easy avocado enchiladas

I just learned that enchiladas were one of the recipes included in the first definitive Mexican cookbook, El cocinero mexicano ("The Mexican Chef"), in 1831. Wikipedia told me this when I went looking for info on the origins of this marvelous dish. They were informed, by the way, in "Tacos, Enchiladas and Refried Beans: The Invention of Mexican-American Cookery" published by Oregon State University.

Enchiladas are essentially any mixture of meat, fish, vegetables, or beans wrapped up in a soft (usually corn) tortilla and baked in a chili sauce. I have had them in many restaurants in Canada and even in Mexico. None have been all that memorable, save some that I once had cooked for me essentially out of someone's kitchen at a little beach snack bar somewhere near Manzanillo.

The enchiladas I like to make come from Mollie Katzen's "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest." First she explains the enchilada's basic components and construction. Then she gives three different recipes for fillings: Cheese with Surprises, Avocado, and Zucchini and Pepper. Honestly, as soon as I laid eyes on that avocado recipe my heart skipped a beat. I've never even tried the other two, though "with surprises" intrigues me a great deal.
Combine:
1/2 C fresh lemon juice
4 ripe avocados, coarsely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
6 green onions, finely chopped (greens and whites)
3/4 C fresh cilantro (didn't have any so I used Italian parsley)
2 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp ground cumin

Make this just before you're ready to assemble the enchiladas and fit them into a casserole to be baked.

Mollie Katzen also gives two different recipes for enchilada sauce - a salsa verde, which requires green tomatoes (perfect for a big crop in summer) and the red sauce which can be made as long as you have access to a few basic supermarket ingredients like ripe tomatoes and a red bell pepper. Sometimes I blend it smooth but today I left it chunky for a nice texture.

The enchilada sauce can be made ahead of time.

Simmer in a pot:
5 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 large red sweet pepper, finely diced
1 tsp. salt
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp crushed rep pepper, or chili pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. ground cumin

It's not in Mollie's recipe but I like to top the enchiladas with mozzarella or jack cheese before baking in the oven. Also, she covers with foil before baking and I leave the dish open to brown a little on top.

Tonight I paired the hot casserole with a quick spinach salad with chopped kalamata olives, big chunks of Starkrimson pear (a new discovery and positively delicious!), chopped green onion, and crumbled chevre. I made a vinaigrette of maple syrup, honey Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.


via Wikipedia:
Oregon State University -
http://web.archive.org/web/20070718154326/http://food.oregonstate.edu/ref/culture/mexico_smith.html. Retrieved 2008-07-14.

Cafe de Ville, what a thrill!

Yesterday I went for lunch with one of my oldest friends. Our visit was long overdue and we planned on a long lingering lunch, so I immediately thought of one of my favourite places, Cafe de Ville. It's such a cozy little place, complete with fireplace and little shaded lamps at each table. They also have wonderful coffee and that was the prefect pretext to allow us to take our time with lunch.

Looking at the prints of Paris on the warm yellow walls I realize that this place is one of the only morsels of the pink city that Edmonton's got. One thing that I love about this restaurant is the breadbasket that comes at the start of the meal. Warm croissants infused with orange and baked with lots and lots of butter, these sweet pseudo-brioches are what people remember about Cafe de Ville.

Our server brought us coffee from a fresh pot and milk and cream for each of us. He was very patient as we visited, neglecting our unopened menus on the table and gave us time to consider our options and the specials of the day. He returned when we were finally ready to order and I got a cup of the two feature soups - beef tenderloin broth with caramelized onions, pear, Pernod, and Sauvignon Blanc. The broth was rich with caramel and buttery fat from the onions and beef. The slivers of onion were cooked perfectly, firm but still soft. The flavours combined to make an intense start to the meal. The other soup of the day was a carrot apple.

For my main I got the pollenta soufflé, made with spinach, Stilton, herbs, feta, and a wild mushroom ragout. This is one of my very favourite things to order whenever I come here and I'm happy to report that it was every bit as scrumptious as always. The wild mushrooms were chewy and robust with aroma. The portion was large enough to be a main dish at lunch, especially paired with a cup of soup to start and one or two of those delectable brioches.

My friend-date had heard very good things about the build your own pizza here. The dish starts with a base of herb crust, Roma tomato and garlic basil sauce, and a blend of fontina, asiago, provolone, and sprintz cheeses. She ordered spinach and artichoke as toppings. The final product was very cheesy, as you might expect, and the dough crust was flaky, almost like a French flatbread. Neither she nor I could finish our meals so our server packed everything up to take away.

Though the restaurant does not have a set dessert menu they do have an in-house pastry chef and every day they present diners with an exquisite display of a dessert platter to choose from. It wasn't the chocolate mousse or the cheesecake that lured us. We went for the Earl Grey crème brulée. The custard was grey, almost lavender in colour. The hard candied sugar top was garnished with carved strawberry, blackberry, gooseberry, and mint leaves. The dish was carefully prepared and the custard was smooth, not eggy.

local game meat and Canadian wine on a Monday night

Joey and I just opened a bottle of Mission Hill Family Estate Compendium, 2006. It's a rich, full-bodied blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot. I've been eyeing this alluring bottle at my local wine shop for months. Today, I received it as a gift from Joey's roommate. I set Charles and his girlfriend up with super sweet accommodation in Jasper on the weekend. It was incredibly thoughtful of them to give me this as a thanks.
On the nose I detected scents of blueberry jam, earth, truffle and fig. It smelled smoky, like it had been aged in very old oak. The colour was deep, opaque purple with blue hues.
When I finally took my first sip I noticed at first the tannin, and then the bold acidity and long finish. It should open up for a while, decanted if possible, for an hour at least. The flavours that come out of this wine are incredibly layered. At first I tasted concord grapes, sour cherries and an almost barnyard musk. As I swirled the wine in the glass, it started to release tobacco and chocolate notes. The overall taste though was almost tart with a puckery mouthfeel.

We paired this wine with wonderful food. Joey and I found blueberry and black pepper farmed elk sausages at the farmer's market on Saturday the second last of the season. Joey removed the casing, sliced those up into large chunks, and then simmered those in water for about 10 minutes before adding butter, finely chopped onions, and minced garlic to sauté together. He also roasted 2 red peppers, pureed them with dried rosemary and added that to the sizzling meat and onions. We let the sauce simmer for another 15 minutes or so while putting on water for some whole-wheat penne rigate.

I've been craving bright green veggies so we also picked up green beans and broccoli for steaming. Start with the green beans at the bottom of your steaming basket and then add broccoli when close to serving to cut down on dishes and ensure even cooking of each vegetable.

I made a quick béchamel sauce with Danish blue cheese to drizzle over the broccoli. Here's how:
You will need equal parts butter and flour (2 Tbsp) and enough milk and/or cream to thin it out. I melt the butter and add a little minced garlic. As the garlic cooks, remove the saucepan from heat and start adding the flour, stirring to incorporate. Put the saucepan back on the heat when you have a rather heavy paste of butter and flour and then start adding the milk.

Traditionally, you should have already scalded the milk with aromatics (i.e. bay leaf or nutmeg) in a separate pot, but I save time and usually pour it straight from the carton. Add the milk in small increments, stirring each time to combine and slowly the sauce will turn to the kind of consistency you can see mixing well with whatever you need - steamed broccoli, cauliflower, pasta, poached eggs, mac and cheese, or stew. From the simple 3-ingredient base and with a few aromatics (like garlic or bay leaf or whatever) you can add things like blue or aged cheddar cheese and things can really get crazy...

Oh yes, right at the end of cooking, I suggested we add a splash of the wine to Joey's elk sausage pasta sauce. When the pasta was nearly cooked we poured all of it plus a bit of pasta water to the large pan that the sauce was all simmering in. Everything absorbed into the pasta, we salted it to taste and added a splash of cream (cause we're wild like that). The green beans Joey drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice.

Leftover birthday cake for dessert.

hey there sports fans

Who likes lazy summer Sundays? I know I do...

Today I plan to read the newspaper, write, eat food from the market prepared for me with love, hang out in a hammock, and then I'm going to go to the Eskimos-Alouettes football game around 5.

FYI - breakfast is scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions, and feta cheese, fresh berries, a sweet purple pepper from the farmer's market (!), and green tea with honey. Brought to me in bed. Sigh.

I'll watch the sun set across the field into the stands on the other side of Commonwealth Stadium. They'll be packed with fans tonight, this game is quite a big match up. We'll probably grab bison burgers and old popcorn at the game.

And if it's warm enough and we feel like spending a silly amount of money for just-okay beer, we just might have a few of those too.

What do you like to eat on lazy Sundays? Or at football games? Or, for that matter, any sporting event? It's summer, we're a darn northerly place, and the summer won't last that long. Tell me your favourite summer foods. Let's record them so we can remember this time and how great things taste in season.

my green salad

Let it just be said, I am a fan of salad. One might go so far as to call me a master (and some have...) of the sweet and savoury blend that makes my salads so spectacular. When I make salad, it is not an accompaniment, oh no. It quickly rises to the highest echelons of pot luck history to become a legend in its own right. There are plenty of reasons why you should begin exploring the wonderful world of salad. Not only is it good for you, but it can be cheap, fast, and the ingredients may be prepared in advance and assembled just in time to eat. Here now is my latest creation, crafted from whatever random ingredients I found in the fridge, plus a few things I always make sure to have nearby.

Baby spinach - usually comes pre-washed, just make sure.

baby cucumbers - local and organic from the farmer's market - sliced (not so thin that they're see-through, but not so big that they would have to be cut on the eater's plate)

green onion - sliced or chopped - please make use of the white of the onion, it's a strong flavour, but it adds freshness and a colourful dimension to this "green" salad

seedless green grapes - washed and halved lengthwise - welcome sweet! meet savoury!

avocado - diced, cubed, triangulated, as you like it

goat cheese - crumbled

These are the basic elements of any successful salad: greens; savoury like onion or garlic; sweet like a fresh or dried fruit; something unexpected - which may be satisfied by the sweet, but could also come in the form of an exotic ingredient like avocado, or something like toasted pine nuts, candied walnuts, or a meat of some kind, and cheese. In my mind, there is no dish that cannot be improved with the addition of the marvelous bacterial culture. Cheese is the moon in the sky and the waves on the shore. Oh cheese!

For a vinaigrette, begin with the basics: extra virgin olive oil and good balsamic vinegar. For this salad I added some honey and a bit of dijon mustard. You could also use real maple syrup, pesto, fresh crushed garlic, or ginger paste. Stir vigourously until the vinegar and oil are emulsified. Drizzle over the salad, toss and serve.

Et voila! Something simple, healthy, and unique to surprise whomever you are feeding next. Enjoy.