Spinach Recipe No. 1: Strata

If you follow my blog on Facebook, you know I recently received a ton of spinach from the last two CSA boxes. I went back and forth with recipes and ideas, trying to figure out what to do with all of it. I finally settled on separate dishes. Here's the first of the two.

Spinach, Mushroom and Green Onion Strata with Swiss Cheese

I originally thought of doing a quiche, then wanted to go with a lighter dish with a frittata. But then, remembering to the leftover Italian bread from Sciortino's bakery. So I settled on a strata, which is similar to a frittata, but on top of and soaked into bread. What's great about a strata is that you can pretty much put in it whatever you want and make it up as you go -- which is exactly what I did.

I apologize for my lack of exact measurements, but it'd be hard to screw up this dish, no matter what you do!

• Enough slices of French or Italian bread to cover the bottom of your baking dish (I used a 9x9 dish)
• about 2 cups packed spinach and arugula, chopped 
• about 1.5 cups mushrooms, chopped
• bunch of green onions, sliced
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup milk (I used 2% to make it a little creamier) 
• about 2 Tbs. sundried tomato spread (not all that necessary, but if you have a bit in the fridge like I did, it's a good way to use it up!)
• about 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
• about 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• spices: salt, pepper, seasoned salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika
• a dollop of olive oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Coat bottom of 9x9 pan with cooking spray. Line bottom of dish with bread and top bread with sundried tomato spread.

Saute spinach and arugula until it wilts with a bit of water and a few shakes of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Add mushrooms and green onions with a bit of olive oil, cooking until soft.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk and a few shakes of all spices.

Spread the vegetable mixture on top of the bread. Cover with Swiss cheese. Pour egg mixture on top. Finally, top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake uncovered for about 45 minutes, or until knife inserted into middle comes out clean.

Like most of the food we eat, we topped the strata with a bit of hot sauce. Delicious! 

The New Love of My Life

Sorry, Nate, but there's someone new in my life.

My pearl metallic KitchenAid Professional 600 series 6-quart stand mixer. I've wanted one for years (and I've always kicked myself for not registering for one as a wedding present), but have more recently become somewhat obsessed with the idea of getting one. I mean, I cook and bake quite a bit, so it only makes sense, right? Luckily, my birthday is coming up and this particular mixer -- the one I was considering anyway -- came up on sale at Amazon for a really good price, so I just had to get myself an early birthday present. And my mother-in-law -- who is an avid baker and cook herself, and undestands the importance of having a stand mixer -- sent along some "mixer money" (thanks, Julie!).

The thing is really pretty big, and it took quite a bit of kitchen rearranging to figure out where to keep it after we learned it wouldn't fit underneath the cabinets. But I think we figured it out, and it has a prominent spot in the kitchen.

Because Nate was the recipient of a random text from me mid-day last week saying "I bought a KitchenAid mixer. Hope that's OK!" I told him the first thing I would make would be for him. After settling on cookies rather than beer bread, I turned to the Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe in the instruction and recipe booklet that came with the mixer. I followed the recipe very closely (see p. 43) because I wanted to be sure I used the mixer just as the recipe intended. But I subbed in 1 of the cups of flour with whole wheat flour, added some mixed chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds and pecans, probably 1/4 cup) and didn't measure the chips I threw in, but rather used up the three partial bags (milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch) I had in the pantry.

Rather than using a teaspoonful of dough, I used closely to a tablespoon, so I ended up baking my cookies for closer to 15 minutes. The cookies were fantastic -- they had a bit of a crunch on the outside, but were still soft on the inside. The butterscotch offered a nice burst of flavor.

It was a great first experience using the mixer, and I can't wait to use it again ... and again ... and again!

Green Chile Chili

There are many things I love about Colorado -- the mountains, the craft breweries, the skiing and hiking, the laid-back lifestyle -- but one of the things I love most is that you can order delicious, homemade green chile chili just about everywhere you go.

Whenever we're in Colorado -- and we're there a fair amount, with Nate being from Colorado and having plenty of family members there -- I'm always sure to order a cup or a bowl. The style I've had in Colorado always has pork in it and is very thick. It's often served over other foods, such as burritos. Yum!

Green chile chili is always something I've wanted to make and for some reason never did. Until now.

With the cool fall temps and changing leaves, I figured now would be a good time to make our first batch of chili of the season. Nate and I both consulted a few different green chile chili recipes for ideas and insight, and then came up with this recipe.

I have no idea how traditional it might be (I have a feeling it's not too traditional at all), but I can tell you this -- it was delicious, and we will definitely be making it again. It had just the right amount of heat for us (it might be a bit much for those who don't like things too spicy) and the pork and Great Northern beans made it very satisfying. 

Green Chile Chili

• 1.25(ish) pounds pork (I can't remember what we used, but shoulder or pork butt would work) 
• 4 Anaheim chiles
• 1 Poblano pepper
• 1 banana pepper
• 2 small red chiles
• 1/2 jar tomatillo salsa
• 1 can Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 teas. ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• flour
• olive oil

Cut pork in about 1/2-inch to 1-inch pieces (you can cut it after cooking, too, which is sometimes easier). Dredge pork in flour. Heat olive oil -- about a tablespoon -- in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook pork until browned.

Meanwhile, turn oven broiler on high. Place peppers on a foil-lined baking sheet. broil peppers and chiles, other than the small red ones, until blackened, rotating as needed (I think this took me about 20 minutes total). The small red  ones were too small to broil, and ended up crispy. I would just chop those and throw them in with everything else. After the peppers are blackened, place in a plastic bag and seal for about 15 minutes. Peel skin off the peppers, de-seed if desired and chop. 

Add pork, peppers and rest of ingredients to a slowcooker. Cook all day on low (you could also do this on the stovetop for a few hours, but I like how flavorful soups/chilis get in the slowcooker). Serve with cornbread, shredded cheddar, tortilla chips or anything else you'd like.

I was so excited to eat this meal that I didn't take a picture of the finished product. But I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like!

Chicken with Beer BBQ Sauce

This recipe comes from the Cooking With Beer recipe booklet my parents gave Nate a while ago. The recipe -- Pork Chops With Lager-Infused BBQ Sauce -- obviously calls for pork chops, but we had some boneless, skinless chicken thighs we used instead.

The recipe calls for a marinade and then a BBQ sauce to have on the side. Everything was tasty, and I'd definitely make it again. We (well, really, Nate ...) added a little too much beer to the sauce, it was a little more liquidy than it probably should have been. So stick to the measurements!

The recipe also calls for you to grill the chicken, which we did, but you could bake it in the oven just as easily.

For the chicken marinade:

• 1 cup lager (we used Lakefront Riverwest Stein) 
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 3 Tbs. molasses
• 1 teas. chili powder
• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 3/4 teas. salt
• 1/4 teas. black pepper

Combine all ingredients besides salt and pepper in a resealable storage bag. Refrigerate 2 hours, turning occasionally.

Prepare grill for direct cooking. Remove chicken from marinade and discard marinade. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Grill over medium-high heat about 7 minutes per side or until cooked through. Serve with BBQ sauce.

For the BBQ sauce:

• 1/2 cup lager
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 3 Tbs. maple syrup
• 2 Tbs. finely chopped onion
• 1 Tbs. molasses
• 1 Tbs. cider vinegar
• 1/2 teas. chili powder

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Simmer 10-12 minutes or until slightly thickened, stirring occasionally.

Homemade BBQ Sauce

I finally did something I told myself (and Nate) I was going to do a long time ago--make homemade barbecue sauce. And now I'm left wondering why I didn't do it sooner! It's so easy to make, and you can do whatever you want with it, as long as you have a solid base.

I did some online recipe searching, and came across all sorts of sauce varieties. Some were too simple--combine Heinz 57 sauce and one or two spices? Nah, too easy! Others were a little more involved and the recipes suggested the mixture sit for a day or two. I didn't have that kind of time. Then I came across this recipe for Bourbon Whiskey BBQ Sauce. I knew that would be the one.

Sadly, I was mistaken that we had some bourbon sitting around. We didn't, but luckily, we always have at least one bottle of whiskey. I used some Kinnickinnic Whiskey from Great Lakes Distillery.

Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly, except that I added a bit more hot sauce, which, sadly, you couldn't taste at all.

The sauce was really very good. I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. I would use this again as a base and experiment with the flavors.

I know for future batches, I'll likely spice it up a bit more and add more liquid smoke. Also, it was a bit sweet for my taste, so I'd probably cut back on the brown sugar.

I think my days of buying barbecue sauce are over!

Homemade Pita Bread

I've been wanting to try making my own pita bread for some time. I find that the options available at the store (no matter a big grocery store, Outpost or our favorite Greek grocery store) are always a little too dry for me and don't taste as good as the fresh stuff you get at local Middle Eastern and Greek restaurants. Plus, I've been seeing lots of blog posts about it (including on my friend Debbie's blog, Le Food Snob), so I knew it was time.

Nate found a pita pocket dough recipe in the Corner Bakery Bread & Dessert Maker Cookbook that came with our Breadman bread machine, which made it easy enough to get started. The recipe was simple enough (and I liked that it included whole wheat flour--I'm not sure all pita pocket recipes do):

Pita Pocket Dough

• 1 1/3 cups 80* water


• 8 tsp. olive oil


• 4 tsp. sugar


• 1 1/4 tsp salt


• 2 cups bread flour


• 1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour


• 2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

Place all ingredients in that order in the bread machine. Set on "dough" cycle (it took my machine about 1 hour and 30 minutes to make the dough).

To bake:
When dough is ready, place on a lightly floured surface. Divide into 10 pieces (we weighed the entire thing and then divided by 10). Shape each piece into a smooth ball.

Place 5 balls on a large baking sheet. Place the remaining 5 balls on another sheet. Let rise about 20 minutes (we were away from the house when the dough was done, so we considered the extra time the dough spent in the bread machine the rising time). With fingertips, flatten each ball into a 6-inch circle.

Bake at 500* for 5 minutes, or until puffed and tops begin to brown (it took us about 8 minutes).

Cut each in half to form 2 pockets (depending on what you're using the pita for, this might not be necessary).

Nate formed five of the pita rounds and I did the other five. For some reason, his were much puffier than mine were00but mine got a little more brown. I'm not sure what that means, but in any event, both version of the pita tasted really, really good. Some of them weren't too easy to spit into pockets (one side always tended to be thinner than the other), but it might take some practice to get it right.

I think it's safe to say that like the corn tortillas we made, I'll never be buying pita again. The pita was great with the baba ghanoush I made as well as as sandwich bread. It was lighter, fresher and a bit chewier (which I like) than the store-bought stuff.

Homemade White Corn Tortillas

After having such delicious, fresh and always homemade tortillas in Mexico, I knew it was only a matter of time before Nate and I would attempt to make them from scratch. Luckily, my parents happened to have a tortilla press they bought at El Rey's years ago that was just collecting dust in their basement.

I had looked up a few tortilla recipes (including one from Pam Mehnert's A Year of Inconvenience blog), and they seemed really easy to make and just included three ingredients: maseca (instant corn masa flour), salt and water.

We ended up following the recipe on the back of the maseca bag, as we wanted to make quite a few tortillas so we could freeze them for future use. Here's how much of everything we used and what we did:

• 2 cups maseca (we used white corn, but you can buy yellow corn maseca, too)


• 1.25 cups water


• 1/4 tsp. salt

Combine all three ingredients. Mix thoroughly for about two minutes, forming soft dough. If dough is too dry, add more water, 1 Tbs. at a time (I think we added 1 or 2 Tbs.).

Divide dough in 16 equal balls (we weighed the entire mound of dough on our food scale and then divided by 16). Cover with a damp cloth to keep dough moist.

Line a tortilla press with two sheets of thick plastic wrap (we took a quart-sized resealable bag and split the seams. This worked very well). Place each ball between the plastic and press down until the tortilla measures 5-6 inches in diameter (this is pretty much the diameter of our tortilla press). Carefully peel off plastic wrap.

Preheat ungreased griddle, skillet or cast iron pan (very important--I don't think the skillet was warm enough for the first few we cooked). Cook tortillas one at a time (well, we ended up cooking two at once in our big skillet--it worked fine), for about 1 minute per side (we generally cooked them until they browned just a bit). Cover tortillas with cloth napkin (or keep in warm oven) to keep them soft and warm.

These were fantastic, and I doubt I'll ever use store-bought tortillas again. The size is great, too--I much prefer having one or two small tortillas or tacos to one giant one. Yeah, it takes more time to make these than going out and buying some from the store. But the process was not complicated and really only took us about half an hour. Now that we at least kind of know what we're doing, I think it will go even faster next time.

Queso Fresco

It never really occurred to me to make queso fresco from scratch, until I saw a JSOnline article and recipe for it just a few days before our big Mexican meal. It sounded wonderfully simple, so I figured we should give it a try.

We followed the recipe exactly (I'm guessing it's best to do so!). The whole process really only took 10-15 minutes. We didn't let the mixture strain for too long (maybe 10 minutes?), which we should maybe do next time. I wonder if that would make it a little harder and more crumbly?

The cheese was good, but not quite as good as store bought queso fresco. It wasn't quite as salty, either, which is probably good for me, but doesn't taste quite as good.

I'd definitely make this again, though, and I'd try adding more salt next time and letting it strain for longer.

Salsa Verde

When we were at our cooking class in Zihuatanejo, Monica, the chef, told us salsa verde is very easy and quick to make. It only contains tomatillos (which stink before you cook them, by the way), onions and garlic.

So last weekend, for our big Mexican meal, I picked up some tomatillos at El Rey's when we stopped for supplies. I loosely followed this recipe from Simply Recipes. Here's what I used and did to make the salsa verde:

• Six tomatillos, husks removed


• 1 jalapeno (seeds and all), cut in chunks


• about 2 Tbs. cilantro


• 1/3 of an onion, cut in chunks


• about 4 garlic cloves, cut in half


• salt to taste

Place tomatillos in sauce pan, filled with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Put everything in a blender or food processor and mix until smooth.

You could just stop right there, but I simmered the salsa for about 10 minutes to kick up the flavor. I realized it needed some more salt as I kept tasting it. I think it's best to salt after you try it so it doesn't turn out to salty.

The salsa was really tasty with tortilla chips and on the tacos, and, like Monica said, really easy to make. We'll definitely be making this again. I'll probably make a bigger batch next time and freeze more of it for future use.

Mexican Food From Scratch

Since coming home from our fantastic Mexico trip, I've been wanting to make some of the delicious foods we had. We still need to set aside some time to make the chiles rellenos we made in our cooking class, but for last Sunday's dinner we opted for something maybe just a little more simple: carnitas in the crockpot, white corn tortillas, queso fresco and salsa verde.

It definitely takes longer to make tortillas, cheese and salsa from scratch than to buy it premade, of course, but it's SO worth the time and effort. After making the tortillas, I declared I'll never use store-bought tortillas again.

Because there were so many steps for each of these foods, I figured they each deserved their own blog post, complete with lots of pictures. So visit the individual webpages for the carnitas in the crockpot, white corn tortillas, queso fresco and salsa verde.