Mexican

Pico de Gallo Recipe

June 14, 2017

For me, most Mexican food is incomplete without a little pico de gallo. The slightly sweet, spicy, and acidic salsa is the perfect condiment to go with my tacos, tortilla chips, burrito bowls, tamales, slads, chicken… the list goes on.

While I normally keep a container of store-bought pico de gallo in the fridge (the Walmart grocery brand is actually my favorite, believe it or not), I recently found myself with tacos to eat and no pico de gallo to go with them.

Thankfully, my over-buying at the grocery store came in handy for once and I happened to have everything I needed to make my own!

HOW I MADE IT

Pico de gallo is pretty simple. It consists of tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice. Don’t forget the lime juice. It ties everything together!

I started by seeding and chopping the tomatoes. Then chopping up half an onion so that the pieces of tomato and onion were similar sizes. To get rid of the harshness of the onion, I soaked the onion piece in water while I prepped everything else.

I wanted the garlic flavor to be evenly dispersed throughout the pico, so I “pureed” it with my knife. To do that, I first minced the garlic, then sprinkled coarse salt on top and scraped the blade of my knife over the salted garlic. I hold the blade at almost a 90 degree angle and go back and forth several times until it’s a paste-like consistency.

Then I finely chop up some cilantro and some jalapeno.

Everything goes into a bowl with the juice of 1 lime, some salt and pepper. Then it goes to the fridge to “marinate”. Pico de gallo is sooo much better once it’s had a chance to sit in it’s juice and get all happy

It only takes a few minutes in the fridge (30 at the least), then the pico is ready to eat!

Homemade pico de gallo is so much easier than you think, and its a heck of a lot better than the stuff at the store (even the stuff at Walmart). I forgot how much I like making my own because I can control the heat, and more importantly, the garlic! I like my pico to have a distinct garlic flavor (you’d be surprised at how many store bought picos leave out the garlic completely!). But if that’s not your speed, then you can pare it back!

Next time you find yourself without some salsa on hand, make your own instead of running to the store. Plus, it’s a good opportunity to work on some knife skills!

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Mexican Wedding Cookies

May 4, 2017

These little sugar coated Mexican Wedding cookies may be more closely associated with Christmas, but cookies are pretty much good year-round in my book! Especially these cookies. They are like little pecan packed shortbread cookies dusted in powdered sugar. Yum, right?!

I’m not sure what took me so long to make Mexican Wedding Cookies. They are so much easier to make than I originally thought. Like I said above, they are almost identical to a shortbread recipe – butter, sugar, and flour – with just the added ingredient if pecans.

First cream together butter, sugar, and vanilla. Then mix in the flour until you have a pretty dry dough. Something that looks kinda dry, but when pressed together forms a ball.

Next add in the nuts. You can use either walnuts or pecans. I actually used a mix of both because I was just short of pecans.

I ground up my nuts into a course meal, where some of the nuts were finely ground, and some were still in chunk form. I also measured my nuts after they were ground. So I had one and a half cups of ground nuts, not one and a half cups of whole nuts.

Next, because this dough is fairly dry, I recommend that you let it chill for at least 30 minutes so that all the moisture from the butter gets soaked into the flour and all the flavors meld together.

It will also be a bit easier to roll into balls once its chilled. I used my little cookie scooper to get evenly sized cookies.

Finally, its time to roll them in some sugar! This part is fun! Also, very messy. Your kitchen will look a little questionable when all is said and done.

I dropped let my cookies cool off a bit before I dropped them into the powdered sugar. The hot cookies will form a gummy sugary coating. I wanted a light powdery coating, so I let them cool until they were warm, but not to hot to handle.

And if thats not enough sugar for you, you can sprinkle even more on top. As you can see, that’s what I did. I love me some sugar.

But don’t worry about these being overly sweet. They are perfectly sweet. The cookies themselves actually have very little sugar in them. You bite in and have the initial taste of sugar, but the interior cookie is nutty and buttery!

Plus they are just so pretty! It’s like they are the perfect cookie for a wedding. Who knew?

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Mexican Chocolate Brownies

May 1, 2017

Looking at these brownies and you may think there is nothing special about them. Sure, they look like plain ol’ brownies. They even smell like plain ol’ brownies. But they are anything BUT plain ol’ brownies.

They are Mexican chocolate brownies!

What is Mexican chocolate, you ask? Well, I am sure someone can give a very technical definition of it, but to me Mexican chocolate is a rich chocolate that is flavored with cinnamon. Sometimes it packs a little punch with some chili. All you really need to know is that it’s delicious and that it makes one damn good brownie.

Don’t worry, you don’t need any fancy or expensive Mexican chocolate to make Mexican chocolate brownies. Actually, your favorite brownie mix and a couple of spices will do the trick just nicely.

Now’s the time I will throw in my quick unsponsored PSA about my favorite brownie mix. I have still yet to find a brownie mix better than Ghirardelli. In fact, I have no motivation to make my own brownies from scratch because this mix yields some of the best brownies that I have ever made. (No they aren’t paying me to say this. I bought that bulk sized box of brownie mix with my own cash money.)

But I do have a trick to making really good brownie mix even better: Replace the water with milk and oil with butter. It will give you the richest, moistest (is that a word?) brownies.

Now you can not take my advice and use another brownie mix or you can make your brownie batter from scratch. But if you want to make them Mexican chocolate brownies, you will need these three things: cinnamon, cayenne, and nutmeg.

You don’t need a lot of any of them to pack a punch. In fact, I recommend only using a dash of cayenne. Just enough to give the brownies a little bit of a kick without people actually realizing what it’s from.

I also used Ceylon cinnamon versus the cinnamon you just buy at the grocery store. I know, you are thinking, “what’s the difference?” If you subscribe to my newsletters you already know the answer. The short story is that the cinnamon that we all know and love isn’t “true” cinnamon. It’s actually a close relative of cinnamon that sort of tastes the same. Ceylon cinnamon is what is used in Mexican chocolate and has a much spicier, richer taste. Of course, if you can’t get your hands on Ceylon cinnamon, you could use the cinnamon you have in your spice cabinet. I am lucky enough to live next to a great spice shop, so I am pretty well stocked with a couple different varieties of cinnamon.

After the spices are added, they are just like any other brownie. Mix up the batter and pour it into a pan. I like to line my pans in parchment so that I can easily lift out the brownies when they are done.

The parchment make it so much easier to get the brownies out of the pan that way they can cool faster…which means you can cut into them faster! The worst part of making brownies is the waiting! Sometimes I will stick them in the fridge to help them cool faster.

If you find that your brownies don’t have enough cinnamon or cayenne, you can always dust them with a little bit of powdered sugar mixed with either….or both. If you want really rich brownies, you could sprinkle on some cocoa powder with some cinnamon mixed in. You can’t go wrong with whatever you do. The brownies are just delicious on their own, but with the added spices they are just at a whole other level. Definitely not your plain ol’ brownie!

Just make sure you have a cup of milk handy when you dive in!

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Slow Cooker Barbacoa Tacos

March 27, 2017

This barbacoa recipe has quickly become one of our favorites! The first time I made it, I used the recipe straight out of the Fed and Fit cookbook (which is awesome, b.t.dubs). While the recipe was great, I am never one to settle with a recipe straight out of the cookbook. I have to tweak it until I love it!

I have probably tweaked this recipe 5 different times. Photographing it twice for the blog, ultimately deciding that it wasn’t right yet. This last time, my husband basically told me to stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 dollars. It was perfect!

Honestly, the difference in all the recipes in pretty minimal, in terms of the ratio of spices. The big difference in the last recipe that I used 100% Savory Spice Shop spices*. About 75% of my spice cabinet is already filled with Savory Spices, but earlier that day I picked up a few more and used them to round out the spice blend for this recipe.

And boy is this spice blend packed with a ton of flavor: chili powder, chipotle chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin, Mexican oregano, and cloves to be exact.

It just makes such a difference when you use fresh, good quality spices, like the ones at Savory Spice. I wanted to pick uSp a new jar of chili powder to replace my bulk sized jar that was probably two year old. (Come on, what kind of food blogger am I using such poor quality spices? It’s embarrassing, really.) And now only do they have just dozens of different types of chilies, they have three different varieties of plain ol’ chili powder! I didn’t realize there could be more than one.

We picked up the medium just to be on the safe side.

So to get this bad boy cooking, start by covering the beef very generously in that delicious spice blend so that there is barely any meat showing through. If you have the time, I recommend letting it sit for a bit so the meat has a chance to absorb all those flavors. But if you are running short on time, you can immediately sear the beef on all sides so that they get a nice crust.

Then just transfer them over to your slow cooker and add in a couple cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, apple cider vinegar, and stock and let your slow cooker go to work.

Just before you are ready to serve this, maybe 30 minutes before, squeeze over the juice of a lime, then shred it up into pieces.

All that’s left is to plate it up in some tortillas and top it with your favorite taco toppings! I love to top my barbacoa with a bit of queso fresco or cotija cheese. Maybe a little onion and cilantro. My husband likes to sneak on some jalapeno. But truly, this barbacoa is good all on it’s own. Be prepared to eat the left overs straight out of the slow cooker.

The best part (maybe?) is that this recipe can easily be made into a Paleo meal by serving it in lettuce wraps! The first two times I made this recipe, that’s exactly what I did. It’s fantastic!

*Full disclosure, my local Savory Spice shop did provide some of the spices used in the recipe. But to be fair, I already had (and purchased) 4 of the 6 spices used in the recipe. I highly recommend using good quality and fresh spices in all your recipes, which is why I love Savory Spice. Not to mention they are right up the road and have hundreds of different spices, so I have no excuse but to stop in and pick up a new spice to play with in the kitchen!

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Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja

April 11, 2016

Like so many of my cooking experiments, this dish was inspired by something I recently saw on Food Network. The chef on TV was slaving over a delicious looking piece of meat, then transformed it into this wonderful stew mixed with peppers, onions, peas, and other vegetables. It was mouthwatering. I had to make for myself!

So I turned to the Internet to find a similar looking Ropa Vieja recipe. As usual, Epicurious came through. Although, as sometimes Epicurious tends to do, the recipe seemed a little over complicated as did the list of ingredients. I knew I would have to simplify and cut a few corners if I were going to make this recipe. To simplify the braising part of the recipe, I turned to my trusty slow cooker.

I let the slow cooker “braise” the flank steak while I was at work. To the slow cooker I added the beef, stock, mirepoix, and some spices. And because I am extra lazy, I let Trader Joes chop up the mirepoix veggies for me. I told you I was going to cut some corners. I wasn’t lying.

Then, once I got home all I had to do was sauté the vegetables and add in the beef. First, I sautéed the peppers and onions until they were soft, then I added the corn and peas. I shredded the beef and added it to the veggies. To the meat and vegetables, I poured in some tomatoes, a little tomato sauce, and added a healthy dusting of spices. This was another departure from the Epicurious recipe that calls for the actual dried chili peppers that I supposed I am to then grind up into a powder. Well, someone has already done that for me. I will appreciate all their hard work and just use chili powder.

To go with the Ropa Vieja, I made a big batch of Mexican style rice. I have actually never made this style of rice before, and after making it (so easy!), I can’t imagine what took me so long.

I used this recipe as a reference, but I used tomato sauce instead of pureeing the tomatoes, and I left out the onion and pepper since I already has so much going on in the stew. Cutting corners can truly be the theme of this post.

The Ropa Vieja ended up being wonderful. It had so many layers of flavor, from the beef to the vegetables to the rice. And since the beef had been cooking all day, it basically melted in our mouths.

I knew when I saw this dish on Food Network it was going to be good, but this totally exceeded my expectations. And since I cut lots of corners and used my slow cooker and some pre-cut, pre-blended, and pre-ground veggies and spices, it was so much easier than I anticipated. This has been added to our list of regular week-night meals!

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Authentic Carne Asada

March 16, 2016

Carne-Asada-4-title

In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, I will say it again for the millionth time – I miss good, authentic Mexican food. Since I grew up in Southern California, I was so spoiled with all the delicious food at my disposal. In my opinion, the mark of truly good Mexican food is the carne asada. If they can do carne asada well, then they can probably do everything else well, too. Well, here in North Carolina, I have yet to find anyone that does a good carne asada. Which is why I took matters into my own hands.

I researched a lot of recipes, trying to find one that was authentic but not too complicated. I also called upon memories of sitting at the beach eating a carne asada burrito, trying to remember what I loved most about my favorite carne asada meals (Yes I realize how cliche that sounds. My high school also had a surf team. Deal with it.)

What I learned was my perfect carne asada is prefect balance of spicy and tangy. To accomplish this, I marinated a flank steak in a mixture of citrus juice with a variety of chili powders and spices.

Carne Asada-1

I really wanted to the flavors to seep into the meat, so I let this marinate overnight. But that isn’t necessary. You probably only need about 8 hours for it to really work it’s magic.

Carne Asada-2

Finally, my perfect carne asada should have a little char on the outside and a juicy center. Since I knew exactly (exactly what store, at least) where my meat came from, I cooked mine to medium/medium rare. But you can cook yours to whatever temperature you prefer. Also, a trick to perfectly tender steak that you can bite right into is to gut it against the grain. In the picture above, you can see the little creases and cracks in the meat, and I made my cuts perpendicular to those.

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Of course, my favorite way to eat the delicious Mexican meat is to wrap it in a big flour tortilla with some french fries, guacamole, and salsa in what we in California like to call a California Burrito. But since I am not a total glutton, I settled for a healthier option in corn tortillas, avocado, salsa, and chopped onion.

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These carne asada tacos were like a little bite of home for me. Now I know I don’t have to try to search out a place here in Charlotte that makes a good carne asada, I can just make my own at home. Of course, I will keep on looking. There’s nothing wrong with even the most mediocre Mexican food, in my opinion.

Enjoy!

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Veggie Fajitas

July 28, 2014

Back when I was in grad school had had no income, I was very good about creating meatless meals. I would take some of my favorite recipes and making them meatless. Like these veggie fajitas. Instead of the peppers and onions serving as the supporting cast to the chicken or beef, they are the main attraction along with mushrooms and squash.

I start by chopping all the veggies into strips of similar size. It doesn’t really matter how big or small, but it will make all the veggies cook more evenly. If you have a grill and wanted to make this on the grill, then I would suggest either roasted them whole, or in larger pieces and cutting them afterwards.

Because some people in my household think that if a meal doesn’t have meat, it will be boring, I make sure that these fajitas pack some major flavor. I start by mixing together a basic taco seasoning (chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper) along with a hint of chipotle chili powder to give it that heat and some smokiness.

I add the seasoning to a mixture of lime juice, vinegar, honey, and cilantro to make a marinade which is then poured over all the veggies.

Marinading vegetables may seem a bit unusual, but I think it really helps this dish have some pretty intense flavor. The mushrooms, in particular, really soak up a lot of that flavor.

I sauteed the veggies in a hot skillet, but the veggies can also be cooked on a baking sheet in a oven set to 375.

I love to serve them up on fresh whole wheat tortillas with a choice of cheese, sour cream, salsa, and guacamole so that my husband and I can just create our own fajitas.

What other veggies would be good for these fajitas?

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Baked Mini Chimichangas

May 21, 2014

This little recipe has several different names in our house. Mini burritos, burritoitos (small burritos, if you will), and the most recent favorite, mini chimies (for mini chimichangas). We make a version of this recipe quite often. Then beauty of it, is that you can really play around with the filling and make it to fit your taste or whatever you have in your pantry. For this particular recipe, I just used lean ground turkey, onion, bell pepper, taco seasoning, and tomato paste.

The wrap is just an egg roll wrapper that you can get at your local super market near the refrigerated produce or dairy (look for the tofu or vegan foods and it is probably nearby). They are easy to work with if you work quickly, because they can dry out. First I place the filling in the center, fold in the sides, then roll it up. To make sure that the roll stays together, wet one end with water using your finger and press it together.

To ensure that they get egg roll wrapper gets nice and crispy, I like to bake them on a wire rack placed on top of a cookie sheet and brush them down with olive oil. And because the filling is already cooked, they only need to bake until the wrapper gets nice and golden brown.

As I mentioned, these can be filled with just about anything you want. Below are some of the combinations that I have tried that are always a big hit with my husband.

Bean & Cheese

Black Beans, Onion, Cheddar Cheese, Taco Seasoning, Tomato Paste

Pepperoni Pizza

Mozzarella Cheese, Pepperoni, Green Bell Pepper, Basil, Marinara Sauce

Apple Pie

Diced Apples, Lemon Juice, Cinnamon & Sugar

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Whole Wheat Tortillas

April 9, 2014

Like pizza dough and pasta, tortillas are one of those things that you can actually make yourself at home pretty easily. Sure, it might take a bit more time than just running to the grocery store, but I kinda like knowing exactly what is going into my food.

And tortillas really are pretty easy. You probably have all the ingredients in your pantry right now. If you have a partner, it will make the process that much faster. My husband and I have worked out an assembly line of sorts. I roll out the tortilla. He cooks them on the skillet. Roll. Cook. Roll. Cook. We are such a good team.

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