Chile Rellenos Casserole

My mom and I used to be Mexican food connoisseurs while I was growing. I mean, we used to frequent Casa Ole AT LEAST once a week. ;) My mom used to always order chile rellenos, I could practically bet money on it that she would order them. I attempted to eat one once and thoroughly did not enjoy it. It was mushy and peppery and soggy and just plain gross. Since that day, I had never tried once again.


The dish that started it all. It's the little dude on the right.

UNTIL, I went to New Mexico this summer. I inadvertently ordered one. It came on the New Mexico special plate. A green hatch chile stuffed with white cheese and fried. Ohmygosh, it was delicious, I couldn't believe I had missed out on this for so long. Since July, chile rellenos have been my weakness at Mexican food restaurants. But on Friday, I had my first bad chile rellenos incident. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it just didn't live up to my standards. I decided to take the task of making chile rellenos myself but I decided to try and bake them in a casserole style so I don't have to worry about frying. My results was TASTY but not too pretty. I'll keep working on it though. I had an odd amount of chiles so you can either go down to four for two layers or up to six/seven for three layers. Your choice. And once again, I'm using some regional ingredients, so I don't have a substitution suggestion...yet. I'll keep working on that for you.



Serves 4

1 14 oz. can Hatch 5 Pepper Enchilada Sauce
8 poblano chiles
1 round sliced queso asadero cheese
6 eggs
1/3 c. crushed tortilla chips
Splash of milk
Salt/Pepper to taste

Turn over to broil and move rack to top shelf. Place chiles directly on oven rack. Blacken chiles on each side (just be warned, they will pop and hiss at you). Once chiles are thoroughly blackened, remove and place in a plastic sack (an old HEB one works fine) and tie the bag to let steam for 15 minutes or so. Go ahead and change the oven to 375 degrees. After 15 minutes, remove chiles from bag, (and it works best if you work over said bag), remove skin from chiles. It will be a thin layer that should have blackened. It should come off relatively easy. Then, seed chiles, remove stem and spilt in halves. Do with all remaining chiles.

Pour half of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of an 8x8 pan. Place chile halves down to cover the sauce. Think about putting them in a single layer, much like you would lasagna noodles. You might need to tear some of the chiles to fit. Next, tear your queso asadero cheese slices with your hands and place them on top of the chiles. You don't want them next to each other because they will melt (and oh so nicely I might add) and spread. Repeat chile/cheese/chile.

In a bowl, mix/whisk eggs, splash of milk, crushed tortilla chips and salt and pepper throughly. (Here, I made the mistake of not whipping the eggs thoroughly and I had some patchy areas in my casserole.) Pour this layer over the top. Bake for 30 minutes.

When eggs are set, but not browned, place remaining slices of cheese on top. Bake for an additional 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. This next step is VERY important, but will be very hard to do. Remove from oven and let it set for ten minutes! If not, you'll end up with a short layer casserole with cheese sauce in your dish that you'll have to spoon over tortilla chips, and while tasty, it would be much better in between the chiles. Queso Asadero is a very melty cheese. It WILL run out of the layers if you don't give it time to set. That's why my picture looks short and small. Slice into pieces and spoon remaining enchilada sauce over the top. Serve with some refried black beans and you are done!

Chipotle Tortilla Soup

I love tortilla soup, but I don't like chicken in my tortilla soup. It's one of my weird quirks. I do however love veggie tortilla soup and my favorite restaurant puts zucchini in their tortilla soup. What do you know, my aunt and uncle had an abundance of zucchini about to go bad, so I decided to try and recreate my own. The results? Better than going out!



32oz. low-sodium chicken broth
32oz. vegetable broth
1 can chipotle diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can rotel tomatoes, undrained
1 can green chiles, undrained
12 oz super sweet frozen corn
2 can black beans, rinsed and drained
Poultry seasoning
Chipotle chili powder
super secret chili powder
Cumin
7 zucchini, halved and chunked

Garnish: Sour cream, avocado chunks, lime wedges, tortilla chips

Bring broths to a boil. Add remaining ingredients except for zucchini. Boil for 10 minutes, then drop to a simmer. About 15 minutes before serving time, add zucchini chunks. Cook until zucchini is soft. (If you are making this all at once you add the zucchini when you add everything else. However, I like to let my soups simmer for the afternoon and in that case, it has a tendency to break down. So add accordingly depending on how long you plan to cook it.)

The BEST way to eat this is to put some tortilla chips in the bottom of your soup bowl. Pour soup over it. Squeeze a lime wedge (or two) into the soup. Dollop with sour cream and avocado chunks (be generous). Mix in the sour cream to make it slighty creamy. Oh! So good!!!! I mean, of course, the soup is great plain, BUT this way, it's soooo good. In case you haven't gathered, this soup is awesome!

Deconstructed Lasagna (with Spaghetti Squash!!!)

The spaghetti squash. Seemingly, a nice, quiet little squash. But inside, a hard winter vegatable that isn't in my everyday food vocabulary.

But I did it. Yes, I finally overcome AND conquered my fear of spaghetti squash. I bought one a couple of weeks ago at Central Market and it has since sat on my countertop. Looking at me everyday, taunting me, begging me to be cooked. Since today was a Sunday, I figured I had lots of time to cook another dinner in case I failed. I had planned to do a "deconstructed" type of lasagna, meaning use pasta, ricotta cheese and pasta sauce but not layered in a pan, just mixed in a bowl. I baked my spaghetti squash and it worked!!! I used the squash instead of pasta for my idea and it was fabulous! It has proved to me that you should take risks in the kitchen and you will be rewarded!!!

Deconstructed Lasagna with Spaghetti Squash

1 medium spaghetti squash
EVOO
Salt and Pepper

Fat Free Ricotta Cheese
Your favorite spaghetti sauce
Mozzarella Cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Split the spaghetti squash in half. Clean out the stringy pulp and seeds. (You can save the seeds to roast like a pumpkin.) Place on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Brush with EVOO, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until fork tender.

Meanwhile, heat your spaghetti sauce or make your own. I prefer to make my own. I sauteed half a white onion, diced, in EVOO. Once the onion turned opaque and softened, I added two cloves of garlic and continued sauteing. Once the garlic had slighty browned, I added a large can of diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and onions. Season to taste with salt, pepper and italian seasoning. Simmer until the spaghetti squash is ready.

Once the squash has cooled enough to handle, use a fork to pull apart and "make spaghetti." While hot, mix squash with ricotta cheese. The squash should be hot enough to melt the cheese. Add sauce, top with mozzarella cheese and serve. Mangia!
(The first picture is the layered, "fancy" picture, but really, it's best when you stir it all together. SOOOOOOOOOOO good!)

White Bean and Spinach Lasagna

Ohmygoodness, this stuff was delicious! It's one of the first times I've cooked since the hurricane, so maybe that might have had something to do with it's tasty-ness. I adapted this recipe from "What Can I Bring Cookbook?" by Anne Byrn. I modified it to be more heart friendly and healthy for my uncle. I added leftover turkey because it's what we had. You can use ground turkey, or you might not even need meat at all. It would taste good without any meat, I can promise you wouldn't even miss it. Below is my version:

White Bean and Spinach Lasagna

32oz. pasta sauce (I used one full jar of Pasta/Alfredo Sauce and half a Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo Sauce)
1 clove garlic
1 can chickpeas, drained
leftover turkey

15oz. fat-free ricotta cheese
2 c. fat-free mozzarella cheese
1/2 c/ egg beaters

1 pkg. frozen spinach
1 pkg egg roll wrappers
2c. fat-free mozzarella cheese

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Bring the pasta sauce, garlic, beans and turkey to a simmer in a saucepan. Meanwhile, combine the ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and egg beaters in a bowl. In a 9x13 pan, layer the following:
sauce on the bottom,
layer of egg roll wrappers,
cheese,
spinach,
sauce,
noodles,
cheese,
sauce,
noodles,
cheese,
spinach,
noodles,
sauce
and sprinkle the last 2c. cheese on top. (I find that it's easier to guesstimate the measurements rather than try and measure them. It just gets messy and you have to way too many measuring cups, so sorry there's no measurements.) The original recipe called for it to bake 40 mins and rest 20. I found that it needed longer to bake and didn't need to rest that long.

What I would do different next time...I would use garbanzo beans and mash them into the cheese mixture. They were too lumpy in the tomato sauce mixture. I would also mix the spinach into the tomato sauce mixture. There is no need to keep it separate, it is just too time consuming to keep it separate. I think I would also add a can of crushed tomatoes to the sauce mixture because the lasagna was a little dry. Not dry as in dry, but I like my lasagnas creamy and this wasn't. I ended up having to heat a can of crushed tomatoes and add some seasoning to make it a little more saucy. Even though, it was sooo tasty. It really hit the spot. Serve this with some good Italian bread and woo, it will be a hit!