Red Pepper Chipotle Dip

I only recently discovered the glorious majesty that is ground Chipotle powder, and quite frankly, I can't believe how many dips, soups, pots of chili and Mexican casserole-type situations I have made and served without it. It's delicious - smoky, rich, dark, and super spicy. It elevates this simple red pepper dip to from good, to seriously delicious.

I wanted to make traditional hummus, but didn't have any tahini. I figured cream cheese would do in a pinch, and boy did it ever.  I plan to make this dip this way from here on out. Hummus, schmummus.



Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: None
Number of Ingredients: 7

1 14oz. can chickpeas
1 12 oz. jar roasted red peppers packed in olive oil
3 tablespoons cream cheese
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1/2 lime
Salt to taste
A pinch or 2 ground Chipotle powder, to taste

Drain and rinse chickpeas. Drain red peppers. Toss into food processor (or blender, if you're not lucky enough to have come across a good one at a thrift store, like sad little me). Add the cream cheese, oil, and lime juice. Whiz to a non-lumpy puree. Add a big pinch of salt and a smaller pinch of Chipotle, then whiz again, and taste. If it's too thick, add more lime juice or oil. If you can't taste the Chipotle, add more of that. Whiz again, tasting and adding as you see fit after that - but remember, you want this to be thick and creamy, not thin and watery (blerf), so mind how much you whiz it, hoss.

When the dip has your desired taste and texture, sprinkle it with a fresh herb (I used cinaltro), and serve with raw veggies and/or pita chips.

Apple & Onion Confit

This warm, gooey, complex yet comforting combination of flavors blows my mind. The sweetness of the apples and onions, cooked in all the luscious butter, off-set by the light perfume of the sage and juxtaposed with the sharp cheese... oh, HELL yeah.

When something is this delicious, and has a French word in it, you'd think it difficult to execute, but you'd be wrong. This couldn't be easier to make - just chop, cook in fat, and occasionally stir.  

I think the confit would be a fabulous addition to a pork tenderloin or chop, or a lovely roast chicken. It would be delicious baked in a gratin dish with a heavy sprinkling of cheese over the top, and served along side a spicy greens salad and a loaf of good bread.

Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 20 mins
Number of Ingredients: 10

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium apples thinly sliced
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 tbsp fresh sage
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup (I used a bit less) apple cider or balsamic vinegar

1 crusty baguette, sliced into rounds

1 wedge strong cheese -  I used P'tit Basque, a tangy sheep's milk cheese.


Melt butter and oil in large skillet over medium/low heat. Add apples, onions and sage, and stir to coat. After a few minutes,  add honey and stir.  After another few minutes, add vinegar and stir. Watch the mixture to be sure it doesn't brown, stirring frequently, and cook about 20 minutes.

Just before you take the confit off the heat, broil the baguette until toasty and crisp. Arrange toasts on a platter, top with a nice chunk of cheese, and spoon the confit over the top. Garnish with finely chopped sage. Serve with prosecco (my holiday drink of choice)!

When Life Gives You Pumpkins...

... Make Shortcut Pumpkin Curry!

The pumpkins we didn't carve for Halloween ended up staying on our front porch through Thanksgiving. When the Christmas decorations came out, I decided to put the pumpkins to good use with a spicy, creamy vegetable curry. I have made my own curry before, but didn't have all the spices on hand to do it this time around, so I took a shortcut, and used a Trader Joe's simmer sauce that had been languishing in the cupboard for a couple of months. Just between you and me? The jarred, shortcut curry was every bit as flavorful, and much less time consuming, as the homemade version.

Prep Time: 60 minutes (45 of which is baking time, don't panic!)
Cook Time: 20 minutes (or more, if you want to simmer slower and longer)
Ingredients: 8-10 (depending how many veggies you want to incorporate)

1 small pumpkin
1 small yellow onion
2 large carrots
Veggies of your choice (cauliflower, small waxy potatoes, green beans, chickpeas, broccoli, sweet potatoes, squash, etc.)
1 can coconut milk
1 jar Trader Joe's Thai red curry sauce
1 cups veg stock, or to taste
Cooked brown rice


To roast the pumpkin (a sugar pie pumpkin is best):

Preheat oven to 350. Slice pumpkin in half, and remove guts. Lay pumpkin halves face-down in a baking dish, and pour 2 tbsp water over each. Bake at least 40 minutes, until fork-tender, but not mushy. Remove skin from pumpkin halves and cut into large cubes. Set aside.

In a large, heavy bottomed pot or dutch oven, sautee the onion in 1 tbsp oil, then add veggies. Cook about 5 minutes. Add curry sauce and coconut milk. Simmer on medium/low until veggies are tender, then add pumpkin. Simmer about 10 more minutes. Add stock to thin sauce, or not (I didn't). Serve with hot, cooked brown rice as a main dish, or as a side dish with baked chicken strips, to curry-hating little ingrates who may or may not try a "no thank you bite," then declare it "too spicy!"

Mexican Slaw

I'm usually not a big slaw person. I really like cabbage, raw and cooked, but slaw has never been my jam. So when I found a giant head of purple cabbage in this week's CSA box,  I thought... well, stuffed cabbage is out. And it's too warm for soup. Aw, what the hell. Why not give slaw another chance? The box also contained a big, beautiful bunch of cilantro, giant carrots, and French breakfast radishes, which I somehow forgot about when I was making this (they didn't make it in, obviously, but would've been a fabulous addition). Since I was making this to serve along side traditional beans and Really Good Mexican Rice,  I gave my slaw a Mexican twist by tossing it in a smoky/salty/sour cumin/lime vinaigrette. It was freaking delicious, and provided a crispy, cool counterpoint to the soft, warm beans and rice. Ay, Dios mio!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: None!
Ingredients: Under 10

*CSA Ingredients

1/2 medium head purple cabbage*, sliced thinly
1/2 bunch cilantro*
4 medium carrots*, grated (I used the large holes on the box grater)
(This is where a less-forgetful cook would add 4 thinly sliced radishes*)

Throw into a large bowl.

Cumin/Lime Vinaigrette **

1 tsp cumin
2 tbsp lime juice
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1/4 cup olive oil

Combine cumin, salt, lime juice and mayo, then slowly add half the oil, in a very thin stream, whisking constantly. Taste to decide whether or not to add more oil, or lime juice, or whatever. Vinaigrettes are very personal, and if you're me, they never come out the same way twice. So just keep playing with it. When it's to your liking, drizzle over the raw veggies, toss to coat, taste, and adjust seasonings. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Before serving, taste again, and adjust seasonings if necessary.

** I realized, when making this, that what I dislike about traditional slaw is that cloying sweet twang that the dressing tends to have. There is none of that malarkey here, and that's what made this non-grody, for me.

Really Good Mexican Rice

It took me several years, and recipes tweaked, to make a satisfying Mexican-style rice. I always order rice when I go out for Mexican food, because I love comparing and contrasting one restaurant version to another. Everyone puts their own twist on it - some have chunks of tomatoes, some chunks of onion, some both - or none. Some add peas. My version is heavy on tomato flavor, and I always use brown rice, because I prefer its taste and texture to white.  I always add peas, because peas are the bee's knees. And a bouillion cube (preferably the Mexican kind, which you can find pretty much everywhere) is not to be underestimated. The real trick here, though, is to toast the uncooked rice in the pan, before adding any liquid, way longer than seems necessary, or even prudent. You may think it's burning, but it's just developing that toasty, nutty, hard-to-put-your-finger-on flavor that makes this rice Really Good Mexican Rice. Trust.

Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 45 mins
Ingredients: 8-10

1/2  small yellow onion, diced
1 large (or 2 small) clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 Mexican bouillion cube
1 tsp cumin
1 cup uncooked rice
1/2 cup tomato SAUCE (homemade is good, but canned is really good)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup frozen peas (optional)

Sautee onion, garlic and bouillion in all the oil over medium heat until barely soft. Add all the uncooked brown rice and cumin, and stir every 30 seconds, for about 4 minutes.  A little more/less won't hurt. You may see the bottom of the pan start to brown, don't panic.  Add tomato sauce and stir well with a wooden spoon, scraping up the brown bits at the bottom of the pan. There will be a fair amount of sizzle. Add water and stir again. Bring the whole shebang up to a boil, then cover and  reduce to a simmer for about 40 minutes (20 if you're using white rice). Remove from heat and pour the frozen peas right over the top, then cover again and let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and devour.

Kale Chips

We eat a lot of dark, leafy greens. I crave them. I heart them. Chard, kale, spinach, arugula... we have them almost daily, because at the end of summer and all through the fall and winter, they are easy to grow here in Northern California, and so good for you. Our CSA supplier, Live Earth Farm, must grow them by the ton, because they're in our box for months on end. They're very versatile, and even the girls have developed a taste for them. This is Violet's favorite way to eat kale, and it is so easy to prepare, it's stoopid. When something is this quick, cheap and simple, it makes it really fun to experiment with flavor combinations, because if one doesn't work out, you're only out about 15 minutes and a couple of bucks.

Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 8-10 mins
Ingredients:  2 (unless you're gettin crazy, which by all means, you should!)

Preheat oven to 350. Wash kale well, then tear it into bite-sized chunks. Remove the vein towards the bottom, because it won't cook long enough to soften. Spin chunks in the salad spinner, dump out the collected water, then spin them again. Remove to a towel, and dry thoroughly. It's very important that the leaves are completely dry, otherwise they won't crisp up when you bake them. In a large bowl, combine kale with 1 tbsp. oil, and a couple of pinches of seasoning. This is where you can go nuts with the creativity and whatnot.

Olive oil, salt & pepper
Peppercorn chili oil & ground, toasted sesame seeds
Toasted sesame oil, salt & white pepper
Peanut oil, salt and garam masala
Olive oil, smoked paprika, salt & lemon lemon pepper
Do you see where I'm going with this?

Lay the kale chunks on a parchment or foil lined baking sheet. Do not crowd the leaves, otherwise they won't crisp up. Bake for 8-10 minutes, checking frequently for signs of burning (brown edges). If they brown they will take on a slightly bitter taste, but to be perfectly honest, I've burned many a batch of kale chips, and they still taste good to me. After removing chips from the baking sheet, you can eat them as is, or grate lemon zest, salty/sharp cheese, or nutmeg on them. Or dip them in hot sauce. Or crunch them over salads. Or sprinkle over a stir-fry. Or if you're Violet and me, eat the entire batch straight out of the oven, and wash them down with something cold and bubbly (root beer and beer, respectively).

Sorta/Kinda Chilaquiles

Chilaquiles is a traditional Mexican dish that involves frying thin strips corn tortilla and onion in oil and red sauce, then scrambling with eggs . It's really a comfort food for me. Unfortunately, my kids think it's weird, so I don't make it very often. This isn't really a traditional version of chilaquiles - I make it with several eggs, and go easy on the sauce - but it's what  my mom used to make, so it's what I make. And it hits the spot, every time.

Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 10 mins
Ingredients: 6

1/2 yellow onion, diced
2 tbsp vegetable oil
8 corn tortillas, halved and cut into thin strips
8 eggs, beaten with 2 tbsp milk
1/4-1/2 cup Mexican red sauce (think enchilada sauce) (optional)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated
Cilantro, for garnish

In a non-stick pan, sautee onion in oil, about 2 minutes, then add tortilla strips. Cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until they start to brown, about 5 minutes.  Lower heat to medium and add eggs. When eggs are done to your liking - I like mine well done - remove from heat and stir in cheese. Garnish with cilantro, and serve with more sauce.

Vegan Mexican Hominy Stew

 

When I threw this soup/stew together on a rainy Sunday evening, I was craving traditional Mexican chicken tortilla soup, but didn't have any chicken, and was way too lazy to go out and get some. As I rummaged through the cupboard,  I discovered I did have a can of hominy, a can of green chilies, some fire-roasted tomatoes, a box of veggie stock... and this dish began to take shape. It would be excellent in a slow-cooker, or made the day (or even morning) before. And if you are so inclined, shredded chicken or chicken meatballs would be fabulous additions. It had all the Mexican flavor I was craving, plus I didn't have to go anywhere in the rain, plus we got to scoop it up with tortilla chips. Win/win/win!


Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Ingredients: 10-15 (optional)

*CSA Items

1 28 oz. can Mexican hominy, drained
1 12 oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes + juice
1 4 oz. can fire-roasted Ortega chilies, drained and chopped
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1tsp. dried oregano
2 large red bell peppers, chopped
2 large carrots*, halved and sliced into half-moons
1 medium yellow onion*, diced
2 monster cloves of garlic, minced
3-5 cups stock
Sour cream, cheddar cheese, cilantro* for garnish

Sautee the onion and garlic 2 minutes, then add carrots, peppers, chilies and spices.  When the veggies have started to go soft, about 5 minutes, dump in tomatoes + juice, and hominy. Add 3 cups stock for a stew-y version, 5 cups for a soup-y version (mine was more stew-y, less soup-y). Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. Garnish with sour cream, cheddar, a squeeze of lime, cilantro, hot sauce, tortilla chips (obviously), avocado... or eat it in all its vegan glory.