raisin

chiles rellenos stuffed with spinach and cheese

by Stevie on March 26, 2010

I’ve slightly adapted this recipe from Savoring Mexico, a wonderful book in the Williams-Sonoma “Savoring” series. Readers of this blog might recognize that my recipes for tomatillo salsa, smoky ancho salsa and spicy chipotle salsa all derive from this marvelous guide.

chiles rellenos stuffed with spinach and cheese filling

I don’t make the stuffed poblanos or chiles rellenos often only because it’s a lot of work to peel and clean the peppers. Fortunately, Hegui was my sous chef this time, greatly simplifying my bother. I have seen the poblanos pre-cleaned and canned if you want to skip the step using the fresh ones. I haven’t yet tried it that way and sort of wonder if it would taste the same. Certainly the stem would be missing which would make the final dish look slightly less exciting.

I made this last minute so I didn’t have the time to get the proper Mexican cheeses: queso fresco and crema. Instead I got Monterey Jack and sour cream which worked pretty well. The original uses fresh spinach, pine nuts and less onion and garlic than I like. I’ve changed these here.

roasting poblanos for stuffing

If you’ve ever had chiles rellenos before, it was probably the deep fried type. These are baked, not fried, so they’re a bit more healthy.

I had more stuffing than pepper and my peppers sort of fell apart a little. All that means is that they didn’t photograph as cutely as I’d wished. The taste was superb!

some key ingredients for chiles rellenos with spinach and cheese filling

Chiles Rellenos Stuffed with Spinach and Cheese

6 fresh poblano peppers
Monterey Jack cheese, in pieces for stuffing
1 box frozen spinach, thawed and drained
¼ cup and 1 to 2 tsps. olive oil
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup raw pepitas
1 lb. roma tomatoes
½ onion
6 cloves garlic with peels on
Sour cream or crema to garnish
Kosher salt to taste

Clean and roast fresh poblanos over an open fire or with your oven broiler. Once the skin becomes bubbly and blackens, remove from heat to a paper bag. Allow to steam until cool enough to touch. Remove skin. With a paring knife, carefully slit each pepper open lengthwise being sure not to detach the stem. Remove ribs and seeds.

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

In a large skillet, add ¼ cup olive oil and heat till smoking. Add spinach, raisins, raw pepitas and salt to taste. Cook, stirring often, until dry.

cooking the filling

Fill each prepared pepper with a piece of Monterey Jack cheese and some of the spinach stuffing. Place tightly together on a baking dish. When all peppers are filled, cover with foil and bake for about 20 to 30 minutes until cheese melts.

Meanwhile, prepare tomato sauce by roasting whole tomatoes, unpeeled garlic and onion in a cast iron pan (I use a coated one) for a few minutes. Remove garlic peels and woody tomato parts. Place garlic, onion and tomatoes in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add salt as desired.

Heat remaining olive oil in a pan and “fry” tomato sauce on medium for a few minutes. Be careful for splashing.

frying the tomato sauce

To serve, place a ladle-full of tomato sauce on a large dish. Float a stuffed pepper over sauce and drizzle sour cream or crema over the dish as garnish.

I served this with warm corn tortillas and margaritas. Hegui made spring greens with cherry tomatoes and roasted red bell pepper dressing, which went perfectly. Cheers!

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nutty, nutty, nutty granola and channeling Daria

by Heguiberto on November 4, 2009

“Welcome to ‘It’s a Nutty, Nutty, Nutty World.’ We’re just nuts about nuts. Crunch nuts with your lunch. Buy them by the bunch. Send them to friends far away to munch.”


This recipe makes me think of “Daria,” that amazing MTV show from the early 90’s about this brilliant, dorky, shy, angst-ridden, cynical high school girl, Daria, her family and classmates. The show’s really funny! In this particular episode, “It happened one nut,” Daria’s parents want her to go to counseling to improve her social skills or find a temp job in order to learn what the “real world” is really like. Yeah, scary! She tries to avoid both counseling and work but her clever dad finds her a job at a kiosk at the local shopping mall selling nuts. The only job requirements are wearing the weird uniform, bagging nuts, smiling and repeating the nut stand’s motto, which I quoted above, over and over and over again. Naturally, she has problems with all four job requirements, with very amusing results. Kevin, the good looking but sort of dumb high school football jock, is her co-worker. He really screws up the motto, saying wild things about nuts throughout the episode. Steven and I were cracking up the whole show and even now, ten years or more later (we saw reruns), we still will simply say “I’m nuts about nuts” and we’ll both laugh.

I love this granola. It’s full of nuts, so we think that you’ll be chanting “I’m nuts about nuts” when you taste it, too. The recipe’s relatively easy to make, tasty and super healthy; perfect for breakfast or even to eat as a snack.

key ingredients for health: rolled oats and wheat germ

key ingredients for health: rolled oats and wheat germ

Nutty, Nutty, Nutty Granola

3 cups rolled oats and barley
1 cup wheat germ
½ cup dry grated coconut
Pinch of salt
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup canola oil
1 tbsp maple syrup
1tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 cup of raw cashews
¾ cup raw Brazil nut
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup dried cranberry

How to:
Preheat oven to 275F. Place cashew and Brazil nuts in a zip lock bag, seal and roll a wine bottle over it to crush the nuts coarsely. Transfer them to large bowl then add the pumpkin seeds, coconut, wheat germ, salt and rolled oat/barley mix. Toss. Meanwhile place oil and brown sugar in a Pyrex glass dish, stir and nuke it in the microwave for about a minute or till it bubbles. Pour it into the nut mixture with the maple syrup and vanilla extract. Using a spatula toss it till liquid is incorporated and lumps are dissolved.

baking the nutty nutty nutty granola

baking the nutty nutty nutty granola

Spread mix on a large shallow baking tray and bake for about 40 min. Mix two to three times during baking. For the last 3 minutes increase temp to 350F just to toast the granola a bit being careful not to burn it. Remove from oven. Let cool completely then transfer to a glass jar. Enjoy it with soy milk, yogurt or milk.

nutty nutty nutty granola for breakfast

nutty nutty nutty granola for breakfast

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raw wet granola or muesli?

by Heguiberto on October 13, 2009

I get confused with the names: granola or muesli. All I can say is that this is delicious for breakfast. Not to mention that it’s ultra granola healthy! It is very simple to make and you are going to love it! All you have to do is muesli* the ingredients below:

Raw Wet Granola or Muesli

wet granola ingredients

wet granola ingredients

Here it is:

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup of soy milk
½ cup mixed raw nuts (cashew, Brazil, almonds)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup raisins
1 Braeburn or Granny Smith apple, peeled and grated
1 tbsp grated coconut
Sprinkle of cinnamon or more to taste
Pinch salt

How to:
Place nuts in a zip lock bag and roll an empty bottle over it to crush the nuts a bit. Transfer to a stainless steel container. Add the rest of the ingredients to the container. Give it a good stir. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Eat within two days. Add soy milk for serving.

wet granola served at sunrise

wet granola served at sunrise

*muesli means mixture in German

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braised carrots with raisins and pepitas

by Heguiberto on September 25, 2009

braised carrots with pepitas and raisins

braised carrots with pepitas and raisins

I like carrots, but Steven, not so much. For this reason, usually I skip them on my trips to the supermarkets. We’ve been sharing most of our meals together for quite a while now. Sometimes we need to compromise, particularly when our tastes diverge. Things changed when I ‘discovered’ heirloom carrots.

There is one particular type that I really like: the Nantes, named after the French city in the Loire region. It is bright orange, thin, sweet, earthy, succulent and crunchy. I just love eating them raw. The farmers markets here in San Francisco offer these and many other kinds of heirloom varieties with a broad array of colors and shapes available all year around. If you haven’t tried other carrots besides the standard large orange kind or the appalling and ubiquitous “baby carrot” then I encourage you to branch out. You’ll be surprised and probably delighted with the whole spectrum of flavors, colors and textures stimulating your taste buds! Whenever I shop at farmers markets I make sure I bring some home. These heirloom carrots are available at our local Trader Joe’s but the flavor and freshness are inconsistent. They still taste better than the conventional ones, so I get them there when I can’t get to the farmers market.

some heirloom carrots from the farmers market

some heirloom carrots from the farmers market

This time around I decided to cook these succulent roots instead of eating them raw. This dish is inspired by a vegetarian cookbook, Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey by Najmieh Batmanglij. I bought it a couple of years ago on a wine tour to the very fancy Darioush winery on Silverado Trail in Napa Valley. It boasts an Iranian theme complete with reconstructions of ancient Persian statuary at the entrance. Really it was very impressive. You’re almost fooled into thinking that you’re in the ancient Middle East only to wake up and realize that you’re actually in some kind of Northern Californian Disneyland for adults. But that’s pretty cool too.

Back to earth now, I was very pleased with the end result of this vegan carrot recipe. By the time the dish was ready the air in the house was permeated with sweet, tart and spicy aromas. To me, this was redolent of a Middle Eastern, Near Eastern, Indian or Moroccan kitchen at meal time. Back to dreaming at Darioush! We ate our carrot creation with mushroom flavored rice, but you could have it with couscous, quinoa, pasta, on sandwiches, over crackers and so on and on.

Here’s my adaptation:

Braised Carrots with Raisins and Pepitas

1 ½ lb Nantes carrots
1 large onion cut into thin slices
1 cup raisins
1 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 Jalapeño or Serrano pepper, minced, seeds and ribs removed
1 Jalapeño or Serrano pepper split in half, seeds and ribs removed from one of the halves
4 ripe roma/plum tomatoes skin removed and sliced*
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp sugar
¼ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cumin
Pinch saffron threads (marinated in 2 tbsp warm water for 5 minutes)
2 tsp tomato paste
4 cloves of garlic minced
3/4 cup water
3 Tbsp olive oil

How to:
Adjust your mandolin to spaghetti thickness and pass carrots though it.
Warm one tbsp olive oil in a deep pan; add raisins, pepitas and sauté for about a minute. Raisins will puff up a bit. Transfer to a bowl and reserve. Add remaining olive oil and sliced onion to same pan and sauté for about 15 minutes on medium or till onions turn golden brown but not burned. Add garlic, carrots, Jalapeño peppers and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Add tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, black pepper, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, saffron, sugar and cook for about 5 minutes stirring constantly till all ingredients have been incorporated. Add water. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to medium. Cover pan and cook for approximately 15 minutes. Just before serving mix carrots, raisin and pepitas together.

dreaming of Darioush

dreaming of Darioush

*to remove skin cut tomato tops off, make a cross cut at the bottom, dip them in hot water for ½ to 1 minute. The skin will curl. Remove from pan, cool and peel.

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naughty British bread pudding

by Heguiberto on September 14, 2009

naughty British bread pudding

naughty British bread pudding

In my opinion everyone deserves to spend a vacation, perhaps a long vacation, in London. That city has so much to offer with its history, amazing museums, art galleries, parks, theatres, nightlife and culture in general. I have always been fascinated by it ever since I was a kid. I went to the UK in the early 1990’s to take some English classes, to escape an oppressive job/lifestyle I had in Brazil and to just enjoy life!

This every-day, delicious, high fat and high cholesterol bread pudding recipe brings back good memories of the time I lived in the British capital. For a while I had a part-time job working as a waiter for a couple of catering companies. This job took me to some great places where I would not otherwise have been able to go. I worked in castles, mansions, fancy hotels, embassies, guilds, etc. Some of these spots had art collections that were simply breathtaking. These catered functions would have live music, recitals, dances and more! The work was tough but I really enjoyed it. A fellow waiter told me that a good waiter should be invisible while caring for the needs of the guests. Well, when I wasn’t playing the invisible man or snooping around these luxury palaces, I enjoyed watching the chefs and sous-chefs and their various assistants churn out incredible dishes for varied crowds of glamorous diners in industrial style kitchens. Everything was so dramatic and theatrical!

British tacky tourist crap

British tacky tourist crap

I’ve adapted this simple recipe from one that I saw a chef preparing at one of these events. This bread pudding has a very mild flavor and it’s not overwhelmingly sweet. You can add more sugar if you want it sweeter. Enjoy it responsibly! It’s a real gut-buster. I liked it so well that I forgot my own advice. I probably ate three quarters of it all by myself over about twelve hours; some for dessert and some for breakfast the next day. It was heavenly but, just like a good Catholic saint, I felt very guilty about it afterward.

Naughty British Bread Pudding

Ingredients:
14 slices of white Pullman bread
24oz of half and half
Approx. ½ stick of butter at room temperature
1 vanilla bean pod
3 egg whites and two egg yolks
½ cup sugar
½ to ¾ cup raisin

How to:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Spread some butter on a glass baking dish and reserve.

removing crust from pullman bread

removing crust from pullman bread

Meanwhile pile ½ of the bread slices on a cutting board. Using a serrated knife, cut crusts off of bread. Repeat process with the remaining bread. Discard edges. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Make one layer of bread at the bottom of your glass dish, buttered side up. Sprinkle raisins over it. Repeat process with a layer of bread, buttered side up followed by some raisins until bread is used up. Do not put raisins on top of final layer of bread slices. I made about three layers in my baking dish. If you use a round dish, like I did, you may need to cut the bread slices to the right shape to fit for flat layers.

Using a pairing knife, split vanilla bean in half, scrape all the grainy seeds out and place them along with pod in a medium pan with 1 cup of half and half. Warm liquid up till mixture has been flavored and air becomes permeated with vanilla aroma, about 4 minutes. Stir constantly. Turn heat off and add cold half and half to mixture. Discard vanilla bean pod.

Add ¾ of sugar to a bowl along with egg whites and yolks. Using an electric mixer, beat for a couple of minutes to mix well. Add vanilla flavored half and half. Beat for another minute. Pour mixture over bread. Sprinkle the rest of sugar over the pudding and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. To caramelize the sugar, broil for a few minutes at the end of cooking. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 10-15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Try not to eat the whole thing in a single sitting!

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brown rice and black-eyed pea vegan risotto

by Heguiberto on June 11, 2009

Arroz vermelho com galinha velha

brown rice, black-eyed peas and collard greens

brown rice, black-eyed peas and collard greens

Arroz vermelho com galinha velha is a classic Brazilian country dish made from brown rice, the “arroz vermelho,” and the flesh of an old hen (a chicken), a “galinha velha,” that can no longer lay so has lost its usefulness. Really, it’s a tragic story, no? I prefer to think that at least those hens led decent lives roaming about the property, eating the grain we fed them, and savoring wild grasses and succulent bugs, as opposed to the bionic chicken we get in the meat sections of our supermarkets. The bird was always tough and gamey, but it matched perfectly well with brown rice because both require long simmering. It was always a complete success at the family dinner table and made everyone happy. Though the dish is very good, it’s not what I’m describing here.

soaking dried black-eyed peas

soaking dried black-eyed peas

I stopped eating chicken years ago but sometimes I miss the texture of that particular dish. It was sort of like Italian risotto so I recently tried it with black eyed peas instead of old hen. It came out very tasty.
Brown rice and black-eyed peas are often neglected by people. I wonder why? Is it the time it takes to prepare them? Or, maybe prejudice towards the ingredients? Yet they are delicious and packed with good stuff like B vitamins and protein.

Brown Rice and Black-Eyed Pea Risotto

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups brown rice
2 cups dried black-eyed peas
3 cloves of garlic chopped
2 stalks of celery chopped
Salt
Pepper
2 medium carrots cut into tiny cubes
10 Spanish olives cut into rounds
5 tbsp of chopped parsley
8 halves of sundried tomatoes (cured in oil) cut into strips
1 tbsp of raisins
1 tsp white vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil

How to:

fresh parsley, carrots and sun dried tomatoes for the peas

fresh parsley, carrots and sun dried tomatoes for the peas

Soak dried black-eyed peas in water for three hours.
Heat oil in a pan on medium. Sweat celery and onion for few minutes till onion becomes translucent. Add garlic and sauté for further 2 minutes.
Add rice and black-eyed peas to onion mixture. Stir. Add about 3 cups of hot water, bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer for about 35-40 minutes
Remove from heat. Add carrot, raisins, parsley, olives, vinegar and sundried tomatoes. Add salt to taste.
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top and a side of sauté collard greens.

To prepare collard greens:

2 bunches collard greens (or kale), carefully cleaned, stems removed and leaves chopped into fine strips. Reserve stems for steaming and using in salads or as a vegetable side. They taste like broccoli.
3 cloves of garlic, cut into thin slivers
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

preparing collard greens

preparing collard greens

Using a skillet sauté garlic in olive oil for a minute or so, add collard greens, stir and cook till fully wilted: about 3 minutes. Serve with black-eyed peas as above.

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