Carne asada - 140

Hace muy buen tiempo aquí en Oregón - we had beautiful weather here in Oregon today, so we decided to light the grill and do some steaks - CARNE ASADA.

A typical CARNE ASADA, which is grilled steak, is served with salsa, guacamole, frijoles, arroz y tortillas, but since both of us wanted to make it light, we cut out the arroz. Earlier in the day I had made a salsa from tomatillos, ajo y chiles chipotles. As dinner approached and the steaks were on the grill, I made a guacamole in a traditional Mexico City style (chunky), and then warmed some frijoles pintos that I had cooked yesterday. The last thing I did before the CARNE ASADA came off the grill was warm the fresh tortillas that I had picked up at the tortillería today.

We served dinner with a wonderful Oregon Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, one from the Bernard Machado Vineyards (2006). It was very good, as was our dinner - a one-day-late celebration of our 26th wedding anniversary!

Chile relleno de mariscos - 141

Credit where credit is due. This was one of the most delicious meals I've ever eaten, but I didn't make it. Still recovering from last week's bout of bronchitis (bronquitis en español) I just wasn't up to cooking dinner last night, but after a week of sopas, ensaladas y arroz I was ready to eat something GOOD.

I went across the street to a local place called El Rodeo. They have an extensive menu, and it was hard to choose something to eat, but not just because of the variety. I found most of the items on the menu very expensive for Mexican dishes I can produce at home for a fraction of the cost AND know what all of the ingredients are. So, I was just about to give up when I spotted the CHILE RELLENO DE MARISCOS in the a la carta section of the menu. $7.95!

I have to say that it was worth every penny. It was large, full of the seafood promised on the menu, and the sauce was delicious - although I'm quite sure it was fattening because it was similar to a spicy Alfredo-type sauce with peppers and green onions thrown in for good measure. The sauce could have doubled as a queso dip of some kind, and maybe it does. But, for someone hungry for Mexican food, and not wanting rice, beans and bland red sauce all over something, it was perfect.

One other thing: the staff at the restaurant could not have been more cordial. After one man explained what the CHILE was to me, then went back to the kitchen to order it, another one came to the front desk and visited with me in Spanish while they finished the order. Another woman came up front and joined the conversation, and finally the original order-taker (he may have been the owner or manager) arrived with my CHILE RELLENO DE MARISCOS. Since Javier wasn't here to enjoy this meal with me, it is one I will be attempting on my own in the near future and with a low-calorie sauce. Stay tuned!

Taquitos de pollo - 142

Ya estoy mejor y estoy cocinando de nuevo...Now I'm better and I'm cooking again! Sorry for the lack of posts in the past couple of days, but I've been sick with bronchitis and haven't done much in the kitchen besides heating leftovers, making coffee and tea, and drinking lots of water with my daily round of medication...

Today I felt a lot better, so I decided to do something with the tortillas and some chicken that I had cooked up earlier in the week. TAQUITOS DE POLLO are very easy to make, especially if you are able to live with ones that aren't fried until crispy and that are browned in a hot skillet coated with olive oil spray.

Years ago I used to cook chicken, shred it, and season it with lots of red salsa (La Tamazula), salt and pepper before placing the shredded meat into the center of a corn tortilla, which I rolled tight and then fried in vegetable oil. At first I used toothpicks to secure the tightly rolled tortillas, but later I would do one taquito at a time and hold it closed with tongs while it fried.

Now that we've moved away from fried foods, I've gone to a system of warming the corn tortillas so that they roll nicely around the same kind of chicken filling, and then I place them into a small hot skillet which has been sprayed with olive oil spray. The small skillet is important because that way the taquitos can be placed together tightly like sardines in a can and not roll open while they're browning. It's also easy to roll them over all at the same time.

Once the taquitos are browned and slightly crispy (although never quite as much as they were when they were fried - lo siento) they should be served hot with an avocado sauce. This sauce is different from guacamole in that it is not just mashed avocados, but rather avocados mashed with either sour cream, mayonnaise, or crema mexicana in addition to seasonings. Tonight I mixed my smoothly mashed avocados with some nonfat yogurt, chopped chives, crushed red pepper, lime juice and some salt. It was muy deliciosa with the TAQUITOS DE POLLO, and I don't have to feel guilt about too many calories!

Pollo con vegetales - 143

The weather has been much better here lately, but mostly to look at. The skies are clear and blue, but temperatures are still in the 30s and 40s. A couple of nights ago, Javier just couldn't resist lighting up the outdoor grill because it looked like grilling weather. While he grilled our dinner, he was bundled up in a fleece jacket and a down vest.

Before cooking some chicken and vegetables on the grill, he had marinated them in a combination of soy sauce, white wine, olive oil and crushed red pepper. Once everything was grilled, all I had to do was cut it up and toss it lightly (sort of like a stir fry) in a hot skillet. I then served the mixture of hot, grilled chicken and vegetables with some warm corn tortillas.

I haven't had a lot of appetite lately with this flu that I've had (going on 5 days now) and I can't taste much, either. I'm sure it was all delicious, though. I'll let the pictures do the talking for me today.

Otro caldo de pollo - 144

Not much to say about CALDO DE POLLO that hasn't been said already. I have been very sick with something awful, possibily the H1N1 virus, so Javier made me a lovely CALDO before leaving on his trip that I could heat up every day while he was gone.

If it looks greasy, it is! I read somewhere that it's something in the chicken fat that has the power to cure the common cold. Whatever I've got, I decided that I'd use every weapon in my arsenal to try and wipe it out, and asked Javier to make the soup with all kinds of chicken pieces full of skin and bones. Huesos y pellejo.

I skipped the usual addition of something spicy - a chopped pepper or salsa, for example - and just squeezed some lime juice into the broth before adding some diced avocado and eating the whole bowl of soup minus the chicken skin. It was delicious, and about all I could manage to eat. I also skipped the tortillas and rice that are traditionally served alongside a good CALDO.

Enchiladas rojas de Queso - 145

Some days nothing beats a good enchilada. No hay nada mejor que una buena enchilada.

Javier is getting ready to leave for a week, so he asked me what I wanted for dinner last night. I've been sick with a cold, so I figured I'd better think fast while he was still here to cook and making such an offer. I don't know why, but enchiladas came to mind. ENCHILADAS ROJAS DE QUESO seemed like a good idea since we had so much cheese in the refrigerator that we needed to eat before he left, and Javier makes a great red sauce (salsa roja) from scratch.

These have got to be the easiest thing to make once the sauce is ready, and, by the way, you can also buy red enchilada sauce in a can. It's out there, and some of it is not half bad. We grated up a queso fresco, heated some corn tortillas, rolled the cheese into the tortillas, and then ladled the red sauce over the enchiladas.

While they were heating in the oven and the cheese was melting a bit, we made some guacamole and shredded some lettuce to go on top. Sometimes we eat enchiladas with rice and beans, but last night we just ate them with the guacamole on top and to the side. They were a great dinner for the end of the week; for Lent; and (once again) for using up what's left in the refrigerator!

Paella Mexicana - 146

Several days ago we bought a bag of something called mixed seafood in the freezer section of the store thinking we'd make some kind of luscious soup. As the week was winding down, and as I was contemplating what we actually had in the house to cook with one evening, I realized that we just didn't have all of the ingredients I would want to make a good soup. And, I didn't feel like making a quick trip to the store.

Now, I know we made a rice dish last week (see MEXICAN FRIED RICE), but while reaching into the cupboard for some of the ingredients, I noticed that I still had a half bag of paella rice. I knew that I had some saffron, too - not much, but enough to color our dish yellow rather than impart much flavor. So, I decided to come up with a combination between this traditional Spanish meal (paella) and something Mexican. I would make my Mexican paella with the seafood, rice, saffron (azafrán), tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic. The Mexican part? That would be chiles serranos instead of bell peppers.

When we opened the bag of now defrosted frozen mixed seafood, we discovered that it had some of that fake crabmeat in it. Boo. But it did have other good stuff like squid (calamar), octopus (pulpo), shrimp (camarones) and clams (almejas).

It totally worked! The pictures may not be the greatest, and they make the finished paella look a bit greasy when it wasn't at all. We served a nice cold white wine with our MEXICAN PAELLA, sliced some avocado on the side and had one of the best meals we'd had all week!

Chuletas de Puerco a la Naranja - 147

Several weeks ago we bought some beautiful pork chops at the store. I think we may have even had a coupon which made their price very reasonable. As we were buying them, Javier and I were pondering how to cook another Mexican meal with pork chops. Yes, there's always the grill, but it is the middle of February. We'd already experimented with different sauces on chicken, lamb chops and steaks, so we'd have to think hard before putting these chops on our blog.

One of the seasonings we were given for Christmas is one that is just for marinating meat. You add it to 1/2 cup of orange juice - period - and then marinate your chops, chicken and/or steaks before grilling them. Yes, the weather was up in the 50s yesterday, so we decided it was safe to plan a grilled meal.

I found some leftover frijoles charros in the freezer and defrosted them before reheating them to serve on the side. Javier made some amazing guacamole to go with the chuletas y frijoles, too. I say amazing because the avocados were so buttery-smooth that the guacamole came out with a silky texture.

Well, the chuletas were thick (gruesas), so as the outside began to char, we waited and waited for the inside to cook to a desired temperature. When they were finally done, they looked a little crispy on the outside, and the grilling time had obliterated most of the spicy orange marinade. Don't get me wrong...the chuletas were good and they remained juicy, but we could barely taste the marinade. The frijoles charros y el guacamole had more pizazz.

Tostadas de Atún - 148

LAS TOSTADAS DE ATÚN ~ una cena super-sencilla!

Don't ask me why...this evening we decided to make something that we don't normally eat in the Winter, and usually reserve for our trips to México when we're economizing. TOSTADAS DE ATÚN could be appetizers, or a lunch dish, but dinner???

I think the heavier dishes over the weekend did me in, and I came home from work thinking of something lighter. Javier had made some tostadas out of some older tortillas, and I had been thinking of ways to fix them with beans, chicken, guacamole, salsa - all of the usual suspects. De repente - suddenly - I remembered all of the wonderful tostada meals we'd eaten in México when the kids were younger and we were watching our budget on family road trips, staying with Javier's family, and saving our money for other things. One of my favorite tostadas came to mind, the one made with tuna.

Keeping it low calorie is not hard if you eliminate over half of the mayonnaise. I chopped tomatoes, onions, avocado, celery, and a chile serrano before adding the tuna and mixing it all together with some lime juice, salt, pepper, 1 T of mayonnaise, and 2 T of nonfat plain yogurt. I then mounded the ensalada de atún onto the fresh tostadas, chopped some lettuce, and garnished them with the lettuce and a very small amount of queso fresco. I wish I'd had some fresh cilantro for garnish, but there was none to be found this evening in the refrigerator.

Maravillosas they were! A simply perfect, economical meal on a Monday evening.

Caldo de Res / Colita - 149

Ayer fue el Día de los Enamorados. I wanted to make something special for dinner, and for about a week had been contemplating something on the grill, like a steak, served with a special sauce. When we went to the store to look for something good to grill, everything seemed unusually expensive. Color me cynical, but it may have had something to do with Valentine's Day coming up. Doesn't every meat eater want to have a nice steak - or roast - for a special occasion? We even considered salmon, but couldn't find any that wasn't farm raised - or any that was affordable, either.

As I was looking things over in the meat counter, I noticed the beef oxtails. Javier and I used to buy these years ago for an inexpensive beef soup called CALDO DE RES, but haven't bought them recently because they're usually fatty. These particular ones I was looking at seemed to be very meaty, and when I opened them at home to began the cooking process, what little fat there was I was able to cut off before braising.

Our recipe for CALDO DE RES involves braising (as I mentioned) the oxtails in a very hot pot, then adding water to cover, garlic, bay leaf (hoja de laurel), salt and pepper. We allow them to simmer for an hour or two as the first step in making the broth. After that, we remove the oxtails, strain the broth, and remove any grease there may be. We then continue the process by adding vegetables - carrots, squash, cabbage, chayote, and small ears of corn on the cob when they're available. We season the soup with minimal amounts of salt, pepper and cilantro, then strain a well-cooked, pureed chile colorado into the broth.

CALDO DE RES is best served with hot rice and tortillas on the side, lime juice squeezed into the broth right before eating, and something cold to drink. Being Día de los Enamorados yesterday, we served wine with our soup (although I think Javier may prefer beer, and I'll remember that for another occasion) and later in the evening had a dessert of fresas con crema. Loads of calories - I know - but worth the effort and the eating!

Papas con Chile Verde - 150

Javier and I have traveled to New Mexico on several occasions, and one of our favorite things about New Mexico is the Mexican food. It's not exactly Mexican, but it's certainly not Tex Mex or anything else. It's just muy buena.

On one of our first trips we ordered a main dish of pork chops (chuletas de puerco) that came with a side of potatoes. The potatoes had been peeled, cut into chunks, and cooked, then simmered in a green chile sauce which had small chunks of pork in it. I hate to admit this, but the potatoes were much better than the grilled chuletas which seemed dry to us. Ever since that trip to New Mexico, which may have been our second or third, we have always saved some of the chile verde that Javier makes on occasion just so that we can serve it over cooked potatoes. We usually eat it as a main dish. It can be served with warm tortillas and cheese and made into tacos, or all by itself on a plate with a salad on the side.

One of our favorite places for chile verde, tamales and Mexican cooking ingredients is Chimayo in Northern New Mexico. There is the very famous (and large) restaurant outside of town, but there are also a good number of smaller places that sell excellent, economical food. Be sure to visit them if you've ever in the area!

Mexican Fried Rice - 151

The other day I noticed some leftover white rice in the refrigerator and decided that I would have to incorporate it into another meal. We don't eat white rice very often, so I wanted to do something that would spiff it up a bit and make it seem healthy.

Remember the chicken chorizo - the one I was so happy about because it was virtually grease-free and delicious? I had one left, so decided to create our own version of fried rice using the leftover rice and the chorizo as the two principle ingredients.

In addition to the chorizo, we diced up a lot of veggies - carrots, onions, peppers, and celery to give it some crunch - and sauteed them along with the chorizo once it was cooked. To this mixture we added a chopped up scrambled egg pancake and the arroz, a tiny bit of chicken broth, and then let the skillet do the rest. Before eating, we garnished it with some chopped cilantro. (Javier says that we should have sprinkled some diced peanuts - cacahuates - on top before eating, but I don't know).

What can I say? It turned out spicy, delicious, and filling. We used up the white rice that had been sitting in the refrigerator, and ate our vegetables all in one meal.

Chicken Caesar Salad - 152

Did you know that the Caesar Salad was invented in Mexico? Tijuana, to be exact.

After weeks and weeks of soups, casseroles, grilled meats, and platos calientes, I decided that I needed to eat a salad as a main course. We also have a good recipe for a Caesar salad dressing that calls for queso cotija, cilantro, pepitas y chiles poblanos. The recipe we have makes a lot of dressing, so when we're not having salad, it makes a great dip for vegetables, too.

CHICKEN CAESAR SALAD is really just a romaine lettuce salad with some cooked chicken on it. It's really the dressing that makes the meal. As you can see from the picture, we also added some thinly sliced red onion and jalapeños to our romaine lettuce and cooked chicken salad. (We are still creating dinners out of what we find in the refrigerator). What you don't see - and what we added at the last minute before tossing the salad - were some of the baked tortilla strips we'd made the previous night for the Sopa de Tortilla. We tossed them into the salad to give it some crunch.

Salads always seem better in the summer, but last night's was a real treat. We both heaped tons of salad onto our plates and enjoyed something we hadn't made since last September!

Here is the history of the Caesar salad:

1924 - Most historians believe that Caesar salad honors restaurateur Caesar Cardini (1896-1956), who invented it in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924 on the Fourth of July weekend. It is said that on this busy weekend, Cardini was running low on food and he put together a salad for his guests from what was left over in the kitchen. His original recipe included romaine, garlic, croutons, and Parmesan cheese, boiled eggs, olive oil and Worcestershire sauce. The original salad was prepared at tableside. When the salad dressing was ready, the romaine leaves were coated with the dressing and placed stem side out, in a circle and served on a flat dinner plate, so that the salad could be eaten with the fingers.

In 1926, Alex Cardini joined his brother, Caesar, at the Tijuana restaurant. Alex, an ace pilot in the Italian Air Force during World War I, added other ingredients, one of which was anchovies, and named the salad Aviator's Salad" in honor of the pilots from Rockwell Field Air Base in San Diego. It is reported that Alex's version became very popular, and later this salad was renamed "Caesar Salad." Caesar was said to be staunchly against the inclusion of anchovies in this mixture, contending that the Worcestershire sauce was what actually provided that faint fishy flavor. He also decreed that only Italian olive oil and imported Parmesan cheese be used in the dressing.

Over the years, it became quite the thing to do - to drive to Tijuana for a Caesar Salad. Californians, including Hollywood celebrities such as Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and W.C. fields dined at Caesar's to escape the Prohibition laws in the U.S. In Europe, Caesar's Salad was also appearing in restaurants. Julia Child, famous cookbook author, wrote about Caesar Salad in her cookbook From Julia Child's Kitchen:

One of my early remembrances of restaurant life was going to Tijuana in 1925 or 1926 with my parents, who were wildly excited that they should finally lunch at Caesar's restaurant. Tijuana, just south of the Mexican border from San Diego, was flourishing then, in the prohibition era. . . Words spread about Tijuana and the good life, and about Caesar Cardini's restaurant, and about Caesar's salad.

My parents, of course, ordered the salad. Caesar himself rolled the big cart up to the table, tossed the romaine in a great wooden bowl, and I wish I could say I remembered his every move, but I don't. They only thing I see again clearly is the eggs. I can see him break 2 eggs over that romaine and roll them in, the greens going all creamy as the eggs flowed over them. Two eggs in a salad? Two one-minute coddled eggs? And garlic-flavored croutons, and grated Parmesan cheese? It was a sensation of a salad from coast to coast, and there were even rumblings of its success in Europe.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SaladHistory.htm

Sopa de Tortilla - 153

There are as many recipes for SOPA DE TORTILLA as there are Spanish classes having potlucks at the end of the school year. I say this because I got this very excellent recipe from a former student of mine at Colorado State University (my alma mater) who brought this soup to our end-of-the-year Spanish class potluck. It has been my favorite ever since, and that's been around 11 years.

Almost every Mexican restaurant here in town also serves SOPA DE TORTILLA. Some serve a watery caldo de pollo with chicken stock, over-cooked vegetables, and a few pieces of chicken breast meat. They cover up their little secret with tons of tortilla chips, grated cheese, and some avocado cubes. You can't see what's underneath until you eat all of that stuff off the top, and by then, it's too late to notice that the soup underneath is, well, lackluster.

The reason that I like this soup so much is that it is loaded with goodies (frijoles, tomates, chiles, carne de pollo, y vegetales) and the toppings play a supporting role. In fact, we have eaten this soup many times without them. It is just excellent - rich, thick and spicy. One bowl is a meal in itself, and there's no need for a side dish.

Thank you and credit go to my former student, Patty.

Turkey Picadillo - 154

I was really down after last night's disappointing nachos. I want to say again that they were buenos, but not super buenos.

Tonight's dinner set us back on track. Javier fixed TURKEY PICADILLO using an old recipe that I got in Mexico years ago for the filling of "real" chiles rellenos. The original recipe calls for ground beef, but since we're watching what we eat, we decided to give it a try with ground turkey tonight. I have to say - it was exceptional. Super bueno.

Picadillo is a combination of ground meat, potatoes, diced carrots, onions, raisins, sliced olives and seasonings. Mucha sazón. It is all cooked together in a light tomato sauce, or diced tomatoes, and then can be used as a filling for chiles rellenos, or served on it's own as a main dish. It is surprisingly similar to what we consider taco meat - the ground beef filling that we load into those hard taco shells and that (sometimes) has diced onions and bell peppers cooked into the meat with some seasoning.

Picadillo, because of the added tomatoes, vegetables, raisins and olives, is a lot juicier than what we consider to be taco meat. It is delicious served over rice. Supposedly it has a long history dating back to the Moors' invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). The Arabic influence on Spanish cuisine, which later traveled into the Americas, is said to have brought together different flavors and condiments such as raisins, potatoes, olives, and spices. The Mexicans, I believe, made it better by adding their native chiles. It seems that every Latin American country has some version of picadillo, including the Argentines who make something similar and use it as a filling for empanadas.

Ours, made with turkey tonight, was really good. We served it with rice, beans, and corn tortillas. I kept wanting more of the picadillo because it was so flavorful, but remembered to keep controlling my portions. Since we had a lot left over, stay tuned to tomorrow's blog to see what we do with the rest!

Nachos - 155

I learned something important this evening - NACHOS need to be naughty.

I spent lots of time yesterday and today coming up with a way to make healthy NACHOS and after all of the effort, they were just so-so. They weren't bad, but I felt like I had to push myself to go back for seconds.

We baked some old tortillas into chips and then salted them lightly. We made our own beans without any fats. We bought lowfat cheese, and decided to skip the sour cream on the top. Javier made some good guacamole to go on top, but without the salty chips and all of the usual "goo" that goes on NACHOS, it just didn't add up to delicioso.

Today is SuperBowl Sunday. We are not big football fans, but we have a family tradition of eating SuperBowl party food on these days. So, several days ago I decided I'd make NACHOS and try giving them a healthy twist. And, do you know where the healthy twist should have been? Earlier in the day, or earlier in the week. I should have saved myself calories for the real deal: super-delicious salty chips smothered in chili, cheese, tomatoes, onions, and salsa. Whatever it is you're supposed to ladle over the chips, including sour cream and guacamole.

Ours were OK, but just barely. They were lacking the naughty element. This is one of those nights when we say we tried, but let's get back to the drawing board.

Crema de Chile Poblano con Maiz - 156

Un buen día para sopa...Yesterday was a good day for soup. We woke up to heavy snow and cold temperatures, and since we had some roasted chiles poblanos in the refrigerator, I decided to make soup. I used a recipe that a Spanish student gave me a couple of years ago.

First I peeled and diced a couple of potatoes, which I boiled. While they were simmering, I removed all of the seeds and veins from the chiles poblanos and put them into the blender. I added some chicken stock, and when the diced potatoes were done and ready to be blended, I added them. (I held back some to add to the finished soup). I pureed this mixture and then poured it into a soup pot where I added the corn, some milk (not cream!), the remaining diced potatoes and some seasonings. Then I let it simmer on low.

We ate it for lunch with a little shredded queso fresco on top and some fresh, warm tortillas on the side. Nothing could have been better on this cold, snowy day!

Pollo y ejotes verdes - 157

It's simple: I have to keep losing more weight.

I defrosted some chicken breasts, bought some fresh green beans (ejotes verdes) and cooked them all on the indoor grill. It's snowing here.

Previously I had seasoned all of them with lemon juice, a little olive oil, and one of the new Mexican seasonings that came in the gift pack I received for Christmas. We heated the grill as high as it would go, and started to grill the breasts, followed by some chiles serranos (seen in the picture on top of the chicken), and then finally tossed the ejotes onto the dry grill. Javier heated the last two flour tortillas to go with his dinner. That reminds me...the fresh corn tortillas come out today.

Sencilla, elegante y muy deliciosa. Y muy fácil también. That sums up our dinner last night - simple, elegant, delicious and very easy!

Camarones al Mojo de Ajo - 158

As I mentioned one time before, all Mexican food does NOT have to be spicy and covered with sour cream, guacamole and salsa. Some dishes are quite simple and not spicy at all. Sometimes what makes them truly Mexican is eating them with rice and tortillas on the side.

Tonight's dinner was a perfect example of something traditionally Mexican - CAMARONES AL MOJO DE AJO - yet not exactly what you'd order if you were looking for something, well, Mexican. We have all come to expect Mexican food that can often be quite picante.

For this dinner we minced lots of garlic and sauteed it in butter. We tossed in the shelled shrimp, then allowed it to cook quickly, while adding a dash of crushed red pepper and about 1/4 cup of white wine. NOTE: most traditional recipes call for heaps of butter, but we cut back on the usual amount and added the white wine to make the recipe less fattening.

At the last moment I added the Thai red peppers just for show along with some thinly sliced green onions. They make the picture look better, but don't change the essence of the recipe. We served ours over some brown rice because of the lovely sauce, and served just a couple of warmed corn tortillas on the side.

¡Quesadillas! - 159

As you've noticed from our blog, we have been eating LOTS of chicken, turkey and pork, and occasionally we've done some things with seafood. Lately I'd been feeling like I just wanted to come home from work and eat something simple.

We decided to have some simple QUESADILLAS tonight. My first QUESADILLAS years ago were the fried ones we'd eat in Guadalajara for late evening snacks. They consisted of corn tortillas, white cheese, and were fried in vegetable oil. We'd add whatever kind of salsa was handy - be it a fresh one leftover from the afternoon meal or a bottled one because there was nothing else available. These QUESADILLAS were delicious, but we won't even get into the calorie count.

My next round of QUESADILLAS were the ones that I could make in some of the first microwave ovens that came out. I'd take two flour tortillas, and in between them I'd lay several pieces of very thinly sliced cheddar cheese. I'd sprinkle the cheese with bottled Rosarita taco sauce because that's what was available at the time in the home I lived in. Then I'd microwave the whole deal until the cheese was melted, the tortillas were soft, and the sauce was runny. I'd cut it up like a pizza on a cutting board, and that was lunch - almost every day.

Years later, and while working in a Mexican restaurant, I discovered that it was entirely possible to make QUESADILLAS that were cooked on a grill with several kinds of cheese; that you could make them with either flour or corn tortillas; and they could be garnished on the side with salsa, guacamole and sour cream. Now, I love them with grilled chicken, steak, mushrooms, or spinach - or all of the aforementioned - but I do not like dipping them into or spreading them with sour cream. No way José.

Tonight's QUESADILLAS were on whole wheat, whole grain tortillas with modest amounts of cheese, but lots of a leftover mango salsa and fresh guacamole. They were ... ¡PERFECTAS!

Sopa de Pollo con Vegetales - 160

Hard to believe that after 80 meals we're 1/3 of our way towards our goal of eating 240 Mexican meals before heading to Argentina in June. Yikes - I just thought of something. If we don't make our goal, then I'll be hunting for chiles y chorizos in Argentina markets to finish off this project.

Actually, last year while I was there I fixed a pretty mean guacamole for a small group. We were only able to find some Doritos brand tortilla chips in the closest supermarket, but all the same, the guacamole turned out great. No problems finding avocados (which they call paltas in Argentina) or chiles serranos y cilantro. As a side note, the lady I was staying with had a new bottle of tequila that she was anxious to open and try, so I gave her a little lesson in drinking shots with salt and limes.

But seriously folks...where were we? Last night's dinner of SOPA DE POLLO CON VEGETALES was perfect because we are continuing to experience very cold temperatures, and I came home from work feeling chilled. It was made with some frozen chicken stock and shredded chicken that we had on hand plus a variety of vegetales - carrots, corn, celery, zucchini, cabbage and canned tomatoes.

As with other soups we make, we first cut a chile chipotle into the bottom of the soup bowl, and then ladle the soup on top. We serve the bowls with chopped avocado and a squeeze (or two) of lime juice. Javier had some heated corn tortillas, but I just went for a big bowl of soup. I have to say...some of the Mexican soups are the greatest - las mejores.

White Bean Chili with Turkey - 161

The power of suggestion is an amazing thing. Last week I wrote to a friend to tell her about the vegetarian chili that I was making for dinner. She wrote back to say that while she had never had vegetarian chili before, she did enjoy making WHITE BEAN CHILI from time to time.

It had been years since I'd even thought about WHITE BEAN CHILI, much less eaten it anywhere. Her simple comment stuck in my head until I got all of that turkey out of the freezer last week and was looking at ways to fix it into our Mexican Menu 240.

You know - sabes - I didn't even have a recipe. I just made it the way I remembered it and it turned out great. I soaked the white beans overnight, and then rinsed them the next morning before putting them in the bottom of the crock pot with a few cloves of garlic (ajo) and some lowfat chicken broth (caldo de pollo). When the beans were fairly tender, I added some chopped white onion (cebolla), chopped celery (apio), 1 can of chopped green chiles, and about 2 cups of diced turkey. (Pavo is the standard term for turkey, but you often hear the word guajolote used in Mexico. It is an indigenous word for the big bird)

Before serving the WHITE BEAN CHILI, Javier sampled a little and found that it wasn't spicy enough. He diced a serrano chile into the mixture about 1/2 hour before serving, but as you can see from the picture, it doesn't show up. It did the trick, though, and spiced up the chili.

Muchas gracias Mindy - the suggestion was terrific!