Happy Halloween

Is it me or does it feel like its been Halloween for a week now? I guess its because people have been celebrating and dressing up since last Friday. I've said it before Halloween is not my jam. I will say every year I am a little disappointed to not get any trick or treaters in our complex. 

Trick or Treating is the one aspect of Halloween I really enjoy. Plus if we don't have trick or treaters, that means we don't have any reason to buy a massive bag of candy. Which is a bummer, because it just isn't Halloween without a fun size snickers or a peanut butter cup. Normally I could careless about candy, but today I just one a couple of my favorite childhood treats!

I am in luck I did spy one last pumpkin cupcake with spicy butter cream in my fridge so that will have to be my Halloween treat for the day. After today its full steam ahead to Thanksgiving! I can hardly wait to breakout the Christmas music!

Good food and wine at Twisted Vine!

Tonight I had the honor and the privilege to attend the soft opening of Twisted Vine Bistro and Wine Bar. One of my dear friends Mia Saling is the Executive Chef at Twisted Vine, and I could not wait to try the menu.

Since it is a wine bar, the first order of business was to select a glass of wine. I was going to go with a glass of processco to start, then I was advised to try a glass of Frista, it is a sparkling wine from Chile that is infused with strawberries.

I really enjoyed this wine it was light fruity, and I could really taste the strawberries. It was a perfect way to kick off the meal. We started with the small plates. We ordered the yellow tail tostadas and the Molten  Brie Crisps.

The Yellow tail tostadas had a nice crunch, which I love because I am a texture junky. In contrast the guacamole and the cream sauce gave the tostadas a nice creamy balance, that paired beautifully with the perfectly cooked yellowtail.
The Molten Brie Crisp has a light crispy outer shell, that hides a melty gooey brie. On top there are port wine cherries and candied pistaschios which add a touch of sweetness to cheese. That sweetness actually helps cut the richness of the cheese.
Up next I had the tomato fennel soup. This soup is rich and creamy so silky smooth, I could not believe there is no heavy cream in this soup. That's right somehow Mia was able to create this amazingly rich and satisfying soup without the help of heavy cream. So if you want something that taste sinful but isn't get this soup!

We didn't stop at the soup, oh no! There were too many other tempting options on the menu we had to keep going! That's exactly what we did, we ordered the Sopressata, Prociutto and Fresh Mozzarella Flat bread.

This is a great flatbread for meat lovers. When this arrived at my table I was really drawn in by the beautiful colors of this flatbread. Don't let all that arugula fool you, there is some serious meat under there. I really enjoyed the freshness of the pesto against the prociutto. This is a yummy snack to share with some friends over a bottle wine or to split for dinner.

Twisted Vine isn't just savory, they have a nice sweet side too. For dessert we ordered the Chocolate cake with vanilla bean gelato. This cake is a chocolate lovers dream. I loved the vanilla bean gelato which was nice and cool against the warm chocolate cake. It was the perfect end to the meal.

It was such a lovely night, I am so very proud of Mia, she has put her heart and soul into this menu and the flavor of the food reflects her passion for cooking.

Congratulations Chef Mia! You ROCKED it!

**Life lesson: Seeing Mia living her dream and seeing the results of all her hard work and dedication was truly an inspiration for me. Watching her reminded me, to keep doing what I love and to never give up on my dreams! Thank you Mia for showing me that any thing is possible with hard work and love for what you do!

Happy Halloweekend!

I'll admit I don't get excited over Halloween. I don't care about dressing up, I hate scary movies and haunted houses. The thing I love about this time of year, is it kicks off the holiday season. I know that we are less than a month away from one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. 

I've already started to think of menu ideas and I can't wait to have my family in town to enjoy all the food and festivities. So basically Halloween is the gateway to the funniest two months of the year! Since this is the Saturday before Halloween we are going to a party tonight.

Its a cool Halloween party because its based on food and not so much Halloween. So I am more that excited for that. I wish everyone a fun and safe Halloweekend!

Boo!

Classic Mexican Coctail, Not a Margarita!

When most people think of Mexican cocktails the Margarita is the first thing that comes to mind. Margartia's and tequila sunrises. While I love a good Margarita, I wanted to explore other Mexican cocktails.

While researching recipes for this week I came upon a drink called a Chico. Chicos were a popular cocktail during the World War II era. As time went on people stopped ordering Chicos in favor of the ever popular Margarita.

As I read the recipe for Chicos, I thought man this sounds really, really good. I think if more people tried Chico's they would agree. Maybe we could bring Chicos back! Since the weekend is here, why not give this cocktail a try.

Chicos:
1 shot sliver tequila
1 shot blackberry liqueur
Fresh lemon juice
Simple syrup
soda water
Fill a tall glass half full of ice. Add the tequila and the blackberry liqueur. Fill a shot glass with one-third lemon juice and two-thirds simple syrup; pour over ice. Top off the glass with soda water. Stir.

Cheers! TGIF!

The Truth about Lard

This is lard:

This may not be the lard your use to seeing. The lard most of us see is the kind we get in the store. Its pure white and usually hard until you heat it up. That lard is full of stabilizers and trans fats to make sure it doesn't spoil and can be stored at room temperature without melting. That is the lard that has given lard a bad rap for being un-healthy and causing heart disease and obesity.

The lard I used was fresh lard, and it will go bad in one week if not used. It will get soft and gooey at room temperature and it isn't as bad for you as a you might think. Lard has half the cholesterol of butter and one third of the saturated fat.

It makes amazing cookies, pie crust and tortillas! So next time a recipe calls for lard. Don't flinch with disgust and dread. Don't let images of EKG's and cardiac episodes fill your brain. Instead consider as you would any other fat a recipe calls for. Be sure to get the fresh lard from your local butcher or meat market.

Stay the hell away from that Snow Cap or Monteca crap on the store shelves!

My first Tortilla making attempt

I've eaten hundreds if not thousands of tortillas in my in my lifetime. Yet, I've never tried to make them myself. I've watched other people make them but never really thought of trying it myself. That all changed this week! Last night I made my first ever from scratch flour tortillas.

To my surprise Tortillas are really easy to make and take very few ingredients. To start I put four cups of flour into my mixing bowl.

The next ingredient is the most important ingredient and that is lard. Yep that's right good old fashioned fresh lard. When I say fresh I do not mean the stuff on the grocery store shelves that come tubs or logs. I mean freshly render pig fat from the butcher. Lucky for me I live near a Mexican meat market and they had plenty of fresh lard on hand for me to buy.

The lard gives the tortillas that soft smooth texture. Its the perfect fat for tortillas. After the lard I just added a dash of salt and a cup of water. Once all the ingredients were in the mixer I turned it on and let it mix for about five minutes.

I let the dough mix until it started to pull away from the bowl and come together in a ball. Now I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for one hour.

Once the dough has rested I put it on a well floured surface. Then devided the dough into eight balls.

Here's were it started to get tricky. Now I had to roll the dough out into a circle. I found rolling out dough into a nice circle is harder than it seemed. So my tortillas came out a little irregular shapped.

Now its time to cook the tortillas. I heated my cast iron skillet and cooked the tortillas until they started to bubble then flipped it over and continue to cook on the other side. 

Now nothing left to do but eat! I love fresh hot tortillas especially with butter and honey. That is good eating! 

Even though they were perfectly round they were perfectly good! Now I just need some red chile and beans to eat with them. 

Have I mentioned I love Mexican food week?

Red chile chicken enchiladas

For as much Mexican food as I eat and have eaten in my life. I realized there are a lot of dishes I've never made at home. I've either had them at a restaurant or eaten them in someone else's home. So when I was looking through recipes for this week I realized that some of my favorite dishes I've never made for myself.

One of those dishes being rolled enchiladas. I've made green chile chicken enchiladas before, but those are more like a casserole that are layered and stacked. I've never made the single layered rolled enchiladas before and whats even crazier is I've never made red chile enchiladas. I figured it was high time I did.

To start the enchiladas I had to prepare the filling. In this case it was chicken. To make the chicken I stewed it in water with onions, garlic, bayleaf, pepper corns and cumin. Basically I made chicken broth. I used two chicken breast with the bone in and skin on. 

I let this cook for 40 minutes. While that was cooking I prepped my other ingredients which consisted of grating cheese and chopping one whole yellow onion.

Now the fun part frying the corn tortillas. I have I mentioned that I don't like to fry things? I really, really, do not enjoy having to fry anything. I mostly don't like frying because working with hot grease scares me and I hate it when the grease splatters and burns me. Anyway I had to get over it and fry my corn tortillas.

The key to frying corn tortillas for enchiladas is for the grease to be HOT! If the tortillas doesn't bubble and sizzle the second you put it in the skillet the grease isn't hot enough. I only fry them about 10-15 seconds on each side. I don't want them hard or crispy like chips. Just want them soft enough to roll.

By this time my chicken is cooked and ready to be shredded. 

I didn't forget that lovely chicken broth the chicken came out of. I strained it and put in the fridge to use in something else this week. Chicken's done, tortillas are fried, cheese and onions are ready so its time to make enchiladas. But wait, what about the enchilada sauce? Here is were most people go wrong with me is on their choice of enchilada sauce. 

I am from New Mexico and the only thing that ever goes on our enchiladas is either red or green chile. I mean it when I say this makes a huge difference in the taste of your enchiladas. Most store brand "enchilada sauces" are tomato based and too sweet, yuck! I love a nice simple red chile puree sauce. Which thanks to my mom I happened to have a fresh jar straight from New Mexico.

Red chile sauce can be made at home and is awesome. However its hard to find the New Mexico chiles in my hood so I used the jar sauce from one of my favorite New Mexico restaurants. Now time to assemble the enchiladas which is really easy.

To assemble all I did is take one corn tortilla put some fresh onion and shredded chicken in it then roll it up. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the chicken going in the tortilla but again I was hungry and in a hurry. I kept repeating this method until I had a dish full of enchilada rolls.

Next I poured my red chile sauce over the top.

Then added more fresh onions ( I really, like a lot of onion on my enchiladas).

Then I covered the whole thing is sharp Cheddar cheese.

I put these in the oven for 30 minutes to melt the cheese and heat through. Next time I will do it for 20 minutes 30 was a little too long. 

The final product looks like this!

Look at that warm bubbly goodness. It just brings a smile to my face and warms my heart whenever I look at it. Dinner was really good! The best part is there were left overs so I got to eat them again today! Life is good!

So far Mexican week is getting off to a great start!