Mexican Poblano Burger Soup

Mexican Poblano Burger Soup

After we got back from our trip to the coast for our anniversary, I harvested the last of my chile peppers and the wee tomatillos and poblanos I managed to eke out with our short summer weather. Half the hot peppers had turned red while we were gone, but that’s OK as I like spicy!

Cooking is quite the challenge one-handed, but I’ve figured out some hacks to where I don’t ask for much assistance any more in food prep. Dicing a fresh onion is the hardest I’ve found, but luckily I have a bag of diced onion in the freezer that I brought home from a work potluck, which can be used in soups and stews.

Tips: A mini food processor can be used for a rough dice of carrots, celery, and onion, and a pair of kitchen shears does quick work on green onions. I do have limited use of my left thumb and forefinger, so I place the green onion between those two fingers and snip away!

This soup was the culmination of wanting to use my peppers and tomatillos in something as well as a large leek that needed to be cooked stat. I roasted the poblanos, tomatillos, and a serrano until charred, then had my daughter peel and mince them for me. I then scrounged the freezer and pantry and came up with a half pound of burger, black beans, and golden hominy. Combined with my homemade beef stock, a filling Mexican-style soup was on the horizon!

I’m still limiting my prep photos until I have two hands again but this is a pretty straight-forward soup recipe. Note: I used all my very small poblano peppers and tomatillos in this, but have adjusted the recipe below for standard grocery-sized produce.

Pepper and Tomatillo Harvest

Mexican Poblano Burger Soup

1 large leek, halved lengthwise and sliced
3 peeled, rinsed and roasted tomatillos
1 large roasted and peeled poblano, minced
1 roasted and peeled serrano pepper, minced
1/2 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
Ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon Ancho chile powder
4 cups homemade or low sodium beef stock or broth
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can golden hominy, drained and rinsed
2 soft corn tortillas, diced large
Juice squeezed from a large lime wedge
Tortilla chips, sour cream, and cilantro for garnish (optional)

Roast and prep the peppers and tomatillos. In a soup pot or Dutch oven, brown the ground beef and leeks in 1 teaspoon olive oil until burger is browned and leeks have softened. Add the minced garlic in the last minute of cooking them.

Add the rest of the ingredients except the garnishes and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer and cook 15-20 minutes until the tortillas have dissolved and soup thickens, stirring occasionally.

Ladle into bowls and serve with desired garnishes. This soup was even better the next day!

Mexican Poblano Burger Soup

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Southwest Taco Salad with Creamy Guacamole Dressing

Southwest Taco Salad with Creamy Guacamole Dressing

Ahhh, where oh where did the summer go? School starts this week in my neck of the woods and temperatures have gone from sizzling hot to almost frosty. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying this zesty and crunchy salad filled with summer bounty topped with a smooth avocado dressing.

We’ve just returned this weekend from nine glorious days camping and fishing at the beautiful Oregon coast. What a wonderful way to end the summer!

Southwest Taco Salad with Creamy Guacamole Dressing
Adapted from Southwest Salad with Creamy Avocado Salsa Dressing at Carlsbad Cravings

Creamy Guacamole Dressing

1 small avocado, peeled and roughly diced
1 small jalapeño, seeded, deveined, and roughly chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 salsa, homemade or store-bought (I used my Hatch chile salsa)
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice from 1 lime
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon cumin

Southwest Taco Salad

Grilled chicken breast, sliced (or deli rotisserie)
Corn kernels from 1 ear of sweet white corn
Chopped/shredded lettuce of choice
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup roasted pepitas
1/2 cup grated pepper jack cheese
Creamy Guacamole Dressing
Tortilla chips, for serving

Creamy Guacamole Dressing

Add all of the Creamy Guacamole Dressing ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. You will have to scrape down the sides a few times. Add additional milk, if needed, to thin to desired consistency. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Next, grill the chicken breast, if it isn’t already cooked.

Grilled Chicken

Remove the kernels from the ear of corn, using a Bundt-pan to catch the kernels, if you have one. (That’s a pretty cool tip I picked up from Pinterest.)

Cutting the Corn off the Cob

Add all the salad ingredients except dressing and chips to a large bowl. Toss to combine.

Southwest Taco Salad Ingredients

Add tossed salad to individual bowls, then top with guacamole dressing and serve with tortilla chips.

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Skillet Huevos Rancheros with Homemade Tortilla Strips

Skillet Huevos Rancheros with Homemade Tortilla Strips

I’ve been eying similar tomato sauce and egg dishes lately from the Middle East region, but “Shakshuka” uses quite a few spices that I simply don’t have. (And I have a LOT of spices!) But the ingredients and spices I almost always have on hand are Mexican in origin. Hence, I bring to you a riff on Shakshuka, Tex-Mex style!

My husband and I were disappointed I only cooked four of the six eggs. We both had large lunches, and decided one egg each would suffice. Oh boy, were we wrong! While are daughter munched happily on her second egg, we longed in silence. However, there was plenty of sauce leftover to make a repeat for lunch the next day!

Skillet Huevos Rancheros with Homemade Tortilla Strips

For the Ranchero Sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 Serrano (or jalapeño) pepper, diced small
1 cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 28-ounce can pureed tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon New Mexico ground chile (or chili powder)
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste

For the Rest of It:
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 6-inch corn tortillas
Sea salt, to taste
4 to 6 large eggs
1/2 cup fresh-grated Monterrey Jack cheese
1/2 cup fresh-grated cheddar cheese
Handful fresh cilantro, (chopped) for garnish
Sour cream, for garnish

Simmering the Rancheros Sauce

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. To make the sauce, add a tablespoon of oil to a cast iron or oven-proof skillet over medium heat. Add the spicy pepper, onion, and garlic, and cook for about 7 minutes until onions are softened. Pour in the can of tomatoes, then bring to a simmer. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the black beans, and salt and pepper, to taste.

Prepping the Tortilla Strips

While the sauce is simmering, brush both sides of the corn tortillas with oil and sprinkle with a little salt. Cut into thin strips. Place on a baking sheet in a single layer and place in the preheated oven. Bake for about 3 minutes on each side, until lightly browned. Remove and set aside. (I tried making the strips before the sauce, and got so busy that I burnt my first batch. Lucky for me I always have a large bag of corn tortillas in the pantry!)

Eggs Nestled in Tomato Sauce (LOOK! There is plenty of room for two more eggs, silly!)

When the sauce has thickened, remove from the heat. Make indentations in the sauce with the back of a large spoon, and crack each egg into the wells. Return the pan to the heat and cover. Simmer gently for about 15 minutes, until the whites are partially set.

Skillet Eggs Ready for the Broiler

Turn the oven to broil. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the dish, then place the skillet under the broiler. Cook until the cheese is melted and bubbling and the eggs are cooked to your liking. This shouldn’t be more than a few minutes, unless you like hard-cooked eggs. Remove the skillet (carefully!) from the oven. Garnish with the tortilla strips and cilantro, scoop out your eggs and sauce, and serve with sour cream if you want.

Skillet Huevos Rancheros

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Chicken Chile Verde Posole

Chicken Chile Verde Posole

This is the second pressure-cooker recipe I made in one week, although you can certainly cook this over the stove in a Dutch oven. This was a very satisfying, quick and easy meal on a cold winter’s night! There are a lot of great flavors going on in this. I had an unexpected guest the next night, and he practically inhaled the rest of the leftovers!

Chicken Chile Verde Posole

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and rough-chopped
1 cup rough-chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon dried ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried, crushed Mexican oregano
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast(s)
1 to 2 cups canned hominy, rinsed and drained
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 7-ounce cans Salsa Verde (I used Herdez)
1 to 1/2 cups homemade or low sodium chicken broth
Ground black pepper, to taste
Handful of chopped cilantro leaves
Avocado, lime slices, and additional cilantro, for garnish

Onions, Garlic, and Spices

Sweat the onions and garlic with the oil in the pressure cooker over medium-high heat, then add the spices.

The Rest of the Ingredients

Add the rest of the ingredients, cover with the cooker lid, and bring up to pressure. Cook 5 minutes rocking under pressure, then release naturally. Shred the chicken in the pot with two forks. Serve in a bowl with garnishes.

Cooked Chicken Posole ~ with another handful of chopped cilantro for good measure

Note: If using a Dutch oven, cut the chicken into bite size pieces and brown with the onions and garlic. Then add the rest of ingredients and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes to let the flavors meld.

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Unorthodox Enfrijoladas

Enfrijoladas ~ photo by Adam J. Holland ~ The Unorthodox Epicure

Well, these are not really unorthodox, they are actually quite authentic. But this new recipe came to me from my good foodie friend Adam J. Holland, who has a most interesting foodie blog called “The Unorthodox Epicure” with a fun sidebar called “Confessions of an Aspiring Food Snob.” He is neither unorthodox nor snobby, that I can tell. But he’s a fellow Texan and cooks some great authentic Tex-Mex as well as authentic Mexican food, therefore he’s OK in my book, ya heah????

I made these last night, and hoo-boy, were they delicious! My entire family enjoyed them. It took hardly any prep time and cooked up pretty darn quick. That’s a win-win in my book! I halved the recipe since there are only three of us, but it still ended up making 8 Enfrijoladas (although I did add both grilled chicken AND cheese to the insides of them). There was one left in the end. All thumbs up. Thank you Adam!

I did take some initial prep photos thinking I might actually do a blog with my own photos on this, but a crazy thunderstorm rolled through as we were cooking this all outside on the propane burner/grill, so by the time we got it all moved inside there was no time with a hungry family to do any more foodie shots after having do all that and preheat the oven.

So sit right back, click on the link below, and enjoy his blog and recipe:

The Unorthodox Epicure Enfrijoladas Recipe

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

Whoa! This got four thumbs up from my family. So good and so filling. AND as a bonus, you can make it vegetarian by using Soyrizo. However, I made it with bonafide pork Chorizo, but I didn’t use a lot of it considering all the other ingredients. I used half of a 10-ounce tube/casing of it, However, the seasonings in Chorizo sure packs a lot of punch.

I have eaten Mexican Chorizo at least as long as when I first attended college at the University of Texas at Austin. It was a staple at about every Mexican food stand that sold breakfast burritos, as well as most breakfast house restaurants. I was wanting to use some for soup and not make it too watery.  Since most of my experiences with Chorizo included potatoes, I went on the hunt on the intewebz for black bean, Chorizo, and potato soup.

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup Ingredients

Well, I got a  bunch of hits,  but they were all for a Spanish version of Chorizo, which is the cured version that is hard and kind of like a smoked sausage. NOT. I had the crumbly Mexican Chorizo, that you remove from the package and cook like breakfast sausage, only it’s really red and spicy. So, just like I usually do, I just made up my very own recipe. I hope you enjoy this. We only had one serving leftovers, and I think I’ll have to fight my husband and daughter for it for lunch. My husband suggested I double this next time I make this, and I will.

Chorizo and Vegetables

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
5 ounces Mexican Pork Chorizo
1/2 large sweet onion, diced 1/4 inch
2 stalks celery, diced 1/4 inch
2 medium to smallish potatoes, peeled and diced 1/4 inch
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1/8 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika (optional)
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 to 3 cups homemade or low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 large lime, squeezed
Crumbled Cotija cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips, for garnish

Dice all your vegetables first and set aside. In a dutch oven or soup pot on medium high heat, add one tablespoon of olive oil. Remove the casing or wrap from the Chorizo, and add to the pot, using a spoon or spatula to separate and crumble it as it cooks.  After about 5 minutes, add the diced onion, celery, potatoes, garlic and the other tablespoon of oil and stir to combine. Turn the heat down to just a tad below medium, then cover the pot with a lid. Continue cooking the mixture for about 20 minutes, stirring about every 5 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Add the cumin, Mexican oregano, and Hungarian paprika. I threw in the paprika at the last minute, well, just because.

Next add the black beans, then the chicken broth, eyeballing how much you want to add depending on how thick or soupy you want this to be. Bring up to a low simmer, uncovered, for about 5 more minutes. Last, add the juice of 1/2 of a large lime and stir. Scoop half the soup into a blender and puree, then add back to the pot. Bring back up to a simmer until heated through. Serve with crumbled Cotija cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips for garnish. So very good!

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Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

Paul’s Not-Street Tacos

Paul’s Not-Street Tacos

I kidded my husband about these. He said he was making “street tacos” for dinner the other night, but in reality they weren’t really street tacos because  they had black refried beans, gaucamole, and Cotijo cheese in them instead of just cilantro and onion. HOWEVER, they were very delicious all the same. I probably gave him too much of a hard time since he’s been cooking for the past two weeks while I have been putting in a lot of hours on a very demanding project at my work. That being said, I have had no time to pull the recipe from him for this, so instead will just let you enjoy the photos and let your imagination figure it out this time. The steak meat was delicious and tender, his homemade guacamole was fantastic, and his refried black beans had bacon in them! Perhaps I will have a chance to post the recipe at a later date (but don’t hold me to that!)

Speaking of a later date, I’ll be wrapping up my part of the project late Friday, and Saturday we (meaning ME!) will be taking a much-needed break and heading to fish and crab and read books and relax for a week on the river at the coast. So I will “see” you on the flip side. Enjoy your Labor Day Weekend next week!

Paul’s Not-Street Tacos, Up Close and Personal

Spicy Grilled Chicken Tacos

Chicken Fajita Taco

Happy 4th of July! If you are planning on grilling over this festive holiday week, why not include some yummy chicken tacos in the line-up? We’ve had some record-breaking sizzling heat here in Central Oregon, and grilling has been the standard.

I whipped up a small batch of Chicken Fajitas the other night, recipe here: Chicken Fajita Marinade. After a quick 10 minutes on the grill, we sliced up the meat, and added black beans, onions, avocado, Cotijo cheese, and cilantro on flour tortillas and chowed on dinner in no time.

Grilled Chicken Taco

We are once again off to our RV property for the rest of the week, where it will be a pleasant 70 degrees. I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday week!

An Adventure! ~ Plus Black Bean, Chicken, and Hominy Soup in a Crock Pot

Black Bean, Chicken, and Hominy Soup

This crock pot of soup would have been perfect to come home to last Monday after an all-day adventure to Fort Rock, Oregon. My husband had this “great” idea to travel an unmaintained gravel/dirt road to our destination — in the middle of winter! Now granted we’ve had several weeks of mild weather and no snow in town proper for quite a while, but the mountains and surrounding hillsides have plenty. What should have been about an hour drive turned into two and a half-hour white-knuckled, door-grabbing ride through 30-plus miles of snow, deep ruts, and icy potholes. As my daughter put it: “It feels like we are on a Disney ride!” I’m not sure how our dog was reacting as she was all the way in the back on her bed. Well thank goodness for four-wheel drive and we didn’t get stuck or bottom out once,  but I felt we came close to it several times when our 4-wheel drive alarm kept beeping at us. At one point I was taking stock of what we had on us in the event we got stranded: One bag of pretzels, two granola bars, three full water bottles, two blankets, plus winter coats, hats and gloves. Oh and I found three Jolly Ranchers in the glove compartment and some packets of ketchup. We wouldn’t freeze to death or starve but pickings would be slim. The snowy, windy road finally tapered off to just mud and ruts, and then straightened to lead us out of the forested hills into the high desert, where I got my first glimpse of Fort Rock in the distance. Very impressive! After we hiked up to the top and back down, we visited the “Ghost Town” there called Fort Rock Homestead Village. Unfortunately since it was President’s Day Holiday, the museum was closed, but the buildings were fun to look at and photograph. After the recipe I thought I’d share a few photos of our adventure (OK A LOT), if you don’t mind! It was a very gray day, so the lighting is a bit flat, but I think the photos show you what a neat experience we had!

Black Beans and Cilantro in Blender

Black Bean, Chicken, and Hominy Soup in a Crock Pot

Note: To make this a meatless main or vegetarian, sub the chicken for an extra can of black beans and a can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and use vegetable broth.

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
Handful of fresh cilantro
3 cups homemade or low sodium chicken or turkey broth
1 can undrained Rotel® tomatoes (or can of  tomatoes and green chiles)
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 can white or yellow hominy, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon Pasilla chile powder (also called Ancho)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Dash of cayenne pepper (or more if you like spicy!)
1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb
1 to 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Cilantro and lime wedges for garnish
Tortilla chips (optional)

Add half the black beans and a handful of cilantro to a blender. Pour in about a cup of the broth, then puree until smooth. Add to a large crock pot with the rest of the broth and black beans. Now add the tomatoes, onion, garlic, hominy, chile powder, cumin, cayenne,  and Mrs. Dash seasoning. Give it a good stir, then add the chicken breasts. Cook on high 4 to 6 hours or low 8 to 10 hours. Before serving, take the chicken out and shred with two forks, then add back to the pot. Serve with additional cilantro and lime wedges, and tortilla chips if you have some.

And now for our adventure photos! Click on them to enlarge to full size. Fort Rock has a fabulous history, like most old West settlements. Here are links to Wikipedia for it if you are interested in more information on this place.

Fort Rock Landmark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Rock
Fort Rock, Oregon the community and homestead:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Rock,_Oregon

These are White-Tailed Deer we encountered on the road when we first started seeing snow on the bumpy road

Snow Ruts on China Hat Road ~ These snow ruts are deceptively deep

Fort Rock, Oregon, Our Destination

Beginning the Hike Up Fort Rock

Fort Rock Yellow and Orange Moss ~ Fort Rock is covered in unusual-colored moss

Fort Rock looks like a Moonscape up at the top

One of the many Fort Rock Views

Sign at Fort Rock Homestead Village ~ with Fort Rock in Background

Fort Rock Homestead Town Church

Fort Rock Homestead General Store and Post Office

Fort Rock Homestead Windmill

Fort Rock Homestead School

OK, I’m done!

Spicy Black Beans and Rice with Fried Egg and Bacon

Spicy Black Beans and Rice with Fried Egg and Bacon

Finally, I am getting around to posting a dish my husband made over three weeks ago! Sad, but true — I kept pre-empting his cooking with mine. Well, he was gone for two weeks of that time and figured he wouldn’t notice anyways. So this interesting and spicy gooey dish came about from a cookbook he gave me for Christmas called Make it Tonight: 150 Quick and Delicious Weeknight Recipes by Fine Cooking.  The book is filled with eye-catching photos and simple one page recipes that can be made in a shortish span of time for a weeknight dinner. I’ve read the book through several times, and have bookmarked many recipes to try in the future. Although a majority of the recipes look tasty and easy, the Fine Cooking part should have tipped me off that there are a LOT of ingredients in there I just don’t have or keep stocked in the fridge or pantry on a regular basis (if at all, ever). Take this dish, for example. It calls for Salsa Lizano, “found in nearly every Costa Rican home, restaurant, and roadside food stand.” Seeing as we live approximately 4,219 miles from Costa Rica, we were hard-pressed to find this sauce. So we did the next best thing. We tried to make it ourselves. If I’d actually read the recipe closer I would have noticed to substitute Worcestershire sauce for it, but I went off on a tangent had husband add the ingredients that are in Salsa Lizano individually. From the sidebar: “Salsa Lizano is a smooth, light brown, vegetable-based sauce with a touch of sweetness and a hearty punch of spice, including cumin, mustard, and turmeric.”  To me, that read: “Mix together soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, cumin, mustard, and ginger.” Hey, it turned out fabulous!

I now present to you this highly-adapted recipe from Fine Cooking. And my husband really did make this himself! I was the ingredient finder for him, as he didn’t know where to find most of the stuff in our jam-packed spice cabinet. And the bacon part is completely optional. This actually came from the Meatless Mains section of the book, but hubby loves his bacon! So do I.

Spicy Black Bean Sauce for Rice

Spicy Black Beans and Rice with Fried Egg and Bacon

6 strips of bacon
3/4 cup long-grain rice
1 tablespoon reserved bacon grease
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Pinch of sugar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground dried mustard
1/4 teaspoon ground dried ginger
1 small tomato, chopped
1/4 cup canned tomato sauce (freeze the rest)
1 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 or 2 eggs per person
Fresh cilantro, for garnish

Fry up the bacon to make the house smell divine. Cook an extra strip or two for munching on while you make the rest of the dish. While the bacon is cooking, prepare rice according to package directions. Once your bacon is done, reserve 1 tablespoon of the bacon grease and add to a large deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for a minute more. Now add the sugar, cumin, soy sauce, mustard, ginger, and chopped tomatoes, and mix well. Next pour in the tomato sauce and chicken broth, then add the black beans and ground pepper to taste. Bring up to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes or until the liquid reduces to the level of the beans, stirring occasionally. Turn off heat or to the lowest possible setting, and cover to keep warm. In another skillet, cook the eggs to your liking sprinkled with black pepper. We like ours over-easy, with the whites cooked through but the yolk runny in the middle. Add the rice/bean mixture to a bowl or plate, and top with an egg or two. Garnish with crumbled bacon and cilantro. Wow, this was really good!