Mail Call

Getting a real piece of mail is pretty great. In the last couple weeks, I've been lucky enough to get both a painting from the lovely ladies of The Warm and Fuzzies and a nearly hundred year old valentine from my wonderful sister-in-law.


Look at that postmark! 1913! Craziness. Well, this burst of mail has made me anxious to send some myself, so I made a Golden Girls inspired linoleum print that will be hitting the postal system soon.


Give me your address if you'd like one!

Tamales, Tamales!

Chicago's got a couple of street vendors that circuit dive bars and sell delicious, delicious tamales. In my opinion, every city should have at least one tamale guy. These men are public servants. Without them, I may never have tasted a tamale. One part moist corny outside, one part gooey cheesy inside. Oh man, they are amazing. And it turns out they aren't that hard to make.

I got the basic recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, or as it's called in my household, "the green bible." These tamales were the naked variety, sans corn husk. Apparently, corn husk are in fact perishable. So when I discovered mine had molded, I went to plan b and made some in a muffin pan. They were easy to make and tasty as hell.


Naked Tamales with Chile Cheese Filling
More or less from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Makes about 8 muffin-size tamales
About 2 hours, largely unattended

For the breading:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup masa harina
1 cup vegetable stock
1 tsp baking powder
salt

For the filling:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 serano peppers
1 red pepper
1 poblano pepper
1 cup Chihuahua cheese

An hour or more before cooking, put 1/4 cup of the olive oil into the freezer to solidify. Next, you'll need to roast the peppers. The recipe called for throwing the whole peppers in, but I was worried about them getting too close to the broiler and catching fire, so I cut them in to 3 or 4 pieces to roast. Lay them skin up on a foil lined pan and throw them in the broiler.

Take them out as the skin brown. Remove the skin, slice up, and set aside.


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. The original recipe calls for individual ramekins. I don't own any ramekins, so I used what I had on hand which was a muffin pan. Grease 8 of the tins. You will need a roasting pan that will comfortably hold the cupcake tin. I found my 9 x 12 casserole pan did the trick.

Put 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until they just begin to color, about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and serano peppers, reduce heat to medium, and cook stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes more.


Add roasted peppers, salt and pepper, cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft and compact, about 10 minutes more. When done, turn off heat and set aside.


Bring a kettle of water to boil. Put the masa harina in a food processor, turn on the machine, and add stock 1/4 cup at a time, until a thick paste forms.


Add the frozen olive oil, baking powder, and a large pinch of salt to the masa.


Pulse a few times, then, with the machine running, add more stock, 1/4 cup at a time, until the masa is the consistency of thick batter. It should take a little tap to plop off the spoon.


Fill each muffin tin about a third full with masa. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of the veggies on top of the masa, followed by a sprinkling of cheese.


Fill the tins up with the remaining masa.


Put into/onto the baking pan. Carefully pour the boiling water into the pan to come halfway up the tins.


Cover the muffin pan in tin foil and put the whole thing in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the masa is done and pulling away from the sides of the tins. To plate, cut around the outside of each tin, replace the foil on top, and flip. Serve on top of tomatillo salsa and enjoy.

The take away: masa dough is super easy to make, and you can fill it with anything you like. There is absolutely no reason not to make this recipe.

It's Chili Time

This chili is the most delicious chili you will ever eat. Fact. It is also vegetarian. Fact. I don't want to say it's the most delicious vegetarian chili you will ever eat, though you can clearly see that that would also be a true statement. But that relegates my chili to the lesser realm of "vegetarian chili" and I assure you it is better than that. It is robust, flavorful, and it's got a healthy kick to it. Plus, it uses six types of peppers. This is not a chili for the faint of heart.

It takes a couple hours to make, not counting bean soaking time, but it tastes better after the flavors have had a night to meld together. So if you've got the time, make it a day ahead of time. It's also a great meal to freeze in single portion containers for an easy homemade dinner on a busy day.

Super Spectacular [Vegetarian] Chili

3/4 cups each dried Kidney, Great Northern, and Small Red beans, or whatever beans ya like
3 Tbsp butter
1 poblano pepper
1 red onion
1/2 head garlic, about 5 big cloves
1 bell pepper (I used 1/2 a yellow and 1/2 a red in this incarnation)
1 jalapeno
1 habenero pepper
1 cup frozen corn
1 - 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 - 8oz package Upton's Soy Chorizo (you can substitute Melissa's Soy taco meat or regular chorizo)
1 Tbsp arbol pepper powder
1 tsp Sriracha
salt and pepper

First, soak the beans by whatever means you like and set aside. Keep the soaking liquid.


Next, heat the butter in a large saucepan. Coarsely chop the veggies and saute. I throw them in in the order above, waiting for one to cook down a little before adding the next, but I doubt it matters much.


When handling the hot peppers make sure to wear some gloves. Trust me when I say you do not want to get that oil on your hands. I have learned that mistake first hand and, let me tell you, it is not pleasant.


Add salt and pepper to taste and let simmer, stirring frequently, until veggies seem really nice and tender about 20-30 minutes. Don't try and hurry this step. This is when all of those wonderful deep flavors come out.


Once the veggies are cooked, add the tomatoes, the soyrizo, the beans, and enough of the bean soaking water to cover. Add the arbol powder and the sriracha and stir it all up. Simmer the chili until it's good and thick, about an hour to an hour and a half.


Serve over rice, cornbread or, my personal favorite, mac and cheese. Top with sour cream and avocado and get ready for a delicious meal.

Eggie Pizza!

Homemade pizzas are one of our standby meals. Normally that means a pre-made crust, Newman's Own pasta sauce, and whatever veggies we have on hand, finished off with a healthy dose of hot sauce and/or giardiniera. But today, Chad had a delicious idea: an egg.

I love eggs on anything, especially when I can call it dinner. I've seen a few Neapolitan-style places that serve pizzas topped with a fried egg or two but I'd never tried it before.

Oh man, it was tasty. Egg, garlic, yellow pepper, onion, and some Cholula made for the perfect combination. Obviously, you could really top any pizza with an egg, and I recommend you do so, but I would suggest you don't lose the garlic. It just adds such a nice bite.

I can guarantee we will be making some variation of this pizza again. It's just such an easy way to spice up an otherwise routine meal. Now all I need is a proper pizza stone so I can start making my own pizza dough and then I'm really in business.

Update: I didn't even say how to cook it! We set the oven at 375 and cracked the egg on top midway through. All told, it took about 10 minutes for the egg to set. We put it on a little late, so the pizza was a little on the crispy side, but still delicious.