Chiles Rellenos

I was intending to stuff these chiles rellenos with polenta. But it turns out I haven’t made anything with corn meal in a while, and that it can go bad if your canister is not airtight and possibly moisture gets in. But let’s not dwell on that. Instead, let’s look at some pictures of things on fire:

The first step in chiles rellenos is to char the skins of the ancho peppers. It should be noted that I did not burn a single finger in the process–I didn’t even singe my hair.

Then while those peppers were sitting in a covered bowl (the better to remove the charred skins), I chopped up a jalapeno. I read somewhere that a rough gauge of the heat of a pepper is the cracks in the skin–more cracks means more heat. I don’t remotely know if this is true, but I like the sound of it.

So I diced up one of those (THAT is where I burned my fingers), and some scallions, cooked for a few minutes in olive oil, and then added in some cooked black beans and fresh cilantro. Then that whole mess gets mixed into a pot of rice, with some cheese grated in.

And then, look! The roasted peppers! Here they are without their skins. They just need to be split open, and have as much of seeds & ribs removed as possible.

Then I stuffed some of the rice/beans mixture into the peppers, poured some tomatillo sauce I made back when we got tomatillos the last time and had stashed in the freezer. Set them back into the skillet I cooked the beans in, and stuck it in the oven just until everything is hot. (Though I suppose if you prefer, you could heat them through and THEN smother in salsa.)

It should be noted that my fingers were still burning when I fell asleep last night. Serves me right for being too lazy/stubborn to wear rubber gloves when cutting up hot peppers.

Chiles Rellenos
6-8 ancho chiles
1 jalapeno
4 scallions
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt
2 c. cooked black beans (or 1 can, rinsed & drained)
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1 c. rice, cooked according to instructions
sharp cheese of your choice, grated (I used zamorano, but cheddar or jack would be fine)
salsa of your choice

Char the anchos over an open flame (your gas burner will work perfectly) until they are black all around. Stick them in a bowl and cover it with a plate for 15 minutes. Turn the oven to 350F.

Meanwhile, mince the jalapeno and cut up the scallions. Heat an oven-proof skillet over medium heat, and saute the veggies in olive oil with a little salt, for a few minutes. Then add the black beans and cook until heated through. Mix in the cilantro and turn off the heat. Then mix all that into the rice, and grate in as much cheese as you like.

Remove the charred skin from the peppers, slit them open on one side, and remove the seeds and membranes as best you can without letting the pepper fall to pieces. Stuff each one to overflowing with the rice & beans mixture. Put them back in the skillet and stick it in the oven for 10 minutes or so, until everything is heated through. You can pour the salsa on top before or after the stint in the oven, whichever you prefer. Top with more cheese and fresh cilantro if you like.

Take Two

So I’ve already made this one, and even talked about it quite extensively, but this time I’ve got visual aids.

To rehash, for those of you just catching up, this is the Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw from Bon Appétit, which first came to my attention through Smitten Kitchen’s post about it. This is one of those recipes that falls onto the short list of Meals That Are Quick, Healthy, and Don’t Feel Like Cheating. (The complementary list of Quick Healthy but Cheating Meals includes things like Leftovers + Lettuce = Salad, and Omelets with Random Veggies.)

Take a quarter of a head of cabbage, core it, and slice very thin. Don’t bother with the mandolin. Mix it up with the juice from half a lime, a drizzle of olive oil, some salt, a shredded carrot, a good handful of chopped cilantro, and a couple of sliced scallions.

Let it sit while you check out the view from the kitchen:

(this is Mowgli pouting because I’m cooking and therefore not playing with him)

(and this is Mowgli suddenly VERY alert because he saw me whip out the camera. uh oh, the dog is starting to encroach on my food blog. he’s already taken over the bed, the couch, and most of the rest of my life. he’s even got his own blog, but clearly that’s not good enough…)

See? Look what happened while you were looking the other way: the slaw came together beautifully!

Now you take a couple of cups of black beans (a plain old can will do, drained and rinsed, but I had cooked up a pot the other day, and I think this is about 2 cups), and mash in a teaspoon of ground cumin. That’s right, mash it up, just short of refried beans consistency. You can get out the potato masher if you want, but a fork does the job perfectly well.

Crumble up some feta, grab a couple of soft tortillas, and heat up your frying pan.

Drizzle in a little olive oil and toss in the tortilla, with a big spoonful or two of the bean/cumin mixture. Let it heat in the pan for no more than a minute, probably less, then fold it up, and cook another 30 seconds on each side.

Transfer to your plate, and add the feta, some slaw, and as much hot sauce as you like. (I slathered the side under the slaw, which you can’t see, with the chili garlic sauce I made this past week. I’m getting kind of a taste for hot things–my dad will be so proud.)

Fold it back up, and, look! It’s barely a half hour later, from start to finish, and you’re ready to veg out and eat a delicious dinner while updating your blog!

A last note: the first time I made this, I cooked up all 4 tacos and froze #s 3 and 4, to be reheated at a later date. That was a mistake. It took significantly longer to reheat them than it would have to heat up a skillet and assemble from the prepared ingredients, and they didn’t taste nearly as good.

(Not Pictured)

Bon Appetit‘s Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw does not feed 4 people for dinner. But it is delicious. And if, like me, you are not ever going to buy a package of cole slaw mix, know that 1/4 of a head of cabbage, sliced thin, plus a carrot, grated, adds up to the same thing as 2 cups. (Or forget the carrot if you’re K. or S. and allergic. Either way.) And that whole wheat tortillas are excellent, too, though don’t follow their advice on timing, because three minutes in a hot oiled skillet = burnt tacos. And sriracha makes an excellent condiment to add some heat and flavor. And I followed Smitten Kitchen’s advice to double the cumin.

And then I admirably restrained myself from eating all 4 tacos in one sitting, so now I’ve got 2 wrapped in foil in the freezer, which I hope will be ok reheated in the oven… (It’s cabbage, not lettuce, so it should be fine, right? Right.)

Then also this week I made High Desert Blue Corn Muffins from Vegetarian Times, only not blue. I made these the first week of the CSA, too, but that was pre-blog, and I didn’t put in any pine nuts. Probably because I didn’t have any on hand, but if I’d remembered how good pine nuts are when they soak up a little oil, I would have made a trip to the store. They become kind of chewy instead of crunchy, and I just love them. This recipe is also another application of the kitchen-revelation that lowfat plain yogurt can pretty much substitute for buttermilk whenever you want.

I’ve frozen most of these muffins (it’s getting kind of crowded in the freezer), but I’ve still got loads more sage to use, so I might very well make another batch. Before I do, though, I should probably go out and buy a muffin tin. It turns out that the muffin tins I’ve used for the last [pause to do some quick math] six years belonged to one roommate or another. And now that I am living by myself, that’s something my kitchen is lacking. It also turns out, though, that it works perfectly well to set a dozen muffin liners in your Le Creuset 12 1/2″ rectangular baking dish, as long as you don’t mind trapezoidal muffins.

Good Food is Not Always Pretty

J. came over for dinner and some Alias tonight, and we made quesadillas, of a sort. Starting from a recipe from Bon Appetit. Carnivores though we may be, we vegetarian-ized it, mixing the marinade in with some black beans instead of chicken

and tripling or quadrupling the amount of eggplant and onions, and added in the lone purple pepper I received this week.

Also, in the interest of not buying something made with hydrogenated crap, we used lavash instead of tortillas.

On the whole, it came out very well. The lavash crisped up very nicely

although cutting it into slices was, um, problematic.

We had no trouble polishing off the entire thing, though. (I called it a Williams meal, on account of the purple-and-gold palette.) Good thing we made 2, so we each have lunch for tomorrow.

Black Bean & Eggplant Lavash Quesadilla
serves 4 people with generous appetites

1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro + more for salsa fresca
1-2 jalapeños, seeded and deveined
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice + more for salsa fresca
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 red onions, cut into 1/4″ slices
2 medium eggplants, cut into 1/4″ slices
1 bell pepper, seeded and deveined, cut into wedges
Olive oil
4 x 12″ rounds of lavash
1 c. grated sharp cheddar
Sour cream
1 tomato
1/4 c. yellow onion, chopped
salt & pepper

Puree together water, cilantro, jalepenos, lime juice, and olive oil in a blender. Add salt & pepper to taste, then mix together with the beans in a pot. Simmer over low heat, until liquid has reduced, while you are preparing the rest of the meal.

Turn on the broiler. Line a baking sheet with foil and put on it as many slices of eggplant, onion, and bell pepper as you can, brushing each side with olive oil and sprinkling with salt & pepper. Broil for a few minutes on each side, until cooked/browned to your liking. This will probably take a couple of rounds, depending on how many slices of veggies you have. Throw away the foil.

Turn the oven down to 450F. Brush one side of a lavash round with olive oil, and place that side down on the cookie sheet. Sprinkle half the cheese over it, then top with half the beans, and then half the veggies. Put the next lavash on top, brush the top with olive oil, and stick it in the oven for 10 minutes. (If you have 2 cookie sheets, you can cook everything at once. At the moment the count in my kitchen is just 1, so we did one at a time.)

While the quesadilla is cooking, make the salsa fresca. Chop up the tomato, and mix with chopped onion, a little cilantro, some salt, and some lime juice.

Cut the quesadilla into servings and top with the salsa and sour cream. My suspicion is that this does not make very good leftovers, but I will confirm that at a later date. Point being, eating it all at once is recommended.