Actually good vegetarian tacos

Vegetarian tacos are boring.  There, I said it.  A rice/bean mixture in a corn tortilla just isn't the most exciting thing in the world even if you've managed to throw together some really tasty rice and some time-tested beans. As it turns out, those do much better in a flour tortilla together, but that's another discussion for another day.

So you get creative.  And maybe you have to throw in an under-appreciated starchy vegetable.  And maybe, just maybe, you've been playing with some of the more esoteric uses of a food processor.  You might come up with something like this.

Part the first: a bean salad.

In a large bowl, combine 2 cans or 1lb of (soaked, cooked, etc) black beans, well-drained.  Throw in a a can of corn.  Perhaps pull out a can of olives, slice that up, and add.  While you're on knife work, dice a red onion finely -- and half a medium jicama, a bit less fine.

Set that aside; it won't need dressing for these purposes and you'll have plenty of leftovers that you can dress as you go.

Part the second: purée.  In a food processor, combine the following:

• 1 avocado
• a modest amount of corn or olive oil
• a dash or two of red wine vinegar
• juice (and pulp; why not) of 1 lime
• red pepper flake to taste
• small amounts of garlic (powder is fine here)
• a pinch of salt

Blend that puppy until smooth.  If you need a bit more liquid, add either oil or vinegar based on taste and overall texture.  Oh, and if you're making ahead or in a large batch, be sure to retain an avocado pit to keep from browning before serving.

And that's it.  Toast yourself up some corn tortillas, layer on the purée, bean mixture, and whatever loose greens you have around.  You might note that this is not just vegetarian at this point, but also vegan.  Feel free to keep it that way -- or sneak in cheese and yogurt.  And there you go: interesting tacos that don't depend on all the usual ingredients.

Cilatro-lime rice

For the longest time, Chipotle owned the ciltro-lime rice game. In fact, their white rice is still to die for. The problem? They never quite hit home with their brown rice. But there is a way to do it. This is how. All ratios are normalized for a single cup of rice. Add olive or corn oil to a decent sized pot. Add:

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Zest from 1/2 lime
• Whole cumin

Toast that to extract the flavors into the oil.  Bring to high heat and add the rice.

Shortly after, add juice of whatever limes you used plus water to equal 1.75 cups.  Let the boil down to level, then turn the heat all the way down and steam for 35 minutes (at altitude; 30 might be enough at lower elevations).

Fluff the hot rice, then toss with 1/2 bunch of chopped cilantro and salt to taste.

A Return: Thai Curry

It's been a full year away.  Kind of amazing, but it was a pretty crappy year so go figure.  All that is fading into the past now, and it's back to cooking.

This is an attempt at a rich yellow Thai curry -- and it worked beautifully.  The flavors could probably be enriched by using tamarind over lime and a Thai basil over Italian, but all that just creates trouble getting it done with a visit to the local store.  And it's actually quite good enough as is.

In a dutch oven, melt 4 tablespoons of butter and immediately begin sauteing 1.5 medium red onions.  Add to that 4 sliced jalapenos, seeds and all.  You could moderate the heat here, but it's Thai -- so don't.  (Also note that these jalapenos are the only source of heat, so don't skimp.)  Dash on both raw sugar and salt here.

As the onions cook through, chunk up 4 or 5 potatoes -- russets worked fine and added to the overall sweet notes to the dish.  Also slice 4 or 5 large carrots.  When the onion is mostly translucent, add those and toss to coat.

While that is cooking down a bit, mince 4 (large) cloves of garlic and an equivalent amount of ginger.  Add those as you can with perhaps a bit more sugar.

When all that is combined, add 1 quart chicken stock and 3 stalks lemongrass (if using dried).  Juice 1 lime into the pot and heat to a simmer.  Keep cooking until the potatoes are done and have acquired plenty of spicy-sweet flavor.

To finish, add 1 can of coconut milk (just go for full fat) and a very generous amount of rough chopped basil.  Serve over rice.

Garlic chicken tacos

I wasn't going to post this.  I'll admit it.  It was a series of mistakes and random ingredients.  The wife, however, considers this a recipe box and demanded it be posted.  So here we go.

What if you were about to be lazy and make an aglio e olio, having chopped the garlic and all, and then realize you're out of olive oil?

Sigh.

Well, we have corn tortillas and corn oil, right?  Let's do... that.

Well, it turns out we also have ingredients for those wonderful black beans.  Minus the onions and chicken stock, but we have red and water, right?  Perfect.

So we'll dice up a few chicken breasts and then toss them in corn oil with the garlic, add some whole cumin, and then add oregano and paprika as it settles.  Maybe some leftover enchilada sauce?  Absolutely.  Some salt will round that out nicely.  That will all simmer while we're waiting on the beans, which do take a bit longer.

In the meantime we'll find some asadero and maybe some queso blanco and cube that to about 1/8th inch.  Romaine and yogurt should round that out.

When it's all done, quickly get some corn oil hot and briefly toast the tortillas on each side.  And suddenly: dinner.

Mediterranean fun

A few weeks ago I ran across a huge sale on meyer lemons (and chicken thighs) and was left with very little idea as far as what to do with them.  So it was experiment time.  In this case I decided to look around the Mediterranean area and see what I could pull together.

First, the lemons.  I took two, sliced them thin, and brushed them with olive oil.  They went on a baking sheet with half a head of garlic and then in to the oven at about 325 for half an hour.  The lemons ended up slightly browned and the garlic was wonderfully mellow and mushy.

In the meantime, I dredged the chicken in flour, cayenne, paprika, and allspice and then browned it in an olive oil butter combination.

Once the lemons and garlic were ready, I chopped them along with kalamta olives and capers.

I added all the leftover flour to make a roux around the chicken then added everything in with a bit of chicken broth and simmered it down until the sauce was fully integrated and the chicken cooked through.

This worked wonderfully over pasta and would have done just fine on couscous as well.

Nice to have a slightly different flavor profile once in awhile.

Split pea soup

Another in the series of "well, I have this laying around and by the way it's cold": split pea soup.

Having been informed that maybe lentils again might be overkill and that it definitely wouldn't kill me to dial back the capsaicin for a change it was time to find a new legume to play with.  Luckily, split peas were available by the pound from none other than the kitchen cabinet.

But of course there was no ham hock.  So at least I got to improvise a bit:

First, a 1:1:1 mirepoix in olive oil.  Nothing fancy.  A bit of salt helped to draw out the liquid and speed the process and several rough-chopped garlic cloves finished it off.

In another pan, I browned half a pound of chopped bacon which quickly joined the mirepoix, grease and all.  A pound of kielbasa, chopped, joined everything just before the pound of peas, 8 cups of water, 2 bay leaves, and pepper.

Forty minutes, more salt, and a generous amount of lemon juice later and the whole thing was actually better than the more traditional method.  Thank goodness for spare bacon in the freezer....

Avocado/tangerine salad

Simple as can be.

Chop:

• 1 avocado
• 2 tangerines
• A decent amount of goat cheese
• Two handfuls of almonds

Combine that with spinach.  Dress with:

• Sesame oil
• White wine vinegar (rice wine vinegar would work here too)
• Ground ginger
• Garlic powder

And that's it.  The flavors blend extremely well what with the sweet from the tangerines and almonds, the sour goat cheese, and the various spices (plus whatever it is that avocado has).  The textures work well varying from the crunchy almonds down to the almost melty cheese and avocado.

In a large enough batch this could be a meal.

Lemon-tomato chicken

Sometimes the best food comes out of a totally spontaneous list of ingredients and a deadline.

In this case, dinner for 4.  I have:

• 3 chicken breasts, frozen
• Pasta (settled on linguine)
• Garlic
• Dried oregano
• Olive oil
• Salt

On sale at the store I found:

• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley
• 4 roma tomatoes
• 1 grenade of lemon juice (you know, the lemon juice that you find in the produce section bottled like a lemon/grenade)
• Cheap dry red wine

Lots of stuff you can do with a combination like that.  So why not make it complicated?

Chicken prep

Thaw, obviously, then place in a bowl (whole).  Cover in lemon juice and add oregano.  Toss thoroughly and let that sit for, oh, an hour.

Chopping/prep

In the meantime, start with the tomatoes.  To keep things summery, I didn't really want to cook them but I still wanted tomato flavor in with the chicken.  And given the choice of linguine, just chunking the tomatoes wouldn't work anyway.

Solution: quarter them, set up a colander over a bowl, and crush them by hand until they're just small bits.  Then salt them to sweat the juice, toss well, and set them aside to slowly drip.  Go ahead and press them by hand occasionally.

Then rough-chop most of the bunch of parsley and set that aside for now.

Then obviously the garlic.  I used lots.  In the same spirit as the tomatoes, I want some cooked and some raw, but you can just prep it all the same way.

Chicken

In a large saute pan, heat olive oil and add half the garlic.

Remove the breasts from the marinade and cube into about 1/2 inch pieces, retaining the marinade for later use.

Once the garlic is just turning golden, add the cubed chicken and cook most of the way through, stirring often.  Then add the reserved marinade and your tomato drippings and take the mixture down to a simmer.

In the meantime, make pasta.  Use slightly less water than usual and make sure you salt it liberally.

When the pasta is done, drain and add about a cup and a half of the pasta water to your chicken mixture along with a decent splash of wine.

Let the chicken mixture come to a boil and then slowly reduce it until you get a thick enough sauce to slightly cover the chicken bits (the starch from the pasta water will help this along nicely and the sugar from the tomato will nearly carmelize).

Fresh toppings

Combine your tomatoes with the parsley and the rest of the garlic.  Add a spritz of lemon juice and toss together.

Serve, letting everyone choose how much of each component they'd like and finish with grated hard cheese.

Another very nice summer dish.

A sandwich

This goes back a few years, but it's definitely a summer recipe.  It's sort of loosely based on a mufuletta.  And since it's a relatively cool day with no sun, I figure it might be perfect.

Tapenade

Odd place to start?  Sure.  But why not?  This is going to serve the role of oil and vinegar in the final product while adding something, umm, tapenady?

In a food processor, combine:

• A 60/40 split of kalamata olives and normal black olives
• 2 cloves of garlic (for once I'd strongly advise not going overboard here)
• 1 small handful of italian parsley
• A few chives, somewhat chopped
• 2 small spoonfuls of capers, rinced
• A small amount of oregano

Blend that, adding olive oil as needed, until you have a paste.

Sandwich

So when that's done, select your bread.  I'd recommend a baguette.

Halve your loaf, boule, whatever, and get some of the guts out.  You will have to make room for the other stuff.

So start adding:

• Tapenade to both pieces
• Feta
• Salami
• Spinach
• Banana peppers, sliced
• Roasted red pepper, sliced
• Tomatoes, sliced, salted, and drained in a strainer
• Whatever else strikes your fancy (though I'd recommend not taking the salt content up from here)

Recombine your two halves and wrap the sandwich tightly in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for at least half an hour and up to, say, overnight.  Slice and serve.

Very basic pasta

So many pasta dishes get so complicated so quickly.  This isn't one of them.

Boil water; don't forget to salt it.  It really is better that way.  Eventually add, say, angel hair or some other thin version of spaghetti.  Cook that through.

In the meantime, get to chopping.  Mostly garlic.  Lots of it.  And parsley.  Lots of it.

Add olive oil to a saute pan and lightly toast the garlic.  Once the pasta is ready, add that as well.  Once the pasta is well-coated in oil, kill the heat and add the parsley.  A little red pepper flake at this point wouldn't kill anyone.  Toss further. 

And you're done.

Grate a hard cheese over the top upon serving.

And yes, this compliments the salmon perfectly.

Peasent food is the best

This seems to be a recipe I originally got from my parents and then modified significantly. It's dead simple, messy, delicious, and a great thing to modify for any range of people.

Six basic ingredients:

Bread
Garlic
Basil
Roasted red peppers (jarred is not only fine, it's basically ideal)
Goat cheese
Olive oil

For two people I like to use two heads (yes, you heard the right, heads) of garlic, two demi-baguettes (Costco does exceptionally well here believe it or not), a small loaf of goat cheese (the most expensive part by far), rrps and basil to match.

Heat the oven to 350. Toss the garlic on to an oven sheet, unpealed (well, maybe take off the outside layers of skin), and toast until very fragrant.

In the meantime, split your bread and lightly cover the inside with olive oil. Set aside. Also, rough chop the basil and red peppers.

Drop the oven to 250. Add the bread and keep it on until it starts to color and crisp just a bit.

Plate all items, including lumps of goat cheese, for all eaters. Have them combine ingredients on the bread, squeezing out individual garlic cloves (which should now be at most semi-firm and more likely quite squishy) on the bread, followed by peppers, followed by cheese, followed by basil.

While it's a decent appetizer, it can easily be a full meal (for two as described above).

Just trust me on this one.