My husband is mexican, and my family is from Arizona, so we have a lot of recipes.
The bigest staple is being able to make a good pot of beans. I use my pressure cooker or a crock pot. Pick out the bad beans and the rocks, rinse. If you are doing the crock pot, cover with water and soak over night, rinse again. Cover with water, add a table spoon or so of bacon drippins, crush fresh garlic cloves to taste, salt to taste. cook all day. If you cook on the stove, you have to watch closely, and any time you can soak first, you will cook for less time. I use the same recepie in my pressure cooker, but have to watch it closely, and sometimes stop in the middle of a batch, depressure, add water, and finsih up. My husband will even eat beans for breakfast, but these are a stapple, in burritos, tostadas, on nachos or as a side dish. I almost never refry, but you can in a cast iron skillet with more bacon drippings. You get the bacon drippings VERY hot, add the beans carefully, and stir like a crazy person. This adds way too much fat for us to have them very often, and if you are careful with very small amounts of the bacon drippings as a seasnoning, a little can go a long way and you get that flavor without the fat and calories.
Enchlada sauce:
Soak Ancho pepers in hot water (weigh them down so that they do not float) until soft. Take out stems and seeds, add to blender with a little water and make a paste. Add fresh garlic cloves to taste. Add two large cans (or more) of plain tomato sauce, salt. Blend. Cook one tablespoon flour and one tablespoon vegatable oil in a skillet to make a roux. Brown slightly, add tomato mixture and water if needed to thin to sauce thickness. Use as a topping or to make enchladas. Rolled: roll chopped onions and shredded yellow cheese in corn tortillas, place in a greezed pyrex baking dish, cover with sauce, sprinkle with cheese, bake at 350 until done through and bubbley. Can add meat, taco beef, chicken, pork, your choice.
Stacked Enchlada Salad: Coat lightly several corn tortillas in vegitable oil, stack one coated, one not, one coated, one not, so that only half are really in oil, and use oil very sparingly, then wrap in foil. Heat in oven at 350 for 10 minutes, cool slightly. Dip a tortilla in sauce, place on a plate, sprinkle with cheese, put on a handful of shredded iceberg lettuce, another dipped tortilla, more cheese, continue for as many as you like. Can add taco meat for more flavors.
Chilli renello caserole: 10 beaten eggs, 1 can evaporated milk (can use fat free) two cups of grated yellow cheese, two cans chopped green chilis, salt peper. Combine in sprayed, glass baking dish, bake at 350 for about 50 minutes or until knife in middle comes out clean. Serve with tortillas and a salad.
Mexican spagehti (Fideo) Find the mexican section of the grocery store, small packages of thin vermicelli broken into quarter inch peices. The thinner the better, but can use any vermicelli broken up. Brown in a tablespoon of vegitable oil (think ricearoni) stir constantly to keep from burning. add a choped onion, cook slightly, add a can of crushed tomatos, crushed garlic to taste (we like a lot, I use 4 our more) Salt to taste. add just enough water to almost cover the pasta, bring to boil, cover, turn down to low heat for 10 minutes or until all water is absorbed. We have this with beans and tortillas often, it is comfort food for my husband.
You can make spanish rice, much like the fideo, but I don't brown the rice as brown, and I add chicken broth instead of water, so that the liquid is double the rice amount (take the juice from the tomatos into account) also add chili powder and veggies, like frozen carrots, peas, corn and green beans. Cover, boil, turn to low, cook for 20 minutes without touching the lid.
Beans and rice are a complete protien. I often serve beans over rice, and put out grated cheese, chopped green chilis, chopped green onion, chopped tomato, chopped lettuce, what ever you like, to put on top.
If you want to make real chili rellenos, get pablano pepers, and blister them in the oven. cool. Peel the skin off, remove the seeds and the vein, a thin sting membrane that runs from the seeds up the sides of the pepers to the stem, this is where most of the heat is. Leave the stem on. Fill with a finger of cheese (cut block cheese into a piece that is roughtly the legnth and width of your index finger) Grate one cup of chees. Set aside. Separate on egg per chili. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Beat egg yolks, add to whites. Add one rounded teaspoon of flour per egg, and salt to taste, fold in well. In non stick skillet, heat two table spoons of vegitable oil untill hot. Add a large spoonful of the egg mixture, about the same length as the chilis, to the side of the skillet. Place one chilli in the middle, with the stem out of the mixture. Add extra mix on top if there does not seem like enough to coat the chili when folded over. After the egg mixture begins to cook so that it will hold its shape, but while the top of the mixture is still raw, usse plastic spatulas to roll the whole thing over towards the side of the pan, so that the pan helps to seal in the uncooked egg and surround the whole chili peper, and continue turning until the cooked side is up, and the rest of the egg mixture can cook on the other side. Kind of like an omlet, with more chili inside than there is egg outside. Cook all chilis this way, and place in a baking dish. They don't have to be perfect. Cover with grated cheese, bake in the oven until center cheese is melted and top cheese is bubbley.
We make fajiatas and just use lime, pepers, and garlic to season. And I have one kid that could not live without cheese casadias, which are just grilled cheese sandwhiches made with flour tortillas. Not hard.
Sorry I don't have measurements, I almost never measure. Most of these are just to your own taste.
M.
