South Of The Border Breakfast

After making the enchilasagna the other night, we had an open can of salsa verde in the frig and several posts lately about huevos rancheros had me in the mood for a Mexican breakfast. I had also visited the local latino market recently and bought a couple of pounds of chorizo, some of which was still in the frig. And finally, some time back, I’d bought a 10# bag of anasazi beans that Bev decided she didn’t like as just soup beans (they are a little sweet), so I’m looking for more tasty uses for them, such as refried beans. I can almost picture the Sinagua Indians growing a crop of these beans in the creek bottom land below their housing at Montezuma Castle in central Arizona (only Native American ruins we’ve visited).

So the day before the breakfast, I fried up the chorizo and made the beans using this, no pre-soaking, recipe:

1 pound dried Anasazi Beans®
6 slices of bacon, chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon chili powder

Add 6 cups fresh water and cook beans 1.5 hours or until tender at a gentle boil. Drain beans, save liquid. Saute onion, green pepper, garlic and bacon. Mash beans together with sauteed mixture, adding liquid a little at a time, until bean mixture is smooth.

I ended up adding more water a couple of times and cooked about 2 ¼ hours to get them done and I added salt to the water. I normally always cook beans with a ham hock but wanted to see how the recipe turned out without it. One of the ingredients that’s always confusing to me is chili powder – do they mean pure ground up chile pepper or the spice blend to make a pot of chili. I always use chile for pure and chili for the soup blend. In this case, I made an executive decision and used my homemade chili blend, with all of the additional flavors. I also used a little more onion and peppers - mine were roasted anaheims. I’m starting to like this “the recipe is just a suggestion” mentality. The sautéing ingredients smelled so good, I wanted to get a spoon and eat them as is. These are definitely not your run of the mill refried beans and I loved them – one use for the anasazi’s for sure, maybe some baked beans next.

For breakfast then, I gave the corn tortillos a quick fry to warm them up then spread on a layer beans, a layer of chorizo, some warmed salsa verde and shredded cheddar and nuked it for a minute.



I topped it all with a fried egg and a little more salsa (forgot the jalapenos). I guess these would be called heuvos verde. I sided it with a slice of grilled pineapple with a little coconut rum drizzle after flipping – got a nice flambé as it ran over the sides.



It was delicious, but wish I’d remembered the japs – the good news is I have more of everything.

I sure would like to have a good green sauce recipe if you have one to share.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Strawberry Chicken Salad Ala Lea Ann

In keeping with our plan to empty the freezer and eat as many strawberry dishes as we can, we had a recipe I’d saved from Lea Ann over at Mangos Chili and Z. I made up the dressing early per her recipe and seasoned the chicken with some Wolfe Citrus Rub about 1pm. I suggested to Bev that she buy a nice spring greens mix, but she thought the romain and baby spinach we had on hand would work fine. Can you believe it, about 2pm our neighbor showed up at the door with two bags of fresh picked leaf lettuce – the perfect addition to our dinner salad. I quickly got it in cold water, then washed it and put it on a towel to dry a little before I stuck it in the frig.


I like that she’s taking pity on me since I’m not growing anything but a few tomatoes and peppers this year.

Just as Lea Ann did, I lightly coated the chicken in flour and sautéed it in olive oil on all sides to an internal temp of 170*. Bev pre-dressed the lettuce, including S&P, and put it on the plates, then we put the other ingredients on top. My pic isn’t as pretty as Lea Ann's – what do you expect, I’m a big clumsy guy – and I forgot the raisins on mine.


Thanks Lea Ann and now it’s back to the berry patch.

I mowed yesterday and the grass is already suffering from drought stress - never happens in May. It got dark and windy in the early evening and I could seen lots of rain on the radar just west of us (4-5 inches in some places), but we barely got enough to wet the driveway.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Pulled Pork Enchilasagna Verde

The dock is ready for the official opening party and the blogger get together.

It’s easy to get into the habit of preparing the same basic things the same ways without digging out other options. To help with this, Bev and I have decided to try to eat one of each of these every week – Fish/seafood, Mexican, pasta, southern/Cajun/low country – granted, we’ll often get a twofer in one meal. I didn’t include BBQ because it will be used in many of the others, like this meal.

I’d put a bag of delicious pulled pork in the frig from last Wednesday’s BBQ day and had planned to turn it into pork enchiladas with green sauce. But after seeing Enchilasagna over at No Excuses BBQ, we decided to use this assembly process and the planned Emeril recipe as it matched up with the ingredients we had on hand – can of salsa verde, opened can of chicken stock, queso fresco, etc. I ended up only having 1 ½ pounds of pulled pork so I went freezer diving and came up with another pound. I made the dish in a small enough pan to ensure I had enough filling for two layers. I let the meat warm to room temperature and the onions to cool to room temp prior to assembly and I used a whole pound of Quesco fresco in the stuffing. Here are a few shots of the process. First added a thin layer of sauce followed by tortillos and the stuffing.


Then a layer of sauce.


Then repeat and end with a layer of tortillos topped with sauce.


I added some chopped ripe olives and cheddar cheese to the top when it was almost done – can’t get too much cheese you know. After pulling from the oven I added some fresh chopped cilantro, sliced ripe olives, and home canned jalapenos.


My plate.


We all thought the dish was delicious and the only negative I saw was the amount of liquid in the dish bottom. It may take another time or two to get the liquid just right and we’ll definitely make this again. I had four cups of sauce and could have gotten by with less – maybe omit the chicken stock next time or cut it in half.

I wanted to have some Mexican rice and Bev agreed to handle that part of it using a recipe from the internet. She followed the directions but added some chopped green Anaheim chile peppers we had in the freezer and some mixed vegetables, as that’s also what we had in the freezer. Her additions were not enough to overcome a recipe we didn’t care for. I have one more Mexican rice recipe to try as we search for one we like.

All in all a good meat and a delicious enchilasagna – I even had it leftover for breakfast and lunch the next day. Since we’ve never been able to get regular enchiladas out of the pan as whole units anyway, this worked perfect for us. Thanks zydecopaws for a great idea.

Of course we started the whole cooking process with a little libation to set the mood - Bev's is pink due to a splash of guavaberry liqueur.


It was around 90 here yesterday - wow - I'm not looking forward to August. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Gourmet For The Pets

I’d been cooking a lot lately and I guess Bev’s culinary urges were feeling deprived, so she made up a batch of gourmet dog food. She began with a half dozen beaten eggs as a binder then added some chopped old lunchmeat, the Mexican rice we didn’t care for, a jar of canned green beans from a few years ago, chopped carrots & celery, and a few other leftovers from the frig. She mixed it well, cooked everything together, and it looked like this.


Then she mixed in some dry dog food.


Finally, she made individual serving sized balls and froze them - I thought they looked pretty tasty myself :-).


Actually, this is something she does regularly, cooking deprived or not, and the pups love them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Grilled Steak Salad

IF YOU HAVEN'T, PLEASE CHECK SATURDAYS POST ABOUT THE BLOGGER PARTY.

After a big BBQ lunch, we had planned to eat light Friday night and have another strawberry salad for supper. But since we had a couple of left over steaks in the frig we needed use, we had them instead – but still a salad. I seasoned the steaks with Tiger Seasoning and S&P and grilled them on the gasser - then rested and sliced about a quarter inch thick. Bev’s sis had 1000 island on hers and Bev and I used some balsamic vinaigrette we had on hand and then I added some crumbled bleu cheese to my lettuce and then on the meat.


Simple, easy, and delicious. Thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Mothers Day Supper At Almost Heaven South

IF YOU HAVEN'T, PLEASE CHECK SATURDAYS POST ABOUT THE BLOGGER PARTY.

After making Mother's Day breakfast, Bev pretty well took the rest of the day off (as she should) and let me know the kitchen was mine for the day. I had planned to have a Tex Mex dinner, but she decided she’d like to have a pasta dish she’d seen on TV recently. She gave me the specifics she could remember (pasta with greens, cherry tomatoes, maybe shrimp), but in spite of my best searching efforts, which are not too good, I couldn’t find it. So I asked her a few more questions, like do you want red, white or clear sauce – clear. So I looked around some more and found an Ina Garten pasta recipe that uses a shrimp scampi sauce and we agreed we could use it and still add the greens and cherry tomatoes.

But before the pasta, we decided to deep-fry some asparagus that needed to be used – a nice problem to have. The last time I made it, I mentioned I was striving for it to be as good as Puleo’s Grill so I decided to try a Paula Deen recipe. I didn’t have any Creole mustard and found a recipe that said adding ¼ tsp worsey and some hot sauce to 3 tbsp Dijon mustard would do in a pinch, so that’s what I did. Otherwise, I followed her recipe. Bev found this device at Bass Pro Shops for adding breading to things and I used it for the final step – it works really well for this, but it’s another three piece device to wash. Ready to load.


First batch ready for the third breading step.


With the lid on.


After a few shakes, ready for frying.


First batch fried up.


I thought the sauce was a definite keeper for the asparagus, fried green tomatoes, etc. I, also, really liked the spices in the breading, but we all agreed we’d prefer more of a flour, than cornmeal, breading - ours was different than Puleo's but I liked the flavors just as well. Next time - same spices, different breading.

Following is Ina’s recipe for Linguine with shrimp scampi.
Ingredients
· Vegetable oil
· Kosher salt
· 3/4 pound linguine
· 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
· 2 1/2 tablespoons good olive oil
· 1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic (4 cloves)
· 1 pound large shrimp (about 16 shrimp), peeled and deveined
· 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
· 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
· 1/2 lemon, zest grated
· 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
· 1/4 lemon, thinly sliced in half-rounds
· 1/8 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

Directions
Drizzle some oil in a large pot of boiling salted water, add 1 tablespoon of salt and the linguine, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, or according to the directions on the package.

Meanwhile, in another large (12-inch), heavy-bottomed pan, melt the butter and olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic. Saute for 1 minute. Be careful, the garlic burns easily! Add the shrimp, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and the pepper and saute until the shrimp have just turned pink, about 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from the heat, add the parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon slices, and red pepper flakes. Toss to combine.

When the pasta is done, drain the cooked linguine and then put it back in the pot. Immediately add the shrimp and sauce, toss well, and serve.

We followed the recipe except Bev wanted angel hair pasta and we added cherry tomatoes and spinach to the sauce after removing from the heat and we omitted the parsley. And, we can’t eat a pasta dish without a little fresh grated Parmigiano- Reggiano. After the appetizer, we really didn’t want anything else with the pasta and here’s my plate.



We loved it and Bev said “that’s as good as any restaurant pasta dish I ever had.” Thanks Ina for helping me please my darlin on her special day.

Hope you Mom’s had a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Mother’s Day Breakfast

When Bev got up Sunday morning, I wished her a happy Mothers Day and asked if she’d like me to fix her a special breakfast. Her reply – “I already have something I plan to make.” Ok says I and off she goes to the kitchen with this result.



Fried potatoes, red onion and red sweet pepper, topped with cheddar cheese and a fried egg then sided with cottage cheese and grape tomatoes and a couple of pear slices.


She fixed me (us) one of our favorites for Mothers Day - any wonder I love being married to this woman - I am so spoiled, but she did make me clean up.

Hope you have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry