nathan and audrey

This weekend, we had a chile/chili showdown! Actually, it wasn’t so much a showdown as an opportunity for me to explore another version of chili and to provide some tasty green chile chicken enchiladas to my friend J who had 1) never heard of green chile, and 2) never heard of enchiladas! (Oh, what a sad sad world it is to know there are people who haven’t heard about or tasted enchiladas.)

And of course, this would’ve been the perfect opportunity to take photos, but once again, I failed at remembering to use my camera, so you’ll be stuck with my verbal descriptions instead.

It was a lot of fun, and it was the best chili I’ve ever tasted. J made an Italian version seeing as how she’s Italian, and that’s how she rolls. It had all sorts of tasty stuff in it, like ground beef and beans and tomato juice and brown sugar, and I was a little surprised when she served it over curly macaroni noodles, and then added oyster crackers and cheddar cheese to it. The oyster crackers seemed a little overboard–aren’t we satisfying the chili carb requirement with the pasta?–but she persuaded me to try the crackers too. They…were…wonderful! They added a nice crunch to them, and I went back and got another very large handful.

Now, to the enchiladas. I busted out my daddy’s recipe, and instead of plating them individually, I made a tray because there was a large group, and we were serving food more pot-luck style than sit down dinner. I’ve never rolled my enchiladas, and a 9×9 tray sufficed for the six of us partaking. Green chile sauce from El Pinto Restaurant had to serve as my green chile addition since I didn’t have any plain green chile on hand. It seemed to work out okay, though I had to use 2/3 of a jar to get them even a little bit spicy.  J watched as I made them, and when I had finished making the enchilada sauce, I layered the baking tray with the tortillas, sauce, shredded chicken, and sharp cheddar cheese. About that point, it occurred to me that flat trays of enchiladas are like a Mexican lasagna, and, to make things even better, J was thinking the same thing!

Now, I need to beg her to share her family’s chili recipe with me. It was tasty!

I doubt many midwestern restaurants feature Green Chile Stew on their menus, but where we’re from, it’s a staple. We snub our noses at poor quality green chile stew and angrily throw sub-par bowls of the mislabeled sludge against the wall. Perhaps that’s a bit extreme. But we certainly think about it.

Until yesterday, I had never made green chile stew, mostly because finding good green chile here is difficult, and I didn’t want to waste any of my dwindling stock for experimental purposes. Still, the mood struck, and I had to roll with it.

Green Chile Stew, a la Audrey
Serves 2

• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 medium russet potato, cubed
• 1/2 cup cooked and shredded chicken breast
• 1/2 tbsp. chicken better than bouillon
• splash of olive oil
• 1/4 onion, chopped into large pieces
• 2-3 heaping tablespoons of green chile (more of less depending on your chile’s natural heat and whether you want to burn your tastebuds off)
• 1/2 cup corn
• salt and pepper to taste

1) In a small crockpot, add the chicken broth, potato, shredded chicken, and chicken bouillon.

2) Heat up a bit of olive oil in a small sauce pan, then saute the onion and green chile until the onion is soft and transparent. Then add to the crockpot.

3) Thirty minutes before stew is to be served, add the corn. It’s important to let this simmer for some time–the stew-like qualities come from the dissolution of the potatoes. I let mine cook for six hours total.

4) Serve with warm flour tortillas, and if the chile is really hot, a glass of milk.

PS-The wonderful thing about green chile stew is that you can substitute. The chicken can be substituted with ground beef or shredded pork. Diced tomatoes lend a yummy flavor. Some people add lard to liven it up. Oh, the possibilities!

Hello!

Recently, we participated in an iron chef party: secret ingredient parsnip/persimmon. Fun, right?

We took this:

And transformed it into this:

Awesome, right? (BTW, that’s a parsnip and persimmon spice cupcake with ginger cream cheese frosting.)

For a more detailed account and the our recipe and its inspiration, check out Twenty-Fingered Cooking, where we’ve written up a piece on our daring adventure.

PS-Did I mention we had a lot of fun?

Last week I got to talking with a writer buddy of mine who drinks green smoothies every morning for breakfast. We writer folk are weird, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around a green smoothie until she told me the principle ingredient was raw spinach.

Um, gross much?

But then she went on about how the spinach wasn’t noticeable, and how these smoothies kept her full until lunch time. Trying to find a breakfast food to keep me full until lunch time has been near impossible, and if the addition of spinach to an otherwise fruit and goodness filled beverage would do it, then hallelujah! I’m more than happy to give it a whirl.

I present you, my very first “green” smoothie.

It’s not very green, though I’ll be honest, I threw a disgusting amount of spinach into the blender. At least as much as the fruit and banana I used. Granted, spinach is fluffy, so perhaps that skewed my color results. And I can taste the spinach, thanks-a-latte, but it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

I will let you know on the keeping-me-full thing.

Ingredients:

• one small banana
• 1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries (or really whatever frozen fruit you want to use)
• a big honkin’ handful of spinach leaves
• 1/4 orange juice

Apparently kale leaves are one substitution for the spinach, and other possible ingredients include plain yogurt–I imagine Greek yogurt would be lovely and add a bunch of protein–as well as flax seed oil, honey, milk, etc. I like the idea that you can throw whatever you’d like into the blender and pop out a relatively healthy drink. For all I know, this thing is loaded with calories, but as I’ve never been one to count calories, whatev. I just finished kicking back my first ever “green” smoothie, and while I’m disappointed that it didn’t achieve the glorious vibrant green of certain pictures I saw, if it keeps me full, I’ll eat ‘em. I mean, drink ‘em.

{Edit 12/15} The smoothie did not keep me full. However, I have to factor in that I’m currently producing food for another human being (El Garbanzo) so there’s a possibility that it may have kept me full otherwise. To be continued…

When Nathan is scheduled to leave town for a few days, I always get excited and think of all the delicious things I am going to cook in his absence. Before you start murmuring about what a hateful woman I am, I’m talking about things that Nathan dislikes, and, in some cases, would use the word “loathe.” Big steaming pots of baked beans, fresh green beans sauteed in garlic with grilled chicken, and my absolute favorite Nathan-loathes-it-dish, lemon chicken. And whenever he leaves, I always wind up eating the same couple of dishes: cereal and peanut butter and jelly on toast. (Somehow toasting the bread makes it more sophisticated.)

This last trip, I was determined to break the cereal cycle and actually make something worth eating. True, I did have one PB&J toast meal, but I jazzed it up with apple juice and a banana. My crowning glory was a pasta dish I made that I am still thinking about. In fact, when I talked to Nathan, I bragged about how yummy it was and how he missed it. He asked me how it was so tasty, and in fact, I’m not sure. I didn’t go crazy with anything, try a new ingredient, or even deviate much from my classical cooking education (ha!) But it still managed to turn out glorious, and I thought you might like to know how to make some of this for yourself!

Pasta for One
(aka, let’s get rid of everything in my fridge that may be turning shifty in the near future)

Serves 2, took me about 20 minutes to get from basic ingredients to my table

• Two servings of pasta–I used penne
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• a couple of handfuls of sliced baby bella mushrooms
• 1/2 cup of dry red wine
• 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• 1/2 cup cooked ground beef
• 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce–I used a tomato and basil version
• 1/2 cup mozzarella

I made a lasagna last week (which sadly wasn’t that exciting), so I had some leftover ingredients hanging out in my fridge. What else was I going to use the last of the jar of tomato sauce on? Or the tiny amount of ground beef? And those amazing baby bella mushrooms (which I have a really hard time locating, for some reason) could not go to waste. It would be a crime. I added my pasta to a boiling pot on a back burner and turned on the medium heat on one of the front underneath a medium pan. As you might’ve guessed, I started with the olive oil and the garlic, sauteed that about half a minute before throwing in the wine and the mushrooms. I didn’t time it, but I let the wine cook down.

Once the mushrooms were soft and yummy-looking, I added in the ground beef and the dried seasonings. I whirled everything around in the pan stirred for about a minute. I turned the temp down to low and let the pan’s contents make friends until the pasta was done, approximately 3 minutes.

Now, you are probably telling yourself, this is the part where I throw the sauce onto the pasta and say grace and eat my food. Wrong! That’s normally what I would do. But this was my special meal while my husband was away! I had to do something crazy! (And join the kajillions of peeps who already do pasta this way.)

I threw the drained pasta into my saucepan and stirred everything. While I’ve mixed white pasta sauces and noodles together in a pan before, never ever ever have I done that with red sauces. It seemed slightly…wrong. But! Before I could think further on the error of my ways my ingenious new idea, I doused my soon-to-be-dinner in the mozzarella cheese, gave the pan one last spin with my spatula, and plated that fantastic smelling mess of goodness.

It was wonderful. And though there was quite a bit of food, I still stick by my original idea: I made pasta for one. There may have been enough for two, but the leftovers swiftly went into the fridge with a large sign on them that may have hinted at severe and painful penalties if anyone other than myself so much as looked at my pasta the wrong way.

I did feel a little sorry for the Bean. I was eating this delectable dish, and what was he left for dinner? Carrots. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

My first experience with pesto happened when I was in my third or fourth year of university studies. After one taste, I was shamed. Why was I not introduced to such a wonderful dish earlier in my life? While we flirted with each other over the tines of my fork, it was still another couple of years before our next encounter. Now I’m trying to regularize the connection, and learning how to make the dish would go a long way.

But pesto seemed so intimidating! So scary! So…I don’t know. My father, the amazing cook of lore, is not a pesto dude. He does not have a love-love relationship. (Which explains my late introduction, a sin for which I have nearly forgiven my father.) And when I was informed that pesto was not only super easy to make, but also contained only a handful of ingredients, I was in disbelief. (Happy disbelief, might I add.)

I found a recipe for pesto in my newest cookbook, Cook This, Not That, and went from there. By the by, this cookbook is awesome because it’s full of color and pictures, but I also find the sections at the beginning of the chapters very informative. They have a chart on grains, a chart of dairy, and a chart on meats that rank them from best to worst. For some reason, that kind of information makes me giddy with power.

The pesto I made was inspired by CTNT’s recipe:

• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp walnuts
• 3 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Easy, right? Except I do not grow basil, and I was unwilling to spend the ridiculous amount of money my local grocery store demanded for a small handful of basil leaves. Enter The Farmer’s Market. HUGE bag of basil for $2.00. That’s more like it. And except pine nuts (which I did not have on hand) I used walnuts (because that’s what I did have). I ground everything up in my food processor and voila! I had pesto genovese.

But now that I had it…oh, what to do with it? I went back to my roots and attempted the dish that introduced me to pesto. I didn’t measure anything because I’m trying to be more fluid with my cooking, so if you try to recreate this, you’ll have to be brave. I’ll try and provide guesstimates where possible.

Chicken and Mushroom Pesto Pasta for Two

• 2 tbsp. butter, separated
• clove of garlic, minced
• 8-9 ounces white wine (I used chardonnay)
• 6-8 ounces mushrooms
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
• enough pasta for two, any type will do
  
• 1/2 of the above pesto recipe
• parmesan to sprinkle on top
• salt and pepper to taste
  

First, I melted 1 tbsp. butter over medium heat and sauteed 1/2 clove of garlic, minced. Next, I added 3-4 ounces of white wine and let that reduce for 60 seconds before throwing in 6-8 ounces of mushrooms. I sauteed everything until the mushrooms were soft, and I was left with beautiful, tasty garlicky mushrooms in a white wine butter sauce. I threw everything in a bowl and set it aside.

I kicked up the heat to medium high and melted another tbsp. of butter in the same, unwashed pan to preserve the yummy goodness left behind by the mushrooms. I added the other 1/2 of my garlic clove, minced, and sauteed before adding in probably 4-5 ounces of white wine. That reduced for 60 seconds before I tossed in the chicken. At this point I also sprinkled a little bit of kosher salt and a few twists of fresh ground pepper, but you certainly needn’t do that. Cooked the chicken until done, set in a bowl, and put aside.

While the chicken was cooking, I put two portions of pasta into boiling water and set my timer. I used rotini, but that doesn’t mean other pastas wouldn’t be just as lovely. We eat a lot of rotini here.

Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I gathered all of my ingredients: mushrooms, chicken, pasta, a small bowl of grated parmesan, and pesto! Salt and pepper were also close at hand. I had to retire my smaller pan because everything wouldn’t fit, and I threw the chicken, the mushrooms, and the pasta into my largest skillet. I added about 3/4 of the pesto I made from the above pesto recipe, which was probably a mistake. Next time I’ll go slower and only use 1/3-1/2. (The pasta was very pesto-y.) I cooked everything until it was warm, then added the parmesan and plated it.

It was awesome. Too much pesto, but otherwise super tasty and easy to make. So make it!

I’ve been pushed and reminded–gently, of course–that having a website with my name in the title means that I should contribute. I could write about work (bleh), getting ready for the move to Illinois (tiring), or my thoughts on spending winter in a very very cold part of the country after having lived in the desert nearly my entire life (fearful), and while those things are very present in my thoughts as of late, there’s something I think about with much more joy. Cooking is so exotic! I can be wherever I’d like with the right ingredients, and I love to measure things out, combine them, and see what I’m left with. So, I figure that my contribution to this website will be about food. And to kick everything off, I’m going to start with the corn chowder I made last night.

Corn and Shrimp Chowder, adapted from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food

A few notes on chowder: various definitions disagree, but it’s typically considered to be a thick soup with potatoes and other ingredients. The word chowder is thought to be a descendent of the Latin word caldaria, which refers to the cooking pot used to make it.

This recipe makes a very thin chowder, but it is much better suited for summer in New Mexico than its thick siblings.

Ingredients:

• 8 slices bacon
• 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 medium-sized potatoes, cut into 1/4-1/2 inch cubes
• 4 oz pancetta
• 1 teaspoon seafood seasoning
• 3 tbsp flour
• 2 cups water
• 3 cups milk
• 1 lb. large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 cans sweet corn OR six ears of sweet corn with the kernels cut off the cob
• salt and pepper to season
• bread or crackers on the side, if you so desire

1) Cook the bacon until crispy in a large saucepan. Set bacon off to the side, and the grease inside becomes the base of the chowder.
2) On medium heat, add the garlic, pancetta, and potatoes, and let it all simmer for a couple of minutes. Lower your heat if the garlic begins to brown too quickly.
3) Add seafood seasoning and stir pot to ensure everything gets fully coated. Then add flour and repeat.
4) Next, add the water and milk. If you reduced your heat in step 2, kick it back up to a medium heat or even medium-high heat. Wait for the liquid to come to a boil, then reduce the heat, allowing the chowder to simmer. Cook 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
5) Tear the bacon strips into small pieces. Set aside.
6) Add corn and shrimp to the mix. Cook another two minutes, removing from heat when the shrimp change from being translucent and gray to white and pink.
7) Garnish with bacon pieces and serve very hot.

Including the prepwork, the entire recipe took me about forty-five minutes to complete. We served it with thick slices of french bread, which we soaked up with broth and devoured. The meal was light, the flavors were subtle, and after eight hours of work, it was easy to make. The shrimp I had purchased for it wasn’t terribly flavorful, so I imagine that a better quality shrimp would’ve produced more of the sweet, seafood-y flavor that I love and adore. I’ve been asked to make it again.

-Audrey