Steak Taco Salad

We love a good taco salad in our house usually we use hamburger, but we want to get away from the processed hamburger that you find in your grocery store. So tonight I made a chuck steak taco salad. We had homemade guacamole, cotija cheese, romaine lettuce, tomatos, and a spicy garlicky aji sauce. We of course had tortilla chips, you can make your own in the oven but this particular brand is not high in fat.
This is a fun dinner, the kids build their own and more than not they put everything on it maybe sans tomato, but then she adds salsa..go figure. This is a great weekend wind down, you can grill the steaks of your choice on the barbecue, and lay out all of the fixins, be adventurous and try different cheeses besides that taco blend. Make a salsa or sauce you would not normally try.Use romaine lettuce to up the vitamins, fresh guacamole is simple and easy to make, and vine ripe tomatos will be at their peak soon. So get ready for taco salad nite!

Ingredients

4 chuck steaks/steaks of your choice

grilled or pan cooked

2cups of romaine lettuce chopped

1 large vine ripe tomato diced

lime cut into wedges

cheese of your choice/we used a Mexican cotija

Salsa of your choice/we made an Aji sauce

baked tortilla chips/chips with no transfats

Aji Sauce

2 jalapenos deveined and seeded

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup of cilantro leaves

5-6 green onions/scallions

1tbsp vinegar

juice of 1 lime

salt to taste



Sopes

Sopes (pronounced so-pays) are something my Mom never made, but I did some googling and learned how to make them, they just seemed like they would be good! My kids love them.The sope is a cornflour or masa disc that is thick and topped with whatever you can think of. It is served as an "antojito" or "little bite". There are even dessert sopes. The sopes I am going to show you are Roasted Chicken sopes. Traditionally sopes are fried, which you can do but I made these as a clean eating version and skipped the frying altogether.

Ingredients

For the Masa

2c. Maseca brand cornflour

2c. warm water

2tsp of salt

For toppings

Refried beans of your choice, pinto,white or black see my Boiled Beans recipe

Roasted chicken see my Easy Roasted Chicken recipe or buy one precooked at the store
or use some roasted beef, or barbecued tri-tip
salsa- see my Easy Blender Salsa recipe
fresh guacamole
shredded lettuce
diced tomato
cotija cheese (fresh mexican cheese)
sour cream

For the masa mix all the ingredients until a soft dough forms add 2nd cup of water in intervals using only the amount needed to form a dough you can easily handle.

Dough should look like this and be easy to roll into balls about the size of a baby lemon this recipe should yeild you 8 sopes

Take the sope ball and place between two sheets of plastic, I opened the sides of a large storage bag. This shows you how to do it without a tortilla press. Next take a plate and press down on masa. This should form a 3 to 4 inch disc.

This sope is ready to heat up in a cast iron pan or comal, which is a griddle...pour a drop of canola

oil onto a napkin and wipe surface of your pan or griddle.

heat through as you would a tortilla, the sope will be dry on both sides

Once the sope is out of the pan pinch up the edges with your thumb and forefinger,this creates a lip on the sope, be careful not to burn yourself! At this point you can make all of the sopes and set aside. When building your sope if you prefer to fry them do so in a pan with a little bit of oil till both sides are golden, drain on paper towels. I prefer them unfried they are just as tasty and healthier.

To build your sope spread some refried beans on it, add shredded chicken or beef, top with lettuce, salsa,  guacamole, sour cream and cotija cheese. These are a hit at my house! Hope they are at yours!

Super Easy Blender Salsa

Salsa is in my blood, any true blue Mexican better know how to make it! Salsa has surpassed Ketchup as the number one condiment of choice, just wish my Dad would have known that when he was growing his "salsa garden" back in the day! We coulda been gajillionaires. My mom used to make salsa like this in a molcajete (pronounced moca-hetay) or mortar and pestle. I didn't even know to use a blender until my friend Liz Mares made this one day at her house to accompany some "carne asada tacos" she served me. This is my simple version of that salsa made in a blender. I make other versions like Pico de Gallo which is what my mom used to make or salsa fresca, all the ingredients are chopped or diced and put together for a chunky version. This is more of saucy salsa. For this type of salsa I use Roma tomatoes as they are fleshier and lend themselves to this type of salsa. I like regular red tomatoes for salsa fresca, much more juicy! Especially fresh out of the garden!

Ingredients

6 Roma tomatoes

2-3 jalapenos

2-3 cloves of garlic

1/2 small white or yellow onion cut into chunks

2-3 sprigs of fresh cilantro

squeeze of lime juice

salt to taste

Rinse chilies and tomato put in sauce pot and add water, simmer on a med heat till skins of tomatoes split. Take your garlic and smash it under a flat knife the skin will loosen and be easy to peel off, chunk your onion. When tomatoes are done usually no more than 10 minutes remove from heat and let cool. Once cool cut out end where stem was. If you are adventurous and like hot spicy salsa just cut off  the stem of the jalapeno, otherwise open up jalapeno and remove veins and seeds...do not touch your eyes! Rinsing your hands with milk helps, but I would wash them thoroughly! If you do get chili in your eyes take a lock of someones hair, if not your own (hopefully its long enough) and rub your eye with the hair. I don't know why but that is what my Mom used to do, must be an old wives tale! Put all ingredients into a blender or smoothie maker and pulse! Add salt if needed, I use sea salt or kosher salt. Store in a plastic or glass container for about 3 days if it lasts that long! It is better made ahead as the flavors mingle and marry. At my house its usually doesn't get a chance to cool! Hope you enjoy this, add more or less of the ingredients that you like, more cilantro,more garlic or try Serrano or  other chile's.

I did not get  a picture of the finished product...it got eaten before I could take one to post!

Easy Roasted Chicken

I always thought roasting a chicken was going to be some long drawn out process...the only roasted chicken I knew of as a kid was the kind you could by at the store. My Dad probably didn't like it so my Mom never made it. Come to think of it I don't recall my Mom roasting a turkey, maybe thats because my Grandma Katie would make the turkey on Thanksgiving day and Mom would bring her famous enchiladas. So I pretty much learned how to roast a chicken by trial and error. This recipe is simple and the same concept can be applied to roasting a turkey!

Ingredients

1 5 to 6 pound whole chicken

1tbsp olive oil

1 tsp paprika

1tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1tsp garlic powder

roasting pan 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, set roasting pan near your prep area, mix paprika,salt,pepper and garlic powder, (not garlic salt!) together. Rinse your chicken and remove giblets, save to make broth if you would like! Pat chicken dry and place in pan. I tuck the wings and truss the legs with the chickens own skin, cutting slits big enough to slide the end of  the leg through. Did not get pics of how to do that! Pour 1tbsp of olive oil on your chicken, and rub in. This makes me think of my sunworshipping days as a teen for some reason! Come to think of it my chicken looks like it has a really good tan when its done! Take spice mixture and sprinkle over chicken. Then rub into oil. Stick your chicken in a 350 degree oven and roast for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. A good rule of thumb when roasting chicken is to roast 20 minutes per pound unstuffed. 20 x 5 =100 minutes which =1 hour and 40 minutes. I check for doneness at the joint where the leg and thigh are attached, if it pulls apart easily and juice runs clear its done. I have rarely used a thermometer but if you are new to cooking invest in one. Most thermometers have a poultry gauge which is about 170 degree mark. Remember no two ovens are alike and your roasting time may be slightly longer or shorter! You will notice that the paprika gives it a beautiful golden color! Sage would also be a great herb to add!  Let your chicken rest a bit before you carve it, if it is too hot when you cut it it will shred!

patted dry and olive oil added

spices sprinkled on

spices rubbed in ready to roast!

finished chicken, so easy and simple sooo good!



Boiling Beans....With Epazote..

Epazote (pronounced ep-a-zotay) is a new herb to me, but has been around for thousands of years, used by Aztecs as a medicinal herb in the form of tea. It is now being studied for its antifungal properties as well as its anticancer and antitumor properties. Epazote has long been used by Mexican cooks, from those who cook in a 1 room shack to five star restaurant chefs. Epazote is very potent and should be used sparingly, in high doses it is toxic. For more information on this wonderful herb go to this link http://www.rain-tree.com/epazote.htm The purpose of this herb in this simple recipe is to act as not only a flavoring but also for its antiflatulence properties. You can find this herb in Mexican groceries. Fresh or dried.

Ingredients

2lbs dried beans -white, pinto, or black

water for rinsing

2 tsp salt

2-3 leaves of epazote
1/2 small white or yellow onion cut in chunks
3 cloves of garlic

5qt pot

water to cover beans

additional water for boiling

Put your beans in a colander and fill a bowl with hot water, let the beans rinse and pick off any

thing that floats to the top or looks bad, you can let the beans soak for no more than 6 hours. I only soaked mine for about 30 minutes. Once beans are soaked and cleaned pour them into a 5 qt. stockpot and add water, make sure water is about 2 knuckles high over beans. Add epazote and salt, onion and garlic and boil on medium heat for 1 and a half to 2 hours, I added water as needed. The texture of the beans should be creamy. I made a large batch because I used  them in several meals. You can use these to be refried, actually I do not add an oil or fat to my refried beans. I just put the amount of beans I want in a pan and mash them and reheat. The epazote gives it a very traditional Mexican flavor....one that is hard to imitate.