Potatoes and Cheese

Mr. M has a fondness for Potatoes Au Gratin, or Potatoes and Cheese. Usually, I have served him the kind that comes in a box with dried potato slices and powdered cheese. We all know how healthy that stuff is! I have been afraid of making this particular dish. I don’t quite know why.

But I wanted to rise to the occasion for the Dark Days Challenge. A meal in a single dish. I thought I can do this! And make it SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local, Ethical)! Well, maybe SOLEish.

I had potatoes, the kind that are yellow inside. Not the biggest and I probably won’t be trying to grow potatoes in the future; despite my Irish Heritage, I am not the best potato grower. I do grow some great sweet potatoes (yams?) though. More about those later.

I have lovely homegrown leeks,onions,and garlic.

I don’t have any kind of cream though, just yogurt, plain and nonfat. As I mentioned in my last post, I have local butter  and cheese. Cheese! It is not the first food one thinks of when thinking of Mexico, but the variety of local cheeses is amazing! There is everything from dry grating cheese similar to Parmesan, crumbly cheese, stringy cheese, soft cheeses, cheeses  that melt beautifully (especially in chiles rellenos!), so many different types of cheese. My choices for this dish are a crumbly cheese and an aged, local gouda-style cheese.

The only addition to this dish that is not really local are the mushrooms. They are Monterey Mushrooms  and their source is a bit north  of my 150 mile limit, but a family owned business with good stewardship practices, so I consider them to be ethical mushrooms. Ethical mushrooms? Okay, from an ethical business.

Now, like I said, I haven’t made this without a boxed mix before. So I sort of winged it.

Let’s see:

potatoes: check,

leeks: check

mushrooms: check

garlic: check

cheese: check,

something creamy: check

butter: check

Looks okay to me!

I sliced the leek, mushrooms, garlic and potatoes.  I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter and sauteed the leeks until they wilted. I added the garlic and mushrooms and sauteed them for a couple of minutes. I mixed the yogurt (about a cup and a half) with the crumbly cheese (its sort of like feta), and some sea salt and black pepper. I layered the thinly sliced potatoes with the leek mixture, then the yogurt mixture and the Gouda-like, shredded cheese. In that order. When I came to the last layer, I saved the cheese to add later. I covered the casserole with foil and baked it at 325 for about an hour. I removed the foil and added the rest of the shredded cheese and baked it for about a half hour more.

About five minutes after I removed the foil Mr.M started sniffing the air, followed shortly by, “How long until dinner?”. It smelled that good!

He was so eager to try it that I didn’t let  it sit for a while after removing it from the oven. It probably would have looked better if I had. The taste? As great as it smelled. In fact, one of the last things Mr. M said at bedtime was, “There were leftovers, right?”.

Lazy Lime Curd

Luscious Lime Curd

I looove lime and lemon curd! So creamy, so citrusy, so sweet-tart, so luscious! I can’t resist it, despite the fact that it is loaded with “bad stuff” like fat and sugar. Add to  my weakness for curd the fact that I have an exuberant lime tree and a Meyer lemon tree, and I have the perfect storm for making curd. How can I resist?

Well, until now, my efforts have resulted in a less than satisfying product. Curd is finicky. Combining a hot liquid with egg yolks and cooking the resulting stuff usually results in a sort of scrambled egg in lime sauce for me. Even if I strain it, it is a mess and sort of yukky rather than yummy. In addition, almost every recipe for making lime curd calls for finely shredding the peel and adding it. Well, I have an admission to make: I can’t stand hairy food, as I call it: anything that has a texture of shredded coconut in it (a paranoia that stems from a bad childhood experience).  So I haven’t made very much curd.

Until.

Now.

I have a new easy way to make lime curd. Not only that, but I am going to can it. THIS IS NOT A USDA RECOMMENDED PRACTICE. But, rogue that I am I am going to live on the edge and try it. Some people can straight butter and live to write about it. Other people have successfully canned lemon curd. I am going to try it.

The first step in my new process was to elicit Mr. M to help me. Now he is a great dishwasher, but as far as cooking goes, he is a good taster.

Some thirty or so years ago, my Mom gave me an electric juicer. (Thanks Mom, I miss you!)  I love the way it juices and strains the seeds out. The trouble is, after about 50 or so fruits, my shoulder acts up.  So, to whom could I pass this job?

Well, there is only one other here:

My Number One kitchen assistant

I washed the limes and he squeezed them. I prepped the quart jars to store the juice in. We had quite a bit; much more that I need for the lime curd:

Fresh lime juice

Notice that lime juice is not really green; it is actually just a little more greenish than regular lemon juice.  I use it all of the time when I don’t have lemon juice. Well, I would if I didn’t have both kinds of trees.

Now, if you want to try this recipe and you don’t have access to organic fruit, be sure to carefully wash any wax off before the next step.

Before he squeezed all of the limes, I used my peeler to remove some of the peels in long spirals:

Notice that the peels from my limes are yellow because I allow the fruit to ripen

Then I separated about a dozen eggs:

Separate the yolks

Most curd recipes tell you to mix the sugar, butter, and lime juice in a pan, heat it, add a little to the egg (a process called tempering), to raise the temperature of the eggs, and then add the eggs to the rest of the hot liquids. This is where the scrambled eggs happen. I am trying a new tactic:

First I cubed the butter and put it into my Kitchenaid mixer bowl.

Cubed butter

Then I added the sugar and creamed it together, like making a cake:

Cream the sugar and butter

Then I added the eggs, and it still looked like cake batter:

Incorporate the egg yolks

Then I added the lime juice. It curdled:

Adding the lime juice makes it look curdled

I put some of the lime peel strips into my electric kettle:

Strips of lime peel in the pot

I wanted to use the electric kettle because I can control the heat better.

I added the curdled looking mixture and turned the heat onto the lowest possible setting:

Not inviting at this time

At first the butter separated a bit:

At first the butter will separate

But with constant stirring and low heat slowly the curd melded into a smooth mixture.

After the mixture blended together, and had cooked for about five minutes. I took the peels out with a fork. I figured they had done their job by then. I continued to cook it until it coated the back of a spoon and left a clean line when I drew my finger through it. Sorry no photo of this because it is important at that stage to stop cooking it and start canning it. I poured the curd into sterilized, warm half pint jars and topped them with sterilized two piece lids. I processed the jars in a boiling water bath with the water barely boiling for 10 minutes.

The result? Smooth and creamy, no shreds of peel, no scrambled eggs, and the perfect balance of sweet and tart! Yummy!

Here’s the recipe:

Yield: 5 half pints

1 cup of butter

2 cups of sugar, add a half cup if you like a sweeter curd.

12 egg yolks

2 cups of lime juice

4 or 5 strips of lime peel (removed with a parer with as little white pith as possible)

Cut butter into half inch cubes and place into a mixer bowl. Add the sugar and blend thoroughly. Add the egg yolks and blend thoroughly. Add the lime juice and mix thoroughly, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and all is well incorporated. The mixture will appear curdled.

Place the strips of peel into a heavy saucepan and add the curd mixture. Cook over low heat until the mixture will coat the back of a spoon, removing the strips of peel after about five to seven minutes.

Pour lime curd into half pint jars and refrigerate or freeze. Will keep up to 60 days if refrigerated or 6 months if frozen, or so they say; I know mine won’t be around that long!

This method is so easy! The most difficult part is separating the eggs. Next time I may try using whole eggs instead. The second most difficult part is getting past the curdled look when you add the lime juice. If you love curd as much as I do, try this method and let me know if you like it.

After a day of canning and cleaning up (I also  canned 8 pints of chicken stock). We had a simple dinner of Minestra de Pane, so I could use up some leftover stock, day-old bread and some of our abundant chard. A delicious “Peasant” meal for hard workers:

Glorified leftovers

Simple Soup

Creamy potato soup

Yahoo! A new camera shoots clear! As I said in my earlier post, my beloved camera recently went to Camera Heaven, so I have been out of blog posting for a while. Finally, I have a new camera! Not blogging hasn’t kept me from cooking though.

After our trip to Fort Worth to celebrate Christmas with our two daughters and their families, Mr M and I came home a bit fatter and feeling the after effects of rich food and driving long distances. I have been longing for simpler meals. In addition, my little vegetable garden has been happily continuing to grow in our absence; with no care or water, mind you!

Yesterday, I found this lovely leek that I planted as a tiny seedling. Not only was there the big one, it had 2 babies that I replanted for the next harvest.

Fresh from the garden!

In addition I had some yellow potatoes, harvested earlier, that had been waiting for our return. Potatoes and a big leek, hmmmm… I also had just finished making ham stock from a big bone from some ham I found on sale here (local smoked pork). What could I make? Potato soup of course!

I sliced the leek, some onion from the garden, and sauteed them in some local butter:

Delicious local butter

This dairy is very local! The distributor is just a few blocks from my house and the cows live just beyond the north edge of our little town, maybe 8 kilometers from here. I find it very amusing that despite the company name, the cows are black and white Holsteins!

Holstein Cow

Jersey Cow

But I digress, so here is how I made the soup:

I used about 2 tablespoons of the butter to saute the aromatics, and about 1 cup of sliced carrots from the garden. I added about 16 cups of the strained ham stock, and 8 cups of peeled, diced potatoes. To make the stock, I simmered the ham bone with a couple of carrots, half of a large onion, a bay leaf, a few black peppercorns and about a teaspoon of dried,  homegrown marjoram.

I brought everything to a boil and lowered the heat to a simmer until the potatoes and carrots were tender. I used my handy new immersion blender (thank you  Mr M for the lovely Christmas gift!), to puree the soup, leaving some  tiny bits for texture. I added maybe a cup of diced ham. With a little Jack cheese, this soup is a little bit of Heaven!

My Newest Canner!

A while back, I posted about introducing my daughter to the art and science of pickling vegetables. During our Christmas visit to her house, my nine year old grand-daughter, pickled her very own cucumbers:

I made these all by myself!

I think she did a great job! Her Mom is going to have to invest in a boiling water bath canner soon!

AAARRRGGGG! My Camera!

It amazes me how much I loved my camera! It was a gift from my son-in-law a few years ago for Christmas. I took it everywhere, especially when I travel. So I took it with me when I went to visit my daughters  and their families in Texas for Christmas. I noticed that the camera began acting a little odd while I was taking pictures of our traditional Mexican Chocolate party:

seems a little dark

But the next photo and several after it were okay:

When I got home I wanted to document how my little vegetable garden did with no care or water for almost three weeks:

Not too bad, except for the weeds!

But then, right while I was shooting, this happened!

What is happening?!

I thought it would recover again, but when I  went to photograph a recipe I was making for the Dark Days Challenge, here’s what I got inside the house:

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! The strange photos are kind of pretty in their own way but not what I want!

Guess I will be in the hunt for a new digital camera! Yes, another DIGITAL camera. I have an old manual SLR in my closet and I am pretty certain that I couldn’t get the film developed even if I wanted to use it!

Salsa de Arbol

One of our local restaurants serves a tongue-tingling salsa with their totopos, or tortillia chips. It is red and spicy but no too picante. I can practically eat the whole little bowl with a spoon, if I could get away with it.

Since we are pretty regular customers there, we know the family that owns the restaurant. So, I just asked what chiles were in the salsa. Much to my surprise it is chiles de arbol. I have had a long time fear of these chiles because I thought they might be extremely hot. I often go to the local markets and examine the various dried chiles. I usually use a sniff test to guess how hot they might be. Each dried chile is very different from the others; some smell smoky, some smell eye-wateringly hot, and some even have a floral fragrance. Try it sometime. You will probably find some chiles that are really drool-worthy.  Chiles de arbol have always whispered to me “watch out I’m blazingly HOT!”.

I screwed up my courage and bought a bunch of different dried chiles to experiment with, including a bunch of chiles de arbol. Our friend in the restaurant explained to me that the sauce was chiles de arbol and tomatoes, “cooked real slowly”. How’s that for a recipe? I was determined to figure out how to make this treasured salsa for my own!

If you have ever cooked with chiles, you already know of their idiosyncrasy: you never know just how hot each batch of salsa will be. Chiles are unpredictable and sneaky. The most innocent appearing chile may hide a fiery secret and blast your salsa into a sinus-clearing, eye-watering concoction, or it may be bland, like many of the modern day jalapenos.

My first try was a rousing success! Here is my recipe:

Salsa de Arbol

1 ounce dried chiles de arbol, prepared*

Boiling water

10-12 cups organic tomatoes, peeled and diced, with juice (or about 6-7, 14 ounce cans)

1 cup cider vinegar

1 cup fresh lime juice

1 medium to large diced onion

10 cloves of garlic

1 large bay leaf

1 Tablespoon dried oregano

1 Tablespoon dried marjoram

½ teaspoon cracked black peppercorns

Salt to taste

*To prepare chiles: remove from container. Break off and discard stems (do you know that the name chiles de arbol means tree chile and refers to the stem that is woody “like a tree”- ahh, trivia!). Break each chile in half and shake out most of the loose seeds. One ounce is about two cups.

Place prepared chiles in a heatproof container. Pour boiling water over chiles to cover well. Hydrate for at least one hour or up to overnight.

Pour off about half of the soaking water. Put chiles and the rest of the soaking water into a blender and puree well. Pour into a large pot.

Place part of the tomatoes into the blender jar. While pureeing, add garlic cloves and onion and blend thoroughly. Add to pot with chiles.

Blend the rest of the tomatoes in batches, adding the herbs and black peppercorns. Be sure the bay leaf is thoroughly ground. Combine all in the pot.

Taste the contents of the pot and if it is blazingly hot, add some more blended tomatoes.

Bring the contents of the pot to a simmer and add the vinegar and lime juice. Simmer to desired thickness.

Ladle into half pint jars and cap with two piece lids. Seal in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Made 7 half pints for me but your mileage may vary.

We tried it on our fish tacos. It was out of this world! It is so good, Mr. M actually asked me to open another jar tonight. I don’t think this one is going to last too long in the pantry. Good thing I bought extra chiles!

The Mighty Pak Choi

It is our “winter” here in Baja; the time for growing cool season crops like lettuce, cabbage, and Asian greens. As I have been posting, I am attempting to participate in the Dark Days Challenge. This week, my post is about one of our favorite Asian greens Choi: in this dinner Pak Choi. I grow both the full size plants and the smaller Tsai Choi.  Here are some photos of each in the garden.

A huge Pak Choi ready for harvest

Tsai Choi are much more compact

The big Choi here is destined for this dinner; it is huge and ready for harvest. Before I chopped it up, it filled my dishpan.  No photo of that, but here it is after I attacked it with my chef’s knife.

Chopped up and ready to cook

Before I chop it up I soak the entire head in cool water laced with a few tablespoons of vinegar to chase out any freeloaders. I garden organically so I don’t mind a few holes in my vegies. I handpick snails and it is easy to miss those tiny, tiny babies, but they are no match for the vinegar. I am not much on homemade escargot, too much effort to clean the snails and mine are usually too small anyway; it’s the big ones from next door that are the real problem. They know where the free lunch, or should I say dinner, lives.

I matched the chopped Choi with a few other ingredients: onions and some late ripening peppers from the garden and some local pork.

Sliced pork, peppers, onion, and Choi stems

Beside the Choi, the star of this dinner is some homemade Duck Sauce from our beautiful spring Santa Rosa plums. The sauce is way good and wonderful over rice.

Hmmm, rice… Not exactly local, since it doesn’t grow well here; it’s too arid. It does grow in central California just beyond my 150 mile range, so I am going to use it anyway. I do buy it in San Diego, so does that count? I could have just not admitted it but I wanted to show off the secret flavor of the day: homegrown lemon grass.

Steamed rice with crushed lemon grass

This represents a triumph of a sort for me: it is my third and only successful attempt at growing it. The two previous attempts met their demise at the overzealous weeding hands of Mr. M. After all it is lemon grass. I actually had to plant it in my vegetable garden because he is forbidden to weed there. (NO, don’t pull out those nettles! I need them!) But that is another story.

I steam the rice with homemade chicken stock, a bit of Kosher or sea salt and few smashed stalks of the aforementioned, highly prized lemon grass.

The Bok Choi stars in the stir fry:

Ready to serve

Here is the simple recipe:

2 locally grown boneless pork chops, or chicken thighs

1 Tbs fat or oil (I used some reserved fat from making stock)

1 Tbs dark sesame oil (I’m counting this as a spice)

1 large head of Bok Choi or other preferred greens, sliced crosswise

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

½ large green or ripe sweet pepper, or a few small ripe sweet peppers, thinly sliced

Several cloves of homegrown garlic, sliced, or chopped

1 pint homemade Duck Sauce (a half pint would work if less sauce is desired)

½ to 1 Tbs Cornstarch dissolved in 1 Tablespoon cold water, optional

Semi-freeze and thinly slice the meat. Heat fat and sesame oil, add sliced meat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the meat loses its pink color. Add onions, sliced stems of the Choi, and peppers and fry until the onions begin to soften. Add the garlic and sauce.  Add the leafy part of the Choi and cook until the leaves wilt. If the sauce is too liquid from the moisture in the leaves, thicken with the cornstarch.

I’m pretty sure that this dinner meets the SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, and ethical) requirements: well almost. And, if you are interested, here is the recipe for the

Duck Sauce

(loosely based on the Ball Blue Book’s Plum Sauce recipe, page 84)

4 pounds of Santa Rosa plums

2 cups grated pilonchillo sugar (Mexican cone sugar)

1 cup cane sugar

3/4 cup chopped onion

2 Tbs mustard seed (I get mine at a local Botannica,or herb store; it grows wild here)

1 chopped, roasted, peeled poblano chile

1 minced jalapeno or serrano chile

1 (1/4 X 1″) piece fresh ginger, minced or 1 tsp ground, dry ginger

3 garlic cloves

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 cup cider vinegar

Wash, pit and slice plums. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil and add plums. Cook until plums are soft. Blend with an immersion blender until smooth. Cook until the thickness preferred. Ladle sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two piece caps. Process 20 minutes in a boiling water bath. About 4 pints, but your mileage may vary.

Note: when my plums ripen, I have a lot so I double or triple this recipe. I put the sauce up in pints and half pints because it also makes a great dippng sauce.

Fish Delish!

Yesterday, I posted about the Dark Days Challenge.  Today, I am posting my first entry. The challenge is to make a meal of sustainable, organic, local, and ethical (SOLE) foods. I have chosen one of our favorite, yet quick and easy, meals: Fish Tacos Modified Baja Style.

Good Conscience Tacos

Baja is famous for its fish tacos that are widely available from street vendors selling from small carts with propane powered fryers. We love to eat them but realize that deep fried fish with a floury crust is not the healthiest food. Adaptation! I decided that I could create a healthier style of fish tacos for our more frequent enjoyment. Be gone floury, fried, greasy crust! Enter spicy, diced, delicious fish cubes!

Savory, delicious fish

It seems easy to think, “I’ll just whip up some fish tacos tonight”, until you have to think about where the fish comes from and if it is sustainable and ethical. The best fish for this recipe comes from the large predatory fish like tuna, wahoo, or dolphin fish, which produce meaty, solid fillets.

The majority of the fish we eat here is locally caught; either just off of the coast in the Pacific, or in the Sea of Cortez, on the opposite side of our peninsula. In the past, Mexico, just like many other countries (including the US), has been ignorant of the dangers of overfishing certain species. Fortunately, Mexico has taken huge steps to protect its bounty of sea resources.

My favorite fish for this recipe is local, line caught yellowfin tuna. It is caught just off our coast from small boats called pangas. We buy it seasonally from our favorite fish monger at the local Mercadito, or open air market, and freeze the fillets for use later. Best of all, yellowfin tuna is not a protected species and appears to be increasing in population. Yay!

Put this in your taco!

And the rest of my ingredients? Yup,they meet the SOLE requirements, too! We are very picky about tortillias. Our preference is a thicker style that will hold up well for making enchiladas, tacos and other Mexican dishes. We actually import the majority of our tortillias from a small, family owned factory in San Diego, about 50 kilometers from here, called Porkyland. Mr. M’s parents used their tortillias in a Mexican restaurant they owned years ago and they are still the best. (Sorry Rosarito). By the way, Porkyland tortillias have made it to the big time; they are available at Costco and Amazon!

Next I had to examine the cheese. Sometimes we use local Queso Cotija, the tasty crumbly cheese, but I was out of that. I did have a chunk of Queso Viejo, which accurately translates to Old Cheese. It is very strong and uniquely tasty; maybe too strong for the fish. So I added some local Monterey Jack cheese to tone it down. Perfect!

Tomatoes from the garden? Check. Cabbage? Hmmm, not ready yet. No lettuce either. We do have an abundance of ready to harvest Wong bok, a type of Chinese cabbage. One leaf was more than enough to shred for this recipe. Take my word for it, not the best choice! Use regular white cabbage or, if you have to, lettuce. The Wong bok was too strong!

The Baja Secret Sauce? All fish tacos in Baja are offered with a creamy white sauce. It is usually, crema, local cultured cream that is not sour, combined with mayonnaise. I prefer to use plain nonfat thick yogurt, combined with mayonnaise. Okay, here is my failing: the mayo. I don’t make it, I buy it, but it is sustainable and available locally.

The red salsa? Homemade and home canned. I used my Salsa de Arbol. I will post about that later.

What else? Ah yes, my secret taco seasoning: THE special touch to the fish; here it is:

Taco Seasoning

1 Tbs dried ground California Chiles: NOT commercial chili powder

1 Tbs coarsely ground dried Chile Mulatto or Chile Ancho

1 tsp granulated garlic or 2-3 cloves minced fresh garlic

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp dried marjoram, crushed

½ tsp dried oregano, crushed

Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

This is sufficient for about ½ to ¾ of a pound of cubed fresh fish. It can also be quite tasty on ground beef or turkey. If you like it hotter, use New Mexico Chiles instead of California. You can substitute any ground dried chiles actually. This is just our preferred combination. The key ingredient, surprisingly, is the cinnamon. Don’t be afraid! Use it!

To use: Place fish fillets in freezer until just slightly frozen, or defrost frozen fillets, so that the fillet will be solid enough to easily cut into cubes. Put about 1 tablespoon of your preferred fat (I use coconut oil) into a skillet and heat. Add fish cubes and toss until they are opaque on the outside. Add seasoning and cook until the fish flakes easily. The fish will exude some moisture. Cook until the moisture and seasoning adheres to the cubes. This is just a couple of minutes.

The last condiment? Fresh limes to squeeze over the fish. We do have an abundance of limes from our trees, but I decided to use a more unusual citrus, a lemon from our Pink Lemonade Tree. Yes, as you can see in the photo it is pink inside when ripe! It is also a very pretty tree with green and white variegated leaves and striped lemons! The taste? It is a sport of the regular yellow Eureka lemon so familiar in US markets and tastes just like it.

And to accompany the tacos? Locally harvested pinto beans, previously home canned and just heated and smashed. When I can them, I add  homegrown onion and garlic before sealing. Delish and the ultimate fast food!

The musical fruit

The final result? A quick, easy, delicious SOLE meal that will brighten even the darkest day. Start to plating less than 20 minutes. Try it and let me know if you like it.

Dark Days Challenge

I try my best to be a localvore : one who eats foods grown locally whenever possible, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Fortunately, living in Baja is ideal for this. I can garden all year and there are great sources for locally grown and produced food. After all, how much produce eaten in the US actually comes from Mexico?

This year I decided to see just how well I am doing as a localvore by entering The Dark Days Challenge. Here is some information about it and a form if you are interested in challenging yourself. I don’t know how well I will do because there are some things that Mr. M and I like that are not grown locally, like peanuts, but we do our best!

Combination Packaging in Mexico

Combination of products

I have been fighting a lingering cough for a few weeks, so I decided to visit a local store for cough medicine. I am always amused at the way I find combinations of products packaged for sale there. Oftentimes, I have difficulty figuring out the relationship of the products, like: how does a sponge or cleaning product relate to a box of cereal?  This one makes sense, cough drops with cough medicine. I love the cellophane bag and ribbon trim!