Gina Ruiz on August 30th, 2010

After all the intense summer heat of the past week, now that it’s finally cooler I have been craving Mexican comfort food. I wanted enfrijoladas, those rich, creamy bean and cheese bits of yummy that melt in your mouth. An enfriolada is something like an enchilada only a bean sauce is used instead of the [...]

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Gina Ruiz on August 28th, 2010

It’s 12:45 a.m after one of the hottest days of summer.  It was 105 degrees! The grandkids who are visiting for this week can’t sleep, house is too hot and my a/c wall unit is icing over.  What to do, what to do?  In the fridge was a massive bowl of the past two days [...]

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Gina Ruiz on August 19th, 2010

My oldest son Albert is a fiend for my fried chicken.  He’s probably gonna scream and holler on the phone at me, but I call him Nano.  I never call him Albert even though he’s trained the rest of the family to do so.  He was a tiny preemie baby, nothing like the huge beast [...]

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Gina Ruiz on August 17th, 2010

One of my favorite poets is Edna St. Vincent Millay.  I think her Renascence is one of the most astounding and brilliant poems ever, her unnamed sonnet that starts off “I must not die of pity, I must live” is my all time favorite, in fact it’s my personal mission statement.   I love her poetry [...]

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Gina Ruiz on August 13th, 2010

Isis is here.  Isis Lucia is my son Phillip’s four year old daughter and she lives in San Diego with her mom.  I rarely get to see her but last night Phillip brought her over to spend the weekend so we’re pretty excited.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the LLANTO.  Llanto is Spanish for [...]

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Gina Ruiz on August 11th, 2010

Sometimes I make omelettes.  It’s usually very rare that I eat eggs.  Most of the time on those rare occasions that I eat an egg, it’s poached but every once in a blue moon I make omelettes.  When that happens, my house goes nuts because they love, love, love my omelettes.  I never start out [...]

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Gina Ruiz on August 7th, 2010

Oatmeal in a Latino home is nothing like oatmeal in other places.  The microwave stuff is just ickygoop nonsense and it just plain grosses me out.  The plain oatmeal I’ve had at restaurants I will never have again because, well it’s just plain boring.  It sits in the bowl all sad kinda looking at you [...]

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Gina Ruiz on July 31st, 2010

Papaloquelite or Papalo – the word is ancient like many Mexican words.  Papalotl means butterfly and the word quelite means greens and is used for many edible greens and grasses including lamb’s quarters which I’ve written about before.  My grandmother, who knew just about everything about plants and herbs told me that the plant got [...]

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Gina Ruiz on July 30th, 2010

Some things are just meant to be simple, delicious and evocative.  My earliest memories of food and cooking always have the gorgeous aroma of beans simmering on my grandmother’s stove.  She made a fresh pot almost every day and the smell is woven into all my memories of her, the house with the creaky wooden [...]

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Gina Ruiz on July 20th, 2010

It was a hot summer night and I didn’t feel like making a full dinner.  We just weren’t that hungry but something snacky sounded good.  I mentally started going through the recipe list that lives in my head for something cool, spicy, semi-healthy and fun.  Running through the list I wasn’t finding anything I was [...]

Continue reading about Chiles Rellenos de Atun – Tuna Stuffed Chiles