Cinco de Momo

Everyone who knows me well knows if you ask me what I am up for eating, I will most likely choose something of the Mexican variety.  Getting good Mexican food or authentic is a bit tough in our area.  Raleigh has several top notch places that serve modern, gourmet Mexican food; my favorites are Jibarra and Dos Taquitos Centro.  In Williamsburg, you will find a nice selection of Americanized-Mexican establishments.  The food is still good; and what I am used to eating, but not really authentic (or so I am told).  None-the-less we love what we are used to.  I really love fresh salsas, the flavors of peppers and cilantro, and most of all, ewey, gooey cheese!

My favorite standby to order at a not-as-great Mexican place is cheese and onion enchiladas.  You can't really mess up a cheese enchilada.  Or at least that has been my experience thus far.  It seems to be a safe bet whereas ordering the chicken or beef can sometimes go terribly wrong.  Mom's favorite though, is a Chile Relleno.  She has tried one in every place we have been to and has had some that were good and some terrible ones.  When we were on vacation in Savannah, several years ago, she got a hankering for Mexican.  I got out our trusty area guide and found a fancy place in town.  We had passed by a hole-in-the-wall joint earlier in the week and she wanted to try that instead.  It was a risk that proved a bad move.  Our waiter was defiantly Puerto Rican and her Chile Relleno was a mass of meaty goo with little traces of poblano pepper covered in a bit of cheese.  It seemed more like a beef and chile casserole (which actually sounds really good) and she was far from impressed.  I don't even think the chips were very good-it is really sad when the chips are no good!

Another time, while she was visiting in Raleigh, Tee and I took her to our favorite downtown mexi-spot, El Rodeo. ( I love their Tierras de Pollo dish which is chicken in a spicy chipotle cream sauce)  There she had a Chile Relleno that had not been battered fried and she deemed it the best yet.  

This past Mother's Day was right after Cinco de Mayo and I was itching to cook up some Mexican.  I decided to try my hand at Chile Rellenos for Mom and figured Cheese and Onion Enchiladas would be a nice pairing.

Everything turned out to be very good although I did run into a few minor issues with the roasting of the poblanos.  I wish we had videoed me outside by the grill trying to blister the peppers with a blow torch (Mom's range is a glass flat top...no gas flame).  The blow torch method didn't exactly work.  It was a fun attempt.

For the sake of those looking for an easy peasy recipe, I will share my quick recipe for the cheese and onion enchiladas with you.

Easy Peasy Cheese and Onion Enchiladas (Mexika Style)

Preheat oven to 350

12 oz Mexican style cheese*
6-8 flour tortillas
1 large onion, rough chopped
3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and rough chopped
1 can green chiles
1 can enchilada sauce  

*I used one package of a Kraft cheese blend with a touch of Philly cream cheese...I thought it would add a nice smoothness and it did.

1.  Spray a 9x13 casserole or cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.
2.  In a bowl, combine 10 oz of cheese, onion, tomato, and green chiles.
3.  Spoon a generous amount of the cheese mixture along the center of a tortilla.
4.  Roll the tortilla around the mixture and place seam side down in the baking dish.
5.  Continue until the cheese mixture is used up.
6.  Pour the enchilada sauce over all and sprinkle with remaining cheese.
7.  Bake for about 30 minutes until bubbly!

How simple is that?  There are lots of ways to tweak this recipe to your taste or even step it up by adding your own home-made sauce.  You could add in ground beef or chicken.  You could add jalapeno to spice them up.  You could throw in some black beans or even some vegetables...like spinach or chopped zucchini.  I prefer corn tortillas, but our store only carries really small corn tortillas and the flour ones are very soft so they bake with the sauce and filling to make a really nice tender enchilada. 

About my Chile Rellenos...well, that's another story!

Yumalicious Dishes!

Cupcake Wars: Soda Shoppe Sundae Cupcake

So no cupcake war would be complete without a valiant competitor.  Who better to go up against Dad's cupcake challenger than Mom!  I asked her to tell me about her special childhood treat memory and without hesitation she shared her story.  Even though Mom and Dad didn't grow up too far from one another, and both in pretty small towns, Mom lived off Main Street!  Take the country store from Dad's memory and put it on Main Street in Gloucester County, VA and it evolves into Morgan's Drug Store. 

Morgan's was the quintessential 1950's drug store...right down to it's soda fountain.  I can imagine it in my mind like something from out of an old movie.  Mom walked to school so on occasion when they found themselves with a little change, she and her friends would head over to Morgan's; probably to buy baseball cards.  This was where she would have her favorite sweet treat...a hot fudge sundae with nuts!  Mom described the tall soda glass filled with cool vanilla ice cream, dripping with smooth hot fudge, syrupy English walnuts, topped with a cloud of whipped cream and the piece de resistance...a cherry on top!

There is nothing like an old standard and this sounded like a perfect cupcake.  I was a lot less leery of how this would come out than Dad's mix.  Now, to figure out how to duplicate the flavors.  I used the same batch of Vanilla Bean Cupcakes to create the ice cream base to this guy.  I thought about a chocolate buttercream frosting but then I thought about the texture of hot fudge.  I decided the perfect fake for that would be a nice chocolate ganache.  Now, I LOVE chocolate ganache.  The first time I ate it was when I had my first taste of Death by Chocolate Cake at the Trellis in Colonial Williamsburg.  The best thing is it is stupid easy to make!

Chocolate Ganche:
Bring a pint of heavy cream to a low simmer.  In a heat safe bowl, add 8 oz of semi-sweet chocolate.  (I used Ghiradelli Chips)  Pour the warm cream over the chips and let sit about one minute.  Then stir the chocolate until it melts into smooth shiny goodness!

For the nuts...I thought about making candied walnuts but then I realized how super sweet this little confection could end up if I added too much extra sugar and opted just to sprinkle plain old chopped English walnuts over the thick layer of ganache. 

Next goes the heavy dollop of cool whipped cream.  To make this is also easy if you have a mixer with a whisk attachment.  A little tip for whipping cream...everything has to be COLD.  So, put your mixing bowl in the fridge and leave it and the cream in there until you are ready for it.  You only need to add about a tablespoon of powdered sugar to sweeten it up a touch.  You can add vanilla or other extracts but for this cupcake, I kept it simple.

Last but not least, we topped it off with a maraschino cherry!  I wish they had had stems to make it even cuter!  They were SOOO yummy and had all the elements of that perfect soda shoppe delight.  Mom deemed them a success!

I "frosted" them all with the warm ganache and stored the extras in the fridge.  I was also able to keep the whipped cream in a lidded plastic storage container in the fridge for about a week and it did not separate.  This way, I was able to make them to order, so to speak, not forgetting a cherry or two!

So, who was the winner of this cupcake war?  Well, I liked then both and found them hard to compare.  One was sweet, sweet- rich and chocolaty.  The other was fun with bright flavors and a great sweet-salty mix.  If you try one, let me know!  Keep checking in to see what I try next...there is a S'mores Cupcake battle coming soon!

Yumalicious Dishes!

Cupcake Wars: Lime Float Cupcake

When Dad was a boy his mom worked over in Gayle's Country Store in King and Queen County, VA.  She sorted the mail into the post boxes there for the community.  Some days, after school, he (and probably a number of his brothers and sisters) would head over to the store to hang out until she got off work.  Some days, dad would buy the ingredients for his favorite treat; Nehi Lime Soda, a little carton of Pet Vanilla Ice Cream, and a small bag of Wise Potato Chips.  The whole treat cost him a bit under a hefty $.15.  Since he started working on his cousin's farm at 8, he did have a bit of change in his pocket now and again!  He made a solid $5 a day from his first day on the job through his retirement at 18...he apparently did not have anyone making union negotiations for him! 

Now, back to his treat...Dad explained that he would eat a little of the ice cream to make room in the container and then pour in some soda and crumble some chips on top.  He would eat down that layer and add more soda and chips.  The whole idea of it made me giggle...just thinking of a mini Freeman eating his little concoction!  I don't know what would have inspired him to try this but I love a good salty sweet combo so I decided it was a perfect concept for a fun cupcake.

I looked at the elements necessary to recreate his snack.  I decided to make a Vanilla Bean Cupcake to replicate the flavors of a creamy vanilla ice cream.  Nehi doesn't make Lime Soda anymore.  I had originally thought about trying to incorporate some Sprite or find a Lime Soda in one of the natural soda lines from Trader Joe's or Fresh Market.  I felt the soda might be too watery and wanted a better concentration of the lime flavor.  I decided a creamy and mild flavor was the best so I opted for Key Lime Juice and used it to make a (very successful) Key Lime Buttercream Frosting.  Then, to top it all off, I crushed up a handful of thin Original Herr's Potato Chips.  Wise brand is also a fair memory but they were thin and crisp and the Herr's were a perfect sub-in. 

The result: YUMALICIOUS!  I searched out a recipe for a Vanilla Bean Cupcake online and found this one (click the link) from Simple Recipes.  I liked the use of the sour cream and double dose of vanilla with the extract and real bean.  Using vanilla bean always adds a ton of nice flavor as well as the gorgeous tell-tale speckles through the finished product.  The downside of vanilla beans are expensive although they are becoming more readily available (I have even bought one from Target).  Infusing the milk with the seeds and pod before adding it to the recipe really helps the flavors to come through nicely.  This recipe was not a piece-of-cake to make, though...it had a lot if steps which I followed closely. 

Don't forget...never skip the sift!!

What GORGEOUS batter...just have to taste it!

The finished product was delicious and it had a nice firm texture that held up nicely to my toppings.  The cupcakes had a beautiful color!  They were worth the effort and I will use this recipe again.  Aren't they pretty?  Can you see the black speckles of bean?



My buttercream is something I learned to make in High School when I worked at The Flower Shoppe of Williamsburg.  My boss made fantastic wedding cakes and his daughter would decorate them in the shop.  There is no recipe, I just make it by eye.  It is super simple though and amounts to:

Box of 10x Powdered Sugar
Stick of Unsalted Butter
1 T Vanilla
1 T Milk

When I make this, I start by creaming the butter in a electric mixer with a paddle attachment.  You don't want to start with your butter too soft or you will have to add too much sugar to get the texture right.  You add in a little sugar at a time (so it doesn't end up EVERYWHERE).  You put in the vanilla and milk for flavor and consistency.  You can't really over mix it--it just gets fluffier and smoother as it mixes away.  You want it to be light and spreadable.  If it is too sweet, you can add a bit more butter...if it seems too thin, you add a bit more sugar...too thick, you can add a bit more milk.  This makes more than enough frosting for a dozen cupcakes but I would do a batch and a half for a cake.  The leftover can be stored in the fridge for a week or so...you can schmere it on graham crackers or something!

For this recipe, I left out the milk and added the Key Lime Juice instead.  I used about 4 Tablespoons putting in a bit at a time and then checking the flavor.  I wanted to make sure the lime really came through.  It really had a surprisingly nice flavor; sweet, rich and creamy, and then a bit of tart, POW!

I stored the iced cupcakes in a lidded container and added the crunched chips right before serving so they did not get soggy.

Dad really enjoyed the final product (and so did the rest of us!)  I was a bit worried about how it would all come together but I loved them!  I would use the Key Lime Buttercream again too.  I need to come up with another fun combo to highlight that nice flavor.  Hmmm?  What goes great with lime?  Send your ideas!!

Yumalicious Dishes!

Cupcake Wars

Tonight was Spaghetti Night.  I love Spaghetti Night.  I doctor up a darn good jar of sauce and always eat about three notches past the too full mark.  It is nice to be creative when you are cooking even when it is something simple, but it is also nice, when you have figured out what works, to do just that!  Spaghetti was probably one of the first things I learned to make myself (after French Toast thanks to Pee Wee Herman...a whole other story).  I remember making Dad spaghetti one night when Mom was not home.  I proudly pulled out the Lea & Perrins and proceeded to shake it on the ground beef in the pan.  I think I thought that it was the Worcestershire that made the meat brown so I just kept shaking it on.  The result, a dinner that was so spicy it almost made my dad cry.  I remember his guzzling water as his eyes welled up, but he ate every bite and complimented me none-the-less.  It was still tasty...just over seasoned!  Tonight, he complimented my skills yet again, but there was no need for a fire hydrant or gallon of water to accompany the dish.

The retiree's watch a lot of food network programs.  I quite enjoy watching Cupcake Wars.  We all chime in who we think is getting cut on each task.  Even Dad puts his vote in and what he thinks will be the reason for the teams demise.  It is funny to hear him comment on such things since he has spent little time in a kitchen.  One thing is, he knows what he likes and he does like food! 

The program and my love of cupcakes inspired me to make a cupcake memory.  I decided to interview my parents and ask them to share a childhood memory of a sweet treat.  I took notes and created two cupcake versions of their tasty memories.  Let's start with Dad's...

Tender Blueberry Scones

Coming back from England one of my favorite treats was a tender buttery scone and so I decided I must learn to make them myself!  I found that one of my favorite blogs, Annie's Eats, had a recipe for Blueberry Scones.  Since I am a sucker for anything baked with fresh blueberries I decided to give it a shot.  There is just something so nice about biting into a warm juicy blueberry...YUM! 


I read through the recipe which seemed tedious and so I put off making them for several days.  If there is one thing I learned in culinary school it was the difference between cooking and baking.  When you cook most foods there is a lot of room for creativity.  You can guess on measurements, sub out ingredients, and use a number of cooking methods to get a result.  Baking, on the other hand, is  a science.  Each recipe has a formula and if you get one thing off, you can end up with a disaster!  I over did it on one of my own recipes with either the salt, baking powder or both recently and ended up with a nasty salty blondie!  I had scribbled the recipe down and accidentally put a big T where there should have been a little t.  Three littles in a big makes for a terrible three-times-too-much mistake!


Mom has worked for years trying to perfect her grandmother's yeast roll recipe.  She knows there is something just not written down on the tattered paper recipe that her grandmother did to make them a light and fluffy perfection.  There were many batches that were deemed "hockey pucks" or "not fit to eat" in on our household holidays.  She made them with a wheat flour mix one year as an experiement which I love.  Over time she has tried this and that in the preparation sometimes with great sucess. 


With all of this, I have become a stickler for following the little details of a recipe when I am baking.  I love when I read one and the chef has given tips like using cold butter in pie crust or room temp eggs.  If it says it, do it.  Your recipe will come out most likely either way, but those little things can make a big difference in the texture of your tasty treat.


All that being said, I have had some terrible scones.  While Dad and I were on holiday in the UK, I grabbed one at every breakfast and lunch stop to try.  I especially liked the ones with currants, had a really nasty one with chewy fruit-cake-like strawberries, and found that clotted cream and a good black currant jam make a plain scone perfection!  I was hoping this recipe would turn out to be a winner...and it did.


The best part was, this recipe was freezable so I decided to bake off a few and freeze the rest to see how they would turn out and the frozen guys were just as yummy as the first batch.  I was thrilled because sometimes it is just me and I don't need a dozen scones lying around to eat; instead I can make them up and just take out one or two to bake as I get a craving. 

Here's the recipe and some photos of the baking process:

Blueberry Scones
Cook Time 18-25 minutesYields 8 scones


Ingredients

·         8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, frozen whole

·         1½ cups (7½ oz.) fresh blueberries

·         ½ cup whole milk

·         ½ cup sour cream

·         2 cups (10 oz.) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface

·         ½ cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

·         2 tsp. baking powder

·         ¼ tsp. baking soda

·         ½ tsp. salt

·         1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

·         2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Directions
1. Adjust an oven rack to middle position and preheat to 425˚ F.  Grate the frozen butter on the holes of a large box grater.  Place the blueberries in the freezer until needed. (This is important so they are firm when you press them into the dough later!)

2.  Whisk together the milk and sour cream in a medium bowl; refrigerate until needed.  Combine the flour, ½ cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk to combine.  Add the grated butter to the flour mixture and toss with fingers until thoroughly coated.
3.  Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and fold with a spatula just until combined. Transfer the dough to a generously floured work surface.  Dust the top of the dough with flour, and knead with well floured hands, 6-8 times, just until the dough holds together in a ragged ball. Add small amounts of flour as needed to prevent sticking.

4.  Roll the dough into a 12-inch square.  Fold the dough into thirds like a business letter (a dough scraper really helps with these steps).  Fold the short ends of the dough into the center in thirds, to form an approximate 4-inch square.  Transfer the dough to a plate lightly dusted with flour and chill in the freezer for 5 minutes.

5.  Return the dough to the floured work surface and roll into an approximately 12-inch square again.  Sprinkle the blueberries evenly over the surface of the dough, and gently press down so that they are slightly embedded in the dough surface.  Using a dough scraper, roll the dough up to form a tight log.  Lay the log seam side down and press the the log into a 12 by 4-inch rectangle.  Using a sharp, floured knife, cut the rectangle crosswise into 4 equal rectangles.  Cut each rectangle diagonally to form 2 triangles.  Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.6.  (If freezing ahead of time, flash freeze on the baking sheet for 20 minutes, then wrap individually and store in a freezer bag until needed.)  Brush the tops of the scones with melted butter and sprinkle lightly with sugar.  Bake until the tops and bottoms are golden brown, 18-25 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

6.  (If freezing ahead of time, flash freeze on the baking sheet for 20 minutes, then wrap individually and store in a freezer bag until needed.)  Brush the tops of the scones with melted butter and sprinkle lightly with sugar.  Bake until the tops and bottoms are golden brown, 18-25 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

From Annie's Eats adapted from Cooks Illustrated

These scones are SO tender and light and buttery that they didn't need a speck of cream, butter, or jam to make them delish.  I did felt that they were pretty big and filling.  I would like to try the recipe again without the blueberries to make a plain, traditional scone.  I may even try to cut them with a round cutter to make a smaller guy that can be served with clotted cream and jam.  This one was great for breakfast, with tea, or as an evening sweet treat.

Yumalicious Dishes!