Budget shopping: Pollo Asada Tacos con Arroz made Fresh & Easy

My friend over at …my burning kitchenitchen… told me about a new grocer here in town that was a cross between Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Vons called Fresh & Easy. She mentioned that she checks out their weekly specials then builds her week's menu from them and winds up saving money in the process.

Well, my budget is getting tighter and tighter as the months of furloughs at my job has succeeded in drastically cutting into my bank account. So this weekend, I got up, went online and checked out the specials. To my delight, family packs of skinless boneless chicken breasts where $1.97lb. And there were several choices for vegetable and fruit pre-bagged options for .98¢. .98¢! Onions, Lime & Lemon mix, nectarines, peaches, tomatoes. Wow. With shopping list in hand, I went, shopped and wound up spending about $35 less for my week's worth of groceries than I did on my last trip to my local Vons. I even splurged and got two things not on my list: a 2lb bag of San Francisco Fogchaser coffee beans (never had 'em but thought I'd give it a whirl) and a bottle of Barefoot Pinot Grigio (to go with the chicken!).

Since I picked up the lime/lemon bag mix, a bag of onions and the family pack of chicken, I decided to make pollo asada tacos for dinner tonight. And since the family pack was 3.5lbs (5 good sized chicken breasts), I'll be able to grill it all up and then have my main protein for the week that I can finish differently every night (i.e. pita sandwiches, chicken salad, stir fry, chicken quesadillas, etc).

I'll definitely be keeping my eye on Fresh & Easy's weekly specials. $20, $25, $30 a week savings can really add up come the end of the month!



Pollo Asada Tacos with Pico de Gallo

5 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cp olive oil
2 TBS white vinegar
1/2 finely chopped spanish onion
5 crushed garlic cloves
juice of 2 limes (about 1/4 cp)
1 TSP ground cumin
1 and 1/2 TSP Mexican oregano
1 TSP sea salt
1/2 TSP ground black pepper
Corn tortillas

Place one chicken breast at a time into a large ziplock bag and use a smooth mallet or rolling pin to pound out so that the thickest part of the breast is the same thickness as the thinest. This helps to insure that the breast cooks more evenly on the grill. Place the pounded out chicken breasts into a big ziplock or a deep dish that can be sealed well.

Place the remaining ingredients in a shallow bowl and whisk together well. Pour the marinade over the chicken and let stand in the refrigerator from 2 to 24 hrs.

When the chicken has marinated for at least 2 hours, place on a hot grill and cook for about 5 minutes on each side or until desired doneness. Remove from grill and let stand 3 to 5 minutes before slicing.

For the pico de gallo (enough for about 1 1/2 cps)

1 large tomato, chopped
1/2 spanish onion, chopped
1/4 cp fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 to 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely minced (I'm not one for heat so I only use half of one for the flavor. If you love heat, use a whole pepper and if you LOVE heat, keep the seeds)
juice of 1/2 a lemon
pinch of granulated garlic
pinch of sea salt to taste
pinch of freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Mix all ingredients well in a bowl. Serve as a condiment in tacos, over steak, for chips, on scrambled eggs

Arroz (Rice)

2 CPS chicken stock
2 TBS unsalted butter
2 TBS finely chopped onions
1/4 TSP ground cumin
1/4 TSP sea salt
1/4 TSP granulated garlic
1/4 TSP paprika
1/2 frozen mixed vegetables
1 CP long grain white rice

Place first six ingredients into a 2 qrt pot, cover and bring to a rapid boil over high heat. Add vegetables and rice and bring back to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Set timer for 15 minutes. DO NOT LIFT LID. At the 15 minute mark, turn off heat and DO NOT LIFT LID. Set timer again for 5 minutes to finish steaming. Once the timer goes off, lift lid and fluff rice with fork.

Wine notes…

On a recent trip to BevMo's 5¢ sale, I picked up a couple of bottles to try out. So far, none have been a disappointment. Here's a list of what I've tried so far all of which I highly recommend:

• Valley of the Moon 2007 Rosato di Sangiovese: Really awesome slightly chilled and served with grilled food. Strong strawberry aroma with a raspberry and pomegranate finish. Lovely!
• Alderbrook 2003 Old Vine Zinfadel: This was actually not from my BevMo run. I picked this bottle up at my local Von's but have been unable to find it there again. Going onto the Alderbrook website, they don't even have the 2003 listed anymore as they are now selling the 2006. I'm going to send away for a bottle or two. It was that good. Wonderful black pepper spice and much richer and full bodied than most Zins I've had. I served it with grilled steak sandwiches and it stood up to the ribeyes wonderfully!
• Schmitt Söhne 2007 Blue Riesling QbA imported from Longuich, Germany: This riesling has a beautiful bouquet of peaches and apples with a taste that delivers a crisp distinctive apple flavor. Love it as a sipping wine and with chicken and it pairs really well with non-tomato based pizza.
• MontGras Reserva 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah: Oo-la-la did I love this wine! Imported from Chile, this blend is made with 60% Cab grapes and 40% Syrah. This wine has a blend of these two grape's best characteristics: Wonderfully plumy from the syrah and toasty vanilla oakiness from the cab. Perfect with pork and steak. I served it with freshly grilled Carne Asada tacos and they complimented each other superbly.
• MacMurray Ranch 2007 Sonoma Coast Pinot Gris: As they say, this has a perfect round mouth feel: pears, white peaches, figs all come together to produce a full flavored, full bodied Pinot Gris that is one of the most satisfying pinot gris' I think I've ever had. I've always found this varietal to be a bit flat and nondescript. Not so this one! It's, in my opinion, the white counterpart to a good full bodied cab. Leaves a crisp clean finish. Yummy!

I have few more reds to explore over the next few weeks. And am really looking forward to diving into them. There is nothing like a great wine find! I hope these notes inspire you to go out and try a couple of them for yourself. If you do, feel free to send me a note and let me know how our tastes compare.

Until next time... Buen Provecho!

Girls movie night and a little dining al fresco. What could be better on a warm summer evening?

Jess enjoying the hot off the grill Margarita pizza.

Finally! San Diego has been sunny again as April showers, May gray and June gloom have, for now, taken hiatus. What does this mean for me? It means I can start, in earnest, to enjoy the fruits of my labor: My little oasis that is my back patio.

The new seating area on my back patio. I sit here almost every evening when I get home from work to check my email and unwind with a glass of wine or freshly brewed latté (depending on my stress level!).

After living at the place I rent for nearly five years now, I've finally gotten around to clearing out the clutter in the back space that is my backyard. Mid-May I hired someone to haul away the junk and I started the quest to find items to fulfill the idea I had: a seating area on one side and a dining area on the other with a little herb garden and as much privacy as I can finagle. It isn't easy decorating on a limited budget but I found most of the bigger ticket items on sale.

I've had a friend here and there over while the patio had been in progress but last weekend I finally arrived at a point where I felt like I was nearly finished. So the only thing to do next was to have someone over for a meal outside. With a broken oven and an especially warm run of weather, I opted for making the meal outdoors.

The challenge was that I really wanted pizza. Hmm. My last attempt to make pizza on the grill wasn't such a success. My friend Darlene over at My Burning Kitchen was the guinea pig that first time around and we wound up with more than slightly charred, slightly dry pizza. You can read about it here. Uh, one small aside: she was far too kind in the her comments on the edibility of our meal!

My friend Jess was my guinea pig this time. Armed with the lessons learned from my first attempt, the biggest difference between then and now: My ever faithful, often used, Pampered Chef pizza stone. The second one, keeping a better eye on the pizzas while they baked in my gas grill. They cook fast!

I've had this stone for more than 8 years now and it's nicely blackened with age. The key to a good stone: use it! Just like a hand-hammered wok (another must have item!), the blacker it gets, the more naturally nonstick it becomes. I can use mine for baking cookies now without the need to use a nonstick cooking spray. The cookies come out absolutely wonderful. The lack of the added oil keeps the bottom of the cookie from getting that slightly chewy crunch that I hate which burnt oil and butter can impart. But I digress. Back to pizza!

"Really special," says Jess after taking the first few bites. This Pear & Gorgonzola pizza was so yummy that I forgot to take a photo when I pulled it off the grill. We just immediately dove right in!

I decided to take on a pizza flavor I had a few years ago at a local wood-fired pizza joint: Pear & Gorgonzola. Since it's been a while since I've had it, I don't quite remember what all was on the pizza but I knew I wanted to keep the flavors clean, fresh and tasty.

Gorgonzola, like most bleu cheeses, can be oft-putting to some people which is why I think the pear/gorgonzola pairing works so well: the slight bite from the gorgonzola is mellowed by the juicy sweetness of the pear. Since I wasn't sure of Jess' position on this particular cheese (or bleu cheese in general), I made the decision to add some fresh ricotta to the pie and to use whole wheat pizza dough to further mellow the flavor. I think it was quite successful.

Speaking of pizza dough, I used the same Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough that I used the last time around. I love this stuff! It's so versatile. I've used it for foccacia, calzones and bread as well as pizza. It's ready made dough and is sold in the refrigerated section. It's full of yeasty whole wheat goodness and can be easily divided in half so you can make two smaller pies instead of one unwieldy big pie. Which left me with the next quandary: what flavor to make the second one? Since I was opting for a non-meat first course, I didn't want to make a second pie with meat that could overpower the main event.

I'm successfully growing basil in my new container garden and I had recently purchased some vine ripened tomatoes. So the natural conclusion was to create my own version of a Margarita pizza.

My version of a Margarita Pizza. This pie had the freshest, lightest taste. And it was distinctly different from the Pear & Gorgonzola without being overpowering. Consensus was: Mmmm-mmm!

Both pies were a hit. We started off with a salad of mixed greens with sliced red plums, pine nuts, Quattro Formagio shredded cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. I paired the meal with a fruity slightly chilled Valley of the Moon 2007 Rosato di Sangiovese. The lovely cherry flavor really paired especially well with the pear and gorgonzola. As my friend and I concluded, our meal was like an explosion of flavor in our mouths!

Dessert was provided by Jess and it was a yummy Dump Cake (minus the walnuts since, um, yes folks, I admit it, I hate 'em! ew!) that she made that afternoon for the first time. It was so tasty!

After a full belly, there was only thing left to do: time to enjoy a great romantic comedy. Jess' choice from my extensive collection was one of my favorites: Hugh Jackman in "Kate & Leopold." Mmmm. Now that's what I call a great way to end an evening of successful food experiments, great wine, good conversation and fun times with a great friend. Life is good.

Pear & Gorgonzola Pizza

1/2 package Trader Joe's ready-made whole wheat pizza dough
1/2 sliced pear, slightly firm
1 tbs crumbled gorgonzola
1 tbs + 1 tsp fresh ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Trader Joe's Quattro Formagio shredded cheese (a blend of parmesan, asiago, fontina and mild provolone)
olive oil
corn meal

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, remove from bag and divide in half. While the dough comes down to room temperature, it's going to get sticky so I place mine on the work surface that's been prepared with a little dusting of corn meal.

Place the pizza stone on the grill and heat the grill to 400º.

While the grill is coming up to temperature, take half of the dough and with a good dusting of corn meal on the work surface (I use a wooden pizza peel), starting from the center working out, use your fingers to pull and flatten the dough into a flatbread shape of your choice. You could pull out a rolling pin and aim for a perfectly round pizza crust, but why? Embrace the organic rustic shape of a truly hand-formed crust. Remember, it's always OK to color outside of the lines!

Next, drizzle a little olive oil over the dough and use your fingers to spread it around. Sprinkle the Quattro Formagio as evenly as you can. Add the pear in a single layer and crumble the gorgonzola over and around them. Using a tablespoon, randomly drop little clumps of the ricotta onto the pie.

The corn meal on the pizza peel will make it easy to place the pizza on the grill. Just give it a quick little shake to make sure the pizza is loose enough to slide off the peel and then carefully place the pizza on the center of the stone and close the grill.

Cook the pizza for 8-10 minutes checking on the pizza after 6 minutes. Remove the pizza once the cheese is melted and the crust is slightly golden. Let stand for five minutes (if you can wait that long!) and then cut and serve.



Margarita Pizza

1/2 package Trader Joe's ready-made whole wheat pizza dough
2 small vine ripened tomatoes, thinly sliced
6-8 basil leaves, hand torn
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/4 cp ricotta cheese
1/4 cp Trader Joe's Quattro Formagio shredded cheese
olive oil
sea or kosher salt, to taste
freshly ground pepper, to taste

Flatten the second half of the dough in the same way we did for the first pie.

Drizzle a little olive oil over the dough then sprinkle on the garlic. Using your fingers, spread them around. Next, spread the Quattro Formagio cheese evenly over the crust. Sprinkle on the hand torn basil. Using a teaspoon, drop little clumps of the ricotta over the pie.

Prepare the tomatoes by spreading the slices on a platter. Sprinkle them with salt & pepper on both sides. Then place the seasoned tomato slices onto the crust in a single layer. Add a little more of the Quattro Formagio over the pie and then sprinkle with a little sea or kosher salt.

The corn meal on the pizza peel will make it easy to place the pizza on the grill. Just give it a quick little shake to make sure the pizza is loose enough to slide off the peel and then carefully place the pizza on the center of the stone and close the grill.

Cook the pizza for 8-10 minutes checking on the pizza after 6 minutes. Remove the pizza once the cheese is melted and the crust is slightly golden. Let stand for five minutes (if you can wait that long!) and then cut and serve.

TIP: Timesaver ingredient: Trader Joe's! Every ingredient, save for the basil for the margarita pizza, came from Trader Joe's. I love Trader Joe's!

My container garden: basil, rosemary, strawberries, patio tomato, lavender and some flowering plants. I love it!

Your turn: What's your favorite meal to serve al Fresco?

Posole

Mom's posole all dressed up with shredded cabbage, radish, onions, cilantro and lime.

There are a few dishes that both my parents make where I definitely, on the downlow, prefer my mother's version hands down. Unfortunately for us kids, neither mom or dad ever write their recipes down. And like most recipes passed down from generation to generation, a lot of our family staple meals were made from learned recipes and never measured. It's a palmful of this, a pinch of that to taste, a teacup of that... all feel and guestimations. But mom's was always consistently spot on! And this is basically her recipe (as much as I can "guess"! LOL). When it's cold and breezey and sprinkley, this is the soup I crave with corn tortillas fresh from the tortillaria. 

Posole (or Pozole) is a peasant dish from Mexico traditionally made with pork neck bones, chili and hominy (dried maize – or corn – that has been treated with an alkali making it not only more digestible but significantly increases the nutrient value of untreated corn). If however, your local ethnic grocery store doesn't have neck bones, you can easily substitute it with a cubed pork roast or my preference, country style pork ribs (bone-in). 

I made this soup for lunch during our tamalada and it was a huge hit. At that time I made enough to nearly feed an army. This is a much more scaled down version but still enough to feed about 8 -10 people as an entrée. As with most soups and stews, flavors will concentrate overnight making this a great budget-conscious recipe as the leftovers can easily be frozen or saved for lunch the next day.

Posole - unadorned - nice and steaming! Yum!

POSOLE

2 pounds pork neck bones

2 pounds country style pork ribs (w/bone), cut into large pieces

48 oz prepared chicken stock (I prefer to make my own but when I'm feeling lazy I use Progresso)

1/4 cup ground California chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

2 to 3 tbs, or to taste, Knorr's chicken bouillon

2 (12 oz) cans of hominy

In an 8 quart stock pot, add first 6 ingredients starting off with only 2 tbs of the bouillon. Simmer on medium to low flame for an hour, occasionally skimming off any foam or fat off the top. After the first hour, taste the broth adding more bouillon or chili to taste. Continue simmering on low for another hour and a half. Add the hominy and simmer an additional half hour to 45 minutes. Meat will be falling off the bone when ready. 

Serve with any combination of the recommended condiments. Some people like to add the oregano in the cooking process. Our family preferred to add it last over the condiments to preserve the oregano taste. I find it gets lost when adding it to the soup too early but if you aren't particularly fond of oregano as my family is, I do suggest adding it during the cooking process. About a palmful. :)

CONDIMENTS:

shredded cabbage

sliced radishes

chopped white or spanish onions

lime or lemon wedges

chopped cilantro

diced avocados

dried oregano

Petitchef, how cool is that?

I got a message from Vincent over at Petitchef.com inviting me to join their network. Wow, the pressure's on to get back to posting here regularly again! Since I'm also posting regularly to my photo blog , as well as creating art to sell on my Artfire and two Etsy sites (here and here), my goal will be to post at least once a week. I'm thinking I'll aim for weekends. Stay tuned!

Thanks again Petitchef for the honor!

Happy cooking everyone...until our next bite.

Roasted Baby Vegetables

For an upcoming food story on roasting vegetables, I volunteered to cook and photograph the recipe myself since having the reporter cook them at home, then transport them to the office so we could photograph it in the studio would result in very sorry looking wilted veggies! And I had a very clear idea of how I wanted the photos to look -- bright and saturated!

I made these twice now. The first following the recipe exactly as found here. I found the that the vinegar was VERY over powering and drowned out the delicate flavors that the roasting brought out in the veggies. Also, there wasn't enough salt or oil for the amount of vegetables. Of course, taking into consideration that this recipe is originally from Cooking Light, it made sense that they were being a bit stingy with the salt and oil.

Here's my modified version:

Roasted Baby Vegetables

1 1/2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 pound of baby carrots with tops
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/12 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
12 fingerling potatoes, halved
6 radishes, halved
2 cups of asparagus sliced on the bias
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon chopped fresh chives

1. Preheat oven to 500˚
2. Combine vinegar, sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a small bowl and whisk well to combine.
3. Trim green tops off the carrots and discard the tops. Place the carrots, potatoes and radishes in a metal roasting pan. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the vegetables and sprinkle in the salt and pepper. Toss to coat.
4. Bake for 20 minutes checking in ever 5-8 minutes to stir the vegetables to help brown them evenly. Remove the pan from the oven, add the shallot mixture and asparagus; toss. Return to the oven and bake an additional 5 minutes or until the asparagus is fork tender.
5. Transfer to a serving dish and toss in the parsley and chives.

Tamalada

The Tamalada Girls, toasting with some yummy sparkling wine from South Coast Winery.

Everyone was so busy! Look at that concentration!

It's no secret by now, that food is the center of our family gatherings at least 90% of the time. Our family, especially when I was  young, would spend days preparing for them. There are so many foods from my childhood that I eat now that are associated with wonderful familial memories.

One of those family food traditions was the annual tamale making marathon every Christmas. As an adult, I've long since given up trying to find prepared tamales that rival my family's. And try as I might, I have never been able to duplicate my folks tasty treats – Dad doesn't write down his recipes. He never has. So I've come up with my own versions that come close to my parent's tamales and over the years I have periodically shared them with friends through tamaladas – or tamale-making parties.

A couple of weekends ago, I held the first one in more than 5 years. We had a great time. I brought together a couple of gals that don't often see each other and everyone had a chance to learn, make their own tamales and take part in a tradition that's been in my family since before I was born.

TAKE SHORTCUTS WHEN APPROPRIATE: I do take some shortcuts, not because of a lack of knowledge but rather a lack of time. I'd much rather spend the time making delicious molé. To that end, I buy prepared masa from a great local authentic Mexican restaurant. If you live in San Diego proper, I highly recommend buying it from El Indio. You just need to call 24hrs in advance to order it. They sell red masa (masa that has chili powder added) or white (plain masa) and they come in 5 and 10lb tubs. 10 lbs is what I recommend if you are making both of these recipes. It should yield you at least 60 tamales. I buy the white for sweet tamales but for regular meat tamales I prefer the added depth of flavor that comes from using the red chili infused masa. Make sure you request PREPARED masa as they also sell the unprepared ground masa which has no shortening and no leavening in it. If you've never made tamales before, you wouldn't know what to look for between prepared and unprepared masa. Spending hours making these tasty morsels only to mistakenly use unprepared masa means you'll end up with unedible rocks for tamales. A huge waste of time, money and effort! I've done it by accident. Learn from my mistake! :)

BUT IF YOU PREFER: I'm also including my recipe for the masa if you choose to make it from scratch. I seriously recommend a stand mixer such as a KitchenAid rather than using a hand mixer or – heaven for bid! – mixing by hand. Alas! I've seen so many recipes that say 'mix the dough until it forms a thick paste like peanut butter.' No, no, no. It should be light and airy like whipped butter or whipped cream cheese. The secret to a great tamale is in the masa first and foremost. It's the first thing people see and cut into, the first thing they taste. If the masa is tough or hard like a tortilla, you'll lose your audience. It should be like a slightly dense but still very moist artisanal bread when steamed properly. And it shouldn't be too thick. When assembling the tamale, lay the masa down no thicker than a 1/4". Trust me, it'll expand. Any thicker than that and you get a masa tamale with a little meat instead of a tamale balanced in flavor and texture. The former will chase people away, the latter, convert those who weren't previously fans of tamales. 

My family makes 3 kinds of tamales every year: chicken, beef and pork. For my event, I chose to make chicken and pork. I showed the girls how to assemble then left them to it while I kept washing husks, keeping the ingredients flowing, steaming and bagging the fruits of our combined efforts.

If your local grocery store doesn't have some of the ingredients, you can order them online from MexGrocer.com. They even have tamale making kits!

You'll need plenty of corn husks. Most grocery stores sell them in the ethnic foods /mexican foods aisle but if you can't find them at yours, you can check them out at MexGrocer.com as well. About two hours before you're ready to start assembling, boil water, place the husks in a large tub or ice chest (I use my large igloo cooler) and pour the boiling water over them to cover. This might take several pots of boiling water to cover. This will make the husks pliable. When you're ready to use them, take a handful over to the sink, and working in batches as needed, rinse the husks under warm water removing any leftover silk.

Also, I highly recommend NOT  substituting the California chili powder for the spice jars merely labeled 'chili powder' or 'chili powder blend.' This mole, as most moles and red chili (chili colorado) that aren't made from whole dried chili's, should only be made with the distinct flavor you get from California chili powder. It has the right blend of regional chili found in Mexican foods. You can get relatively inexpensive packets from your grocery store where they have the Mexican spices packaged in small plastic bags or you can get it from most bulk food stores (I buy mine at Smart & Final).

In addition to the items in the masa and filling recipes, you'll also need
• 4 green bell peppers, sliced thinly
• 4 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled and cut like french fries
• 2-3 cans whole pitted olives 

• 1/2 lb Monterey Jack cheese, cut french-fry style.

Masa Harina Tamale
6 cups Masa Harina 


3 ½ cups warm chicken broth


2 cups lard


2 tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon California Chili powder
1 tablespoon New Mexico Chili powder

In a bowl, mix masa harina (you can also use this style of masa harina), baking powder, paprika, cumin and chili until well blended. In a separate bowl, beat the lard and salt using an electric mixer at medium speed until combined. It should be light, airy and fluffy. Using a KitchenAid is preferred to a hand mixer because you can get more air incorporated into the mixture. Slowly add broth and Masa

 Harina a few cups at a time. Beat at medium speed until dough is a smooth like whipped butter. You can test the masa by dropping a spoonful into a glass of water. If it's done, it will float. You don't want to over beat as this will result in tough, hard masa. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

Pork Filling

 

7 lb pork butt roast, prefer boneless

For mole:
 1/3 cup California chili powder

 3 tablespoons New Mexico chili powder
 96 oz. chicken broth
 2 tablespoon. plus 2 teaspoons ground cumin
 2 heaping tablespoons garlic powder
 1 teaspoon sea salt
 1 tablespoon chicken bouillon
 half a disk of Ibarra Mexican chocolate
 6 heaping tablespoons flour
 ¾ cup cold water
 vegetable or olive oil for frying as needed

Seasoning Mix for frying pork:
 1 cup flour
 3 tablespoons sea salt
 2 tablespoons black pepper
 3 tablespoons ground cumin
 2 tablespoons California chili powder
 2 tablespoons New Mexico chili powder
 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons garlic powder

Cut the pork into 1 inch or so cubes trimming off as much fat as possible.

Place a large skillet on medium heat. Add vegetable oil to cover bottom of pan.

Add all the ingredients for the seasoning mix into a Ziplock baggie and mix well. Working in small batches, add a couple handfuls of the cubed pork and shake well. Using your hand, pick up the flour covered meat and shake off excess flour, place carefully into the frying pan and brown. Pull out the browned pork and drain on paper towels. Continue until all pork is browned.

While meat is browning, fill a stock pot with the broth, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt, chicken bouillon and chocolate. Heat to boiling then cover and simmer on low. Before adding meat, taste the mole and adjust seasoning if needed.

When all meat has been browned, carefully add to the boiling sauce. Partially cover and cook for 3 hours on low stirring occasionally.

After 3 hours, combine the 3/4 cup cold water and the 6 tablespoons of flour with a whisk until well blended. Turn the heat up on the meat and when it's boiling, slowly add the flour mixture whisking as you add it to avoid lumps. When all the flour mixture is added, stir the pork well to incorporate making a nice thick gravy. Continue a slow boil while stirring for 5 minutes. Then turn off heat.

When meat is cooled, refrigerate until you are ready to make the tamales or proceed to the tamale making so long as the meat mixture is completely cooled.

For the Chicken tamales:

Rinse a whole chicken removing the giblets. Stuff three peeled garlic cloves and a half onion into the cavity. Place in stock pot, add water to cover. Place the other half of the onion in the water along with 2 bay leaves, 3 tablespoons salt, 3 garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon black pepper, 1 chopped carrot, 1 chopped celery stick. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Cook until the meat falls off the bone, about 1 hour. Remove from broth and let cool. Once cooled, de-bone and shred the chicken.

Assembling the tamales

For the chicken tamales:

Lay the husk in the palm of your hand, wide end towards you. Place a heaping tablespoon or tablespoon and-a-half of masa on the husk and smooth to cover the middle. Layer some chicken, an olive, a slice of green pepper, a potato and the cheese onto the masa.

Wrap the tamale by bringing up the sides and rolling them like you would if you were making a burrito. If the sides don't quite over lap, grab a smaller husk and, add a dab of masa to act as "glue" over the "seam" and place the extra husk over it to seal. 

Gently squeeze the ends so that you create a nice fat tamale. Careful NOT to twist. You're just squeezing the contents towards the center freeing the ends so that you can tie them.

Tie the ends with culinary grade string and trim so that you have nice short, neat ends.

Repeat the process for the pork tamales omitting the cheese. Be sure to put enough of the mole "gravy" onto the tamale so the tamale isn't too dry. Usually enough room for 3 or four chunks of the pork. 

Once you're ready to steam, get a nice big steamer (like this one), put a several inches of water to just touch the steaming rack (or steamer insert if using a regular stock pot with a deep steamer insert). Place the tamales standing up into the steamer and pack them fairly snugly. Cover with a damp dish towel, then cover with the stockpot lid. Steam on medium heat for 40 minutes to an hour and-a-half depending on the size of your steamer. Remove one tamale, let stand on the counter for 5 minutes then test for doneness by gently removing the husk. The tamale should come away from the husk with relative ease and the masa should be moist and firm and not wet and soggy. If it's not quite firm, then continue steaming checking every 10 minutes for doneness.

Let the cooked tamales rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Variations and serving suggestions

• Try adding a large jar of salsa verde to the shredded chicken and omit the cheese. These are heavenly.

• Use this same mole recipe substituting stewing beef for the pork butt. 

• Serve the tamales with refried beans, spanish rice, chunky pico de gallo (or your favorite salsa).

• For a Tex-Mex variation, try serving the tamales slathered in chili beans. Yum! This is my dad's favorite way.

• The day after Christmas, we always had this yummy Mexican-style breakfast: fry up the leftover cooked  tamales in some Mazola Corn Oil and serve with fried eggs and salsa and some runny refried beans. I love the crisp, crunchy crust the frying forms on the tamales. 

• Tamales can be reheated in the microwave but for a truly freshly made tamale, I prefer to reheat them by steaming them in a small 3 quart stock pot like this one from ikea with this steamer insert.

YOUR TURN:

Do you have foods that bring back childhood memories? 

Cauliflower Mash

OK Kleopatra... You are most correct: It has been too long since my last post and it's time for something new...

Life has kept me quite busy these last few months and I've been living mostly on these wonderful frozen meals I blogged about on my other site. There simply hasn't been much time for trying out or creating new recipes.

Tonight I was prepping my terracotta roasting pan for a lamb roast (already rubbed and marinated courtesy of one of my favorite grocers, Trader Joes) when I was struck with the dilemma of what to serve with it. I opened the fridge and stared at it's contents. Hhhmm, been a week since I did any shopping and my choices were limited. I did have one russet potato and a whole head of cauliflower that definitely needed to be used soon. Then it came to me. Cauliflower mash. Now, I've never made cauliflower mash before. My use of cauliflower was limited to either steaming and serving as a side dish with butter or my most favorite way to serve it, lightly blanched and then tossed in with eggs, onions, cilantro and chopped tomatoes for a yummy scramble on Sunday mornings.

No finished photo as my poor digital camera battery was quite dead from non-use. But the experiment proved quite tasty and I will most certainly use this approach again soon... Maybe next time I'll even subject guests to it! :)

Enjoy!

CAULIFLOWER MASH

1 large russet potato, peeled and rough chopped
1 whole head of cauliflower, rinsed, leaves trimmed off
1 tsp pasilla chile powder (to add a hint of smoky flavor -- it isn't a "hot" spice)
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cp parmesan
1 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cp nonfat milk (or heavier milk if you prefer like whipping cream or even buttermilk; I only ever have skim in the house)
kosher and/or sea salt

Place the chopped potato into a pot with a steamer insert. Add cold water to cover the potatoes. Add a pinch or two of sea salt. Boil on high for 15 minutes.

Quarter the cauliflower and break into florets. Chopped the core and stems a little finer so they will cook as fast as the flower portion of the vegetable. When the 15 minutes for the potatoes are up, drain the water out of the pot to just below the steamer insert. It's important that the water NOT touch the cauliflower or the mash will wind up being too watery. Toss in the cauliflower over the potatoes (potatoes will still be just slightly underdone at this point). Toss a pinch of kosher salt over the cauliflower, cover the pot and let steam for about 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye on it. You don't want it mushy but fork tender.

While the cauliflower is steaming, place the milk and butter in a microwave safe measuring cup and warm for 60 seconds. Remove and stir until butter is no longer solid. Set aside.

When the vegetables are ready, pull them out of the steamer basket and place in a large serving bowl. Working quickly so as to not let the veggies cool, pour the milk in and sprinkle the pasilla, garlic, pepper, parmesan. Using a potato masher, gently mash stopping occassionally to stir the mixture. Add kosher salt to taste.

Tortilla Española

My tapas cookbooks have been on my coffee table for the last six months. I'm dying to throw a tapas party again. Up until three years ago, I would host a yearly White Elephant party every December. Yes, it was about celebrating Christmas, about friends gathering and laughing and seeing who got the biggest gift and who brought the funniest White Elephant. But most importantly, it was about the FOOD! The parties were themed -- a different cultural experience every year. By far, my most successful was Spain and tapas!

Last Saturday morning, I was sitting on my sofa sipping my nice hot quad-shot nonfat latte made with my lovely, still newish Kitchenaid Pro Line Espresso Maker (more on that lovely another time) and the tapas cookbook was sitting there. Staring at me. Taunting me. You see, I hadn't had breakfast yet and here it was already 11am.

I picked up the cookbook, flipped it open and it landed on the gorgeous photo of a Tortilla Española. Now, being from Southern California and just a hop, skip and a jump away from the Mexican border, I grew up thinking that the tortillas I had been eating all my life were Spanish in origin. "Tortilla" to me was the flatbread – made of stone ground corn or flour – that we ate at every meal. But my first tapas experience taught me otherwise as I found that the Spanish tortilla was actually an omelet much in the same vein as an Italian fritatta.

Even the casual reader of my blog can tell by now that a) I love eggs and b) that I've never met a potato I didn't like. Tortillla Española is three ingredients: eggs, potatoes and onions. Can you say "Heaven?"

The recipe in my cookbook is enough to serve 12, tapas style. Since obviously I was eating alone and whatever I made would most likely be lunch and quite possibly dinner as well as my breakfast, the thought of that much egg and potato was a bit frightening. Yes, even this egg and potato lover has her limits. But the recipe was easily modified as basically 3 eggs to a potato. So that's what I did. Making the entire recipe should create a lovely 1/2" thick tortilla. Mine, as you can see, was about 1/3" in thickness. But being short on thickness didn't mean it was short on taste. A simple, uncomplicated, yummy eggy potatoey goodness (Ohmy! I'm making up my own words now! That's how much I loved this recipe!)



TORTILLA ESPANOLA

5 large peeled potatoes, thinly and evenly sliced
2 large onions, thinly sliced
15 eggs
olive oil
salt

Heat a large skillet with olive oil until nearly smoking. Starting with the potatoes place a single layer down, then the onions alternating until all of the potatoes and onions are in the pan. Lower the heat to medium and cook them until tender flipping occasionally and being careful not to brown. While they are cooking, whisk the eggs together in a large bowl. When the potatoes and onions are ready, remove from the pan and wipe it clean. It's crucial that there is no residual bits in the pan that might make the tortilla stick (I had to scour mine quickly). Place the cooked potato mixture into the eggs and toss well to coat. Let stand for 15 min. Put olive oil in the pan and heat. When pan is ready, pour egg mixture back into pan, using a spatula to push the potatoes down into the egg throughout the cooking process. Use a knife to keep the tortilla loose and away from the edge of the pan. Constantly shake the pan to keep the tortilla from sticking. When the the bottom of the tortilla is golden brown and set, place a large plate on top and flip the tortilla onto the plate. Quickly wipe the pan clean, add a little more oil and carefully slide the tortilla back into the pan to finish cooking off the top of the tortilla. Cook for no more than 3 minutes at this point. You don't want it overly browned like the "crust" side, you just want it a bit of crispness. When ready, place plate back on top of the pan and flip it out. Let stand. Traditionally, this is served at room temperature and sliced into pizza-like wedges. I enjoyed mine with a raspberry mimosa. OK, so not traditional for tapas fare but damn good combination anyway!

Heaven.

YOUR TURN: What's your favorite theme for entertaining?

Let's hear it for peanut butter!

College, as I imagine it is for most, was not easy on the wallet for me. Especially once I transfered to an art college in the Bay Area... Oakland, California to be exact. So, aside of having to buy tons of art supplies weekly for various projects on a full 15 unit schedule, I had to eat.

Peanut butter became my best friend. I'd have it on corn tortillas (yes, I still do!) sometimes with strawberry jam, on toast in the mornings with a cuppa joe, used to thin out a can of chili beans and tossed with spaghetti... and in peanut sauces over whatever pasta was on sale that week.

The latter is what I was in the mood for a few days ago. Of course, I'm not on such tight budget constraints these 22 years later but I still find ways to work in peanut butter to many a meal.

Peanut sauce recipes vary from culture to culture and chef to chef. I don't have a hard and set recipe myself. I use what's on hand and whatever I'm in the mood for.

This particular night, the sauce started with organic creamy peanut butter, a little coconut milk, tamari, Asian chili oil and a couple dashes of chicken stock to thin it out a bit. Because I have to limit the amount of soy I eat, I also added some kosher salt to taste in place of adding lots of tamari (I use soy sauce and tamari sparringly -- mostly for color and a hint of taste as soy and I aren't friends). I tossed it with spaghetti and left over rotisserie chicken that I chopped and topped it with crushed salted roasted peanuts and chopped scallions. (Tip: I put a handful of peanuts into a snack or sandwich sized ziplock bag and give the bag a couple of good whacks with my rolling pin or kitchen mallet -- whichever I find first. Less trouble than pulling out a food processor for such a small amount of chopping.)

What's great about this dish is that it tastes equally delicious as a cold or room temperature pasta "salad" so it's perfect for packing for lunch for work or a lazy Sunday afternon at the park with a good book. Which is what I did with the leftovers.

YOUR TURN: Do you have food "obsessions" from your youth that still make appearances at your dinner table?