Enchiladas, another attempt

After my last attempt at enchiladas (and my ranting about never being able to find a recipe I was happy with) a friend and former colleague sent me a message letting me know she would share with me her tips and techniques for enchilada making.  The recipe met my needs for trying to make the enchiladas mostly from scratch and after LJ took her first bite she looked at me and said "These taste right!"  I think we were looking for enchiladas that resembled a style that we would get at a traditional Mexican restaurant.

Below are the instructions from our friend. They are informal but should give you an idea of how to proceed in your own attempts.  We added ground beef and beans to our first attempt.


Warm up oil in a large skillet (I use canola) sauté onions and garlic- half of a small onion, couple cloves

Add a handful of flour. A good handful should make plenty of sauce- you can’t add flour later
Brown the flour and add red chili powder, like 2 tablespoons (you can start with less and add later) and a teaspoon of ground cumin

Make sure you use the right kind of red chili powder- not the kind you’d use to make menudo (I use New Mexico, but California’s good too). There’s usually an option for hot or mild and it’s in the Mexican/ethnic isle in a little clear, cellophane pouch. Cost like a buck. 

Now add warm water, like 2 cups at least (add more as needed). The pan will be hot so you may need to lift or move the pan off the heat while you add the water. Use a fork or whisk to stir and break down the lumps. Add salt to taste, you’ll need a bit- I use Kosher and just eyeball it. Let simmer.

The consistency should be like a bisque. 

Now grab a cookie sheet or baking pan, spatula and corn tortillas. You’ll need to grate a lot of cheese (cheddar or Colby)- ¾ish of a large block. 

You need to keep the sauce on the burner and have everything next to that- assembly line.

Put the tortilla in the sauce completely covering the tortilla and use the spatula to take it out once it is soft- this shouldn’t take long since the sauce is at a low simmer.

Place the tortilla on the sheet, add cheese and roll- this is messy. Continue to do this until you are almost out of sauce. When you have all your enchiladas rolled up sprinkle cheese over the whole deal and pan over the rest of the sauce/onions.

  

Put the pan in the oven- bake at 350 for 10 minutes or so

When plating the enchiladas, I cut up lettuce, tomatoes and onion (salad) and put right on top of the enchiladas. Sometimes I’ll get some crème fresco and/or avocado.

CSA Week 13

This week, clockwise from the bottom left: one red onion, mustard greens, 4! pounds of pattypan squash, purple basil, a huge bag of green beans, a very large head of lettuce, tatsoi, beets, artichokes, peppers, and carrots.  That's a lot of squash, and green beans, and greens, and ... well it's just a lot of veggies.  We will be doing our best to eat healthily this week with all the different goodies we got.  (Not pictured, we also bought some ears of corn from Eastern Washington since the farm isn't offering it this year.)

Roasted Fennel

When we picked up out CSA last week I was surprised to see a bulb of fennel in our large haul of vegetables.  I spent this time last year volunteering on the farm and never remember seeing any fennel growing or being harvested so I'm not sure if I just wasn't observant enough or if this was a new growing experiment at the farm.

One of the best thing about being a CSA member has been being encouraged to try new vegetables.  Some things have been very pleasant surprises.  LJ and I have commented to each other a number of times recently that we can't wait for winter squash to come, though I also remember at the end of last winter we had had enough squash.  Other things we are still trying to find a good use for.  Since I'd never eaten or cooked fennel before I fell back to one of my standard rules:  When in doubt, roast it!

I used this basic recipe from Simply Recipes for my attempt.  The end results were a little disappointing.  The fennel seemed too stringy and difficult to eat while the inside didn't seem full cooked even though the edges were burnt and papery.

If we get another bulb I'll have to try this recipe next.

Dried Cherries

One of my brothers was visiting our parents in Eastern Washington and on his way home came through town and dropped of a few cherries that he had gleaned with my parents from a friend of the family's farm.  We ended up with two grocery sacks full of Rainier cherries.  Since cherries don't last long we knew we would need to preserve them in some way or try to eat them all quickly and suffer the consequences.

We decided to dry all the cherries because we enjoy eating them year round in a homemade trail mix that consists of the cherries, almonds, and dark chocolate chips.

The first step is to pit the cherries.  We inherited a cherry pitter a few years ago and have found it works quite well when the cherries are still firm and plump.  One of us knocks out the pits and drops the cherries in a bowl while the other takes the cherries from the bowl, cuts them in half, and places them on the dryer.

The only downfall with working with cherries is that they tend to stain your hands.  You can see the mark left by the Rainiers on my thumb below after we finished loading all the drying trays.

A day and half later we were still left with two bags full of cherries, though at least now the bags can be stored.  They probably won't last us all year but they sure will be sweet to have.

Fermented Pickles

There is no food that divides LJ and I more than pickles.  Whenever she sees, smells, or tastes (god forbid!!) any type of pickle she makes a face that can only be described as resembling the Mr. Yuk sticker.  I on the other hand cherish the memory of my Grandma M's pickles nearly above all others from my childhood.  I have been on a mission to recreate those pickles over the last few years, and though this recipe does not use the same techniques Grandma M used, the end result is the closest I've come yet.

This recipe comes from the writer of Food in Jars, one of my go to canning blogs, but I found it through this NPR program that attempts to recreate lost family recipes (a really brilliant idea I think).  Since my first attempt with fermentation of sauerkraut did not go as well as I hoped (I thought I blogged about it but can't find a link now so maybe I didn't share the failure with the world) I was a little hesitant to try this recipe, but my love of pickles won out.

The process is actually quite simple and only takes a few minutes to set up the jars to ferment.  A word of warning though about the process.  Everything I've read about fermenting encourages you to check on your product every day but I neglected this step.  I just covered the jars with a towel and forgot about them for a week.  When I returned the surface had quite a bit of scum on it and mold growing.  This all happens from yeast and mold that are naturally floating in the air and as long as your food stays submerged during the fermenting process things will be fine.  By checking on your product every day it helps disturb theses colonies from growing and can help from grossing you out.

After clearing out the mold and scum I snagged a pickle from the jar and cut off a piece to see how sour it was.  I was surprised by how much it tasted like a pickle already, considering that there was no vinegar in the recipe.  All told I let the two jars ferment on the counter for nearly three weeks before I put them in the refrigerator for storage, though one has nearly been empty already from all my snacking.

Storage is really the only downfall of these pickles versus vinegar pickles.  The fermented pickles can't be canned when they are finished so they must be stored some place cool to slow the fermentation process.  Traditionally this would have been in a root cellar but we don't yet have one of those, so for now they take up precious refrigerator space.

One last lesson regarding fermentation that I often seem to forget.  Chlorinated tap water can inhibit the fermentation process.  If you have well water you probably are fine using that but if not it is probably better to buy spring or distilled water to ensure that your product turns out.  I believe this was part of my problem with my first attempt at sauerkraut.

CSA Week 12

Our weekly installment of veggies included (from bottom): pattypan squash, zucchini, carrots, mizuna, green beans, romaine lettuce, fennel, a ginormous Walla Walla onion, (more!) red potatoes, tatsoi, and basil.  We thought this week's selection included a really nice variety.  There are plenty of options to plan meals and dishes around, in addition to some basic salad fixings.  Over the weekend we headed out to the farm for a potluck dinner and toured around the fields a bit; things seem to be growing nicely which bodes well for the rest of the summer CSA season!

Fruit Leather (aka Fruit Roll-Ups)

A week or so ago my sister and her stepsons came to visit, and we went to pick blueberries at a local U-pick farm.  Though we would have had slightly more if the boys hadn't thrown so many at each other, we still walked away with around 20 pounds of berries for a ridiculously low price.  The boys asked what to do with all the berries.  I told them that I love to eat blueberries in my oatmeal so we were planning on freezing most of them to have throughout the year.  They weren't too excited about that possibility.  Last year HH made blueberry jam, but he wasn't really in the mood this year, having canned jars upon jars of raspberry and strawberry jam already.  Another favorite way to preserve the "booty" is to make it into fruit leather, which doesn't require any freezer space and is easy to make with a food dehydrator.  The boys were more enthusiastic about that idea, so I promised that HH and I would make a batch or two and mail them some samples.

I made several different types of fruit leather this time around, using pears, apricots, and of course, blueberries.  To sweeten things up, I used honey, granulated sugar, or a combination of the two. 

The process is super simple.  Chop the fruit, if needed, and blend in a food processor or blender until mostly smooth.  Add sweetener until it tastes right (not too sweet, not too sour). 

 

Some food dehydrators come with solid plastic trays to make leather on (which we have) but I prefer to line the racks with plastic wrap.  I like this method better because when the leather is done, it's already mostly packaged for you!

Pour the fruit mixture onto the prepared trays, add some designs if desired (I usually do), and turn the machine on.  To make the designs, I either spooned the different flavors on different parts of the tray and swirled them with a knife, or put some of the blueberry puree in a squeeze bottle and squeezed it on. 

 

We have found that it usually takes at least 10 hours for the fruit to set up.  If we are prepared, this means we can leave it on overnight and check on things in the morning to see if they are done.  

After the fruit is sufficiently dry, I cut them into quarters with a pair of scissors and either roll them into fruit roll-ups or stack them on top of each other flat and put into a plastic bag for storage.  They don't need to go into the refrigerator; just keep them in a cool dry place like a cupboard or pantry.  We have found that our homemade fruit leather lasts up to around a year, but we usually eat them all before that time comes! 

Other varieties we have made include apple-pear (a big favorite with my friends) and cherry-vanilla, but I assume that any fruit would work well.  You could even add some additional flavorings like cinnamon or mint.  HH appears to be enjoying his first taste!