Doña Lupe’s Kitchen

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.  Continue Reading »

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.

One of the simple things that I make and my grown children go absolutely nuts over and always ask for is my tostadas de atún or tuna tosadas. It’s super simple, but so good and perfect for hot weather when you just don’t want to cook at all. It also a good recipe to make when you have little, hungry kids in the house and they want to help cook. Jasmine and Aiden like helping cook a lot so I chop everything up for them, open cans and then just let them add everything to a mixing bowl and stir. It makes them happy and they get a decent meal in the heat. The recipe also allows for a lot of creativity. It’s pretty flexible. When my kids were growing up, each one had their own spin on it. Albert always wanted me to add canned corn to it, lots of it and no mayo. Bernadette wanted pickles, cucumber and chopped celery. Phillip was the one who drowned it in so much lemon that we made him make his own and Bobby loved it with canned jalapenos and plenty of avocado.

Last Saturday, it was typical L.A. July weather, hot and nasty. We had gone over to Read Books for story time and Jasmine invited her friend Velouria over for an impromptu kiddie pool play date (for all my Twitter friends who commiserated and suggested help for the drowned Blackberry, yes that’s when I dropped it into the pool and thanks to all my Twitterfriend’s advice, it survived and is working).

After some fun time out back with Velouria’s mom Monica and the kids, Aiden and I went inside to fix lunch for everyone. I quickly decided on Tostadas de atún, because it was fast, easy and perfect for the day. I also decided I’d make my Grandma Lupe’s horchata de melon or agua de melon, a very cool and refreshing drink made of cantaloupe seeds. It was always my favorite agua fresca in the summertime and my grandkids love it just as much as I did.

While Aiden and I were working on lunch Monica and the girls came in from outside and Monica very kindly offered to take pictures since my camera is broken and I am not so patiently waiting for my new one to arrive. Thanks Monica!

Tostadas de atún

Tostada shells (store bought like we use or you can make your own)
Canned tuna (we use albacore in spring water)
Mayonnaise (optional)
Lettuce or other green leafy (on this day we used Mache)
Fresh lime or lemon juice to taste
Chopped tomato
Chopped green onions
Chopped cilantro
Finely chopped fresh jalapeno peppers (optional)
Avocado chopped for the tuna and some slices for garnish
Powdered chile limon, sometimes called pico de gallo (optional)
Canned corn, chopped celery, chopped cucumbers, pickles, canned jalapenos (all optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Tapatio or other chile sauce to taste

Add tuna to a mixing bowl and add the chopped tomato, avocado, cilantro and green onion along with any thing else you want to toss in. Add about a quarter cup of mayonnaise if you want it creamy or just add the juice of one squeezed lemon or lime if you want it plain. I use both.

Scoop it onto a tostada shell and garnish with avocado slices. Add Tapatio sauce if desired and a squirt of fresh lime.

Horchata de melon/Cantaloupe orchata

The seeds of one cantaloupe
Sugar or honey to taste
Ice
Water

Slice a chilled cantaloupe and scoop out the seeds and put into a blender.
Add about a cup of ice and water to almost fill the blender.
Puree for about five minutes, then strain through a sieve lined with cheesecloth to get all the seeds out.
Add sugar or honey to taste and more ice if desired. Serve.

I love cooking and baking and take just about any opportunity to try something new or make something. If I’m cooking, I’m a happy camper. So when my roommate Rachel wanted to buy Challah for Shabbat with a friend, I jumped right in and asked if I could make it.

I had this recipe floating around that belonged to my grandmother Ruth on my dad’s side of the family. Grandma Ruth was a tiny bird of a woman who ruled with the proverbial iron hand in velvet glove. My grandfather Cecil Gleason towered over her at 6’8 and she was a tiny just under five feet woman. He was Irish, she was Jewish/English (or maybe Welsh) I believe. I wasn’t as close to them as I was to my Mexican grandparents but they loved me and they were sure interesting as hell. Grandma Ruth’s father Cornelius Losey was from Holland. I’m not sure when they came over or how the Judaism got left behind but that’s all I have from my dad. If any long lost family members see this and want to fill me in, I’d be grateful. I think my Grandma Ruth gave me this recipe years ago when I was still married and came over for a vist in a little envelope with a few other recipes. I’ve never tried any of them, although I really want to try her oxtail soup recipe.

I dug around for the recipe and there it was on a faded index card and found not too much to go on, no measurements. See I get that from both grandmothers!

The recipe was written as follows: flour, honey, yeast, eggs, oil, salt and water. Braid into six strands and bake. Garnish with poppy or sesame seeds. Continue Reading »

One of the things I love most about the cold weather celebrations in Mexican households is the traditional ponche (hot fruit punch). There is nothing like it. The smell is incredible, it’s packed with stewed fruit and has an unbelievable flavor. You can add a dash of tequila for someone who wants an extra kick to hit, but I love it just as it is. It’s one of my favorite things and I look forward to it every year. I knew I just had to make some for my guests at the tamalada.

In ponche, there are some hard-to-find ingredients but they are absolutely necessary or it just won’t be the same. Fortunately, the ingredients are getting easier to find here in L.A. One of the main ingredients, tejocotes, used to be virtually impossible to get unless you went to Mexico and brought them over canned since you can’t bring fresh fruit across the border.

I found fresh ones!

The tejocote is what gives the ponche it’s unusually delicious flavor and without it, it’s just so-so. I’ve been lucky in the past few years being able to find them (at somewhat high prices) frozen. This year, I hit the tejocote lottery and found them fresh! I paid a high price per pound, but the ponche was amazing and it was worth it.

The fruit about to cook

I’m using my grandmother Lupe’s recipe, originally written in Spanish so the measurements may be a little off. I never measure and I never could translate grams and litres into cups and teaspoons.

Some of my guests came in cold from the weather and a hot cup of ponche was just the thing to warm hands and tummies.

Ponche (Mexican Hot Fruit Punch)

1 ½ pounds Tejocotes
1 ½ pounds Guayabas (guavas), not very ripe
1 pound of apples (I used Gala) sliced into rings so that the star in the middle shows
1 pound of Caña (sugar cane) – you can get it frozen in Mexican specialty stores if you can’t find it fresh. If fresh, chop into 2-inch sections and peel. If frozen you can add it right in, it’s already sectioned and peeled.
10 prunes
1 piece of piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar cone)
1 handful of flor de Jamaica (hibiscus flowers, dried)
1 cup of pineapple chunks or rings (optional)
1 dried piece of tamarindo (tamarind), peeled (optional)
Tequila or rum (optional)

Wash all the fruit, peel the sugar cane and slice the apples.
Soak the hibiscus flowers in cold water for about five minutes and strain.
Put a big pot on the stove half filled with cold water and add the tejocotes and cinnamon sticks. Let come to a boil, then add all the fruit and piloncillo. Make sure that the water covers all the fruit. Cook on a medium heat, covered till all the fruit is soft.

Serve hot with some of the cooked fruit in the cup. Add a dash of tequila or rum if desired.