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.

73 recipes down, 82 to go

It’s taken me a little while to write this entry on the food made for our Superbowl Party last Sunday, maybe because my Colts lost.  I can’t really feel bad for the Saints and I was in the decided minority rooting for the Colts.  About the only other person I could recruit to my side was my 3 year old daughter Scarlett.  But even she insisted on using the golden cups and plates at the party so her allegiance was half-hearted at best.  Jack, who rooted for the Colts in the playoffs, decided that it was okay to cheer for the Saints because he had already rooted for the Colts.

Anyway, on to the food.  First, the Chorizo-Stuffed Ancho Chiles with Sweet-Sour Escabeche (SOS15).  Let me just say right now that I feel like I’ve made all of the easier starters (which really consist only of the guacamoles) in the book and so against perhaps better judgement I decided to add this to our party menu.  The recipe states that the escabeche and filling can be made ahead so I did this on Saturday.  The escabeche is made by frying diced carrots in olive oil and then adding garlic, allspice, bay leaves, vinegar, water and piloncillo and cooking until the piloncillo dissolves.  Finally you add thinly sliced red onion.  This becomes both the marinating liquid for the dried anchos and the topping for the stuffed chiles.

The stuffing consists of chorizo and potatoes.  The chorizo is cooked in a skillet and then the already boiled potatoes are fried in some of the chorizo oil and then combined with the cooked chorizo.

The issue with this appetizer is that for one, de-seeding the marinated chiles is messy and difficult.  Imagine picking each and every of at least dozens of seeds per chile out of something that is coated with an oily mixture.  Then, contrary to Rick’s suggestion that this is a perfect party dish, I quickly realized that the oily chiles would be difficult to eat unless seated with a knife and fork, and thus not the perfect party dish.  I agree more with Rick’s assessment of the dish as being “stunning as a first course or light main dish” (108).  So at the last minute I decided that I would not serve them at the party.

John and I did, however, have them, and they were amazing!!  Both the chorizo-potato filling and the anchos themselves were good and spicy.  But the spice was balanced with the sweet and tangy flavor of the escabeche.  Also the crisp texture of the carrot and onion complemented the creaminess of the potato filling.  All in all I would make this again for a sit down first course.  One last note is that we had extra filling and it makes a wonder taco filling, especially with eggs for breakfast tacos!

What did get served as one of the main dishes at the party was Chicken Breasts in Nutty Queretaro Green Mole (CFF4).  This dish is probably the one that we had made most often pre-project, so I was very familiar with making it.  Of the moles in the book, it is one of the easier ones, and also relatively mild, making it a good choice for a crowd with perhaps variable spice tolerance.  However, as I’ve come to learn, poblanos (the base pepper of this mole) are themselves variable in their spice level and so we’ve had this mole be more or less spicy.  In this particular case, it ended up being less spicy.

Making up the complex flavor of this nutty green sauce is poblanos, tomatillos, plantain, romaine, golden raisins, almonds, sesame seeds, peanuts, corn tortilla, cinnamon, pepper, aniseed, cloves, parsley, garlic and chicken broth.  More or less, this all gets ground up, strained and simmered.  I did it myself in an afternoon a few days before the party.  In the book version, boneless, skinless chicken breasts are baked in the sauce in the oven.  That worked well and produced nice juicy meat.  I’ve also in the past baked the meat separately, shredded it, and let people determine how much of the sauce they wanted.  I served this with tortillas and Classic White Rice.  I got nothing but complements about the sauce which as usual, was nutty, fruity, mildly spicy, in a word, good!  I will note that I actually grinded whole aniseed this time (I usually use it already ground) and I noticed the anise flavor as being more pronounced than usual.  Maybe I should try freshly grinding cinnamon next time.  I know I will make this again (although probably not as often as I now have so many other good options to try again after the project is over)!

Finally, we made a double batch of the Topolo Margaritas (WAM2).  It’s hard to believe that we waited so long to try another of the three margarita recipes but I guess that a Superbowl party was a good excuse to buy a new bottle of tequila.  This recipe calls for Sauza Conmemorativo tequila.  We actually made a batch on Friday night prior to the Superbowl and found that they were less strong tasting than the Frontera’s Gold Margarita with more lime flavor.  We had no trouble polishing off 4 servings among the two of us.  For the party we made a double batch it was quickly gone!

And now, after such a good start to Month 6, John has informed me that he needs a week off of Mexican cooking.  So I may not make anything this weekend (we’ll see) and next Wednesday night we have our wine dinner at Frontera.  Ideally, I’d like to make it to the half-way point before the end of Month 6.  For that I need to make 5 more recipes.

52 recipes down, 103 to go

While everyone else across the country was ordering pizza on the day before Thanksgiving because they were up to their eyeballs in turkey, stuffing, and pie-making, John and I were enjoying a lovely meal of Smoky Shredded Pork Tacos (TEOCE3) made with Essential Quick-Cooked Tomato-Chipotle Sauce (EF6). It’s been awhile since I’ve not cooked for Thanksgiving (I’ll probably do a traditional turkey for New Year’s since I haven’t been able to sell John on Bayless’ Braised Turkey in Red Mole as a substitute) and so we enjoyed our day watching Jack and Scarlett recreate the first Thanksgiving in their school program and then doing a little Mexican cooking.
The recipe was John’s choice and I was concerned because the last go-round with the Quick-Cooked Tomato-Chipotle Sauce turned out so spicy. So this time I seeded the chipotles but was still prepared for some serious heat. To our surprise, though, the sauce turned out quite mild. I guess I still haven’t mastered the art of regulating spice. This is really starting to bug me a bit.
Anyway, to the sauce you add cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, raisins and toasted slivered almonds. This is then combined with shredded pork shoulder (which is made by poaching the cubed meat and then shredding) and served in steamed corn tortillas. The result was delicious! The cinnamon, cloves, and raisins gave a nice sweet balance to the smoke and spice of the chipotles. I also really liked the crunchy texture of the almonds. This recipe is a keeper for sure.

Then, last night I broke out the tortilla press to make Oval Masa Cakes with Black Bean Filling or Tlacoyos (TEOCE21). I used masa harina mixed with water as I didn’t have time to head to Pilsen for fresh masa. This was mixed with lard to make a dough which was first divided into balls, and then flattened in the tortilla press. The disks were then wrapped around some mashed black beans to make a little cake (mine were more rectangular than oval). The cakes were first cooked on a dry griddle and then fried in oil. Then you topped them with a tomatillo-serrano salsa (since I’ve made this one several times already I figured it would be ok to purchase the salsa for a quicker weeknight meal), crumbled queso fresco, chorizo, chopped onion, radish slices and cilantro.

These were really good!! The masa and bean base had a nice earthiness to it and the toppings gave the dish a lot of complementing flavors: the tang and spice from both the salsa and the chorizo, the fresh crunch of the onion and radishes, and the creaminess of the queso fresco. This would be a good dish to make if you have leftover beans (I used the ones I had leftover from making the black bean rice). And one of the best parts of the meal was that John did all of the dishes
I’m not sure what I’ll be cooking next, but hopefully I’ll pick something for late in the week or over the weekend. It’s also been awhile since I’ve done a dessert; it might be time for that. In the meantime I’m enjoying the fact that no one in my family is sick for the moment and so I’m back to having my three mornings a week to get things done (like update my blog)!

45 recipes down, 110 to go

We had our neighbors and their children over for dinner last Sunday and made a great Mexican meal! It was really nice to share this experience with others who are excited about the project. My friend Kristi even made Creamy Lime Pie (D10) from the book to complement the meal, but also to not make anything that I haven’t made yet (since I would probably be tempted to count it without actually cooking it). I made Oaxacan Black Bean Soup (LHS7) and Red Chile-Braised Chicken with Potatoes and Greens (MD1). I also made poached chicken for the kids who didn’t want Mexican food and Kristi brought pasta with parmesan and carrots. In all there were 5 kids, aged 3, 5, 6, 8, and 11. Only the 11 year old wanted to try the “adult” food but I’m happy to report that she liked everything. The other kids were happy with their selections and all enjoyed the pie
Let’s start with the soup. This recipe was both easy and fabulous!! It’s a definite keeper. Just simmer black beans with water, fennel (since I couldn’t find avocado leaves), chorizo (only 4 oz. for 6 servings so I would count this as a healthy dish too), and onion. Once the beans are fully cooked you purée the soup with an immersion blender (truly one of the best ever invented kitchen tools!) and season with salt adding more water to get the consistency that you want. The soup is served with fried tortilla strips and crumbled queso fresco. The soup had a great smooth texture with the wonderful earthy flavor of the black beans. I was also really surprised at how much flavor a relatively small amount of chorizo added. It added a nice meaty spice to the dish that was subtle but a wonderful contribution. The queso fresco and the crunchy fried tortilla strips provided a nice flavor and texture contrast.

You can also add optional shrimp which would be cooked in the soup at the end. I had, in fact, intended to do this but I shopped for the meal early in the week and thought I would go out the day of and get the shrimp. Of course when the day came I didn’t think about it until I didn’t really have time to run out again. But really, unless you’re doing the soup as a main course, I don’t think you need them. I do sense that I’ll be making this soup again so at some point I’ll have to go the shrimp route to see what that adds.
Next was the Red Chile-Braised Chicken. I have to say that I really like dishes that are prepared all in one pot. This is probably because complete meal planning has never been my forte. For most of my adult life I’ve thought that if I’ve remembered to take fish or chicken out of the freezer for dinner that I would be done. It’s only after that fish or chicken is ready to eat that usually John will say “So, what are we having with this?” So one-pot meals have always appealed to me in that the meat and the veggies are all taken care of in one dish. In my defense, I am starting to get better at meal planning. I made a pretty big leap in this area over lent when I gave up meat. I knew I had to plan more than one thing for each meal and that has carried over. That and we’re trying to eat less meat in general (reading Michael Pollen’s books have convinced me that for the most part the veggies should be the center with meat as a side complement) so I’m trying to make sure that we have good sides.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Red Chile-Braised Chicken. I had John quarter the whole chicken for me (he really is better at poultry deconstruction than I am) and the pieces were browned in oil and set aside. Then you make the flavor base which in this recipe was EF10 Essential Sweet-and-Spicy Ancho Seasoning Paste. I have made this once before with the simple red mole enchiladas. The paste is combined with broth to make a sauce and the chicken, potatoes, and greens (in our case, collards) are cooked in the sauce. This is then all served together. This, too, was excellent. The chicken was moist and the sauce had a very nice spicy, earthy, tangy flavor. I am also a fan of greens; I feel so healthy when I’m eating them. And when they’re smothered in a yummy sauce, so much the better My only complaint was that the potatoes were just slightly under cooked. Instead of halving them I would try quartering them the next time.

I’ll just make a couple of notes about the Creamy Lime Pie, made by Kristi. She made all of the substitutions of the more authentic ingredients: shortening instead of lard in the crust, all-purpose flour instead of masa harina and creme fraîche instead of Mexican crema. Here’s how I would rate the result. I think the crust made with lard was a little more flaky. The filling, however, tasted just as I had remembered mine tasting. That said, her pie didn’t firm up in the oven and after exceeding the cooking time waiting for it to firm up, we took it out (also, the crust was starting to get a little too brown). But by the time we cut it into pieces, though, it had firmed up and so was fine. There was also a little bit of a lag between preparing the filling and getting it into the oven, so maybe that had an effect. She made the filling at home and we cooked it chez moi so that it would be warm for serving (as recommended by Rick).