knitting a life

One of our favorite casserole dinners is an adaptation of a dish I found many years ago in Molly Katzen’s Still Life with Menu cookbook.

The recipe includes some of my favorite ingredients — roasted poblano peppers,

Mexican cheeses (like cotija and queso fresco), and tortillas,

smothered with a tangy buttermilk and egg custard.

It’s the kind of dish you can make in a hurry using canned roasted peppers, or that you can spend more time on, roasting and peeling the poblanos yourself.

Either way, it’s always a crowd-pleaser and something my friends all ask me to bring to pot luck dinners.

Chilaquiles
Recipe adapted from Still Life with Menu, by Molly Katzen

2 Tbs olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
4-6 fresh poblano chiles, roasted , peeled and sliced*
OR
2 4 oz cans whole green chilies (you can also use roasted red peppers if you like, and you can also add things like chicken, crabmeat, or sautéed shrimp)
12 corn tortillas
2 -3 cups grated cotija and queso fresco cheeses, mixed (you can  also substitute Monterrey Jack)
salt and pepper to taste
4 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Butter or oil a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan and add the onions and garlic.  Sauté until onions are translucent.  Add the roasted or canned green chilies, roasted red peppers and shrimp or crabmeat if you are using them.
Tear the tortillas into bite sized pieces and spread 1/3 of them in the bottom of the pan.
Distribute 1/3 of the chili-onion mixture and 1/3 of the cheese over the tortillas.  Repeat these layers twice more, saving a healthy amount of cheese to sprinkle on top.
Beat the eggs and buttermilk together with salt and pepper and slowly pour this mixture over the casserole.
Top with remaining cheese.

Bake uncovered for 35 minutes, or until bubbling and browning on top.

*To roast fresh poblanos, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place the whole peppers on a baking sheet and roast them for about 10 minutes, until they begin to char.  Turn the peppers and return them to the oven for another 10 minutes or so.  When the peppers are charred all over, remove them from the oven and let them rest, covered with aluminum foil, until they have cooled.  Carefully peel away the charred skin and remove the seeds before slicing them into strips.

I am not sure why it never occurred to me that I could make tomatillo salsa with raw tomatillos.  In previous summers I had made salsas with roasted or par-boiled tomatillos, but never with the raw, unadultered fruit.

The other day, in a hurry to come up with something to accompany the chiles rellenos I was working on, I decided to experiment.  The result was an eye-opener.  Not only was this the easiest salsa I had ever made, it was tart and tangy with just a little bit of heat (the jalapeño provided that).

It went perfectly with the rellenos, and equally well later in the week on eggs for breakfast, and again (when I made a second batch) on some pan seared albacore tuna. It goes with everything!

Here’s the recipe:

Fresh Tomatillo Salsa
Makes about 1 cup

8 – 10 medium fresh tomatillos, outer skin removed
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 Tbs. freshly squeezed lime juice
½  to 1 fresh jalapeño, seeds removed
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 tsp coarse salt (more to taste)
freshly ground pepper to taste

Put first 5 ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and process until everything is chopped fine.  Add salt and whir again.  Add additional salt and pepper to taste.

Serve as is, or let the salsa sit for about 15 minutes and drain excess liquid.  Can be refrigerated for up to a week.

Quick, tasty and colorful — it’s a burst of summer in a spoon.  I think you could also freeze it (if freezing works with pesto, why not with this?) and  give yourself a reminder of summer months from now when the sun hasn’t shone for weeks.

We all want to eat healthy food (at least most of the time!), and, if you are anything like me, there’s not a lot of time or energy left at the end of a busy day to invent and prepare new, tasty meals.  That’s why I try to keep a few things on hand that make dinner prep easy and give me time to relax and enjoy good food even after a long day at work.

Pasta (one of the staples I always have in my pantry) paired with homemade pesto (this is something I make on weekends and then keep refrigerated or frozen for use later) has always been one of my favorite go-to, quick dinners.

This version, which includes some tofu (handily disguised so any tofu rejecters in your house won’t even know it’s there) for extra protein and flavor, is particularly delicious.

For this dish I used Parsley Pesto (which I made by combining one bunch fresh parsley, stems removed, 3/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, three cloves of garlic, a generous pinch of salt, and 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil in the food processor) and 12 ounces of medium firm, organic tofu (I like the local, Ota brand).

After whirring the pesto and tofu together in the food processor I simply tossed about a cup of the mixture in a big bowl with some al dente pasta.

The result was fresh-tasting and also hearty.  It’s a new favorite in our house!

We’re in the thick of blueberry season now and I can’t stop myself from buying more every time I go to the grocery store or the farmer’s market.  The berries are plump and juicy, perfectly sweet, and the ideal addition to oatmeal or waffles.  They are also great eaten alone.

Given my recent interest in making jam, though, and my discovery of a tantalizing recipe for Savory Blueberry Jam on the beautiful blog Z Tasty life, I had to give blueberry jam a try.  I was particularly intrigued by the idea of a savory jam that was intended to serve with cheese and crackers.

I also liked the idea that I could make this jam on the stovetop.  And to top it off, blueberries are so naturally full of pectin (the ingredient that makes jellies “jell”) that you don’t need to add Sure-Jell to make the jam thicken.  All in all, a simple and tasty idea, I thought.  And I was right.

I quickly sautéed some finely chopped shallot in olive oil and added the berries and sugar (I used a bit less than one cup of sugar — these berries were already pretty sweet) to the pan.

Balsamic vinegar, chopped rosemary, nutmeg and pepper went in next as the berries began to simmer.  As the liquid evaporated and the berries broke down, the jam thickened nicely and the fragrance of berries, rosemary and balsamic vinegar perfumed my kitchen.

After about 15 minutes the jam was ready and I spooned it into jars (I didn’t sterilize them — I’ll keep this jam in the refrigerator and use it within the next few weeks).

You can find the recipe here.