Vegetarian Green Chili

In October, I brought back about three pounds of roasted green chiles from the farmers market in Denver.  It was really easy to do, and they have been in the freezer ever since.

Green chili is one of my favorite things to eat.  I dont mind the pork in it, but I usually leave the chunks on the side.  It is quite delicious made without the meat.

I found this recipe on some random site...I dont even remember what it was.  If you find yourself with roasted green chiles on hand, I highly recommend it!

Vegetarian Green Chili

1 onion chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic (I used 4 large ones)
1 Tbls olive oil
6 cups of vegetable broth
~ 12 roasted, peeled, chopped green chiles (adjust according to heat of the chiles -- mine were pretty hot, but I still used 12)
2 Tbls cornstarch or flour

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil.  Add chiles and stock.  Add salt and pepper.  Dissolve flour or cornstarch in one cup of hot water, add and simmer for 45 minutes.

Optional ingredients:
1 - 2 potatoes, diced (I added two small ones)
1 - 2 tomatoes, chopped (I added two romas)
cilantro, cumin, oregano

Add these with chiles and stock, except for cilantro, add that at the end.

I served with cheese, of course.

Wheat Berry Salad

My friend M. made this for me when I visited her in NYC in the fall.  M. is a very healthy eater and I really enjoyed this side dish.

I had not cooked with wheat berries before.  There are two types, soft and hard.  This recipe calls for soft, but I could only find hard.  They were in the bulk section at Whole Foods, but I have seen packaged versions before.  From what I read, the soft are faster to cook, but the hard have more protein.  I think I will stick with the hard, as it wasn't that much more cooking time.

This recipe comes from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking cookbook.  As she suggests, there are many variations you could try, varying the vinagrette and additional ingredients based on the season.  It could also easily be a vegan recipe, if you omit the cheese.

Wheat Berry Salad

2 cups soft wheat berries, rinsed
6 cups of water
2 tsp salt

Dressing
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
1 Tbls lemon juice
1 Tbls minced shallot
1/2 cup olive oil
salt & pepper

3 handfuls of spinach
1 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup feta cheese

Combine the wheat berries, water and salt in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, covered until plump and chewy, about an hour (I added about 10 minutes to this).  The berries should stay al dente.  Drain and add more salt to taste.

Make the dressing:  Combine the orange zest and juice, lemon juice and shallot.  Whisk in the oil and season w/ salt and pepper to taste.

Toss the hot wheat berries with the spinach, nuts, citrus dressing, then top w/ the feta (I used Cotija cheese because that is what I had on hand).  Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Avocado, Grapefruit and Hearts of Palm Salad

This Food & Wine salad sounded similar to one of my favorite salads I eat at 17th Street in Santa Monica. I don't even like grapefruit, but this is good. I found Tamarind paste and not concentrate, which worked fine, and I halved this which is still a large amount for two (this serves eight). 

Grilled Chicken with Mustard-Tarragon Sauce

Only one of the three of us eats Chicken, but I am posting this anyway because the mustard-tarragon sauce would be great on any salad or maybe with fish. This recipe is easy and the dressing /sauce is powerful and healthy as it comes from Cooking Light.

Red Posole

This recipe comes from 101cookbooks.  It is delicious!

It requires a little time (most of it is cooking time) and prep in advance (need to soak the posole overnight), but it is mostly quite easy to prepare.  The flavors are really very good.  I used guajillo chiles with the posole and Chimayo powder for the red sauce.  I got them at the Savory Spice store in Denver.  The red sauce was very much like an enchilada sauce, and made plenty to freeze and enjoy as such later. 

I served with limes (forgot to add it to the red sauce), cotija cheese (without this, it would be vegan), avocado and blue chips.  Yum!

Popovers!

I think popovers deserve an exclamation point -- popovers!

This recipe was reprinted in the NYT magazine in March '09.  The original recipe is from 1966.  It is from Maida Heatter, who eventually became a famous for baking. 

As the article states, "the popover is a culinary marvel, a loose batter that, with the aid of a hot oven, expans like a golden cumulus cloud, producing a crisp, hollow pastry with a soft, eggy interior."  They are delicious!  The restarurant at Neiman Marcus serves them with strawberry butter, but we used butter and raspberry jam.

Maida Heatter's Preheated Oven Popovers

Unsalted butter, for greasing the molds

6 large eggs

2 cups milk

6 tablespoons melted butter

2 cups sifted flour

1 teaspoon salt

1) Preheat the over to 375 degrees.  Generously grease 10 4-ounce heatproof pottery custard cups (or a muffin or popover pan) with butter.  Arrange the cups (or muffin or popover pan) on a baking sheet (I skipped the baking sheet and regretted it; my oven smoked the next time I turned it on). 

2) Beat the eggs lightly, then add the milk and melted butter and stir to combine.  Gradually stir in the flour and salt.  Beat just until the mixture is smooth.  Do not overbeat.  If the mixture is not smooth, strain it.

3) Pour the mixutre into a pitcher and then pour into the custard cups.  Fill the cups almost to the top. 

4) Bake for 50 minutes.  Do not open the door during baking.

5) After 50 minutes, remove the popovers from the oven, cut several slits in the top of each and return to the oven for 5 - 10 minutes.  Immediately remove the popovers from the cups.

Makes 10 popovers (I cut the recipe in half)

Salmon with Hoisin, Orange and Bok Choy

This is one of my new favorite salmon recipes, I was shocked at how much flavor this had and wasn't fishy at all, and is fairly healthy.

I also like that the recipe serves two (only) as I do not like left over fish. I never cooked with Hoisin until the last year or so maybe, now I wonder why. My only tip is to make sure you have salmon without skin, or take off the skin before cooking. - Anne

Roasted Tomato Tortillia Soup

This soup  had some deep flavoring and was pretty easy to prepare, not too spicy either for those of you with normal taste buds :) I used veggie broth to make it completely vegetarian and I didn't add the tortilla strips in. I also forgot to take a pic :(

Tip: after roasting the tomatoes and Anaheim, put them in a plastic bag to rest for the 15 minutes. It makes it easier to peel off the skins. 

Eat it!

Christmas Day Salad

We had a lovely Christmas day dinner at Grandpa and Joan's house.  We were asked to make a salad and brought this .  I used goat cheese instead of Stilton (at a Sister's request). I thought the goat cheese was good, but would like to try the Stilton.  The dressing was very flavorful, but somewhat runny.   Baby greens were not plentiful, so I used Mache which I really liked.