Month 9 aka 91 recipes down, 64 to go

Month 9 clearly marks a low point for Susie’s MK Project.  I have been lazy about updating and clearly, lazy too about cooking.  I could give all the usual excuses about how busy I’ve been (I really have been busy!), but this refrain is getting a bit tired, isn’t it?  So I’m just going to recap the 3 lonely recipes that I made this month and try to move on as best I can for Month 10.

Back on May 4th I made Crusty Lentil Cakes with Garlic and Herbs VBRED7.  These were cooked lentils mixed with sautéed onion, roasted garlic, parmesan cheese (my local market doesn’t carry queso añejo), and cilantro.  This mixture is formed into cakes which are dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and then fried in oil and served with a roasted tomato-jalepeño salsa (I used Rick’s store-bought variety).  This was a good meal but lentils aren’t my favorite and the multi-step prep will probably keep me from making this again.  If you like lentils, I would definitely recommend it.

The next day was Cinco de Mayo and so I couldn’t not cook Mexican then!  So I made Seared Skirt Steak with Chipotle and Garlic MD23.  This is seared skirt steak with a roasted tomatillo-chipotle salsa with a healthy dose of garlic added in.  I remember this being good but honestly, the details are a little fuzzy for me.  I guess that’s what I get for waiting so long to write about it.

Finally, my mom was in town for a visit and I decided to try Pan-Roasted Salmon in Aromatic Green Pipián MD17 for her.  It was a huge success and the highlight of the month!  The star of this dish was the Pipián which is Essential Tomatillo-Serrano sauce with the addition of toasted sesame seeds, cilantro, fennel fronds (I remain unable to find hoja santa), and chicken broth.  This all gets simmered together and then is puréed.  A piece of roasted salmon is served atop the sauce.  All agreed that this was fantastic (creamy, tangy, spicy, wonderful) and I will certainly be making this again.

So the winner of Month 9 is clearly Pan-Roasted Salmon in Aromatic Green Pipián MD17.

Month 8

I’m not really sure why I didn’t just write this as an addendum to the last post, but my dedication to the project has been a little lacking in recent weeks and I was probably just a little depressed at how pathetic Month 8 actually was.  Yes, I was on vacation in the middle of Month 8.  Yes, I was sick upon return.  You are, perhaps, tiring of my seemingly endless stream of excuses as to why I haven’t done this, that, or the other.  The numbers don’t lie; I cooked only 4 recipes in Month 8, all of which are detailed in the previous post.  I did not make it to Pilsen.  I didn’t toast or re-hydrate a single chile.  However, I did make a fabulous Smoky Shredded Chicken and Potatoes with Roasted Tomatoes (MD5) which was the highlight of the month.  Things can only look up from here, right?

88 recipes down, 67 to go

I really have made an effort since getting back from Florida to do some Mexican cooking.  I’ve just been slow to post.  So here it is. (Kind of a pathetic intro, I know, I just have this laryngitis turned into sinus cold that I can’t seem to shake.  It’s leaking into my writing).

On the Friday after returning from Florida (the 9th), I made Tomatillo-Braised Pork Country Ribs with Mexican Greens (MD30).  This had one of my favorite sauce bases: Essential Simmered Tomatillo-Serrano Sauce.  It was also a good one-pot meal with the meat, starch and veggies all together.  This iteration of the sauce was spicy, but good.  I also liked both the potatoes and the chard and overall I liked the dish too.  My only complaint was about the pork country ribs.  I just found them to be a little too fatty for my taste.  This is the same feeling that comes to me whenever I have short ribs.  The sauce is always good but the meat has too much fat.

I got right back to cooking on Sunday (the 11th), making both Grilled Steak with Spicy Guajillo Sauce (MD22) and Sonoran Fried Beans with Chorizo and Cheese (VBRED12).  I had some leftover Essential Simmered Guajillo Sauce in the freezer that I decided to use now that it was finally nice enough out to fire up the grill.  Because I already had the sauce, this recipe was very easy.  Just marinate the steaks with some of the sauce and some vinegar, grill and serve with some grilled red onion slices and additional sauce.

The steaks were good, although really not spicy.  My sauce had been in the freezer for awhile and so I’m sure that some of the flavor had been lost.  It was also interesting to see some visible pieces of chile in the sauce.  I immediately thought how much better it would be if I had redone it with my new blender.  The grilled onions were a really nice addition to the steaks and their sweetness really complemented the chile sauce.

Because the steaks were so easy, I figured I could knock out the final bean dish in the book.  These require a lot of unattended cooking so are easy if you’re going to be home.  After simmering the beans for a couple of hours, you fry up some chorizo, add that to the beans and then in the chorizo drippings, you fry some dried, ground chile (I used Penzey’s ancho).  The beans and chorizo are then added back to this and shredded Chihuahua cheese is added.  John really liked the beans; I thought they were ok.  The texture was good and I liked the cheese, but for me, I didn’t like the addition of the dried, ground ancho, which I thought had a slightly bitter taste.  Now that I’ve made all of the bean dishes, my favorite is still Classic Mexican Fried Beans.

Finally, last Friday (the 16th) I made Smoky Shredded Chicken and Potatoes with Roasted Tomatoes (MD5).  This was the best dish of the bunch!  It called for Essential Quick-Cooked Tomato-Chipotle Sauce which I decided to make with canned chipotle chiles en adobo.  This eliminates the frying and re-hydrating of the dried chipotles.  Plus, I still have a few frozen roasted tomatoes so the sauce was easy to put together.  Skinned chicken thighs are cooked in the sauce, removed and meat torn from the bones.  In another skillet grated potato and sliced onion are cooked in oil.  Then everything is combined: the chicken, sauce, potatoes and onion.  To serve the mixture is topped with queso fresco and avocado and served with tortillas.

I loved this dish!  The combination of flavors and textures was perfect.  You know when you make something and it’s so good that you look forward to lunch the next day when you can have the leftovers?  That’s how I felt about this dish.

Ok, you can now consider yourselves updated and I can stop feeling guilty about not posting.  I’ll soon move on to some guilt over not doing more cooking   See you at the Month 8 update.

79 recipes down, 76 to go

It may seem as though I’ve been slacking because I have neglected to update my site recently.  You may even be worried that, despondent over falling behind, that I have abandoned my project.  Fear not!  I have been cooking and have five new recipes to show for my efforts of the last two weeks.  This time period even includes a five day visit from my Mom where I did no Mexican cooking. Note too that I am now officially more than half way through the project!!!

Two weeks ago at the very start of Month 7 and just before the arrival of my Mom, I made Roasted Poblano Chile Salad with Smoked Fish (SOS11).  This uses ever ubiquitous Essential Roasted Poblano Rajas with Seared White Onions and Herb (EF13).  This iteration of the rajas was relatively mild.  The rajas is mixed with some red onion that has marinated in cider vinegar.  This mixture, along with the shredded smoked fish (we used smoked trout from Whole Foods), is served atop lettuce along with some crumbled queso fresco.  We both really liked this salad.  John thought it was one of the best things I’ve made.

Post project whenever I make anything with rajas, I will always plan to make extra as there are so many recipes that have it as a starting point.  I did so on this occasion too, and was thrilled to be able to easily throw together some Tacos of Creamy Braised Chard, Potatoes and Poblanos (TEOCE8) for a nice Sunday lunch.  I had offered to make these for my mom and she passed.  I’m sure she knows not what she turned down because these were great!  The taco filling was made by combining the rajas with potatoes and the chicken broth in which they had been cooked, along with chard and cream.  This mixture is cooked until the chard is wilted and is then ready to be topped with some crumbled queso fresco and used as a taco filling.  These were delicious, creamy and complex, and rank as one of my favorites for both flavor and ease of preparation.

Next, I used the leftover Essential Sweet-and-Smoky Chipotle Seasoning Salsa from a couple of weeks ago to make Chipotle Shrimp (MD10).  A purée of roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, pepper, cloves and water is cooked.  A small amount of the salsa (remember, it is very potent!) is added and then the shrimp are cooked in the sauce.  I made a side of Classic White Rice and served the dish with tortillas.  This too, was excellent.  The salsa lends a good amount of spice to the dish but it really went well with the sweetness of the shrimp and with the rice.

Finally, last night I made Campeche Baked Fish Fillets with Tomato, Habanero and Citrus (MD16).  This was my first experience cooking with Habanero chiles (or I should really say chile since I only used one).  I was also thrilled to again kill two birds with one stone as this marked my first use of Essential Simmered Tomato-Habanero Sauce (EF5).  The sauce is made by cooking one stemmed and halved habanero chile in a sauce of puréed roasted tomatoes with fried white onion.

Then you place the fish fillets (we used halibut) in a baking dish, top with lime juice and cilantro and then spoon the sauce on to cover.  This is baked until the fish is done.  Our fillets were quite thick so they took a little longer than the recommended baking time of 15 minutes.

The result was amazing!  The tangy, spicy flavor of the sauce is aptly described by Rick as “bright”.  The habanero really added a good amount of spice to the sauce but it was not overwhelming.  I will not be afraid to cook with these chiles again.  Although, who knows, maybe I got a really mild one.  I guess time will tell; I have two more recipes to make with this sauce.  Plus, the fish itself was excellent and perfectly cooked.  I got another “This is my favorite thing that you’ve made” for this recipe from John.  I hope I can keep turning out new “favorite” dishes every couple of weeks!  At the very least, Month 7 is off to a respectable start.

Month 6

What can I tell you about Month 6 of Susie’s MK Project?  That I started very strongly and then petered out, ending up with the completion of 9 new recipes.  What else?  Sadly, that this becomes the month where I officially fell a little behind the pace I need to complete the project within a year (I’m 4 recipes behind).  That said, though my output flagged towards the end of the month, our dinner at Frontera and discussing my project with Rick were certainly highlights and have left me anxious to continue.  What delectable morsels from the month would make a fabulous meal for those who like it hot?

• Chorizo-Stuffed Ancho Chiles with Sweet-Sour Escabeche (SOS15)
• Broiled Chipotle Chicken with Creamy Spinach (MD3)
• Topolo Margaritas (WAM2)

Month 7 is already underway; I’ve completed 3 recipes to be detailed soon.  I didn’t make it to Pilsen in Month 6 so I promise that it will happen in Month 7.  One more fantastic bit of news: I’ve been given the go-ahead to procure the Vitamix blender that I left our wine dinner coveting!  You can be sure that a mole will be soon to follow.  À bientôt!

74 recipes down, 81 to go

I defied the decree for no Mexican Saturday night to make Tacos of Garlicky Mexican Greens with Seared Onion and Fresh Cheese (TEOCE7).  I guilted John into accepting it by letting him know that this could be the month that I officially fall behind schedule.  That, and another batch of Topolo Margaritas sealed the deal.

This was a good, light and easy recipe to make.  All you do is boil the chard to wilt it and then add that to sliced onions and garlic that have been cooked in a skillet for 10 minutes.  The filling gets topped with cheese (we used Parmesan) and served in a tortilla with salsa of your choice (we went with Rick’s recommendation of Tomatillo-Chipotle, purchased Frontera brand).

The result was a great light vegetarian meal.  The onion, chard, garlic combo was a good one and really went well with the smoky flavor of the salsa.  I would make this again because it was good and healthy, but also because of how easy it was to make.

70 recipes down, 85 to go

I’ve made three more recipes: Oaxacan Omelette with Roasted Tomatoes and Green Chiles (VBRED23) for dinner on Saturday and Broiled Chipotle Chicken with Creamy Spinach (MD3) last night which featured the new (for me) essential flavor, Essential Sweet-and-Smoky Chipotle Seasoning Salsa (EF10.5).

The Omelette came together very easily as I had already made the Essential Roasted Poblano Rajas for last week’s chayote casserole.  I also still have frozen roasted tomatoes left from the summer.  So really all I had to do was combine those with a little broth to make the sauce.  The eggs then get cooked and the sauce goes on top with queso fresco and cilantro to garnish.  This was good and easy to put together, although, honestly I think I preferred the egg dishes with tortillas.  But then again, I’m not really an omelette fan in general so I guess that’s not too surprising.  One more note, the poblanos in the rajas were actually quite spicy.  Not to the point of being too spicy, but definitely more like a serrano.  I’ve found the poblanos to be the most variable in terms of spiciness.  It’s a question I plan to ask Rick about if I get the chance at our wine dinner in a couple of weeks.

I had intended to make the Broiled Chipotle Chicken on Sunday night but made the classic mistake of not reading the recipe and thus not realizing that the chicken was to marinate for several hours.  So we ended up making the Chipotle Seasoning Salsa on Sunday night and then the Chicken last night.

Let’s talk for a moment about the salsa.  The recipe calls for 4 ounces of dried chipotle chiles (the spiciest variety that I’ve worked with) which comes out to around 50 chiles.  That is a serious amount of spice!!  These are fried in oil and then puréed with garlic and piloncillo-sweetened water.  The purée is then fried until thick (although mine was pretty thick after being puréed and so did not need to cook as long as indicated.  We were almost afraid to try it when it was done.  I coated about a third of a baby spoon with the salsa and it kept my tongue tingling for a good 45 minutes.  But it’s not just heat.  There is a depth of flavor, a smokiness to it giving it its appeal.  According to Rick, “The first time you stir a spoonful into that bowl of black beans you’re having for dinner, the first time you add a little to that bland barbecue sauce you bought, you’ll know why I think of it as essential, even when it isn’t widely known or used in Mexico” (52).  One more nice thing about this salsa is that it keeps for several weeks and is only needed in small quantities so I will be able to make the three recipes calling for it with this batch.

Now, for the chicken, 2 tablespoons of the salsa is mixed with an equal amount of cream and slathered over boneless, skinless chicken breasts and left to marinate.  I let them marinate overnight (really almost 24 hours).  The chicken is then broiled on one side and then flipped, doused with more cream, and broiled on the other side until the chicken is done.  The cream is then put in a sauce pan with a little broth and some spinach and cooked until the spinach wilts.

This was fantastic!!!  For all the spice in the salsa, the cream really tempers it and you are left with all the good smoky flavor and the feeling of the spice without it being overwhelming.  The chicken was cooked to perfection and I’m also a big fan of wilted greens.  This is a dish where you definitely need some bread to sop up any remaining sauce on your plate because it simply can’t be left behind.  Or, if you’re at home and among family or good friends, there would certainly be no shame in licking the plate   I will make this again for sure.

p.s. I forgot to take a pic of the chicken so I’ll try to remember when we have the leftovers.

66 recipes down, 89 to go

What better way to celebrate the NFC and AFC Championship games (especially with an impressive Colts win!) than with a Mexican meal?  Well, for John the answer was wings, of course.  So he had those in the late afternoon setting him up to be ready for a light meal of Black Bean Chilaquiles with Smoky Chipotle (TEOCE27) after the kids were in bed.

You may be wondering what exactly chilaquiles are.  Well, John summed up the meal in this way : “So soggy bean chips is what we have for dinner?”  The chilaquiles are made by cooking black beans with some chipotle en adobo and onion in broth or water (I used a combo) until “thoroughly tender”.  From there you purée the mixture, add more liquid into which you then boil tortilla chips until they softened but not soggy.  The chilaquiles are to be dressed with avocado, cheese and Thick Cream (this was omitted because I had intended to make it myself but didn’t have the more than 12 hours needed, oh well).

The last line of the recipe is really the key to the dish.  Rick writes: “Serve without hesitation”.  But, tragically, hesitate I did.  I was to be finishing the dish while John got the kids in bed.  When the dish was done (the chips retaining their chewiness), I went up to see what the hold-up was.  John was playing with Scarlett instead of really focusing on bedtime (it was really very sweet, but unfortunately the downfall of the dish).  I went in to do prayers and songs with Jack and then told John I was going to eat without him.  But the roughly 5-10 minutes that went by were enough for the chips to have lost their chewiness and to have sunk despairingly into sogginess.  Fortunately, though, the flavor of the beans with chipotle was good enough to make it good to eat, even if the texture of the chips was post peak.  It has a wonderful earthy, spicy, smoky flavor and seemed like perfect Mexican comfort food, really the ideal accompaniment to a football game.  I would make this again and leave my hesitation chained in another room so that I could enjoy the chilaquiles as they were meant to be.

62 recipes down, 93 to go

Despite having a cold the Mexican cooking continues.  I’m determined to put up some better numbers for Month 5 because at the pace of the last couple of months I will not finish the project in time.  My cold arrived on Saturday and I was glad that I had already planned to make the chicken-broth based Mexican-Style Sweet Roasted Garlic Soup (LHS2).

I had just made a poached chicken last week so I had (and still have, in fact) an abundance of good homemade chicken broth.  I had originally planned to make Slow-Simmered Fava Bean Soup (LHS8) but apparently dried fava beans are not easy to find (i.e. not carried by Whole Foods).  The Garlic Soup was the back-up.  I had had a feeling about the fava beans and so luckily I had written down the ingredients for both soups on my shopping list.

This recipe is fairly simple to make, the main aspect being the preparation of the various accoutrements (garlic croutons, broiled green onions, diced avocado and tomato, crumbled queso fresco, sliced strips of chipotles en adobo).  As for the broth, you cook garlic in olive oil and the strain out the garlic.  The oil you use for the the croutons and the garlic is simmered in the chicken broth, imparting its sweet garlic flavor to the broth.  Then, just before serving you stir in two lightly beaten eggs.  To serve, you pile the accoutrements in the bowls (except the croutons and chipotles, which get added on top) and ladle in the broth.

This soup was excellent!  It had the quintessential Bayless elements of flavor and freshness.  There was a flavor of garlicky goodness in every bite.  The eggs did add a bit of texture to the broth but there was no egg flavor.  The croutons were fantastic, crisp and flavorful, and the freshness of the diced tomato and avocado make the soup amazing.

John and I sort of have a running joke about foods that I consider fresh.  When I was pregnant with Scarlett I had nausea for about seven months.  During that time there was not much that sounded good to me.  John would ask me what I wanted to eat and I would just keep repeating that I wanted something fresh.  I had lots of fresh fruit, steamed veggies, fish, etc.  It was really a pregnancy-induced healthy diet (except for the pint a day ice cream habit that somehow sounded good).  What I can say about the soup is that it would have been something that I would have liked when I was pregnant.  There is just something about adding in the fresh avocado and tomato at the time of serving that makes the soup really good.  This would be a very impressive and not that difficult to pull off first course for company.  The other thing that is nice about this soup is that it is really easy to customize the level of spice as each person adds how much chipotle they want.  I added a few strips and they provided a nice zest to the broth.  John added much more, for much more spice.

I also cooked last night (Chile-Glazed Sweet Potatoes and Red-Chile Rice); I’ll try to post that meal tomorrow.  I’m also hoping to make Spicy Plaintain Pie this week.

Month 4

So what can I tell you about Month 4 in Susie’s Mexican Cooking Project? Well, apparently preparing for Christmas (including a cross-country driving trip) has about that same effect on my ability to cook as a month’s worth of illness (see Month 3). It is, in fact, apparently worse. I managed only 6 new recipes. However, like the recipes from Month 3, these were all good. Plus, let’s not forget that I got to enjoy a wonderful meal at Topolobampo where I realized that a lot of what I cook is as good as what I can get at Rick’s restaurants – a triumph in and of itself. As for the best meal of the month? This was hard and honestly a toss up. I will probably make all of these recipes again. But being pressed to choose, I choose:
Oval Masa Cakes with Black Bean Filling
Smoky Shredded Pork Tacos
Green Poblano Rice
And in case you haven’t looked at the calendar, Month 5 is already underway. Not only did I cook for my family over Christmas (a meal to be detailed soon), I have convinced John that Braised Turkey with Red Mole is a good idea for New Year’s Day. As always, stay tuned!