Tortas de Pollo 192 y Promesas para el Año Nuevo

Hola ~ We're back in Oregon and ready to go with some new recipes and new ideas for the New Year. One of the things that I have to do is remember the original purpose of this blog: to attempt to eat Mexican food of one kind or another each day AND to keep it healthy as well as economical.

I thought we'd be eating Mexican food every day while in Texas, but I couldn't rally the troops. Every time we mentioned going out for Mexican, the family had other suggestions. Good ideas - but not Mexican food. (I found out that this is NOT because they don't like Mexican food, but because they prefer to eat it at home).

After returning to Portland, Javier and I bought ourselves a couple of TORTAS DE POLLO (pictured to the side) as we readied ourselves for the drive over the Cascades back to Bend. They were so delicious! TORTAS are large sandwiches made on teleras or bolillos. On a split telera roll the sandwich maker layered on tons of seasoned shredded chicken, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapeños, sliced avocado, and crema mexicana. These sandwiches can be so large (as ours were) that they turned into lunch and dinner in one meal.

I am lista (ready) to start cooking delicious Mexican food again at home! I sat on the plane and made a list of things to prepare this week, then came home to Xmas gifts of Mexican seasonings, coffee, chocolates and a new cookbook. I can't wait to try new things and hope you will all try some of them, too ¡Prospero Año Nuevo!

Tacos al Pastor - 193

While we were in Austin, we didn't get to eat a lot of Mexican food. The family had other plans, and that was OK. We were without our car, so we decided that if we were going to have a Mexican meal, it might have to be at a restaurant nearby my daughter's house, and we'd have to get there on foot.

We found a place in a nearby strip mall, and it looked busy. Before we ordered, and before the ubiquitous chips and salsa were delivered to our table, I had a look around. The people at the table next to us were eating enchiladas and rice that all seemed to be a pale orange color. The walls in the restaurant were a dull rose color, and the music was pretty standard mariachi stuff.

The chips were thin and the salsa was HOT. Good stuff. We decided to order something that wasn't covered in an orange-colored sauce, so I ordered the TACOS AL PASTOR and Javier ordered a smothered burrito.

TACOS AL PASTOR was something we used to go and eat after the movies. There was a little place next door to a large movie house in Guadalajara that served up steaming hot quesadillas and TACOS AL PASTOR. You could get several of each on a plate and pay the equivalent of $2.50. They were always served with little glass bottles of agua mineral or a lemon-lime soda called Favorita. They were good mainly because the tortillas were fresh, the salsa on the tables was incredible, and the cold bubbly soda in glass bottles kept everything under control.

The TACOS AL PASTOR in Austin (and Javier's burrito, for that matter) were nothing memorable unless you consider them both taking me back a few years to some excellent, economical meals. I know Austin has better. Lunch inspired us to think about new recipes for the new year coming up in a few days. Stay tuned as we promise some brand new twists on some old familiar themes - and more Spanish!

Wow - am I embarrassed!

Here we are in Texas for the holidays, and I thought we'd be eating Mexican food every day. Just in case we were, I've carried my camera with me in my purse hoping to take photos along the way.

But no...we've been eating Cajun food, seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, barbecue, and a large honey baked ham with macaroni and cheese, green beans, and sweet potatoes on the side. We did eat some terrific enchiladas on Xmas Eve along with a sangria that one family member claims sent us into family passive/agressive quarrels. Not so, I can assure you. We were all tired and couldn't decide who should sleep in what bed, get up early, and make coffee the next morning. My parents used to call that being "cranky."

This morning we had some amazing breakfast tacos at a coffee shop attached to a nursery. After a couple of cafes cortados and 4 different breakfast tacos, we wandered about the nursery looking at all kinds of statuary, agave plants, bamboos, and bird baths. The rest of the day was spent wrestling the honey baked ham into the oven as we headed off to the movies to see "Sherlock Holmes." Not exactly the stuff that Mexican Menu 240 is usually made from!

I hope to have something appropriate on here tomorrow or the next day. Thanks for your patience. I sort of knew this might happen...

MOLE - 194

If it's Christmas time, it's time for MOLE.

This past weekend Javier and I spent time with my cousins in Portland, Oregon. They had asked me quite some time ago if I would prepare MOLE for them and some guests. I was delighted as this is something I enjoy doing for others. I have taught approximately 8-9 MOLE classes in my home, in the homes of others, and in the Spanish classes I teach at the college. It's a complicated recipe (as you may have heard), but only complicated by the number of ingredients and the four different processes you put into play to come up with the finished product.

Process number one is simmering. If you're fixing chicken or turkey MOLE, then it's necessary to simmer your poultry parts in one of the essential ingredients of the mole - the stock. I make my stock with chicken, garlic, marjoram, thyme, onion and salt. While that's simmering, I also simmer in a much smaller pan a stick of cinnamon, raisins, and a tomato. And, while we're simmering things, let's not forget the main ingredient - the chiles. I used four different kinds this time - chile pasilla, chile negro, chile guajillo, y chile California. Since you buy them dried, it is necessary to re-hydrate them by simmering gently for a few moments before leaving them to finish the softening process in their own reddish-colored liquid.

Process number two is toasting. I toast the following ingredients in a hot skillet: sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, peppercorns, whole cloves, cumin seeds, and a few of the seeds that will come out of the re-hydrated chiles.

Process number three is blending. Once the chiles are seeded and have had most of their veins removed, they go into the blended with a stale corn tortilla, a small piece of Mexican chocolate, the toasted seeds and nuts, the simmered raisins, cinnamon stick and tomato, and some of the chicken stock, which has been strained. I also include a small chunk of the onion which has simmered with the chicken. It is necessary at this point to blend, blend, blend until you come up with a smooth paste. Sometimes this requires adding more stock.

I guess there are several more processes such as returning the MOLE sauce to a slow simmer, adding the chicken pieces, adjusting seasonings, etc etc etc, but the three mentioned above are the most essential. The important thing to remember about mole is that it never turns out the same twice. I suppose this has to do with your chiles, what seasonings you have on hand, how much you use, how good your stock is, and an exponential number of other factors that go into the MOLE equation.

This particular MOLE was very good. Every time I make it, it turns out differently. Sometimes it's flat, and other times it's too spicy or acidic. This one was spicy but smooth. I only wish I had better pictures!

Here is the history of mole :

For those who are interested, here is the history of Mole Poblano. There are two versions to this story:

The first says that 16th Century nuns from the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla de los Angeles, upon learning that the Archbishop was coming for a visit, went into a panic because they had nothing to serve him.

The nuns started praying desperately, then began chopping and grinding and roasting, mixing different types of chiles together with spices, day-old bread, nuts, a little chocolate and approximately 20 other ingredients.

This concoction boiled for hours and was reduced to the thick, sweet, rich and fragrant mole sauce we know today.

To serve in the mole, they killed the only meat they had, an old turkey, and the strange sauce was poured over it.

The archbishop was more than happy with his banquet and the nuns saved face.
(In a variation of this story, it is told that other nuns in another convent heard of their concoction, and of how pleased the archbishop was, so they began preparing their own versions of mole with other exotic ingredients for his visits to their convents)

A different legend states that mole came from pre-Hispanic times and that Aztec king, Moctezuma, thinking the conquistadors were gods, served mole to Cortez at a banquet.

This story probably gained some credibility because the word mole comes from the Nahuatl word “milli” which means sauce or “concoction”.
Another connection could be that chocolate was widely used in pre-Columbian Mexico, so people have naturally jumped to that conclusion.

What do the real experts say? “The idea of using chocolate as a flavoring in cooked food would have been horrifying to the Aztecs—just as Christians could not conceive of using communion wine to make, say, coq au vin.

In all the pages of Sahagún that deal with Aztec cuisine and with chocolate, there is not a hint that it ever entered into an Aztec dish. Yet today many food writers and gourmets consider one particular dish, the famous pavo in mole poblano, which contains chocolate, to represent the pinnacle of the Mexican cooking tradition. …the place of origin of the dish and its sauce, the Colonial Puebla de los Angeles; this beautiful city, unlike others in central Mexico, has no Aztec foundations – and neither does the dish, regardless of what food writers may say.”

Taken from The True History of Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe [Thames and Hudson: London] 1996 (p. 216-7).

Chicken Tacos - 195

This meal was the ultimate in "cleaning-out-the-refrigerator" experiences. We just happened to have everything on hand for some filling, nutritious, and delicious CHICKEN TACOS. As you can see from the picture (I hope) we made up bowls of everything we would put into a warmed corn tortilla, then ate dinner in the living room as we watched a movie and finished off these odds and ends. Our chicken tacos consisted of shredded chicken that we had packaged and frozen after make the chicken stock that we froze for several recipes; crumbled feta cheese; salsa de chipotle y tomatillo; chopped lettuce; and sliced avocado.

Assembling each taco was the only challenge. These tortillas we were finishing up were excellent, but they only come in one size - small. Rather than eating only 3 tacos each, we were afforded the luxury of eating 5 each, and using up more of the leftovers in the process!

A memorable meal on the night before leaving town. Now all that remains in the refrigerator is a plastic bowl of white onions and the typical assortment of condiments, pickles and jellies in the door. It will be fun to return and fill it little by little with the items that turn into our daily Mexican menus. More from the road...

Mexican Menu Q & A

Since I started this project, there are several questions that have come up over and over again from friends, family members and blog followers. Today I will answer one of the most frequently asked questions I get: What do Mexicans typically eat for breakfast?

They eat a wide variety of things depending on where they live, their socio-economic situation, health concerns, and individual likes and dislikes. I lived in one home for five weeks where we got the same breakfast every day - toast with strawberry jelly, freshly squeezed orange juice, and hot tea. In another home I was asked each day if I wanted eggs, how I wanted them, or if I preferred cereal (mostly Corn Flakes at that time), pancakes, or toast with jelly.
One popular breakfast item that was offered to me over the years was chilaquiles (see picture above) which is a dish made from day-old corn tortillas, salsa, eggs (sometimes) and queso fresco. This is a delicious dish, but since the tortillas are fried in oil before being covered in salsa and cheese, it is high in calories.
What I did not see a lot of in Mexico was breakfast meats such as ham, bacon, and sausages - except for some chorizo which was often scrambled into eggs, sausage grease and all. Finally, I observed many Mexicans (including children) start the day with a glass of cafe con leche - Nescafe stirred into a glass of hot, steaming milk - and a pan dulce. Some prefer a Mexican hot chocolate (which they just call "chocolate") with their pan dulce or warmed-over bolillos.
In Javier's home town, it is common to see people go into town and enjoy a breakfast of steak, frijoles, salsa, tortillas and a bottle of soda pop on the side for their breakfast.
My favorite Mexican breakfast is still a plate of fresh fruits with a warm quesadilla on the side. I'm not sure how many Mexicans eat breakfast this way, but the abundance of fruit year round in Mexico makes it a healthier option than chilaquiles, pan dulces, huevos con chorizo, and pancakes.
Please write in to the comment section below and tell us about any breakfast eating habits you have seen or heard of in Mexico!

Turkey with Pumpkin Sauce - 196

We were poking through the freezer and found the sliced turkey breast.

I was wondering what we would do with the full fall basket of pumpkins and gourds. I mean, it's December 16, and the very few Christmas decorations we've put out are overpowered by this enormous basket full of round orange and yellow members of the squash family.

I go through a couple of Mexican cookbooks, and most of the pumpkin recipes are for soups or desserts. No go - we need to use up the sliced turkey breast.

I decide to invent. Javier bakes the pumpkins in the oven until they are soft and pulpy. I scoop out the flesh, put it into the food processor and try to turn it into a smooth puree. (We are still waiting on a vital part to arrive in the mail for our blender, so everything has to be food processed these days). In the meantime, I re-hydrate some dried red chiles (ancho, guajillo y negro), then process them into the pumpkin pulp. I add a few seasonings and some chicken stock, and there it was - a pumpkin turned into a sauce for the turkey!

It was good, but would have been better had it been blended to a smoother puree in a blender. It looks like mole (which I'll be making later this weekend) but tastes more like seasoned pumpkin. It went well with the turkey.

Mashed potatoes? Sauteed mushrooms and squash? Yes, we're still cleaning out the refrigerator and cupboards. Don't worry about calories, though. I made both side dishes without butter, and only used 1/2 cup of chicken stock with the mashed potatoes (in addition to seasonings) and white wine with the mushrooms and squash along with garlic and a few green onions at the end!

Salsa y Ensalada - 197

I'm still cleaning out the refrigerator and trying to use things up before we leave. I came across a small plastic container of chiles chipotles and immediately thought about a rich salsa that we make (usually during the summer) with these formerly canned chiles, garlic, and tomatillos. This salsa is good on most Mexican food, but is VERY good on meat - especially steak.

So I'm thinking - let's have steak, but let's not have carbs. No potatoes, no rice, no tortillas. Let's just have un bistec pequeño and una ensalada grande on the side. I had a new recipe for a light Mexican salad, and decided to make that with our steaks and salsa last night.

It all worked out well. Good, grass-fed steaks from Whole Foods; great salsa; and a new salad recipe. The aderezo (dressing) was a combination of orange and lime juices, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper. Muy fácil. The salad itself was Romaine lettuce, mandarin oranges, diced avocados, pecans, radishes, and green onions. The refrigerator is getting emptied out.

No pictures of the steak. We all know what that looks like!

Sopa de vegetales - 198

Una sencilla sopita de vegetales...a simple little vegetable soup. That's all I could come up with today, but for good reason. I've been gaining weight. I have tried to lighten up the recipes and only eat half portions, but this whole project is just too much fun! It's not just the cooking and eating of Mexican food each day that is so captivating (and fattening); it's the going backwards into time - to old recipes, family favorites, people and places we'd almost forgotten about, and different ingredients and techniques. It's been fun, but seriously folks...I'm going to have to keep it light from now on.

SOPA DE VEGETALES is one of the easiest, economical and satisfying ideas for a meal IF you like vegetables. Yesterday I had carrots, corn, squash, tomatoes and a chayote on hand. I also had some cilantro and garlic to toss in with the vegetables and the homemade chicken broth that I had defrosted the night before. That was it! The only other vegetable I could have wished for would have been some cabbage. At any rate, the soup was perfect. We each ate two bowls, and weren't hungry for tortillas, rice, or garnish of any kind. Oh wait - I think Javier sprinkled some crumbled feta cheese on top of his bowl of steaming vegetables in broth.

There are two tricks to this soup. One is to sauté all of the vegetables (except for the tomato and cilantro) with the garlic in a little bit of olive oil before adding the broth, the diced tomatoes, and the cilantro. The other trick is to not add too much broth, just enough to cook the vegetales, but not so much that they're floating around. It should end up looking halfway between a soup and a side dish, but definitely one that gets served in a bowl!

Enchiladas del Mar - 199

Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo. See if you can figure out what that saying means and then apply it to my latest cooking experience...

We were having company over last night, so we wanted to fix something a little special. Javier chose this recipe which, desgraciadamente, is not the most lo-cal heart-healthy dish. I agreed to fix these ENCHILADAS DEL MAR because I love this recipe, but decided that I'd have to find a way to locate lo-cal substitutes and/or use lesser amounts of vital ingredients to make it a little less fattening. We didn't want our company to know that we were making a lo-cal version of an old recipe. We wanted them to think that we were loading on the luxuries for their benefit.

This recipe came to us years ago in the form of crabmeat enchiladas. The main ingredients were: flour tortillas, crabmeat (real or fake), mushrooms, butter, cream cheese, and shredded Monterrey Jack cheese. These enchiladas were muy deliciosas (por supuesto) but for last night's menu I knew they needed a big adjustment. I had to get rid of at least half of the calories.

I went shopping and first found some whole wheat, low-carb tortillas. I bought langostinos instead of crabmeat, which is very expensive right now. I found lowfat cream cheese and lowfat Jack cheese to shred as well. As I began cooking the filling, I eliminated the butter and used olive oil instead; I upped the amount of sliced mushrooms and chopped green onions, and cut way back on the amount of cream cheese.

These ENCHILADAS DEL MAR are assembled by placing several spoonfuls of the seafood/mushroom/cream cheese filling (which has also been seasoned with cumin and oregano) into the flour tortilla with 2-3 tablespoons of shredded Jack cheese. I used a slotted spoon so as to leave some of the creamy, langostino flavored sauce in the pan to which I later added a jar of bottled picante sauce. This became the sauce that I ladled over the finished enchiladas before putting them in the oven to heat through. (We used to sprinkle more of the shredded cheese on top, but decided to eliminate that touch as well in the name of fewer calories). I also made brown rice and a guacamole ensalada.

I have to say that the results were pleasing, better than I expected. Our company loved them and asked for seconds. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the meal was the picture taking. We were just about to eat when Javier remembered that we needed the pictures. Therefore, they were done in haste and aren't well-arranged or very clear.

Pork with Beans and Green Chile - 200

What to do with a small pork roast...

First I went through my Mexican cookbooks and found that most recipes either required a grill, banana leaves or a number of ingredients I didn't have on hand. I then pulled out my own repertoire of Mexican recipes, ones that I have just recently organized into a binder. I think it was the organizing of these recipes - many of which had become family favorites - that got me thinking about this whole project in the first place.

Flipping the pages of this binder as I played a game of Spanish Scrabble with Javier, I came across a recipe for something we used to call "Chalupa." The real meaning of the word chalupa is a small boat, similar to a dugout canoe. In different parts of the country they refer to tostadas as chalupas, but this pork recipe of mine is not related to a tostada, or at least not in any way that I've been able to figure out. It's one that came to me from my aunt when she lived in Fresno, CA.

This pork dish is, perhaps, one of the easiest Mexican meals you can fix. You put dry pinto beans into a large pot, then add whole green chiles, a whole boneless pork roast, and 3-4 seasonings. Then you cover the ingredients with water before covering with a lid and cooking on low for 5-6 hours. During that time yesterday I turned the pork roast once and added another 1 cup of water, but other than that, it was on its own. About 15 minutes before serving, I broke up the pork roast with a large serving fork, then stirred the large chunks and stringy bits of meat into the beans and green chile, which were now sitting in a reddish broth.

You can eat this resulting "stew" in a bowl as it is, or you can serve the meat mixture with a slotted spoon into warm flour tortillas or on top of tortilla chips. The garnishing is up to you. We had some lowfat Mexican cream, more of the green salsa from the night before, and a ripe avocado that we served on the side as you can see from the picture. Javier made flour tortilla tacos for himself, but I ate mine out of the bowl with a little salsa, cream and diced avocado on top. We will count this among the most memorable meals we've had in the past week!

Tostadas Verdes - 201

Before starting this post, I'd like to remind readers that if they'd like the recipe or have questions about anything to please send me a message at: robinmar1954@gmail.com -or - write me a message in the comment area below the daily posts. Recipes take a long time to write out, adjust, remember, etc, so I offer them to you upon request.

Well, everyone's going green these days, so we decided to jump on the bandwagon last night and make a "green" dinner. First of all, we were able to use up (recycle?) a number of things we had on hand - tostada shells, leftover shredded chicken, green salsa - and we needed to use up cheese and avocados that we can't leave behind when we head out for Christmas. So, we came up with TOSTADAS VERDES last night, and they were good!

You can see by the picture that they're green. We topped our tostadas with homemade guacamole followed by the shredded chicken topped with green tomatillo salsa. They're crowned with shredded lettuce and grated queso fresco. (You can always use crumbled feta cheese rather than queso fresco). They were easy to make and hit the spot on the Friday evening after giving my last final exam at the college!

Seafood Chilpachole - 202

This recipe really deserves a WOW by its heading. To begin with, it was made with ingredients we had on hand. Our freezer is getting cleaned out quickly.

We're still experiencing below-zero temperatures where we live, so soups have become an every-other-night dinner around here. Mexican soups that are spicy really make you forget about the cold.

The main ingredients in SEAFOOD CHILPACHOLE are fish (cod) and shrimp. The soup starts out as a broth made from chicken stock, shrimp shells and tails, and garlic. After simmer for 15 minutes, this mixture gets strained back to a clear broth to which is added a paste made from chile chipotles, tomatoes, onions, oregano, and two corn tortillas which have been softened in the clear broth and blended into the paste. This paste gets whisked into the broth, and finally you add the shrimp and fish for a few minutes before serving. The soup is served with a cilantro garnish and lime wedges on the side. We also added a little cooked brown rice to our broth (at the table) once we'd eaten the shrimp and fish pieces out of the soup.

The next time I make it, I will add a little less chipotle. Javier loved it the way it turned out, but it was almost too picante for me last night.

Green Chile Quiche - 203

How to make a lowfat quiche.

That was my challenge last night using a recipe I've had for years that was given to me by a woman in Colorado.

Quiche is not very Mexican, although every ingredient in this recipe could be found in Mexico. One of the first "secrets" to this quiche is that it doesn't have a crust. The main ingredients are eggs, cottage cheese (known as requesón in Mexico), chopped green chiles, queso fresco, butter, flour, and seasonings.

To make a "healthier" version last night, I first cut back on one of the eggs. I also used fat free cottage cheese, half the amount of grated queso fresco, half the amount of melted butter (which is what keeps it from sticking to the pan without a crust) and whole wheat flour. Despite these changes, our GREEN CHILE QUICHE came out looking and tasting just like the original version. It was delicious!

Javier had also fixed some baked squash to go along with it. As I said in an earlier post, the next couple of weeks will be all about finishing up what's at hand. These were squash that had come out of our garden and had been sitting in a basket as decor during the Fall season. They were ready to be eaten! and went well with the GREEN CHILE QUICHE.

Caldo de Pollo - 204

Hey - it might seem like we eat a lot of soups from Mexico. We do, and especially when it's cold. Temperatures have been below zero lately, so a nice hot soup hits the spot in the evening.

Soups - sopas y caldos - are very popular in Mexico the year round. Ever since I went to Mexico the first time, I've been amazed at the delicious soups I've eaten that were made from the simplest of ingredients. If you've been following the blog, you can see that many of the best dishes we've prepared have been the soups. I promise, there will be more!

Last night Javier made a good CALDO DE POLLO. The word caldo actually refers to broth or clear soup. A typical CALDO DE POLLO usually has pieces of chicken on the bone and large pieces of vegetable such as half ears of corn, quartered chayote, half carrots, quartered cabbage, etc. Javier just used what he had on hand last night which was 6 chicken legs, carrots, zucchini, cabbage and one sweet potato. He made a strong, clear broth with garlic, salt and pepper, then added the vegetables and cilantro at the end. We served the CALDO with diced avocados and lime wedges on the table. Right before serving, Javier said he thought it was a little "bland" and so I added a spoonful of our refrigerated chile paste - you know, the one that made the fish too hot to eat a couple of days ago. One spoonful was enough to enliven this CALDO!
(This picture makes it look greasy, but it wasn't. I suppose that's just glare from the camera.)

Chiles en Nogada - 205

Last night I was having a group of friends over for dinner and I wanted to make something special. This group will eat almost anything, and one is a vegetarian. With the holiday season upon us, I decided to try out a recipe I'd never made before, one that always seemed too complicated for an average cook like me to prepare.

And, by the way, I've only ordered it off a menu once in my life - in all my years of eating Mexican food - and thought it was good, but probably not worth all of the effort to make it.

CHILES EN NOGADA is a variation on the theme of a chile relleno. You have to start with a number of roasted and peeled chile poblanos. Most cookbooks or online recipes call for a ground meat (pork, beef) filling called picadillo which is typically made with diced potatoes, carrots, onions, raisins, and seasoning. Several of my cookbooks called for the ground pork with a combination of diced potato, sweet potato, apple, pear and raisins. Keeping my vegetarian guest in mind, I made my filling from diced onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, raisins, a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of brandy.

The sauce for CHILES EN NOGADA is the tricky -and high calorie - part of this dish. It's made from ground walnuts, cream, queso fresco, and pinches of seasoning. I started mine in the food processor, but couldn't get the walnuts ground fine enough, so moved the mixture into the blender where it turned into a puree. I did what I could to bring the calorie count down. Instead of fresh cream, I used half and half, and I used a lowfat variety of queso fresco.

The reason this is such a complicated dish is that you have to roast and peel the chiles, then remove the seeds and veins before filling. You have to chop and dice a number of ingredients for the picadillo filling before cooking the mixture. You have to make the sauce and watch that it doesn't burn or curdle because of the cream and cheese in it. You have to seed a pomegranate, although if you're willing to pay more, you can now buy little packages of just the red seeds. Finally you have to assemble the final dish: stuff the chiles, arrange on a platter, ladle the sauce over them, and garnish with the bright red pomegranate seeds.

The easy part is eating them! As one guest at dinner said last night, she enjoyed the burst of juice coming from the pomegranate seed as she took bites from her dinner plate. CHILE EN NOGADA is a very different and original dish.

Sopa de Albóndigas - 206

As we get ready to travel in another couple of weeks, we are eating our way through the refrigerator and freezer in an attempt to finish things up and not spend money on groceries. Meal planning will be based on discovery rather than creative impulses.

Yesterday morning I located a pound of grass-fed, organic ground beef. One of my favorite recipes quickly came to mind: SOPA DE ALBÓNDIGAS. This meal / recipe came to me from my mother-in-law. It is very simple to fix, and delicious when fixed with the right ingredients. For me that means tasty meatballs, delicious broth, and the right combination of vegetables in the broth. I also make a sopita de arroz on the side as she always did.

I made my meatballs with a little raw rice, dried mint leaves, salt and pepper. I baked them in the oven to get rid of any excess fat while I prepared the soup. The vegetables I chose were carrots, zucchini, potatoes, garlic and cabbage. I made the broth from one carton of commercial vegetable stock, a couple of spoonfuls of tomato sauce with chile, and cilantro. Most of the flavor of the soup comes from the simmering vegetables, especially the garlic and cabbage. The addition of the meatballs enriches the flavor even more.

While the soup is simmering, I made the sopita de arroz that we serve on the side of our SOPA DE ALBÓNDIGAS. The sopita is one of the most typical Mexican dishes made from rice, a little garlic, a small amount of tomato sauce and salt. It is the light orange rice you often see served on the side of combination plates in Mexican restaurants.

Dinner last night was simple, delicious, and filling. It is one we will repeat again and again, both for its simplicity and for its connection to Javier's Mom.

Pechuga de Pollo con Naranja - 207

Not all Mexican food has to be spicy. There are a number of dishes that don't count chiles as an ingredient.

After taking a day off from the Mexican Menu to eat up some leftovers out of our freezer, we returned to this project with one goal in mind: to remember and re-create a meal from our past that was not spicy. Remember - we are still recovering from that large amount of chile that we put on our fish filets the other night.

I remembered a chicken breast dish that I saw being made in Guadalajara back in 1974. The main ingredient is chicken breast, and it is cooked in a combination of olive oil, garlic, orange juice, white wine, mushrooms and cinnamon. I couldn't find a recipe for this anywhere, so made it as I remembered seeing it being done. I lucked out, and the results were excellent. Como el burro que tocó la flauta.

Javier browned the chicken breasts in a small amount of olive oil while I chopped garlic, washed the mushrooms, and then sliced them in two. He removed the chicken onto paper towels, and I began to sauté the garlic, then added the mushrooms, and sauteed them until they were slightly browned. Then came the organge juice, freshly squeezed from 3 oranges, and a bit of white wine. I put the chicken breasts back into the sauce, added a cinnamon stick, lightly salted (sea salt) the whole mixture, and covered. It simmered on low for another 1/2 hour. In the meantime, I also made some boiled potatoes and carrots.

We ate a simple dinner of boiled potatoes and carrots (which in Mexico might have been lightly fried in olive oil until browned, but definitely greasy) with the chicken breasts in the mushroom/orange/white wine/ cinnamon /garlic sauce. Maravilloso beyond belief!

Pescado con Serrano - 208

Every summer we buy chiles serranos at the farmer's market here in town, and then wonder what we're going to do with so many of them. We usually end up making salsas and freezing some of them, but sometimes a few serranos end up in our compost bin.

Interestingly, this past summer when I was in Argentina (which was their winter) the lady I stayed with for 3-4 days who does cooking lessons in her home had a solution. She toasts them along with some tomatoes in a hot, dry skillet on a back burner, then blends them with a very small amount of olive oil before putting this paste into a jar and saving it in the refrigerator. It's there for anyone who likes to add a little bit to soups and stews, to give them that proverbial "kick" they sometimes need. Now we do the same. We have our jar of chile serrano paste in the refrigerator and we use it whenever we need to spice something up a bit.

Last night we went overboard. We had some firm, white cod (bacalao) filets, and Javier made a revised paste by adding a little pressed garlic into the hot stuff, then spreading it over the fish before broiling. Sounded easy, looked great - but it was almost too hot too eat. We ended up scraping some of it off the fish just so we could eat it.

What did we learn? A little bit of this stuff goes a LONG way. We should have made a whole new spread with more olive oil, maybe a little lemon juice, the garlic, a tiny bit of salt, and then spread it thinner. Enjoy the picture, but do not - I repeat - do not cook it this way!

Tostadas de frijoles - 209

This "recipe" is not really a recipe. It's a way to eat a simple, economical meal with lots of nutrients and fiber. Calories can be easily avoided by cooking your own beans, and using minimal amounts of guacamole and cheese on each tostada. There are even oven-baked tostada shells available in some stores as opposed to the fried variety. We have oven baked our own corn tortillas with a very light brushing of olive oil, and they turned out fine.

We cook our beans with minimal amounts of salt, pepper and a pinch of epazote; we also make the guacamole and the salsa. Before serving we chop lettuce, dice tomatoes, and grate cheese. Then everything goes into bowls in the middle of the table so that can each build our own TOSTADA DE FRIJOLES. Not exactly rocket science, is it? This can all be made easier if you buy the toppings ready-made and then do the construction of individual tostadas at home

For the past couple of years we've been moving away from the kinds of cheese (cheddar, Monterrey Jack) that melt all over our Mexican food, and have started using Mexican cheeses such as queso fresco, cotija y panela. IF we want a cheese that melts nicely, for example, in a quesadilla, then we use Queso Oaxaca (comes in a ball) or revert to using Monterey Jack because it melts evenly. Feta cheese also goes good with Mexican dishes such as tostadas y enchiladas.

I've sat and watched my family members assemble their tostadas, and no two members do them the same. The frijoles usually go on the bottom to anchor everything else in place, but from there it's a different order of what-goes-next. Personally I like the frijoles first, followed by guacamole, salsa, lettuce, queso, and a spoonful of cream (sour or Mexican cream) if it's being served.

Shrimp Fajitas - 210

No picture credits here! I tried hard to set up a colorful display area to show off our dinner last night, but the VERY hot and steaming fajita pan almost burned everything. Not wanting the fajitas to get cold, I quickly pulled the decorative pieces aside, threw down a thick potholder, and took pictures of the steaming hot SHRIMP FAJITAS sitting atop our ugly old wooden table.

As I left for work yesterday morning, Javier asked what I wanted for dinner. Two nights a week I teach evening classes, so I usually don't like coming home to dinnertime decisions or tons of chopping, peeling, grating, etc. Cooking never seems like work to me, even after a day of teaching, but by the time I get home the two of us are hungry. Tenemos mucho hambre.

So, as I left for work yesterday morning, I said that after last week, I didn't really want to eat any starch, cheese, or anything heavy on the meat. Javier mentioned some shrimp we had in the freezer and some bell peppers that we had left over from the quinoa salad on Thanksgiving, so he came up with the idea of SHRIMP FAJITAS for dinner. We have never made these before, so he had to hit the cookbooks and online sites for recipes.

It was a pleasure coming home to dinner being cooked and only eating a plate full of shrimp, bell peppers and onions. It was a simple recipe, delicious, and one I would repeat some day. With a bigger appetite and better imagination one could fix & eat this meal with a nice white sangria, brown rice, tortillas, and maybe a little guacamole on the side.