Cheesy Poofs

So I have officially divided my two blogs. Now you can find all things soup on my soup blog. The 31 days will be completed no fear but I have decided to separate out those entries into its own area of the blogosphere. I will continue to post all my recipes on this, more general blog, and to celebrate my first non soup entry in literally months I decided to do some housekeeping, publishing some past recipes I promised long ago. I admit I got distracted by the call of soup.

Cheesy Jalapeno Corn Cakes

Corn Chili Mix:

2 tbsp canola oil

1/2 cup onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup frozen corn

1/4 cup diced canned green chilies

1/4 cup chopped pickled jalapenos

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp red pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

Polenta:

2 tbsp canola oil

2 cups milk

1 cups course cornmeal

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

To Assemble

1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, pepperjack)

1/2 cup sliced pickled jalapenos

In a sauté pan, sauté onion and garlic in oil for 5 minutes until onions are clear. Add frozen corn, chilies and spices and cook till warmed through. Salt and pepper to taste.

To prepare polenta, In a saucepan on medium high heat, heat milk and oil. Whisk in cornmeal and stirring constantly bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, stirring continuously for 10 minutes (this varies based on how course your cornmeal is). Add water by the tbsp if the mixture gets to thick. When cornmeal is cooked thoroughly (it will still be soft and smooth when done) add corn chili mixture, ½ cup Parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste.

In a greased muffin tin fill ½ full with polenta mixture. Press the polenta flat and create a small depression in the center. Fill with some shredded cheese and a few jalapenos. Top with another layer of the polenta mix and press. When all the polenta cakes are made and pressed put in the refrigerator or freezer for 10-20 minutes until thoroughly cooled.

Turn onto a greased baking sheet and place in the oven at 450° and bake for 12 minutes till the bottoms are crispy. Turn on broiler and broil the tops until they are crispy (about 2-4 minutes).

Cool for a few minutes and eat!

Pozole, Posole

Two day effort went into tonight's soup. Yesterday, I roasted a chicken and made broth with the carcass and was all prepared to cook Jay's favorite, posole, for dinner. Unfortunately Jay had to be an adult and work late and I wasn't about to cook posole for just myself... So I waited till tonight for the preparation. There are of course a multitude of variations. There is Mexican stylepozole, served with a clear broth, and New Mexican style posole with either green or red chili. For those of you unfamiliar with New Mexican cuisine, it seems to pretty much revolve around one central choice: green or red. Green is milder and usually involves some diced cooked chili similar to a fresh pablano, while red is hot and spicy and usually ground into a powder. New Mexico red chili powder is far better than any chili powder I have ever used and quite honestly, I am not sure I could ever go back to the other stuff. When we are in New Mexico we buy it in bulk at the Albertson's (of all places) and use it for the rest of the year. So obviously, given the choices, I made my posole with red chili. It was delicious, easy and very, very satisfying:

Posole:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno, minced

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp black pepper

4 tbsp New Mexican red chili powder

8 cups chicken broth

4 cups cooked posole (in cans available at many grocery stores)

2-3 cups shredded chicken

salt to taste

In a soup pot heat oil and cook onions over medium heat until just soft. Add garlic and jalapenos and cook for 3 or 4 minutes more. Add spices and cook for 2 minutes to release flavors. Add broth, cooked posole, and cooked chicken and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook 10 minutes until all the flavors are melded. Salt to taste.

Sugar and Spice

On Monday nights I go to an aerobic kickboxing class at my gym which is conveniently located next to a Trader Joe's. This means I am totally beat but I also have the Trader Joe's right there if I need anything. Our TJ's carries a surprisingly good frozen roasted corn, so I tried a soup with it as the centerpiece. What resulted was a sort of southwestern corn soup. It was sweet and spicy (which can be mediated by using less jalapeno seeds), smooth yet chunky, and very very easy to prepare. If you had more time you could try roasting the pepper before adding:

Roasted Corn and Pepper Soup

2 tbsp canola oil

1 med red onion diced

3 jalapeno peppers, minced (seeded if desired)

3 large cloves garlic, minced

1 yellow or orange bell pepper, diced

1 tsp cumin

4 cups chicken broth

4 cups frozen roasted corn

1 cup chopped canned green chilies

1/2 lowfat milk

juice of 1/2 a lime

salt and pepper to taste

sliced avocado

shredded pepperjack cheese

In a large soup pot heat oil over medium high heat. Cook onion, garlic, and jalapeno peppers, stirring occasionally for 8-9 minutes until the onions are soft. Add cumin and cook for 2 minutes more. Add chicken broth, frozen corn, and green chilies and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until everything is cooked. Reserve 2 cups of the soup and blend the rest, using and immersion blender or a food processor. Add back the reserved soup and add milk. Season with lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a garnish of sliced avocado, cheese, and a few warmed tortillas.

Mexican Leftovers

So today I set about making a "traditional" Mexican tortilla soup. I would need to look no further than that PBS star and my own personal hero, Rick Bayless. How this man remains so thin despite frying every ingredient in oil is beyond me, but nonetheless he knows his Mexican cooking. So of course I consulted his Authentic Mexican cookbook when attempting this quintessential Mexican soup. Turns out that Tortilla Soup, in its traditional form, is quite simple. A rich broth over whatever happens to be leftover in your pantry. Essential is the stale strips of tortilla, fried and placed at the bottom of the bowl to await a brothy bath. In addition to the tortilla, Rick recommends a combination of fried dried chilies (he suggests pasillas, I used guajillo because I had them leftover from a mole we made recently) and simple cheese (queso fresco if you can get it, monterey jack will work). To make a more hearty meal (which was my goal) he suggested adding chicken. Given that the soup was meant to use up whatever was left in the pantry I felt that it would be okay to remain a traditionalist when it came to the broth (and of course the fried tortillas) but allow for a little more creativity when it came to the rest of the "garnishes". In that spirit I decided to cook up our weekly chicken gold with some onions and dried chilies, dice monterey jack and finish it off with some fresh cilantro. If I were to do it again I would actually use fresh chilies, perhaps some pablanos, rather than the dried, but other than that it was perfection:

Tortilla Soup

4-5 tbsp canola oil

1 small and 1 medium onion thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, whole

1 cup diced tomatoes from a can

6 cups good broth (I used homemade turkey, but chicken or veggie would work)

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast sliced into 1/2 in chunks

3 dried guajillo chilies thinly sliced

4 stale corn tortillas cut into strips

1/4 lb monterey jack cheese, cubed into 1/2" cubes

1 large lime, cut into wedges

fresh cilantro, chopped

hot pepper sauce (optional)

To make broth, heat 2 tbsp canola oil in a skillet and fry medium onion and garlic 10-15 minutes on medium low heat until golden brown. Blend in a food processor along with diced tomatoes. Add 1 tbsp canola oil to pan and return tomato mixture to pan. Heat over medium heat 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally until the color had darkened. Scrap into the bottom of a soup pot and add a cup of the broth. Whisk together and heat to a slow boil. Add remaining stock, bring to a boil then lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Salt to taste and set aside.

To prepare "garnish", heat 1 tbsp canola oil in a skillet and add small onion and dried chilies. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the chilies are slightly softened. Add chicken and cook until no longer pink. Salt to taste and set aside.

Add remaining oil to the skillet and fry tortillas strips (or use a nonstick pan). This took me a good 10 minutes in the nonstick skillet on medium heat, but the point is really just to dry them out as best you can.

To assemble soup, add a few cubes of the cheese, some of the chicken chili mixture, and a few tortilla strips to the bottom of a bowl. Pour broth over until it just covers garnish. Sprinkle with cilantro and squeeze a lime wedge over the soup. If desired you can spice the soup up with some hot pepper sauce.

Spicy Hot

Since Jay and I make chili often, I wanted to try something different for chili night. With the lack of chili powder in this recipe one could even question if this even qualifies as chili, but nonetheless it is definitely different from the kind we usually make. I perused somewhere around ten chili recipes and more or less created my own, what one could call a green chili. A word of warning about chipotle chili in adobo sauce: These are extremely spicy and depending on your tolerance to spice use accordingly. I generally blend the contents of the can in a food processor and then add as needed. Jay and I like spice and I would estimate I used about 3-4 tbsp. It ended up with an extremely potent, latent spice.

Green Chipotle Chili

2 tbsp canola oil

1 med onion, diced

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno, seeded and minced

1 lb ground turkey or meat substitute

2 small poblano chili peppers, diced

1 small green bell pepper diced

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp coriander

2 tsp oregano

1-3 tbsp chipotle in adobo sauce, blended

4 cups cooked pinto beans

3 18 oz cans whole tomatillos, drained and finely chopped

1 can beer or 1 1/2 cup water or broth

2 tsp sugar

salt to taste

Heat oil in a deep soup pot and saute onion, garlic, and jalapeno for 2-3 minutes until just soft. Add ground meat (or sub) and cook until the meat is not pink. Add chipotle, bell pepper, poblano, cumin, coriander and oregano and cook until peppers are slightly soft. Add tomatillos, beans, and beer and simmer 20-25 minutes. Add sugar and salt to taste and cook 5 minutes more. Serve with a garnish of grated cheese and chopped fresh cilantro.

Lada

A friend of my requested this recipe from me a few weeks ago to prepare for a dinner party at her apartment. It reminded me how much I love the meal so I made it again last night for my hungry boyfriend and his father, tired after a day of building a tool and garden shed in our backyard. I originally started making this recipe years ago when I was an undergrad living in Foley House - a cooking cooperative at Dartmouth College. There, I lived in a house of 10 people who took turns cooking nightly meals. I learned two things living and cooking at foley: how to cook for a large group (I still have difficulty cooking for two), and how to cook for vegetarians. It was really this experience that has forever influenced my almost vegetarianism (and having a non meat eating partner). Foley House also introduced me to the Moosewood Cookbook series by Mollie Katzen. This is a wonderful and so far unmatched resource for vegetarian recipes named for a restaurant to which I have never been in upstate New York. This recipe is in her Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbook , and I have modified it slightly. You can serve this at any party without anyone complaining about the lack of meat. There are a few variations I have employed, such adding Soyrizo or some other meat substitute, adding black beans, or cooking as a casserole instead of actually rolling them. I alternate between using traditional corn tortillas or flour, which seem to be a crowd-pleaser. There has been great debate regarding the flour/corn dilemma; I will throw my hat in with corn, and let you, the chef, decide what you prefer.

Enchiladas de Foley

1 - 28 oz can diced tomatoes

1 large red bell pepper

2 tsp salt

8 large cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 tsp cumin

2 tbsp chili powder (if desired)

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Let cool and run through a food processor or a blender to make smooth.

Filing

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

6-8 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium red, yellow or orange bell peppers, diced

2 medium zucchini, diced

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp basil

2 tsp oregano

1-2 tsp red pepper flakes

1-1/2 cups grated pepper jack cheese + 1/2 cup for top


16 corn tortillas (10-12 flour if you prefer)

Heat oil in a deep skillet. cook onions and garlic over medium high heat 8 minutes, or until soft. Add bell pepper, zucchini and spices and cook another 8-10 minutes until zucchini is just soft. Remove from heat and stir in 1 1-2 cup cheese. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Assembly

If using corn tortillas you will need to soften them. There are many ways to soften (frying, soaking, etc) but I prefer to simply steam them. Wrap them in a towel and use a steamer tray (or the like) and set in boiling water for 2-5 minutes. They can continue to steam as you work. If using flour tortillas, not need for a steam...

Pour half the sauce in a 9"x13" baking dish. Roll the enchiladas (spoonful of filling, roll) and lay out tightly in the tray. After the tray is full pour the remaining sauce over and sprinkle cheese. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and bake in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes. I like to remove the foil and throw under the broiler for the last few minutes to give the cheese some crispness.

Enjoy with something light, like a green salad sprinkled with pepitas.

AIG Chili

According to Wikipedia chili is said to be "the food of forgiveness and reconciliation". Knowing that, I think that one solution to assuage the country's mutual frustration at the leaders of AIG might be that, using those "huge bonuses", they throw one giant chili cook off for the entire country. With the myriad of varietals - Cincinnati, Louisville, and of course the classic, Texas chili - everyone in the country can have their chance at forgiveness and reconciliation. Being almost vegetarians we make a chili con frijoles rather than chili con carne. While I know that to all you purists chili isn't chili without meat, fake meat can only carry a stew so far. J is a master chili man, either a result of Texas upbringing or his constant need for forgiveness and reconciliation, so he is the chili chef in the house. I closely watched the last time he made it so that I could accurately post the recipe here. Its filing and makes a lot so be prepared for some leftovers:

Chili con frijoles

2 tbsp canola oil

1 med yellow onion, diced

2 bell peppers (preferably red and green)

2-3 small carrots, diced (optional)

1 med zucchini (optional)

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup good chili powder (the New Mexico chili powder you bought to make red chili sauce works great)

2 tbsp cumin

2-3 tsp red pepper flakes

2 tsp oregano

1 tsp coriander

2 15 oz. cans black beans

2 15 oz. cans pinto beans

1 large (28 oz) can diced tomatoes

1-2 cups beer

1 pkg soyrizo (8 oz) or other meet substitute

Heat oil in a large soup pot. Saute onion, peppers and optional carrots or zucchini on high heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring often. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, red pepper flakes, oregano and coriander and cook until vegetables are just slightly soft. Add beans, tomatoes and beer and lower heat. Heat through and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add soyrizo and salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with chopped cilantro and shredded cheese.

FA-ji-TA

So Wednesday nights I take a class at my gym that involes lots of flailing about and by the time I get home I am in no mood to cook a big complicated meal, so I rely on easy fast and filling options like fajitas. I don't go in for those spice packets you buy at the grocery, instead I season my fajita veggies with a red sauce we make from New Mexico Red Chili powder. With that great sauce it's pretty easy to put together a fajita meal. I slice a big onion into wedges, slice a red bell pepper into strips, chop a zucchini and maybe a carrot into thick chunks and then saute them all in a cast iron skillet on high heat. After the veggies have cooked just a little I add a good dose of the Red Chili Sauce (maybe 1/4 cup). I usually serve the veggies with cheese and avocado in soft flour tortillas and side with spicy black beans. These recipes are staples in my kitchen:

Red chile sauce

3 tbsp canola oil

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

3 tbsp flour

4 tbsp New Mexico red chili powder (available at specialty stores and New Mexico)

2 1/2 c water

salt to taste

Heat oil over low heat in a saucepan. Add garlic and flour, cook until golden brown. Mix in red chili powder. Add water and whisk till lumps dissolve. Simmer 10- 15 minutes over medium heat. Salt to taste. You can store in your refrigerator up to two weeks.

Spicy Black Beans

2 tbsp canola oil

1 small onion, diced

3 cloves garlic

1 small bell pepper, diced

1 tbsp cumin

2 tsp mexican oregano

2 tsp ground coriander

1-3 tsp reed pepper flakes

1 15 oz can black beans, drained

1/4 cup veggie broth or water

2 bay leaves

salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions and garlic over medium high heat in oil till soft. Add cumin, coriander, oregano and red pepper flakes and fry to release the flavors. Add black beans, broth or water and bay leaves. Lower heat and simmer covered for 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Leftover Soup

Thursday is the day I receive my SPUD (Small Potatoes Urban Delivery) container full of all that yummy organic produce. I love Thursdays. I get home to find a neat plastic bin filled with beets and chard and eggplant and whatever else I have ordered that week. The thing about Thursday though is it tends to be the day that I have to cook whatever is left in the crisper to make room for the new fresh stuff (ah the joys of the apartment-sized refrigerator). So tonight I endeavored to use the last of the celery, the last few carrots, and the acorn squash that had been sitting on the top of the fridge. Remembering the leftover chipotles in adobo I had from Tuesday's fish cakes I decided to try for a soup and this was the result:

Chipotle Squash Soup

1 medium acorn squash

1-2 dried chipotles

2 tbsp olive oil

3 celery stalks, diced

2 carrots, diced

1/2 medium onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

3-4 tbsp chipotle in adobo, minced

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp coriander

4 cups veggie broth

juice of 1 lime

salt and pepper to taste

Cut acorn squash in half and place face down on a baking sheet and place in the over at 400 degrees. Cook until soft (30 mins) and let sit to cool. Once cool enough, scoop out cooked squash and whip until smooth. Set aside. Cover dried chipotles in 2 cups water and let sit for 10 minutes or until soft. Drain and reserve liquid. Loosely mince chipotles. Saute onions carrots and celery in olive oil until soft but not browned. Add garlic, dried and reconstituted chipotles, cumin and coriander and brown for 2 minutes. Add minced chipotle in adobo and cook and additional minute. Add whipped squash and mix thoroughly. Add reserved chipotle liquid and broth to desired consistency. Heat through. Add the lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. This soup can be blended smooth or served chunky. We prefer a chunky soup so we ate as is with a garnish of cilantro and a side of simple braised greens. It hit the spot on this snowy day.

Fish Cake!

I have, especially since moving to Seattle, been trying to increase the amount of fish in my diet. This is partially out of concern that I am eating too much soy, which is very high in fat. Being a household of a pescetarian and an almost vegetarian we try to be careful about where our fish comes from and thus are very sensitive to good fishing practices. I carry around a little cheat sheet in my wallet created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program. Its a great guide for anyone concerned about fishing practices and their effects on the environment. Using it we discovered that Tilapia from the US is farmed in systems that don't taint the natural fish stock and therefor A-OK! This is great because Tilapia is a really low fat and flexible fish. One 4 oz serving is only 93 calories and 1 g of fat but 21 g of protein.

I have cooked Tilapia in a few ways: baked whole and fish tacos, but tonight's fish cakes proved one of the most successful. A light and fresh cilantro lime sauce compliments the spicy flavor of the chipotle in the cakes. When using chipotle in adobo (you can find these in a can in the ethnic food aisle of most grocery stores) know that they can pack a lot of spice. The bulk of the spice is found in the chipotles, but the sauce itself is quite spicy as well. We like a lot of spice (so much so that the guy at our local Thai place is constantly questioning our 3 1/2 star request) so the following recipe is based on that. If you are sensitive to spice I recommend cutting both the chipotle and the adobe quantities in half.

Chipotle Fish Cakes with Lime Cilantro dressing

Lime Cilantro Dressing

1 cup nonfat plain yogurt

2 tbsp well chopped cilantro

1 1/2 tbsp diced red onion

juice of one lime

1 garlic clove minced

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients and salt and pepper to taste. Add water to achieve desired consistency: I use a dense yogurt and thus added about 2 tbsp of water. Cover and refrigerate while you make the cakes.

Chipotle Fish Cakes

2 4-5 oz tilapia fillets

1/2 medium red onion finely minced

2-3 garlic cloves finely minced

1/2 red pepper finely minced

2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

one chipotle in adobo finely minced (adjust for spice level)

3-4 tbsp adobo sauce

1/4 cup course cornmeal or bread crumbs

2 tbsp cornstarch

salt and pepper to taste

Chop tilapia in a blender or food processor until blended but still chunky. Set aside. Mix onion, garlic, pepper, cilantro, chipotle and adobo in a separate bowl and salt and pepper to taste. You will want to moderately over salt and pepper at this point as the fish and bread crumbs will balance out the flavor. Combine fish and onion - chipotle mixture thouroughly and add cornstarch and cornmeal or bread crumbs. Form into 8 patties roughly 3" in diameter and 3/4" thick. Heat a nonstick saucepan over medium high heat and cook each patty for 2 1/2 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Serve on a bed of greens with spicy black beans for a low fat and satisfying meal. Drizzle with Cilantro Lime Sauce and garnish with avocado and loosely chopped cilantro.