Time to Eat

When you're married to Beez, it's always time to eat, and there's no better place to eat than at Sparky's in Hatch, New Mexico. We like the ride to get there, and we like the green chile cheeseburgers and the red chile mango shakes. 

Sorry about the thumb

There's lots to look at, inside and outside Sparky's, while you wait for your food to be served.

Today, I'm showing you some inside views of the place. If you want to see outside views, click here, or here, or here. Sometimes there is even some fine musical entertainment. I always take some photos while we're wandering around the place.

If you're in New Mexico, you probably already know the way to Hatch, home of the famous Chile Festival. If you live somewhere else, you'd better come on down for some sunshine, unforgettable food, and good times.

Cool Weather, Hot Chiles, and Hot Air Balloons

It's a wonderful time to be in New Mexico. We picked up another big bag of chiles at the Farmers Market yesterday, got them roasted, and brought them home in a car that smelled a little spicy, a little smoky, and a little hot. We met some folks at the market who said when they moved here a year ago from Virginia they had never heard of green chiles. They must have learned to like them, because they were getting a couple of big bags roasted. And they were smiling. 

Chiles make us smile, here in southern New Mexico.

***Note for non-New Mexicans: The green chile--the vegetable grown here (some right across the road from our house!)--is always spelled with an "e" at the end, at least it is in New Mexico, because the word comes from the Spanish. Those who accidentally or intentionally spell the name of this vegetable with an "i" at the end are immediately pegged as Texans. Chili is that deliciously spicy meat and bean and red chile combination that I am about to cook up in the crock pot this afternoon. 

Once we got the chiles home, we set up the kitchen for what has become a fall ritual. The hot roasted chiles were dumped into an ice water bath to cool them down and then they were drained. Next, they were packed into freezer bags, seven to a bag. We laid the bags flat on cookie sheets to freeze them, then collected all the bags and lined them up in the freezer for rellenos, sauces, stews, and green chile cheeseburgers all year long until it is chile harvest time again. 

This morning we drove before dawn over the mountains and through the Tularosa Basin with our friends, Pat Hulser and Mary Hulser, to watch 40+ hot air balloons launch at White Sands. With our senior pass and Pat's handicap sticker, we were able to park right next to the balloon crews for a close up look at all sorts of hot air balloonery. 

We're back home now. The weather is cool and sunny. Beez is watching football and doing laundry. The dogs are snorfeling (you heard me, Spell Checker, I said snorfeling, not snorkeling. It's a word in our family) around the back yard looking for ground squirrels. I am cooking up some chili with meat and beans to go in the crockpot and baking a batch of custard and an apple pie with apples from a local orchard, thanks to our kind friends who picked them. Life is good!

Fresh Chile Time

Freshly roasted green chiles

I can't help noticing how happy people are at our Farmers Market here in Clovis--and why not? The sun is usually shining, there are friendly people all around, and the food is fresh and wholesome.

In August, when the chiles arrive, however, the happiness is cranked up a notch. Smiling people patiently wait in the line to buy their buckets of chiles, and then in the next line to wait for the roaster, all the while trading recipes and breathing in that wonderful roasted chile aroma.

Here is my recipe for a perfect Saturday lunch: Bring home some freshly roasted chiles from the market. On the way, stop at the tortilleria for some fresh, warm tortillas. Place a peeled and seeded chile in the tortilla, grate a little cheese over the top, and warm the whole thing in the microwave until the cheese is melted.

Eat. Smile. Be happy you live in New Mexico.

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.

****************************************************
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.

Harvest Time in Clovis

It's green chile time in New Mexico. Everywhere you go you can smell chiles roasting--in supermarket parking lots, in backyards on grills, and at the farmer's market.

It's also peanut harvest time here in Clovis. Just down the road toward Portales we can stop in at the big peanut plant and buy big bags of sweet Valencia peanuts. They are different from the peanuts we used to buy back east. Valencias have three or even four kernels in each pod and have a beautiful dark red skin.

And it's watermelon time, too. You will see pickup trucks full of the striped melons backed up to the road, selling directly to their customers. My favorite place to buy them is at the Clovis Farmers Market. It takes place at 4th and Pile St. on Saturday mornings starting at 8 AM and on Tuesday afternoons starting at 4 PM.

Because we've already put up our fifty pounds of chiles and didn't have to worry about waiting in line for the chile roaster, we didn't get to the market this morning until at little after 8 o'clock. There was already a good crowd. It's a funny thing about that place--everyone seems to have on a big smile. Why not? The smells are wonderful, especially down by the line for the chile roaster. The people are friendly, and the food is lovely and fresh and handed to you by the person who grew it.

We bought onions with a little red dirt still on them. We bought corn and tomatoes and cucumbers. We admired these sweet potatoes, just dug up by their proud grower.

Back to those green chiles. After your bucketful is roasted, the chile roaster guys pour the chiles

into a big plastic bag. Here's what we did with ours when we got them home the other day. We dumped a couple of pounds at a time into ice water to cool them down, then drained them and packed them into quart freezer bags and popped them into the freezer. Some people like to peel them before freezing, but we just peel them when we are ready to use them. The skins slip off nicely when the chiles are partially thawed.

When we lived in New Hampshire we used to have a couple of boxes of chiles shipped out from Hatch, NM every fall. It was a lovely September tradition to work out on the deck on a sunny afternoon, under the big umbrella, roasting the chiles on the gas grill. I didn't mind doing the processing part this year, however, in the air conditioned comfort of our new kitchen.

For my best green chile recipes, go to http://zeesgowest.blogspot.com/2007/09/green-chile-recipes.html.