CreativeNoms

Meatless Mexican – Fauxjitas and Tacos

Apr 30

Posted by John in Main Courses, Mexican, Quick & Easy, Southwest, Vegetarian & Vegan | No Comments

Just in time for your Cinco de Mayo celebration – a new post and a slightly unusual twist for John…

I’m an omnivore by nature – I tend to live by Andrew Zimmern’s philosophy on Bizarre Foods “if it looks good, eat it”, and many times I have skipped the whole “if it looks good” part and just moved on to step 2. I have meddled with vegetarian(ish) foods before on multiple occasions, but most of those experiments (with the obvious exception of the Soyrizo tamales posted elsewhere on this blog) have simply been recipes involving cooking nothing but vegetables, which I have discovered was kind of cheating.

I will be the first to admit that I have never done a tremendous amount of research into what truly is and isn’t a “vegetarian friendly” food, which may explain why Amity often edits my post categories to remove “Vegetarian & Vegan” before sending me a terse email explaining why I was wrong. I actually became gun shy about using that category, and was even a little twitchy about using it for this one, but I did my homework this time!

Over the course of the past month or so, I have had a couple of opportunities to casually discuss vegetarian foods with someone who actually lives the lifestyle, and it was those chats that pointed out some of the flaws in my thinking. Perfect example – I had no clue that the rennet used in cheesemaking often comes from animal sources and is considered a no-no for a vegetarian meal. I though all cheese was alike except for how it tasted, so that was a wee bit of a shock and I actually had to read labels for this post instead of just chucking cheese in the basket and moving on. Luckily for me, the habanero cheddar I recently fell in love with at Whole Foods happened to use vegetarian enzymes, so I kinda skated by on that one!

The main ingredient in these two recipes comes from the shelves of one of my favorite stores in the food world – Trader Joes. Now that there is one here in town and I no longer have to travel an hour or more each way just to get my almond butter fix, I can also experiment with the refrigerated and frozen products that I never bought on the long trips due to the risk of melting / spoilage. Two of those things that I recently bought on a whim are the “Beef-Less Strips” and “Beef-Less Ground Beef”. The original intent was to make some sort of Thai dish with the things, but with Cinco de Mayo right around the corner (and after some serious issues finding vegetarian-friendly alternatives to things like red curry paste and fish sauce) I decided it would be much easier just going with a simple pair of Mexican dishes instead.

My first thoughts upon opening the packages of meatless meat was just how much the stuff resembled real meat. The strips pulled apart into very realistic looking meat strips, and the ground beef looked almost exactly like cooked ground beef. The best part – they both held up perfectly to cooking, with the strips even browning in a hot pan just like a piece of beef would. And the taste was pretty impressive too – it wasn’t an exact beef replacement, but it was pretty darn close.

With the packages of “meat” all opened up and filling the counter (I went a little overboard), I grabbed an onion, some pre-made fajita seasoning mix, and two bell peppers for the fajitas, then started pulling random things out of the pantry and spice cabinet for a “from scratch” taco seasoning. Less than 30 minutes later, I was filling tortillas with 100% vegetarian friendly Mexican grub and chowing down.

Was it good enough to make me give up meat entirely? Probably not, but it was good enough to make me want to experiment more with the two beefless beef products and other styles of cooking, and I need to work on getting back in shape, so reducing my already low level of real beef intake can’t hurt. I really want to try the ground beef-less in a pot of rich, red chili and there is a fiery Thai red curry bath in store for some of the strips once I figure out how to replace a few ingredients to keep the dish truly vegetarian. But enough of that – on to the Mexican recipes!

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Panes con Pavo

Feb 26

Posted by John in Central America, Healthy Things, Sandwiches & Wraps | No Comments

What’s this? Another sandwich recipe from South of the Border? Why yes, yes it is…

I’m gonna admit it right now – I have an addiction to torta rolls. Somewhere between the denseness of a ciabatta roll and the light, airiness of a fluffy baguette, the torta roll is a rectangular hunk of sweet, chewy bread goodness. ANY sandwich is great on these wonderful rolls, but why not use them for their intended purpose and throw something Latin on them, right? Right!

Panes de Pavo are a traditional sandwich from El Salvador, typically consisting of marinated and roasted turkey simmered in a thick, rich red sauce filled with the flavors of pepitas, tomatoes, and a wide variety of other ingredients, and topped with a similarly wide variety of things. One thing I noticed while researching these sammiches – no two recipes were alike – so I took that as the perfect excuse to just go wild and throw things in a pot until it tasted good. Like I need a reason for that…

Problem #1 that I encountered while prepping for this experiment was actually locating turkey breast to use for the base meat. Apparently the only ways to get turkey breast these days are frozen on the bone, in packages of cutlets, or in a vaccum sealed pack with a nasty, chemical laden marinade already added to it. Buying and thawing a whole breast for an experiment did not appeal to me, cutlets were too thin for my tastes, and the marinated ones kinda defeated the purpose, so I settled for a different part of the bird that is readily available fresh – turkey legs.

In an attempt to keep these things relatively healthy, I removed the skin from the legs before adding my marinade of choice for an overnight soak. I also slashed some deep cuts into the meat of the legs to allow the delicious mixture of dijon mustard, crushed garlic, ancho chile powder, and vermouth to soak into the meat better. Left to ponder their fate in the garlicky, mustardy bath overnight, the turkey came out of the bag ready to face their demise drunk on vermouth and coated in goo. Sounds like a pretty decent way to meet your maker to me!

In the traditional versions of Panes con Pavo, the turkey is roasted until tender and then added to the sauce to simmer slowly. Since I am impatient, I made a bigger mess than originally intended and did a combination of baking and pressure cooking to speed things up. A 40 minute bake @ 350 helped the marinade crust on the meat a little, and 30 more minutes in the pressure cooker made sure the flesh was soft, shreddable, and ready for the sauce. The cleanup was a bear, but it was worth it.

Then there was the sauce.

This part of the recipe is where my tendency to throw everything but the kitchen sink into a recipe really came to the forefront. I had copies of four different recipes on hand for inspiration, and I stole bits and pieces of each one until I had what I decided was the perfect base for a wet sandwich topping. Fire roasted tomatoes, garlic, pepitas, ancho powder, anatto powder, toasted sesame seeds, bay leaf, onion, beer, capers, green olives, sugar, lime juice, maggi seasoning, and oregano all combined in the blender resulted in a delicious, medium-thick sauce with tons of flavors. Yeah, there are a billion ingredients in there, but man was it worth it.

The last decision to be made was what to top the sandwich with. I stuck with a couple of the traditional things here, sauteeing some green pepper and onion slices until soft. Not wanting to stop there, I added some broccoli slaw shreds and sliced poblano pepper, salt, black pepper, lime juice, and a dash or two of smoked ancho powder to the mix. Some fresh cilantro on top rounded out the sandwich.

The end result? Yum. Tons of flavor, tender and juicy turkey, a little texture from the vegetables on top, and a little snap from the cilantro. 4 out of 4 taste testers gave it a big thumbs up.

Black Bean Tostadas – In the Oven!

Feb 13

Posted by Amity in Gluten-Free, Healthy Things, Main Courses, Mexican, Quick & Easy, Southwest | 1 Comment

Before anything else, let me say that no, neither John nor I has been avoiding the blog intentionally and we do apologize for the larger than normal break between posts.

A collection of circumstances completely beyond our control prevented the making of any posts in the last few weeks. Though many an idea has filtered through our collective brain-share and some were even photographed (and will hopefully be posted soon).

The good news though, is that it looks like things appear to be stabilizing a bit. I’m hoping that by March’ish, we’ll be back to 2 or so posts a week.

We also have some devious plans that involve a few changes to the blog including a layout change at some point in the future to make things a little bit brighter.

To get back into the swing of things, I’m following through with a promise to a few folks. I’ve mentioned this recipe in many a conversation and somehow never thought to post it to the blog, perhaps because it was so very simple to make.

When I started to eat healthier, I looked for many a way to avoid having to give up the salty crunch of corn tortillas completely, which logically (for me) led to baking them.

That was step 1, step 2 was trying to perfect the art of baking a tortilla, which is not as simple as it sounds. It’s very easy to burn a batch of tortillas if you don’t pay attention or miss the oven timer. I speak from experience.

Step 3 was deciding to bake on the refried beans and cheese so that everything melted together… and that’s when magic words of “you’re making this again, right?” were spoken.

While I’d love to claim this is made completely from scratch, the fact is certain tortilla brands from the store work better than anything else when it comes to crisping up in the oven. Not to mention, while I do make (un)refried beans sometimes, a can of low-sodium refried beans in the pantry is a huge time saver.

Needless to say, this is my go-to ‘oh crap there’s nothing thawed/prepped/ready to make for dinner’ meal. It shows up at least twice a month on the dinner table and everyone loves it.

Once you get used to baking the tortillas, it’s a ridiculously simple one-dish dinner that can be made in less than 15 minutes.

Protein, dairy and giant mound o’ vegetables all piled high on a delicious crispy edible platter that also happens to be low in fat, low in sodium and high in fiber and protein.

Nearly a perfect meal.

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Mango Stuffed Chops (With a Twist)

Jan 20

Posted by John in Healthy Things, Main Courses, North America | 2 Comments

Mmmmmmm, thick cut, bone-in pork chops. Of all the different cuts of pork, these thick, juicy, versatile hunks of pork goodness are way up near the top of my rankings for “Top of the Pig”. Grilled, baked, or even pressure cooked, the thickness of the cut almost guarantees a tender finished product, but where these things REALLY shine is when they are stuffed.

I have seen dozens upon dozens of recipes for stuffed pork chops while browsing the net and reading cookbooks, and a solid 90% or more of them call for some funky bread-based stuffing with tons of herbs and other seasonings. I guess those would be ok, but I prefer a much more simple approach to stuffing – a single ingredient kind of approach using fresh fruit. Pork and fruit are a natural combo going back as far as the iconic “apple in the mouth” that everyone has seen once or twice in a cartoon or other show, so why muck up perfectly good pork with a mass of stuffing meant for a turkey?

At one point or another, I have used pears, apples, pineapple, and many other fruits for stuffing a chop, but I always end up going back to my favorite fruit on the planet when I really want to do it right – the mango. The flavor is awesome, the texture is perfect for a stuffing application, and I get to eat the leftovers, so what’s not to like?

When I mention the idea of stuffing a pork chop to people, the most frequent response I get is “that’s just too hard to do – I don’t have that level of cooking skill”, and I never fail to laugh when that happens. If you can summon the knife skills to slice fruit and own a small, sharp knife, you can stuff a pork chop. The technique is simple – you slip the knife into the side of the chop and slowly and carefully slice the inside with the tip of the knife without making the initial opening any bigger or breaching the sides, creating a pocket inside the meat. A hand placed on top of the chop keeps it stable as you create the pocket – that’s all it takes. A simple search on Youtube for “stuffing a pork chop” will turn up several videos showing the technique if you need more guidance than that!

The rest of the stuffing process involves slicing the fruit into small, thin strips and stuffing it into the hole you made on the initial cut. Keep the slices about 1/4 inch thick, and slip them into the pocket in a single layer and you are all set. Pretty hard, eh?

Since there is already quite a bit of flavor coming from the fruit inside the pork, this is one of the few dishes where I skimp on the seasonings a little. A good dusting of sea or kosher salt and some cracked black pepper are all these things need. Sear them in a hot pan, then finish up in the oven for a solid meal. Well, sort of.

Remember that twist from the title? That would be my seasonal fruit secret weapon for this dish – a blood orange and habanero sauce that adds a tart, spicy kick to the chops that works perfectly with the mellow sweetness of the mango.

Blood oranges are a type of orange with a purple flesh inside and a flavor that resembles a cross between a raspberry and a regular orange. They are in season between December and April(ish), and have become pretty common in the produce sections of most grocery stores lately. Cooked down with some honey, a habanero, and some soy sauce, the juice of these purple fleshed beauties is a perfect way to top off an already great pork chop.

So put aside your fears of the stuffed pork chop and give it a try. And grab some blood oranges while you’re at it – if nothing else, they are great for getting strange looks from people at the office or for freaking out the kids.

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Salsa Verde Chicken

Jan 13

Posted by John in Main Courses, Mexican, Quick & Easy | No Comments

First off, a small apology for the slow start to 2012. Like all new years before it, this one is full of changes and surprises, so once things settle down a bit we should be back to a more normal and frequent posting schedule…

In my last post I sang the praises of my newly acquired pressure cooker from the Xmas season, and this week I am going to belt out another rousing chorus about this big chrome piece of kitchen awesomeness. I am still figuring out what the thing can do, but with this recipe turning out the way it did, I’m 2 for 2 so far…

I got the inspiration for this dish after reading several “Favorite Hangover Foods” threads on various food forums and seeing something called “juevos ahogados” mentioned more than a few times. Translated as “drowned eggs”, some of the recipes showed eggs poached in red or green salsas, others scrambled the eggs into the sauce, but regardless of how the eggs were done, the final result looked pretty freaking awesome to me.

Since I wasn’t hungover and I wasn’t making this recipe at breakfast time, I decided to expand on it a little and turn it into a lunch/dinner recipe instead by adding some chicken and pressure cooking it until it shredded like BBQ. Having done this style of recipe in a traditional pot and in a slow cooker, I was used to waiting several hours while the simmering salsa and broth slowly reduced the meat to shreds, so the 40 minute cook time in the pressure cooker was a pleasant surprise.

Served up with a side of wholesome refried beans from a can (anything that makes a sickly “splort” sound as it comes out of the can and into the pan is wholesome, right?) and some flour tortillas for wrapping and sopping up the juices, and it was almost complete. But there needed to be an egg to pay homage to the original inspiration, so I fried one up in a different pan and dropped it right on top.

Take a fork, break the yolk, then swirl everything together and start slopping it on tortillas! Spicy, tangy green salsa, tender chicken, beans as a binder, and egg as “goo”, and you have all the major food groups represented in a single plate! Now all I need is a hangover…

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Under Pressure: Tea Steamed Salmon

Jan 5

Posted by John in Asian, Healthy Things, Main Courses, Quick & Easy | No Comments

Aaaaand now I have that Queen & David Bowie song stuck in my head… Way to go, Me.

 After a nice little Holiday break to rest the mind and stuff the belly, the New Year has come and with it comes the inevitable resolution to eat more healthy foods. Sure, some people have other resolutions that they chose in order to avoid having to deal with the healthy one, but we all know that 99.9% of us have that healthy one on the list of “unmentioned resolutions that are really more important than the one we told everyone about”. The other 1%? No mouths.

This year my “get healthier” spree took a slightly different turn – I bought a pressure cooker. The idea first hit me while reading a recent issue of Mother Earth News in the, umm, reading room, and there was a nifty little article in there about the versatility and simplicity of pressure cookers. The article also mentioned reduced cooking time due to cooking at high pressure, and the idea of versatile, simple AND fast cooking made me want one right away. Nothing like being able to kick out a healthy meal in minutes so I can get back to being laz..err, exercising!

After doing my usual overkill amount of research and delaying the purchase by about a week, I had settled on buying a standard stove-top version instead of one of the newfangled electric ones. The idea of an electric pressure cooker that would require even less effort on my part sounded real great, but for every good review of the electric ones there were 5 bad ones, so I begrudgingly ruled those out. A few trips to the local stores later, I had me a shiny new all steel Fagor 6qt cooker in my trunk and no idea what to do with it.

When I finally did get around to unpacking the cooker about a week later, I noticed something that I was not expecting – it had a steamer insert in the box. At that point I had my idea for the “breaking in recipe” for this new piece of hardware – steamed fish and veggies. Healthy, quick, tasty, easy – it hit all the right buttons.

When I steam fish, the aquatic critter of choice is almost always salmon. Why salmon? Because skin-0n salmon tastes great when steamed, but most importantly it can also be removed from a steamer without falling into a billion pieces like most other fish fillets do. The skin on the cuts give the fish enough structural integrity to keep it in one (or two) pieces when moving from cooker to plate, and that is important to me, especially when I have to take pictures of it…

While shopping for a reasonably sized hunk o’ fish for this recipe, I stumbled upon a big bag of very reasonably priced white asparagus at my local Costco – into the cart it went. At the next stop, I nabbed the salmon and a fresh bunch of organic broccoli. I also cheated on the last of the side dishes, picking up a microwave package of jasmine rice – no sense in ruining a low maintenance meal by having to make rice, right? Right?

Two things were left to do at this point – pick a steaming liquid and figure out how to add flavor to the salmon. For a liquid, I decided to try steaming it with a strong brewed cup of pu-erh tea, and in keeping with the Asian theme, the flavor of the dish would come from Sriracha! Steamed in tea, and topped with a mix of Sriracha, honey, and aged soy sauce seemed like the perfect way to honor the demise of a delicious fish. And oh, was it.

Once everything was put together and ready to cook, I packed it all in the steamer basket, dropped it into the pressure cooker and brought it to pressure on a burner. 4 minutes later – yes, 4 whole minutes – the food was done and the healthy eating commenced! I think I love this cooker…

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