Chiles Rellenos

Ok, I'll admit it. I am a wuss. I have very little tolerance for spicy food. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that for a long time I avoided a dish whose main ingredient is a giant chili pepper. To me, chiles rellenos just looked like the stuff of my worst heartburn nightmares. So, I stayed as far away from them as I could. Until recently. I am now proud to say that I've tried chiles rellenos, and I love them. Last Christmas, at my aunt's house, I was offered some. It would have been rude of me not to try one. plus, they did look kind of delicious. All full of meat and ooey gooey cheese. So I mustered up my courage and ate one. Then another. And then another. They were soooo yummy! And really not that spicy. I liked them so much, I decided to try my hand at making them myself. Unlike some recipes which consist of a chili covered in bread crumbs and then fried, this one is much lighter and easier to make. I use Poblano peppers because of their low heat index and delicious smoky flavor. Technically, the peppers could be stuffed with anything. I've tried them stuffed with ham and even vegetables. I've used steak in this recipe, but ground beef would work as well. They would go great with Mexican rice and sliced avocados. For me, this was definitely a case of "never judge a book by it's cover", that's why I'm really glad I turned the page and started eating!

Chiles Rellenos

• 4 large Poblano Peppers
• 1 lb Sirloin Steak, or any other cut, in tiny cubes
• 1 Yellow Onion, finely chopped
• 2 cups Frozen Corn Kernels
• Tsp. Cumin
• Pinch Chili Powder
• Shredded Cheese Blend (Monterrey Jack, Colby, Cheddar)

Turn broiler on. place peppers on a cookie sheet covered with foil. Roast until peppers begin to get scorch marks in some places, turning over for an even roast. Remove from oven and let cool.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan. Add onion and cook for about a minute. Add meat as well as salt/pepper to taste, cumin, and chili powder. Cook until meat is browned. Add corn and stir. cook until corn is soft.

Using a knife, make a slit all the way down the pepper. careful not to cut it in half. Remove insides with a spoon. If you want some heat, leave some seeds behind. If not, remove all. Spoon filling into the pepper. Cover with cheese. Repeat until all peppers are stuffed.

Place peppers in broiler until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Anybody still out there?

Well, first things first. To anybody out there who read the blog and then wondered where I disappeared to, I'm sorry. Sorry for abandoning Spoon Diaries. I kind of feel like a bad mother :(
I'm not going to make any excuses though, because the truth is that I was pretty lazy. You see, around the beginning of November I got my first full-time post-college job. Getting used to the whole 8-5 thing took a while. There were some (well, actually a lot of) days when I came home and just wanted to crash on the couch. So the blog just moved onto the back burner. And it stayed there. For a long time. And that is how I became a negligent mother...

But all this doesn't mean that I stopped loving food, or cooking for that matter. In all the time I've been gone, I've cooked up three different big holiday meals, made up tons of new recipes, tried out new ingredients, developed a love affair with eggplant (more on that soon...), and even started my very own vegetable garden! Lots has happened and I can't wait to share it all...

So, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm back! And this time I will do my best to stay away for the negligent mother role. After all, it doesn't really suit me very well...

Thanks for sticking around and welcome back!

Silvia

PS. Oh, I almost forgot. Thanks very much to Hungry not Hungary for the encouraging words. I appreciate the post and am glad you liked the tortilla soup! :)

Rediscovering Tuna Casserole

Tuna casserole gets a bad rap. I clearly remember an episode of “Top Chef” in which one of the contestants, charged with re-imagining the classic dish, turned up his nose at the mere idea of it. This animosity towards tuna casserole completely baffles me. Perhaps the words conjure up images of scary lunch ladies serving up mysterious looking, grey congealed “tuna surprise”. I don’t really know. But the truth is that Tuna casserole, when done right, is pretty damn good. Maybe it’s not exactly gourmet, and maybe you’re never going to see it on the menu at Le Bernadin, but sometimes you just need some good old home cooking. This is a recipe of my own creation, after much study on how NOT to make a tuna casserole. I realize I could probably make my own sauce, but hey, sometimes I am lazy, and I find the cream of celery/French-fried onion combination to be extremely delicious. I use Fettuccine in this version, but the traditional egg noodles, or plain old spaghetti work just as well.

Tuna Casserole

• 2 Cans White Albacore Tuna
• ¼ cup Green Onion, chopped
• 2 Cloves Garlic, Chopped
• 2 Cans Cream of Celery Soup
• ¼ Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 Cup Frozen Peas
• Handful of Fettuccine
• Fresh Parmesan, shredded
• French-Fried Onions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sautee tuna, green onions, and garlic with some olive oil over medium heat until slightly golden. Add cream of celery and cream. Stir to mix. Add peas. Simmer until peas are cooked.

Add enough water to a large pot to boil pasta. Cook until pasta is Al Dente.

Add pasta to cream of celery mixture. Stir.

Pour mixture onto a greased casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheese and onions.

Bake until cheese is golden and casserole is bubbling.

Enjoy!

Sweet Tooth: Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I am a sucker for anything with chocolate. So when I found this recipe for chocolate zucchini bread, I had to try it. The original recipe came from a Ghirardelli cookbook, but I modified it by substituting brown sugar for white and adding nutmeg, to get a richer flavor. This zucchini bread is a type of quick bread, which means chemical leaveners, rather than yeast, are used to make the dough rise. Quick breads are pretty simple to make, and keep well. This bread has quickly become one of my favorites. I recently made it for Miguel’s dad, and he liked it so much, he got up at 2 AM to have a piece (I’m pretty sure that means he really liked it)! Leftovers? Try making chocolate zucchini bread French toast. Delicious!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

• 1-Cup Brown Sugar
• ¼ Cup Sugar
• 1-Cup Oil
• ½ Cup Water
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 3 Cups Flour
• 1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
• ¾ tsp. Ground Nutmeg
• ½ tsp. Baking Soda
• ¼ tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 large Shredded Zucchini
• 2 8 oz. Bars Milk Chocolate for Baking, chopped into ¼” pieces*

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9”x 5” loaf pan, or line it with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine sugars, oil, water, eggs, and vanilla. Mix until blended.

In another bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and baking powder.

Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients gradually, stirring until well mixed.

Stir in chocolate and zucchini.

Spoon mixture into loaf pan. Place in oven and bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, about an hour and a half.

Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely.

Store at room temperature, wrapped in aluminum foil.

* Can be substituted for mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, if desired.

Enjoy!

Two for One: Pot Roast

When the weather starts to turn cold, there is one dish that automatically comes to mind, pot roast. In the sweltering heat of a Texas summer, I’d be insane to try and make a dish that requires my oven to be on for 3 hours. So, as soon as the leaves start falling and pumpkins start popping up on porches, pot roast is back on the menu. It definitely is a weekend dish, since it requires lots of time, something I really don’t have much of during the week. I love making it on Sundays, while the sounds of the Texans game trail in from the living room and I catch up on the week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy. The best thing about pot roast, besides the fact that it only requires one pot to make (Less dishes to wash!), is that there are A LOT of leftovers. In the past I’ve made pot roast sandwiches and tacos. But this time, I used my leftovers to make pot roast empanadas. The dough for the empanadas can be found in the frozen food section of Fiesta or other Latin grocery stores (Goya and La Saltena are good brands). But, if you are not able to find these, puff pastry works as well. I use the empanada rounds made for baking, but there are ones made for frying, which you could also try out. It all depends on how health-conscious you are feeling that day!

Pot Roast

• 2-4 Lbs. Boneless Beef Chuck Roast
• Salt/Pepper
• All Purpose Flour
• 4 Tbs. Olive Oil
• 5 Garlic Cloves, Peeled
• 2 Cups Chopped Yellow Onion
• 2 cups Chopped Celery
• 3-4 Bay Leaves
• 1-Cup Dry Red Wine
• 1-Cup Beef Stock
• 2 Tbs. Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 Beef Bouillon Cube
• Baby Carrots, Whole
• Small Red Potatoes, Whole
• 1 Tbs. Unsalted Butter, Room Temp

Preheat Oven to 325 F.

Season the roast by rubbing it all over with salt and pepper to taste. Coat roast evenly with flour. In a large pot (I use a Dutch Oven with a tight lid) heat 2 Tbs. oil over medium heat. Add roast and sear each side (including ends) until nicely browned. Remove roast.

Add remaining oil to pot. Add garlic, onion, and celery, plus salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring constantly, until tender. Add the bay leaves, wine, stock, Worcestershire, and bouillon. Bring to a boil. Add more salt/pepper if needed. Put roast back in the pot, along with carrots and potatoes. Bring to a boil and cover.

If you’re pot is oven safe, place in oven. If not, transfer to a roasting pan and the place in oven for 2 ½ to 3 hours until the meat is fork tender. About an hour into cooking, reduce oven temp to 250 F.

Once out of the oven, remove roast to a cutting board. Transfer half the sauce and vegetables to a food processor. Puree. Pour back into pot and simmer over low heat. Mix butter and 2 Tbs. flour in a separate bowl. Add to sauce and stir. Simmer until sauce is thickened. Add more salt/pepper if needed.

Slice meat and serve with vegetables and sauce.

Leftovers? Thaw empanada dough rounds. Preheat oven to 350 F. Place a spoonful of meat/vegetable/sauce mixture in the middle dough round. Fold dough over and seal ends by pressing down with a fork along the whole edge. Place empanadas on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil. Place in oven and bake until golden brown.

Enjoy!

The Perfect Tortilla Soup

For a while now, I have been on a quest to find the perfect Tortilla Soup. Needless to say, I tried the soup at many many restaurants here in Austin (So many, in fact, that people already knew what I was going to order when we went out to dinner. Ok, In retrospect, I might have been slightly obsessed). Anyway, some were better than others, but I still could not find The One. Disenchanted by my lack of success, I realized that perhaps the perfect tortilla soup was not out there, waiting for me in some Mexican restaurant, but rather, that it’s recipe was locked up somewhere in my brain, just waiting to be made. And that is just what I did. But I didn’t do it alone, of course. The saying goes, ”Two heads are better that one”, and in this case, that was definitely true. Miguel, my favorite co-chef :), and I taste-tested so many versions of the recipe, we probably gained 5 pounds, but in the end we found it. This recipe is as close to the fabled perfect tortilla soup of my quest as you can possibly get. And, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The secret ingredient is time. Let it simmer for as long as you can. That will make it ten times better, giving it just the right consistency and resulting in a more flavorful broth. Trust me, it will be totally worth the wait and all the stomach grumbling! Now, 5 pounds heavier and ready to order something else the next time I go out to dinner, I am happy to say, I have found The One.

The Perfect Tortilla Soup

• 2 Chicken Breasts
• 1 Large Onion, diced
• 1 Large Tomato, diced
• 4 Garlic Cloves, chopped
• 2 Packets Goya Seasoning with Cumin and Annatto
• 1 Tomato/Chicken Flavored Bouillon Cube
• Handful of Cilantro, roughly chopped
• Chili Powder, to taste
• Cayenne Pepper, to taste
• 1 Can Whole Tomatoes, drained
• 1 Can Yellow Hominy Corn, drained
• 1 Large Anaheim Chili, chopped
• 4 Corn Tortillas, cut into strips
• Avocado Slices
• Tortilla Chips
• Shredded Mexican Cheese Blend
• Lime Slices

Fill a large pot with enough water to make the desired amount of soup. Add the first 7 ingredients, along with salt and pepper. Place on high heat until boiling and then reduce to medium heat. Cover and let simmer until chicken is thoroughly cooked. The longer you leave this simmering, the more your broth will taste like chicken. Once chicken is cooked, remove it from pot and place in a bowl. Let cool. Lower heat. Broth will be used as the base for the soup.

Shred chicken and add back to the pot. Turn heat back to medium. Add chili powder and Cayenne to taste, and if needed, more salt. Make it as hot or mild as you want to. Add tomatoes, corn and Anaheim. Turn heat to high. Let boil and then reduce to low. Add tortilla strips and let simmer until the soup thickens. For at least 20 minutes.

Serve with avocado, tortilla chips, cheese, and lime. and cold Tecate!

Enjoy!

Sweet Tooth: Marbled Ganache Chocolate Tart

Once in a while, there comes a dish that knocks me off my feet. And this chocolate tart, whose recipe I found on my first visit to Argentina, pretty much clotheslined me (In a good way, of course). The creamy ganache just melts in your mouth and the Dulce de Leche at the bottom is a nice little surprise waiting just for you. Plus, the swirly white and dark chocolate make it nice to look at (in the five seconds before you devour it). If you don’t like alcohol in your desserts (what’s wrong with you? No, just kidding), then you can forgo the rum, but I find it a good contrast to the sweetness of the other ingredients.

Marbled Ganache Chocolate Tart

• 7 Tbsp. Butter, chilled and cut into cubes
• ¼ cup Sugar
• 1 Egg Yolk
• 1 Cup Plus 1 Tsp. All Purpose Flour
• 3 ½ Tbsp. Cocoa Powder
• ¼ Tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 200 g (or approx. 2 bars) Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate, Chopped
• 100 g (or approx. 1 bar) White Baking Chocolate, Chopped
• 1 ¼ cup Heavy Cream
• ½ cup Dulce De Leche
• 3 Tbsp. Rum

Crust: Sift flour and cocoa powder together onto a clean, flat workspace (like your kitchen counter). Make a large well in the center, creating a sort of ring of flour. In the middle, place the butter and, using your hands, mix them together. Squishing butter and flout together with your fingers. Fun! Reform ring. Place Egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla in center. Knead with hands until a homogenous dough forms. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes. Roll dough out with a rolling pin over a floured surface and place over pie dish, trimming extra dough around edges. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Bake at 325 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes*. Chill until ready to use.

Ganache Filling: In a saucepan, bring heavy cream to a gentle boil. Meanwhile, place chopped white and semi-sweet chocolates in separate bowls. Once cream boils remove from heat and add half to each of the bowls. Gently shake bowls while adding cream to melt chocolate, mixing with a wooden spoon if not completely melted. Assemble tart as soon as chocolate is melted.

Assembly: Mix Dulce de Leche with rum. Spread mixture on bottom of piecrust. Pour semi-sweet chocolate ganache into piecrust. Over this, pour white chocolate ganache. Using a thin stick, gently swirl to create marbled effect. Refrigerate tart until ganache is completely set.

* Tip: to prevent dough from rising while baking, Place a piece of parchment paper or saran wrap over piecrust and add dry beans over that. The beans will act as a weight and prevent rising. They can be re-used.

Enjoy!