There’s no meat in the fridge, no canned salmon in the cabinet, not even a packet of spam. What’s a woman to feed a carnivorous husband? So I found a recipe for raw tacos! Walnuts? Check. Spices? Check. Soy Sauce? Check. Food processor? Not so much, but I’m resourceful and make do with a coffee grinder.

After grinding, mixing, and using over sized lettuce leaves as shells, I served these tacos to my husband. He protested a little, but he tried a bite. And he liked it! He and I both agree that thanks to using the same spices that you would normally use in taco meat, it tasted just like a normal taco. He even enjoyed the lettuce leaves as a shell. Children might like this recipe too, ok maybe not the lettuce leaf.

Try it for yourself! Just drop a glob of guacamole, mango rawlsa, and some rawesome sour cream and you’ll have a meatless, vegan, gluten-free meal! Feeling adventurous? Try making your own raw taco shells, maybe even explore some other raw, meatless international food like Raw Pad Thai or Rawssian borscht!

Today is National Nachos Day, so how about you mix up a little meatless, raw nachos by making Spicy Corn Raw Tortilla Chips, Raw Nacho Cheese,  and Raw Refried Beans. Of course you could also just use meatless refried beans if you don’t want to go all out raw, but hey, guacamole can always be raw right?

Photo by Geoff604.

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Categories:	Meatless Monday • Mexican • Nuts • Vegetarian	1 Comment
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Well, technically it’s Day 3, but unfortunately I’ve been pulling near all-nighters at work, so writing has been challenging to say the least! But we did eat last night, I just fell asleep before I could write! Apologies.

We went to our favorite Latino market in White Center called Carniceria El Paisano for provisions. We purchased a half pound of puerco en adobo (pork in a spicy marinade) for $1.98, a can of black refried beans for $.99, a big bag of corn tortillas for $1.69, and a bottle of hot sauce for $.89.

Then we headed over to a Vietnamese market for veggies. They had a 6-foot table with loaded with baggies of fruits and vegetables in their last days – all for $1.00! A big bag of limes, one filled with tomatoes (perfect for a huge batch of sauce), nectarines, etc. You’d never see that at a Safeway! Granted, the food would need to be cooked, frozen or eaten within probably a day, but still quite the savings.

We purchased four Key limes for $.18, an onion for $.39, a half pound of nopalitos (cactus) for roughly $.75, a beautiful head of lettuce for $.79, and a big bunch of gorgeous cilantro for $.39. Grand total for dinner: $8.05. Since we had the Turkey Dal leftovers for lunch, and yogurt and bananas for breakfast, we actually saved a bit of our food dollars today.

Here’s how we prepared our Mexican meal: Barnaby grilled the nopalitos and puerco en adobo, and since they are both so thin they cooked up in a flash. I had the easy job of heating up the refried beans and chopping up the onions. We made street-style tacos filled with the pork, onions, cilantro, fresh lime juice and a squeeze of hot sauce. Tasty!

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Categories:	Hunger • Latin • Meat & Poultry • Mexican • Sauces • Veggies	8 Comments
Tags:	black beans • Hunger • nopalitos • pork • puerco en adabo • refried beans • tacos

My favorite Mexican breakfast dish is Chilaquiles, but Machaca con Huevos is a close second. Part of why I love this dish so much is the incredible memory I have of the first time I had it. When I was 18 years old I walked across the border into Mexico with a backpack and Acapulco as my destination. Over the following week I made my way overland more than 1,500 miles to the beach resort. Much of my trip was made by train, largely in American Pullman cars from the early twentieth century. Some of these were in bad need of repair, but others had been preserved and/or restored to their original glory. I spent just a few extra dollars on the route from Guadalajara to Mexico City to travel in first class with my own sleeper compartment and dining service. The dining car was amazing! Mahogany paneled walls, etched glass table dividers, white table linens, and waiters clad in jackets and bow-ties. Lucky for me the first class section was fairly empty, so I was able to sit in the dining car, watch the scenery and chat with the staff for much of the 30 hour trip.

Always interested in cooking, I asked for a tour of the small galley kitchen. Though the chef was surprised that an American teenage backpacker would ask such a thing, he granted me entry and explained all of his equipment with great pride. The stove, cooktop and cooler were all clad in bright stainless steel, which was immaculate and lovingly maintained. Cooking was done on a flattop griddle heated with wood carcoal…not brickets, but logs that had been burned down to pure carbon and still retained their original shape. Refrigeration was achieved with blocks of ice. One item that stood out was a hunk of dark brown beef hanging from a shelf. It was hard as leather and completely dry and at first I wasn’t sure it was food, but thought maybe it was some sort of Santeria talisman. When I asked about it the rail chef explained that this was “machaca,” and that they cooked it with eggs in the morning for breakfast. He also showed me how it was prepared by cutting off a strip going with the grain and the pulling apart the fibers, which he placed into a molcajete. He then started to pound the dried meat with the mortar of the molcajete until it softened and became almost like cotton or wool in consistency. He allowed me to taste some and it was a bit like beef jerky, but beefier with less salt and no sweetness.

The next morning I eagerly made my way to the dining car and ordered “Machaca con Huevos.” I ate and fell in love with this simple dish as the train threaded it’s way south going through low-shrub desert and up into the greener mountains on the way to Mexico’s capital city. Originally made of wild game, such as deer, by Aztecs and other indigenous peoples, machaca can now be purchased pre-pounded and packaged. Look for it in your local latin markets. I picked some up in Mexico recently and made it with eggs at home. Not as picturesque an experience as that first machaca I had over 20 years ago, but you can click the widget below to try my recipe.

Finally, below are scans of the packaged machaca I brought back from Mexico.

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Categories:	Latin • Meat & Poultry • Mexican • Travel	2 Comments
Tags:	Dried Meat • Machaca • Mexico • Molcajete • Train

On a recent trip to Mexico we found “Huitlacoche Quesadillas” on the menu. Barnaby, being well-versed in Mexican cuisine, exclaimed, “Oooh! Corn smut!”

What the !?

Huitlacoche (pronounced wheat-la-co-chay) is a disease of corn caused by a fungus that infects the kernels creating mushroom-like tumors. The name huitlacoche comes from the Nahuatl (Aztecs) word reportedly meaning raven’s exrement.

Hmm, it has “smut” in the name (something I generally only call my trashy magazines or some nasty thing that comes out of a drain), it’s a disease, it has tumors, and the Aztecs called it bird crap.

Is your mouth watering yet? No? Mine wasn’t either.

Farmers in most countries regard corn smut as a blight and spend great amounts of money to destroy it, but in Mexico it’s considered a delicacy. I want to know who the brave soul was that ate it first. I decided to buck up and give it a try. It has an earthy mushroom-like flavor and is at once sweet and savory.

It was divine.

Look for it in Latin markets or buy it on Amazon.com.

 

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Categories:	Latin • Mexican	Leave a Comment
Tags:	corn smut • corn truffle • huitlacoche • Mexican • Mexican corn truffle • Mexican truffles

In the far corner of my grandma’s kitchen, below the telephone and in the bottom drawer, is where my grandma stored all her old aprons. Most of them were the ones that tied around the waist, some of them the kind you wouldn’t really cook in they were so nice (like the sheer and frilly organza one), some I think were made by my great-grandmother. Whenever I was at my grandma’s house I’d make a beeline for that drawer and spend hours tying all the aprons around my waist to make a big poufy skirt. I’d twirl and twirl and twirl.

Sometimes my grandma would tell me to choose one apron and come help her in the kitchen. I’d sit on the shiny red vinyl stool at the big wooden island and wait patiently for instructions. I remember one such day when we were about to bake. She’d go in and out of her pantry and place what seemed to me countless ingredients on the island: flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder. Then, the biggest bar of chocolate I’d ever seen. Mind you, I must have been around four or five years old and at that moment my grandma seemed like Willy Wonka. She saw the look in my eyes (she raised five daughters, she knew the look) and said to me,”That’s baking chocolate, honey, it’s not sweet.” I didn’t listen and the next time she turned her back for another pantry trip I bent down and scraped my little teeth on the big bar of chocolate.

“Eeeeeeew!”

“I told you, dear,” my grandma said sweetly, giggling a bit.

Oh how I loved those days. But apparently I didn’t learn much. On a trip to Mexico I found a bag of cocoa nibs at a sweets shop and bought them. Cocoa nibs are chocolate in their purest form. They’re roasted cocoa beans that haven’t been crushed and transformed into unsweetened chocolate. In a nutshell (or nib), they are definitely not sweet.

Barnaby said to me, just like my grandma all those years ago, “They’re not sweet, you know.” I knew (even though I’d never tasted one), but I popped one defiantly in my mouth anyway. It wasn’t the “Eeeeew!” I experienced in my grandma’s kitchen, but it wasn’t necessarily “yuuuum!” either, at least at first. After chewing it a bit I was able to get past the bitter taste and enjoy the lovely natural cocoa flavors.

Best of all, it made me remember that day spent baking with my grandma and the first time I snuck a taste of baking chocolate.

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Categories:	Baked Goods • Chocolate • Mexican	2 Comments
Tags:	baking • Chocolate • cocoa nibs • Mexico

I used to be nearly “spicy intolerant” – meaning, I could barely look at a jalapeno pepper without my eyes watering. Now I crave spicy foods and dump chipotle salsa in copious quantities on my food.

There’s a Mexican expression, “Si no pica, no es comida,” which translates to “If it doesn’t burn, it isn’t food.”  We’re in Mexico and we always ask for the “salsa picante” because the stuff they usually put out for tourists is mild at best. This time, in front of us was placed a salsa I’d never had before – one made entirely of red onion and no tomatoes.

And lots of habanero! We’re talking lips-melt-off-your-face hot! But it was refreshingly good in all its spicy bad assness.

I’ve not been able to find a recipe, but have done my best to deconstruct it. The onions were slightly pickled by lime juice, which married well with the spiciness of the habanero. If you want a little less heat substitute jalapenos instead.

Click here for the recipe.

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Categories:	Cooking tips • Mexican • Travel • Veggies • condiments	Leave a Comment
Tags:	onion salsa • red onion salsa • salsa • salsa picante • Spicy

I don’t quite remember where or when I discovered chilaquiles, but it was many years ago in Mexico and I remember thinking (or more likely exclaiming out loud), “Tortilla chips for breakfast? I love this country!”

Chilaquiles is a typical Mexican dish served at breakfast or brunch. It’s known as the “poor man’s breakfast” because it’s made from leftovers, namely tortilla chips. Chips or strips (or totopos) of corn tortillas are layered in a dish and smothered in sauce, typically either green (made with tomatillos) or red, and simmered until the chips are soft. It is then topped with grated cotija cheese (similar to feta or ricotta salata but less salty) and crema (like sour cream), and is sometimes served with chicken, refried beans and/or eggs.

For an easy Chilaquiles recipe click here.

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Categories:	Cheese • Cooking tips • Mexican	4 Comments
Tags:	breakfast • brunch • chicken • chilaquiles • corn tortillas • Mexican • refried beans • salsa verde • Tortillas

One of my favorite light summer dinners to make is refreshing gazpacho. This chilled soup is sure to quickly soothe an overly hot body. The recipes that I prefer are those without bread, making them lighter and healthier (especially if you’re dieting).

This recipe is from my mother’s friend, Vicki Sebastiani, founder of Viansa Winery in Sonoma, California. You can find it in her wonderful cookbook Cucina Viansa.

Gazpacho alla California

Makes 8 cups
1 large cucumber: peeled, seeded and diced
1 large red onion: peeled and diced
1 large red bell pepper: seeded and diced
1 large zucchini, diced
6 large tomatoes: peeled seeded and diced (about 6 cups)
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups tomato juice
3 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon Balsamic vinegar
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Dash of Tobasco sauce (optional)

Garnish:

1/2 sour cream
1/2 cup fresh minced chives
1/2 cups croutons, preferably homemade (I skipped this in my preparation)

Note: I also like to toss in avocado for extra creaminess.

Set aside about a 1/2 cup each of the diced cucumber, onion, pepper, and zucchini. Toss the remaining ingredients into a blender and puree slightly, so vegetables remain a little chunky. Cover tightly and refrigerate 2-3 hours, or until chilled. Either stir the remaining vegetables into the soup, or arrange on a separate dish to be added individually. Nice served with a dollop of sour cream, too.

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Categories:	Cookbooks • Mexican • Soup • Veggies	3 Comments
Tags:	cookbook • Food • foodista • gazpacho • Mexican • recipe • Soup • tomato • vegetables • viansa • Winery

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Do you really know why we celebrate this day? Most Americans do not. Here’s why: because it gives Americans just one more day to get their drink on. Or so it appears that way.

Actually it’s a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. But, I bet if you interview people on the street and ask them why we celebrate this day they’ll probably look and you and exclaim, “So we can drink margaritas!” Or, they will say it the Mexican version of Fourth of July. But, Cinco de Mayo is not, as most people think, Mexican Independence Day. In fact, it’s a regional holiday celebrated primarily in the state of Puebla to commemorate the Mexican victory led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on, you guessed it, May 5, 1862.

But it gives us an excuse to indulge on Mexican cuisine and beverages, so arrrrrrrriiiiiiibbbbbaaaa!

Here’s one of my favorite Mexican beverages: the michelada, which is essentially lime beer. Micheladas are refreshing, light and don’t fill you up like sweet/salty margaritas. Nor do they leave you with a nasty tequila hangover the next morning.

Michelada

1. Salt the rim of a tall glass and fill it with ice
2. Squeeze in the juice of half to a whole large lime (I prefer mine very limey so I add a lot)
3. Pour in your beer of choice, preferably Mexican…it is Cinco de Mayo afterall!

Enjoy and be safe!

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Categories:	Beverages • Mexican	4 Comments
Tags:	beer • Beverages • cinco de mayo • drinks • Food • foodista • Mexican • Mexico • michelada

I love Mexican food. So much so that I think I was Mexicana in a previous life. Actually, I say that when I eat just about any food, really. I’ve been Japanese, French, Italian…you get the picture.

My newest love is mole. You’re probably saying, “Well, what took you so long?” Honestly, I had a bit of a bad experience years ago (I’ll spare you the gory details) and have been a bit averse to trying this rich dish again. But with a less whimpy belly, a fierce gusto for food and a recent trip back to Mexico, I tried it once more.

“Holy mole this is good!” I cried with gastronomical glee. I.Am.Hooked.

I know visually it may not knock your socks off, but believe me taste-wise it will.

Mole (pronounced mo-lay) is like curry. In fact, mole is a generic term for “sauce” and, like curry, comes in a variety of flavors. Such as, guacamole, or “avocado sauce.”

Probably the most well-know mole is Mole Poblano which is made from dried chili peppers, a whole gang of spices such as cinnamon and cloves, ground seeds and nuts, Mexican chocolate (stay with me now, it’s great), aromatics…oh the list goes on!

It’s no easy thing to whip up a mole. Well, a good traditional Mole Poblano, that is. It can take days to prepare a truly authentic one. But the good news is there are a variety of premade moles readily available at your local Mexican market or markets that carry ethnic foods.

We bought a Mole Verde (green mole) and prepared it with chicken like so:

We julienned some red and yellow peppers along with a large sweet yellow onion. Then we sauteed them in a large pan with a bit of olive oil until browned, removed them from the pan and set aside. In the same pan we heated up some more olive oil and browned a whole chicken (cut into parts). Once browned we added the pepper and onion mixture to the chicken. In a separate saucepan we heated the entire jar of mole and a bottle of white wine (minus a sip or two – wink, wink) until thoroughly mixed. We then added the sauce to the chicken and simmered the whole shebang for hours. You want to simmer at least a good two hours to allow the flavors to truly marry.

Muuuuuy delicioso!

If you have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon try one of these great mole recipes from Ramekins. I specifically like the sound of Mole Poblano #5.

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Categories:	Cooking tips • Latin • Meat & Poultry • Mexican • Nuts • Sauces • Seasoning & Spices • Travel	4 Comments
Tags:	aromatics • chicken • Chili Peppers • cooking • Food • foodista • Mexican • Mexico • mole • Nuts • pepper • recipe • recipes • sauce • seeds • spices • Spicy