A “Chopped” Style dinner

 

I hope you enjoyed my recap on poutine last week.  I have at least one more recap on Montreal coming up, which I hope to share with you all later this week.  But first, dinner!

Tonight’s dinner looks atrocious, but I promise you it was tasty! And good for you too!

I came home tonight and threw together what J. calls a “Chopped”-style dinner.  “Chopped” is easily my favorite cooking reality TV show – it’s so addictive to watch! For those of you haven’t seen the show (where have you been?!), the show begins with four contestants and one is eliminated from each round by a panel of judges.  Each round is a course (appetizer, entrée, and dessert), and each course the contestants are given a “mystery basket” to prepare the course.  The mystery basket always has some hodgepodge of ingredients that don’t seem to go together, like easy cheese, “duck white kidneys,” brown bread in a can, or one episode, an emu egg.  (By the way, if you don’t know what duck white kidneys are… Google it, you’ll be surprised!)

Anyway, so I came home and found a hodgepodge of ingredients in the fridge that had to be used – half a bunch of wilting kale, a quarter of a browning avocado, and pork tenderloin.  So I threw them all together in a pan, along with garlic, some salsa and came together with this Mexican inspired “stir-fry.” It’s not the prettiest dish -- I would definitely get “chopped” for presentation, but it came out to be spicy and flavorful. 

Spicy Pork and Kale Stir Fry

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

• 6 oz. lean pork tenderloin, cut into bite size pieces
• 1/2 bunch of kale (about 17 stems), stems removed and roughly chopped
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 zucchini
• 3/4 cup prepared salsa
• 1-2 Tbs olive oil

Seasonings to taste:

• Cumin
• onion powder
• chili powder
• red pepper flakes
• cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper
• a few dashes of hot sauce

Accompaniments :

• Avocado
• Plain yogurt or sour cream
• Corn tortillas

Method:

Heat about 1 Tbs olive oil over medium heat.  Season pork with a little salt, pepper and cumin.  Add pork and cook until browned on all sides (about 1 minute on each side).  Remove heat from pan and set pork aside on a dish.

Add another Tbs of olive to the pan and bring it back to medium heat.  Add zucchini and cook for about 1 minute.  Add garlic (see note on cooking garlic*), and cook for about 30 seconds or until fragrant.  Push zucchini and garlic to the sides of the pan, forming a well.  Cook kale in the well, until wilted. Add seasonings to taste. Stir in cooked pork and salsa.  Cook for about another minute until heated through.  Serve with optional toppings or just eat it as is!

*Note:

To avoid burning the garlic, I learned this method from Cooks Illustrated, which I have described here on the blog, but I finally took a picture.  Push the vegetables to the sides of the pan, forming an empty space in the middle of the pan.  Add 1/2 tsp of olive oil in the middle of the pan, and then add the garlic to the oil.  What you have will look like this:

Once the garlic has been cooking for about 30 seconds, stir to combine it with the vegetables. 

Cleaning out the Fridge before a Vacation

 

June has been a busy month of travel! I promise I have some travel recaps ready for you all, but first here’s what I made BEFORE I went away.

For those of you who have been following my Facebook page, you may remember when I posted this picture:

The caption read: What do you do when you have a ton of vegetables left in your fridge before you go on vacation? 

So this is what I came up with:

Veggie Tacos!

We eat a lot of tacos in our household because they are quick, easy, and relatively healthy.  Usually we just make bean tacos or add some grilled chicken to the mix.  But since I had a ton of vegetables that would spoil while we were away, why not make veggie tacos?

So I chopped up zucchini, yellow squash, onion, bell peppers (one red and one green), grape tomatoes, and garlic, as you see in the lead photo (sans the garlic and onions – I chopped those after I took the photo).  I lightly sauteed all the vegetables (except for the grape tomatoes) in about 1 Tbs of olive over medium heat:

 

Once the vegetables were soft (about seven minutes), I added the grape tomatoes, a can of black beans (drained and rinsed), and about 1/3 of jar of salsa that I had left over (probably about a half cup)

And then I seasoned the mixture with cumin, chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper to taste.  I let the mixture cook for a few more minutes

While the vegetables were cooking, I heated up corn tortillas, and prepared the toppings – shredded cheddar cheese and sliced avocado!

Here’s the whole spread:

Then to make the tacos, we scooped a spoonful of the veggie mixture into each tortilla and layered on the avocados and cheese, and a dash of hot sauce.  This works well since we get to personalize how spicy we each want it to be. J. really likes his to be hot and spicy, while I like a medium level of spice.

So next time you have a ton of vegetables in your fridge to use up before going on vacation, consider making these veggie tacos!

Veggie Tacos

Note:  Consider this a “guide” rather than a strict recipe, as you can use whatever vegetables you want to get rid of!

Ingredients:

• Yellow squash, sliced
• Zucchini, sliced
• bell peppers, chopped into small pieces
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup prepared salsa
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 5-6 corn tortillas

The following seasonings to taste:

• Chili powder
• Cayenne pepper
• Cumin
• Salt and pepper

Toppings:

• Sliced avocados
• shredded cheddar cheese
• sour cream (optional)

Method:

Heat olive oil in a large sautee pan over medium heat.  Add vegetables (except for grape tomatoes) and cook until soft, about 5-7 minutes.  Add grape tomatoes, beans, and salsa, and mix.  Add seasonings to taste, and cook for another 2-3 more minutes for the flavors to develop.

Meanwhile heat tortillas according to package (I heat mine over the stove for about 1 minute on each side, or until they get soft). 

Assemble the tacos by spooning about 2 Tablespoons of the veggie mixture and topping it with cheese and avocados. 

Note: When we made these, J. and I had five tacos between the two of us, and there was a lot of veggie mixture, probably to make another 3-4 tacos.  So I would say this makes about 7-8 tacos, but it really depends on the volume of vegetables you have.

Crockpot Albondigas Soup

Much to my surprise, I've been using the crockpot quite a bit this summer. For the first half of this summer, I didn't want to use it because I figured making hot soups and stews in the crock would only make me feel hotter. But then I had a realization: using the crockpot means no standing over a hot stove at dinnertime.

I chose to make this soup for two reasons: (1) I had albondigas soup at a Colombian restaurant a few weeks ago, and thought it was delicious and (2) I had a bunch of frozen meatballs in the freezer from a party I threw, oh, say about 10 months ago...

This recipe makes an excellent soup, though I was a little disappointed that I couldn't taste the mint so much, which is supposed to be what makes albondigas soup special. Maybe next time I will add more mint, or add some to garnish at the end. Update: I threw in a handful (about 1/4 cup) of finely chopped fresh mint after posting this. At first, it tasted vaguely like mint chewing gum. But after letting the flavors mellow overnight, the mint added a nice refreshing tingle that complemented the heat from the cayenne pepper.

Crockpot Albondigas Soup
Adapted (barely) from A Year of Slow Cooking

Ingredients:
1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup prepared pasta sauce
1 cup baby carrots, sliced into quarters
1 1/2 cups tomatoes , diced (I used a combination of grape tomatoes and a regular tomato)
1 Tbs fresh mint, chopped
1/2 cup frozen corn
About 15-18 frozen meatballs (Italian flavored)
3/4 cup frozen peas
2 whole cloves garlic (I love slow-cooked garlic in soups and stews!)
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Method:
Dump all the ingredients into the crockpot, except the frozen peas. (Handy tip: chop up the vegetables the night before and store in the fridge to save time in the morning!) Stir to combine. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. About twenty minutes before serving, stir in frozen peas to retain their color. (This step isn't necessary, but I was following Stephanie O'Dea's advice on her post). Garnish with some parmesan cheese.

Acquiring new tastes

Last weekend, my boyfriend and I went to the Hester Street Fair in New York City. Now, when you first walk into the Hester Street Fair, it looks like a rather ordinary street fair. Racks of hand-woven scarves and blouses, custom-made jewelry laid on tables, and the like. But when you venture a little further, then you will discover amazing new tastes to be acquired. Towards the rear of the fair, there were at least half a dozen food vendors serving unique artisanal foods. We sampled the meatballs from Mighty Balls, a chorizo taco and a tamale from Brooklyn Taco Company, and my personal favorite, Taiwanese shaved ice from The Shaved Ice Shop.

But this isn't a post about the foods I ate, but rather the new tastes that I took home with me. At the fair, we bought a bottle of fish sauce from The Saucey Company and salsa from ZapoSalsa. This salsa has a new taste that I acquired, and used in the quesadilla that you see above. The label boasts that it is made of fresh ingredients, such as tomatillos, onions, tomatoes, but most importantly for this post, cilantro.

I hate cilantro.

Or at least, growing up I did. And I am not alone in this averseness to the leafy herb. There are enough people out there that the New York Times ran an article on why a certain segment of the population hates cilantro. To me, it always seemed to make me want to gag. So when I tried this salsa, I had my doubts. When I sampled it at the fair, it had a nice smoky, tangy flavor, with just a bit of a kick of heat.

So for dinner last night, we made pork and bean quesadillas. I marinated the pork tenderloin in the salsa for about two hours before cooking, which made the meat wonderfully flavorful. I also used the salsa as a garnish at the end.

So there you have it. I have acquired a new taste. What new tastes have you acquired?

Pork and Bean Quesadillas

Ingredients:
1 slice of pork tenderloin, about 1 inch thick, cut up into bite-sized pieces
1 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 red pepper, diced
a few slices of pepper jack cheese
a few tablespoons of Zapo mild salsa
flour tortillas (burrito sized)
Olive oil

Seasonings to taste:
Salt and pepper
cumin
chile powder

Garnishes:
Salsa
sour cream
avocado slices

black beans

Method:
Marinate the pork in salsa for at least 30 minutes, the longer the better. Heat oil in a pan and cook the pork. Remove from pan, leaving as much oil as possible in the pan. Add peppers to the pan and sprinkle with seasonings. Cook until soft and have a slight char. Set aside with the pork. Wipe the pan clean.

In a separate pan or pot, heat the beans and add some cumin and chile powder. Stir in pork and peppers.

Spray some cooking oil in the pan that you cooked the pork and peppers in. Heat until hot. Add one tortilla in and lay some cheese on it. When the cheese starts to melt add some filling. When you see the tortilla is forming bubbles and the bottom is nice and brown, cover with another tortilla. Flip the quesadilla as carefully as possible. Cook for another minute, or until the tortilla is golden brown. Repeat as necessary.

Serve with garnishes.

Chicken Tostadas

The first time I ever had tostadas was at a small Mexican restaurant in the Ironbound District of Newark. I haven't been there since moving to Bergen County, but I learned that they are not hard to make. The hardest part is eating them without making a mess! I learned this tip on eating tostadas from Simply Recipes... hold them with both hands and eat it like a slice of pizza. some of the toppings still might get away, but no one is perfect, right?

Chicken Tostadas

Adapted from Simply Recipes

This is a "recipe in a recipe" - meaning I am including recipes for the building blocks of the tostadas, but go ahead and used storebought stuff. I'm watching my sodium intake, so I'm avoiding as much prepared foods whenever I can.

lngredients

Vegetable oil or other high-smoke point oil

Corn tortillas

Refried beans (either canned or homemade - a quick version follows below.)

1 chicken breast

Shredded cheese (recommended: cheddar, monterrey jack, or pepper jack)

Shredded iceberg lettuce

Prepared guacamole (I made my own, it's easy, and doesn't take much time.)

Sour cream

Chopped tomatoes

Freshly squeezed lime juice

1) If you are making your refried beans and guac, prep them first:

Quick Refried Beans

For this you will need:
1 2/3 cup cooked red beans (about one can),
half an onion, chopped and
one clove of minced garlic)
Some water or chicken broth

about 1 tsp cumin

About 1 Tbs chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

a few dashes of hot sauce

Heat a small amount of oil in a large skillet. When hot, cook the onion and garlic until the onion is soft. Add beans. When the beans have warmed up a bit, you should be able to mash them with a potato masher or fork. Add spices and hot sauce. Add water or chicken broth when the mixture becomes dry. Simmer for about 10 minutes or so, adding a tablespoon of water at a time if it becomes dry. Adjust the seasonings as needed.

Quick Guacamole:

avocado
garlic powder
chili powder
salt and pepper
lime juice

Peel and remove pit from guacamole and place into a bowl. Add about a teaspoon of lime juice, garlic powder, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste. Mash with fork until reaches desired consistency.

2) Prepare the chicken
(I did this step while the beans were simmering)

Sprinkle the chicken with chili powder, garlic powder, and a pinch of salt. Cook in a George Forman grill for five minutes, or in a skillet over the stove for about 5-6 minutes per side (or until cooked through). Allow to cool. Then cut into bite-sized pieces and squeeze a bit of lime juice over it.

3) Cook the tortillas
I cook the tortillas last so that they are still warm when I add the toppings.

Pour enough oil so that there is about 1/4 inch of oil in the pan. Heat the oil on medium high heat until hot. Cook tortillas one at a time until golden brown on both sides. (About 30 seconds per side). Lay on paper towels to drain excess oil.

4) Assemble the tostadas
I find this method works best for me: Add the cheese on the hot tortillas so that it melts from the residual heat. Spread a dollop of refried beans so that it works as a "glue" for everything else. Add the chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, guac, and sour cream. Finish with a squeeze of lime juice.

Patience and Tortilla Soup

I love my crockpot. I love that I can dump vegetables and meat into the crock in the morning and have a nice tasty stew or soup for dinner. Ideally, I would go to work and forget about it all day, and then be pleasantly reminded when I get home of the meal I had waiting for me.

Except when I had a snow day last Wednesday and was working from home.

The hardest part about using a crockpot when you are home all day is resisting the temptation to eat it as it's cooking. The smells that emerged from the crockpot made my mouth water as I attempted to draft motions on my laptop. The soft gurgling of the broth simmering tantalized me, "Open me and just take a little taste." But I had read that by opening the crockpot while it is still cooking, can add as much as 20 minutes of cooking time.

So I was good, and was well rewarded at the end.

I got this recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking, with a few minor tweaks. I was very happy with the results, and hope to write about more tasty crockpot concoctions in the future.

Easy Mexican-inspired Breakfast

I wasn't sure what to call this dish. It was inspired by this post from Not Eating Out in New York, after I had thrown a small party several months ago and had leftover tortilla chips. And since Cathy called them Chilaquiles, I figured then that's what I would call them. But this morning, I did a thorough study on Wikipedia, and found that chilaquiles are frequently confused for Tex-Mex migas. After after reading this recipe on chilaquiles, and this one on migas, I concluded that my version is most like chilaquiles, which what I will call them. But really what I have is nachos with eggs. But they're tasty. And an easy, unfussy breakfast to make when you haven't your morning coffee yet.

Chilaquiles (or nachos with eggs, if you are a purist)

Ingredients
One handful of broken tortilla chips
1 egg
Black beans
Salsa
Shredded cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Fresh herbs for garnish, such as parsley, cilantro, green onions or chives

Other recommended garnishes (not pictured here)
Guacamole
Chopped onions
Corn
A few drops of hot sauce

Method
Pre-heat oven at 375 degrees. Sprinkle a layer of chips in a small baking dish. Cook the egg, how ever you like to make them. I made scrambled, but you could make a fried egg over easy, medium, or hard, or even a poached egg would work. Lay the egg on top of the chips. Sprinkle salsa, black beans, and top with cheddar cheese. Bake in the oven for about 6-8 minutes, until the cheese is melted. Carefully remove the dish out of the oven and garnish with fresh herbs (I used parsley), a dollop of sour cream, and any other garnishes you like. Makes one serving.