Green Chile Beef

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This post will end my green chile journey. Just for the near future. I can never stray too far from my beloved green chiles. 

The reason why this is the end (for now) is because I used the last of my homemade green chile sauce. Plus I feel the need to experiment with some new flavors. For the blog and for my soul. So let’s savor this moment.

This is what I used:

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Remember, you can always clickie on the pickie to make it biggie. Ewwie, I’m being annoyie. 

Preheat your oven to three-fiddy degrees. Heat a large heavy-bottomed (tee hee) pan. Heavily season your roast with S&P.

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When the pot is HOT (you should only be able to hold you hand over the pot for like 10seconds before it’s super hot) then add the roast. If it doesn’t sizzle you got a problem bro, it means you need to heat your pan some mo’.

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The browning locks in the flavor and creates a lovely crust, so I like to brown EVERY side. You don’t have to, of course. But if you have an extra minute, why not?

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Once your roast is browned, add enough water/broth to cover the roast and add all the remaining ingredients.

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You can, of course, use fresh roasted chiles. I just didn’t have any on hand and I’m lazy. OK? There, I said it. I’m owning it, right here and right now. 

Bring the whole shebang (ugh I can’t believe I used that word) to a boil and then stick it in the oven and forget about it for 3 hours. Then you need to frantically remember it. And shred it.

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Discard any fat and return the shredded meat to the pot to stay warm until you’re ready to serve. You will need to season the meat with S&P once it comes out and it’s perfect. I mean melt-in-your-mouth slap-yo-mamma perfect.

Enjoy it with some of the green chiles in a burrito, taco, salad or just straight up. It’s that good!

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Candied Nuts

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Candied nuts. I love them. They are perfect with a nice refreshing drink and what else, trashy TV. 

These are a cinch to make and can be customized many different ways. You can make them spicier or savour-ier just add more red pepper flakes or more paprika. You can also use a totally different combination of spices. Cardamom and pomegranate molasses could be amaze balls. 

So begin by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl and stir. I didn’t include exact measurements because everyone will like it a bit different. I tasted the mixture after I stirred and ended up adding more maple syrup and cinnamon. Also, the amounts depend on how many nuts you’re using. You need enough to coat them all in the mixture.

I used this stuff:

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You can click on the image to enlarge it btw. You’re welcome 🙂

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As I said before I used more syrup and cinnamon but these ^^^ are pics of the original amounts I used.

I needed more to coat this many nuts:

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This is how coated they should be (again you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it):

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Once coated, bake in a 350F oven until they are bubbly, or you can smell them, or for 5-10 mins, or until you just can’t take it anymore. That is my new time measurement for cooking. I just cook something until I can’t take it anymore. It’s been working for me. Do not try this at home. Or do. Whatever, it’s your fucking life.

This is what they should look like which is probably the best indicator of when to know they are ready:

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Place the nuts in a bowl and enjoy! They taste the best when cool and consumed with a rejuvenating (or intoxicating) beverage.

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Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

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2014-02-26 13.42.05

Chicken noodle soup. It feels like a grandma’s hug.

I made it today. It was raining and I had the sniffles, plus I have some chicken leftover from a roast I made.

So this is what you need:

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 Heat some oil in a pan and sauté the veg. Don’t forget to season! Nothing worse than a bland soup. Blech. 

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Cook the veggies till they reduce down like-a this:

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 At this juncture in your soup making adventure, you want to invite the chicken to the party. Make sure to introduce the chicken to all the other guests in the pot that have already loosened up and become flavorful. You don’t want the chicken to feel lonely and out of place. That’s not nice. 

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Don’t forget to include the noodles! They are in the title of the soup after all. Those noodles are some thirsty bitches though. So give them some water. (I don’t know what’s happening but I’m gonna ride this soup-party metaphor till the wheels fall off). 

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Now everyone is in the pot-party (not that kind of pot but that’s ok too, no judgement here). Let them simmer and get to know one another for 30mins. Once the noodles are soft and all the flavors have let themselves shine then it’s done! 

Curl up with your soup and some trashy TV and feel better boo! 

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Homemade Red Chile Sauce

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2014-02-24 20.04.31

I’ve already posted a recipe for green chile sauce. It’s only right for me to post a red chile recipe because I don’t discriminate based on color. I still have some green chile sauce left so I can use both sauces and have them “Christmas” style in February. Fun. Anyway.

So this is what I used:

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Oh and you also need coriander. I used whole and crushed them but you can save time and just use ground. I just like breaking out the mortar & pestle and imagining myself in ancient times grinding spices in a beautiful scenic place …. until my TV show comes back on then I’m all, “I like the spices on the rougher side, more texture you know? Ya, so I’m gonna stop grinding them now and see what’s going on with Khloé and Lamar.”

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So first step is to deseed them chiles. If you’re gangster then go ahead and leave the seeds. I’m a little baby thug so I deseed them but maybe leave a few in there to make myself feel like a badass. 

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Then you wanna toast the chiles and garlic for about 5-10 mins. Then soak the chiles in hot water for 30mins.

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Meanwhile, toast the rest of the spices.

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Then add about 6-8 cups of water and bay leafs and simmer.

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Once chiles are soft blend them (and the garlic you toasted) with a cup of liquid. For spicy sauce use a cup of the water you soaked the chiles in. For less spicy sauce use a cup of the simmering liquid. I used the liquid I had left over from when I made my Mexican rice and a touch of water.

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Then add the puree to the simmering liquid.

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Let that simmer for a bit (or until you just can’t take it anymore) then strain it and add it to the pot again.

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Now you wanna taste and adjust. If it’s too spicy, add a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. If it’s still too spicy then add more water until it’s at your desired heat level. Then add more of each spice until it’s at the desired level of flavorfullness. That’s not a word but you get the idea.

Once it tastes right, you want to thicken it. If you are watching your corn or starch intake you can use arrowroot which is a natural healthy thickener. Or you can just use cornstarch. I just realized I forgot to include it in the ingredient picture. Well. That’s embarrassing. Anyway. I’m telling you now.

To thicken you create a slurry. Which is a gross word for water and cornstarch (or arrowroot).

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Let that simmer and repeat with a another slurry till desired thickness is achieved. Keep in mind that it will thicken a bit more when cool. You can store in the fridge for up to a week or freeze for at least a month.

Reheat in a pan or microwave and whisk until smooth. Enjoy over enchiladas, burritos, nachos or a frito pie! If you’ve never had a frito pie you haven’t lived. Seriously. Google it.

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Mystery Ingredient: Week 1

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2014-02-24 18.31.21

So, I’m starting a new weekly feature where I try to cook with a new ingredient I’ve never used before. My goal is to go to the farmer’s market every week and pick something mysterious and strange-looking and try to make something yummy with it.

This week’s mystery ingredient is: …. wait for it ….. waaaaaaaaiiiiiit foooor iiiitt … Daikon!

It’s the white stuff on the right! Btw don’t the rainbow carrots look amazing?! I love rainbow carrots! Does it feel like I’m screaming? In my head I’m screaming. My favorite one is the purple carrot with a neon lime green core and tip. 

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I mean come on! Gorgeous. Gorgeous. 

Moving on. When I bought the daikon I actually thought I was buying a bunch of parsnips. Lol. Shows how much I know. Then when I got home and googled parsnips they didn’t look like what I got. Then as I was looking through the pics I saw something that looked like what I had and lo and behold, it was daikon. 

Step two was figuring out what is traditionally done with daikon. Apparently it can be pickled with carrots to make do chua, a Vietnamese refrigerator pickle that is used in banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich. I was actually going to go this route but then I realized I didn’t have (and didn’t feel like buying) the ingredients to make it.

I ended up roasting them with some rainbow carrots (!) and they came out great. Although, I don’t think I really like the natural flavor of daikon, especially when eating carrots at the same time because the carrots were so good that they made the daikon feel like some sort of punishment.

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I roasted them at 400F for about 15-20mins. Maybe pickling them would have been better….. Anyway .. stay tuned for next week’s Mystery Ingredient…..

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Spanish/Mexican Rice

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This is a staple side dish to have on hand when making Mexican food. It goes great on taco salads, burritos and with fajitas. Again, I used to use a seasoning packet and just dump it in with rice and boom, presto, whatever, done! To challenge myself I decided to make it from scratch. It wasn’t really a challenge after all, so simple to make!

I took a sort of Indian approach to making the rice by blooming the spices. Blooming is when you cook spices in oil to release their flavors. Not sure if that is how its traditionally done but it made the rice much more flavorful than some other Mexican rice I have tasted. 

Side Note: You can substitute chicken stock or broth for the chicken bullion if you’re concerned about the sodium. I don’t have that concern, although I probably should but you know, YOLO. Ew… Sorry…. Not Sorry.

Start by heating some oil in a pan, then add the bullion and fajita spice mix (recipe at end of post).

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Once the spices are fragrant add in the tomatoes and sauté for about a minute.

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Then add in the water, tomato sauce and cilantro and let simmer for a few minutes.

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Then measure out 2 cups of the liquid and reserve the rest for later (it keeps in the fridge for up to a week).

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Return 2 cups of the liquid to a pot with the rice. Bring to boil, stir, cover and reduce to simmer. Cook for 15mins and then turn off the heat and let it sit covered for another 5mins. Fluff with a fork and serve.

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Enjoy! 

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Chicken Fajitas

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2014-02-23 18.16.22

Chicken fajitas. I always imagine them coming to me sizzling on a hot cast iron skillet. These couldn’t be easier to make and they go great with Spanish/Mexican rice and all the other fixin’s. 

This is what you need to make the chicken and rice:

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First thing to do is make the fajita spice mix. The recipe for that is at the bottom of this post, on the recipe card. It has all kinds of yummy things in it and I use it in the Spanish/Mexican rice. You could use the spice mix for so many things too so it’s worth making.

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Then you want to cut up all the veggies before you cut the chicken. This is what I like to do but you don’t have to as long as you wash your knife and cutting board when switching from meat to veggies. It’s more of a hassle to keep switching back and forth so I like to do all my veggies first. That is the food safety portion of this evening’s festivities. 

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If you’re not making the rice and just making the chicken, which would be great on top of some romaine lettuce for a fajita salad, then you don’t need the tomatoes.

Now heat up a large pan on medium heat and begin slicing up your chicken. I’ve already mentioned this  before in my Carne Asada post, but I like to cut raw meat when it’s frozen. The cuts are much cleaner and there aren’t any slimy slippery gross textures going on. So slice the chicken thighs thinly, like so:

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Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of the mystical fajita rub you just created (or purchased) on the chicken.

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Cucumbers sprinkled with a little salt. Get into it.

Now your pan should be HOT. Add the chicken, spread in one even layer and do NOT stir. This allows it to develop a nice brown crust. Add the bell pepper, onions and garlic in and after 5 mins stir and allow to cook until chicken is done and veggies have browned nicely.

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Enjoy with warm tortillas, rice and anything else your heart desires.

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From-Scratch Hummus

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2014-02-22 17.52.12

I love hummus. I have it almost every morning with warm pita bread. It reminds me of home and soothes my soul and listens to my problems and tells me I’m beautiful. I’m pretty sure everyone feels that way about hummus. Plus its also really tasty and good for you.

The type of hummus I made is more on the authentic side (smoother and sharper), due to the proportion of tahini. If you want to make hummus more like the kind you find at the supermarket, start with just a tablespoon of tahini and gradually add more to adjust the sharpness to your taste. 

Incase you’re wondering what I mean by sharper, I mean pointier. No I don’t. I mean like when you have a sharp cheese or something. You know what I mean? Whatever.

This type of hummus is more like the kind you get at a Lebanese restaurant.

So this is what you’ll need:

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Chickpeas (a.k.a garbanzo beans .. I don’t like the word garbanzo. I prefer chickpeas. It’s a deep seeded preference without any rhyme or reason), tahini (a.k.a. sesame paste .. It’s really sesame butter .. It’s like peanut butter made out of sesame seeds), lemon, garlic, extra virgin olive oil (you can get the slutty olive oil but I prefer extra virgin because it’s not going to be cooked and you want the nice chaste and virginal olive flavor not the hussy kind), paprika and sumac are optional, just for garnish as well as the parsley. And don’t forget ol’ faithful S&P.

First thing on the agenda is rinsing your chickpeas. 

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Then put them in a blender and add the garlic, tahini and olive oil (1/4 cup).

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Puree and add more virginal olive oil. I found that it definitely needed more oil to round out the flavors and give it a nice texture.

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Taste, add salt and pepper. Taste, probably add a bit more salt. Put in a bowl and garnish thusly:

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Enjoy with warm pita bread. Also refrigerate before enjoying, it will be warm from all the blending and it won’t taste as good as after it’s been refrigerated and the flavors have had some time to get to know each other and let their true personalities shine. Right after mixing them they are still a bit shy. The next day your hummus should be outgoing and tasty!

Ahem. Bye.

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Beef & Broccoli

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 2014-02-21 18.40.45

The rice looks like boobs. I didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe subconsciously. Moving on. I made beef and broccoli!

It’s really tasty and the broccoli is some of the tastiest little teeny tiny trees I ever made. Btw, don’t broccoli look like tiny trees from a tiny universe with like the cutest tiniest things? You never thought of that? Weird. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

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The beef: I used some already cut for stir fry but thin steaks like flank or skirt work well. Slice across the grain.

The broccoli: I used fresh but frozen is fine too.

I don’t know what’s up with the weird format I just did. This whole post is weird. It all started with the rice titties. Anyway. First thing to do is slice your meat if you need to. Then heat your pan on medium/high and make the sauce in the meantime. 

For the sauce I used ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch and onion & garlic powder (which are both optional). And some green onions because why not.

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Mix the sauce and set aside.

Your pan should be hot right now. Add the meat in one layer and do NOT stir for the first minute or so.

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Then add the sauce and broccoli. Stir and coat everything with the sauce. Cook on high heat till meat is cooked through then cover to allow everything to steam a little and then you’re done!

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I was making some white rice to go along with this dish and I had some extra green onions and decided the throw them into the water with the rice. Something compelled me to do it. I think it was divine intervention. I’m glad I did it. It gave the rice a nice fragrant touch that make me feel like its gourmet or something.

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Enjoy!

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Sausage, Mushroom & Rice Stuffed Peppers

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2014-02-19 21.02.52

Sorry about the picture. It doesn’t do them justice. We were so hungry we ate them right out of the oven and I forgot to take a picture. Then after my first bite, my senses came back to me, and I remembered. I scrambled to take a picture of what was left of my stuffed pepper and tried to soothe my soul with another bite. It worked.

These peppers are beyond easy and are very very customizable. Do chicken instead of sausage, or quinoa instead of rice, maybe some squash instead of mushrooms. Anything is possible!

Then you can freeze the stuffed peppers or just the filling and pop it in the oven whenever you need a quick tasty home-cooked meal.

So these are the ingredients I used:
 
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First thing you wanna do is preheat your oven to 350F

Then cook your rice according to the instructions of the package you’re using. (If you’re using basmati: I like to rinse my rice till the water runs clear. Then add 2 cups of water and 1 cup of rice to a pot. Bring to boil, stir, cover and reduce to simmer. Cook for 10min. Turn of heat and leave covered for another 5mins. Then fluff rice with a fork and it’s done).

Then brown the sausage in a pot.

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Take the stems off the mushrooms and roughly chop them. Add the mushrooms, onions and garlic to browned sausage.

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Add seasonings to sausage and veggies and allow them to cook down. This takes a little while. Enough time to grab a glass of wine and use the new Houdini aerator I got from Ross at a discounted price! I love the home section of Ross. Diamonds in the rough there. Diamonds. In. The. Rough. Here’s the beauty:

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Cut the tops off of your peppers and deseed them and chop up your green onions.

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Word to the wise. Don’t choose deformed peppers like I did. Smooth ones will be much easier to stuff.

Once the sausage and veggies have cooked down, taste them and adjust seasonings to taste. If too flavorful add lemon juice or water and cook a few more minutes. If too bland add more spices, duh.

Mix rice, sausage mixture, cheese and green onions in a large bowl.

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Stuff mixture into peppers and bake at 350F until peppers are tender. About 15-20mins.

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Enjoy!

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