roasted green salsa

Well, it must be the end of August. I'm in over my head.
Downstairs, I've got 45 pounds of tomatoes to can, I've got three heads of cabbage waiting to be sauerkrauted, and I've got far too much basil to avoid making a massive batch of pesto.
Oh, August. I love that you can feed me all year I can only keep up. If only!

But I'm taking a break from all that for a few minutes. Let's not talk about it.
Let's talk about New Mexico.

Have you been to New Mexico? And more importantly, have you been to New Mexico in August?
It's been a few years since I was there last, and I'm sure I'm glorifying all over the place. But there is one thing that I know is grander in reality than it could ever be in my memory. If you've been there, and if you've been there in August, you know exactly what I'm going to say. Your nose is twitching, right?
There's a little bit of the first burning pinon, but that's not the dominant note- that smell? That smell is roasting green chiles.
I have no green chiles- I took green grass instead. But right now I want those chiles. So I roast everything I can, grabbing moments of that smell. I have no green chiles, but I have green tomatoes. Green zebra tomatoes, that is. And of course, I have tomatillos. And although they're not THE chiles, I do have some chiles.

And I'm here in New England, but I want spice. I'm one part Jew and one part Brit, but in August- my heart belongs to New Mexico.

So this week for our Summer Fest party, in this very last week of August, let's you and I take a break and sit for a few minutes. I know there's plenty to do, but there's time. There's time. Let's have a beer, and a chip or two, and let's see how spicy we can get it.

Roasted Green Salsa

3/4 pound tomatillos, quartered
3/4 pound green zebra (or really any) tomatoes, cored and quartered
1 red onion, cut into chunks
1 head garlic, cloves, separated and peeled
1 (or 2, if you're really going for it) jalepeno pepper, seeded and sliced
juice of 1 lime
salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment, and spread the tomatillos, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and pepper on to it. Give the whole mess a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Roast for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature. Empty the contents of the tray into a food processor, add the lime juice, and whir until thoroughly combined. Add salt to taste.

And what kind of summer fest would it be with out the grand fete in honor of the tomato? None at all!
There's some pretty exciting whirring and baking and juicing going on this week. Here's a start:

Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef:
Heirloom Tomato Tart with Parmesan Crust

Nicole at Pinch My Salt: What to do with slow-roasted tomatoes

Alison at Food2: Heirloom tomatoes

The FN Dish: Tyler's Ultimate Tomato Salads

Margaret at A Way to Garden: More than one way to ripen a tomato

Gilded Fork: Celebrating summer lusciousness with a tomato dossier and recipes

Diane and Todd at White on Rice Couple: Sun-dried tomatoes (actually made in the sun!)

Paige at The Sister Project: 3 substantial, healthy, vegetarian tomatoey main dishes

Liz at the Cooking Channel: Easy Tomato Tart

Kelly at Just a Taste: Tomato Jam

Alexis at Food Network UK: The seven deadly tomato sins

Michelle at Healthy Eats: Top 10 Things to Do With Tomatoes


What kind of tomato magic are you conjuring in your kitchen? Share! Share!

masa harina-beef casserole

I miss New Mexico today.
It hits me without warning, and usually the missing gets in my nose first. My memory creates a smell and it gets stuck there. The most common is roasting green chile, but of course there's also pinon. And there is the smell of the tamale.
There are a lot of reasons why I miss New Mexico, and even more reasons why I left. But there is no other place that makes me hurt when I miss it.
There was this little place up by school called Johnny's Cash Store. They sold jumex juices, and milk and eggs and cigarettes and twinkies. The whole place smelled old and dusty because it was old and dusty. But on the counter, there was a steam table filled with tamales that someone's mother had made. For a few dollars, you could have a red chile pork tamale and a green chile chicken tamale tucked in a little wax bag. That bag, along with a few napkins and a mango jumex, made a lunch that could turn anyone's day around. There was a little splintery picnic table outside, and I swear that picnic table was one of my favorite places to eat in Santa Fe.
Those tamales tasted like love.

It's vacation week around here, although I've taken off to New Mexico in my mind (and nose), I'm home with the girlies while Joey works at the school setting up his new classroom. We're all doing okay together- luckily we have the garden and my sister's handed down American Girl collection to keep us entertained. But yesterday, we all started out on the wrong side of the bed. There were early tantrums, and by the time I was trying to coax Rosie across the parking lot to get to the supermarket at 12:30 (Rose: Ow, Mom, you're hurting me! Me: I'm holding your hand! We're in a parking lot!), I thought I might just go ahead and lose it altogether.

Thank the lord for the playdate.

By 1:30, our friends had arrived. A playdate for me, and a sister for each of the girls, with a bonus two year old to eat cheerios at the table. We drank beer in the kitchen, I turned my mood around, and the girls, well, the girls, mostly just stood on the cars.

Every time I looked, they were each wearing different dresses. Then they would trade dresses, or pull out new ones, and get back up on the car.

They stayed until bedtime and then the girls fell into the mess that had accumulated in their room and fell asleep. It was a good day.

But of course, there was dinner. And although Johnny's Cash store is 2,000 miles away, I needed something that smelled right, even if it contained canned green chiles and no one's mom had made it. Oh, wait, hold on. Something really has changed since New Mexico.

Someone's mom did make this.


We ate every bite.

This recipe is from a cookbook that I have talked about before, Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. This book is an amazing resource, and it will tell you everything you need to know about how to cook, clean, and store whole grains. If you feel a little overwhelmed in the bulk section of your store, this book will open up your world.

It also has phenomenal recipes. Every recipe I have made from this book has been a success; Lorna Sass is both deliciously creative and looking out for the home cook. A lot of the recipes are meat based, which is unusual in a whole grains cookbook. For some reason, whole grains and vegetarian seem to get paired more often, but this one is for the healthy meat eaters.

Masa Harina is a corn flour that is used in tamales, as well as in making corn tortillas. It is combined with lime, and has a very specific smell to it, that is the smell of of Johnny's Cash store tamale, or as I like to call it, love.
You can find Masa Harina in most grocery stores, and of course all Latin Markets. The brand I most often see is called Maseca. If you absolutely cannot find it, you can substitute cornmeal for the masa in this recipe.

Masa Harina-Beef Casserole
adapted from Lorna Sass, Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way

for the filling:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chiles
optional: 1 additional small can diced green chiles

for the topping:
1 1/4 cups masa harina
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 large egg
1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup jack or cheddar cheese
1 cup fresh or forzen corn kernels

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Have ready a rectangular baking dish, about 11x7 or thereabouts. Lay it on a baking sheet and set aside.
Heat the oil in a large skillet. When it is hot, add the onion and pepper and cook over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the beef, garlic, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper. Cook over medium high heat, stirring and breaking it up into small bits. When the meat begins to brown, stir in the tomatoes and green chiles and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered while you prepare the topping.
Pour 4 cups of water into a heavy saucepan. Whisk the masa harina into the water until it is smooth and thoroughly blended. Stir in the salt and chili powder. Bring the mixture to a boil. stirring almost constantly. Lower the heat and keep stirring until the mixture thickens to the consistency of batter, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a small bowl, beat the egg. Stir in the sour cream or yogurt and a cup of the hot masa mixture. Stir the egg mixture and the baking soda into the pot containing the remaining masa mixture.
Taste the meat and adjust for seasonings. Transfer the meat to the baking dish, leaving any liquid behind. Pour the masa batter over the meat. Sprinkle with the cheese, then the corn kernels.
Bake until the casserole is bubbly and the top is slightly browned, about 45 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

chile rellenos with brebis blanche and tomatillo salsa

There is a New Mexican respect for the chile that you don't find so much in other regions. It is more a religion than a food- more important if you take red or green or Christmas on your huevos than if you vote republican or democrat. I am a New Englander by blood, and I can't claim to have the chile in my blood. But after four years in Santa Fe, it is certainly tattooed there as certainly as the tree goddess that a man who looked like Braveheart imprinted on my back when I was in Prague before I was old enough to vote.
There are many chiles of note in New Mexico, but the queen of the bunch is the green chile. It only grows in New Mexico in August, and the air fills with the smell of green chiles roasting in their huge cylindrical contraptions, and that smell mixed with burning pinion as the frost comes on is enough to, well the first thing that comes to my mind is fairly illicit here, but let's just say, enough to bring you great pleasure that one can usually only find with a loved one. I'm serious- it's that good. And I'm not even talking about the taste.
You can't get green chiles in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, unless you find them in a can, sterilized and drained of their heat, $3.99 for a portion so small that it just will not do. But Joey and I have each been back to New Mexico on our own at various times to help friends out, and we have come back with green chile gifts. Joey, smart as he is, brought his gifts in jars, but I sat on the plane with a paper bag full of August green chiles cradled in my lap. Arriving home, I had my first chile roasting experience of my life, and it made me miss New Mexico even more. In New Mexico, you don't ever have to roast them yourself- they're everywhere- ready for eating. Roasting those green chiles, I showed myself the true New Englander that I am, butchering those poor chiles as I tried to rid them of their skins and seeds. But sad as they looked, the smell was worth it.
The other day when I was working at the market, we had a few small boxes of poblano chiles. Our stand is diagonally across from that of my most favorite cheese farm, and I became obsessed with the idea of a chile relleno stuffed with brebis blanche, the delicate and creamy sheep cheese of which I continue to write about here. I got distracted, and started messing up my math with the customers, and realized that I had to claim one of those little boxes for my own and give it a go again with the chile roasting.

And I made a mess of it again! Peppers like this are about as sexy as it gets. I blistered them perfectly, and then ruminated on the sensual curves of the pepper as I started to remove the skin and seeds. I wrote poetry to the pepper, and I inhaled the perfume. Then I struggled, and then I cursed, and the skins fought against me. But it was still really good- and the brebis blanche was perfect. If you don't live around here and are anti-mail ordering cheese, you could substitute a mellow goat cheese or even a mild feta. Don't be concerned if you can't get all of the seeds out; it will all be okay.


Chile Rellenos with Brebis Blanche and Tomatillo Salsa
serves six

6 chile peppers, Poblano, Green Chile, or whatever you can find, as long as it's sizable
4 ounces brebis blanche, or mild goat cheese or feta
1/4 cup flour
6 eggs, separated
1 cup canola oil or shortening, for frying
4-6 tomatillos
juice of one lime
salt

To roast the peppers: preheat your broiler. Place the chiles on an oiled tray, and place directly under the broiler. Close the door and hang around to watch. They should start to pop and blister, and when they're black and blistered, turn them over. This process will take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on your oven, which is why watching is essential. When the chiles are blackened all over, take them out of the oven and transfer to a bowl.

Cover in plastic wrap and let them sweat for about twenty minutes. The idea here is to make is so that the skins come off easily, and depending on your chiles and your luck in the kitchen today, hopefully they will. After twenty minutes, give it a shot. Also do your best to take the seeds out, leaving as much of the chile intact as possible. But don't stress if your chiles look like this. Frying will save all.

To make the rellenos:
When your chiles are de-seeded and de-skinned (ish) put 1-2 tablespoons of cheese inside each one . Use the neat opening (yeah right!) that you made to remove the seeds, then close the chile back up.
Whip the egg whites at high speed in a mixer until peaks form. In a large skillet, start heating the oil. You want to get it hot enough so that water sizzles when it hits the pan. Beat the egg yolks with one tablespoon of flour and salt. Fold this mixture into the egg whites, and incorporate until it creates something of a paste. You will lose some of the air in the egg whites- that's okay.


When your oil is hot enough, dredge one of the chiles in the flour, then dip in the egg batter. This is a messy business. The batter won't quite want to stick to the chile, and then as you toss it into the oil, running away to avoid the splattering oil, it might separate from the chile. But run back to that pan and push the batter back together with the chile- it will be okay!

Do not crowd the pan. You'll want to do two or three at a time, depending on how big your skillet is. Have a plate ready with a paper towel to ease the oil a bit. Cook the rellenos until golden, about a minute and a half on each side. Once again, watching is essential. Let sit for a few minutes (but not more!) before serving so that you don't burn your mouth. While the rellenos are cooling, throw the tomatillos, lime and salt into a blender or food processor. Serve along side the relleno.