Salsa Verde

I'm not dead yet!

The last real thing I made was salsa verde. I made it late Wednesday night to take to a party on Thursday, and despite being a little too spicy, it was very well received. This recipe makes a whole lot of salsa, but it's easy enough to halve if you don't want so much.

Ingredients

• 14 tomatillos
• 8 jalapenos
• 1 onion
• freshly ground salt
• a tiny bit of freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup cilantro (rip the leaves from the bunch and lightly pack it into the measure)
  
• juice of 2 limes
• 1/4 cup water
  

Directions

1. Remove the husks from the tomatillos and wash off the sticky residue.
2. Slice the onion into thick rings. Do not separate the concentric rings.
   
3. Remove the stems from the jalapenos (you can wiggle off the whole part around the stem). Go ahead and wash those, too, because you just never know.
4. Heat a skillet over high heat. Cook the tomatillos on both the top and bottom sides until blackened and blistered.
   
5. Blacken the jalapenos on as many sides as possible.
6. Cook the onions until dark brown on both sides.
7. Let the jalapenos, onions, and tomatillos cool slightly, then put them in the food processor along with the other ingredients
   
8. Put the salsa into an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Veggie tacos! Because when it comes to meat, I have prohibitively expensive taste.

I'm what you might call a reluctant omnivore.

Growing up, I didn't get any meat aside from hot dogs and stuff -- my family couldn't afford it. When I did get meat, it was usually something like a pot roast, which, ew. Meat flavored chewing gum, much?

So, meat politics aside, I never got into the whole carnivore thing. As I got older, people would sometimes notice my meat aversion and ask me, "Are you vegetarian?" To which I responded, "I'm not really a vegetarian, I just don't like to eat meat." To which they responded, "That's what vegetarian means, dummy!" Well, not really, I tend to think that vegetarianism usually entails meat politics, which... meh, whatever.

And then, eventually, I discovered a simple formula: meat + any alcohol whatsoever = vomit. Further, meat = body feeling funny. Then I read about what goes into meat. So I decided to stop eating meat. And I got looked at funny for that, too.

Whatever, I can't win.

The point is, I'll eat good meat. I will happily eat good meat. I will go all OM NOM NOM NOM on its ass. I'm flexible. But you gotta understand, I mean really good meat. We're talking grass fed, free-range, organic meat. You know, that stuff that's prohibitively expensive for most people, including me.

Holy crap, I just spent how long writing a defense of my dislike for meat?

Long story short, when it comes to meat, I have expensive taste.

So last night, I took a couple of veggie burgers and cooked them up much as one would cook ground beef, and used them for tacos. It was actually really tasty. You just kind of heat it a little, then chop it up with your spatula and cook the crumbles.


It's not going to fool my "vegetables are the stuff that food eats!" friends, but it sure was tasty.

The best part? The taco sauce I whipped up!


Ingredients

• 1 1/2 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped
• about 1 teaspoon of the adobo sauce
  
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• juice of 1 lime
• pinch of garlic powder
  
• pinch of onion powder

Directions

1. Using a fork, stir all the ingredients together.
2. Adjust adobo sauce, garlic powder, and onion powder to taste.
3. Does this really need to be a list? It's super easy!
   

Feel that burn!

Well, I had too much week left at the end of the money Thursday night and had to make dinner out of whatever was hanging around in the kitchen.

In the toss-up between black bean fajita burritos and Asian noodles made with ramen as a base, the fajitas won.

I didn't measure how much cumin and cayenne I used. Nor did I measure the tears that were running down my face from the heat. I'd guess that I used at least half a teaspoon of cayenne and probably a bit less cumin. If cayenne is too much for you, just add freshly ground black pepper at step 2.

Ingredients

• 1 can of black beans
• 1/2 green bell pepper, cut into strips (go ahead and use the last, sad, shrively one, just chop off the wrinkled parts). If you're really masochistic, use jalapeños.
  
• 1 small red onion, halved and thickly sliced (is the core turning green? Pull it out of the slices!)
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• cumin
• cayenne
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 flour tortillas
• shredded cheese (cheddar, Jack, whatever's in the fridge)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons hopped cilantro
  

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the garlic for 1 minute, then add the onions and peppers. Sprinkle with cumin and cayenne to taste. Saute until soft.
   
2. Add the black beans, lime juice, and cilantro. Cook until heated through.
3. Spoon the mixture onto two flour tortillas. Top with the shredded cheese and fold burrito-style.
   
4. Heat a skillet. Place the burritos, folded side down, on the skillet and cook until browned. Repeat with the other side. Remove from heat and slice in half.
   

Cheese enchiladas?

Making enchiladas takes a long time and leaves a ginormous mess.

Unless you make them in the microwave.

But I've found that you always sacrifice quality for convenience.

These cheese enchiladas from Trader Joe's were entirely too bland. In fact, I'm not even sure they qualify as cheese enchiladas at all.

• There wasn't nearly enough cheese on top. I had to sprinkle a couple cups of Mexican blend cheese over them myself.
• Did they use two tortillas to wrap? That's what it tasted like!
• Where's the filling? Seriously! A good enchilada should ooze cheese when you cut into it. These just... didn't.
• I know a lot of people don't like heat as much as I do, but these enchiladas didn't have any heat at all.

All in all, they were thoroughly boring and I probably won't eat them again.

Save your money, this sucks!

Mmmm, Mexican!

We had my mom over for a late lunch/early dinner yesterday afternoon (why is there no word like "brunch" for that meal?). SO TASTY.

(That picture makes me crave a new camera as much as I'm craving drunken noodles right now. Mad kudos to my mom and The Mr. for putting up with me photographing the food all the time.)

The cheese enchiladas with green sauce were just amazing. I accidentally left the sour cream out of the sauce, which must be why it came out so thick, but the taste was still amazing.

• Be sure to have extra cheese on hand to sprinkle over top of the enchiladas before baking. A cup and a half just isn't enough to make it nice and gooey.
  
• 1/2 cup of chopped onion? What were they thinking?! That needs to be at least 2/3 cup, minimum.

The rice came out of a bag. In the chaos that was my kitchen, I threw it away to make more room. Sorry!

I got the chiles rellenos recipe from a cookbook and adapted it to cut the prep time. Here's what I did:

Ingredients

• 1 Anaheim chile for each person
• Shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 2 eggs, separated (put the whites in a large bowl)
  
• Flour, lightly seasoned with freshly ground black pepper
• Vegetable oil
• Red sauce
  

Process

• Cut a slit down the side of each chile (I cut along the wide side). Cook them over a dry skillet, turning occasionally, until the skins are blackened and blistered.
• Immediately put the chiles in a heavy-duty freezer bag for 20 minutes. Close the bag tightly!
• Use a hand mixer to beat the egg whites until they are stiff and form peaks. Beat the yolks until they turn pale. Fold the yolks into the whites.
• Put the egg mixture in a shallow dish and the flour on a work surface.
  
• Remove the chiles from the bag and peel off the skins.
• Remove the seeds through the slit
• Lay the chiles on a work surface. Stuff them with the cheese until they are quite full but still close. Really smoosh that cheese down and pack it in!
• Heat the vegetable oil in your skillet until a scrap of tortilla fries quickly.
  
• Coat each chile in the flour, then in the egg. Fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
• Plate the chiles, then top them with red sauce to taste. I used Old El Paso chipotle sauce, because it looked good in the store (it tasted good on my plate, too). It's a little bit strong, so use it sparingly at first.

The chiles were pretty good, but I thought they were missing a little something. I think they would have been better with a stronger cheese. Asiago would be ideal, but it's ridiculously expensive. Next time, I'll try a cheddar-Jack blend like the enchiladas or grab a bag of pre-shredded "Mexican blend."

Happy eating!