I’ll start with my feelings of guilt over the status of my project, so if you’ve become weary of reading about that (trust me, I understand, I, too, am weary), please feel free to skip down to the next paragraph. First of all let me say that I am still loving the project, the food is amazing and I’m trying things that I would never have made otherwise, so, in really all the ways that count, the project is already a success. However, I’ve got to face facts. It has become clear to me that I will be unable to finish all 155 recipes before August 22nd. So, while I’m not abandoning the project, I fully intend to complete all of the recipes, I am, however, not going to be holding myself to the year deadline. As for my delays in posting what I’ve already cooked, I can offer no other excuse than my own laziness. That, and I have been out of town for a lovely week in CT with the kids visiting my mom. I can say again that I will try to do better.
So on to the food. I still have three delectable dishes that remain to be described. Back on June 12th (wow, has it really been that long ago), I made Crusty Griddle-Baked Quesadillas (TEOCE23). Earlier in the week I had made a double batch of Essential Roasted Poblano Rajas which serves as the base for this recipe and the next one. There are still quite a few recipes left that call for fresh masa and I’ve come to the realization that I won’t be able to go to Pilsen for each of them, so I broke out the Maseca for these quesadillas. You use the Maseca with water to form balls of dough that get flattened in the tortilla press. The flat circles are cooked on a hot griddle and topped with rajas and shredded Chihuahua cheese and finally folded over. They are served with salsa. I used store-bought Frontera Tomatillo-Serrano Salsa. These were pretty good, but I’m sure that they would have been better with fresh masa. And having made the rajas ahead of time, they were really pretty easy to put together. It made a perfect weeknight meal.
With the remaining rajas, I made one of the few remaining soups, Roasted Poblano Crema with Mexican Greens (LHS9). This soup also calls for diced ham and we had just had a ham for Jack’s 6th Birthday party and had enough leftover for the soup. With all these ingredients already in place this would be a snap, right? Well, the annoyingly difficult aspect of this recipe’s preparation was my inability to get either chard or spinach (not the pre-washed, bagged, baby variety, but real regular spinach) at my local grocery store (Jewel). It was the only ingredient that I didn’t have on hand for the soup and I thought I could avoid a trip to Whole Foods and just get it on my way home from picking up Jack from his all-day camp at the Morton Arboretum. Well, apparently there is no demand for these things in my area. Seriously, it wasn’t that they were out of them, they do not carry either of these ingredients! I guess it’s no wonder that there’s an obesity crisis. If you can’t go to your local store and get the ingredients you need to make a healthy meal, I don’t see things getting any better. So I had to postpone making my soup by a day (the kids were in no shape to go on a multiple grocery store excursion, and frankly, neither was I) and I think we ended up with carry-out sushi that night instead. The next day I went to Whole Foods where it may not be cheap, but at least I know I can buy chard.
As for the soup, you simmer the rajas, chard and some chicken broth, purée the mixture in a blender, add more broth and some cream. Then you whisk in a masa/broth mixture which thickens the soup nicely as well as adding a nice addition to the flavor of the soup. Diced ham and diced boiled potatoes are placed in the soup bowls and topped with the soup. This was great — nice poblano flavor and what a great use for leftover ham! I will make this soup again.
Finally, on June 19th we had some friends over for dinner and made Achiote-Grilled Turkey Breast with Tomato, Chile and Mint (MD7) with a side of the already chronicled Black Bean Rice. You rub a turkey breast with achiote seasoning paste and grill it. After the coals are hot, you push them to the sides of the grill, put in a drip pan in the middle. This way, the heat that cooks the turkey is indirect. The sauce is made with dried chiles japoneses. They are rehydrated and puréed with some additional achiote paste and some broth. This is added to cooked onion, skinned and seeded diced tomatoes, mint and broth. The sauce is simmered and then thickened with a masa-broth mixture (total coincidence that I picked two recipes with this method in a row). This, too, was really good! The sauce had a definite kick to it but was really nicely flavored. My only complaint was that I think that our turkey ended up being just slightly too done. It wasn’t overly dry, just a little dry. Though, really it was nothing that the sauce didn’t mask nicely. And the Black Bean Rice was (as suggested by Rick) a nice complement to the dish. And although it should go without saying, I will add how nice it was to share our cooking with friends 
Check back in for a Month 10 recap sometime this week and then I have to get back to cooking!
