Saturday, April 19, 2014

Light Yet Substantial Vegetable and Ham Soup


It’s a rainy Saturday in Seattle (almost a cliché, though inaccurate as both New York City and Chicago both have more rain than we do). After being away for 3 weeks, emptying and turning off the refrigerator, we’ve been rebuilding its contents from scratch. I can’t believe how efficient I’ve become with cooking. The freezer is so organized and because I can clearly see what’s there, I’m actually using the items.

Cooking is now a creative activity for me for me.  I could never have believed it earlier in my adult life. Today I knew I had a chunk of Trader Joe’s carnitas, there were a couple stalks of celery, some mushrooms, some bacon, most of a sweet onion, some baby carrots, fresh garlic and a partial carton of beef broth let over from last nights pot pies. I’ve been learning to use and enjoy the herb thyme lately due to its use in a pot pie recipe I’m fond of.

A light soup sounded just right for the day. I put a couple pieces of thick sliced bacon on to fry in my trusty, can’t-live-without, Faberware stainless steel electric frying pan.  I then did what Madher Jeffery, the noted Indian cookbook writer, implores - I focused completely on each task I was moving through.  I carefully sliced the onion and celery into almost perfect ¼ inch chop. Then I very thinly sliced each baby carrot piece and mushroom.  For the two large garlic cloves, I sliced them thin then chopped them by cutting the other way across the slices. Then I turned to the carnita chunks dispatching them into ¼” chop.  Each item had its own pile on the cutting board. The thyme nearby with the opened cans of diced tomatoes and lima beans, I was ready. The soup came out light and delicious. I've had two bowls.
I used to be afraid of or at least intimidated  by concocting dishes, it certainly would not have been relaxing. Now it feels like indulging in art or crafting. Learning how to cook Indian cuisine and practicing often has helped me to gain confidence with herbs and spices and how to prepare the ingredients so they come together nicely.  The steps below might be second nature for good cooks but for me they are things I wouldn't have done before.  I often felt frustrated, even overwhelmed  by cooking and certainly never tried anything without a recipe.
  • Frying a small amount of bacon and using it's grease for flavor in frying the vegetables softening them for the soup.
  • Unleashing the fragrance of the herb used by frying it for a bit in the vegetables.
  • Preparing all the ingredients ahead so they are smoothly and easily added when their time comes.
Light and Tasty Vegetable Soup with Ham
A substantial but light soup heavy on the vegetables but meaty enough for dedicated meat eaters.



Ingredients:
2 pieces of bacon, fried and crumbled
A good sized handful (about 1 cup) of ¼’ chopped carnitias ((or other left-over meat)
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
5 baby carrots, sliced thin
½ can lima beans (just beans)
½ can diced tomatoes (just tomatoes)
3 cups beef broth. (Could use more)
Two good pinches dried thyme



Instructions:
Put the bacon on to fry. Chop up meat, onion, celery and thinly slice the carrots and the mushrooms. When the bacon is done, remove it and, when cool enough, crumble it. Leave the bacon grease in the pan. Add more cooking oil if needed. Fry onion , celery and carrots until they begin to soften. Add mushrooms, garlic, and carnitas and crumbled up bacon. Sprinkle with the thyme and fry to open the fragrance of the thyme. Spoon in the tomatoes and lima beans and pour in the beef broth.  Let simmer on very low heat for ½ hour.



Sunday, April 6, 2014

Memory of Mexican Food And A Delicious Twist on Enchiladas

I once lived in Rawlins, Wyoming. The town had a large population of folks of Hispanic heritage and, to my dismay, the town was rather split into two areas one populated more by Caucasians, the other by Hispanics. Coming from the Northwest, I had never encountered such an obvious cultural split. I ended up living in the more Hispanic part of town. While there, I made a friend, Gloria Mendoza. Gloria had grown up in Mexico and began sharing some of her traditional recipes with me. Some Sunday's she would drop by with warm, freshly made corn tortillas. I was insecure about cooking then. Though I did attempt refried beans from scratch made with lard, and learned to make pans of tasty enchiladas. I wish I had taken the opportunity more seriously and learned more about traditional Mexican cuisine from Gloria. I did carry with me some of her recipes and treasure them as mementos of an interesting moment and person in my life. I hope Gloria's life has gone well.

Today, we enjoy Mexican food. Mostly when we go out for it, it's the more Americanized Mexican dishes of restaurants like Azteca. We do, though, enjoy the more traditional tacos and beans from the food trucks around town. I especially like the lengua tacos (made with tongue) I have a lingering appreciation of the meat from my family's unique treat of pickled tongue. Once in a while my husband would order a dozen fresh tamales from Lupe's Tienda, a Mexican grocery in Seattle. He fell in love with Trader Joe's Enchilada sauce and would munch on his tamales even for breakfast.

I haven't made enchiladas too often since living in Rawlins, and I've never made them without using a tomato based enchilada sauce. And, I don't believe I've ever made them without using hamburger for the filling. Those I've made have been tasty and, as of late, Trader Joe's Enchilada sauce has worked well and has become the new sauce basis of enchiladas made. Looking over enchilada recipes online, though, got me thinking differently about the dish.

Recently, while going through my pantry , I realized that I had several 4 oz. cans of diced green chiles. I also had an unopened package of flour tortillas. I made a trip to Trader Joe's, not for their enchilada sauce but for their Carnitas, delicious precooked and seasoned chunks of pork. The following recipe is an amalgam of several recipes I looked over with my own twist added. Delicious enchiladas, no tomatoes involved.

Enchiladas With A Sour Cream and Green Chile Sauce

Ingredients:
A couple handfuls of Carnitas  chopped into 1/2" chunks and lightly heated in some butter chopping up a bit more (you could use chicken meat, beef or hamburger or just cheese and onion
Butter for frying
1/2 small onion chopped small
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
1-4 oz. can diced green chiles (If you haven't used these before they are not spicy.)
1 14 oz. can chicken broth
1/2 cup sour cream
5 flour tortillas

Instructions:
Chop the meat and in a frying pan, heat the chunks a bit in butter chopping them up a bit more. Place in a large bowl. Add chopped onion and cheese. Mix together for the filling.

Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in the pan used to heat the meat. Stir in the flour and mix well as a roux. Add the green chiles and chicken broth. Let this simmer until it cooks down a bit and begins to thicken like a gravy. Turn it off and incorporate the sour cream.

Fill 5 flour tortillas with the meat/onion/cheese filling rolling them in an 8x8" baking pan. Top with the sauce. Place in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. (I used a toaster oven).