Cookbook of the Month – January 2018

Hi there! I frequent bookstores and libraries all over the state of Colorado, and right now I work at a bookstore part-time. It’s no wonder that my Cookbook of the Month for January is one that I picked up after my shift yesterday. I am cooking from Green Kitchen at Home by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl.

Green Kitchen at Home by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl

On the shelf, the cover intimidated me a little bit. (I don’t like cooking complicated food.) But the subtitle, “Quick and healthy vegetarian food for every day,” inspired me to pick it up. I am so glad I did. The more I paged through, the more I saw easy vegetarian food that I could make! Since, switching to a mostly vegetarian diet is something I am working on with my family, I am always on the lookout for enticing, easy, and delicious vegetarian food to place on our table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Will this book deliver? Well, our first recipe was a slam dunk!

We got snowed in today, and I didn’t want to have to go to the grocery store. I saw the recipe for Double-sweater Minestrone with Rice and I realized that, with the exception of the fresh herbs, I had every ingredient in my kitchen to make this dish.

I started by making a loaf of beer bread. I definitely wanted fresh bread to go with our soup, and beer bread is so easy. About an hour before we wanted to eat, I got to work. When I got to work, my daughter and her boyfriend joined me in the kitchen while my husband cleaned up the dinner table and, before I knew it, preparing dinner was a full-on family affair! (This RARELY happens in my house. We all have crazy schedules, so it was great to have us all together for the cooking AND eating.)

Here’s what our version looked like:

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion peeled and diced
2 celery stalks cleaned and diced
1 heaping Tbsp chopped garlic (packed in oil)
2 carrots peeled and diced
1 heaping Tbsp Penzeys Italian Herb Mix
1/4 tsp chile flakes (I used Penzeys Aleppo Pepper because I love that smoky flavor!)
1/4 tsp paprika
2 Tbsp tomato paste (I used tomato powder to thicken)
1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes (or 2 14 oz cans if that is what you have)
6 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup white rice uncooked and rinsed
1 can (14 oz) tri-blend beans (I use the Simple Truth Organic kind. I have cans of this in my pantry because I love to use it in lots of dishes)

Heat olive oil in a stock pot on medium. Add the onion, celery, garlic, and carrot. Get those nice an soft. The onions will be translucent. Stir frequently. Add the Italian herbs, chile flakes, and paprika. Continue to stir. Let that warm up for five to ten minutes.

Add the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and vegetable stock. Crank the heat up to medium high and bring it to a simmer while stirring occasionally. Add the rice and beans. Simmer for 30 minutes. Be sure to scrape the thick stuff off the bottom when stirring so it doesn’t burn.

Remove the pot from the heat to serve. We served it with mozzarella pearls in the bowl and garnished it with a teensy amount of dried parsley (a little goes a long way with the dried herbs.) We ate it with the beer bread. This meal was a complete hit on such a cold winter day.

So much yum!

Holiday Cooking and Baking Overwhelm

Hello again! I have been busy, busy, busy! Where did December go? I can tell you that I have been spending a LOT of time in my kitchen, but didn’t have much time to take photos of, or share with my words, all the things I was doing. So, now I get to play catch up! First things first – In addition to my day job, I had an opportunity to work as a seasonal bookseller at a local bookstore, so I invested some of my earnings and employee discount in some new cookbooks. I will share those very soon. They asked me to stay on and cover some shifts through the end of January, and I said yes. I am not going to lie – I am exhausted, but the extra cash is very helpful.

Now that it is January, I can also share the gift I gave my hubby for Christmas! I enrolled him in the “Cookie of the Month Club!” I did this for him two years ago, and he loved it because he loves having cookies and milk for dessert. This is something I made up. Basically, I bake him a batch of cookies each month. I make a pretty (and simple) schedule of what he will get each month, put the schedule in a cute envelope and put it under the tree. He was very happy to get it again this year after being without it last year.

The logistics side of it meant that I printed a copy of the schedule for myself and copied all the recipes that I am using from their respective books, labeled each copy with the month, and put them in a folder so that I don’t have to hunt each recipe down every month. Easy peasy!

I will write again soon!

A Very Easy & Delicious Cake to Bake

I have been experimenting a LOT with gluten-free baking lately. A family member of mine can no longer have wheat, so I took it as a personal challenge to make sure that they never want for baked goods. This means I have been diving into various cookbooks and buying gluten-free boxed mixes by the cart load to see what works and what doesn’t.

One recipe that I am LOVING as a gluten-free cake (that has worked for me every time), and is very versatile, is a recipe for Pistachio Olive Oil Cake from my Pure Vegan cookbook by Joseph Shuldiner. I even doubled the recipe for two cakes this last time, and it turned out wonderfully.

This Pistachio Olive Oil Cake can be flavor-adjusted for each season.

Here’s how to put this cake together.

Ingredients for the cake:

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus some to grease the pan (I use spray oil to grease the pan)
2/3 cup shelled pistachios – toasted (This is one place where the flavors can be adjusted. I used walnuts for a fall flavor.)
1/2 cup plain, unsweetened soy yogurt (I have actually used regular greek yogurt… it’s not vegan, but it works.)
6 ounces soft silken tofu (It is important to be the soft kind. Firm tofu gets chunky.)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (My favorite is Penzeys Spices Double-Strength)
1 cup all-purpose flour (I use Cup4Cup gluten-free multipurpose flour blend.)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325°F and prepare a 9-inch baking pan by cutting a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom and spraying the pan and parchment with olive oil. (The parchment is key as I use the bottom of the cake as the top once it is turned out.)

Finely grind the pistachios in a food processor (but do not let it turn to pistachio butter). Set this aside for a few minutes.

Mix the olive oil, yogurt, tofu, sugar, and vanilla using the cake paddle of your electric stand mixer. (If you do not have a stand mixer, I highly recommend getting one – it will make your baking life SO much better.)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour by the large spoonful into the wet mixture, with the mixer on slow speed. After the flour blend is all incorporated, pour in the pistachios and mix until just incorporated.

That’s it for the cake batter! Pour it into your prepared pan and whack that dish in the oven on the center rack. I usually need to bake this for about 35 minutes. Maybe that is because of the altitude? I am not really sure, but I put it in for 20 minutes, check and then do another 15. After it is light golden brown and has no soggy middle, pull it out of the oven and let it cool in the pan. When the pan is cool to the touch, I flip it over on a cooling rack and peel the parchment off to let it cool completely (another hour is good).

Ingredients for the topping:

1 orange
1 lemon (I haven’t always had a lemon, just oranges work fine)
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar (For fall, I substituted some of the sugar with maple syrup near the end for flavor.)
1/4 cup Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur (I am a bourbon gal, so I usually only have bourbon in the house and that has worked fine every time for me.)
1/4 cup shelled pistachios toasted (chopped and whole for aesthetic appeal – Again, this is an opportunity to experiment with other flavors. For fall I used walnuts.)
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds (For fall, I substituted raisins.)

Slice the oranges and lemons and take out the seeds. Toss the citrus slices in a medium-sized saucepan with the water, sugar, and alcohol. Boil on high heat while stirring regularly. Lower the heat to a simmer and let the mixture get syrupy (this takes about an hour). Remove the big pieces of citrus and let the mixture cool a little bit. The recipe book says to pulse the mixture in a food processor and drizzle it onto the cake, and I bet that would be really awesome, but in the interest of time (and less to clean up), I have just drizzled the syrup onto the cake straight from the saucepan. Generously garnish with those beautiful pomegranate seeds and pistachios (or raisins and walnuts).

Voilá! It is done, and you have a delicious vegetarian, gluten-free cake that will serve as a stunning centerpiece on your dessert table!

Love = Chilies & Cherries in Dark Chocolate

True love in the guise of a chocolate bar.

Today was a day for a little Chocolove. I went looking for something sweet and I found a blog opportunity. Chile and chocolate isn’t anything new, but this Colorado company wrapped up a pretty original and delightfully delicious combination without the usual complications of love. To indulge, peel off the sexy red wrapper and set it aside for later. Chocolove mixed sweet cherries with ancho and chipotle chiles in a smooth 55% dark chocolate. Take a bite and you get a little sweet and then a little heat. It really is a lot like love! After you wrap your tongue around the flavor indulge your mind with the love poem on the inside of the wrapper. Aaaawww!

It’s Cold Out and Soup is in Demand!

It was a random cold snowy day out here in the Denver Metro Area and I planned to make a chicken and poblano casserole. My dear hubby had something else in mind. As I walked in the door after a long day of work, he gave me a hug and said, “today would be a really great day for soup.” He was right, and I wasn’t about to turn that challenge down.

I raided the pantry and threw together a stew that was DIVINE! (Do I use that word too much? Maybe I need to explore some better adjectives…) I didn’t have a whole lot of fresh stuff, but, with the flavors in this soup, you couldn’t tell. So here is what it looked like:

Chicken Poblano Stew with a Rancho Verde Chile Cerveza Photo: © Gray Box Studios

And here is what I did:

I made a soup base by simmering a 32 oz box of vegetable broth and a 14.5 oz can of tomato sauce together. I added a splash of apple cider vinegar and a few dashes of cinnamon, salt, and black pepper. After simmering for a few minutes, I added a can of rinsed pinto beans and a large can of rinsed hominy, two small boxes of raisins and kept the simmer going. The simmering pot was at capacity, but I kept going.

I diced up the roasted poblanos (after removing the skins and most of the seeds), half a white onion, and 1 lb of chicken breast meat. I browned the onions and a little garlic in oil and added the roasted poblanos. After cooking that up for a few minutes, I put half of the mix into the very full pot of soup. I added the diced chicken to the other half of the mix in the frying pan and added a little salt and black pepper.

When everything was heated through, I combined a few scoops of each in a bowl, garnished it with some tortilla chips and Monterrey cheese and voila! This soup was DEEEE-LISH!

Thankfully, my family agreed.

The divine food that is… The Green Chile Burger

My family and I were hungry. We were on our way home from the Rocky Mountain Air Show and, because we live out in the middle of nowhere (a fact that is swiftly changing, but not changed quite yet), I insisted on doing the grocery shopping on the way home. Armed with our reusable bags and bulk containers, we headed for our regular grocery haunt, Sunflower Market. Being a Colorado company with fresh foods and seasonal selections, they (naturally) have a selection of green chile products available at the meat counter.

We could not contain ourselves. We had the butcher (is that the appropriate name for the guy standing behind the meat counter???) wrap up some pork & green chile sausage and some freshly made green chile burgers.

We got home and fired up the grill. The green chile burgers were DIVINE! They are mixed with Monterrey jack cheese and spices, but the green chile was delightfully flavorful. We served it up with a side of chile lime cucumbers and fried green tomato slices. YUM!

Green chile burgers on the grill (left) and on the plate (right). © Gray Box Studios 2011

Stay tuned for the pork & green chile sausage!

To Hatch Chile or Not to Hatch Chile, There Really is No Question

Are the Hatch, New Mexico chile signs the only ones you should follow?

All around the Denver area, signs are popping up for fresh roasted green chiles. It is still early in the season, but I decided to go check out a few stands and markets before I buy and, as I was doing so, I came across a sign for Hatch, New Mexico chile. I have purchased and cooked with green chiles from Hatch in the past and never understood the hype. This occasion inspired me to do a little research, and I found that the celebrity status of Hatch green chile is, indeed, mostly high-quality hype.

I dug up an article written in the Westword (Denver’s alternative newspaper and a source of great journalism time and time again) back in 1999 about the hullaballoo created by chile merchants around the Denver area.  A few merchants decided to make Hatch chile THE chile to buy and developed a not-so-friendly rivalry out of it, driving some merchants out of business and consumers to seek out Hatch chile, though they had no idea why.

In The Complete Chile Pepper Book by David DeWitt and Paul W. Bosland, the authors write about the fame of Hatch chile and the counterfeiting that chile growers have confessed to doing in order to sell more chiles. The growers felt that they had to submit to the hype to keep sales up.

I also found that the growers in Hatch have a pretty proud history and, no doubt, work to grow the best chiles possible. Hatch has a huge chile festival over the Labor Day weekend and is formally declared the “Chile Capital of the World”.  I don’t doubt that they are great at growing chiles, but why limit yourself to only buying chiles grown from one place before deciding what tastes best to you?

The moral of this story is that if you set out to buy “Hatch, New Mexico Chile,” shop with caution. Ask the merchant, if their chiles are actually grown in Hatch, New Mexico, or if they are New Mexico chiles grown from seed elsewhere. The chances are that many markets and chile stand employees won’t know. Keep your eye on the price, and ask if you can sample before you buy. Ultimately, you will cook with the flavor, not the name of the town in which the chile was grown.

!Hola August!

Let the harvest begin! It’s August, which means that markets and stands offering freshly roasted Green Chiles will be popping up around the city. I will be busy visiting and posting about them here. It’s going to be a busy month.

Chile & Cheese Stuffed Chicken

Here is a quick and easy recipe I whipped up one night using a few chiles I had on-hand:

4 chicken breasts, sliced lengthwise down the middle and pounded flat (for stuffing)

1/2 cup chopped roasted green chiles (I mixed Anaheims and Big Jims)

1/2 cup shredded cheddar

1 small tomato, finely chopped

1 Tbsp red onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

a pinch of salt

a pinch of black pepper

Toothpicks or skewers to close the chicken for grilling

 

Lay the chicken breasts open on a pan. Mix chiles, cheddar, tomato, onion, garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Spoon equal amounts of mixture on to chicken breasts. Skewer chicken breasts so that they stay closed during grilling. Grill until chicken is cooked through (this won’t take long), but be sure not to overcook the chicken as they will dry out quickly.

Serve with rice (spanish or cilantro lime) and refried beans (pinto or black – homemade is always best!)

Dig in!

(We devoured this one too fast for a photo, but I will be sure to get one the next time I make it.)

Costillas and Margaritas at Efrain’s in Boulder

We have some friends in Boulder who insisted that we break for lunch at Efrain’s after a busy morning helping them move furniture into their new condo. Hmmm… chile on a hot day? Sure thing! The menu features a spice meter and every block on the meter is filled on anything that features green chile at Efrain’s in Boulder (and Lafayette), Colorado. That is because Efrain’s only makes one kind of green chile. It’s spicy hot! I sampled the Costillas with fried potatoes and a margarita. Costillas are ribs smothered in Efrain’s green chile. Wow! That was a tasty spice bomb for the senses! The potatoes take off some of the heat, but it is best to take this dish slowly, chasing it with a tart swig of the Premier Margarita (limit 2 per customer and they aren’t kidding).

Costillas and a Premier Margarita