Chile Verde - 211

OK, so enough with the turkey for a few days. It was time for something different.

How different? We decided to make CHILE VERDE because we had a lean pork roast in the freezer, and most of the other ingredients on hand. But Javier makes CHILE VERDE throughout the year with the same recipe, which he tweaks a little each time he makes it. It's never quite the same twice.

I asked him if he'd consent to finding another recipe and giving it a try. This he did by looking online as several of our cookbooks - for some unknown reason - don't have recipes for CHILE VERDE. (And as I'm sitting here writing this, I just remembered another cookbook from New Mexico that's in a cupboard not getting much use. If I'd remembered to look there, we might have found yet another recipe for CHILE VERDE).

The results were very good last night, although I have to admit that after a week of eating, eating, eating (one birthday, Thanksgiving, two nights out, and leftovers) we sat down with less enthusiasm than is normal for us at mealtimes. CHILE VERDE is good served over rice, on top of a bean burrito, or ladled into a bowl of white posole (hominy), but we decided to just eat it out of a bowl topped with a little lowfat sour cream and a warm tortilla on the side. I think we had reached our saturation point - not of Mexican food, but of eating in general - for a few days, so may take a night off and eat something light tonight!

Enchiladas Suizas - 212

Still trying to use turkey in recipes...

Last night we had an old favorite - ENCHILADAS SUIZAS. It's such a simple recipe that it always makes me wonder why I don't make them more often. This time I diced onions, and sauteed them in a small skillet in some olive oil. I then added some of the cooked turkey meat just to warm it through and mix it up with the onions. I made a sauce out of green tomatillo salsa with some half & half added to make it smooth. I assembled the enchiladas (warmed and softened corn tortillas filled with the turkey/onion mixture) then lined them up in a Pyrex casserole dish. I then ladled the creamy tomatillo salsa onto the enchiladas, covered the casserole dish with foil, and put them in the oven to heat all the way through. We served them with brown rice and a green salad on the side.

Although we didn't do this last night, ENCHILADAS SUIZAS can be served on a plate with shredded lettuce, sliced radishes, crumbled queso fresco and a dab of cream. You can buy Crema Mexicana, but sour cream is another option. It's eye-pleasing to look at the light green enchiladas topped with the shredded green lettuce, sliced red radishes and a little spot of white cream. In today's picture you can see the enchiladas as they looked going into the oven.

Enchiladas don't have to be covered or full of melted cheese. The sauce should be allowed to stand out, and the cheese should be viewed as a garnish and not a main ingredient.

Posolillo - 213

OK - here come the turkey leftovers! After a day of running errands and a very late breakfast, we arrived at home scratching our heads over what to eat for a very late lunch. It only took a few minutes to come up with an idea, one that we had all of the ingredients on hand to make.

Several years ago I did a week long homestay in Morelia, Mexico with Lupita and her family. She's the one who taught me to make the ALBONDIGAS PICANTES and a few other dishes while I was there with them. The recipe we made yesterday, POSOLILLO, is one that has poultry and poultry stock as the main ingredients, with fresh corn, tomatillos, and chile poblanos in supporting roles. It is also one that calls for different garnishes - sliced or chopped radishes, thinly sliced cabbage, diced avocado, and lime wedges on the side. I suppose you can also add some nice queso fresco on the top, but we are still recovering from Wednesday evening's cheese based dinner.

I had plenty of turkey from the turkey we baked the other day, and some that we simmered on the stove top to make a nice, rich caldo (broth). Remember: we didn't eat Thanksgiving dinner at home, but did cook a turkey just to use for all of these Mexican dishes. To the cooked and shredded turkey and broth we added some roasted corn kernels, salt, pepper, and a puree made from tomatillos, chile poblanos and garlic. I always add a pinch of oregano before putting the lid on the pot and allowing it to simmer for an hour or so.

The final meal - a big bowl of steaming soup topped with shredded cabbage, radishes, avocado, and lime juice was just what we needed after the big Thanksgiving meal. I had de-greased my turkey broth and used breast meat in the soup plus vegetables. And, still feeling a bit full from the previous day's meal, we didn't need to serve tortillas on the side!

Pipian - 214

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and we had been invited to a potluck with some friends of ours. I had prepared a lovely quinoa salad with black beans, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, green onions, and parsley in a very light olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing. That was all I was going to do this year after many years of preparing Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends.

But...Javier couldn't resist the low price of good turkey, so he bought one on Tuesday. I always love the smell of a roasting turkey on Thanksgiving Day, and the house stays warm without using the heater or the woodstove.

I was just going to roast the turkey, then after it cooled cut the meat off the bones and package it up to be saved for future Mexican menus. On one of my trips into the kitchen I spotted some pumpkin seeds that Javier had saved from one of our other meals, so decided to toast them on our comal. One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was cooking PIPIAN, a wonderfully simple sauce using ground pumpkin seeds, two kinds of chiles (anchos and guajillos), cumin seed and garlic. Then I found a small package of organic zucchinis that I had bought a week ago that were at their peak, so decided to cook them up and serve them with the leftover red, yellow, and orange bell peppers in the PIPIAN.

The Thanksgiving potluck wasn't until 5:30 last night, so for a late (and light) lunch we ate some PIPIAN over some of the roast turkey and leftover brown rice. The rest of the sauce went over the vegetables, which we later packed up and took to the dinner along with the quinoa salad. They seemed to go over well as there was only a spoonful left in the dish when we brought it home last night.

On another note: the QUESO FUNDIDO the night before was a good idea to try out and write about, but too heavy on the calories despite using the turkey chorizo and a low-fat queso fresco. As of today, we go back to lighter, fresher and healthier Mexican eating!

Queso Fundido con Chorizo - 215

¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Before you sit down to the turkey and mashed potatoes, read about another Mexican menu ~

Yesterday morning we looked in the refrigerator to see what we could possibly have for dinner in the evening that 1) wouldn't be poultry with Thanksgiving coming up, and 2) would be something different to eat and write about. We found a brand new, still-in-the-wrapper queso fresco and decided to build a dinner menu around cheese. Hmmm...

I had once seen a recipe in one of my cookbooks for a round of cheese (as this was) that was marinated in olive oil and seasonings for 24 hours, then baked quickly before serving. The baking brought out the flavors in the marinade while softening the cheese to a point where it was spreadable. I also remembered being served a softened queso fundido in Mexico one time with cooked chorizo on the side. Queso fundido (or the Mexican version of cheese fondue) is typically made with another kind of cheese which I didn't have, but I did have some chorizo in the freezer.

I decided that I'd mix the two recipes together and see what we could come up with in less than a 24-hour marinating period. The "I" in this equation had to run off to work for the day, so I wrote things down and left Javier to sort them all out. When I got home from work, I discovered that he'd done a wonderful job of putting it all together. He'd marinated the cheese in a zipped plastic bag all day, then put it into the oven to bake 20 minutes before I got home. He'd cooked up the chorizo and had also prepared what we call an avocado relish. Not exactly guacamole, but made with the same ingredients. The only difference is that you don't mash the avocados. You just dice everything, season, and toss lightly.

Dinner was served with hot corn tortillas. The queso fundido con chorizo was in the middle of the table with the avocado relish and the basket of hot tortillas. We made up tacos using a thin slice of the seasoned and softened queso fresco, slices of chorizo, and spoonfuls of the avocado relish. It was another unique meal, one we'd overlooked making for most of our married years, but had enjoyed on trips to Mexico. It wasn't exactly economical considering the cost of the queso fresco, chorizo and avocados this time of year, but if you factor in the leftovers we'll be eating for a day or two, maybe so.

Camarones a la Mexicana - 216

I think this meal, CAMARONES A LA MEXICANA, goes down as another WOW. Javier made the whole dinner last night, and all I had to do before eating was pour myself a glass of white wine. He found the recipe in another one of our (older) Mexican cookbooks, one that we don't use very often because it's large, beautiful, and we've been afraid of ruining it in the kitchen. He found the recipe he was looking for, opened the cookbook on the dining room table, and went back and forth between the kitchen and the table as he fixed our dinner last night. This is not hard to do as our little kitchen is about 3-4 feet (depending on where you're standing) away from the dining room table. And it isn't really a dining room. It's an eating area off the living room and next to the kitchen. It's large - almost as large as the living room - but I would have preferred to have had some of its sqaure footage added to my tiny kitchen.

But back to the CAMARONES A LA MEXICANA. First Javier made the sauce, which is a combination of tomatoes, garlic, onions, and thyme in a small amount of olive oil. Then he sauteed the shrimp lightly in butter before adding them to the sauce. The whole trick is to not overcook the shrimp. The cooking of the shrimp in butter he did right as I walked in the door so they would not be tough and/or rubbery. They were perfect!

The shrimp dish was served over rice, and we had guacamole as a salad on the side. Dinner was perfect, one I will remember as 1) delicious, and 2) one I didn't have to make!

Sopita de Calabaza - 217

Another day, another sopita - which means another little soup.

We had made dinner plans last week, but canceled them yesterday when I realized how tired I was, how many papers I still had to grade, and how bad the weather was. It wasn't exactly a blizzard, but it was snowing off & on all day, and I just didn't feel like getting dressed in sweaters, coats, gloves and mittens.

We looked in the fridge and found a large carton of yellow winter squash that Javier had cut up several days before when we made the SOPA AZTECA. (That was the squash that he said had been so hard to cut into cubes) I had some chicken broth on hand, so I made a puree of the squash with the chicken broth and cilantro, and then served it with cut-up chile pasilla and grated cheese. The dark things that look like prunes floating in the soup are the chiles pasilla.

No, not the most inspiring day for cooking, especially after canceling a reservation for dinner at a very good local restaurant, but the sopita was good and filling.

Beef and Spinach Burritos - 218

Friday evening we took the night off when we had dinner over at one of my student's home. She and her husband prepared a slightly spicy Vietnamese Curry for dinner.

Saturday we ate lunch out at a new Mexican restaurant in Redmond, OR. It was good, but by good I don't mean outstanding. I also don't mean just okay. Javier had a green posole that we thought had too much cumin in it (but I also said that about the salsa served on the table with the chips) and I had a chile relleno and an enchilada de pollo that were good, but not over-the-top, out-of-this-world good. It's been a long time since I've eaten in a Mexican restaurant where the food was remarkable. The stuff we make at home is always better!

So for dinner last night I had decided to use some of the spinach from our garden that we'd frozen and some fresh ground beef to make BEEF AND SPINACH BURRITOS. This is a recipe I clipped out of a magazine years ago and prepared for the family in an effort to get the kids to eat more vegetables. Besides the spinach and ground beef, the meat is also seasoned with chili powder, salsa, and, yes - cumin. Yesterday I bought some tortillas made of whole wheat flour and corn so that I could experiment with them during the week. Last night we decided to start with the burritos. Earlier in the day we had put some pinto beans (frijoles) in the crock pot to cook so they'd be ready when we got home.

There are several things I could say about burritos, like the fact that they're not standard fare in most Mexican homes and yet seem to appear in dozens of permutations on Mexican restaurant menus. Most of them come smothered in a sauce of some kind, sour cream, chopped lettuce and melted cheese. There are all kinds of fillings, too. Last night we simply made the beef and spinach filling (see picture) and then rolled it into the newfangled tortillas with some grated Monterey Jack cheese and a heaping spoonful of light sour cream. We served the frijoles on the side in little dishes. It was a very filling meal, and one that I'll probably be repeating this week since I made way too much filling!

Albóndigas Picantes - 219

OK, so this just looks like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. You're probably thinking that I was just too tired to cook Mexican food last night, so I defrosted a some meatballs out of a frozen plastic bag from Costco, poured some Ragu spaghetti sauce over them, served them up on a plate, and then took a picture while trying to think up some original Mexican name for them.

Partially true. I was tired last night, and these were frozen meatballs - albóndigas in Spanish - but they were prepared from a recipe I got from Lupita in Morelia, México in 2005. I made a huge amount of them at the end of the summer, so we froze half of them. And, yes, we did have to think up a name for them, ALBONDIGAS PICANTES, because I don't think Lupita called them anything special beyond albóndigas.

But, here's what's special about this recipe: the albóndigas have a little bit of chopped mint leaves in them, and the sauce is a rich tomato sauce flavored with chipotle chiles.

After our experience earlier in the week with frozen sauce (the tomatillo sauce that we served over chicken that I didn't think had much flavor) I was almost afraid to go this route again. Last night's dinner was great, and very picante - just the way we like it.

I will always remember the day that Lupita made this dish: I had been suffering from a migraine that morning, so her daughter went to the pharmacy and got me some pills that were just for migraines. I took them (I would have taken anything at that point to stop the pain), fell asleep all morning, and when I woke up, the migraine was gone. I went downstairs and Lupita and her family had already eaten, but she'd saved me some of the spaghetti and meatballs in this hot & spicy sauce. This is just one of several recipes she gave me that summer, and I will be posting others as this progresses.

Desayuno mexicano - 220

Today I thought I'd show you what one (but just one) of our breakfasts looks like. This picture shows a little more than we usually eat, our typical desayuno mexicano being just the hot chocolate and the bolillo, and not the tamales. As you may remember, the tamales were sent home with me by one of my students, and my husband couldn't wait to heat them on the comal and eat them with his morning chocolate.

Our Mexican hot chocolate is usually the Abuelita or Ibarra brand, but from time to time we've had homemade as well as specialty-shop hot chocolate tablets given to us by friends who have traveled to Mexico. For anyone unfamiliar with Mexican hot chocolate, it is made from a tablet of chocolate which is made with ground cocoa, almonds, cinnamon, and vanilla. These tablets are made especially for melting into hot milk. Javier grew up poor, so he has always made his hot chocolate with half milk, half water. Fewer calories, I tell myself.

I like to dip my bolillo in my cup of hot chocolate while I'm eating it. Javier loves it with tamales or bolillos, but the he loves the outer corn husks slightly burned on the comal when the tamales are re-heated. (Some people heat them in a microwave, but Javier refuses. He swears that the burnt outer corn husk impart a special flavor).

Please note the pottery cups. My good friend Janet Matson is helping us re-do our set of dishes little by little. I have a small set of Ken Edwards pottery from Tonalá, México and she is helping us round out the set with mugs, plates, bowls, and serving pieces. I'll write more about the Ken Edwards pottery in future postings, but for now please note Janet's bowls and plates in other pictures!

Sopa Azteca - 221

First ~ credit for this recipe goes to my friend, Susan. We make it a little differently than the recipe she sent me years ago, but still...it was her idea.

Second ~ the squash in the soup came right out of our garden. As Javier was cutting it and having difficulty cutting through the tough rind, he said that it might have been easier to chop up a coconut!

Third ~ Javier also gets credit for cooking dinner last night. I was not in the mood to do anything after a night of 4 hours of sleep and a 10 hour workday!

SOPA AZTECA is a good, vegetarian meal. The main ingredients - stock, cubed winter squash and corn - are cooked together, and then the soup bowls, once served, are garnished with diced avocados, salsa, crumbled (or diced) cheese, and crispy tortilla strips or chips. My friend Susan's recipe also called for toasted walnuts and/or pine nuts and chopped cilantro, but we were out of nuts and had added enough cilantro to the salsa to flavor the soup.

The perfect meal to end a perfectly lousy day! (And apologies for a picture that's not too clear)

Pollo en Salsa de Tomatillo - 222

In looking back over the pictures of some of the meals we've been eating, I'll bet you're all wondering what's happening to our weight. In all honesty, my weight has been going down due to two factors. One, I've adjusted all of our meals to include lean cuts of meat, minimal amounts of oil, and where dairy products are called for (usually as garnish) I have cut amounts in half. When we use chicken broth, we buy the cartons of organic fat free broth, and when we make our own, we make it from skinned chicken breasts, and then skim off all of the fat it before using it in any of our recipes. Same goes for beef. In a couple of recipes you've seen, you may see what looks like grease floating on the surface of a soup, but this is only olive oil that was used to sauté onions or garlic. In some recipes, like the one we're having tonight, we'll leave out the meat completely.

The second factor effecting a small weight loss has been the use of lots of vegetables in all of our recipes. Where we've cut back on the dairy, such as crema mexicana, we've added in more vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, squash, cabbage and carrots to give our meals flavor.

Last night's dinner is a perfect example of an almost fat free meal. We made POLLO EN SALSA DE TOMATILLO from a tomatillo sauce that only had roasted tomatillos, serrano peppers, cooked onions, cilantro and a small amount of garlic. (By the way, how many of you knew that the tomatillo is NOT a member of the tomato family? It's more closely related to a gooseberry!) The chicken was breast meat that we had grilled lightly, and the potatoes were boiled potatoes. We ate the meal over white rice (leftover ARROZ COSTEÑO) and it was the worst offender on the menu last night because it was made with olive oil and the rice wasn't brown.

That's all of the good news. Now for the bad news. Because our tomatillo salsa had been made at the end of the summer with things from the farmer's market, we had frozen it to use at a later time. I don't think we'll do that again as much of the flavor had disappeared into the freezer. Most noticeable was the lack of any kick from the serrano peppers. At the time I made the sauce, I remember it being quite spicy. The cilantro was muted as well. As I ate dinner last night, I kept telling myself that I was just tired and that it was probably good, but Javier noted the same lack of intensity. So, the picture looks as it should, but the flavor had gone missing. We'll remember to make it fresh next time!

Ceviche - 223

Remember a couple of weeks ago when we were supposed to attend a party, and I was going to take CEVICHE? That was the day I felt sick and ended up going to bed for the afternoon. I was probably tired, nothing more, as it never developed into anything serious.

Our host for that party - and the birthday girl, Renata - made a comment about her husband being "disappointed" about not having the CEVICHE at their party that day, so I told them we'd have them over for dinner and feature it on our menu.

Renata is a vegetarian, although she'll eat some seafood. So, I planned a shrimp CEVICHE, SOPA TARASCA (again), and a FLAN for dessert. All three of these recipes I know how to make with one hand tied behind my back and a blindfold over my eyes. (I should take a picture of that today rather than the CEVICHE)

In case you're curious, CEVICHE is typically made from raw fish that is marinated - or cooked, as some say - in large amounts of lime (or other citrus fruit) juice. I usually use shrimp which has been slightly steamed, but is not overcooked and rubbery. To the shrimp and large amounts of lime juice I add finely diced tomato, white onion, a serrano pepper, and cilantro. I also add small amounts of olive oil, salt and pepper. Last night I included a finely diced half of an avocado left over from the day before and I wanted to use it up. CEVICHE is traditionally served upon tostada shells, but last night I served it with some blue corn tortilla chips.

Some people eat CEVICHE on a tostada as a meal, and some make it out of tuna or fake crabmeat. No worries there about whether or not the "raw" fish is marinating enough!

Day off + tortas + Espinazo - 225 y 224

Friday the 13th we took one day off from Mexican food, although not deliberately. As dinner time approached, I realized that I was too tired to cook, and nothing in the refrigerator or freezer looked appetizing, so we decided to head out to one of the many neighborhood happy hours. For under $30 we were able to each enjoy a couple of drinks, share an order of kobe beef sliders (tiny little hamburgers), an order of swimmers (tiny little salmon sandwiches) and some steamed clams. The whole experience was made better by the fact that one of my Spanish students waited on us.

But back to Mexican food - and we were by Saturday. While we were out grocery shopping in the morning I found some fresh bolillos (hard French rolls) so decided they could be used for tortas at lunch time. Our tortas were made from a slightly toasted bolillo, melted cheese, leftover chicken fajita meat, sliced avocados, sliced tomatoes and pickled jalapeño peppers. We only had mayonnaise on hand, which they often use (and love) in Mexico, but the preferred way to make a torta is with crema mexicana and even some frijoles mashed and spread onto the bolillo before piling on the other ingredients.

When I was a student in Guadalajara, Mexico between 1970 -1974, we used to buy tortas at a little neighborhood place. You could get almost any kind of meat (chicken, ham, pork, beef, tongue, etc) you wanted on your torta, and back then and there they were called lonches. They were so inexpensive back then that we used to buy and eat them as snacks!

Enough about lunch and lonches. Dinner was another treat from the past, actually a recipe I learned from that same era. ESPINAZO is a beef soup (or caldo, meaning broth) made from beef shanks or oxtails. I make my broth using the shanks, water, garlic, onion, black peppercorns, the heart of a cabbage, and a sprinkling of epazote. Later in the process, I de-fat the broth, add a puree of chile California y chile pasilla, then finally the vegetables. I used ears of corn, zucchini, carrots, and one chayote.

I hope you can see from the picture that the soup is really good! If we hadn't had the big tortas for lunch earlier in the day, we would have eaten our bowls of ESPINAZO with some rice on the side, adding it to the broth and vegetables as we ate. Last night we just squeezed a little lime juice into our soup and enjoyed it with some hot corn tortillas!

Sobras otra vez

¡Buenos días! These are teleras to the right. But more about them later...

This is going to happen every so often. We have to eat up leftovers, or sobras, as they're called in Spanish. Last night we used some of the chicken fajita meat sliced thinly and put it inside of some corn tortilla QUESADILLAS, which we then served with sliced avocado, frijoles, and salsa. It was a simple dinner that took us about 5-10 minutes to make, 15 minutes to devour.

A note on breakfast/desayuno: some mornings we stick with a traditional cup of Mexican hot chocolate with a whole wheat bolillo (Mexican roll, like a hard crusty French bread on the outside, soft white bread on the inside). It's hard to get good, traditional bolillos anywhere in Central Oregon, but we've found some that are good enough. Last week at one of the local grocery stores that caters to our growing Mexican population here in Bend we were able to find whole wheat teleras. These are also hard rolls, but they're shaped differently. They're great for making Mexican sandwiches called tortas.

Other mornings for breakfast we've had egg dishes, quesadillas, or little breakfast tacos. I will be writing more about these later and will provide some recipes and ideas for more authentic Mexican breakfasts!

Pescado Empanizado - 226

Yesterday I had some fish defrosting for dinner. I'd purchased some Dover sole because it looked good and was inexpensive. In Spanish it's called lenguado.

Earlier that morning I had put some frijoles on to cook, and figured I'd make some kind of rice to go with dinner. My challenge was to do something with the fish. Something good.

Javier and I had been out for lunch yesterday, too, and had enjoyed some delicious tacos de carne asada, de carnitas, y de barbacoa. Between us we ate 5 tacos with some guacamole on the side and a Sidral (apple soda). Our total bill came to $7.00. This little neighborhood place, which is within walking distance from our house, will remain on our list of places to eat - unlike the place we ate at last week.

But back to the lenguado defrosting at home...I couldn't find a single recipe for a Mexican way to cook this fish in any of my cookbooks or online. Sure, there were recipes from Spain and Argentina, but I wanted to stay in Mexican mode last night.

So, what did I do? I breaded and fried the fish, made a salsa to go with it, and found an interesting new recipe for rice. Now, we usually do not eat fried foods - especially at home since the house will adopt the odor for a few days - so I don't know what I was thinking. Some of the best fried fish I've ever eaten has been in Mexico, so maybe I was hoping to duplicate something I'd eaten years ago in Manzanillo. My version turned out OK, but the new rice recipe, ARROZ COSTEÑO, was the winner last night.

Fajitas de Pollo - 227

Javier spent most of yesterday making chicken broth. We had been going through carton after carton of broth for some of the soups we make that call for chicken broth in the recipes, so decided to make our own and freeze it until needed. He decided to keep a couple of chicken breasts out of the broth and use them for dinner, which turned out to be CHICKEN FAJITAS. To be honest, I prefer BEEF FAJITAS, but since we've cut back on the amount of beef we eat (and just had it last Saturday with the CHILE COLORADO, even though they were only small chunks) the CHICKEN FAJITAS were a good second choice.

Actually, they were better than just "a good second choice." They were excellent last night. Javier has his own marinade that he's been using for years, a recipe that he learned while working in the restaurant business. Despite colder temperatures here in Central Oregon, he grilled the marinated chicken breasts outside on the grill, and then transferred the sliced meat to a sizzling hot skillet (almost like a wok) full of sliced bell peppers and onions, which had just started to become translucent. From there they went straight to the table, and as you can see from the picture, they were HOT.

Restaurants serve fajitas with a number of side dishes - beans, rice, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, tortillas - but we just eat them with hot corn tortillas, salsa, and guacamole. During our dinner we discussed how authentic fajitas really were, and I'm not sure that they are at all. One of these days when I have a little spare time, I'll try to dig into the history of fajitas and see what I can find...

Tamales - 228

Last night a student brought tamales to class for all of us to enjoy. I knew he was going to bring them, so I'd prepared a Power Point lecture on the history of some typical Mexican ingredients (corn, avocados, tomatoes, chocolate, etc) that we could watch while we ate the tamales his mother had made for the class. His offer to bring the tamales came out of the blue, so we graciously accepted, this being a Culture and Conversation class. Another student brought pico de gallo (a tomato, onion, serrano pepper and cilantro fresh salsa), and another brought empanadas for dessert. I arrived with horchata, the refreshing rice drink famous throughout Mexico but with roots in the Middle East and Spain.

Earlier in the day I reminded Javier not to bother with dinner and that I would try and bring him a tamale if there were any leftovers. At the end of class I was given 10 to bring home, and we froze 5 of them that were wrapped tightly in foil and plastic, and started heating 2-3 for Javier's dinner. I made a quick little sauce to go over them while he rubbed his hands together waiting to eat.

Javier thought they were very good, very similar to something he would be served at home in Mexico. They weren't greasy and had just the right amount (small) of the pork filling that is fairly traditional in homemade tamales. I am including a picture of the tamales as he saw them right before sitting down to eat! (He may have one for breakfast this morning, but without the sauce)

Sopa de Habas - 229

The stomach ache and the disappointment over the previous night's CHILE COLORADO both disappeared in time for dinner last night. This one was another winner, one that made me realize how I love doing this project and hope that those of you reading will experiment with the recipes. Remember, just write and ask, and I'll be happy to send them along.

We started eating before dinner last night with an old-fashioned GUACAMOLE DIP, a 1960s Southern California version of the real thing. It's simple: mashed avocado, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, garlic powder and a sprinkling of lime juice. You cream these ingredients together, then garnish with diced tomato and thinly sliced green onions. YUM. We served it with a crispy flatbread, and really enjoyed it. Not very Mexican, but close.

Dinner was SOPA DE HABAS (fava beans) and corn muffins called FEATHERLIGHT INDEED. The SOPA DE HABAS was made from a recipe in one of Diana Kennedy's Mexican cookbooks, and the muffins were made from a recipe I've had for 30 years. It is from a hotel in Mexico City that agreed to share this recipe with the readers of some magazine years ago. When the chef was asked if his corn muffins were light, he replied, "Featherlight indeed." I have called them that ever since.

The SOPA DE HABAS was easy and economical to make because it had no meat - just ingredients we had on hand! They were: onions, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, salt and water! I thought it would be boring, but it was absolutely delicious, and as Diana Kennedy recommends, we garnished each bowl with dried chile pasilla strips that I'd cut and fried rapidly in a minimal amount of olive oil. The sopa must have been good - Javier ate two bowls and told me that it was just like the one he had growing up! Can't ask for a compliment better than that.

Chile Colorado - 230

Yesterday was probably not the best day for me to be making a chile-based dinner. My stomach had been bothering me all afternoon, and by 3PM I had started drinking mineral water to see if I could settle it down a bit.

I had already started the beef cooking for the CHILE COLORADO, so decided to go ahead with it using an old recipe from another old Mexican cookbook. This one is literally falling apart, and has had coffee spilled on it, but still has some of the best recipes we've ever used. I decided that at some point in the afternoon or early evening the stomach ache would eventually disappear and we would be happy to have something hot and spicy for dinner.

In addition to the CHILE COLORADO, I also made brown rice, a squash and corn vegetable side dish, and guacamole. I'm not sure that any of these items would be on someone's list for chasing away a stomach ache. A plate of while rice and a warm corn tortilla might have been a better idea!

Dinner turned out well, but not spectacular. Some of my chiles used in the CHILE COLORADO were darker than usual, and the resulting sauce was dark - like mole. Colorado means reddish colored, so that was a little disappointing. I tried to make a few last-minute adjustments, but to no avail. I let the vegetables simmer too long and they got mushy, and the brown rice stuck to the pan - but only a little.

The saving grace was the guacamole, which turned out great. Because we were having such a spicy main dish, I decided to leave any and all chiles out of the guacamole and instead made it with tomatoes, cilantro, a small squeeze of lime juice and salt. Not our usual way of making guac, but it worked.

I learned a lesson last night: go with what the stomach is telling you. Tame down the meal if the stomach isn't in the mood for thick, hot and spicy. My technique was all off last night. I should have listened to the growling stomach earlier in the day!

Caldo Michi - 231 - WOW!

Assuming that you like 1) fish and that 2) you're willing to eat it in a delicious broth, you're really going to like this dish and/or hearing about it. We were in awe!

I defrosted some cod earlier in the day and was going to make some Pescado a la veracruzana until Javier reminded me that we'd just had that several weeks ago, and he thought we should try something different. So, I got out an old cookbook and this CALDO MICHI recipe was the first one I came to that called for cod as its main ingredient.

The basic ingredients are: olive oil, cod, tomatoes, white onions, garlic, carrots, zucchini, chicken broth, diced jalapeños en escabeche (canned, pickled jalapeños) cilantro, and oregano. It look about 1/2 hour to prepare, and when we sat down to eat, we'd only placed a small bowl of quartered limes on the table in addition to our two bowls of soup and some warmed tortillas.

We were totally not prepared for this wonder! It was so good that we each ate two bowls of soup and then wondered why we hadn't made this years before. We made fun of ourselves for having so many Mexican cookbooks around the house, but not using them often enough. And, we've already had a discussion on who gets to eat the leftovers today.

I'm voting for ME since I got up early this morning and made huevos rancheros for Javier. And, of course, Javier's voting for himself as he asserts that he needs to eat a healthy fish meal after having huevos rancheros for breakfast this morning.

HEY! Stay tuned...pictures should be appearing later in the day, and don't forget to write in if you'd like recipes.

Sobras sabrosas y sorpresas - 232

I came home from work last night around 5:45 and expected to help Javier throw together dinner from some of the leftovers (sobras) in our refrigerator that I mentioned here earlier in the day. Instead I came home to Javier asking me to peek in the oven while he continued to mash avocados into guacamole.

In the oven were three stacked enchiladas de pollo. If you've never had a stacked enchilada, they taste the same as a "normal" enchilada (in this case chicken), but their presentation is different. Javier had made his own ENCHILADA SAUCE from scratch to make this dish, then made three of the stacks - or tortas as they're called in Mexico - in a glass Pyrex dish.

Basically the idea is to stack tortilla, chicken, a small amount of cheese, sauce, then repeat several times before covering with sauce and heating lightly so as not to dry them out. You don't want them so high that they topple over in the oven or are hard to eat at the table with a fork and knife. Ours were so light that we only used forks last night. When you serve them you might want to ladle a little more sauce over the top followed by a garnish of shredded lettuce, a spoonful of guacamole, and a little bit of queso fresco, or, as we had last night, feta cheese. Others might want to use some sour cream on top, but we've given that up for a while while we eat our way through several cookbooks and old recipes sitting up in our heads.

Sobras sabrosas

I knew this would happen! We've been cooking all of these delicious (sabrosas) Mexican meals, and now all of a sudden the leftovers (sobras) are beginning to accumulate. So, last night we enjoyed the pink posole again, and Javier will be having it for lunch as well. He doesn't mind as he claims it doesn't freeze well, but I'm guessing that after he eats it once more he'll be saying adios, posole with a smile on his face.

Tonight we're having the chicken entomatadas again, but this time with a different kind of tortilla. Last week we made them with these super-healthy whole grain tortillas and they were OK, but tonight we're going traditional and we'll eat them made with corn tortillas. Technically we didn't have entomatadas left over from last week. It was a large amount of the sauce that we had - and didn't freeze - that now needs using up.

Coming up soon...chile colorado, pescado a la veracruzana, albóndigas, y sopa de frijol negro. Stay tuned!

Day off

Javier and I knew that we were going to dinner at a friend's home last night, so we didn't plan a Mexican meal here at home. Not wanting to completely abandon our challenge to eat Mexican food every day, we met at a local Mexican restaurant for lunch.

If the lunch had been good, I'd be writing all about it here in this space today. But it was not enough to inspire a long entry. The best I can say about lunch yesterday is 1) it was economical, and 2) they served it quickly after we ordered.

Dinner at our friend's home was centered around a visitor from Costa Rica. Our friend, Janet, had prepared a soup inside of pumpkins as a fall treat for all of us. Her visitor, Lorena, had brought some tamales all the way from Costa Rica, tamales that were wrapped in banana leaves. They were feather light and it was hard to determine what kind of flour (corn?) had been used in the dough. They had small amounts of chicken and carrot cooked into the dough - and that's about all I can report.

Tostadas de camarones - 233

¡Dios mío! My daughter Erica just called and told me that at work the calendar had yesterday down for "Dios de los Muertos." The god of the dead...

Yesterday I spent a good part of my time in classes explaining El Día de los Muertos to students while showing them YouTube clips of celebrations and processions to commemorate this day in Mexico. I served polvorones, a Mexican sort of pecan shortbread, that I had baked earlier that morning, and passed around a sugar skull (calavera de azúcar) that one of my students brought back to me from Mexico. One student asked me if my husband and I prepared some kind of special meal to mark the occasion in our home, and I had to reply that, no, we do not. It's just like any other day for us, other than the fact that my husband tried to call his brother in Mexico but couldn't reach him because he'd gone to the cemetery.

Here is a link to one of the YouTube videos I showed in class yesterday. It was filmed in the state of Michoacán near to where Javier grew up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4H7WzetpP8&feature=related

Dinner last night? Well, we had to eat the shrimp that we'd bought on Saturday for the party we didn't attend. So, we made shrimp tostadas. This is really one of the best recipes we have found in a long time: About 2 cups of cooked shrimp mixed with diced avocado, tomato, onion, serrano pepper, and cucumber, then seasoned with chopped cilantro, salt and freshly ground pepper. Before serving we squeeze one lime and 1 T olive oil over the whole mixture, then toss gently. We then serve this on tostada shells and top the mixture with a little sprinkling of queso fresco. In the summer we also add diced cucumber to the mixture. Last night it was fantastic, the perfect end to another Día de los Muertos and fit for a dios.

Pink Posole de Puerco - 234

I've had this rose colored dried corn sitting in a glass jar in my kitchen for almost a year now. When Javier got back from Mexico last year, he brought this to me as a surprise, along with a very heavy but brand-new molcajete. I haven't used the molcajete (heavy stone mortar and pestle) yet, but last week I decided to do something with the pinkish-colored dried corn.

Javier swore up and down that it was to be used for posole, a Mexican hominy-based dish usually made with a pig's head if you're in Mexico, but pork - and sometimes chicken, sometimes both - if you can't get a pig's head or don't want a pig's head simmering on your stove top. Only once have I had posole made from a pig's head, and that was in 1974 when I was living in Guadalajara, Mexico. I opened the lid of something cooking on the gas range only to see a couple of ears and eyes looking back at me from the pot. I tried to make excuses that day for not being able to eat, but the posole had been prepared just for me as I was getting ready to leave Mexico. (And looking back, they were probably getting ready to celebrate my departure. But more about that later).

A good posole - whatever it's made with, and we make ours with lean pork - is only one part of a more elaborate meal. It starts with the soaking of the dried corn / posole days before you cook the actual dish. The soaking of the corn can take several days. There are those who use canned hominy, but I think it's too mushy. Once the dried corn has reventado (burst) in the soaking water, which should be changed several times over the course of 2-3 days, it is ready to be cooked in a combination of water and chicken stock for hours and hours. There are some who pick the now softened corn apart, separating the kernel and/or the husky outer skin from the corn, but Javier's Mom taught me to leave it all together in the posole. Roughage, I suppose.

The corn is cooked for hours in the water / broth combination with a whole peeled onion and several cloves of garlic, and once the corn comes to a semi-soft stage, we add the pork. We usually use a lean pork roast which - we know, we know - has less flavor than a pork butt or the country style ribs, but less cholesterol. We cook the pork (which has been cubed) and the corn/hominy/onion/garlic mixture on the stove top. Yesterday's posole took about 8 hours.

I'll post the recipe later this week, along with some of the others, but let's fast forward to the serving of the meal. On the table we've prepared little dishes of dried oregano, finely chopped white onion, thinly sliced radishes, thinly sliced cabbage, crushed red pepper (or homemade salsa) and we've quartered a few limes. First the posole goes into a bowl, and then one can garnish with any or all of the above condiments. I add them all, squeeze on the lime, and then eat. Traditionally posole is served with tostadas on the side rather than corn tortillas. Cold beer is a nice accompaniment, too!

Our recipe has taken several twists, turns and shortcuts from the original ones, but if you'd seen the bowls of posole we had for dinner and tasted them, too, you would never have known the difference between what we had and the original stuff with a pig's head cooked into it. The original varieties usually have some grease floating around, which is great for added flavor, but terrible for your heart!

Caldo de Pollo - 235

OK, so yesterday was supposed to be grocery shopping day, and I was going to pick up the ingredients for an appetizer we were going to take to a party later in the day. Somewhere in the middle of one of the grocery stores we like to shop at I started feeling sick. I started aching, and my head hurt. Being flu season, I immediately thought I'd been bitten by the bug. I found my husband eating samples in the store and told him that we had to quickly wrap it up and head home. I wanted to be near a bathroom, a set of covers, and some hot tea, all preferably in my own home.

We got home, and before going to bed I e-mailed my friend to tell her we wouldn't be coming. It was her birthday, and I didn't want to ruin the happy occasion by contaminating everyone with the flu. I then headed for bed, climbed under a comforter, and promptly fell asleep for the next two hours.

Javier came in to see how I was doing and to ask what I wanted for lunch. It was now 1:30 PM, so he wanted to get going on something quick. I suggested that we make a nice chicken soup, otherwise known as CALDO DE POLLO. After all, we'd just bought chicken at the store.

About two hours later the caldo was done. Javier had made it with chicken breasts, lots of garlic, carrots, squash, corn on the cob (broken in two) and cilantro. We served it with fresh mint leaves and a slice of a chipotle chile. These are put into the bowls ahead of the caldo (which means broth) and then the larger items (corn, chicken breast and any other large pieces of vegetables) are spooned in afterwards. Normally we'll eat a dish like this with corn tortillas and hot rice (which we often spoon into the caldo) but not yesterday. I just ate my soup and vegetables, and then climbed back in bed with a book. I am currently reading Mexico City by Nick Caistor. It is part of the Cities of the Imaginations series.

Later in the day it became apparent that I did not have the flu. I was totally exhausted and my body had called a halt to activities in the middle of the grocery store. I just needed a lot of rest and a good bowl of Caldo de pollo to bring me back to this world and a wonderful afternoon and evening with my husband. By the time dinner came around, we just ate a few Oaxaca cheese QUESADILLAS with a homemade tomatillo and chipotle chile salsa. Not bad for impromptu meals - two of them in one day!