Gringa Cooking in Mexico

Vegan Low-Fat Buttermilk Drop Scones with Dried Fruit

2012-10-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

En español

I always thought I didn't like scones. It turns out that I don't like stale scones. Warm, fresh scones straight from the oven are a different story entirely. They're fast, easy, delicious, and divine with a cup of coffee or Oaxacan hot chocolate.

I veganized this recipe from The New All Purpose Joy of Cooking. It really is a great book, even for vegetarians and vegans.

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 c. sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 TB ground flax seeds (you can grind whole flax seeds in a dry blender)
3 TB water
1 TB white vinegar
~1 c. soy milk
3 TB oil
1/2 c. dried fruit such as raisins, currants, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, chopped apricots, or chopped pears
cinnamon sugar

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a cookie sheet.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
In a smaller bowl, whisk the ground flax seeds and water until the mixture is viscous.
Put the vinegar in a measuring cup. Add soy milk to equal one cup.
Whisk the oil into the flaxseed/water mixture until combined. Whisk in vinegar/soy milk mixture and dried fruit.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are just moistened (don't over mix!). The batter will be very sticky.
Using a half-cup measuring cup, ice cream scoop, or a soup ladle, drop the scones onto the greased cookie sheet, leaving at least one inch between scones. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top.
Bake on the center rack at 400°F until the tops of the scones are golden, 12-15 minutes. My oven maxes out at 350°F, so I baked my scones for 20-30 minutes.
Make sure you eat at lease one scone straight out of the oven!

Makes about 7 scones.

Homemade Onion-Herb White Bread

2012-09-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

En español

This bread was a hit at a recent dinner party. You don't find too many homemade savory breads here in Mexico, so when you show up at a dinner with one of these loaves, folks will think you're a cooking god... and you are, aren't you?

My favorite part about this bread (aside from the rave reviews that were lavished upon me all night) is that it only cost me $30 pesos, or less than $3 dollars, to make FOUR loaves.

I made two loaves in bread pans and I braided the other two loaves Challah-style. The braided loaves were beautiful, and the bread pan loaves have made some delicious sandwiches.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups soy or cows milk (I used soy)
5 TB sugar
2 TB salt
4 1/2 tsp bread yeast
2 cups water
12-13 cups white flour
5 TB melted butter or margerine, or olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
1 tsp dried basil
2 tsp crushed rosemary

PREPARATION

Combine milk, sugar, salt, and water in a pan and heat on the stove until lukewarm (it should feel warm, not hot, on your wrist). Remove from heat and dissolve yeast in the mixture. Set aside.
In a very large bowl (you might even want to use a Dutch oven if you don't have a very large bowl), combine half of the flour and all of the dried herbs. Add the liquid-yeast mixture from step 1. Mix until smooth, then add the melted butter or oil and the minced onion. Mix until smooth, then add the remaining flour.
Knead the dough for ten minutes, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky. As you knead, your dough should be silky soft, elastic, and not sticky at all. It should be easy to knead the dough, although you will certainly break a sweat as you knead, because the dough will weigh about five pounds! To avoid making a huge mess on my table, I always knead my dough directly in my bowl or Dutch oven.
Oil your bowl or Dutch oven, and place your dough ball inside. Flip the dough ball over so that the whole ball gets covered in oil. The oil will make sure the dough doesn't dry out as it rises.
Cover the bowl containing the dough with a towel and place in a warm, draft-free place. If it's a cold or rainy day, you might need to fire up your oven for just a few minutes, then turn it off and put your dough inside to rise where it's nice and warm. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and divide it into four equal peices (I cut mine into quarters with a knife). Shape each peice into a loaf and place either in a greased bread pan or on a greased cookie sheet. Cover the loaves again with a towell and let them rise until double in size, about one hour.
While the loaves are rising, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
When the loaves have risen, place them in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until the loaves begin to get a golden color and they sound hollow when you knock on them.
Let the loaves cool for about ten minutes, then remove them from the pans and/or baking sheets and set them on a rack to cool. IMPORTANT! You need to let them cool completely (about an hour) before you cut them. This is very tricky if you don't live alone!

Makes 4 1-lb. loaves.

Vegan Soy Sloppy Joes

2012-09-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Photo: Learning Vegan

This recipe is for "Messy Mikes" from my favorite cookbook author Joanne Stepaniak's book Vegan Vittles. She offers two versions: one made with tempeh and one with TVP (texturized vegetable protein). I'm reprinting her TVP version here because while Mexico doesn't have tempeh, every corner store in the country seems to carry TVP (they call it "soya"), along with the rest of these everyday ingredients. Make this recipe, and your Mexican friends will once again be so surprised at how you can use common Mexican ingredients to create such an exotic traditional gringo dish!

A note on some of the ingredients: this recipe calls for ketchup and apple cider vinegar. If you're in Mexico, I highly suggest you work hard to find Heinz ketchup. I found it in Sam's Club. US-style ketchup is far superior to Mexican-style ketchup, which is so watered down that it hardly tastes like tomato at all and the color looks like orange soda syrup. Since Heinz has more tomatoes, it's also more prostate-healthy than its Mexican counterpart. So splurge. You won't regret it.

This recipe also calls for apple cider vinegar. Stay away from the grocery store, because most of those vinegars are white vinegar (you know, the kind made from wood chips) with food coloring. I kid you not, check out the ingredients. Traditional Mexican markets (the mercaditos) have fabulous homemade apple cider vinegar! You'll find them at a lot of vegetable stands. They'll be in plastic water bottles with the labels peeled off. They'll look a lot like honey, and maybe you always thought they were honey, but they're not! If you haven't seen what I'm talking about, go to your local mercadito and ask any vendor where they sell vinagre de manzana casero. Store-bought vinegar will do in a pinch, but, again, the real thing is really worth the effort. And it's just better for you.

So, without further ado, here is Joanne Stepaniak's Messy Mikes:

INGREDIENTS

1 TB olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 c. TVP rehydrated with 7/8 c. water
2 TB soy sauce
1/2 c. ketchup
1 tsp sweetener of your choice (I use sugar)
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
Bread rolls (try bolillos or hamburger buns)

PREPARTION

Soak the TVP in the water while you dice the onions (it should soak at least 5 minutes).
Place the oil in a 2-quart saucepan, and heat it over medium-high. When the oil is hot, add the diced onion, TVP, and soy sauce, and sauté them until the onion is tender and lightly browned, about ten minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients except the bread, and mix well. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer the mixture, uncovered, for 10 minutes, stirring often and making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan.
Open the rolls as if you were to make a sandwich and stuff them with the TVP mixture. Serve and enjoy!

Vegan Espresso Shortbread Cookies With Irish Whiskey Glaze

2012-02-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

I found this recipe in the Orlando Sentinel. It was adapted by the Sentinel from a recipe by cooking teacher Janine MacLachlan. She says about the recipe: "I've deconstructed the classic Irish coffee by using ground coffee or espresso and Irish whiskey in a shortbread cookie."

This cookie recipe is amazing, easy, and completely delicious. The cookies are crunchy, and the ground coffee gives them a little extra crunch (that's why you want to use ground coffee and not instant coffee powder). The sweet whiskey glaze makes them anything but your boring old shortbread cookie.

You can whip up a batch in a flash. The most difficult and time-consuming part is waiting for the cookies to cool so that you can glaze them.

It's easy to make this recipe vegan. Just replace the butter with margarine. Make sure you choose a brand that doesn't have trans fats, though, because this cookie is like a whiskey-flavored heart attack. Look for a tub margarine; they're less likely to contain hydrogenated oils, which is where the trans fats are hiding.

INGREDIENTS

2 sticks (225 g) butter or margarine at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 TB ground espresso or coffee (not instant!)

Glaze

1/4 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup whiskey or bourbon
2 TB butter or margarine

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Stir together butter, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Mix in about half the flour; stir in the ground coffee. Stir in the remaining flour; combine thoroughly. Using damp fingers, press into two buttered 8-inch round cake pans.
Bake in the center of the oven until golden brown, 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven; immediately cut each pan into 8 wedges but leave in the pan. Cool completely.
For the glaze, pour sugar and 2 tablespoons of the whiskey into a small saucepan. Heat to a boil over high heat; boil rapidly, 1 minute. Remove from heat; whisk in butter. Whisk in remaining 2 tablespoons of the whiskey. Let set to thicken slightly. If it's not thickening fast enough, stick the pot in the fridge. When thickened slightly, spoon over shortbread, using the back of the spoon to cover evenly. When glaze is set, remove cookies from pan.

Peanut Butter and Apple Sandwich

2011-10-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

When Dan, a friend from college, came to visit us, he brought a jar of peanut butter as a gift. Here's what we've been doing with it:

INGREDIENTS

2 Slices Whole wheat bread
Apple Slices
Honey

PREPARATION

Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread. Top with apple slices. Spread honey on other slice of bread, put on top of apple slices.

The best honey is raw honey because it's generally thicker.

Vegan Shoo Fly Cake

2011-09-27T23:36:00.000-07:00

This recipe is from the Vegetarian Resource Group's Vegan Handbook, an old but classic book full of delicious recipes, including homemade gluten and vegan baked goods, like this cake.

I'm Pennsylvania Dutch, and I can attest that this cake really does taste like Shoo Fly Pie. Since it omits the crust, it takes less than ten minutes to put together. Fast and delicious.

The key ingredient here is molasses. It's tough to find in Mexican grocery stores, but they sell it very cheap in cane sugar refineries (ingenios azucareros). So if you live in Veracruz, Chiapas, Oaxaca, or any other sugar-producing state, this cake is for you. Since I've never seen anyone cook with molasses in Mexico, Vegan Shoo Fly Cake will impress all of your friends.

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (in a pinch you can use white flour)
3/4 cup brown sugar, azucar mascabado, or other granulated sweetener
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup soft margarine (or butter for non-vegan version)
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup molasses

PREPARATION

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.
Cut in margarine until mixture resembles a fine crumb. If you don't have a french pastry cutter, cut the margarine into several pieces, toss the pieces into the dry ingredients, and start mixing the margarine into the dry ingredients with your hands until it resembles a fine crumb.
Set aside 1/3 cup of the crumb mixture.
Add molasses and hot water to the crumb mixture that's in the bowl (not the part you set aside), and stir until just mixed.
Pour batter into a greased 9-inch round cake pan or a greased 8-inch cast iron pan.
Top with the reserved crumb mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 25-30 min. When it's done, the cake should have risen to double its original size, and the middle should be just slightly lower than the edges. A toothpick inserted in the center won't come out clean, but the crumbs that stick to it should be moist but done.

Carrot-Granola Quick Bread

2011-01-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

I just got a new oven after going without one for about six months. I'm on a baking binge now, and nothing's easier to make than quick breads. They're called panques in Mexico, though your traditional gringo quick bread has more fat, more sugar, and more spices than its Mexican counterpart. The difference between a quick bread and regular bread is that quick breads don't have yeast. Instead, eggs and baking soda or baking powder are used to leaven the bread, making preparation a lot faster, easier, and with a lot less mess.

This recipe calls for ground nutmeg. I've never seen nutmeg in Mexico. If you're making this bread in Mexico, you'll have to tuck a jar into your checked luggage or ask that someone bring you some. I've made carrot bread without nutmeg with success, but the flavor loses some of its complexity.

The recipe also calls for granola. I use a delightful mix I found in the organic farmers market near my house. It has toasted coconut, toasted pecans, raisins, puffed amaranth, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and toasted oats, and it is sweetened with piloncillo, a by-product of the sugar-making process which is Mexico's version of brown sugar.

As for the dried fruit called for in the recipe, feel free to get creative. I cleaned out my pantry and tossed in a mix of the many tiny bags full of the last pieces of dried fruit I had. I used a mix of dried sweetened cranberries, prunes, chopped candied figs, and raisins.

INGREDIENTS:

2 eggs
1 c sugar
2/3 c oil (preferably canola oil)
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 c grated carrots
1 c granola
1/2 c dried fruit

PREPARATION:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F or 176 degrees C.*
Combine eggs, sugar, and oil in a small bowl.
Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until mixed, but don't over-mix the batter. Add carrots, granola and dried fruit.
Pour the batter into a greased bread loaf pan and bake for about one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Makes 1 loaf. This recipe is easily doubled.

* A lot of Mexican ovens either have the numbers 1-5 on their dials instead of temperatures, or the dial controls the size of the flame instead of the actual temperature of the oven, because the oven doesn't have a thermostat (despite the fact that it might actually have temperatures on the dial). Do yourself a favor and buy an oven thermometer. It'll save you a lot of heartbreak and burnt breads.

Vegan Squash Blossom Soup (Sopa de Flor de Calabaza)

2010-05-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

This isn't necessarily the traditional way of making sopa de flor de calabaza. I've never really had the traditional version. But I do tend to have a lot of squash blossoms on hand, and I was tired of squash blossom quesadillas and tlacoyos. So I threw this together, and it was delicious.

This is a soup for gardeners, because you won't find squash blossoms (flores de calabaza) in your local gringo grocery store. Just wait until the flowers on your summer squash vines are in bloom or just opening, and snip them. I promise more will grow back and you'll still have more summer squash than you know what to do with.

Summer squash, by the way, is any squash that has a soft, edible skin. Zucchini is a summer squash, for example. Pumpkin and butternut are not.

INGREDIENTS:

20 squash blossoms with stems removed, divided
3 plum or roma tomatoes
3/4 small white onion, chopped and divided
1 chile (Your choice based on your heat preferences. I used a serrano and it was perfect for me.)
2 cloves garlic
2 cups cubed summer squash
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
salt to taste
6 cups water
2 teaspoons MSG (optional)
1 sprig fresh epazote or 1 teaspoon dried epazote or 1 sprig fresh parsley
1/4 cup texturized vegetable protein (TVP, optional)

PREPARATION:

Quarter the tomatoes and put them in the blender. Add chile, the equivalent of 1/2 a small onion (leaving the other 1/4 aside for now), 10 squash blossoms, garlic, and blend until liquified. Add a small amount of water to facilitate blending, if necessary.
Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a clay pot or large pot. Add the puree from the blender and simmer until the tomatoes are cooked (the puree will turn a darker red).
While the tomato puree is cooking, heat the other 3 tablespoons olive oil in a cast iron pan. Add remaining onion and squash blossoms and all the cubed squash. Saute until squash is just cooked.
Add the squash/onion/blossom saute to the pot with the tomato puree. Add water, epazote, and TVP and MSG, if using.
Salt to taste and simmer ten minutes to let flavors blend.

Serve with crusty bread or warm corn tortillas. Serves 2-3.

Vegan Chickpea and Dumplings Soup

2010-04-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

This recipe tastes so much like chicken and dumplings soup that I would have thought it was made with chicken if I hadn't prepared it myself.

You can use canned chickpeas in a pinch, but I really do recommend that you use dried. The chickpea cooking liquid is used as the soup base here. It gives it a little more "chicken" taste.

INGREDIENTS:

The Soup:

3 cups cooked chickpeas
1.5 liters chickpea cooking liquid (if you don't have that much cooking liquid left over, add water to the chickpea cooking liquid until you reach 1.5 liters)
2 spring onions, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
2 tsp poultry seasoning or hierbas finas
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh parsley
1 chile, finely chopped (optional)
2 tsp MSG
salt to taste

The Dumplings:

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 TB minced fresh parsley
3/4 cup soy milk (you can also use regular milk here for a non-vegan version)
1/4 cup canola oil

PREPARATION:

Put all soup ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer. While the soup is simmering, prepare the dumplings:
Mix dry dumpling ingredients and fresh parsley together. Add milk and canola oil and mix with a fork.
Let dumpling mixture sit at least 5 minutes, until the vegetables in the soup are cooked through.
When the soup vegetables are cooked through, turn the heat up on the soup to bring it to a rapid boil. Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling dough into the boiling soup.
Cover the soup, lower the heat so that the soup remains at a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Ladle two dumplings and soup into bowls.

Serves 4-6.

Vegetarian Not-Tuna Salad

2010-04-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

This not-tuna salad recipe is delicious, easy, and fast. My husband, a big fan of seafood, was surprised at how much it tasted like real tuna. My vegetarian friend gave me funny looks as he ate his not-tuna sandwich; he was still trying to decide if I was telling the truth about it being vegetarian or if I had tricked him into eating fish.

The fishy taste comes from the nori, which is the same seaweed used in sushi. Seaweed is high in vitamin B, and even contains vitamin B-12. So eat up. And nori never goes bad, so don't be afraid to save some money per sheet and buy the larger pack.

It's easy to make this salad vegan--just use vegan mayonnaise.

If you're looking for something a little less spicy, you could replace the canned jalapeño with with a dill pickle or dill pickle relish. I've just never seen a dill pickle in Mexico. Wait, that's not true. I saw one once: it was floating in a jar of pickled chile peppers.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups cooked or canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 spring onion, chopped (white and green parts)
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 rajas (strips) canned jalapeños (equivalent to half a jalapeño), minced
1/2 sheet nori, shredded
1/2 cup mayonnaise (vegans, use vegan version)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

PREPARATION:

Place the chickpeas in a large bowl. Mash them with a potato masher, or smash them with the bottom of a glass cup. You want the mashed chickpeas to be chunky; you're not making hummus.
Fold in remaining ingredients.
This recipe is light on the mayonnaise. Add more if desired.
Serve with lettuce and sliced tomatoes on bread.

Oaxacan Cinnamon-Almond Brownies

2010-04-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

Rich chocolate brownies with a distinctly Oaxacan taste... what could be better?

Oaxacan chocolate is pure cocoa ground with almonds and cinnamon. It is pre-sweetened and almost always turned into hot chocolate. But I've been testing chocolate recipes with Oaxacan chocolate, and with delicious results. So delicious, in fact, that you'll notice that the picture only features two tiny brownies and a pile of Oaxacan chocolate. That's because they were gobbled up before I could grab the camera.

This recipe is loosely based on a Hershey's brownie recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup Oaxacan Hot Fudge Sauce, at room temperature

1 cup chopped Oaxacan chocolate

1 cup coarsely chopped almonds

PREPARATION:
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in large bowl. Add eggs; beat well. Add fudge sauce and stir.

Stir together flour and baking soda; add to butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and almonds. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into squares.

Makes about 24 bars.

Oaxacan Hot Fudge Sauce

2010-04-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

Fondue it, put it on banana sundaes, this is your all-natural Oaxacan fudge sauce. I love Oaxacan chocolate. It is minimally processed (my mother-in-law grinds her own cacao beans for her homemade chocolate). And the chocolate-cinnamon-almond combination is sinfully delicious.

This recipe also calls for mezcal, which is a hard liquor made from agave. Mezcal is native to Oaxaca. The crema de mezcal is its liqueur version.

INGREDIENTS:

8 ounces (227 grams) Oaxacan chocolate, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup (180 ml) heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons coffee- or mocha-flavored crema de mezcal (use Kaluhua if you can't find mezcal)

PREPARATION:

Put chopped chocolate in a clay pot or metal bowl (something that won't melt or shatter when you fill it with very hot liquid).
Heat heavy whipping cream and butter until it just begins to simmer.
Remove heavy whipping cream and butter from heat and add mezcal or Kaluhua.
Immediately pour the hot liquid over the chocolate pieces. Let sit 5 minutes.
Stir with a whisk until smooth.
Serve hot.

To store leftovers, transfer to a glass jar and store in refrigerator. To reheat, remove lid from jar and heat in microwave for 1 minute. Stir, then microwave at 20-second intervals (stirring at every interval) until the fudge sauce reaches the desired temperature. Alternatively, remove the lid from the jar and place the jar in a pot with enough water to half-immerse it. Heat until chocolate melts (give it a stir every now and then once it starts to melt to make it melt faster).

Vegan Un-Chicken Barley Soup

2010-04-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

I knew this soup was a winner when my husband tasted it and exclaimed, "Wow! This really does taste like chicken." You see, my husband is a meat-eater. But not just any old meat-eater. He was raised in a town where the only meat you can find is fresh, never frozen. So when he thought my Un-Chicken Barley Soup actually tasted like chicken soup, well, I think that says something.

Most un-chicken soups I've seen assume that cooks have access to fancy condiments like vegetarian chicken-flavored bouillon. Not in Mexico.

However, in Mexico we do sometimes have access to this soup's secret ingredient: MSG. I found some in a little stand that was part of a Chinese food restaurant in a tiny mountain town where I used to live. If you are lucky enough to come across MSG, buy a bag. You can also purchase MSG online. It's cheap and lasts forever because you use so little in every recipe.

Scared by the anti-MSG hype? I can't find evidence that a little MSG every now and then causes health problems in adults. However, feel free to use the comments section to argue otherwise.

INGREDIENTS:

3 liters water
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 chile, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 handful (about 1/3 cup) texturized vegetable protein (TVP)
1/2 cup pearl barley
2 TB dry parsley or 2 stalks fresh parsley
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (sold as hierbas finas in Mexico)
1 TB soy sauce
3 tsp MSG
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION:

Put water in a large pot to boil.
Add remaining ingredients.
Simmer until vegetables are soft and barley is cooked (about 30-45 minutes).
Adjust salt to taste and serve.

Serves 4-6.

Mexican Noodle Soup (Sopa de Fideo)

2010-04-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

This soup is generally served as part of a multi-course meal. Traditionally, it is simply pasta in tomato broth, no vegetables added. However, last night we found some vegetables in the fridge and texturized vegetable protein in the cabinet, and we turned this soup into a meal.

Texturized vegetable protein (also known as TVP) is surprisingly easy to find in Mexico--more so than in the United States. It's sold as "soya" in natural food stores in the Mexico City metro or in the bulk foods section of your local grocery store.

INGREDIENTS:

5 plum tomatoes
1/4 medium onion, roughly chopped
2-3 cloves garlic
1-2 dried chile de arbol OR 1-2 jalepeños
3 cups water plus more for blending
1 200-gram bag small pasta, uncooked
1/8 cup canola or vegetable oil
1-2 stalks fresh epazote (1 teaspoon dried) OR 2 stalks fresh parsely
1 medium carrot, chopped (optional)
1 stalk celery, chopped (optional)
1/3 cup texturized vegetable protein (TVP)

PREPARATION:

Quarter tomatoes and put them in a blender with the onion, chile, and garlic. Add enough water to cover the tomatoes. Blend until liquified.
In a large pot, heat the oil. Add the pasta and fry, stirring constantly until it begins to brown. As soon as it begins to brown, add 3 cups water and contents of blender. Stir to make sure no pasta is sticking to the pot.
Add epazote or parsely. Add vegetables and TVP, if using.
Cook until pasta and vegetables are thoroughly cooked and TVP is re-hydrated.
Serve with warm corn tortillas.

Serves 4.

Basil Pesto Pasta

2010-04-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

In our rooftop garden, we grow tomatoes, chile, oregano, and basil in buckets. Because winter is very mild where we live, we can grow a lot of the plants year-round. We planted the basil last September, and it's still growing like crazy. Yesterday I trimmed it back and ended up with about two cups of basil clippings. Usually I dry what I trim and give it to friends, but this was a lot of basil. I decided to make a pesto.

I found a tasty Pesto Pasta Salad recipe on Simply Recipes. I didn't have all of the ingredients and neither did my local supermarket, so I did some substitutions and came up with the following pasta salad.

By far the oddest substitution must be the yogurt for parmesan cheese in the pesto. Parmesan is very expensive in Mexico, and there's no adequate local substitute. We make our own yogurt, and I had some in the kitchen that had been fermenting for a bit too long. It was very, very sharp. My husband was skeptical when he saw me at work in the kitchen, but he loved the end result, and I think you will, too. Vegans can simply omit the yogurt entirely, or substitute it with a tablespoon of white or light miso.

We served this pasta with rustic bread and Basic Beans, Mexican Style for a very filling meal.

INGREDIENTS

Pesto

2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
2 tablespoons plain, unsweetened yogurt OR 1 tablespoon light or white miso
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup almonds
3 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

(makes about 1 cup pesto)

Pasta

1/2 kilo (about 1 pound) uncooked penne or spiral pasta

1 cups basil pesto (see recipe above)

2 tablespoons chopped green olives OR olive tapenade

1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper

3 plum or roma tomatoes, chopped

1 Tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Prepare pasta according to package directions in salted water.
While the pasta is cooking, combine all pesto ingredients in a blender and blend until basil leaves are pulverized and the almonds are chopped (don't worry if there's some almond chunks).
When pasta is done cooking, drain. Return the pasta to the cooking pot and add remaining ingredients.
Serve warm or cold.

Serves 6-8.

Banana Bread with Oaxacan Chocolate Chips

2010-04-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Mexicans often ask me what dishes are "traditional gringo food." I'm always hard-pressed to come up with a gringo main dish, because one of the beauties of the United States is its culinary diversity. So many dishes that we grew up with are borrowed from other countries and cultures. However, one thing that is uniquely "gringo" is our desserts. When I think of the US, I think of the pies, cakes, and sweet quick breads my grandmother used to make.

I snagged this banana bread recipe from The Joy of Baking, but I added a Mexican twist: my mother-in-law's Oaxacan chocolate. Oaxacan choclate is less refined than the chocolate you find in grocery stores. It's grittier, and it generally has almonds and cinnamon ground up with the chocolate. It comes pre-sweetened, and Oaxacans drink it with water or milk as a hot chocolate. It's delicious. It's wonderful in this recipe because the cinnamon and almond flavors compliment the banana beautifully.

You can find Mexican chocolate in Mexican grocery stores. They generally sell the Abuelita brand. Amazon.com has some from Ibarra that is an excellent price. It's not the same as my mother-in-law's chocolate (she grinds the sugar, cocoa, almonds, and cinnamon herself), but it'll do. Oaxacan chocolate generally comes in tablets. You'll have to coarsely chop them in this recipe.

If worse comes to worse, use regular old chocolate chips (which, ironically, are difficult to find in Mexico).

I've used both regular bananas and "macho" bananas (the bigger, starchier ones that are similar to plantains) in this recipe. The end result is the same, but it's more difficult to mash the macho bananas.

This recipe makes two loafs of banana bread. You can easily half the recipe, but it's just as easy to make two loaves as it is to make one. And this bread freezes great. Just wrap it up well in tin foil or wax paper and stick it in a thick freezer bag to protect from freezer burn. When you're ready to eat it, put it in the fridge to thaw a day or two ahead of time.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups coarsely chopped Oaxacan chocolate
OR
1 cup coarsely chopped Oaxacan chocolate and 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup (two sticks) butter, melted
6 large bananas, mashed
2 tsp vanilla

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Grease and flour two 9 x 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pans.
Combine all of the dry ingredients except chocolate and nuts, if using.
In a separate bowl, combine all wet ingredients.
Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir as little as possible so your bread doesn't come out tough.
Add chocolate and nuts, if using.
Divide the batter evenly between the two greased loaf pans.
Bake 350 degrees Fahrenheit for an 1 - 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick or wooden chopstick comes out almost clean.
Let the bread cool in the loaf pans. Once cool, run a spatula or butter knife between the bread and the walls of the pan to loosen the bread. Turn the loaf pans upside down to remove the bread.

Scrambled Eggs al la Mexicana (Mexican-Style)

2010-04-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

This is a simple recipe for scrambled eggs. I make it several times a week because of all of the Mexican breakfasts, it is by far the easiest and quickest. That's right, I make it several times a week--here in Mexico we eat eggs for breakfast nearly every day. And if we don't eat them for breakfast, we eat them as part of another meal.

I added a mild option, replacing chile with green bell pepper. It's sacrilegious, but I know that not everyone likes chile.

Mexicans generally prepare their eggs (and all other food) in vegetable oil. I don't like vegetable oil because it is generally at least half soybean oil (and who knows what else), which is very high in saturated fat. Saturated fat is one of the worst fats: your body turns it into cholesterol. While diet's role in a person's cholesterol levels is still being debated, one thing's for sure: saturated fat is not your friend. For that reason, vegetable oil is not your friend, either.

When I'm cooking, I prioritize two things: health and flavor. Vegetable oil is neither healthy nor flavorful, so I never use it and you won't find it in my kitchen. Olive oil, which I use in this recipe to fry the vegetable ingredients, is relatively low in saturated fat and contains some "good fats." It is also very flavorful and makes a wonderful combination with the vegetables. However, I've found that frying eggs in olive oil has less-than-desirable results. Butter, however, is by far the best fat to fry your eggs. It's not healthy, but it sure is flavorful!

Another thing you won't find in my kitchen is non-stick cookware. That stuff causes cancer. For frying eggs, I use a heavy-duty stainless steel frying pan. You need to use more oil with a stainless steel pan than you would with a non-stick one, but I do think it's worth it. If you are using a non-stick pan, feel free to reduce the oil.

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 tablespoons butter
2 plum or roma tomatoes, diced
1 chile, chopped (jalepeño for milder eggs, serano if you want a very spicy breakfast) OR 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/4 cup diced white onion
5 eggs
salt to taste

PREPARATION

Heat the olive oil in an 8-inch frying pan over medium heat. Don't let the oil smoke; that means you're burning it.
Add tomatoes, chile, and onion. Fry until onion is translucent. Add a little more olive oil if the tomatoes start to stick during frying.
Add butter. Use less if a decent amount of olive oil remains from frying the vegetables; use more butter if the vegetables have soaked up a lot of the oil. The goal here is that your eggs don't stick.
Add eggs. You can either crack them right in the pan or you can crack them in a separate bowl and beat them and then add them. Obviously, cracking them straight into the pan is much easier.
Scramble the eggs and add salt to taste before they're cooked through.
Serve with warm corn tortillas and Basic Beans, Mexican Style.

Serves 2.

Lentil Soup, Gringa Style

2010-03-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

This is your basic gringo lentil soup recipe. Mexicans have their own way of preparing lentil soup, but that's another recipe for another day. This recipe is cheap, filling, and easy to prepare--the perfect meal for economic recession.

INGREDIENTS:

250g or 1/2 lb. brown lentils
5 cups water
1 bay leaf
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 small-medium onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 sprigs fresh parsley, or 1 heaping tb dried
dash of pepper
salt to taste

PREPARATION:

Put lentils and bay leaf in a medium pot with water. Let them come to a boil while you chop your other ingredients.
Add remaining ingredients except salt.
Simmer, covered, 30-40 minutes, until lentils are cooked through. You may need to add more water during the cooking.
When lentils are cooked, add salt to taste and letter simmer 2 more minutes.
Serve with warm corn tortillas.

Serves 3-4 as a main dish.

Vegan Split Pea Soup

2010-03-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

En español

This recipe was inspired by Leftover Queen's Easy PEAsy Vegan Split Pea Soup. I've tweaked it a bit and added a pressure cooker variation. The pressure cooker speeds up cooking (reducing your gas use) and eliminates the need to dirty your blender because the pressure pulverizes the split peas.

Every vegetarian should own a pressure cooker, and I can't stress that enough. The pressure cooker in this recipe reduces cooking time from 40 minutes to 10. Need I say more?

This split pea soup has a secret ingredient: a single chipotle pepper. A chipotle is a smoked jalepeño. It gives the soup a smokey flavor that is reminiscent of the flavor ham would give it. Don't worry if you don't like spicy food; it hardly gives the soup any spice.

INGREDIENTS:

3 TBS olive oil 
1/2 large white or yellow onion, diced
 2 large carrots, diced 
5 cloves of garlic, minced
 2 bay leaves 
salt and pepper to taste
 2 cups dried split peas
 5 cups water
 1 canned chipotle pepper

PREPARATION:

Conventional Stovetop Method:

Heat oil in a large pot.
Add the onion, carrot, garlic and bay leaves. Sautee together until onions and carrots are soft.
Add chipotle pepper, peas, and water to the pot. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let simmer, stirring often, until the peas are soft (about 40 minutes).
Place about half of the soup in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add it back to the pot and then add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir together and cook for about 10 minutes.

Pressure Cooker Method:

Heat oil in the pressure cooker.
Add the onion, carrot, garlic and bay leaves. Sautee together until onions and carrots are soft.
Add chipotle pepper, peas, and water to the pot.
Place lid on pressure cooker and cook under high pressure for 12 minutes. Then turn off heat and let pressure come down naturally.
Remove lid and stir with a big spoon to mix split peas into a thick creamy soup.
Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Basic Beans, Mexican Style

2010-03-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

This is a simple recipe that my husband taught me. Mexicans eat beans with nearly every meal, and this is how to make them.

You can use any dried bean in this recipe. We use runner beans, black beans, or bayo beans--whatever we can get in the farmers market from the couple that comes to the city from a community. Good quality beans from a reputable source are best--you never know how long that bag of beans has been sitting on the grocery store shelf.

To make this recipe really traditional, you need a clay bean pot. It's the only way we cook our beans in Mexico. Mexicans swear that the clay gives the beans a flavor they don't get in a metal pot.

Epazote is a Mexican herb. Rumor has it that it helps reduce gas caused by beans. Anecdotal evidence suggests that its gas-reducing effects are offset by the sheer quantity of beans we eat here in Mexico. You can purchase epazote at the following links ground ($2.09) and fresh ($9.99 for four plants). Alternatively, you can use avocado leaves, as my mother-in-law does sometimes with very tasty results. You can find avocado leaves in your local Mexican grocery store.

The quantities of some ingredients and the cooking times are not precise. These are home-style beans, and the recipe is in every Mexican's head. As my grandmom used to say when she taught us her recipes, "Cook it until it tastes right." Practice makes perfect sazón.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 kilo or 1 lb. dried beans (yes, I know that 1/2 kilo does not equal 1 lb., but it really doesn't matter), rinsed, picked over, and soaked overnight
one sprig fresh or 1 tsp. dried epazote or a few avocado leaves
3 whole cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 small onion, or 1/4 large onion
salt to taste

PREPARATION

Drain soaked beans and place them in a large pot (preferably a clay pot).
Add enough water to cover the beans, plus an extra inch or two.
Add epazote or parsley, garlic, and onion. There is no need to chop the garlic or the onion. There is no need to chop these ingredients. They are just there for to add taste; you can pull them out at the end and toss them on the compost heap.
Cook on high heat until it comes to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain the boil.
As the beans are cooking, check water periodically and add more as needed.
When the beans have cooked for about an hour, add salt to taste. Err on the side of under-salting them for now. As the beans cook and cool and are reheated, they'll soak up more water and get saltier. You can always add more salt later.
Total cooking time should be 1 1/2 - 2 hours, but cooking times can vary. Check your beans periodically and decide when they are sufficiently tender.

When you plate your beans, feel free to top them with crumbled cheese and/or sour cream to taste.

Vegetarian Stuffing

2010-03-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

en español

I found the inspiration for this recipe on Elise's Simply Recipes blog. I've adapted it to be vegetarian. I also substituted egg bread for french bread and pecans for walnuts. The addition of fresh mushrooms makes up for flavor lost when you omit meat broth. The result is a stuffing that everyone (even meat-eaters) says is the best stuffing they've ever tasted.

If you have old tortillas, you can mix those in with the cubed bread, too, for that special Mexican touch.

Note: This recipe can easily be made vegan by substituting any day old vegan bread for the egg bread and margarine (transfat-free, please!) or olive oil for the butter.

INGREDIENTS

1 loaf day-old egg bread (such as challah or Oaxacan bread), cubed or shredded into 3/4-inch pieces (about 10-12 cups)
1 cup pecans
2 cups each, chopped onion, celery, and fresh mushrooms
6 Tbsp butter
1 apple, cored and chopped
3/4 cup of dried cranberries or raisins or a mix of both
1 cup to 2 cups water or vegetable broth
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning or ground sage or "hierbas finas" (the closest thing to poultry seasoning you'll find in Mexico) to taste
salt and ground pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Toast the pecans by heating them in a frying pan on medium high heat for a few minutes, stirring until they are slightly browned (not burned). When in doubt, err on the side of undercooking them, because they keep cooking for a bit after removing them from the heat. OR put them in the microwave on high until you can smell the aroma of them toasting, about a minute or two. Let them cool while you are toasting the bread, then roughly chop them.
Heat a large Dutch oven or clay pot on medium heat. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in the pot, add the bread cubes, and stir to coat the bread pieces with the melted butter. Then let them toast; only turn them when they have become a little browned on a side.
In a cast iron skillet, sauté chopped onions, celery, and mushrooms on medium high heat with the remaining 3 Tbsp butter until cooked through, about 5-10 minutes. Add to the bread. Add cooked chopped pecans. Add chopped green apple, dried cranberries or raisins, and parsley. Add one cup of water or vegetable broth (enough to keep the stuffing moist while you are cooking it). Add poultry seasoning or sage or hierbas finas, and salt & pepper.
Cover. Turn heat to low. Cook for an hour or until the apples are cooked through. Check every ten minutes or so and add water or broth as needed while cooking to keep the stuffing moist and keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Serves 8-10.