Chilaquiles

Again, my favorite cookbook, Quick Vegetarian Pleasures to the rescue for our Sunday night meal.


Chilaquiles, as far as I understand from the cookbook and what I've had in restaurants they are kind of like a Mexican Lasagna or casserole. Also, typically they are made using up on-hand ingredients before they go bad. That's what I did when I made them on Sunday.
I'm in the process of trying to clear out stuff that has been in our freezer for quite some time - the pumpkin from the Pumpkin Mac and Cheese was from the fall and just needed to get used. In the chilaquiles, I used up some hot peppers, beans, corn tortillas, 1/2 package of Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo and some fresh tomatoes that I got on reduced sale that were destined for the freezer or needed to be used immediately.

Olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, diced
the recipe calls for a large can of diced tomatoes, but I used the reduced-sale Roma tomatoes, probably about 2 lbs worth or so
2 cups of cooked beans, I used black beans and white kidney beans, the recipe calls for a 15oz can of kidney beans
1/2 green pepper, finely chopped
1-2 hot peppers, again the recipe calls for canned diced green chilies
1/2 package of Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo (not in the original recipe)
12 corn tortillas
~2 cups or 8oz of shredded cheese, the recipe calls for Monterrey jack, but I used cheddar
1 cup of sour cream

In a hot large skillet over medium heat, add ~2 tablespoons of oil and fry the onions and garlic until soft, ~5-10 min. Then add the tomatoes, peppers and chorizo. Simmer until thickened.

In a 9" x 13" pan spread about 1/3 of the sauce on the bottom of the pan, top with 1/2 the tortillas, 1/2 the sour cream, 1/2 of the cheese, and the second 1/3 of sauce. Top that with the remaining tortillas, sour cream, sauce and finish with the rest of the cheese.
Bake at 350degF for 30-40 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

I'm not sure if it was the chorizo or the hot peppers, but it came out slightly spicy, but very good.

In Absenstia

I've been away a while, but I've still been cooking. I don't mind writing, but things would be so much better with pictures, and the pictures just take too much time to remember to take them, take them, upload them to the computer then upload them to Google Picasa. I'm sure there's a better easier way - probably if I had a smart phone, but I'm not planning to get a smart phone. I'll just opt out of pictures at the moment unless I think I made something exceptionally pretty, which is not usually the case.

A couple weeks ago I started, in earnest, trying to come up with a menu of 4-5 items for the week. Here was the proposal for the week of February 18th:
Baked Potato Soup
Bok Choy with mushrooms and noodles
Zucchini Enchaladas
Pasta with Broccoli

It took more than a week to get through all of those, including leftovers and take-out/pizza, etc. However, I enjoyed not having to think too hard and also shopping ahead of time to prepare.

This week, I opted for:
Chilaquiles w/veggies and chorizo
Falafel
Tofu with veggies stir fry
Japchae
Seitan steaks with Mashed potatoes, gravy and veggies (peas/corn)

So far, we've had the chilaquiles and the Japchae. When I grocery shopped for this week, I hadn't gotten everything because I was worried some things might go bad (veggies for stir fry, etc), so I'll be off to the store tonight to get the remaining ingredients. I think we'll have the falafel tonight :)

Pumpkin Mac and Cheese

Last night, I didn't feel like cooking much, and the items I planned last week, I hadn't fully shopped for. So we were lacking a few ingredients.  So I did what I often do - use what's on hand.

~2 cups of uncooked pasta, I had about 1 cup of shells and 1 cup of spiral pasta, like this. Both worked well to hold onto the heavy sauce.

enough water to cook the pasta.

After the pasta has cooked to al dente, drain the water.

Add ~2 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup of milk
12 oz of Velveeta cheese in 1/2" cubes
~2 oz cheddar cheese in 1/4" cubes
cook on low or medium low heat while the cheese melts
Add in 2 cups of pureed pumpkin
pepper to taste
~1/2 teaspoon marjoram
~1/2 teaspoon thyme

This came together pretty fast, and ended up tasting pretty good. The pumpkin and Velveeta together turned out to be very creamy.