More Chile Sweets

Part of being a Zee is that thing that makes me veer from subject to subject, from piñons to politics and back again. If you will recall, a few days ago we were discussing chile sweets and, as promised, here are some links to some that you can buy or make yourself.

There is a recipe for Albuquerque Piñon Red Chile Fudge on Recipezaar, or you can buy some all made by The Candy Lady in Albuquerque. They feature chocolate or vanilla red chile fudge, vanilla jalapeño fudge, and chocolate or vanilla piñon fudges.

Señor Murphy, a candymaker in Santa Fe, offers chile peanut or piñon brittle, chile cream chocolates, red and green chile jellies; and a chile addict basket that includes Red Chile Peanut Brittle, Chile Pistachios, Chile Creams, Red/Green Chile Jelly, Chile Peanuts, and Chile Pistachio Bark. For a wonderful description and some delicious-looking photos, check out what Gil's Thrilling Web Site has to say about Señor Murphy's.

The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Taos makes red chile fudge as well as green and red chile brittle. Their web site is gorgeous, and is probably fattening just to look at.

Check out Sweet Heat and Daring Desserts to find recipes for Piñon Pepper Brittle, Warm Chocolate Pecan Pie, New Mexican Hot Chocolate, and Devilish Mousse, all of which contain either red or green chiles.

I hope you’re still with me, because this last one is terrific. Pepperfool has some incredible recipes. By all means check out the whole web site, but first go to their Desserts page to find recipes ranging from Dave’s Insanity Squares to Jalapeño Milkshakes.

Little Fires in Your Mouth

Photo from MexGrocer.com

Chiles for dessert? At first it might be hard to imagine these fiery little vegetables as part of your sweets, but when you’ve had some time to digest the idea it no longer seems so strange. To New Mexicans, who all seem to be addicted to chile anyway, this is just another way to get our fix. After all--hot and sweet together? What’s not to like?

While taking part in a discussion on New Mexican Foods over at the New Mexico forum on the City-Data website, I was intrigued by the mention of red chile fudge. It sounded like a novelty item, just another way to market something from New Mexico. A little exploration and research proved otherwise. There is a wide spectrum of these sweet-hot desserts, as you will see if you read this blog over the next couple of days.

After my research, I was ready to try out a recipe. I wanted brownies with chipotles, but all the recipes I found were pretty complicated and called for way more chocolate and sugar and butter than I wanted to use. So I turned to my favorite brownie recipe, Immediate Fudge Cake, from my ancient copy of Peg Bracken’s Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book(1966). Here is the variation that I came up with:

Chocolate Chipotle* Brownies
Note: These are best accompanied by a glass of cold milk, to put out the little fires in your mouth

2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp. vanilla
¾ cup flour
¼ tsp. salt
½ cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts
2 chipotle chiles, chopped fine

Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave. Add the remaining ingredients, stir well (be sure the chiles are well distributed!). Bake in a greased 8” by 8” pan at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Glaze while still warm with:

Chocolate Glaze
½ square unsweetened chocolate
1 tbl. butter
1 cup powdered sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
Tiny pinch salt
A little strong coffee

Melt the butter and the chocolate in the microwave, add sugar, vanilla, salt. Beat the mixture well, adding a bit of coffee, until it is the consistency you want.

*Chipotles: Buy them in a can. They are called Chipotles in Adobo Sauce. Store leftovers in a glass jar in the refrigerator. They will go a long way. I will scout out some recipes to help us all use up the rest of the can, and publish them in a future post.

Wineries in New Mexico

La Viña Poster


Did you know that New Mexico’s wine industry the oldest in the country? When we lived in Las Cruces in the late 1990s, we often visited the La Viña Winery in La Union, attending some of their wonderful wine and jazz festivals. According to their web site, they "host a Harvest Festival and Grape Stomp each year in October and a Blues & Jazz Festival in April, as well as an old fashioned country picnic and open house on July 4th." It's a lovely way to spend an afternoon. You can picnic and sample a variety of their wines, and come home with a selection of wines and souvenir wine glasses to help you remember the occasion. We bought posters and framed and hung them when we went back to New Hampshire, so that we wouldn't forget that we were meant to be living in New Mexico. Now that we're back, we look forward to exploring some of the wineries around the state.

For a little history and background on the New Mexico wine industry, see Wine and Vineyards of New Mexico. Here is part of what they have to say:
"...New Mexico has the distinction of being the country's oldest commercial wine-growing region, predating California's entry into the field by 140 years. It was in 1629 that a Franciscan and a Capuchin monk first planted grapevines on the east bank of the Rio Grande near present-day Socorro. By 1633 the vines were producing, making sacramental wine available to mission priests throughout the northern territory of New Spain. Winemaking flourished for centuries, but had pretty much ended by 1920, done in by depleted soil and Prohibition. But in 1978 a revival began, and today oenophiles can visit some 19 wineries throughout the state. Production includes a number of varieties of reds, whites, and sparkling wines, many of them of award-winning caliber."

Here is a Wine Tour of New Mexico in five parts with a commentary on the wines, from wine enthusiast Jim Eastman's blog, Music & Wine:
-Part 1: Ruidoso and Tularosa areas
-Part 2: La Union
-Part 3: Deming
-Part 4: Albuquerque
-Part 5: Northern New Mexico, near Velarde and Dixon

For a list of NM wineries and tasting rooms, see the Wine Growers Association web site.

Viva New Mexico lists New Mexican wineries by region.

Posole

Photograph from Library of Congress*











Posole defined:

1. Kernels of corn that have been soaked in lime water, hulled, and dried.
2. Hominy and pork stew flavored with red chiles



Posole stew is a New Mexican tradition and can be ordered as a side dish in many New Mexican restaurants. You can order some real NM posole from the resources below, or you may substitute yellow or white canned hominy in the recipes.

Blue Corn Posole recipe, resources, and a wonderful memory about eating posole at San Ildefonso Pueblo

A nice collection of New Mexican Posole Recipes

Posole Recipe courtesy of Comida de Campos farm and cooking school, Embudo, N.M.

Posole recipes from the Santa Fe School of Cooking

Posole Stew, A New Mexico Holiday Tradition

If you have a moment, take time to read this evocative New York Times article--In Pueblo Food, Deep Respect for the Earth, which includes a recipe for posole. They might spell" chile" as “chili” but they know how to make New Mexican food sound delicious.
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*The Library of Congress knows of no restrictions on the publication of this photograph. If you do, please let me know via the comments section on this blog.

Red Chile

Red Chiles Drying (Library of Congress)*
If you travel around New Mexico during harvest time you are bound to see ristras (strings) of red chiles hanging outside to dry in the hot sunshine. Down in Mesilla, south of Las Cruces, we saw them spread out on rooftops and up north in Chimayo they were hanging everywhere.

You can buy fresh green chiles in the summertime and the dried red ones later in the fall. They both come from the same plant—the red ones have just been allowed to ripen longer on the plant before being dried. They have an earthier flavor to me. When I grew my own chiles in Las Cruces, I couldn’t get over how many wonderful chile colors could be found on a single plant—the greens at first, and then as the chiles ripened they ranged through yellow and orange to red.

We make a very simple version of Carne Adovada at our house. We brown pork strips with onions and garlic, then simmer all in red chile sauce (below) until the pork is tender and well done. I know that traditional versions call for a long marinating period, but the kind we make is absolutely delicious.

For some good basics to get you started, see Chile Colorado (Red Chile).

Visit the Focus New Mexico web site for information on both red and green chiles, where to find them in New Mexico, and how to use them. Be sure to check out the rest of the web site, too, for travel information.

For a good Red Chile Sauce Recipe: http://www.pepperfool.com/recipes/southwest/nm_red_sauce.html

*Library of Congress photograph: I do not know of any copyright restrictions associated with this photo. If you do, please notify me via the comments section of this blog.

Blue Corn Meal

Hopi Women Grinding Corn in Arizona*

The December 2007 issue of New Mexico Magazine had an article on blue cornmeal recipes called “Holiday Blues” which was beautifully illustrated with a photo of a blue and white china bowl filled with blue corn atole topped with plump blueberries. Atole is, as they explained, a gruel that is served as a porridge or a drink. They made it sound like such a wonderful cold weather breakfast dish that we went shopping around Clovis for some blue corn meal of our own. We found some at the S & S Supermarket on 2204 N. Main Street. This little market, by the way, was delightful because of its “just right” size—not too big, not too small—and the friendliness of the staff, who even helped unload our cart onto the checkout counter for us.

I couldn’t find the New Mexico Magazine article reprinted online, so you may have to search out a print copy of the issue if you want to read it. In the meantime, the Foodways of the Rio Grande web site has some wonderful photographs and tells us: “…blue corn meal is used in the making of atole, a hot breakfast gruel; chaqueque, a moist blue corn bread; and special blue corn tortillas, a type of flat bread made from a watery batter and poured over a hot griddle. Atole is also given to anyone who is ill and it was frequently a dying person's last meal.” If you are interested in reading about blue corn production in New Mexico, take a look at New Mexico State University's article on Blue Corn Production in New Mexico.

Blue Cornmeal Recipes

Blue and Yellow Cornbread

Blue Corn Bread

Blue Corn Tortillas

Blue Cornmeal Buttermilk Pancakes

Blue Cornmeal Cakes with Chile Salsa

Traditional Native American Recipes Includes recipes for blue corn atole and blue corn porridge.

According to the High Beam Encyclopedia, which quotes an article from Sunset Magazine: “In a time when food ideas and supplies seem to leap from one part of the country to another almost overnight, blue corn has kept pretty much to its native terrain--you've generally had to travel to New Mexico to get a supply.” Luckily for you, the Internet provides some alternatives. You can order blue corn meal online from these sources.

Santa Ana Pueblo

NM Pinon Coffee Co. (on the Seasonings and Mixes page)

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*The photograph above (LC-USZ62-56416) is from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. The LC believes that there are no restrictions on the use of this photo. If you know of any, please contact me via the comments section on this blog.

Pinto Beans

Photo: “Bill Stagg, homesteader, with pinto beans, Pie Town, New Mexico" by Russell Lee, 1940.*

You know you’re in New Mexico when you find pinto beans in bulk in the produce section of your grocery store. You just scoop them up and buy them by the pound, or you can opt for some very large prepackaged bags of twenty pounds or so.

Here are a few pinto bean facts, in case you are interested. Come on, you know you are.

~The Legumes web site , which has a lot of other bean information as well, tells us that the pinto bean is the “most common bean eaten in the US with a consumption rate of almost 45% of all the beans eaten. Part of the reason for this is they are generally the cheapest bean you can purchase. But that doesn't mean they are cheap in nutrition or flavor. The nutrition in pinto beans compares favorably with their higher priced cousins and they have a pleasant, earthy flavor and powdery texture that blends with many other foods.”

~Chile and pinto beans are New Mexico’s State Vegetables

~Moriarty, New Mexico (the Pinto Bean Capital) has an annual Pinto Bean Festival, held on the 2nd Saturday of each October.

Long ago, I used to try to make something called "beans and cheese" for a friend who remembered his mother making the dish. Unfortunately, he had no idea what went into it, so we would just put together some pinto beans and some cheese and a bit of margarine, as I recall. We could eat a pot of that stuff and keep the whole week's supper budget under two dollars, cheese included.

Over the years I have refined my approach somewhat, resulting in the following recipe for Refried Beans. You should know that refried beans in general are neither fried, nor are they refried, but that they do sometimes contain large amounts of shortening or lard. I just can’t bring myself to put great slabs of white fat into a dish that is meant to be consumed, so I add a little bit of butter, which is bad enough. As a matter of fact, you might bypass (nice word, in this context) this recipe altogether, in favor of my healthier Pinto Bean recipe which I’ll also put down below.

Refried Beans
1 lb. dried pinto beans (pick through, wash, soak overnight and drain, or bring cleaned beans to a boil in a little cold water to cover, boil one minute, turn off and cover, let soak for an hour, and drain). Add one quart salted water, simmer covered for 20-45 minutes—only until just cooked but not mushy. You might have to add some cooking time if you’re at a high altitude.

In the meantime, pan fry ½ lb. chorizo, or sausage, or ground beef (if you are a meat-eater) and set aside.

Sauté 3 cloves chopped garlic, 1 large onion, 1 tsp. cumin seeds.

Drain the cooked beans, save the liquid.

Mash the beans; add them to the meat and the onion mixture.

Add ¼ cup chopped fresh coriander, ¼ cup fresh lard (this is optional—you can use a bit of butter instead or skip it altogether), 1 cup grated jack cheese, and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Add a little of the reserved liquid until it’s the consistency you like, simmer while stirring for a few minutes.

For a healthier alternative, see the recipe for Pinto Beans.

Pinto Beans
2 cups dried pinto beans (pick through, wash, soak overnight and drain, or bring cleaned beans to a boil in a little cold water to cover, boil one minute, turn off and cover, let soak for an hour, and drain).

Add one quart salted water, 2 cloves of garlic, minced, ½ tsp. black pepper, ½ tsp. cumin, simmer covered for 20-45 minutes—only until just cooked but not mushy.

*This photograph is in the Public Domain and the Library of Congress believes that there are no known restrictions on its use. If you know of any restrictions, please let me know via the comment section of this post.

Peanuts!

It’s the bountiful season in the Clovis area. Hay is being baled, the pumpkin fields are full, cotton is being harvested, and fresh peanuts are being roasted out in Portales. Before moving here, I’d never seen peanut fields or peanut plants, for that matter. I was fascinated when one of the farmers brought in a peanut plant to show off at the Clovis Farmers Market. A passing old timer shuddered and said it reminded him too much of all the peanuts he had to harvest by hand as a kid.

Peanuts are grown in the warm climates of Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America. Depending on where they are grown, they may be called monkey nuts, ground nuts, goobers, or earth nuts, although they are legumes, rather than nuts. George Washington Carver created 325 products from peanuts, including familiar and not so familiar food products ranging from peanut butter to mock goose. His peanut product inventions included types of stock foods, cosmetics, cleaning products, beverages, medicines, paints, dyes, stains, paper, and linoleum.

You can grow your own peanuts. Buy raw (unroasted) peanuts in the shell. Carefully take out the peanuts, doing your best to keep the skin intact. Plant an inch and a half deep in well drained sandy soil, to which you have added fertilizer and a legume innoculant. The plants will grow to one or one and a half feet tall. Don’t fertilize later in the season, and don’t overwater. The flowers are borne on shoots called pegs which then grow down into the soil and form the peanuts. When the leaves start to yellow, stop watering. Harvest at first frost. Pull up the entire plant and hang it up until the shells are dry. A single plant will produce 40 or more pods. For more complete instructions, see Painless Botany Lesson: Growing Peanuts.

I'm sure that peanut production is affected by the fact that many public schools now ban peanut products, due to the increasing numbers of children with peanut allergies. According to a Feb. 2007 news release from New Mexico State University, while commercial peanut production across the U.S. fell 29% during 2006 and “the planted area – 1.24 million acres – is the lowest in the United States since 1915” the organic peanut market is growing. New Mexico, Texas, and Georgia are the only states so far that are growing organic peanuts on a commercial scale.

There are a couple of peanut producers in nearby Portales—Sunland Peanuts, Inc. and the Borden Peanut Company. The Sunland plant has a retail store that sells raw, roasted, shelled, unshelled, salted and unsalted peanuts by the bag. They also provide an amazing variety of natural and organic peanut butters and peanut spreads (“Peanut Better”) flavored with raspberry, chocolate, caramel, cinnamon, peanut praline, vanilla cranberry, and sweet molasses; as well as a line of savory spreads, including Thai ginger and red pepper, onion-parsley, spicy southwestern, hickory smoked, and rosemary garlic. We bought some of the Thai ginger peanut butter and plan to use it as a sauce with grilled marinated pork satay. See the Sunland recipe page for ideas for using these flavored spreads.

More links:

The Legacy of George Washington Carver: http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/gwc/bio.html

Peanut Allergy Facts: http://www.allergyescape.com/peanut-allergy.html

World Geography of the Peanut:
http://lanra.anthro.uga.edu/peanut/

Green Chile Recipes

It's time for a post about recipes for our wonderful green chiles. From time to time, I'll come back and add additional information to this page.

Chiles Rellenos (low fat version)

Roast 6-8 or more large green chiles (Anaheim type) under the broiler or over an open flame until charred all over. Place in a closed plastic bag or covered Tupperware container for ten minutes or so. You should then be able to peel them easily. Take off the stem ends and take out seeds and membranes (leave some in if you want—they’re the hot part). Beat three egg whites until stiff, adding ½ tsp. salt. You can leave out the yolks, but I stir them up and fold them into the beaten egg whites. In a greased oblong casserole, place half the egg white mixture, put all the chiles on top of it, sprinkle with as much grated cheese as you want, then cover over with the remaining egg whites, spreading them all the way to the edges to seal. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or so until brown.

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Green Chile Meat (for Burritos)

After our trip to Cloudcroft and our yummy burrito lunch, I came home and did my best to duplicate the green chile meat stuffing. This is what I came up with.

Brown one chopped onion. Add a pound of ground beef and stir until all is well browned. Add a 2 tablespoons of flour and mix well. Add four peeled, cubed, cooked potatoes. Stir in 12 roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped green chiles (you decide on the type and the amount of heat you want. I used a medium hot Anaheim-type). Add 2 cups water or beef broth, stir well. Simmer for about 30 minutes. The mixture will thicken, so stir it occasionally and add more broth if necessary. You want a consistency that you can spoon into a warm tortilla, not too soupy. Top with grated cheese.

My New Mexico

I have spent a lot of time researching about New Mexico, especially before we moved here. I wanted facts, I wanted descriptions, I wanted photographs, and I wanted to dream. Here is a group of links that I return to again and again to find out more about my adopted state.



Art
Collector's Guide; Sharing the Art of New Mexico http://www.collectorsguide.com/wingwelc.html


Discussion
City-Data Forum: New Mexico. http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-mexico/


Food
Cocinas de New Mexico. http://www.vivanewmexico.com/food.recipes.cocinas.html

New Mexico Farmers' Markets. http://www.farmersmarketsnm.org/index.htm


Guides
New Mexico in Words and Pictures. http://www-psych.nmsu.edu/~linda/pics.htm

Northeast New Mexico. http://www.nenewmexico.com/index.php

Santa Fe Journal. http://www.santafejournal.blogspot.com/

SouthernNewMexico.com. http://www.southernnewmexico.com/

Taos Web: A Vistor's Guide to Northern New Mexico. http://www.taoswebb.com/index.php

Virtual Guidebook: New Mexico. http://virtualguidebooks.com/NewMexico/NewMexico.html

Viva New Mexico. http://www.vivanewmexico.com/

Welcome to My New Mexico. http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Gorge/4093/newmexico/menu.htm

Welcome to the Land of Enchantment. http://www.newmexico.org/index2.php


Information
New Mexico City Data. http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Mexico.html


Magazines
New Mexico Magazine. http://www.nmmagazine.com/FEATURES/current.html

News
Albuquerque Journal . http://www.abqjournal.com/

Clovis News Journal Online. http://www.cnjonline.com/


Photographs
Cities/Pueblos/Reservations, etc. http://www.newmexicoet.com/nm_photographs_01.html

Images of the Southwest. http://www.photowebs.com/thornburg/SouthwestGallery/index.htm

New Mexico: Taos and Santa Fe. http://www.pbase.com/tnkbuzan/new_mexico

Southwest Photos. http://www.helmutkuhn.com/portfolio/southwest/P_SW03.html

Taos Web: Snaps. http://www.taoswebb.com/snaps/


Places to Stay
New Mexico Bed and Breakfast Association (directory). http://www.nmbba.org/index.htm