As people order these - and there is usually a crowd around the cart - he throws them down on the grill with a sizzling pat of butter and starts asking what everyone wants on their burger. The secret isn't just the thin patty sizzling on butter, but the toppings which have all been finely diced. You can have tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, shredded lettuce, catsup, mayonnaise, and mustard all piled on to the bun (which has been toasted on the grill in another pat of butter). Another one of their specialties is roasting a weiner on the grill, finely dicing it, and adding it to the pile between the buns. These HAMBURGUESAS YURIRENSES are big, but due to the amount of toppings piled on the thin-grilled-in-butter patty, which has all but disappeared in the toasted, buttery bun.

For our dinner last night, we first started with lean turkey, and seasoned it well before shaping it into patties. We grilled it on our griddle that had been lightly greased with olive oil. (I would have loved butter). We found some thin, whole grain buns at COSTCO last week, which after toasting on the grill without butter, we covered with the finely diced items mentioned above, but only used minimal amounts of catsup, mustard, and mayo. They were very good, although I have to admit that nothing beats the original combined with the experience of standing on the street corner in Yuriria and wolfing down burgers with about 10-15 other people!

Caldo Tlalpeño - 186

*The pictures from last night's dinner did not turn out well - too much glare on the surface of the soup that no amount of editing could fix - so if you'd like to see what CALDO TLALPEÑO looks like, please check it out on Google Images. I apologize...

One of the things that I have always liked about being in Mexico is the concept of eating your big meal in the middle of the day, and then having something lighter for dinner. If you don't take a long siesta (another magical concept) after your large midday meal, then it really is healthier to eat big during the day when you have time to work or walk it off, and save the lighter fare for the evening.

In most of the homes I've stayed in while living in Mexico, dinner often consisted of a small sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk or a cup of tea; a pan dulce with a cup of hot chocolate; a couple of small, corn tortilla quesadillas with a soda; or even a couple of small enchiladas made from leftovers from the earlier midday meal. In the first home I stayed in - the one that served us the same toast, strawberry jelly, fresh orange juice and tea for breakfast every morning - we had a ham sandwich with mayonnaise and mustard on toasted white bread (the beloved Pan Bimbo), and a cup of hot tea every night for 6 weeks. I don't want to say that I got sick of it, but a couple of evenings I ducked out for some "studying" and some taquitos de carne asada around the corner from where we lived.

No question about it - sin duda - the meals that I had in the middle of the day, and in all of the homes I stayed in, were always large, imaginative, filling and delicious.

So, yesterday we decided to make a CALDO TLALPEÑO, a recipe that I learned to make while living for 2 weeks with a family in Monterrey, Mexico, and eat our meal in the afternoon. The woman that I lived with in Monterrey, Señora Rosa, was not only one of the nicest people I've ever met anywhere, but also a very good cook who showed me how to make several of her family's favorites. CALDO TLALPEÑO is very similar to Caldo de Pollo, except for two additions: garbanzo beans and a chile chipotle. The one I made yesterday had chicken legs (which for me have the best meat), zucchini squash, carrots, butternut squash, cilantro, and the garbanzos added at the end.

I had some dried chiles chipotles on hand which I had re-hydrated in a small jar of water the day before. I cut one in two with kitchen scissors and then put one half in the bottom of our soup bowls before ladling the soup, vegetables and chicken leg on top. Normally we would eat this meal with Mexican rice and tortillas, but we are really pulling back on the calories and decided to just eat the caldo yesterday.

Our afternoon meal was so satisfying yesterday that we ended up sharing a bowl of popcorn for dinner as we watched a movie on TV!

Omelet de mariscos - 187

This morning we wanted something different, slightly "exotic." and high in protein for breakfast. I'm headed to the gym in a few moments, so I wanted a big Mexican desayuno (breakfast) that wouldn't wear off ten minutes into my workout.

In the refrigerator, I found some crabmeat and shrimp left over from dinner on New Year's Eve, and I decided to use them in an egg-based dish served with some new tortillas that we bought at Whole Foods the other day. They are called "The Original 100% Flourless Ezekiel 4:9 New Mexico Style Sprouted Grain Tortillas." Try saying that quickly three times!

To go with the omelette and newfangled tortilla desayuno, I also decided to serve oranges and some homemade pico de gallo salsa. All pico de gallo salsas are variations on a theme of tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, and cilantro with have been coarsely chopped and are then served on the side of a meal.

I made a thick 3-egg omelette then added a small amount (2 T) of crumbled queso. Once the cheese started to melt and stick to the egg, I added the seafood, and proceeded to fold over my omelette. As it cooked I warmed up the new tortillas on the comal, then served everything together on a plate as pictured. The omelette was delicious, but those new tortillas get hard as you heat them. If you don't heat them enough, I'm sorry to say that they look like they're undercooked. (The one in the picture looks like it was made from the same stuff they use to make granite kitchen countertops). I'm sure we'll get used to them gradually, but I'm still a huge fan of good tortillas de maíz.

Arroz y Frijoles - 188

Here's a dinner that both vegetarians and meat lovers can enjoy from time to time ~

What to make when you just don't want to eat meat, when you just don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and when you're hungry for something filling? ARROZ Y FRIJOLES, por supuesto. This is one of the simplest and most satisfying Mexican meals around, and every time we have it for dinner I ask myself why we don't eat this way more often.

The other day I had cooked up a whole mess of frijoles pintos for the FRIJOLES CHARROS recipe I made and posted online, so I still had a lot of beans (without meat) leftover. As I heated them, I seasoned them with salt and some homemade salsa. This gives them a warmer color and they taste better, too. While we played a couple of games of Mexican Train Dominoes, I cooked some brown rice, but any kind of rice you like will do.

We always eat our ARROZ Y FRIJOLES con guacamole, tortillas de maíz, y salsa. Because I am (once again) trying to lose weight, I have limited myself to two tortillas per day. Last night I had them with my dinner, making tacos out of the frijoles, arroz, y guacamole. I had to skip the salsa because I'd had an upset stomach all day, but whatever was in the rest of the meal seemed to have the opposite effect. Right after eating, I felt better - better than I'd felt all day.

I am also posting a picture of some bottled salsa called Poblana I received a few weeks ago for my birthday. It is bottled in Tucson, AZ and has chiles habañeros listed as the first ingredient. Javier had it on his tacos (also made with frijoles, arroz y guacamole) and said it was good, although he prefers salsas made without vinegar. He also commented on how delicious the meal was despite its simplicity.

Carne deshebrada / Shredded beef - 189

The other day we bought a small beef roast at Whole Foods, but had no idea what we were going to do with it when we bought it. I decided to try out a new recipe from a new Mexican cookbook that my friend Susan sent me for my birthday in November. It looked relatively easy to fix, but we weren't sure how we'd serve it....

SHREDDED BEEF TACOS / Tacos de carne deshebrada came to mind as we looked through the pictures in the cookbook. We had all of the ingredients - shredded cabbage, salsa, avocado and corn tortillas to make unos tacos muy sabrosos. It seemed like a no-brainer. But, I decided to make one major change in the recipe, which I now regret. I cooked the beef roast with the seasonings, onions and carrots in my crock pot rather than the oven. Once it was finished and we were eating the tacos, Javier commented that it was tasty, but over-cooked. He was right. I thought it could have been más picante.

Changing the subject a bit, for Christmas my daughter Erica gave me a boxed gift set of Mexican spices from a shop called Savory Spice Shop in Denver, CO. We have tried 4-5 of them since returning, and they all seem to be high quality. The Mexican gift set was packed very attractively, and forgive me, Erica, but I checked the price on this item and found it to be very reasonable. Therefore, I would like to pass along their web address so that my readers can check it out:

http://www.savoryspiceshop.com/giftshop/mexican.html

Frijoles Charros - 190

Feliz Año Nuevo #2 - I just had to write again today because we ate something SO GOOD for our afternoon meal...

After returning from our trip, I went through the freezer to see what was left. There is still some Thanksgiving turkey, some shredded chicken, an Argentine chorizo, a ham bone, a lot of frozen spinach, and some Tupperware containers full of CHILE VERDE that Javier made in November. I think to myself - let's continue to use up leftovers and create some interesting Mexican meals for the New Year. Using up leftovers doesn't have to be something we do only before a trip.

Last November we bought a 20-lb sack of frijoles pintos, so one of our challenges will be to use them up in interesting ways. We decided to make FRIJOLES CHARROS (roughly translated this means "Cowboy beans") and luckily we had everything on hand. After soaking the pinto beans, we cooked them with the ham bone (which had a lot of meat on it), sliced onions, garlic, and seasonings. We made sure they were cooked with a lot of broth so that we could eat these beans as a soup rather than a side dish. When the beans were finally cooked, we also added 1 cup of salsa that I'd made the day before.

I'm glad we this meal as a soup because it is so cold and snowy here in Central Oregon and the beans and their broth were so delicious. Javier shredded the ham from the bone into the beans, and then we garnished our soup bowls with some crumbled feta cheese and some pickled jalapeño peppers. Not only was this a delicious, lowfat meal to eat on a cold day, but also a very economical one.

Coctel "Vuelve a la Vida" - 191

¡Feliz Año Nuevo a todo el mundo! Today we continue our own form of countdown as we continue to create and enjoy what is left of the 240 days of eating Mexican food.

¿Por qué 240 días? Why the 240 days? Well, when we started this blog we figured that we had time to eat Mexican food 240 times before leaving for Argentina in June. Since we have fallen behind a bit over the holidays, we may have to pack a couple of meals into a single day and blog twice. All the more fun, but hopefully not more calories....

VUELVE A LA VIDA means a "return to life," and here we are in 2010, returning poco a poco to our routines, our everyday lives that somehow get put on hold during the holidays. So, the COCTEL VUELVE A LA VIDA is one way to remind myself to get back to normal, shake off the holiday feelings (both good and bad) and get on with things.

This COCTEL is made up of seafood, such as shrimp, scallops, crabmeat, squid, octopus, or even clams, that have been slightly steamed. They are mixed together with avocado, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, lime juice and some kind of tomato sauce / juice. Last night we used Spicy V-8, and it was good, but Javier said that another time we might try using Clamato as they do some places in Mexico. It can be served with either crackers or tostadas. We had saltine crackers last night because that's what we had on hand - a large box of Saladitas.

By the way, I'm happy to be back at my blog. I tried to work on it over the holidays, but was confronted by several technical difficulties in addition to a lack of private, quiet work space.