Tortilla Pie

I've given up the alliterative titles.  After reading an article in which alliteration was thrown around like commas in a fifth grader's summer vacation essay - contributing absolutely nothing to the body of work - I decided I would eschew the alliteration.  Or, at least, cut back significantly.  Besides, I couldn't think of anything that would work with "Tortilla Pie".

I found this recipe while browsing through the Everyday Food book at the bookstore.  It seemed easy enough, and the picture was so pretty!  When my dad bought tortillas for some random reason, it was a sign that I should make this pie.

 The original tortilla pie, as crafted by the experts of MSLO and not by me.

 The pie I made.  While still delicious, it lacked a little something.  Maybe it was the ill-trimmed tortillas, maybe it was not putting the bean filling or enough cheese on top, but mine was not quite so pretty. 

The original recipe calls for trimming of tortillas to fit a 9-inch springform pan (i.e. to not look hideous), but I decided to mostly do away with that.  The only springform pan in the house is square and reasonably large.  I only trimmed some of the sides (poorly, I might add) so the tortillas would lie flat, throwing the scraps between the layers.  One of the comments said this pie could be made in a deep 10inch pie pan to avoid the trimming of the tortillas.  In any case, I don't see why smaller tortillas couldn't be used.  Just pick a tortilla size to fit the pan.  There's also a similar recipe on the site for a tortilla pie with meat, but I decided to stick with the vegetarian one.

I did make a few changes to the recipe based on the comments:  I doubled the amount of cumin added to the pie because 1) I love cumin, and 2) a few readers reported the pie as being somewhat bland.  I also kept in half of the seeds and ribs of the jalapeno chile to keep the pie mildly spicy.  I'm sensitive to spicy things, so this was actually kind of spicy for me, but whatever.  Keep more of the seeds and ribs for more heat, fewer for less.  Also, be careful when handling the jalapeno.  Wear a glove when taking out the insides, or wash your hands really, really well after handling and before touching an eye or other body parts that have mucous membranes attached to nerves.

All the delicious pie ingredients.

If you use beer, which I would recommend for the flavor, use a vintage can of Natural Lite.  This can was supposed to be consumed by April 6, 2007.  My old roommate actually preferred vintage Natty Lite to the original.

Chopped ingredients.  If you have a cheese grater, I would recommend using that over cutting with a knife.  It's the same volume of cheese in the end, but grated cheese is easier to spread evenly over the tortillas.

Beer, beans, and onions.  That's all one needs for good Tex Mex food.

Once the beer evaporates, add in corn and green onions.

So there was supposed to be bean filling on top of the tortillas with the cheese.  Whoops.  I'm also pretty sure that was not 1 cup of cheese on there, anyway.

Tortilla Pie
(from the Everyday Food book or the Martha Stewart website)
Supposedly serves 6, but ended up serving 3 for me.  Maybe I'm just a fatty.

• 4 10-inch flour tortillas (Again, just pick a size to fit the pan.  Or use corn tortillas.  It's all good.)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, minced  (I kept the ribs and seeds of half of the jalapeno for a moderate heat.)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• Salt and pepper
• 2 15oz cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 12oz of beer (I used a can Natural Light that had been sitting in the back of the fridge for years) or 1 1/2 cups of water
• 1 10oz package of frozen corn, still frozen
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish
• 2 1/2 cups, or 8 oz, of shredded cheddar cheese (I believe I used a block of cheddar jack)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  If need be, trim the tortillas to fit the deep dish pie pan or springform pan.
Heat the canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the chopped onion, garlic, jalapeno, and cumin.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Cook over the medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, 5 to 7 minutes.
Add the black beans and the beer (or water) to the skillet.  Increase the heat until the mixture boils, and then reduce the heat back to medium and let simmer.  Keep simmering until the beer is almost completely evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes.  Stir in the corn and scallions, and remove from heat.  Season with more salt and pepper.
To assemble the pie, put a (trimmed) tortilla down.  Add 1/4 of the bean mixture and 1/2 cup of the cheese.  Top with another tortilla, another 1/4 of the beans and 1/2 cup of cheese.  Top with the third tortilla, another 1/4 of the beans, and another 1/2 cup of the cheese.  Place the last tortilla on top of the tower, along with the last 1/4 of the beans, and remaining 1 cup of cheese.  Put in the oven and bake until the cheese is melted and the filling is hot, 20 to 25 minutes.  If you use a toaster oven like me, it doesn't take that long, so watch it.  Unmold the pie and sprinkle some finely chopped scallions on top for garnish.  Cut into wedges, as befitting a pie, and serve. 

So, mine's not as good looking as Everyday Food's.  It was still delicious.  I would make it again.

Surplus of Sweets

In direct contrast to the last post, sometimes I have too much stuff:

 My trunk full of soda.  I bought at least 5 flats of pop from Sam's Club.  I had some 12 packs too, but they aren't in the picture.

Two 5gallon containers of ice cream.  I couldn't close the freezer all the way with all these frozen goods.

 Five pints of ice cream, plus a lot of pot pies.

In my defense, only the pot pies and pints were mine or my roommate's.  The rest of the stuff was for various club functions.  If it hadn't been, I'm sure I would have a raging case of Type 2 diabetes right now.

Misleading Meal

One day I got this frozen dinner for a nighttime snack:

 Look at all those delicious pieces of bacon and all the delicious green peas.

I open the box and heat it up only to find out the pasta is really like this:

Yeah, I separated out all the components, but I didn't eat any of the bacon bits or peas.  That's how many peas and bacon bits I got total.  I think the peas numbered in the single digits to low teens.

If I sprinkled all the peas and bacon on top of my half eaten pasta, the concentration of toppings would look like the box picture.

Poo Pudding (or Dates Part II)

If I thought the braised chicken with dates looked sketchy while it was cooking, then this date pudding looked like a toothless crackwhore standing in the doorway of an opium den with a heroin needle sticking out of her arm, beckoning passersby to taste her earthly delights.

All the ingredients were normal: dates, brown sugar, butter, but somehow, through alchemy or magic or a natural defense mechanism that dates have, the batter for the pudding looked nasty.  I mean NASTY, with a capital "N" and a side of ocular herpes.  Whereas the chicken with dates looked kind of bland and watery while they were cooking, the cooked dates looked like poop.  A thick, sticky mess of feces.  Poo Pudding, Crap Cake - we were all skeptical of eating the pudding, but it was very moist and flavorful and more cake-like than pudding-from-a-pudding-cup-like.  It has very a wintery, Christmas-time taste, which is appropriate because it was in the December issue of Everyday Food.  I've been a little behind on food blogging, but that's no reason to not make this pudding as a dated (ahaha!) ending to the braised chicken with dates dish.

 WTF.  How could anything edible look like this?

Looking better now.  All the other ingredients mellowed out the poo vibe.

Toffee Pudding

(from Everyday Food magazine or Martha Stewart's website)

Serves 8 (or 16 if you eat sweets sparsely like me)

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking dish
• 2 cups chopped (about 8 ounces) pitted dates
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Toffee Sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter an 8x8 inch baking dish.  In a small saucepan, heat 1 cup of water with the dates.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and add the baking soda.  Stir the hot mess until it thickens, 1 to 2 minutes.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, allspice, and salt in a medium bowl.  In a separate, large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium to cream the eggs and sugar until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.  Add eggs and vanilla and keep beating until combined.
With mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the egg-butter one, then add the date mixture.  Keep alternating the flour and date mixture additions three times, starting and ending with flour.  Up the mixer speed to medium and beat some more to combine.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a wooden skewer/toothpick/cake tester poked into the center comes out clean.  While the pudding is baking, make the Toffee Sauce.
Once the pudding is done, put the pan on a wire rack (or not) and poke holes all over with a wooden skewer/toothpick/cake tester.  In the picture below, you can tell I poked holes in a semi-grid pattern, but you can be random.  Just don't poke so many holes that the pudding is all torn up.  Pour half of the toffee sauce all over the top and let sit for 10 minutes.
Serve the cake warm with extra Toffee Sauce.

Toffee Sauce (aka, the most delicious sauce ever.  You might want to make extra sauce so you can really pour it on the finished pudding)

• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Pinch of coarse salt
• 2 teaspoons whiskey (I used Jack Daniel's once, and Canadian Mist the other time.  I think I preferred the Jack Daniel's, but that may be 6 months of time and memory lapses talking)

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, butter, cream, and salt.  Heat over medium-high and cook until sugar dissolves and mixture boils, stirring constantly.  Reduce to a simmer and cook, without stirring, for 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in the whiskey.

The now good-looking date pudding with a glaze of toffee sauce.

The moral of the story is:  Things that look like feces may actually be delicious.  And maybe we should give that toothless crackwhore a chance.

Date (the fruit, not the romantic encounter) Dinner

Those samplers at Sam's Club know what they're doing. I once had a "Fancy Medjool Date" handed to me on a toothpick by an elderly lady wearing a hairnet, and I was delighted. The date was gooey and honey/raisin-y. My mom hated it, but I wanted to eat more.

Maybe it was serendipity, maybe it was good seasonal planning on MSLO's part, but a few weeks later I got an issue of Everyday Food magazine in which the "Have You Tried...?" section highlighted....Wheat Germ!

I jest. It was dates, everyone's least known drupe fruit!

The next time I was at Sam's Club, I bought dates so I could make two of the dishes from the magazine - a delicious chicken dish and a festive date pudding.

The braised chicken with dates was surprisingly delicious. I was weary of the yellowish, watery mass that was the braising chicken, but it was pretty tasty, especially with couscous.

 There are a lot of onions, so this dish has to be good.  There are few things more mouthwatering than the smell of sauteing onions when I'm hungry.

Dates in the background, minced ginger in the foreground.
 

Mmm.  These assorted chicken parts have been browned for flavor, but are still raw and teeming with Salmonella and E. Coli and all sorts of other bacteria inside.

Cooking the sauce with dates, cilantro, and spices.

Braised Chicken with Dates
(from Everyday Food magazine, or Martha Stewart's website)
Serves 4

• 1 whole chicken (3.5-4 lbs, quartered) OR 4 split breasts OR 4 leg quarters    (I didn't have a quartered chicken, so I used 3 leg quarters and 2 thighs.  All in all, I preferred the thighs.  They were much easier to eat.)
• Salt
• Ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 yellow onions, chopped finely
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika (or regular paprika.  It works just as well.)
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 3/4 teaspoon ground coriander (I omitted this and it was fine.)
• 2.5 cups water
• 1 cup chopped pitted dates (about 4 ounces)
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
• 2 lemons, halved, for serving (or not.  I didn't want to buy a lemon, so I left this out.)

Salt and pepper the chicken pieces.  Heat the olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven (if you are so fortunate as to have one) over medium-high heat.  Cook the chicken, skin side down, until it is brown and crisp, about 6 minutes.  Flip the chicken and cook for about 6 minutes more.  Transfer the chicken to a plate.
Add onions to the pot, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.  Add the ginger, paprika, and coriander.  Cook for 2 minutes, stirring. 
Place chicken evenly over the onions and spices.  Add the water and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until chicken is done, about 40-45 minutes.
Move the chicken to a serving dish.  Increase the heat to high and boil the cooking liquid until it is reduced by half, 12 to 15 minutes. 
Stir in dates and cilantro.  Season with salt and pepper. 
Pour sauce over chicken and serve with lemon halves and couscous. 

Chicken with sauce and couscous.  A hearty Middle Eastern-esque dinner.

Pork Potpourri

I went to a casino a couple of months ago (last year, in 2009!) and I had THE MOST DELICIOUS pork chops in my entire life.

They were labeled as an unassuming "Pork Chops with Fruit Chutney", but after I took my first bite, I was in a gluttonous heaven. The pork was coated with bread crumbs and herbs, and the fruit chutney was a very wintry mix of cranberries and apples laced with cinnamon. The pork was juicy; the fruit chutney was flavorful. I kept cramming pork and fruit into my mouth to bask in the deliciousness. If no one else were at the restaurant, and the floor were cleaner, I would have rolled around, twitching in frenzied delight.

I got three servings. It was that good.

This recipe isn't exactly the same thing, but it helps stave off cravings until I get back to the buffet. It's from a recipe I found on Recipezaar while I frantically searched the Internet for the original. It does have the benefit of smelling really good while it's cooking, hence the "potpourri" title. Also, I needed a "p" word to keep up with the alliteration.

Pork, onions, and apples, marinating in their own juices. Is that kosher?

Browning some onions. They smell delicious, especially if you're starving.

Maillard-reactioning the pork.

Pork buried under a monochromatic layer of onions and apples. It's like a pretentious painting title.

Cranberries, courtesy of the school's cafeteria.

I think rice is a delicious accompaniment to pork and fruits. But I think rice is delicious with almost anything.

Pork Chops with Apples and Cranberries
(from Recipezaar)
Serves 4

• 1 large onion, halved, sliced
  
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  
• 4-6 boneless pork chops, about 3/4-inch thickness
  
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1/4 cup flour
  
• 2 cups coarsely chopped apples (about 2 small apples or 1 medium apple. I've used Fuji and Granny Smiths/generic red apples from the school cafeteria. Both were delicious.)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  
• 1/2 cup apple cider or apple juice (I have apple juice on hand so that's what I always use.)
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1 dash ground allspice
  
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries (Craisins!)
  

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Melt the butter and saute the onions until they are lightly browned.
While the onions are cooking, salt and pepper the pork chops, and then dredge them in flour.
Once the onions are done, move them to a plate. Add the vegetable oil to the skillet and cook the pork chops, about 2 minutes on each side. Each side should be golden brown. If there's not enough space in the skillet for all of them at once, cook the pork in batches.
While the pork is cooking mix the apples, lemon juice, apple cider, brown sugar, cinnamon, and allspice in a bowl or something.
Once all the pork is cooked, add the onions on top. Be sure to wedge all the pork chops back if they were cooked in batches. Add the apple 'n' apple juice mixture to the skillet.
Bring the juices to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook uncovered for 5 minutes.
Cover the skillet and cook for 20 minutes. (I like to read food blogs and drool while I wait. The dish smells really fragrant and delicious.)
Uncover the skillet and add the cranberries. Stir and cook for 2 more minutes.
Alternatively, cook covered for 19 minutes, then add the cranberries and cook for 3 more minutes. I like my cranberries to be fully hydrated and soft.
Add salt to taste. I think a good sprinkling of salt enhances this dish, but I like salt.

So luscious....