Mar
11

Huevos con Chile

Gina Ruiz on March 11th, 2010

It’s morning and I’ve finally woken at a decent time, though I still can’t sleep at night for the silence.  I miss that L.A. lullaby of police sirens, music, traffic, voices, dogs barking and the Santa Anas ratting my window panes on a windy night.  I’m sitting on my bed still a little sleepy, wondering what to wear and thinking of those cold mornings in Atwater Village where the creaking of ancient hardwood floors would wake me and the smells of breakfast drifting from the kitchen would lure me out of my cocoon of blankets.

One of my favorite things my grandmother would cook was huevos con chile, scrambled eggs with salsa.  She’d wake up early, about 5am and throw open all the windows and doors to let the fresh air in.  She’d then go outside and water all her flowers and plants while my grandfather irrigated his garden.  From my bed, I would hear the water, feel the dewy morning chill and snuggle in to sleep a little more.  Safe, comforting sounds.  I’d wake again to the creaking of the floorboards, the rattling of pots and then the smells.

Sometimes I’d jump out of bed and run to help in the kitchen.  I’d see the comal going with tomatoes and chiles on it and know she was making salsa.  My grandfather would be there in the kitchen with his rolling pin dusted in flour, rolling out those massive flour tortillas he loved to make.  He worked powerfully and fast.  A quick three turns of the pin and he would have this huge tortilla that barely fit the comal.  I never failed to be amazed by how giant they were and he never tired of showing off for me.

My grandmother would put the molcajete in front of me and the peeled chiles, tomatoes and a few other things like roasted garlic cloves, translucent quarters of onion.  She’d start grinding the chile mixture while i stripped cilantro stems of their leaves and flowers.  She then would take about half of the freshly made salsa over to the stove where she’d scramble eggs and then pour in the salsa which sent off this luscious, spicy steam that made my mouth water.  Before I knew it, there’d be a plate in front of me with eggs colored red and green from the salsa, a scoop of beans with cheese, maybe fresh slices of avocado,  cantaloupe or papaya with lime and one of my Papa’s mega tortillas.

The first bite always tickled my tongue and put a smile on my face.  The eggs were always perfect, the tortillas fluffy and warm, and the best part was my grandmother finally sat down and I could jabber at her, my Aunt Jessie and my Papa while we ate.  What did we talk about?  Why food of course, recipes we wanted to try, how the chiles were growing in the garden and how many rows of cilantro there were.

What are your favorite memories of breakfasts?

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Mar
8

The Sopes at the Fair

Gina Ruiz on March 8th, 2010

My grandparents were avidly religious, devout Catholics which meant that my grandmother spent a lot of time working for the little church down the street, Christo Rey.  When I was little, they’d have little tardeadas or late afternoon celebrations.  There were booths where food was sold to make money for the programs at the church, etc.  My grandmother tended a booth and hers was one of the busiest there.  She sold sopes, those wonderful cripsy corn tortillas with the pinched up sides filled with meat, beans and other toppings.

I remember helping make the sopes.  My job was to pinch up the sides of the tortilla, not such an easy job given it was a hot little thing.  My grandmother was make the masa, shape it into little balls and my Auntie Jessie would press them in the tortilla press.  She’d then had a fat little tortilla to my grandmother who would toast it on the griddle or comal till it was well cooked.  The hot sopes would land in a plate near me and my grandfather and we had the job of making the sides.

To create the sides on a sope it has to be hot or it just doesn’t hold up the side very well so you take it and pinch into the hot dough and pinch all the way around till you end up with about a 1/4 inch rim around the tortilla.  I always felt very brave and grown up pinching sopes because the tips of my little fingers would burn with the heat of them.  We kept a little bowl of cold water nearby and I’d dip my fingers into it when I felt them growing too hot.

Over the years, my fingers grew more and more accustomed to it and rather desensitized.  I pinch the sides of a sope without even thinking about it now, but when I was a kid in my grandmother’s kitchen it seemed a very grown up, big girl job that I was very proud to be able to do.

My grandmother and aunts made 100’s of sopes, chopped massive piles of tomatoes, onion and cilantro, shredded head after head of lettuce, cooked enormous pots of beans and meat.  They’d then schlep all that stuff to the church, set up the booth and using a little camping type fire, would immediately start heating the oil to fry the sopes in.

Soon enough there’d be a long line and the tias and my grandma would fry and fill, fry and fill.  I never remember a time when my grandmother’s booth didn’t sell out completely and then we were free to enjoy the event.  Once, there were even voladores that came and sent us all to gasping as they flew round and round the pole tied by just what appeared to be a ribbon.  I remember holding my grandpa’s hand thinking that they would fall and I still remember how he squeezed my hand and smiled down at me with that special smile that always made me feel safe and warm.  He was proud of the voladores, proud of being Mexican and proud of his heritage.

It’s been many, many years since those days of church fairs, sopes, cracked confetti eggs on the heads of my cousins and the music of boleros drifting in and out of the crowds of people in the transformed church parking lot, but the smells, sounds and memories are still as sharp as that first sting of hot dough on my fingers.

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Mar
7

Posole

Gina Ruiz on March 7th, 2010

My daughter-in-law Mireya is from the state of Puebla in Mexico.  Sitting in her very modern kitchen 2200 odd miles from where I was born and raised, brings back memories of another time, another kitchen.  In that kitchen with it’s creaky old floors, the Los Angeles sunlight that streamed through the small window along with the smell of herbs and flowers, and most of all the love of my grandparents; I learned to love cooking.

This kitchen is cold to my L.A. body used to sunlight and drought.  It’s very modern and sleek with its black granite counters and stainless steel appliances and the glaring white of the snow outside, but its an incredibly warm kitchen in the ways that count.  There is love here in abundance, there is a keeping of tradition, a love of culture and family and the tastes and smells of it bring me home, keep my grandmother’s memory alive and bond me with this wonderful woman my son married.

Today she is making posole, but not the posole I am used to.  She is making what is known to be the traditional posole which is what we call posole blanco or white posole.  It is different from the one I make (Posole Tapatio) which is red and flavored with epazote.  Her recipe is exciting for me, a new one to learn and it belongs here in the archives of my family.

Last week we had green posole made with chicken, hominy and yerba santa.  It was delicious and completely different from what I am used to.

I watch my daughter-in-law work in brisk, quick steps.  She is deft in the kitchen, reminds me of the purposeful, quick moves of my grandmother and great aunts in their kitchens.  In some ways, she reminds me of my dear friend Elodia who moves with the same purpose and body language.  Mireya is nothing like Elodia though.  Lochi’s as I call her is tall, light skinned and thin where Mireya is very petite, dark-skinned and curvy.  They move the same though and as I watch my daughter-in-law, I am transported back to the kitchen of my friend near the hills of Griffith  Park where I grew up and can almost hear the years of laughter and good talks had at her kitchen table.

I read somewhere that Posole is an ancient recipe from Aztec/Mexica times which I well believe, given mole is from the same pre-Hispanic origin.  The word pozole in Nahuatl means espuma or foam and it gets its name from the foam that arises when the dried corn or cacahuazintle is boiled.  There are Conquest documents that talk about the pozole of Mocetuzuma having body parts in it but I highly doubt the veracity of any Conquest document.  To them, the Mexica people were the very devil, so I take most of what they said with a grain or two of salt.

Mireya’s Posole Blanco

1 pound of dried corn or cacahuazintle, prepared Nixtamal or  2 15-oz cans of hominy if you prefer it
2 pounds pork shoulder, cubed
oregano
salt to taste
chile pequin powder
shredded lettuce
diced white onion
lemons

If you’re using the maiz (nixtamal corn)they sell bagged in the store for posole, there’s no need to use the lye to soften it.  Just open the bag and let it soak overnight in water.  Clean off all the floating bits and strain it out.  If you want to try dried corn, you’re gonna have to use lye and that’s another post in the making.   Mireya uses canned hominy because that’s what my grandson Luis likes.  Kids tend to prefer canned hominy over the more gritty maiz or nixtamal.

Fill a stockpot half way with water, add the pork and hominy, salt to taste and a pinch oregano and cover.  Should boil on low flame 2-3 hours till the pork is so tender it falls apart at the touch of a fork.

If you are using the nixtamal, the maiz should boil first with salt to taste and a clove or two of garlic if you want, until it blossoms into what looks like little flowers and gives off the characteristic foam that gives the stew its name.  When the maiz blossoms, its time to add the pork and continue cooking.

Pour the stew into bowls and top with chopped onion, pinch of the powdered chile pequin for color and flavor, oregano, shredded lettuce and squeeze a lemon over it.

Serve with corn tortillas.

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Mar
6

Rain

Gina Ruiz on March 6th, 2010

The rain beats against my window with no rhythm, no rhyme.  At times it is unrelenting, vicious in its determination to get inside.  It batters the windows, rattles them; then frustrated, it takes a breath and prepares for the next assault.  It’s been raining five days now in Los Angeles.  There have been tornado warnings, 65 mph gale winds, hail and rain in buckets enough to generate a Twitter hashtag called #theendoftheworld.  At times the rain is gentle, soothing; the kind of rain that makes one long for Sunday papers in bed, a good book, a cuddle with a loved one or the smell of bacon and coffee drifting upstairs to waken you.

I love that kind of rain, it always propels me to the kitchen, to bake or make soup – the vegetable rich, lemony caldo de pollo that my grandmother made so often.  Brimming with color from corn on the cob, translucent green cabbage, dark green zucchini, bright orange carrots, the pale quarters of onions and the earthy dark of unskinned potatoes.  She’d serve it in a deep bowl over a scoop of red Spanish rice with warm corn tortillas wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm and a half slice of lemon to squeeze over it.  She always did hers a little different, a way I thought special.  To hers, she’d slice up a regular banana, not a plaintain but a banana and add a sprig of mint.  It gave an unusual sweetness to the soup that was distinctly Grandma Lupe.  No one else ate it that way, it was Grandma’s soup.  Sweet, distinct, unusual with a gentle touch, just like her.

Always on the table was the fresh salsa de molcajete she made and my grandfather, Papa Chava would pile it up on his bowl.  It added a smoky, spicy flavor to the soup that I loved and still do now with the added flavor of memories.  I make it often, roasting the tomatoes on the comal till their skins burst, wrapping the roasted chiles in a damp cloth so their skins can steam off and gently removing the cilantro leaves from their stems to add whole to the salsa.  I am recreating my grandmother’s steps, I am keeping her memory alive in my kitchen.

My grandmother’s salsa had little cilantro flowers in it because my grandfather grew cilantro in a way to ensure she never ran out.  He’d stagger the planting carefully so that there were soft earthy mounds with tiny stems poking their heads out, the next with the cilantro a little bigger, the next in full cutting mode and the back mounds were left to go to seed.  He gathered those round seeds and dried them carefully, saving them in an old glass baby food jar that he kept in his garage/gardening shed.

When the cilantro flowered, my grandmother loved to put the tiny white blossoms in her salsa and in the tomato relish (I guess you can call it that) that she made for tacos and tostadas.  The blossoms were surprisingly flavorful, that sharp green tang of the cilantro intensified.  You’d never know such a tiny, wispy flower would pack such a punch.  Store bought cilantro just isn’t the same.  The leaves are so much bigger, the flavor not as intense and of course, there are no delicate, lacy white blossoms to beautify and flavor your dish.

The rain is calming now and I’m still making up my mind whether to go out, bake or make soup.  For now, I’m content to snuggle in, pet my dog and remember a kitchen where love what the secret ingredient.

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Nov
2

Tacos de camote/Sweet Potato Tacos

Gina Ruiz on November 2nd, 2008

This is a really simple, homey recipe.  There are no quantities listed because it all depends on how many you want to make and sweet potatoes vary in size.   These tacos are slightly sweet and the orange-honey dipping sauce gives them an extra kick.  Very good on on a cold day.

Sweet potatoes
Water
Cinnamon stick
Corn tortillas
Olive oil

Peel and slice sweet potatoes into large chunks.  Put in saucepan with just enough water to cover them.  Add cinnamon stick.
Bring to boil, then lower heat.  Cook until soft enough to mash but still firm.

Strain the cooked sweet potatoes and reserve the liquid they boiled in.

When the potatoes are completely drained, mash and set aside.

Heat corn tortillas on a griddle and scoop a spoonful of sweet potato into each one.  Fold over and squish it so that it holds together.  Assemble until you’re out of sweet potato.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet.  Add enough to cover tacos.

When oil is hot enough slide in the tacos and fry until hard and crispy on each side.

Remove from oil and drain excess oil.

Serve with dipping sauce.

Dipping sauce

Juice of an orange
Honey
Reserved liquid from sweet potatoes

Mix the juice of an orange with some of the reserved liquid from the sweet potatoes and add enough honey so that you get a syrupy mixture.  That’s it.

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Sep
17

Fiestas Patrias Dinner Downsized

Gina Ruiz on September 17th, 2008

p9160037 Fiestas Patrias Dinner Downsized

Fiestas Patrias is a big deal for me.  I usually go all out and have a big party, invite tons of people, make mountains of red, white and green food, have papel picado and paper flowers decorating the house, my Aztec dancer group dances, the big Mexican flag is out, there’s music (sometimes mariachis) and we all go out the door at midnight and scream at the top of our lungs, “Viva Mexico!  Viva Zapata! Viva la Patria!”

Yeah, we’re those crazy, noisy, party-loving Mexicans down on your block.

Last year, I didn’t host the party.  I was ill and battling something for months that made me incredibly tired, a slacker blogger and have serious lack of stamina to stand in a kitchen for hours cooking.  This year, I had thought I could do it.  I’m feeling great actually so I was geared up to throw a huge one and make up for  last year.  Then I got the call from my daughter telling me she was HIV+.  I suppose this has no place on a cooking blog, but it’s my blog and my life so there you go.  Welcome to my world.  She’s my only daughter.  I’ve three sons and one daughter.  After finding out, I went to bed for a little over a month and barely left it.  Not like me at all.  I’m usually the optimist and the “let’s fix it” person.  Not this time.  This knocked me down hard and it took a long time getting back up.  I’m up.  I’m fighting because that’s me.  I’m learning all I can and I’m being strong for my girl.

As far as Fiestas Patrias goes, I decided not to do it at all.  Not in a party mood, although I did go to Olvera Street for a little while to get my fill of it on Sunday afternoon.  Check out my photos of the event there, si quieren.  Read the rest of this entry »

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family recipes, main dishes, salsa 1 Comment »
Sep
3

Call Me Crazy – Cream Puff Crazy

Gina Ruiz on September 3rd, 2008

creampuffs Call Me Crazy Cream Puff Crazy

So there was this chocolate sauce just sitting in my fridge, left over from the eclairs.  The chocolate glaze was in there too.  Seriously, they were calling me, begging not to be left in there on their own.  Several times, i walked over and thought maybe I should make more eclairs.  Maybe creampuffs.  No, it’s too hot. Then today it got to be too much.  I finished the chapter in the book I was reading and headed for the kitchen .  I sat at the table with the recipe and my cup of coffee and decided to go for it.

p9020039 Call Me Crazy Cream Puff Crazy

The chocolate glaze had hardened so I set it in simmering water.  I decided to do the same lavender-orange pastry cream since it turned out so delicious and decided at the last moment to pour a little lavender into the chocolate glaze.  I love lavender chocolate.

p9020034 Call Me Crazy Cream Puff Crazy

The pâte à choux was easier to do work with this time.  I’m not sure why but it was.  In fact, the whole thing was so simple, I am worried for my hips.  I could easily make these all the time.

I piped big fat circles onto parchment paper covered baking sheets and set them to bake.  I know!  Baking again in August.  Crazy I tell you.  Estoy pero bien loca.  That means I’m pretty crazy in Spanish.

p9020042 Call Me Crazy Cream Puff Crazy

The circles puffed beautifully, everything went like clockwork.  I decided to scoop the remaining chocolate sauce on the bottom of each cream puff, then load it with the cream and top with glaze.  They were delicious, rich and sinfully decadent.

I think I’m going to live to regret having these in my repertoire…you see my dilemna.

p9020041 Call Me Crazy Cream Puff Crazy

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Challenges, baked goods, desserts, drinks, main dishes 1 Comment »
Aug
31

Daring Baker’s Challenge – Eclairs in August

Gina Ruiz on August 31st, 2008
p8270194 Daring Baker’s Challenge – Eclairs in August

Jasmine really loved the chocolate glaze.

The Challenge: Chocolate Eclairs from Pierre Hermé’s book, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

The Hosts: Tony Tahan and Meetak

Many, many thanks to our wonderful hosts this month. What a wonderful recipe they chose and how supportive and marvelous they were. (Insert applause here).

Hurry up Autumn, I’m getting a little tired of baking in a 100 degree kitchen and worrying I’m going to drip sweat into dough or something. This month’s challenge was Pierre Hermé’s (swoons cuz he’s my loverman and I worship the pastry laden, rose petal Isapahan ground he walks on) luscious chocolate éclairs.

Did I stay true to my idol’s recipe? Um well I changed one little thing. The cream filling was not chocolate but something summery and lighter. Lavender-orange pastry cream. The rest was true to Mr. Hermé’s recipes (is it not wonderful that he is not only a pastry God but has the same last name as that vintage buttery leather 72k handbag on ebay)? I’m just saying. Pastry, Birken…ecstasy, heaven. Okay, okay get on with the recipe. No one cares about my obsession with Hermé, both the bags and the chef. And yes, I know the bag is Hermes but its close enough for me.

Marissa dropped the kids off early and we washed up and got ready to bake. The first thing we started with was the pastry cream. It turned out perfectly, smooth, thick and lucious until i put it into its ice water bath. I turned to grab ingredients for the chocolate sauce and Aiden took the opportunity to add about a quarter cup of ice water INTO THE CREAM! Yeah, so. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. He’s three, he thought he was creating something wondrous and being helpful. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn’t. It was his little creation. So we had runny cream filling, so what?

This i

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Aug
18

Arroz con pollo

Gina Ruiz on August 18th, 2008
Arroz con pollo

Arroz con pollo

p8180072 Arroz con pollo

delicioso!

I’ve been craving my grandmother’s arroz con pollo for a couple of days now.  I’ve been a little obsessed actually.  I can’t remember when the last time I had it was, but it had to have been when I was in my teens.  I tried making it a couple of times when I was married, but it just didn’t work out.  Neither did the marriage.

Today, Marissa and the kids came by and I decided to give it a shot.  I pulled out rice, onions, garlic, red peppers, the Bijol (a Mexican spice blend), saffron and oregano.  I didn’t have peas but Marissa doesn’t like them anyway, so I figured we were good to go.

I handed Marissa the camera and got to work chopping onion into nice thick squares, slivers of garlic, rounds of red pepper.  Jasmine and Aiden started to get excited and Aiden helped pour out the oregano.  I only know my grandmother’s recipe, which is no recipe – it’s a handful of this, a bit of that, un poquito aqui, un manito aya.  I hope my readers can figure it out from the pictures and the story because this time, this time it was like my memories of a fluffy mound of golden delicately flavored rice that melted on the tongue and the tenderest, chicken falling off the bone and flavored with the soul of the crocus.  It was magical.

Arroz con pollo/Chicken with rice

One cut up chicken
Enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large frying pan
1 onion
five cloves of garlice, sliced thinly
chopped red peppers (not the hot kind)
dos manotes de arroz (two big handfuls of rice)
a manito (little handful of oregano) I think this ended up being about a tablespoon
un poquito de saffron (a little bit of saffron) like a pinch
un poquito de Bijol (about a ¼ tsp)
salt and pepper to taste
peas (optional)
chopped tomatoes (we were out of fresh so I used a 16 oz can of stewed)
water

Coat the frying pan with olive oil and let it heat on the stove.  Not too high a flame, you don’t want smoking oil.  Just get it nice and hot.

Wash the chicken pieces and pat them dry.  Season with salt and cracked pepper.

Add the chicken to hot oil and let fry till crispy brown on one side, then turn and do the same with the other side.  It takes as long as it takes.  Use a lid or it will pop all over.

Once the chicken is browned completely, scoop it out and set it aside on a platter.

Drain the oil from that pan and pour it into another large skillet (one that has a tight fitting lid).

Add the oregano, garlic, saffron, and peppers to the same pan and deglaze it with about a cup of water.  Set that aside.

Heat up the oil in the second skillet.  Add in the onions and about two cups of long grain rice and let brown completely, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.

When it’s all browned, add the water and spices from the deglazed pan to the rice. Add salt to taste, I’d say about a teaspoon.

Add the chicken pieces one by one, skin side up around the pan.  Add just enough water to be about a half inch from the top of the pan.  Cover, lower flame to the lowest it will go and then simmer for about 40 minutes.  The rice should be fluffy and golden and the chicken so tender it falls apart at the touch of a fork.  All the water should have been absorbed by the rice.

Serve and enjoy!

Buen provecho.

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chicken, family recipes, main dishes, rice 3 Comments »
Aug
16

Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree

Gina Ruiz on August 16th, 2008

This is My Popcorn Ball

Oh,…I looked out the window and what did I see,
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring had brought me such a nice surprise, popcorn popping right before my eyes.
I can take an armful and make a treat, a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
It wasn’t really so… but it seemed to be… Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

Aiden learned this song in his nursery class at Sunday School during church last week and he’s been humming it ever since.  Jasmine wanted to know the words, so I sang it to them this morning and spent most of the morning teaching them the words and finger motions to it.  Then all of a sudden Jasmine says, “Grammy, what’s a popcorn ball?” and I about died.  I couldn’t believe I had been so remiss as to not make popcorn balls with the grandkids. Yikes!  There was nothing for it, but get out the aprons and head for the kitchen.

I popped popcorn and tried to get shots with the camera while it was popping but didn’t really get good photos.  I did however, manage to decorate the just mopped floor and demonstrate to the grandkids why we must never take the lid off as a stray popcorn missile hit me in the arm with its heat.

Dangerous Do Not Attempt

Once that process was done, we set the popcorn to cool in a baking dish and I went about making syrup, keeping the kids safely outta the kitchen.  I decided on a whim to flavor the syrup with cardamom and vanilla and it turned out really well.

Aiden was having a hard time waiting for the syrupy popcorn to cool but he spent the time decorating himself with butter. He was a shiny, greasy bundle of love by the time the popcorn was cool enough to mold.  We made a few popcorn balls and that was it, we were done.  We ended up with a few balls, lots of gooey caramel corn and two sticky, hyped up grandkids.  Now that’s a Saturday!

Cardamom-Vanilla Flavored Popcorn Balls

Ingredients:

A couple of apron-covered kids like these:

Chefs J&A

Chefs J&A

Freshly popped popcorn, we used two cups un-popped for this recipe
Butter
Syrup (recipe to follow)

Add popcorn to buttered baking dish and set aside till syrup is done.

Cardamom-Vanilla Syrup

6 tbsps.of butter
1 c. corn syrup
3 c. confectioner’s sugar
3 tbsp. water
1 c. marshmallow cream
1 tsp.cardamom
1 tbsp.vanilla

In a saucepan, combine the butter, corn syrup, water, confectioner’s sugar and heat over a medium flame, stirring slowly but constantly.  Once it’s to a boil, add in the marshmallow cream and cardamom.  Lower the flame and keep stirring till well-mixed.

Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Stir.

Slowly pour over the popcorn in the baking dish, mixing gently with a wooden spoon until the popcorn is thoroughly coated.

Add syrup to popcorn and let cool till it’s warm enough to work with your bare hands but not too cool.

Butter your hands so the popcorn doesn’t stick.  Mix all the syrup and popcorn well, then shape into balls of whatever size you like.  Let cool and wrap in plastic wrap.  That’s it!
Well, Jasmine wanted pink sprinkles on hers and I got to thinking about dipping them in chocolate but restrained myself (barely).

hard at work

Hard at Work

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