A little late for Cinco de Mayo but good anytime…

I hate when real life gets in the way of my food blog, but sadly it has. I had my youngest home with me and then I ended up sick. Not the really bad sick but enough to knock me on my keester for a day or so. Anyway this post is sadly long overdue but too good not to post!

Pastel Azteca

A couple of weeks ago I was searching for a recipe to take to our groups regular monthly pot luck. This months theme was Mexican, Spanish or Latino. Easy enough huh? I just didn’t want to do any of the common things like tacos or enchiladas. I was going to do tamales but that looks like a ton of work. I then remembered my friend Ben at What's Cooking giving me a lead on one of his favorite recipes!!! After looking it over I decided that this one would be perfect and was exactly what I was looking for!!!

Thanks Ben for a delicious recipe and one that was a real hit! The only thing I would do differently next time is to make more sauce. The sauce was delicious!!!

Chicken Pastel Azteca (from Ben @ What’s Cooking?)
8-10 servings

The ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast shredded (I used 2 cooked breasts)
• 1 lb tomatoes
• 1 medium size onion
• 3 garlic cloves peeled
• 1-2 chipotle adobado peppers
• 16 ounces tortilla chips, you can either make your own by cutting in quarters approximately 24 corn tortillas and frying them or baking them or buy them made at the store
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 8 oz. Chihuahua cheese shredded 2 cups approx. or shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 red onion sliced
• Salt and pepper to taste

The how-to:

1. Blend together tomatoes, onion, garlic and adobado peppers using one cup of chicken broth. (I cooked the onions and the garlic first then blended this in my food processor)
2. Pour the sauce into a sauce pan and add the rest of the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, season to taste and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about 15 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 350° F.
4. Place a layer of tortilla chips at the bottom of a 9”x13” baking dish using 1/2 of the tortillas.
5. Add a second layer of shredded chicken, half of the shredded cheese and half of the red onion slices.
6. Pour some of the tomato sauce into the pan.
7. Add a final layer of tortilla chips and cheese and pour the rest of the sauce.
8. Bake for 20 minutes, let it rest for 10 minutes before serving and garnish with sour cream, red onion and chopped parsley.

Too late for Cinco de Mayo but still a really good meal. This would be a quick and easy week night meal and I can’t wait to make it again!!!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

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Farmer's Market Day and a chili recipe!

This weeks haul: cucumbers, scallions, radishes, beets, tat soi (Asian spinach), lettuces, eggplant, bread and some really, really stinky blue cheese (not pictured cuz I didn't want to touch it again!)

Friday night of last week was our Monthly Potluck. This is an event that a bunch of us decided to do because we felt like we were all losing touch with each other. The kids are all at different schools now and we are all so busy with after school activities that we were going months with only the odd email or text message in between. If this is happening to you and you want to start something like this and need more info as to how to do it, email me and I can lend you a hand! It is really working out so great for all of us. Anyway...where was I???

Confessional Chili - David Durk, whose career in law enforcement has spanned 23 years and included a stint as the partner of the famous Frank Serpico, purports to have served this atomic chili to tight-lipped prisoners and potential informers, many of whom he claims "would never talk to a New York Cop." How soon after consumption did they start gabbing? "Immediately," he laughs.

Oh yah, a chili recipe. Last months hostess was Kathy and she made an incredible chili. Of course I asked her for the recipe...but when I was ready to make the recipe I realized I had some of the wrong stuff (crushed tomatoes not whole tomatoes and certainly not 3 lbs of beef). I made do with what I had and it turned out really, really good but was it as good as hers? Nope, need the freshness of the whole tomatoes!!!

The cornbread turned out really good this time and I topped T's and my side with jalapeños and I managed to keep it from falling and cracking on the counter!

Confessional Chili (New York Cookbook by Molly O'Neill)

Ingredients:

2 to 3 large onions, chopped
4 large garlic cloves, minced
3 to 4 small Indian green chilies, chopped, or 4 jalapeno chilies, chopped (including the seeds), or 3 tablespoons extra-hot ground dried chilis
3 tablespoons peanut oil
3 pounds lean chopped sirloin
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon ground coriander
3 tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dried Greek oregano
2 cans (28 ounces each) imported Italian whole plum tomatoes
4 bay leaves
2 cans (16 ounces each) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 bunch cilantro or Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, rinsed and chopped.

Directions:

1. In a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, saute the onions, garlic, and chili's in the oil until the onions are translucent, 5 minutes.

2. Crumble the chopped sirloin over the top of the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper; stir in the coriander, cumin, thyme, and oregano. Cover and cook until the meat is cooked through, about 7 minutes.

3. Pour the tomatoes into a small bowl and coarsely crush with your hands. Pour the tomatoes and juice on top of the chili mixture. Stir in the bay leaves. Cover or leave uncovered, depending on the consistency you prefer (a covered pot with yield a thicker chili), and simmer until the flavors are well married, about 30 minutes.

4. Stir in the pinto beans and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Stir in the cilantro and simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve at once.

Serves 8 to 10

I ended up halving the recipe and using crushed tomatoes (recommend whole-the taste wasn't really fresh like it should have been). Despite my errors this is an incredible recipe and goes wonderfully with all sorts of toppings:

jalapenos
onion
cheese
tortilla chips
sour cream

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

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Arugula Pesto and Wild Mushroom Pizza

Arugula Pesto and Wild Mushroom Pizza just waiting it's turn in the oven!

So for our pot luck this month I made cornbread to go with the chili that Kathy was making. I will be making the chili this week so check back for that recipe. It was incredibly delicious chili and better than any I have made!

I also wanted to take an appetizer so I was going to take the spinach dip that I had taken to the Halloween party. All was good the night before and I had everything ready to go the next day. Then T. decided to tell me that he thought the spinach dip wasn't very good and I should make some of that really good pizza dough from last week and make an Augula Pesto and Wild Mushroom Pizza...Yep, I'll get right on that!

The pizza dough he was talking about was the Daring Baker Pizza Dough Challenge from last month. It's a freakin' 2 day pizza dough. I had just enough time that night to get the dough done and let it rest overnight in the fridge. Unbelievable! Why would he not tell me he didn't like something until the very last minute!!!! Anyway the pizza turned out incredible and everyone really liked it and it was gone in no time at all. I guess I'll have to wait until the next time I go to make before I find out if T. really likes it or not!

Arugula Pesto

Ingredients:

2 cups of fresh arugula
1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan
1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts (i just lightly toasted them in a dry pan)
6 garlic cloves (you can use less but I love garlic)
2 pinches of sea salt

Directions:

Add arugula, Parmesan, toasted pine nuts, garlic, sea salt to the bowl of your food processor. Chop until well chopped and mixed. Add the Olive Oil slowly to the mixture.

Arugula Pesto spread onto the pizza sheet (at home I would have done smaller, round pizzas but for this many people a sheet pan worked better!)

For the pizza just follow the directions for the Daring Baker Challenge. Rehydrate some dried wild mushrooms, use your arugula pesto for the sauce, add mozzarella and some Parmesan and there you have an incredible pizza that everyone will like!

Hot out of the oven!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

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Cornbread - a must have with chili!!!

Last night was the 1st Friday of the month which means that a bunch of our friends all got together at someone's house for a delicious Pot Luck Meal. Kathy - the hostess for this month, choose a menu that involved our Family Favorites. How fun was that? Until I got to thinking that the only real thing that we all eat together was burgers...how crazy is that? Yep there are other things that we eat but they just wouldn't be good for a Pot Luck. So after much thought and no real solution I decided to make cornbread to go along with the chili Kathy was making!

I remembered that Heather from Gild the (Voodoo)lily had a cornbread recipe that I had been wanting to try since I saw it back in May!

Yankee Cornbread (this was adapted from a Joy of Cooking recipe that Heather had)

1 tbsp bacon fat (I had to fry up some bacon to get this bacon fat-don't tell Heather!)
1-1/4 c cornmeal (she used blue and yellow. I could only find yellow)
3/4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar (Heather likes 2 Tbsp - I only added 1)
2 large eggs
2/3 c buttermilk
2/3 c milk
3 tbsp melted butter
1/2 c frozen corn (She likes to add minced jalapeños, I didn't do that though)

Stick a 10" cast-iron skillet with the bacon fat in the oven that's preheating to 425. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients (eggs and milks). Add wet to dry, mix, and stir in the melted butter and corn. Pour batter into now-hot skillet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until browned on top and toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

This was a nice easy to follow recipe. I did great until it was time for me to remove it from the pan so I could get it ready to take with me. I dropped the freakin' thing on the counter and it cracked! Did everyone still love it...oh yes they did!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

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First Monthly Potluck Dinner...huge success!

What a great night it was. Being surrounded by a large group of your friends, sharing food, wine, conversation and lots of fun. The children swam or played most of the night so it was really just us adults all gathered around a large table "breaking bread"!

We decided to give this a try. We have a huge circle of friends and feel very fortunate for this but it has seemed that in the last year or so that we are all losing touch with each other. None of us really wanted to invest all of the money, time and energy into a huge party that was sponsored by just one of us so this was a natural progression for us. We started the planning of this a month and a bit out but there was really nothing to it short of finding out who was available and what they would bring. All I had to do as hostess was have a couple of bottles of wine on hand, buy the paper products and clear a space for the food! It was so cool to be surrounded by all of these people for such a fun night...thanks to all of you for coming!!!

For this month's Potluck I choose and Italian theme for the ease of it.

The food was great we supplied the lasagna (recipe later this week!) and everyone else brought the rest.

We had a great Caesar Salad (no pictures)

Antipasti platter (yumm...no pictures)

Cannellini Bean salad with Tuna (this was delicious and will make it this week):


Bruschetta (gotta have bread)

Gazpacho (incredible!)

Ice Cream Dessert (where to start??? This was amazing! I am working on getting the recipe as they had a triathlon this weekend and were out of town!)

Smucker's Uncrustables. A necessity at any party where you have more than 2 children...This is the one thing they are guaranteed to eat. They are against everything I believe in food wise but are a great treat!!!

I think I have some takers for hosting this event next month. It really was so easy. Clean up was a breeze as everyone brought there own stuff and took it home. Please consider trying this if you have a group of friends that are as busy as we all are!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

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