A Taste of Mexico (or any excuse for another margarita!)

Our favorite dish at a Mexican restaurant is always chiles rellenos.  We judge a restaurant by this dish and  are tough critics when it comes to rellenos. We decided to take up the challenge, and this recipe pleased us, but we made a few changes. Are you surprised? 

Summer produce is still readily available, and we took full advantage by sautéing corn on the cob, sweet peppers and yellow summer squash for a side dish.  

Sue lobbied for one more return of the infamous margaritas from our “Cinco de Mayo” posting. Meg did not object.  

Meg had artisan tortillas in her freezer, which we converted to tortillas chips to complement our “how we like it” guacamole.  


Artisan tortilla home made chips

 

 

How We Like It Guacamole
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg
For Saturday Night Specials 10/6/2012

1 large and 2 small avocados, seeded and  coarsely mashed
1 lime juiced
2 small tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
Garlic salt and black pepper to taste

Weight Watchers:  8 points

Roasted tomatoes, onion and jalapeno for the salsa.

Roasted Salsa

Roasting the chiles on gas stove burners. Very handy!

A roasted chile, sliced open and seeded.

The stuffed chiles frying.

Stuffed Poblano Chiles ("Chiles Rellenos")

Recipe courtesy Marcela Valladolid
Prep Time:  20 min
Inactive Prep Time:  --
Cook Time:  15 min
Level:  Easy
Serves:  6 servings

Ingredients

Sauce:
5 red plum tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup chopped white onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 jalapeno pepper (added from the reviews)

Chiles:
1 1/2 cups Monterrey Jack cheese
1 tablespoon dried oregano
6 poblano chiles, charred, seeded, and deveined *see Cook's Note
3 egg whites, at room temperature
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
All-purpose flour, for dredging
Vegetable oil, for frying

Directions

Sauce: Put the tomatoes, garlic and onion in a blender. Blend until smooth. In a medium saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the sauce and simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Chile rellenos: Mix the cheese and oregano in a small bowl. Cut a slit through 1 side of the charred chiles and fill each chile with 1/4 cup of the cheese mixture. Close with toothpicks to hold the filling in place. In a medium bowl, using an electric hand mixer, beat the egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Add the egg yolk and continue to beat for about 1 minute.
In a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, pour in enough oil to fill the pan about a third of the way. Heat over medium heat until a deep-frying thermometer inserted in the oil reaches 375 degrees F. (If you don't have a thermometer a cube of bread will brown in about 3 minutes.) Dredge the filled chiles in flour until fully covered. Shake off any excess flour, then dip the chiles into the egg mixture, until well coated. Fry until golden brown and drain on paper towels.
Arrange the chiles on a serving platter, spoon the sauce on top and serve.

Notes
To char the chiles (or any fresh chile): Put the chiles over a gas flame or underneath the broiler and cook until they are blackened on all sides. Enclose them in a plastic bag and let stand for 10 minutes to steam, which will make them easier to peel. Peel, stem, and seed the chiles. Once peeled, the chiles may be chopped, sliced or stuffed.

Weight Watchers: 10 points per rellano with sauce

Stuffed chile with roasted salsa.

Pepper, Squash and Corn Sauté
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg
For Saturday Night Specials 10/6//2012 

15 small tri-color peppers, sliced in half and seeded

2 large yellow summer squash, sliced and cut in half
2 large ears, fresh corn on the cob, cut from the cob
3 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
3 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped for garnish.

Heat olive oil in large skillet. Add corn and suate for 3-4 minutes. Add remianing vegetable and cook until squash and peppers are crisp-tender.

Weight Watchers:  3 points

Sauteed corn, peppers and yellow squash.

To round out the meal we had the most decadent Chile Chocolate Pecan Cookies served with one of our favorites --- Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka.  OMG!


Chile Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Makes: about 3 dozen
From: “Great Desserts of the American West, Frances Towner Gieldt, Lone Star Books

Ingredients:

2 c semisweet chocolate chips
6 T (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 c plus 2 T sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 t vanilla extract
1 c plus 2 T unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t ground cinnamon
½ t baking powder
½ t salt
¼ c crushed dried New Mexican red chiles
2/3 c chopped pecans

Place 1 ½ cups of the chocolate chips in a 1 quart microwave-safe bowl, microwave, uncovered, on medium power for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring after 2 minutes, until chocolate is melted and smooth.  Let cool.

Preheat oven to 350’.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. 
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Beat in vanilla and cooled chocolate.
In a bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.  Gradually stir into egg mixture, mixing well.  Stir in ground chiles, pecan, and remaining ½ c chocolate chips.
Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.  Cool cookies on a rack.

Weight Watchers:  3 points per cookie

Chili Chocolate Pecan Cookies with Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka

Our biased and unsolicated opinions:

We changed up the salsa by roasting 7 quartered Roma tomatoes, 1 medium quartered white onion and 1 seeded jalapeno, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. The roasting brought out the sweetness and gave a smokiness to the salsa.  After roasting, we coarsely chopped them in a food processor and added them to the pressed garlic, which we had sautéed in a tablespoon of olive oil.  We served the salsa at room temperature and think it would be better on the chiles served warm. 

We used a combination of Monterey jack and pepper jack for our filling. After reading the comments on the Food Network, we chose not to char the peppers as much as we would have normally and put them in the freezer prior to coating them for frying. They were crisp-tender, and we prefer softer chiles. This calls for a re-do, oh darn.   

After removing the corn from the cob, we started sautéing it first, then added the squash and peppers. These were crisp-tender, which was our intention.  

We used a combination of La Tortilla Factory Green Chili, Corn and Wheat Chipotle, and Mission Flax  Seed & Blue Corn Blend tortillas, sliced into quarters, brushed with olive oil, salt and pepper. We roasted them for 20 minutes per side in a 375 degree oven. The chipotle tortillas were thicker and did not crisp at the same rate as the other tortillas. They should have been started sooner or roasted separately. We really liked the variety of flavors and textures with the guacamole.  

These cookies are like eating a chewy fudge brownie with a slightly spicy kicker at the end. Meg says she is going to start adding chiles to all her brownies. (OK by Sue.) We thought a quarter cup of chiles might be too much, but it seems just right. We didn’t have any New Mexico dried chiles; so Meg selected dried Guajillio chiles after taste testing 4 dried varieties. In the first bite you get the chocolate and the cinnamon. The chiles sneak in at the end. Soooo good, especially with the espresso vodka, although Meg says that they are equally good with a latte in the morning.

 An altogether wonderful meal.

Salud, amor, pesetas y tiempo para disfrutarlos.