Simple bean/chicken salad

Well, mostly simple.  The actual prep is just a tiny bit time-consuming (if half an hour counts) but it's very good.  Especially for coming out of a can.

Basic idea: throw together some beans.  Make them taste good.  Make sure you have plenty of protein going so it's a full meal or more.  And make sure it's a complete protein or two.

Basic salad

And I mean really basic.  Five cans.  Oil.  Vinegar.

First, drain a can of diced tomatoes; retain the sauce in a bowl.  You're going to have the colander out anyway; just drain the juice into the bowl.  Crush the tomatoes by hand a bit.

Combine in a large bowl:

• 1 can black beans, drained and washed
• 1 can great northern beans, drained and washed
• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and washed
• 1 can corn, drained (no washing needed)
• 2 celery stocks, finely cubed
• Chopped parsley; flat leaf if you have it
• Tomatoes without the juice
• Olive oil
• Red wine vinegar

 And that's your basic bean salad.  Get that in the refrigerator.

Chicken

I used two breasts to balance this and it seemed to work.  Marinate in:

• Red wine vinegar
• Orange juice
• Red pepper flake

After about half an hour, toss that in a pan, cover, heat, and more or less poach it.  When done, cube/shred and add to the salad, tossing well.

Rice

Prepare rice as normal, except:

• Use the reserved tomato juice to replace some of your water
• Add coriander
• Add one bay leaf

Very hearty.  Best served cold.  Makes a great summer meal.

Tri-tip burritos

For some reason summer for me means tri-tip.  And tri-tip is good.  And very occasionally on sale enough to justify.

After experiencing several experiments on a small smoker (thank you very much Mr. McCormack; all was quite welcome) I decided to give it a shot on my own.  Which naturally meant not traditional smoked beef; that would be too mundane.  Even if I did have a smoker.

Solution: slow-cooked, heavily marinated beef with green chile in a tortilla.  How could that go wrong?  (In this case, it actually didn't.)

Marinade/sauce

In a food processor, combine:

• Garlic
• Cumin
• Oregano
• Ancho (for smokey flavor so not too much; this isn't your heat source)
• 1/4 package of hot chile powder (hot molido, in this case; this is your heat source)
• 50-50 white vinegar and water until there's a thin paste (it's easy enough to modulate the amount of vinegar down a bit, but you do need a decent amount to tenderize the beef)

Cover your tri-tip with this stuff, pour the rest in a baking pan with the meat in it, cover and chill.  Probably best overnight, and probably better if you pierce the meat several times.

Green sauce

The next day, or whenever you're nearly ready to start actually cooking the meat, start up your green sauce.

In a sauce pan, sweat in olive oil:

• 1 medium onion, 1/4 inch dice or so
• Garlic, minced
• Some whole cumin

In the meantime, thaw 1 container green chile (yeah, i used Bueno extra hot for this as well; I could live on that stuff).

When the onions are basically transparent, add:

• 1 yellow or orange pepper (red will do; going for sweet here) in smallish chunks

Sweat that down a bit, then add the green chile (likely still partially frozen), some water, and turn the heat up.  Let it come to a boil.

Thicken as desired with cold water/flour until reasonably thick -- you want it to drop, not run if that makes sense.

In the meantime, start on the meat.

Meat

Bring an oven to 450 or so.  Bring meat back to room temp on the counter; probably start this just before you start on the green sauce.

To do this properly, heat up your cast iron and Maillard that thing on all sides.

Then throw the meat in a baking pan, uncovered, for 20 minutes or so (100 F?) and toss it in the hot oven.

Take it out, remove from pan and set the nice pasty bits aside, wrap in foil and return to the oven until it reaches 125 - 130.

Remove, let sit for 10 - 15 minutes in the foil, then slice thin against the grain.  Return slices to the now likely cool sauce with any retained juices.  Toss around to coat a bit.

Final product

Heat tortillas.  Place meat in tortillas.  Smother in sauce.  Try to close and eat without making a ridiculous mess.  Chopped fresh cilantro would be awesome here as well.  Consider avocado and black olive as well.  Maybe even some lettuce of some flavor.

Serve with black beans perhaps?  Pico de gallo wouldn't hurt either.