Cuban-style Black Beans

I'm not from Cuba.  I don't claim that this is an authentic recipe.  But it was yummy and I want to record the recipe for my own future reference. 

My Cuban-Style Black Beans
yields: huge pot o' beans!

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 green pepper, chopped
1 stalk celery, minced
2 bay leaves
4 cups dry black beans
12 cups water

Place in large pot over high heat.  Bring to a boil and let roll for two minutes.  Turn off heat, cover, and let sit for two hours.

Bring beans to a simmer after soaking, crack the lid, and let simmer for two hours until soft.  Remove the two bay leaves.  In a little oil over low heat fry the following:

1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced

When soft, add:

1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika

Fry a few more minutes until spices are fragrant, then stir this into the beans.  Continue to cook gently until you are ready to eat.  Add a TBSP of vinegar along with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over rice.  With sour cream and fried plantains if at all possible.

Pimento Cheese

As is so typical of my food saga stories, this one began with a craving, continued months later with a disgruntled me complaining of the mass-produced, store-bought version prompting a lengthy internet search for recipes followed by lots of testing, and ending--FINALLY--with a recipe I love and can call my own.  Of course, this all happened about a year ago too.  *smile*

Pimento cheese.  I honestly didn't know it was such a nostalgic southern thing until I started reading people's stories that went along with their recipes.  Memories of their grandmothers making dainty "pimenta cheese" sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off.  Hey now.  We'll have none of that here.  I wanted a good, stiff pimento cheese (not the kind dripping with mayo!) that could talk back to a crust and leave you wanting more no matter what side of the Mason-Dixon line you grew up in.

And here it is folks.  Oh, just a note about the peppers.  I know this is called pimento cheese, but I kinda cheated and used plain ol' red bell pepper.  Even at $1 a piece, it beats paying for a tiny jar of pimentos, and I thought it tasted just as good.  I made this with fresh, raw peppers as well as roasted ones.  It was delicious both ways. 

Pimento Cheese (and cheese ball--read to the end!)

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (may use 1/2 Monterrey Jack) about 1 lb.  1/2 lb. total

4 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 TBSP minced onion
6 TBSP mayonnaise
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped (usually 1/2 a pepper)

Place everything except 1/2 of the shredded cheese and the bell pepper in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Add the remaining cheese and red bell pepper and pulse until incorporated.  (I like my pepper pieces and some of the cheese to remain intact rather than  blended into one orange mess--see picture below)  Alternatively, place all the ingredients in a bowl and stir together until they're thoroughly mixed!  Tastes better after a day or two in the fridge.  If it lasts that long.   It will stiffen up in the fridge (which makes it a great pretzel dip!) so get it out to warm a bit if you want to spread it for sandwiches.  Other ways to eat it: as a veggie dip, on a burger, in a grilled cheese sandwich, tossed with mac n' cheese, or just straight off your tasting finger!

 the texture I like

size of onion mince vs. chopped pepper

 

To make this into a cheese ball, just add less mayonnaise (I used 4 TBSP instead of 6) and form it into a ball after it has been refrigerated.  The one below I rolled in a mixture of chopped parsley and toasted sliced almonds.  Use a small knife or cheese spreader to serve this.

Three Kings

Do you get stressed out over the winter holidays?  Does Christmas seem to sneak up on you too fast, and you find you just can't get all the things done that you wanted to before it arrives?  My friends, I have a solution:  Three Kings' Day.  Apparently we like to borrow traditions around here.  This one is from Latin America and some parts of Europe.  The celebration takes place on January 6 and commemorates the arrival of the wise people seeking the Christ child in Bethlehem.  

In a way, you're just stretching out the holiday season, so it might seem like more stress to add another one.  But believe me, it is SOOO relaxing to celebrate a holiday that no one around you knows about or pressures you to observe in any particular way!  We choose to give our gifts to each other on Three Kings' Day because it just seems to make more sense to connect the gift giving with those wise people.  Plus, this way we can enjoy the Christmas celebrations with our extended families without having to squeeze our own family time in sometime, somewhere, somehow.  We have our own Christmas season traditions that make the time special for us without the presents.  

Since we've borrowed Three Kings' Day from another culture (and some cool families we know), we don't try to be all authentic with it or anything (in fact, we celebrated a week late this year on January 13--who cares?!?  it's just for us!) but this year I did look up some traditional foods for the holiday and decided to make a "rosca de reyes"--Three Kings' Bread. 

 

I won't tell you how many pictures I took trying to make this look more appealing.  That would be embarrassing and seem contrary to the nature of this blog (which my husband is always accusing of not being "uncensored" enough in that I don't post every single dish I ever make).  But for the record, I think it would have looked better if I had taken some sort of icing application class or just not put any of those Princess-Leia's-hair-like loops of icing on it.  YET, the added sweetness was a definite bonus (I flavored the plain icing with cinnamon!), so I'll try not to be too vain about it. I also would forgo the orange slices which I put on along with the colored sugar for some festive flair.  It just meant that the bread was soggy underneath and not slathered with yummy hair-like loops of icing.

The bread is eggy, lightly sweet, and lightly spiced with cinnamon and orange zest.  I pretty much followed this recipe.  Which is pretty much the exact same thing as the Easter bread I made last year (just switch out the orange zest for lemon zest and swap the baby Jesus for an egg!  viola!).  We didn't really put in a baby Jesus figurine since we don't celebrate Candlemas on February 2 (whoever bites into the figurine treats everyone to tamales at Candlemas apparently).  

So you see, we pretty much do our own thing, incorporating bits and pieces of the tradition that we like.  We took the bread over to my in-laws' that evening and "caroled" for them ("We Three Kings", of course!) before sharing the bread and hot chocolate together.  That in itself was fun enough to make this a true tradition for our family by doing it again next year.  Maybe we'll even hit the right day!

Apple Pie: Two Ways

About a month ago I got all these apples at an Amish farm about 1/2 hour from where we live. Some of them were delicious and we made applesauce with them. Then others were just plain . . . plain (this is not an Amish joke).  They were bland. And I've been thinking of ways to use them (I think there are actually about a dozen still left). One of my ideas was to use them for jazzed-up pies. 

The first pie (pictured on the right) was traditional, the way my husband makes them: sliced apples piled high, then dumped out and tossed with lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon and dumped back in. Or something like that. He usually finishes his apple pies off with a crumb topping, but I had plenty of pastry dough so I double-crusted mine.  Spoiler: this turned out to be the better of the two pies.  If it ain't broke, right?

The second way was an experiment for peanut-butter apple pie. My idea was to simply make crumbs as for a peanut butter pudding pie (peanut butter mixed with powdered sugar) and layer that with the apple slices. Sounds good, right? It turned out okay. Which is to say the crumbs kinda just got wet, and the apples didn't seem to cook through as well as they did in the traditional pie. Was it too many vents (cute hearts though they be?) that let the steam out instead of trapping it to cook the apples? Who knows. But I think if I tried this another time, I would make some sort of creamy peanut butter sauce and just put it under the apples because--as my apple-pie-expert husband points out--when you eat apples with peanut butter it's normally just a smear of peanut butter on one side of the apple. At least that's how we do it around here. 

 Any other suggestions?

Pupusa Journey

Pupusa: a fried cheese-stuffed corn meal patty with red tomato-y salsa (salsa roja) and vinegar-y cabbage and carrot slaw (curtido).  Origen: El Salvador.  Currently unavailable in the region I live in.

Except in my own kitchen.

(you'll see even more of these kinds of posts [noodle bowl, jiaozi, etc.] as I learn how to re-create some of my favorite foods that I can't buy where I now live)

No recipes today.  I'm still working out my technique.  Looking at the picture above, my mouth is literally watering.  The darkened flecks, the cheese oozing out the sides, the mound of pupusas waiting to be devoured . . . it all looks right.  But it's not quite.  My pupusas are too thick, and when your masa-to-cheese ratio is skewed, it just ain't right. You want them (well, I want them) to be thin enough that when you wrap up your salsa roja and curtido (see below) the thing bends delicately.  Mine tend to crack.  Well, learning to make pupusas by myself in the wilds of Pennsylvania was bound to be a journey.  And thanks to a recent trip to Virginia to re-stock my Maseca, the journey will continue.

Crockpot Apple Butter

This really makes the house smell glorious, and it tastes pretty good too. I started my apple butter project at Thanksgiving by buying some apples intended for this purpose. At two months, there was one completely rotten apple and a few that were on their way out. Fast!

Yesterday I peeled and cored what was still good of the apples and sliced them up into my crockpot. The apples filled the crockpot (pictured below) right up to the lid. I added two cinnamon sticks (about 3 inches long each), about 10 whole cloves, and a little water to prevent the apples from burning on the bottom. I cooked them on high for about an hour just to get things going, and then turned it down to low. These babies cooked a full 24 hours, through our slumbering and into the following afternoon. I stirred them as I thought about them.

This afternoon I fished out the cinnamon sticks, ladled the brown, juicy mass into a blender with a cup of sugar, a dash of vanilla, a pinch of salt, and a bit of grated fresh nutmeg and whizzed for a few minutes until smooth. It looked like what you see in the picture.

After eating a full slice of toast slathered with butter and hot apple butter, I had to eat another half. Just to make sure I really liked the flavor. =)

Yep. It's a winner!

Christmas Feast

I know. I know. It was the same thing last year. Tamales and pozole for Christmas. But this year the pozole was a miracle and it rocked! What happened was we were at least an hour into our 5-hour trip for Christmas when I realized that in the whole igloo full of food, I hadn't put in pozole from the freezer. Luckily, I had just been looking up ideas for pozole toppings the day before and had read a blurb about making pozole, so it was pretty fresh in my mind. I had also happened to bring along some pork tenderloin I thought we might use in tamales. When we stopped for breakfast we made a quick trip to Food Lion for hominy and oregano. I called my mother in law (who was still at home) and asked her to bring chili powder, garlic, and bouillon.

And it turned out great! What makes the soup scrumptious is all the fresh toppings (which I DID remember to pack) that you add to your bowl when you eat it.

Anita's Throw-it-Together Pozole

1 lb. (more or less) pork tenderloin, cubed
1 29-oz. can white hominiy
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 chicken (or veg) bouillon cubes
water
oregano, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In your soup pot, fry the cubed pork until browned (add a little water if it sticks). Add the garlic and saute a bit. Toss a bit of oregano and chili powder (one tsp. each?) and saute some more. Add hominy, bouillon, and enough water to cover plus some. Stew until ready to eat (and meat is cooked through)--for me, this was pretty much all day. Add more water as needed for the consistency you like. Correct seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. It will taste bland, but serve with the following garnishes for the pizzaz: chopped cilantro; fresh lime; avocado wedges; chopped green onion; sliced radishes; and extra oregano. Get creative with other veggies/herbs you like!

Holiday Eating

This is Christmas Eve . . . Pozole and Tamales

When I was shopping at the local Asian/Latino grocery store before Christmas, my friend who works there asked, "So, are you making anything special for Christmas? Tamales?" Well, I hadn't been planning on it . . . but why not?! I had just seen tamal-making in operation at work and I was at the place where I could buy all the supplies. I went for it, and it was so much fun!

I made two different sauces--a mole ("mol-ay", which is a Mexican chili-chocolate sauce) and a tomatillo-jalapeno sauce. We used chicken and prunes with the mole and ground venison with the green sauce. I went ahead and cooked the meats so I wouldn't have to worry about them cooking inside the tamales. I found a masa recipe online that didn't call for lard, and bought banana leaves to wrap them in. Then we went to work! After wrapping them up, they were placed over water in a steamer basket (one of those fold-out kind) in my big stockpot and steamed for about an hour.

While the steaming was going on, I had plenty of time to make pozole--a chicken, hominy soup in a mildly tomato-y broth. While the soup itself is a little bland you get to have fun adding all the fresh toppings--cilantro, diced tomatoes, green onions, and lime juice!


My sister-in-law and her husband were coming down from Pennsylvania to have lunch with us, and I regret to say the tamales kept us waiting . . . I hadn't planned on the appropriate amount of time to let them steam. But, when all was "said and done" we had a mighty feast and enjoyed it to!

Later in the day, we went Asian with fresh spring rolls for a dinner with my family. I wasn't quite as happy with these results as with the tamales and pozole. I undercooked the rice noodles a tad, and I think we made the rolls a bit too fat. But with all those fresh herbs, flavor itself was salvaged! Better luck next time.

Cook's Word: Tamales and pozole: could definitely become a tradition. Spring rolls? The jury is out.

Butternut Pie

Nothing novel here. Just take your favorite pumpkin pie recipe and substitute an equal amount of butternut squash puree for the pumpkin! This is for those of you who are lucky enough to have an abundance of butternut in your garden. Or for those of you who don't want to mess with cooking a whole pumpkin.

I just cut my butternut into small pieces, peel, and cook them with minimal water. When soft, I mash them roughly with a fork and let them cool a bit. When you're ready to make pie filling, lob all the ingredients into a blender. This ensures that the squash will get smoothly pureed.

Happy autumn cooking!

"bitten"

Taste-tester reports that the pie is yummy but a little too spicy. Cook's note-to-self: hold some of the cloves next time!

Southern Summer

Now if fried green tomatoes and corn cakes don't make a grand southern summer-time meal! And the smell of frying! I've got kind of a love/hate relationship with that smell. I love it fresh when I'm snitching hot fried green tomatoes from the draining plate, but after an hour or so if I leave the kitchen and get a whiff of that burnt/fried smell in the air, it can about turn my stomach. Ugh.

The corn cakes are topped with some homemade yogurt and salsa, while the fried green tomatoes are accompanied by some of my tomato chutney from earlier in the summer. This meal, while somewhat deficient in color and variety, was chock-full of veggies (corn, tomatoes--red and green, onion, green pepper). I started off by just making the fried tomatoes, then used the leftover soaking mix (milk, egg, salt pepper) and dredging mix (cornmeal, flour, cayenne) as a base for some corn cakes. They were a bit too wet, but delicious none-the-less. Thanks, Tabitha, for the inspiration!

One parting shot of the 'maters. . .




Now, doesn't that plate of fried food and bright yellow table look just like a true southern diner?

Zippy Roasted Sweet Potatoes

While waiting for the pictures of my sweet potatoes to load, my spider solitaire win rate took a one percent dip. Grrrr . . .

But here I am in my cozy little house, the dishwasher humming in the kitchen from company dishes last night and a rapid-fire dinner put together this evening in honor of the half bottle of wine that was left over. But more about that another time.

For now, I want to talk about sweet potatoes. Peeled, cut, tossed with butter and spices and roasted for about 30 minutes. Delish! I served them up with some tomato and basil sauce-less pizza and a bowl of olives. No plates. No utensils. Just fingers and good food!

Pre-cooked

Cooked

Let me attempt a recipe:

2 cups peeled and cut sweet potatoes (mine were like thick home fries)
2 TBSP butter, melted
1/4 tsp powdered rosemary
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste

Toss all that, add some fresh oregano or thyme sprigs, and throw it in a 350F oven. Check them periodically with a fork to see if they're soft enough. I think mine were in about 30 - 40 minutes. When they're cooked through, broil them a few minutes for some crunchiness. Let them cool a bit, then dump into a bowl and have at it! Forget the forks.

Mol-ay

It's actually spelled "mole", but I didn't want you to think I was cooking a small backyard varmit. No, this is the Mexican "mole" (pronounced "mole-ay"), a delicious chili-chocolate sauce served over chicken and rice.


Making mole had been on my want-to-do list for over a year by the time all the conditions were right to do it. I had been afraid of mole from the time (many, many moons ago) my older sister had ordered it at a restaurant and hated it. But my tolerance for many foods has changed as an adult--I like hardboiled eggs and brussels sprouts now, for instance--so a year ago, I braved the old mole memory and ordered it for my birthday dinner.

And I liked it.

And I wanted to make it.

I thought about it for a while. A few months later I looked up recipes. And balked. With a list of about 20 ingredients, I was seriously dissuaded. I tried a search for "simple mole". But the list of five ingredients (consisting of chili powder and cocoa powder) was even less appealing. I put it off. I fell back on my old excuses that I just never got down to that store that had the things I needed. My desire waned.

But one day, I was at that store. And I had just looked up a recipe again to see what kind of chili's I needed. And I bought two packages of chili's. When I got home, I stashed them in an upper cupboard. I still didn't have chicken or Mexican chocolate, or a slice of stale bread. Desire waned.

I bought baker's chocolate.

Desire waned.

I looked at recipes again. I chose one and copied it into my notes.

Desire waned.

Then one auspicious day, my sister-in-law planned a potluck. I offered to host. Another sister-in-law called to ask about what I was planning to make. I hesitated. I wavered. And then I plunged. "I think I'll make mole" I casually replied.

Now I was locked in. I even had a sign of confirmation that this was meant to be--a loaf of bread came my way and never got re-claimed by its rightful owners. There was my slice. I went to the local grocer and picked up chicken pieces.

Unfortunately--the day of--I only had about an hour to make the sauce. "Unfortunate" because the method calls for toasting most of the ingredients separately before dumping everything together to simmer and bubble into the delicious sauce. I wished I had two more hands, but I flew around the kitchen with determination. Never mind that I was missing two ingredients. I would simply have to do without.

An hour later, I left my husband with instructions to check the chicken after an hour and turn the heat off under the sauce, give it a stir, and cover it when the timer went off.

And that was that. I had made mole.

And it was good.

And now I want to make it again. But better.

The End.

Famous Casserole

I don't make casseroles very often. I'm more of a stove-top cook. Maybe it's the time involved; maybe it's the fact that I have to use so much energy to heat the oven. But when you're having a potluck at your home, the appeal of a casserole grows. I wanted to keep things simple for home group potlucks, so I was doing the soup thing. Soup is simple, right? Well, when you don't have a table that more than six people can sit around comfortably, and guests are trying to juggle bowl, plate, and cup on their knees as they sit on a couch . . . well, the simplicity factor warps a bit. Not to mention the extra clean-up (from potential spills as well as the extra dishes).

So for my second hosting attempt, I did the casserole thing. It's still a one-pot dish. One plate. No hot liquids. You see the appeal.

I took my original soup idea, made it less liquid-y, added some rice, popped it into the oven for 30 minutes, and . . .

Anita's Famous Butternut-Bean Chipotle Casserole* is born!
(yield: one 9 X 13)

olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 butternut squash (or pumpkin or sweet potato), cubed (4 cups)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne (or to taste)
29 oz.-can crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
15.5 oz.-can beans (I only had kidney on hand, but would have preferred black)
1-2 TBSP chipotle sauce (optional, but then you might have to change the name of the casserole)
3-4 cups cooked rice
cheese (I didn't have any, but this would be a good addition


Instructions: In a large stock-pot saute the onion and garlic in about 2 TBSP of olive oil over medium heat. When onions are translucent, add cumin, cinnamon, and cayenne and saute a few more minutes, stirring constantly. Add remaining ingredients--except the rice and cheese--and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook until the squash (or pumpkin, or sweet potato) is tender, about 25 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350F. When squash is tender add rice and cheese if using, pour into a greased 9 X 13 baking dish, and bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Sprinkle more cheese (I think a sharp cheddar would be delish!) on top to melt before serving.



*(that pretentious title is a joke, by the way, but it was tasty and it got cleaned up pretty fast)

Birthday Pie

Whenever I solicit a special dessert request, my husband usually asks for pie. His favorites? Shoo-fly and pecan. For his 30th birthday this year, he was in a pecan mood.

I like pecan pie too, but I'm not a huge fan of pecan pie which is basically a custard with some pecans floating on top. I want a dense, not-too-too-sweet pie chock-full of pecans. This one fit the bill (and I think he liked it too!). Now let me go find that splattered piece of paper I wrote everything down on so I can pass the goodness to you . . .


Birthday Pecan Pie

1 c. pecans, chopped and toasted
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 TBSP flour
1 TBSP milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. maple flavoring

Place pecans in un-baked pie shell (I pre-baked mine a few minutes so it wouldn't get soggy). Beat together eggs and sugars. Stir in butter. Add remaining ingredients and stir until smooth. Pour filling over pecans. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 300F and bake another 40-50 minutes. Let pie cool to room temperature before eating. No need to garnish!

Sweet Potato Pecan Pie

See that pie on the right? After testing and re-testing my pumpkin pie recipe for Thanksgiving, I ended up liking this sweet potato pecan pie even better.

I found the recipe here at allrecipes.com. I made a few changes because we were running low on brown sugar (and something else I can't remember anymore), but it was so simple. I just threw my cooked, diced sweet potatoes in the blender with all the ingredients except the pecans, and whizzed until smooth! Pour into the pie crust, sprinkle pecans on top, and that's it! The filling did make more than would fit in my standard 9-inch pie pan (try a deep dish pan), so I ended up making a mini one for the in-laws too. Try it for yourself!

Late Summer Salsa

There is a tree just around the corner from my house whose leaves have turned yellow-brown and are falling at the slightest provocation. I've gotten out the sweater socks and swapped the summer quilt for a thicker one. Yep. All signs point towards fall. I've almost committed to this being my favorite season. I love the air nipping at me and getting cozy with warm blankets, hot tea, and hoodies. And scarves. I simply relish the smell of decaying leaves and the way cooler air seems to sharpen that sense of smell.

By winter, coziness has lost its charm, and I pine for spring. The thrill of crocuses and daffodils! The glory of budding dogwoods and redbuds! The delight at tossing off winter coats and daring to go barefoot again! And so I just can't quite commit completely to fall.

But it is one of my top seasonal loves. In Number One spot for the time being. For better or for worse, fall is about here and there's no chance to preserve any more of summer (unless I do some sun-dried tomatoes yet). Our four plants (yes, all tomatoes) are slowing production, and in a few short weeks a good frost is going to nip any remaining buds. This evening I was seized by a nostalgic urge to make the most of the time I had left with my backyard produce. Inspired by some in-laws, I decided to make salsa (sans cilantro), using just what I had in my own backyard.

Colander in hand, I headed out to the tomato patch for the main ingredient--green and red roma's and golden nugget tomatoes yielded to a slight tug. I added two small bell peppers (we did plant some peppers, they just got--literally--overshadowed by the tomato plants). Next stop: herb patch. Basil, chives, rosemary, lavender, and marigold. And in the front flower bed, a tiny jalepeno that survived a slug-crunching early in the growing season. A quick rinse, a shake, some dicing and chopping, and viola! Salsa. It doesn't get much more local than this, folks! Below is a rendering of what I came up with.


Anita's Late Summer Salsa

2 cups diced assorted tomatoes
1 small bell pepper, diced (about 1/3 cup)
2 tsp minced fresh chives
2 tsp minced fresh basil
1/4 tsp minced fresh rosemary (I don't like a strong rosemary flavor)
1/4 tsp lavender flowers (careful not to add too many of these!)
1 pathetically small jalepeno, minced
Petals of one marigold
not from the garden:
1 tsp olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lemon
salt/pepper to taste

Instructions: are any needed? Stir ingredients together. Eat.

Served up with some fried plantains
(also not from our garden!)

Happy Last Week of Summer!

Salsa, Salsa!

I had a day off this week, so what did I do? Spent the whole day on my feet turning our garden roma tomatoes into salsa. I wished I'd planted some green peppers and onions to go into it. Maybe next year . . .

I started with my mom's salsa recipe and another one I found online, making up my own version as I went. Several hours and loads of sweat later, I ended up with about 16 pints. Yay!!!

Anita's Salsa Picante

Yield: about 16 pints

26 c. chopped roma tomatoes (skins, seeds, and all!)
4 1/2 c. chopped onion
4 c. chopped bell pepper
6 jalepenos, chopped (seeds and all!), plus two dried cayenne peppers, minced
2 TBSP sugar
4 1/2 TBSP salt
2 TBSP cumin
10 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 (10.75 oz.) can of tomato sauce
1 (6 oz.) can of tomato paste
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 bunch cilantro, chopped fine

I basically put everything in a pan and simmered until it was the right consistency and taste. I think I overcooked it, though, because everything got mushy. I added the vinegar, lime juice, and cilantro right at the end, did a quick taste check, and it was ready! Another time, I think I'll cook the "sauce" ingredients (tomato paste and sauce, spices, vinegar) and add to the tomato/onion/peppers mix without further cooking. Once you process them for 25 minutes in a boiling water bath, they'll probably get thoroughly cooked!

It's spicy!!!

Beans & Rice 1

I call this Beans & Rice 1 because I have so many variations on this theme! Tonight I just needed something fast and easy. It's too hot to cook for long. My beans and rice always include the following: oil, onions, garlic, canned chili's or hot pepper, cumin, salt, and cooked/canned beans. That's the basic, and it goes from there depending on how creative I'm feeling or what else I have on hand. Tonight I added tomato sauce for something different.

Beans & Rice 1

2 TBSP vegetable oil
1/2 med. onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
few pieces canned chili's
1 tsp. cumin
1 (15 oz.) can red beans
1/2 (15 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
1 chicken bullion cube
dash of brown sugar (maybe 1/2 tsp?)
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and saute until translucent. Add the chili's and crush with stirring utensil. Add cumin, stir, and let cook a minute or so. Add beans,crushed tomatoes, chicken bullion, and about a 1/4 cup water and simmer until heated through. Eat over rice.

Tonight I topped my beans and rice with some raw shredded cabbage, diced golden nugget tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil, and a squeeze of lime juice. Fresh mango slices sprinkled with cayenne pepper on the side. Cook's Word? Mmmmmmm . . . add some fresh cilantro and take it to another level of delish.