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

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Homemade Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

Heirloom Tomatoes

Serranos, Jalapeno, and Pasilla Peppers

I am reblogging this recipe from last summer for you. I made another batch of this last weekend. This year, though, I had some beautiful heirloom tomatoes and my very own Serrano peppers that I grew to make it with! My husband said I didn’t make it spicy enough last year so I tossed in three Serranos this year instead of two, and one of them was the hotter fiery red and another one was already turning red. I also substituted the spicier Pasilla peppers instead of using Anaheim. He had no complaints this year. I hope you enjoy!

Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

It was so much fun to get back into canning again! I have not canned anything in several years, but this year we have a bumper crop from my husband’s Hanging Tomato Plant Experiment. He got this crazy idea to plant a gazillion tomato seedlings (OK about 70) in hanging flower pot baskets upside-down, then sell them.

Hanging Tomato Plants on Side of House

Well, the idea worked, except he didn’t sell nearly enough of them. We have about 50 of them left, all hooked up to this crazy hanging basket contraption on two sides of our house, with an automated watering system he devised, which thank goodness works because we do go out of town time to time.

Hanging Tomato Plants on Deck

That being said, I harvested a bunch of our ripe beefsteak tomatoes for this canning project. I looked up a bunch of recipes online, and settled on one that fit my taste but then of course adapted it. I barely eeked out 5 full pint jars of this, and was hoping for some partially leftover to snack on the day I made it fresh, but that will have to wait, as I wanted full jars. However, my taste test passed with flying colors! If you have an abundance of tomatoes this year from your crop, you can make some too! Here is what I did:

Basket of Ripe Tomatoes

Homemade Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa
Adapted from Simply Recipes

5 to 6 pounds fresh tomatoes (I used 5 1/2)
3 large Anaheim peppers
2 large Serrano peppers
1 large Jalapeño pepper
1 large onion (I used sweet Walla-Walla), diced
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (this took about 2 largish limes)
1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro, chopped, including stems (fresh from my herb garden!)
2 teaspoons dried, crushed, Mexican Oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground Sea Salt
1 teaspoon sugar

OK now you have the ingredients list.  Next is the prep for the canning process, which is the one of the longest parts. Here is the special equipment stuff you need:

Canning Equipment:

5 or 6 pint canning jars (I used 5 but prepped 6 of them just in case)
Large stockpot for for canning (mine is 15-quart or so)
Flat steamer rack to fit pot (so cans don’t touch glass on metal directly, which can crack them)
Canning tongs for adding and removing jars from boiling water (you can do without but be careful!)

First I started prepping the jars and lids. Fill your stockpot about three-quarters of the way full with water, then put on high heat to boil. Meanwhile, go pick those ‘maters! Since it takes a long while for that much water to boil, now you can inspect your just-picked tomatoes for defects, then core and score them. Core the tomatoes and stems, then cut/slice off any bad spots. Score them lightly through the skin in half to make peeling easier. Now boil the jars for at least 10 minutes. At that point, go ahead and turn off the heat and let them sit in the hot water for now.

Anaheim, Serrano, and Jalapeno Peppers

This next job I assigned to by dear husband Paul, who has been towing the line for me in the cooking category recently with my workload. Lightly grease a hot grill with oil, then roast the peppers on all sides until blackened and charred all over. Put them in a paper or plastic bag for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, (again) roast those tomatoes on broil in your oven on a large rimmed cookie sheet for about 20 minutes, flipping them over halfway through. I would have had hubby do them on the grill with the peppers but didn’t want to overwhelm him with the task at hand. I think it worked out better that way as I needed the juice from the tomatoes.

Fire-Roasted Tomatoes

Once the peppers and tomatoes have cooled enough to handle, peel the skins off the peppers (with latex gloves!) then peel the skins from the  tomatoes. Dice both of them up now (you might need to reserve the juices from tomatoes when chopping, as you need a minimum of 7 cups of diced tomatoes and their liquid to balance the acidity) and add to a very large saucepan or skillet with all the rest of the ingredients. ( p.s. do not use an aluminum pot, as it can leach the aluminum from the acid from the tomatoes.) Bring all of this up to a good boil, then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes.

While all that is simmering, place the lids and caps in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Oh yeah, put a teakettle of water on to boil about 10 minutes ago. Oops! I forgot that too. I hope you read this all the way through before attempting.

Pot of Simmering Salsa

After simmering, place half the salsa in a blender and puree, then add it back to the pot. If you like chunkier salsa , then you don’t have to do this. I decided on half and half. The original recipe recommends tasting the salsa at this point to either add  more sugar if too bitter or more vinegar if too sweet, but I found this to be the perfect balance!

Now remove the jars one at a time from the canning pot and ladle the salsa into the jars, leaving  a half-inch or more head space from the lid. Wipe the rim of the jars to remove any spilled salsa on them (which is easy to do!).  Tighten the lids only hand tight, and do not over-tighten them. Place all the jars back into the canning pot still filled with hot water, then bring up to a roiling boil. Big boil OK? Not just a few bubbles.  Process at a full boil for 15 minutes for 0-1000 ft. altitude, 20 minutes for 1000- 6,000 ft. altitude, and 25 minutes above that. I fell into the second category in case you are interested.

Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

At your recommended boiling mark, turn off the heat and let sit five minutes.  Remove the jars from the pot, then place them on some thick towels to cool down. The lids will “POP” when they have cooled when creating the suction for the canning process. I did not get to hear this phenomenon this time as I had to go upstairs to my home office to work for the remainder of the day.

So there it is! This took me a little under four hours from start to finish. Yes, it’s a half-day project, but it was completely satisfying to turn our homegrown tomatoes into some delicious salsa for future snacks and meals.

Chicken Fideo Soup (Mexican Chicken Noodle Soup)

Chicken Fideo Soup

After two weeks of temps in the 60s and 70s, the weather plummeted into the 30s. Cold, chilly rain, mixed in with snow. So what’s better to ward off the chill than a pot of spicy, steamy soup?

I have to once again thank my friend Richard over at REMCooks. He lives in Texas, and is a man after my own heart for spicy food. When I saw this soup recipe he posted last week, I told myself I just HAD to make it. And with the colder weather, I did.

It was a tad too spicy for my hubby, but he tempered it with some sour cream. Me and my daughter ate it “as is.” But the hubs went back for a second serving and the daughter swilled hers down, so it rates two thumbs up in this household.

I used the method to add the broth that Richard recommended, which makes this longer to make, but it is sure worth it. I adapted his recipe by de-seeding the Serrano peppers to give it less heat and used fairly small ones, and I also doubled the tomatoes. I wanted to use my homemade canned tomatoes for it, so I picked my least-filled jar of them and ended up with about a cup. (You could use a 14-ounce store-bought can if you don’t have homemade, just drain it first.) I also used Mexican Oregano instead of regular and added a pound of chicken breast meat because the boneless breast I had was that size.

This makes a big pot of soup, and it reheated well the next day for a delicious lunch. And if you are feeling really feisty the day you cook this, you can do like I did and poach the chicken and make the homemade chicken broth for the soup at the same time!

Fideo Soup Ingredients

Chicken Fideo Soup (Mexican Chicken Noodle Soup)
Adapted from Fideo Soup with Chicken (Sopa de Fideo con Pollo) by REMCooks

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 cup onion, chopped
2 Serrano chiles, stemmed and de-seeded (use 1 if you don’t like too spicy)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 cup of homemade canned tomatoes, diced
1 teaspoon dried Mexican Oregano, crushed
6 ounces Angel Hair Pasta, snapped into 1 to 2-inch pieces (or pre-cut Fideo)
6 cups homemade chicken broth, or low-sodium canned
1 pound cooked chicken, chopped
Cilantro for garnish

Add two tablespoons of the oil to a medium pot over medium heat and cook the onions and peppers for several minutes until starting to soften. Add the minced garlic, and cook for about another minute. Next add the oregano and the tomatoes, stir to combine, and cook for a few more minutes. Pour the mixture into a blender with 1/2 cup of water, and puree until smooth. Set aside.

Spicy Tomato Mixture

In a large pot or dutch oven, add the other 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-low heat, add the noodles and stir. And stir, and stir, and stir! You want to stir them constantly to evenly brown them, and if you walk away for a minute you might burn them! This took me about 10 minutes to get them to a light brown color.

Browned Angel Hair Pasta

Next add the tomato mixture from the blender, increase the heat to medium, and add 2 cups of the chicken broth. Bring up to a simmer and boil for about 5 minutes. Stir occasionally to make sure the noodles don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Now cover, and lower the heat and gently simmer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, add 2 more cups of chicken broth and bring back up to a simmer for another 15 minutes. Finally, add the last 2 cups of broth and simmer covered for yet another 15 minutes. Uncover, add the chicken, and simmer for a few more minutes until the chicken is heated through. Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh chopped cilantro. Spicy goodness in a bowl!

Chicken Fideo Soup

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Homemade Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

It was so much fun to get back into canning again! I have not canned anything in several years, but this year we have a bumper crop from my husband’s Hanging Tomato Plant Experiment. He got this crazy idea to plant a gazillion tomato seedlings (OK about 70) in hanging flower pot baskets upside-down, then sell them.

Hanging Tomato Plants on Side of House

Well, the idea worked, except he didn’t sell nearly enough of them. We have about 50 of them left, all hooked up to this crazy hanging basket contraption on two sides of our house, with an automated watering system he devised, which thank goodness works because we do go out of town time to time.

Hanging Tomato Plants on Deck

That being said, I harvested a bunch of our ripe beefsteak tomatoes for this canning project. I looked up a bunch of recipes online, and settled on one that fit my taste but then of course adapted it. I barely eeked out 5 full pint jars of this, and was hoping for some partially leftover to snack on the day I made it fresh, but that will have to wait, as I wanted full jars. However, my taste test passed with flying colors! If you have an abundance of tomatoes this year from your crop, you can make some too! Here is what I did:

Basket of Ripe Tomatoes

Homemade Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa
Adapted from Simply Recipes

5 to 6 pounds fresh tomatoes (I used 5 1/2)
3 large Anaheim peppers
2 large Serrano peppers
1 large Jalapeño pepper
1 large onion (I used sweet Walla-Walla), diced
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (this took about 2 largish limes)
1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro, chopped, including stems (fresh from my herb garden!)
2 teaspoons dried, crushed, Mexican Oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground Sea Salt
1 teaspoon sugar

OK now you have the ingredients list.  Next is the prep for the canning process, which is the one of the longest parts. Here is the special equipment stuff you need:

Canning Equipment:

5 or 6 pint canning jars (I used 5 but prepped 6 of them just in case)
Large stockpot for for canning (mine is 15-quart or so)
Flat steamer rack to fit pot (so cans don’t touch glass on metal directly, which can crack them)
Canning tongs for adding and removing jars from boiling water (you can do without but be careful!)

First I started prepping the jars and lids. Fill your stockpot about three-quarters of the way full with water, then put on high heat to boil. Meanwhile, go pick those ‘maters! Since it takes a long while for that much water to boil, now you can inspect your just-picked tomatoes for defects, then core and score them. Core the tomatoes and stems, then cut/slice off any bad spots. Score them lightly through the skin in half to make peeling easier. Now boil the jars for at least 10 minutes. At that point, go ahead and turn off the heat and let them sit in the hot water for now.

Anaheim, Serrano, and Jalapeno Peppers

This next job I assigned to by dear husband Paul, who has been towing the line for me in the cooking category recently with my workload. Lightly grease a hot grill with oil, then roast the peppers on all sides until blackened and charred all over. Put them in a paper or plastic bag for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, (again) roast those tomatoes on broil in your oven on a large rimmed cookie sheet for about 20 minutes, flipping them over halfway through. I would have had hubby do them on the grill with the peppers but didn’t want to overwhelm him with the task at hand. I think it worked out better that way as I needed the juice from the tomatoes.

Fire-Roasted Tomatoes

Once the peppers and tomatoes have cooled enough to handle, peel the skins off the peppers (with latex gloves!) then peel the skins from the  tomatoes. Dice both of them up now (you might need to reserve the juices from tomatoes when chopping, as you need a minimum of 7 cups of diced tomatoes and their liquid to balance the acidity) and add to a very large saucepan or skillet with all the rest of the ingredients. ( p.s. do not use an aluminum pot, as it can leach the aluminum from the acid from the tomatoes.) Bring all of this up to a good boil, then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes.

While all that is simmering, place the lids and caps in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Oh yeah, put a teakettle of water on to boil about 10 minutes ago. Oops! I forgot that too. I hope you read this all the way through before attempting.

Pot of Simmering Salsa

After simmering, place half the salsa in a blender and puree, then add it back to the pot. If you like chunkier salsa , then you don’t have to do this. I decided on half and half. The original recipe recommends tasting the salsa at this point to either add  more sugar if too bitter or more vinegar if too sweet, but I found this to be the perfect balance!

Now remove the jars one at a time from the canning pot and ladle the salsa into the jars, leaving  a half-inch or more head space from the lid. Wipe the rim of the jars to remove any spilled salsa on them (which is easy to do!).  Tighten the lids only hand tight, and do not over-tighten them. Place all the jars back into the canning pot still filled with hot water, then bring up to a roiling boil. Big boil OK? Not just a few bubbles.  Process at a full boil for 15 minutes for 0-1000 ft. altitude, 20 minutes for 1000- 6,000 ft. altitude, and 25 minutes above that. I fell into the second category in case you are interested.

Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

At your recommended boiling mark, turn off the heat and let sit five minutes.  Remove the jars from the pot, then place them on some thick towels to cool down. The lids will “POP” when they have cooled when creating the suction for the canning process. I did not get to hear this phenomenon this time as I had to go upstairs to my home office to work for the remainder of the day.

So there it is! This took me a little under four hours from start to finish. Yes, it’s a half-day project, but it was completely satisfying to turn our homegrown tomatoes into some delicious salsa for future snacks and meals.

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

Pollo Asado Tacos with Pico de Gallo

Pollo Asado Taco

It’s getting to be a busy time of year, and I thought I’d better post another blog before you think I’ve abandoned this! We’ll be heading out this weekend to our coastal river property and it has no cell or internet service, so this is my last chance to post a new recipe before over a week goes by between posts.

I did kind of cheat on this recipe, though. I love to rummage through the “Reduced for Immediate Sell” bins for meats about to expire, then put them in the freezer for later use. I had come across a pre-seasoned package of Pollo Asado, which is thinly sliced chicken breast marinated Cuban-style. The marinade has a citrus base to it, typically lime or some other citrus, even orange! Cuban and Mexican food are similar, so my immediate thought for this dish was make it into tacos! Pollo Asado is usually grilled, but seeing as we had three or four inches of snow covering the grill, I opted for throwing it in the crock pot for a few hours.

My husband made a homemade Pico de Gallo for one of the condiments, which is so easy and so incredibly tasty! Pico de Gallo is basically an uncooked salsa. After the chicken was done, we filled soft corn tortillas with the meat, some refried beans, rice, Pico de Gallo, and avocado. Simple and delicious!

Pico de Gallo

1 Roma tomato, chopped
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/2 jalapeño or serrano chile, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon lime juice

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, and let marinate for an hour or so. That’s it!