Mexican Risotto!!!

Oh yes.  Perhaps the best fusion of cuisines I've ever had.  I often wonder why I don't see this dish EVERYWHERE.  It is the perfect creamy risotto texture with the flavors of your favorite mexican dish.  We chose to stick with our favorite chili ingredients for this first trial run, but you could do a simple cheese and shrimp or do a take on huevos rancheros with eggs and tomatillos.  You could deconstruct any of your favorite Mexican dishes and add it into the risotto and I guarantee it will taste amazing.  We served this with a tequila lime marinated tilapia, but the risotto overshot the fish so far that the fish would have been better off mixed into the risotto.

Ingredients
2 cups creamy tomato soup
2 cups vegetable broth
3 tbsps taco seasoning (we use the Trader Joe's brand)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup arborio or carnaroli rice
1 tbsp olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
1/3 cup tequila, ale or white wine
1 15 oz can of black beans
1 3-4 oz can of green chiles
1 cup corn kernels
6-8 oz aged, sharped cheddar, shredded or crumbled
3 tbsp chopped cilantro
chopped scallions for garnish
Salt and Pepper to taste
Cayenne Pepper and/or Hot Sauce to taste

Directions
Put the stock and tomato soup in a saucepan.  Bring to a low boil and then reduce the heat to keep it warm.  Heat the butter and oil in a pot and saute the onions for 1-2 minutes.  Add garlic and mix well.  Add the rice and stir with wooden spoon to coat all of the rice with fat.

Add taco seasoning and stir in. Saute the rice in the butter and seasoning for a few minutes and then add the tequila, ale or wine.  Stir until it is completely absorbed.  Add 1 ladle of liquid and stir until absorbed.  Continue to add the liquid in this manor until the liquied has been absorbed and the rice is al dente (~18-20 minutes).  Reserve the last ladle of stock.  Add the beans, chile, corn, cilantro, most of the cheese (save some for garnish) and the last ladle of stock.  Stir until all incorporated and cheese has melted.  Salt, Pepper and add hot sauce an/or cayenne to taste.  Remove from heat, serve with scallion garnish.

The Giant Garlic Spaghetti Monster

aka The Spaghetti Sandwich

I've been wanting to make this for a while, and actually found a recipe for a spaghetti sandwich in this awesome kids cookbook- Cooking with Herb: The Vegetarian Dragon.  When I recently had a big craving for spaghetti and meatballs, I decided to go for it.  I made one adjustment though,  I used egg noodles instead of a longer stringier pasta like spaghetti, fettucini or angel hair.  The fluffy egg noodles took some of the 'weight' out of the dish allowing for more face stuffing! 

Quantities are vague hear, because I assume everyone has their own way of making spaghetti and meatballs.  For the record, I used a 12 oz bag of basil egg noodles, almost a full jar of Newman's Own Marinara, and one 12 oz bag of veggie meatballs.  For the garlic bread, I just followed the directions on the box but homemade garlic bread is easy to concoct if you have some bread, garlic and butter lying around.  Here's a good recipe from a fellow blogger. Oh, and we were able to eat off of this for almost a week, so, let's say serves 8-10.

Ingredients

Noodles (spaghetti or egg noodles work well)
Tomato Sauce
Pesto
Meatballs (Try a great meatless version- Nate's Zesty Italian 'balls)
Garlic Bread (Trader Joe's frozen variety was used in this experiment)
Provolone

Directions
Boil up some water for the noodles.  Heat up your tomato sauce and meatballs in another pot.

 Add a heaping spoonful or 2 of pesto to your tomato sauce.  Drain the noodles and heat up the garlic bread in the oven with provolone on top for extra cheesiness.  Mix noodles with the sauce and meat balls.   When the garlic bread is done, top a piece of garlic bread with  some saucy noodles.

Top with another piece of garlic bread.  Smash down real hard.  Try to fit it in your mouth, then give up and eat it with your hands and a fork like a normal person.  

Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas with Creamed Spinach and Cheddar

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Mmmmmmm......

Ingredients

1 Sweet Potato

1/2 Onion, chopped

2 cups Spinach, cooked or frozen

1 tbsp Lime Juice

1 8 oz can Black Beans

1 12 oz jar of Enchilada Sauce (we used Trader Joe's)

1 Tbsp Taco Seasoning

1 tbsp Cream Cheese or Plain Yogurt (for creaming the spinach)

1 tsp garlic, minced or powdered

5-6 small Tortillas

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

6-8 oz Cheddar Cheese

Salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Cube sweet potatoes and boil until you can pierce easily with a fork then drain.   Saute onions with olive oil until translucent, then take them off the heat.  Mash the sweet potatoes and and mix in the onions, lime juice, black beans and taco seasoning.


The creamed spinach- if you have an amazing creamed spinach recipe, or just happen to have some laying around in your fridge, use that.  I made a quick concoction out of cooked frozen spinach that I heated up and mixed with cream cheese, garlic and a pinch of salt.  

In a baking dish, pour half of the bottle of enchilada sauce.

Place a tortilla in the dish and coat both sides with enchilada sauce.  Fill with the sweet potato mixture, top with the creamed spinach, and roll it up!  Repeat until all of the filling is used (makes 5-6 enchiladas depending on how big you decide to make them).  Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce on top and spread out evenly.  Top with cheddar cheese.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until sauce is bubbling.  
Dig in! 

Pizza Eggs

                    

So I'm a huge fan of the Showtime series Weeds.  Somewhere in the 1st season there is mention of Pizza Eggs, with no further explanation.  It is a reoccurring meal mentioned on the show.  Ever since I heard those two words put together, my mind has raced with many interpretations of the actual dish.  This will be one of several Pizza Egg recipes that will be posted in this blog, both to pay homage to the fine writers at Weeds and because this first experiment was DELICIOUS!

  Lucky for me and this recipe, my boyfriend works at a pizza restaurant, and I received a beautiful gift of leftover slice-pie pizzas and bread loaves the other night.  Although this pizza was just plain cheese, ANY pizza topping combos that you fancy would be excellent in this dish.  I chose to simply add some capers to my pizza...my new favorite pizza topping.  After trying to explain where capers came from to a friend and consulting this killer book:  Food Plants of the World , I discovered that not only are capers flowers, but they are one of the most popular pizza toppings in the world!?!?  I tried it and fell in love.  Of course, you can order or make whatever kind of pizza you want. 

Leftovers on Huevos, Part II

Ingredients

1 slice leftover pizza (any and all toppings optional)

2 eggs

1 tbsp goat cheese or cream cheese

1/2 tbsp butter

Parmesan

Red Pepper flakes

Oregano

Hot sauce

Salt and Pepper

Directions

Reheat leftover pizza slice in oven.  Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.  Cut off the bone (crust) with a knife, and nibble on it while you cook-like an appetizer.  Cut the cool, but still warm pizza into 1-2" chunks and set aside.  Heat butter in a frying pan on Medium-High heat.  When the butter has melted, begin making the scrambled eggs.  I personally like to crack the eggs in the pan and then take a wooden spoon and start scrambling.  I add a little goat cheese (if it's not already on the pizza) straight into the pan instead of milk to add some cream and fluff to the eggs.  You may also find it helpful to occasionally lift the frying pan off of the eye while scrambling to prevent overcooking the eggs.  About halfway through cooking the eggs (~3 minutes), add the pizza chunks in.  Continue to scramble another 3-5 minutes until eggs are cooked and the pizza has assimilated.  Garnish like you would pizza and/or eggs:  add any combination of parmesan, red pepper flakes, oregano, salt, pepper, hot sauce or whatever else you throw on your Pizza Eggs, and feast on this stoner breakfast of champs!  

 

Cheeseburger Samosas

"This is the greatest food moment of my entire life."- Friend and fellow stoner chef.

So, this idea popped up a few months ago between me and a friend as we  partook of some herb and brainstormed some "What if..." recipes ideas.  Last Friday we piled up the ingredients and set out to create one of the ultimate stoner meals ever made.  Now, we were going to make real cheeseburger samosas and vegetarian cheeseburger samosas, but we couldn't get our hands on any meat  So...we got some fake Gimme Lean veggie sausage instead- a rich and satisfying substitute, although an entirely different creature all together.  This can be oz for oz substituted for ground hamburger meat.    

Ingredients:

1 14 oz package Gimme Lean ground sausage  or 14 oz ground beef

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium tomato, diced

3 banana peppers, diced

3 takeaway packets of Krystal's yellow mustard

1/2 cups chow-chow (or relish)

1 sheet puff pastry

8 oz of medium or sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 bottle brown ale (your favorite, or whatever beer you have in your hand)

Condiments

Mayonnaise

Curry paste

Tomato chutney

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 F.  Place butter in a large frying pan at medium heat.  When the butter melts, add onions and stir for 3 minutes.  Add garlic and banana peppers.  Stir for  5 minutes.   Add tomatoes and continue to stir for 5 minutes.  Then add the sausage.  Break up the sausage and mix in with the veggies. Add mustard, chow chow and beer at this time.

   

Let simmer until no liquid is left in the pan.  Stir occasionally.  While this is cooking, roll out the defrosted puff pastry (we forgot to defrost it so we had to massage it for about 15 minutes before it was workable), and cut and X into to create 4 triangles.  Each triangle will be one individual samosa.  Place cheddar cheese on the puff pastry in Tetris shapes.

Then lump about 1/2 -3/4 cup of the ground Gimme Lean sausage, veggies and random

 condiments mixture on top of the cheese and add more cheese to the top.  Fold up the 3 corners of the triangle and twist dough at the top.  Pinch together the sides of the dough to enclose the filling as completely as possible.  Place on parchment paper on a flat baking pan and bake in oven for approximately 15-20 minutes or until dough becomes a crispy golden brown.  

While the samosas are cooking, you can whip up some condiments to serve them with.  We mixed 2 parts Mayonaise with 1 part Curry Paste to create a curry mayo, and purchased some tomato chutney from the local Indian food store (ketchup and mayo!)

Serve and eat as you will.