Spicy Mole Sauce

Yesterday I took down my garden. I picked everything I could find, including all the green peppers and tomatoes, and put the leaves and vines in the yard debris bin. I had an abundance of long mole peppers, so of course I had to make mole sauce. The recipe called for chili powder, which I thought maybe I could do better by substituting fresh ingredients. Instead of cayenne pepper, I used jalapenos and a habanero from my garden. The recipe has onions and garlic, so no need for those powders. I did use ground cumin, because I don't have any fresh. This is the link to the recipe I started from, and this blog is what I actually did. https://nicholsgardennursery.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/easy-holy-mole-sauce/amp/

Ingredients
3 T olive oil
4 small onions, chopped
8 mole peppers (mine were still green), seeded and chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1 habanero pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic
1/3 cup raisins
1 T ground cumin
3/4 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
2 cups chicken stock
2 large beefsteak tomatoes, blanched, peeled, chopped
1 oz  of a 70% dark chocolate bar
2 T Adams peanut butter
3 tiny street taco corn tortillas, chopped

Saute the onion, garlic, peppers, and raisins in olive oil until they are fragrant and the onions are transparent. Add chocolate, peanut butter and spices and allow to melt. Stir in. Add remaining ingredients and simmer at least 20 minutes. Stir occasionally, to keep from sticking. Blend it all up in the blender. Use immediately or save for later. This smells amazing, and packs some heat. We plan to use it with a pork shoulder that is cooking right now in the crock pot.

Tiny Peach Pies

These were made for an evening meeting of ladies at my church. I made four pans of two dozen each, but this recipe is for making one pan full, or two dozen little pies. For the crust I used the crust of pecan tassies, from a little recipe card in my files. For the filling I adapted a recipe for deep dish blackberry peach in Ken Haedrich's seminal tome: Pie.

Ingredients
1 stick of butter
3 oz. cream cheese
1 cup flour
2 large ripe peaches
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
dash of nutmeg
zest and juice of half a lemon

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Cream together butter and cream cheese. Add flour and mix until it all comes together in a dough. Divide the dough by rolling into a log and cutting in half, then each of those in half, then those in half, and finally cut each of the eight pieces in thirds. This should ensure fairly even divisions, depending  how careful you are with your halves and thirds.

Place one piece in each hole of a 24-piece mini-muffin tin. Using a mini-tart shaper (I got mine from The Pampered Chef, but they are available many places) dip in flour and then press the dough down until it forms a little cup. Prepare the filling.

Cut each peach in half and peel off the peel. Make two slices parallel to the first cut and then put your stack of three flat-side-down on a cutting board. Cut straight down in a criss-cross pattern to form about 1/4-inch dice. You should end up with about two cups of diced peaches. Mix with the rest of the ingredients. I used a small portion scoop to spoon about 3-4 teaspoons of filling into each little cup. In any case, use up all you made, spreading as evenly as possible. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Making yogurt

I've always wanted to learn how to make yogurt. Last December I was at my sister's house in Winston-Salem, and she said it was her day to make yogurt, so I was excited to see how she did it. I thought it was going to be a complicated and tricky process, but it was so easy, I knew I was going to go home and make it myself from then on, and quit buying little cups of it for $1 per cup. Now I make four quarts of it every other week for about $4. My method is almost exactly what she did, but I will only describe my way, since that's what I do.

Equipment needed:
• a microwave oven
• a glass bowl large enough to hold a gallon of milk
• an instant read thermometer
• a good wire whisk
• five clean and sanitized quart jars and lids*
• (optional) maybe two extra half-pint jars and lids
• a half-cup measuring cup
• a liquid measuring cup, or other scooper
• (optional) a wide-mouth canning funnel
• a small picnic cooler**

Ingredients:
1  gallon whole milk
1  cup instant dry milk
1/2  cup plain regular (not Greek) yogurt
(optional) a little jam (4 T.) for "fruit on the bottom" jars

Pour the gallon of milk into the glass bowl. My bowl will hold a gallon (just barely), but since I have to stir in two more things, I usually hold back about a cup of the whole milk to leave some stirring room. Next, stir in the dry milk with the whisk. Be as thorough as you can with the stirring.

Place the whole bowl in the microwave and cook on high power for twenty minutes. Carefully remove the hot bowl and place it on the counter. Check the temperature with the thermometer. I usually balance it on the edge of the bowl so the measuring end is submerged in the milk, but not touching the side of the bowl. It should read 140 or so degrees Fahrenheit. Optimum range for growing yogurt is between 110 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit, so we are going to attempt to keep our jars in that range for about 8 hours.

When the milk has cooled to about 130 degrees, stir in the plain yogurt. Again, be very thorough with the stirring. This should cool the mixture down to 120. Fill one of the quart jars with tap water and  put it in the microwave to cook on high power for 8 minutes. Meanwhile, take the lid off one of the quart jars and run it under hot water from the tap for ten seconds until the glass is warm to the touch. I do this because it helps maintain the temperature I want. Use the liquid measuring cup and funnel to fill the jar, then screw on the lid and place the jar in the cooler. Repeat with the other three quart jars. Place the milk-filled jars around the edge, leaving room for the water-filled one in the middle.

Sometimes I still have some left, so I put a little jam (2 T. per jar) in the bottom of a half-pint jar and fill that up with the remaining milk. Sometimes it takes two jars. (I suppose if you really like this way, you could stack little jars on top of each other in the cooler and fill the whole cooler with little jars with jam on the bottom instead of the quart jars!)

Carefully take the very hot water-filled jar out of the microwave and put its lid on. Place it in the cooler in the middle of all the milk-filled jars. Close the lid of the cooler and let it sit for 8 hours. You could let it go longer, but eight hours should be enough. If you are lucky (and I have been, almost every time), when you tip one of the jars, you will see that the milk is now delicately solid. Well done! You have made yogurt.

*NOTE: It is important that your jars and their lids be clean and sanitized. Run them through the dishwasher. The reason is, you are going to be creating a perfect environment for bacteria to grow. You only want the particular kind you are looking for to be present and growing!

**NOTE: My sister had a small double walled beverage cooler that five jars fit perfectly into and it worked great. I didn't own one of those, and was not really interested in buying one right then, but I could afford a small styrofoam one for about $4. (disposable, I guess, but I use mine over and over again)

Causa Rellena

The first time I had this was at a church potluck. A woman from Peru made it with white potatoes and decorated the top with fresh garden tomatoes. It was such a different way for me to experience chicken salad, I just fell in love with it. The next time I had it, was at Andina restaurant in Portland, Oregon. It was made with purple potatoes and was served on a small plate in a one-serving cylindrical stack, very fancy and exotic looking, but every bit as delicious as I remembered it. Pictured above is the one I made for a break the fast potluck last Sunday. The recipe that follows is exactly what I did. In the notes you will see the Andina version and ways to change it to suit your ingredients and style.

5 lbs yukon gold potatoes
salt & pepper to taste
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
1 14-oz jar of pepperoncini sandwich rings, drained
3 large limes, juiced
4 10-oz cans chicken meat, well drained
1 cup plain yogurt
2 avacados, sliced
sliced olives
mini sweet peppers
other garnishes of your choosing

Place the potatoes in a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil. Cook until tender, about half an hour. Remove the entire pot to the sink and run cold water into it to cool the potatoes enough to handle. Peel off the skins with a paring knife (they should slip right off). Place the peeled potatoes in a large casserole and mash coarsely with a little salt and pepper.

In a blender, combine melted butter, lime juice, and pepperoncini. Puree into a sauce. Pour into the mashed potatoes, and mash together until all is combined.

In a large bowl, combine the chicken and the yogurt.

To assemble, remove half of the potato mixture and spread the remaining half evenly in the bottom of your casserole dish. Next, spread the chicken mixture evenly on top of that. Top with an arrangement of the avacado slices, reserving a few for garnish. Finish with another layer of the potato mixture. Decorate as you like.

NOTES:
• You are welcome to use other kinds of potatoes. I generally like the waxier whites, red, or yukon gold. Purple potatoes are also fun, if you can get them.
• Regular salted butter would probably be just fine, and in fact I have seen vegetable oil used instead.
• It is NOT usual to use pepperoncini in this recipe. You are supposed to use aji amarillo, but I could not find any at the three stores I went to, so I made this substitution and it was delicious.
• This is sometimes made with tuna or even crab meat instead of chicken.
• Some people use mayonnaise with the chicken instead of yogurt, but I thought there was enough oil in the potatoes, and besides, I have started making my own yogurt so I always have it on hand.