Although I may not be Catholic, that does not mean I’m oblivious to the dietary changes of those around me come February. (This year, it’s Feb. 14).
In that spirit, I thought it would be best to post a round-up of all the Lent-friendly recipes and columns.
Rice bowls. Substitute pork for fish or leave out meat entirely.
The finished green chili hummus, after everything has been blended.
Cranberry sauce (or relish) is usually a dish reserved for Thanksgiving, Christmas and any other time you’re serving a turkey.
Whatever the occasion, cranberry sauce is one of the dishes you should make before before roasting the turkey, along with stuffing and most of the gravy.
Now, before you entirely discount this recipe, I can attest that it was one of the biggest hits from Thanksgiving 2017. The fact that spice is a part of what would normally be a sweet dish adds some to the allure.
It’s also very easy, although how cheap depends on if you can get cranberries on sale.
It’s mostly about the taste, but somewhat about the presentation.
It’s essentially your regular cranberry sauce recipe (which will gel in the refrigerator) with the addition of lemon and lime juice, a little ginger and some jalapeños.
Whenever someone asks, “What’s a healthy recipe that’s easy and I can snack on?” I have a stock reply.
Hummus. (See just the recipe here).
It’s easy, it’s healthy, it’s delicious and it can go with vegetables, bread, with other sauces, or be served as a spread.
So, what is hummus and why should you make it at home?
Hummus is a mix of cooked and crushed chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans, with tahini, also known as sesame seed paste.
There are some other ingredients: lemon juice and salt, as well as a host of optional ingredients including garlic, peppers, artichoke hearts and other seasonings.
Mainly though, it’s just cooked chickpeas and tahini, blended together.
Things can get a little bit more complicated if you’re willing to take the extra step (frugal and healthy) of cooking the chickpeas yourself.
Even then, hummus is a super simple recipe.
It’s also cheap.
Adding the chickpeas to the blender.
Normally, stores sell 8-16 ounces of hummus for $3 to $8.
You need eight ounces of tahini for this recipe which sells for $3. The pound of dried chickpeas is another dollar.
It makes a full 72-ounce blender full, which is a decent return on investment.
Most of the time, I do not eat it fast enough and it begins to ferment. Not go bad, per se, but you can tell it’s fermenting after 10 days or so, despite all the lemon and lime juice in it.
This is also a great recipe if you want to take the first step toward cooking your own beans, instead of buying them in the can.
It’s forgiving, it’s delicious and no one will know they’re eating beans.
I’ve included instructions for both electric pressure cooker users (such as the InstantPot) as well as those using a slow cooker.
The finished green chili hummus, after everything has been blended.
You could also cook the beans on the stove, but I prefer one of the two plug in methods.
Because hummus is so simple, and its basic ingredients are so few, it is a type of blank slate dish that can take on any number of additional flavors.
My favorites are roasted green chiles (a New Mexico favorite) and marinated artichoke hearts. Take a look at the commercial hummus being sold in your local store: there’s pimento hummus, there’s hummus with dill, there’s hummus with ingredients it shouldn’t be paired with.
See the full album of photos on Flickr.
The cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans) after they have been strained. The flecks of red are from red chiles they cooked with.
Lemon juice helps the blending process and adds a necessary acidity.
I add garlic (chopped) to the blender before adding the garbanzo beans.
Roasted green chiles, before they are diced and thrown into the blender. They were roasted on the barbecue.
You can get the perishable Trader Joe’s tahini sauce ($2.99 per 8 oz container) or get a larger container at an Asian market.
The tahini (sesame seed paste) is added on top of the chickpeas, in the blender.
The finished green chili hummus, after everything has been blended.
Find the stand-alone recipe here.
Sometimes, great things come from the lowly grill at your local gas station.
That is the case with the corned beef hash burrito, originally hailing from the Triple S gas station in Española.
Uniquely New Mexican and a delicious fusion, there is nothing quite like it.
I was first introduced to this fusion by a co-worker who announced to the newsroom that he was going to get one at the gas station.
Soon, I went to discover this invention myself. I can vouch: it’s amazing.
Here in New Mexico, you will always be asked if you want red, green, or nothing. This refers to green chile and red chile. If you want both, it’s called Christmas.
This version leaves the chile choices up to you. I decided to chop up and lightly cook a green chile for the burrito. Normally I would have paired it with salsa and the secret sauce I use for grilled corn and fish tacos, but I was out of both.
There are quite a few moving parts to this recipe.
First, the corned beef hash. I used the canned kind because I haven’t made corned beef in a while. If I had, the hash is pretty easy to make. Finely dice everything (cabbage, potatoes, corned beef) and throw it in the skillet to fry up.
Either way, it fries in the skillet.
Next are the diced potatoes, which are optional.
Since I now have an InstantPot, the brand name for a type of electric pressure cooker, I cooked the potatoes the night before. First, I cooked them for five minutes, which left them a little too hard. I cooked them again for two minutes, which made them a little too soft. The next morning, I diced a few of them, then threw them in a skillet with some oil, salted liberally, and let them fry.
The electric pressure cooker makes steaming/boiling potatoes so much easier than if I had to cook them in a pot on the stove.
Meanwhile, I had a little under a pound of black beans soaking in water since the day before. The morning I wanted to make the corned beef hash, dumped the water the beans had been soaking in, put them in the electric pressure with a bullion cube and let them cook for 15 minutes on high pressure.
The black beans, after they’ve been cooked in the electric pressure cooker, and before they’re thrown in the skillet to lose any extra liquid.
Lots of people say you can just throw dry beans in the pressure cooker, it just takes more time. I prefer to soak the beans.
You might think this means the beans are done in 15 minutes. It doesn’t. It’s much closer to an hour, between the time it takes to heat the pot and bring it to pressure, as well as the time it takes to naturally release the pressure. Still, an hour without any babysitting the pot isn’t bad.
Potatoes: cooking. Beans: cooking. Corned beef hash: cooking.
The corned beef hash (front) and potatoes (back).
Next up is the green chile. Chop it up and throw it in a hot skillet for a few minutes.
In hindsight, I probably should have added some eggs, either fried and on top of the burrito, and cooked and put inside the burrito, but I didn’t think of it at the time.
When it comes to the burrito, it needs to be large enough to allow for all of the ingredients. Often, packages will state “burrito size.”
So, go make yourself a corned beef hash burrito! You will be amazed at how delicious it is.
The burrito before rolling. Left to right: Pan-fried potatoes, black beans, green chile, corned beef hash.
Find the rest of the photos here on Flickr.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, quickly coming up, I’m reposting an Irish soda bread blog post, and recipe, from Sept. 1, 2009 when I was living in Germany as an au pair. Here’s the original.
I realize that it’s a little bit disjointed at the end. So it goes.
You should be pairing that soda bread with some slow cooker corned beef, potatoes and cabbage made with beer, cider and mustard. Trust me. It’s really good.
I could make excuses or give reasons for not having written about vacation yet, but I won’t. Instead, I’m going to share a recipe for Irish Soda Bread that I made last week. Before I give the recipe or subsequent notes on it, I’ll rap about it because I personally love recipes with a story behind them — a recipe with no notes, no story, no nothin’ is not only less appealing to me but also dry. I should say, the whole reason I made the soda bread was a beef stew which I’ll hopefully make soon again, takes pictures of and write up. A glut from two grills the last two nights engendered the beef stew, which spawned the soda bread.
Out of the oven, on a baking sheet.
I think sourdough bread goes better with beef stew, or lamb stew, or pork stew rather than soda bread, but this may just be nostalgia speaking. The soda bread goes well with the beef stew, is semi-authentic and as a plus the bread is great – it merits repeating – with a little butter and good honey.
I picked up the recipe from allrecipes.com (credit to “MP Welty”) and changed it for my tastes. My tastes at the moment are for whole wheat goodness wherever and whenever possible. So far this has been an apple crisp, the soda bread and pancakes.
Below the recipe will be given in both metric and imperial, but small measurements will be given exclusively in imperial. I personally use metric because I’m in Germany and actually I found measuring by grams to be a bit easier than the normal packing and sifting ways. However, I’ve found with American recipes, this difference can be a bit of a problem.
Since moving to New Mexico, homebrewing has taken a back seat to everything else.
12 packs and 24 packs, recycled, were the best way to store the brew.
I have 15 gallons of cider (in three separate batches) hanging out against one wall in my kitchen, a big bottle of iodopher sitting in my cabinet and a bunch of bottles sitting outside, behind a shed. I even have lactose and corn sugar to get those batches bottled. (I haven’t reinvested in a capper yet).
Unfortunately, with no dish washer to easily sanitize my bottles, I end up putting bottling off time after time after time.
However, when I did have access to a dishwasher, before I moved to kegging (which I cannot recommend enough) and I had friends to consistently drink and brew with, having enough brew on hand was a big issue.
Once we three started brewing, we quickly realized that we liked what we were making, that what we were making took a long time (relatively) and that we needed to be making loads right now for our future selves to have enough to imbibe.
(On another point, if you’re not kegging, getting enough bottles is definitely an issue. Fortunately, when I was living in Reno, there was separated curb side recycling.)
Another of our concerns, as broke young people, was how to maximize our dollars in comparison to our brews. That is, beer is great, but beer can be relatively more expensive to brew, so what about cider?
Cider was easy. Cider was super easy. Cider required less effort and took much easier to get 5-gallon buckets (rather than 6-gallon buckets).
20 gallons of cider in four 4-gallon buckets and one 5-gallon bucket.
So we started making cider, realized we loved it, then had a problem. There was no more cider left. Between ourselves, our friends, the people who lived in the house, the first five gallons of cider were gone in a heartbeat.
In New Mexico, Chile is king. No questions. No debate. Red, or green? Christmas? (Christmas is both red and green.)
(If you want just the recipe, see it here.)
Zhug, after the cilantro and jalapenos and citrus and salt have been blended together. Ready for some fiery consumption.
Cilantro certainly plays a second fiddle, in salsa, as do tomatoes, but still: chile, cilantro, these are the building blocks of many New Mexican meals. So, what does that have to do with zhug? Well, combine those two things into one dish. Blew your mind, didn’t it?
Chile and cilantro are not the sole property of New Mexican cuisine and lots of other cultures do complimentary things with them that I think we should all copy, or at least, pay attention to.
That New Mexico can learn a lot from other parts of the world, including from the middle-east, where zhug originated.
What is zhug, anyway?
It can either be described as a cilantro-based hot sauce (and, depending on how you make it, I mean Hot) or as chile and cilantro pesto. Take your pick. I prefer the former, partially because I make mine scalding.
It’s a very simple sauce. Put cilantro, lemon juice, lime juice and, important here, peppers, into a blender. Blend. Blend, blend, blend.
That’s it. Maybe add some salt, to taste. And you’re done. It’s a pesto-like hot sauce or a hot pesto. Either way, zhug goes well with pita bread and tabbouleh, with some hummus. Maybe you’re going to make zucchini fritters. Add some on the side, along with tzatziki.
I should add, this sauce is very dear to my heart. Being such a fan of cilantro, even naming my blog after a proclivity for it, I gotta say. We all should love zhug.
If you want the full gallery of full-quality photos, they are licensed under a Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution-only license. See them here.
Jalapenos in a blender, before being blended, to make Zhug. Add liquid (lemon/lime juice) to aid in the blending process.
Cilantro, being being chopped up and put in a blender to make Zhug.
I’ve been a fan of curry pastes for a long time, as well as a fan of buying ingredients in bulk for cost savings.
I don’t just buy curry pastes in bulk. Potatoes, too, as well as chicken thighs when there’s a big sale.
Somehow, and I don’t know how, I alighted on the idea to combine all three of these things. It may have started with pan-fried potatoes, or maybe with oven baked chicken thighs (skin on, bone in). It may have its genesis in yellow curry fried rice, where I first learned that the (Thai) curry paste works incredibly well as a seasoning.
Before I go any further, I need to mention that this dish goes really well with at least tzatziki, and probably zhug as well.
Yellow curry paste!
Irregardless of how it happened, I then used yellow curry paste (the mildest of the pastes) as a seasoning for pan fried potatoes. All of this is being done in a cast-iron skillet, of course.
Finally, I decided that the best of all worlds is to put the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes, and maybe a few other vegetables and then bake to allow the juices and fat to seep into the potatoes, mingling the flavors.
The problem with chicken thighs is they take a long time to cook at a high temperature. It’s not so much a problem as something you need to be aware of going into the cooking process.
(Continued after the jump)
Having made rice bowls the night before, I had lots of leftover rice. (Part and parcel of making rice bowls is leftover rice, to either be used in future bowls or in other dishes).
Finished spam, rice and (scrambled) eggs. Furikake is on the top of the sushi, or vinegared, rice.
That meant, this morning, it was time to fry up some spam, cook some eggs in the spam fat and heat up that leftover rice to make a (modern) Hawaiian classic, spam, eggs and rice.
Now, a close relative of this is the spam musubi. I wrote about it for the Rio Grande SUN (no link since the columns don’t make it to the website) but I did post the recipe here.
Many people, including the people I work with, cast aspersions on the very idea of spam, or scoff, or express their pure disgust at the idea. Then again, lots of people are scared of lots of things, and if you weren’t put off by the article title, I hope you will keep reading.
Spam, rice and eggs is so ubiquitous in Hawaii that it’s even sold at McDonald’s, part of their breakfast menu. That also indicates what kind of a breakfast it’s going to be. But, never fear. Much like the rice bowl, you can easily add veggies to the top of your rice to make it a more balanced meal.
Spam, rice and eggs is so simple, almost dead simple. Simply cut a couple of pieces off of the spam log, fry them up in a pan, heat up some leftover sushi or vinegared rice (you can also use normal steamed rice, fresh or leftover) and cook a couple of eggs in that same pan, either fried or scrambled. Put some furikake (Japanese seasoning made with seaweed, among other things) on the rice, maybe cut up a few veggies to put over the rice and there, you have it.
Spam, rice and eggs. Simple, wasn’t it?
Next up, according to my thinking? Spam, (sushi) rice and eggs in a burrito. New Mexican and Hawaiian fusion, all the way.
See the full set of photos (see below) on Flickr.
All the photos are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Only (2.0) license.
Spam cut into slices before it goes into the skillet for some light browning.
The spam has pan fried up nicely. Just a little brown. I cook on the grill because it doesn’t make the house smell.
Flippin’ the spam slices.
One-handed egg crackin’.
Pouring milk into the eggs before everything is mixed. Scrambled eggs, this time.
Finished spam, rice and (scrambled) eggs. Furikake is on the top of the sushi, or vinegared, rice.
So, what’s for dinner?
That’s always a problem, right? Pasta, or . . . What else is in the kitchen? Refrigerator? And the time factor? Do I need to go to the store?
In my house, there are a few things always on hand: vegetables, maybe some meat (leftover, marinated or unprepared), always uncooked rice (and often times, leftover sushi/vinegared rice, plain recipe).
For me, the easiest meal is often times the humble rice bowl. I cook up some rice in my rice cooker, I turn it into sushi/vinegared rice (blog post). Then, do I want to make sushi? Or a rice bowl? Or maybe onigiri? Or maybe, a few sushi rolls now and rice bowls for lunch tomorrow, and some onigiri (rice balls) for later? The options are endless.
Peppers, grilled chicken, cucumbers and seaweed, at the very bottom, sit on top of rice in this rice bowl.
So, what is the rice bowl?
Well, it’s simple. You make some vinegared/sushi rice, put it in a bowl, cut up some veggies into bite-sized pieces, maybe cook up some meat and cut it up too, then throw it all on the rice.
Which veggies? Well, cucumbers are always nice, as are avocadoes. If you thinly slice, then deseed lemons, they are delicious. Being in New Mexico, I always add green chile peppers (unroasted) as well as jalepenos. Nori (seaweed) adds much needed taste. Green onions are also a good addition.
What else do you have? Throw it in there! Leftover steak? Cut it up, throw it in. Same goes for chicken, pork, or other meats.
Add some soy sauce, maybe some spicy/Sriracha mayonnaise, maybe some eel sauce, (Link to Amazon; once I make my own, I will post the recipe and update the link. Your local Asian store should have it for cheap.)
Bam! You’ve got a simple, relatively healthy dinner. Veggies, a little meat. Sure, the rice isn’t particularly healthy, but it’s frugal. Very, very frugal.
Avocados! Taste delicious in rice bowls, as do lemons. Seaweed is also a must.
(I buy sushi rice, Kokuho Rose variety, in 40 pound bags to be as frugal as possible. I store them in five-gallon buckets with lids, a carry over from my days as a homebrewer.)
There you go. Rice bowls. Simple. Delicious. Easy.
Seaweed (nori) is the first thing to go on top of the rice.
See all the photos on Flickr, in high quality.
Realized you don’t know how to make sushi rice? Here’s the recipe.
Want just the rice bowls recipe? Right here.
Makes: as many as you have rice for
Ingredients
Sushi/vinegared rice
1/2 to 1/4 cucumber
1-3 green peppers
1 jalapeno (if you like it spicy)
1 piece of cooked meat (heated up if desired)
1/2 sheet of nori (seaweed sheets)
1 avocado
1 lemon, thinly sliced
All other vegetables, cooked or raw, as you see fit
Other ingredients as you see fit, or have seen in a sushi roll
Condiments such as eel sauce, Sriracha mayonnaise and eel sauce or cream cheese
Directions
1. Cut up the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Cut the lemon slices into quarters.
2. Put enough rice into the bottom of a bowl.
3. Tear up the nori and place on top of the rice.
4. Put the cut up vegetables and meat, if using, on top of the nori, which is on top of the rice.
5. Heat up in the microwave for 30 second to 1 minute if working with leftovers or desire it hotter
6. Add condiments over the top and enjoy.
