Spicy Dinner With Friends

It all started with a pork shoulder. I had one in the freezer from our poultry CSA and it was too big for just James so I needed friends to help us eat it -- time to call K&D. I decided to stew the meat, New Mexico style with chili powder for a crock pot batch of carne adovado, a staple in the Land of Enchantment but little known elsewhere.

Once I had started on that path I naturally came to beans. Although the occasional bowl of posole fits the bill it's kind of hard to imagine spicy food without beans and so I went from New Mexico to old Mexico with a pot of drunken beans, pintos cooked with bacon, onion, oregano, garlic, jalapenos, and beer. You saute the aromatics first (can bacon be considered and aromatic, I wonder) add in the beans, peppers, and beer, water and bring to a boil The beans bake in the over (300º) for about an hour and a half leaving the stovetop free for other dishes.
One of our favorite salads isn't a salad at all, really. It's a cuban style platter of avocado and red onion dressed with red wine vinegar and olive oil. A perfect cooling side dish.
Pork, chili powder, crock pot . . . main dish for company.
Cilantro rice, based on a recipe from Rick Bayless (he's my go to guy for Mexican). I heated chili peppers (Rick called for poblanos but I have these darling peroncicni in the garden and tossed 3 -- seeded and stemmed -- in) in chicken broth (3 1/2 cups) along with a handful of cilantro -- stems and all. I brought the liquid up to a boil and let it simmer, covered for 10 minutes. When the peppers were softened I transferred the liquid to the blend and pureed it all until smooth. Next I sauteed rice (2 cups) and chopped onion (1/2 medium) in olive oil until the rice was chalky and the onions starting to soften. I added the liquid from the blender and the rice from the pan to my rice cooker. With company coming it's nice to have a dish, or two, that doesn't need last minute attention from the cook. When the rice was finished I gave it a fluff with a fork and let it stay in the cooker staying warm until dinner was served. Because my peppers were a bit more red than green my rice didn't have the vibrant color this celebratory dish is famous for but the flavor --and the aroma -- were all there.
I could call this cake cuatro leches I suppose. The super sweet, creamy Latin favorite is basically a spongy light cake soaked in 3 kinds of milk -- condensed, evaporated, and heavy cream. Following a recipe from Saveur magazine I added a topping of dulce de leche -- a caramelized milk topping popular pretty much throughout the Spanish speaking world. I had a jar I brought home from Uruguay a while back. I love that this recipe offers the airiness of beaten egg whites but only uses one beater and one bowl to get ready. I topped our cakes with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. Dreamy texture, sweet topping, the perfect dessert.

Mixed By Hand, Crisped In A Pan

Every now and then a girl has to do something a little special. I wanted a dinner that would make james happy so I rounded up a few of his favorite ingredients. First layer; arugula avocado and bacon salad lightly dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Center stage; dungeness crabcakes. the crab may be West coast but the recipe is all East, flavored with dry mustard, Old Bay, tabasco, and bound with just the barest amount of cracker crumbs. The cakes were lightly fried in peanut oil and butter (in the same pan where I fried the bacon) for just the right bit of crunch.

Alas, the crowning touch -- I forgot the cocktail sauce with no horseradish or ketchup in the house. A good excuse to make crabcakes another night.

Another "Bean Diet" Dinner

Our friend Eric came to join us for dinner and once again I am stretching culinary muscles trying to make meat free, fat free, dairy free not end up being taste free. We started off with soup. I simmered chunks of zucchini, a chopped onion, and a bag of frozen peans in broth for about 15 minutes until the vegetables were soft and popped everything in the blender along with a large bunch of basil (adds flavor and a bright green color), salt and pepper. First course done.

Not the most picturesque dish but pretty tasty I whipped up some vegan bean burgers. I ground cannelini beans, mushrooms, onion, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, dried chiles, kidney beans and almonds in the food processor and stirred in rolled oats and wheat bran as a binder. After the mixture refrigerated until sort of firm I formed patties and baked them for 30 minutes at 350º, flipped and baked for 15 minutes more. That's more time than I usually take to fry burgers but they held together and boasted a better texture than most bean burgers I've made in the past. I topped the burgers with a quick, zesty guacamole. On the side, a big mixed vegetable salad (dressing: almonds, orange juice, balsamic vinegar, and mustard blended together).

Dessert may perhaps be my biggest challenge. No sugar, no butter, no flour. All that's left is a crisp. I mixed blueberries and pitted cherries with a couple chopped dates for sweetness. For a topping I mixed rolled oats, vanilla soy milk, vanilla extract, apple juice, cinnamon, and 1 egg white. I baked this make-shift sweet for an hour at 350º until the topping was crisp and the fruit bubbling.

Pretty good for a "diet" dinner. Thanks for the pix Eric.

When Eric Ate James' Dinner

James had a meeting out of the house and we had to re-schedule dinner with a friend so I needed some back up eaters. I invited our friend Eric to come and eat James' dinner. Eric is a good audience who appreciates my cooking so he is always a welcome guest, and his wife is out of town so we try to make him a regular at our dinner table.

We started off with a roasted corn and avocado salad from a recipe by Elizabeth Falkner of Citizen Cake fame. She instructed to coat the ears of corn with olive oil and roast them in the oven (500)) until tender and lightly browned. After cutting the kernels form the ears some (1/2 cup) went into the blender along with 3 TB fresh lime juice, 2 TB sherry vinegar, a dash of hot sauce and a pinch of cinnamon. As those ingredients mixed I drizzled in 1/2 cup of olive oil to make a vinaigrette. The rest of the corn mixed with cubes of avocado, tomatoes (I had some roasted ones so I used those along with some fresh tomatoes), cucumbers and the finished dressing. I served spoons of the mixed salad on arugula leaves topped with toasted pumpkin seeds and feta cheese.

We don't do sandwiches for dinner too often but I thought I had a good combo and layered bread warm from the oven with butter, thinly sliced london broil (Eric was sort of invited for leftovers after all), parmesan cheese, spinach leaves, sliced mushrooms, and a thick coating of my green pepper romesco sauce. Sandwich and salad dinner for a good friend and a good guest.

Empanadas A Leftover's Best Friend

James is funny about leftovers. Unless it's something so delicious he can't stay away, grilled shrimp, sliders, creamy cheesy pasta -- he pretty much can open the fridge and just not see food. At first I thought it was that he honestly couldn't see it. So I switched to clear storage containers. No change. I started leaving notes pointing to the location of treats James might enjoy for lunch. No change. I had to come to grips with the fact that leftovers, even from a particularly delicious meal or a sugary cake, don't speak to James. Food doesn't whisper his name as he walks by the fridge. Food rarely calls to him downstairs. James, it seems, is not like me.

Although I didn't grow up in the depression or taking pride in the "cucina povera" of my region I have a pauper's fear of waste -- especially waste of good food or ingredients. So I am likely to turn leftover steak into a high end grilled cheese or a dinnertime spaghetti sauce. Some dishes take a little more creative effort and I often turn to empanadas to turn leftover stews into a brand new dish.

Not too long ago I whipped up turkey picadillo with -- you guessed it -- leftover roast turkey. That spicy sweet stew of tomatoes, raisins, chiles and meat is perfect over rice but just as good wrapped in flaky dough of flour (3 cups), 1 egg yolk, 1/2 cup butter, salt, and about 1 cup of milk (when I have milk I want to use up in the fridge), as I've read is the custom in Southern Argentina. No matter where it comes from, the milk makes for an easy to roll, tender dough.

Months ago, anticipating a day like today without much in the house to cook and fewer ideas, I encased that leftover Cuban style stew in flaky pastry rounds and stored them, unbaked, in the freezer to be brought out triumphantly as a brand new dish. James love empanadas.

On the side, taking a hint from the vaguely Cuban flavors we already had going, I made one of the big man's favorite salads -- fresh avocado (from our friends backyard tree) and thin slices of red onion drizzled with olive oil and red wine vinegar.