Egg in Carne Guisada Heaven

Egg in Carne Guisada Heaven

Here’s a surprise mid-week post from me! I made this for lunch a couple of days go from leftover Carne Guisada I made over the weekend. Carne Guisada is heaven. It is one of my go-to crockpot meals that just screams delicious Tex-Mex. I make this as often as I can. Get the recipe here —–> Carne Guisada

Carne Guisada Simmering

And as usual, I had leftovers. So what better way to make use of the leftovers than to plop an egg in the middle and cook to your liking?

Egg in Heaven ~ Almost

Oh man, this was so scrumptious! I let the egg white set on the bottom, then covered it with a lid for one minute to set the top.

Egg is Now In Heaven

Mind you this is a 5-inch cast-iron pan, a mini. So yes, I ate it right out of the pan. Slurp, slurp! Hardly any cleanup!

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Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

I don’t have any prep photos of this recipe, because I was almost certain we would be ordering pizza after we tasted this. I couldn’t be MORE WRONG! It was simply amazing!! I was so astounded that I did snap a shot of my bowl of it (sans the flour tortilla for dipping, because I was still so non-plussed how great this tasted.) Then for grins I took a shot of my hubby’s interpretation of how this should be eaten.

I was going through the freezer and found a half a tube of Mexican ground chorizo sausage and decided to do something with it.  I also had two gallon bags of frozen tomatoes from our last harvest and I had to use at least SOME of them soon. I had made brined pork chops the night before, which were a total failure, I tell you. Hardly anyone touched the pork, so you won’t get any info on that except for my brining shot of it, sigh. I will not make THAT recipe again. Kitchn website, you failed me this time…

Here I am brining pork, all fanchy schmancy. Little did I know….

I threw caution to the wind, and stuck the frozen chorizo, peeled frozen tomatoes, and almost a pound of the failed pork (cut up) into the crock pot, thinking if I just cook the hell out of something it might be decent. In went some chicken broth, potatoes, onions, spices and such. Just whatever sounded good. Then covered it up and cooked it all day long, hoping it wouldn’t be a last-minute pizza night.

I almost feel like I painted a masterpiece with this. Almost. This was INCREDIBLY delicious! My daughter and I couldn’t stop warming up more tortillas to slop up every last morsel of goodness. We also stirred in some cheddar cheese into the bowls, for garnish. My husband, on the other hand, made rolled up cheese quesadillas/burrito type things, stuck some of the mixture inside, and then slathered them over with more stew and mounds of sour cream. Mounds, I tell you. A little odd, but I let him do it. It’s his mouth.

Rolled Quesadillas with Chorizo Stew ~ or something like that. I really don’t know what to call this.

You may adapt however you like, because it’s not like I followed any semblance of a recipe to start with. (p.s. it is the ground chorizo that makes this recipe and sets it apart from my other Carne Guisada recipe, so at least don’t skip that ingredient!)

Hints: Whenever a recipe calls for a small amount of tomato paste or chipotle chiles, I freeze the rest (labeled) for later use. Just nuke for a tad and take what you need and refreeze. Yes, I got mine out of the freezer for this.

Now on to the (sort of) recipe!

Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

1 pound of pork, cooked or uncooked, cut into small pieces
7 ounces ground Mexican pork chorizo, uncooked
2 cups diced tomatoes, frozen, from a can, fresh, whatever
1 medium potato, any kind, unpeeled, washed and diced
1/2 cup chicken broth, homemade or low-sodium, or water
1/2 cup chopped onion, any kind (I used red)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon of sauce from a can of Adobo Chipotle peppers
Juice from 1/2 small lime (maybe a couple of teaspoons?)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon Ancho chile powder (or any other kind)
Large pinch of cumin powder
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
Handful of fresh cilantro, chopped (plus more for garnish if you want)
Warmed flour tortilla, for slopping up
Grated cheddar cheese, for garnish
Mounds of sour cream, for garnish (or not)

Prep your pork and veggies and such, throw them all in a crock pot, give it a good stir to mix, and cook on low about 8 to 10 hours or high on 4 to 6 hours. Give it another good stir at the end. That’s it! Serve with garnishes. Easy, huh?

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

Incredible Carne Guisada!

This is a reblog from a couple of years ago, but it is definitely one worth sharing again. (Plus it gave me a chance to add the handy-dandy printable PDF of the recipe at the bottom.) I assembled the ingredients early this morning before heading out to watch Sunday morning football and have some grub at a local sports bar. The house is smelling wonderful and I can’t wait to dig into it later this evening. I hope all my readers had a wonderful Christmas and will have a safe and enjoyable New Year!

Incredible Carne Guisada

This dish is SERIOUSLY amazing!!! Using a subjective adjective in my blog title along with an exclamation point already breaks a couple of my self-imposed posting rules. And there I just broke two more with capital letters and a triple exclamation point in the first sentence. But I can’t help it. This Carne Guisada is Just. That. Good. We are talking lick your bowl good. We are talking Get Outta Here that good. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this!

So now that I got all that off my chest, it’s time to start talking about the dish itself. I wanted Mexican food the other day, but wanted something different — something I’d never made before. So I went to my near and dear cookbook The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain, who always draws me into her recipes with her stories and photos that make everything in there look so gosh-darned good. This particular recipe caught my eye, and is the basis for what I ended up with. It’s a stew-like dish, served with soft tortillas, or you can dip into it with tortilla chips like an appetizer. I mixed it up quite a bit from hers but she provided me the foundation from which to build on. That sounded very scholarly. The recipe and food is not, I guarantee! I really wish I had doubled this batch, because there was not near enough leftover for my liking. I wanted more, more, more the next day for my lunch.

Carne Guisada
Adapted from Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan

1 1/2 pounds cut of beef roast or steak, any kind, cut into 1-inch cubes
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
Flour to dust over beef, about a tablespoon or so
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half a yellow and half a red)
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded and diced small
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, any kind, chopped
1 bay leaf
Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dark beer, or sub with more chicken broth
Flour tortillas, warmed before serving
More cilantro, for serving

Hot and Mild Peppers and Onions

I had a rather large, lonely New York Sirloin steak in the freezer, which I deboned to get a pound of meat, and a meager 1/2 pound of boneless beef ribs in the freezer, so used those too. The recipe called for beef chuck or bottom round, but it’s all beef and you cook the heck out of it so the cut is unimportant. Season the beef cubes with Mrs. Dash (or salt) and pepper, then lightly dust all around with flour. Heat the oil in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet to medium-high heat, then add the beef, in batches. You don’t want to crowd it or it won’t brown properly. Cook until it’s browned on all sides. Transfer each batch to a crock pot and set on high heat. Reduce the skillet heat to medium and add the chopped onions, peppers, garlic and spices. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, just a few minutes or so, as you don’t want to burn it. Add a skosh more oil, if needed.

Carne Guisada Ready for Liquids

Now add the mixture to the beef in the crock pot, then the tomatoes, potatoes (adding some potato was pretty outlandish, but hey, it worked!), bay leaf, and chopped cilantro. Pour in the chicken broth and beer, if using. The darkest beer I had in the house at the time was an amber ale, but you can sub with chicken broth if you don’t have any. (Yes, I did drink the rest of the beer bottle. Waste not, want not!) Cover and cook on high for three or four hours, then reduce to low for a couple of more hours, or until ready to eat. If you started this prep earlier in the day, then you can cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The longer the better. When it’s time to eat, warm up those tortillas in a hot skillet, add a mess of the Carne Guisada to a bowl, then start digging in, slathering and slopping up all the yummy juices with the tortillas. You won’t be disappointed. And of course go back for seconds and thirds. I did.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Carne Guisada

Central Texas Foodie and Sightseeing Tour ~ Part 1

Blanco River in Wimberley

Warning: Long post. I did split it out into two posts, though, with another one coming soon. You’ll also notice in this first post that I don’t have many of my own pictures as I didn’t snap many photos until about half-way through the trip.

I had sort of promised a recipe from Texas in my last post, but decided instead to introduce you to some of the fine Texas fare we indulged in on our whirlwind trip for a family reunion, as well as some sightseeing tips if you ever happen to travel into that part of the country.

After the flight into Austin with my daughter (the hubby opted out of this trip), my parents picked us up and drove us 45 minutes away to Wimberley, a charming town on the Blanco River in the heart of Texas Hill Country. On our way out of Austin, I demanded to be brought to Taco Cabana, a fast-food Tex-Mex restaurant found all over Austin (and Texas) that was my cheap staple of late night cravings while attending college there in the early- to mid-80s. Hey, I was hungry!

Taco Cabana Salsa Bar – photo credit Taco Cabana

I ordered a Carne Asada taco and a bean and cheese taco, and filled up several plastic containers with some of the six or seven fresh-made salsas they had at their salsa bar. They even had a pineapple chipotle salsa. It ain’t no Taco Bell, that’s for sure. You can find them by the bright pink signs off I-35.

The next day, we got up early-ish and set out for Houston to have lunch with my Aunt and Uncle on the other side of the family, one of my brothers, and several childhood friends I grew up with in Houston. Although the mileage is 175 miles, I made it to Houston in record time, as the speed limit is 75 mph there on I-10. Considering the max speed limit in my area is 55, and only 45 in town, I felt I made it there twice as fast. I might have, in fact, since my speedometer was pushing 85-ish most of the time lest I get run over by all the trucks. It felt strange driving so slow back in Oregon.

Chapultepec Lupita Restaurant in Houston ~ photo credit christao408

We met at Chapultepec Lupita, which my Uncle promised was The Best Houston Tex-Mex place to eat. It’s located in the middle of an old downtown neighborhood in a dive of a building, but it was charming! I’ve mentioned before that my litmus test of a good Tex-Mex restaurant is by ordering the chile rellenos, which is exactly what I did. The tortilla chips they served before the meal were a bit disappointing because they were stale (boo hiss) but my chile rellenos, beans, and rice were done to perfection. Good job!

After a mediocre dinner with my daughter and Uncle at an unnamed tavern, we retired for the night and then got up the next day to travel to Pflugerville, north of Austin. Again, record time. My dear Uncle told us we HAD to stop at Buc-ees in Bastrop, a truck stop on the way back for lunch. He said they have THE cleanest bathrooms anywhere around. I had to check that out.

Buc-ees ~ photo credit Robin Jerstad, For The Express-News

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it sure was interesting. It was the size of a department store, with everything from ordering food at computer terminals, to souvenirs up the yahoo, to a complete grocery store, a camping/hunting section, and about 50 gas pumps out front. Very surreal. I had me some BBQ brisket sandwich, with pickles and onion. Not bad, really. They made it right there in front of you. And, the bathrooms were spotless.

We then spent the afternoon with yet another brother and his wife and their daughter in Pflugerville (I love saying that name), then left my own daughter there to spend the night with her cousin a year older than her. Apparently they shopped at “The Domain,” a trendy outdoor mall in Austin, while I then traveled 20 more miles north up the road to visit a dear high school friend in Georgetown. We quaffed more than a few beers and she made us some yummy taco salad for dinner. Can’t have enough Tex-Mex while in Texas!

Chuy’s Carne Guisada ~ My cell phone takes horrid pictures!

The next day, we lazily got out of bed and decided on Chuy’s for lunch in Round Rock. Chuy’s is an iconic Tex-Mex restaurant that has its roots in Austin near Zilker Park, and has branched out to other areas. I adore Chuy’s with their funky atmosphere and to-die-for Charro Beans and light, crisp (and fresh!) tortilla chips. Lucky me, their Carne Guisada was on special, so of course had to get that along with the Charro Beans. I swear I swooned eating my meal. Just. That. Good. I also bought the hubs one of their t-shirts for a souvenir, because every time I go to Texas he gets a new one. This time he got the funky tie-dyed fish on black. Cool.

Chuy’s Fish T-Shirt ~ photo credit Chuy’s

Onward back to Austin! Now I’m at my sister’s then brother’s house in East Austin (they live a block apart), and most of my relatives are now showing up from Oregon. My brother has a bunch of chickens and chicken paraphernalia around his house. He loves his chickens, and so do I!

Chickens in the Window ~ My brother’s chickens love to check things out in the kitchen!

My parents then showed up with with massive containers of family-sized take-out from Trudy’s Texas Star Cafe, another iconic Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin just off the UT campus. I worked the late shift there in college, and was so happy to have some of that food even if I didn’t make to the restaurant. We chowed on various tacos, enchiladas, beans, and rice. My sister made an awesome homemade guacamole to go with it all. If you ever make it to Austin, this is another great restaurant to stop in for some Tex-Mex.

Me and Sister with Trudy’s Plate of Food

We stayed the night at my sister’s house, then again lazily got up and walked approximately two blocks to experience The Best Taco Truck in Austin, called Veracruz All Natural. It sits next to a Shell Gas Station and Piñata store in a parking lot. Seriously! My sister said I had to order the Migas Tacos, so of course I did. WOW! I can now say I’ve had the best breakfast tacos ever in my life. And the homemade salsa was divine, served in an authentic molcajete bowl.

Veracruz All Natural Migas Taco ~ photo credit ginnysaustin.com

The next most amazing thing I had was their Watermelon Agua Fresca. I didn’t order it at first because I’d brought a bottle of water with me, but then tasted my sister’s and fell in love. Ever “drink” a watermelon?? It comes in this ginormous styrofoam cup, and didn’t think I could handle that much liquid, so ordered a small. “I’m sorry, it only comes in one size.” I looked over at my daughter’s smoothie she ordered in a small styrofoam cup, but let it go. My taco order wasn’t out yet, and who am I to complain with the one making my meal? OK, large it is. And yes, I drank every last drop of it!

Next stop: Tubing the San Marcos River… to be continued later this weekend!

Incredible Carne Guisada!

Incredible Carne Guisada

This dish is SERIOUSLY amazing!!! Using a subjective adjective in my blog title along with an exclamation point already breaks a couple of my self-imposed posting rules. And there I just broke two more with capital letters and a triple exclamation point in the first sentence. But I can’t help it. This Carne Guisada is Just. That. Good. We are talking lick your bowl good. We are talking Get Outta Here that good. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this!

So now that I got all that off my chest, it’s time to start talking about the dish itself. I wanted Mexican food the other day, but wanted something different — something I’d never made before. So I went to my near and dear cookbook The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain, who always draws me into her recipes with her stories and photos that make everything in there look so gosh-darned good. This particular recipe caught my eye, and is the basis for what I ended up with. It’s a stew-like dish, served with soft tortillas, or you can dip into it with tortilla chips like an appetizer. I mixed it up quite a bit from hers but she provided me the foundation from which to build on. That sounded very scholarly. The recipe and food is not, I guarantee! I really wish I had doubled this batch, because there was not near enough leftover for my liking. I wanted more, more, more the next day for my lunch.

Carne Guisada
Adapted from Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan

1 1/2 pounds cut of beef roast or steak, any kind, cut into 1-inch cubes
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
Flour to dust over beef, about a tablespoon or so
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half a yellow and half a red)
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded and diced small
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, any kind, chopped
1 bay leaf
Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dark beer, or sub with more chicken broth
Flour tortillas, warmed before serving
More cilantro, for serving

Hot and Mild Peppers and Onions

I had a rather large, lonely New York Sirloin steak in the freezer, which I deboned to get a pound of meat, and a meager 1/2 pound of boneless beef ribs in the freezer, so used those too. The recipe called for beef chuck or bottom round, but it’s all beef and you cook the heck out of it so the cut is unimportant. Season the beef cubes with Mrs. Dash (or salt) and pepper, then lightly dust all around with flour. Heat the oil in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet to medium-high heat, then add the beef, in batches. You don’t want to crowd it or it won’t brown properly. Cook until it’s browned on all sides. Transfer each batch to a crock pot and set on high heat. Reduce the skillet heat to medium and add the chopped onions, peppers, garlic and spices. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, just a few minutes or so, as you don’t want to burn it. Add a skosh more oil, if needed.

Carne Guisada Ready for Liquids

Now add the mixture to the beef in the crock pot, then the tomatoes, potatoes (adding some potato was pretty outlandish, but hey, it worked!), bay leaf, and chopped cilantro. Pour in the chicken broth and beer, if using. The darkest beer I had in the house at the time was an amber ale, but you can sub with chicken broth if you don’t have any. (Yes, I did drink the rest of the beer bottle. Waste not, want not!) Cover and cook on high for three or four hours, then reduce to low for a couple of more hours, or until ready to eat. If you started this prep earlier in the day, then you can cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The longer the better. When it’s time to eat, warm up those tortillas in a hot skillet, add a mess of the Carne Guisada to a bowl, then start digging in, slathering and slopping up all the yummy juices with the tortillas. You won’t be disappointed. And of course go back for seconds and thirds. I did.

Carne Guisada