Combine all of the dry seasonings into a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
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Start by trimming off any excess fat and then dice into about 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes.
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Preheat a large stock pot to high heat. Add about 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil to your pot and wait until it just starts to smoke.
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Add 1/2 of the meat and 1/2 of the seasonings and sear on all sides. This will take about 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer the cooked beef to a large bowl and set aside for now.
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Repeat with the rest of the meat, seasonings and oil.
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Note: The reason for two batches is so that the meat will get a good sear. Adding all of the meat at once will “steam” it. In order to get a good sear there needs to be at least some space to stir and rotate to sear all sides.
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When the second batch has seared pour the first batch back in and add enough water to almost cover.
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Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat until you have a slow boil when covered.
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Keep it covered and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. You should have about the same amount of water at the end of this hour, if you notice the water evaporating just add a little more when needed.
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We’ll finish simmering the meat in this beautiful sauce. You should have enough time to make the sauce while the meat is cooking.
Cooking the Sauce
Stem and seed the dry chilis and add them to a large bowl. Cover with 3 1/2 cups hot water to reconstitute. Soak for about 20 minutes or until soft.
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Chop onions. Cut, seed and stem the fresh Anaheim chili, green pepper and jalapenos (seeds are optional) into large chunks for easy blending.
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Add the reconstituted chilis, fresh veggies and “chili water” to a blender and blend until smooth. (You may have to do this in batches)
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Pour the mixture into a medium to large sauce pan.
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Add the seasonings and place on a burner over high heat to bring it to a boil.
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Reduce the heat to about medium to medium low and simmer covered for about 30 to 40 minutes stirring occasionally.
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Your Colorado sauce is ready.
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Note: This is a “concentrate”, it makes about 1/2 gallon so you’ll have some left over. It freezes well for up to 3 months. Dilute with water or broth and it can be used as an enchilada sauce or for a Mexican style rice and even as a taco sauce. It can also be used to slow simmer chicken or pork.
Completing the Dish
Now that your beef has been simmering for an hour or so it should be getting soft and tender.
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Add 2 to 3 cups of your sauce and stir it in.
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Cover and simmer for another 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
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It’s now ready.
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Note: The longer you cook it the more tender it will get.Â
I found a web page with instructions for “30 second bread,” which was really just tortillas, although they didn’t call it that.
Tortillas… despite being genetically the whitest person you may know, I grew up eating fresh flour tortillas. No one around ever made corn tortillas at home, and I can understand why. They call for a special corn flour that isn’t readily available in some areas but you can find all-purpose flour everywhere! However, as much as I love fresh flour tortillas, nothing beats fresh corn tortillas! I am lucky enough to live near some Mexican markets that make them fresh every day and I can be seen wandering around the market eating warm tortillas right out of the bag.
I’ll be honest. I have the recipe for making corn tortillas. I tried it once, but they tasted like fried mush. They were nothing like store-bought tortillas. I used the wrong masa (yellow corn meal instead of yellow corn flour). I realized today that the method for making corn tortillas can also work with any grain flour since it doesn’t rely on gluten at all.
Here are the recipes for both flour and corn tortillas. Play around with them. In the picture, those tortillas were made with about 1/3 sprouted grain flour (red and white wheat, with a little barley).
Stir together the flour and salt in a large bowl. With your fingertips, mix in the shortening (LARD *grin*). Add the water, working the liquid into the dough until a sticky ball forms (Kitchenaid with a dough hook works wonders).
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Dust a counter with flour and knead the dough vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. The mixture should be soft but no longer sticky. Let the dough rest, covered with a damp cloth, for about 15 minutes. Divide the dough into about 25 balls, coat in shortening, cover them again with the damp cloth, and let them rest for at least 45 minutes longer (this is to allow the gluten to form … if you don’t have the time, it won’t hurt them too much). **If not for use immediately, the dough can be greased lightly and refrigerated for up to 12 hours. Bring the dough back to room temperature before proceeding.
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Lightly flour your counter. Flatten a ball with your hand, then roll the dough from the center outward, turn the tortilla a few inches and roll again, attempting to keep the growing circle even. Roll out the dough into a circle as thin as possible, preferably 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick. They don’t have to be perfectly round … just make sure you do not have any folds. OR you can use a tortilla press with plastic wrap or oiled parchment paper. These will result in a less-chewy tortilla.
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Heat a dry griddle or large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Cook each tortilla 10 seconds on each side, then continue flipping (about 10 seconds on each side) until the dough looks slightly dry and wrinkled with a few brown speckles on the surface. It helps to use a cloth or paper towel to pop any air bubbles that form but be careful … that steam is HOT!
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Place cooked tortillas between on a flat surface, ensuring they do not touch. This will prevent them from sticking together. Once cool, you can put them into a 1 gallon Ziploc bag and place in the fridge (if you do this while they are still warm, the steam will cause them to become mushy, and nothing’s worse than a mushy tortilla).Â
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I don’t know how long these will last … they are so good, they are gone in no time!
There are two types available in the stores. One is for tamales, the other is for tortillas. The difference is the grind. The masa harina for tortillas is a fine flour, the tamale one is courser but not as course as corn meal. For authentic tortillas, you cannot use corn flour. Masa harina is made by taking the dried corn and soaking it in a water/lime solution (to read more about this, go here: What is Masa Harina?). For any other grain, just grind to a fine flour.
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Heat a dry griddle or heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
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In a large bowl, mix the ingredients with a sturdy spoon or your hands until the dough is smooth and forms a ball. The dough should be quite moist but hold its shape. Add a little more water or masa harina, if needed, to achieve the proper consistency.
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Form the dough into 12 balls approximately 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Cover the balls with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. If any of the balls do dry out before cooking, knead more water into them. Unlike the dough for flour tortillas, this dough can be reworked.
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Place one ball of dough in a tortilla press between the two sheets of plastic that are sometimes sold with the tortillas press or two a 1 gallon freezer bag, cut into two sections. If you don’t have a tortilla press, you can either roll each ball between two sheets of waxed paper or press between two sheets of waxed paper with a heavy, flat bottomed pot (my pressure canner worked great for this). Flatten to about 1/8 inch thick. Carefully pull the plastic from the tortilla and lay on the hot griddle or skillet.
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Cook for 30 seconds, flip over and cook about another minute, flip and cook the first side an additional 30 seconds. Place the cooked tortillas between two cloth towels until all tortillas are cooked. Store as above (once cooled, place in a gallon Ziploc bag and store in fridge).
Last (but not least) for today: My mom’s tortilla soup. This is so easy, inexpensive, and could be healthy (but wouldn’t be the same *grin*). I have tried using store bought tortilla chips (both regular and baked) but they turn to mush too quickly.
Heat about 1-inch of oil in a frying pan on medium. When the oil is hot enough (it looks like it's swirling and when you put a piece of tortilla into the oil, it immediately begins to cook), fry the tortilla triangles. Do not over crowd the pan or the chips will not cook evenly (easier way? Use a deep fat fryer). Place 2 or 3 paper towels in a deep bowl, and place your cooked chips in the bowl to drain (salt now, if you wish, before they get cold).Â
For Everything Else
In a sauce pan or pot, pour the soup and water. Heat on medium. Mix in bouillon (or soup base). Once simmering, turn to low heat.
Heat up tortillas in a pan or griddle on medium high heat.
Assembly
In your bowl, put a layer of chips, some cheese, some soup, then repeat if you want. Done!
You can start with a raw chicken OR use a rotisserie chicken OR canned chicken. It can be as complicated or easy as you would like it to be.
Ingredients
Instructions
Instructions for using raw chicken
Throw a chicken (with the innards removed) into a pot, cover with water, and boil until it’s done (you will know, it will look bloated and the legs will pull away from the body). Pull it out of the water and place it in a colander to drain and cool.
Once cool, remove all the meat from the bone and shred.
Once You Have Shredded, De-boned Chicken
Once removed, mix taco seasoning into the chicken meat. How much? I really don’t know. I add some, then taste. If you are using taco seasoning packets, probably no more than one packet (but taste first … remember there’s a lot of salt in there). Mix in onions. Set the meat aside.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Now for the time consuming part: Put about 1-inch of oil in a frying pan. Heat on medium (it’s the right temperature when you put a piece of tortilla in the pan and it does not sink). Slide a tortilla into the oil. Count to 3, flip the tortilla, count to 3, remove from oil and place on paper towels to drain. Repeat with rest of tortillas. You only want to cook the tortilla just enough so it is soft (not hard at all).
Time to make the tacos. Place a tortilla in your baking dish, add seasoned chicken, then cheese. Move on to the next taco. Continue until you have used all the chicken. You may have some extra tortillas. Just sprinkle some salt on those and eat them! 🙂
Bake until the top of the tacos are brown and crispy. Remove from oven, put the lettuce in the taco, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and you are done! Serve with Spanish rice (Patrick makes the best Spanish rice but I still can’t make it right. Your best bet is to look on-line for a recipe. I’ll try to get him to write down how he makes it).
So, this is how we make enough to feed me, hubby, my son, and my mom. Hubby just pointed out (duh) that you could just make however many tacos you want then freeze the chicken meat for another day.
For Enchiladas
If you want to do enchiladas, do everything except the instructions on assembling the tacos. Pour a large can of enchilada sauce in a bowl. Dip a tortilla in the enchilada sauce, place in baking dish, put chicken and a little cheese in the center of the tortilla, roll and place the seam down. Repeat with rest of chicken. Pour remainder of sauce over enchiladas, sprinkle grated cheese over the top (however much you want), and bake until all the cheese is melted and a little crispy on the edges. That’s it! You can freeze one pan of enchiladas before cooking. They keep in our freezer for about 6 months. Just cover the pan first with plastic wrap and foil.
We had an inexpensive Christmas dinner this year. I made this recipe, then added about 2 cups of mashed beans to thicken. Put in a bowl, sprinkle with cheese, use as a dip, and you almost have a complete meal! We also had beans and home made rotisserie chicken.
Add about 2 cups of mashed beans to thicken, sprinkle with cheese, use as a dip, and you almost have a complete meal!
Ingredients
Instructions
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the flour and continue stirring for 3 to 4 minutes, or until it makes a light brown roux.
Add all the dry ingredients and continue to cook for 1 minute, constantly stirring and blending ingredients. Add chicken broth or water, mixing and stirring until the sauce thickens.
Turn heat to low and let sauce simmer for 15 minutes. Add water to adjust the thickness.
I have been so busy with playing Call of Duty Black Ops that I keep forgetting to post some of my latest concoctions! 🙂
While I love specialty breads (I still haven’t found a good-enough-for-me recipe for jalapeño cheese bread) I have been wanting to find a good every day bread and I think I found it! Why do I like this recipe so much? Well, this is the first one I found without brown sugar, honey, or molasses. Also, it’s not too dense but heavy enough to not break apart when spreading natural peanut butter on it. This makes fantastic sandwiches, toast, french toast, etc.
Combine 3 cups flour, oats, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl and mix well.
In a small saucepan, heat milk, water, and butter until very warm (just until butter is melted). Add to flour mixture and blend on low speed of mixer until dry ingredients are moistened. Increase the medium speed and beat for 3 minutes (I did this by hand and it was not fun).
By hand, stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough. Turn out onto floured surface and knead in the rest of the flour for about 5 to 8 minutes.
Shape into ball, cover with bowl (or in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap) and let rise until doubled (about an hour). Punch down and let rest for 10 minutes.
Divide dough in half and shape into loaves. Place in greased bread pans. Cover and let rise until almost doubled (recipe said 15 minutes but I let it go for 30).
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes, or until dark golden brown. Remove from pans and let cool before slicing (which I can never do!).
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Last (but not least) was dinner last night. I found a recipe in another cookbook (The Border Cookbook) that was similar to this one but I did it the lazy way. I just added a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes and a 28 ounce can of diced Ortega chiles. I also let it cook for 6 hours. Served with rice and heated flour tortillas, this was a fantastic meal!
Toast chiles in a cast-iron skillet (griddle, or over an open flame) until blackened. Wrap in damp paper towel and place in plastic bag for about 20 minutes to steam. Peel off blackened skin (with a spoon or the flat side of a knife) and remove stems and seeds. Chop all chiles.Â
If using pork shoulder, remove fat from shoulder and chop into small pieces. Render fat in large pot and then remove fat pieces. If you don’t use the pork fat, use 2 tablespoons oil or lard. Heat over medium-high heat and brown pork pieces well. Don’t crowd pot; brown in batches, if needed.
Add the onions and garlic and stir well, cooking until onions are soft. Add the chopped chiles, spices (if using) and crushed tomatoes. Stir well and cook for about 2 minutes until well-blended. Add water or broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook for about 1-½ to 2 hours until pork is very tender. Taste for seasoning, and adjust as necessary.
Serve with rice and beans, and warm soft tortillas.
