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Cheese Rice Burritos with Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

This is a recipe I have been meaning to make for a loooooong time. It is an adaptation of two different recipes from the Food Network. I had never had tomatillos before, but I always wondered how they tasted. I was so surprised at the amount of flavor this salsa gives to this dish.

Before you say anything else… I know I need some help with the plating and the pictures – for them to have more appetite appeal… so for this one, forgive me and just use them as an educational guide for how the dish is prepared and assembled. OK? The flavors are there, I promise to practice my picture-taking techniques.

Cheese Rice Burritos with Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

6 whole-wheat flour tortillas

1 1/2 cups julienned or shredded zucchini

1 medium diced onion

1 minced clove of garlic

1 cup cooked whole-grain rice

3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

3/4 cup sour cream

Salt and Pepper to taste

olive oil

1 tomato, thinly sliced

1 cup shredded lettuce

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa – recipe follows

Warm tortillas over a warm skillet
While tortillas are warming, heat a pot with some olive oil. Add zucchini and onion and sautee until tender. Season with salt and pepper.
Stir in rice, cheese, and cook for 1 few minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in sour cream.

Fill in warm tortillas with rice mixture. Spoon a few table spoons of the Roasted Tomatillo Salsa. Top with lettuce and tomato. Roll up the burrito and serve with additional salsa and sour cream.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

1 pound tomatillos, husked

1 yellow onion, peeled and quartered

4 garlic cloves

salt and pepper

olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

Pre-heat oven to 400degrees F.
On a baking tray, place tomatillos, onion and garlic. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 15-20 minutes.
Transfer the roasted vegetables and any juices from the bottom of the tray to a food processor. Add the lemon juice and pulse the mixture until well combined, but still chunky.

As you can notice, I do not like spicy foods. But you can add as much spice to this recipe as you’d like. Add jalapenos to the tomatillo salsa and even mix in some chile sauce to the rice mixture… go crazy if you’d like.

I would also accompany this recipe with a nice chunky guacamole… recipe follows.

Buen Provecho!!!!

Tags: cheese, rice, tomatillo, tortillas, zucchini

Comments 1 Comment
Categories main courses

Romaine Salad with Citrus Ceasar Dressing

17 Nov

This is a great recipe for a very tasting dressing. The dressing is an adaptation from a Bobby Flay recipe. This yields a nice amount of dressing. I choose to toss the salads individually and save any left-over dressing. I make the croutons from scratch because I have not been able to find whole wheat croutons yet.

Romaine Salad with Citrus Ceasar Dressing

1 -2 Romaine lettuce hearts

Whole Wheat croutons – recipe follows

Citrus Ceasar Dressing:

1/4 cup of orange juice with the juice of 1/2 a lemon

4 cloves of roasted garlic

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon egg-free mayonnaise

1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

Place the orange/lemon juice mixture, garlic, mustard, mayo, vinegar, salt and pepper in a food processor. Blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly add the olive oil and blend until emulsified. Add the Parmesan and pulse a few times until incorporated.
Wash the Romaine lettuce and cut into slices.
Place in a mixing bowl, toss with dressing, croutons and additional Parmesan cheese. Shaved or Shredded Parmesan looks really good here.

Whole-Wheat Croutons

Cut a whole wheat bagguette in squares.
Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Toast in a 350 degree oven until crispy and golden, for about 15 min.
While still warm, toss with parsley flakes.

Tags: Egg-free, lemon, orange, parmesan

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Categories Salad, side dishes

Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese

17 Nov

In the next few posts, I will share with you the Thanksgiving Menu I have chosen for this year.

For the main course, I will prepare a Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese. This mac and cheese packs a lot of nutritional punch and color from the butternut squash in the cheese sauce. You can substitute the squash for regular pumpkin. I works just the same.

Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese

Steamed pumpkin or butternut squash – about 1 pound
1 pound whole-wheat elbow macaroni or other tubular pasta
2 cups 1 percent lowfat milk
4 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar, grated (about 1 1/3 cups)
4 ounces Blend of melting cheeses – Mozzarella, Asiago, Fontina, etc.
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Steam the butternut squash or pumpkin in a pot with just an inch of water. Season with salt. When it is cooked, puree in a food procesor.
Bring a large pot to a boil for the pasta.
Meanwhile, start building the cheese sauce. In a pot under medium heat, mix together the milk, blend and melt the cheeses, mix the mustard, and pureed butternut squash. Season with salt and pepper. Make sure the pot is big enough to accomodate the sauce and the pasta when it’s cooked.
Add the macaroni to boling water seasoned with salt and cook until tender but firm.
Drain cooked pasta and transfer to the pot with the cheese sauce. Mix well together.
Transfer to a buttered baking dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and some of the leftover Melting Cheese blend all over the top.
Bake for 20 minutes, then broil for 3 minutes so the top is crisp and nicely browned. Everything is already cooked, you’re just heating everything together and browining the cheese on top.

This recipe is delicious. The mustard gives it a different and grown-up taste. You can also roast the butternut squash, which gives it a more robust flavor.

I did this recipe a few weeks ago at our Yoga Center and my friend Kathleen reviewed it in her blog.

Hope you like it too. Tell me all about it if you try it.

Tags: butternut squash, cheese, pasta, pumpkin

Comments 8 Comments
Categories main courses, Thanksgiving

Eggplant Parmesan

13 Nov

I love to invite friends over to dinner. This gives me the opportunity to try out new recipes. Conventional knowledge would tell you not to try new recipes on guests… experiment on your own first and then share with others. Well, you know what, I don’t agree.

This is an eggplant recipe that I created by mixing and matching elements of several other recipes I have seen and tasted and I even experimented something I had never tried before and actually turned out really good. I wanted to do Eggplant in my latest dinner party because my best friend Ana Yolanda is an eggplant FAN. I made enough so she would have left overs… a testament to the quality of the results and a shame for her, but her husband ate ALL of the leftovers.

Don’t worry Ana, I’ll make it again JUST FOR YOU!!!

EGGPLANT PARMESAN
serves about 8

3-4 medium eggplants**, unpeeled, sliced in about 1/2 inch-thick slices
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups of seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese plus more for sprinkling in between eggplant layers
Salt and Pepper
1/2 cup marinara sauce

fresh mozzarella cheese for the topping

**I learned that you should try to get as light an eggplant as you can find to ensure they have the least amount of seeds and minimize any bitterness

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Dunk the eggplant slices in the buttermilk for like half a minute. This will give the eggplant slices something sticky so the breadcrumbs stick.
Place breadcrumbs in a shallow dish. Coat the eggplant slices with the breadcrumbs. Set aside for a few minutes to let the coating stick a bit.
Heat a very thin layer of olive oil in a skillet. (Note: you’ll need a good amount of oil, because the eggplants will soak it. But you need to add a little bit with each batch so the eggplants brown. If not, they’ll just boil and become limp.) Fry the eggplant slices in batches. Set aside and drain on paper towels.
In a bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, half-and-half, most of the Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
In a large glass pyrex, spoon a bit of sauce at the bottom, place a shingled layer of fried eggplants, smear the ricotta mixture all over, spoon a bit more marinara sauce, place a second layer of fried eggplants, spoon the last of the marinara sauce and top it all off with the remaining Parmesan cheese. Finish off with the slices of fresh mozzarella cheese.
Place the pyrex in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, until the cheese on top is browned and sauce bubbly.
Let it rest for a little while because it can burn if you eat it right away. Serve warm.

Instead of marinara sauce, I made a marinated tomatoes sauce. Simple, mix together all these ingredients and let the flavors marry while the eggplants are frying – Crushed Tomatoes (try for them to be in a jar and not a can – you know, less additives), Olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh basil and minced fresh garlic.

I served this with spinach fetuchinni and sweet plantains. I will share these recipes in following posts. Oh, and with the roasted garlic breadsticks. But you can mix and match as you’d like.

Buon Appetito.

Tags: cheese, eggplant, gratin, parmesan

Comments 1 Comment
Categories main courses

Madelyn’s Spinach Crepes

11 Nov

Every Saturday, I take French classes at the Alliance Française in Condado. Every Saturday, I wake up with a craving for french crepes.

Didier, a french crepe chef visits the Alliance every morning and fixes us with THE BEST crepes I have tasted. I have indeed had crepes in Paris, but lets face it, it was 20 years ago, so I can’t really remember well.

Because I am such a fan of these crepes, I decided to create my own version. I usually have a Spinach crepe with cheese, walnuts drizzled with honey. This is my lunch every Saturday, however, Didier’s most popular recipes are the crepes filled with strawberries and Nutella drizzled with chocolate syrup and dusted with powdered sugar. Here’e a few pictures, please wipe your drool…

Here’s my humble attempt to replicating Didier’s recipe… I only include the recipe for the filling. I used store-bought crepes from the refrigerated section of the supermarket. But I will be trying a whole-wheat version of the crepe recipe and will include it shortly.

This is basically the mix of ingredients and flavors. Adjust the quantities according to the amount of crepes you’re doing. Something about my recipes, I go by eye and feel, and rarely remember exact quantities… hope it’s not too much of a hassle for you.

Spinach Crepes

leeks – sliced finely
Green bell peppers – diced
Frozen Spinach
a bit of half and half
a bit of Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup – you can omit this part if you’d like, but i thought it would help the mixture cream better
Chopped garlic
Season to taste with Salt, pepper
Sharp cheddar cheese slices or swiss cheese would work fine too
Chopped walnuts
Honey or agave nectar

For the Filling

Sautee the leeks or onions together with the bell pepper in olive oil until soft.
Add the garlic.
Add the frozen spinach right form the bag… no bother to defrost or to drain
When the mixture seems to be thoroughly cooked, add the half and half and the mushroom soup.
Season with salt and pepper and anything else you’d like filling is done

Putting it Together

Take the crepe and warm it up in a skillet, just like you would a tortilla.
Put a bit of the mixture in the center, place some cheese slices and walnuts.
fold edges inside, just like you would do to a burrito
flip the crepe on the other side so the folds are underneath… if you leave it in the original side, the crepe will soften and desintegrate leaving you with a hole and the mixture in the skillet. Flipping the crepe will help seal the folds. you can flip it again a bit to warm up both sides and to melt the cheese inside, but be careful not leaving it too long on the side with the filling more exposed.
move it on to a place and drizzle with a bit of honey or agave nectar. it tastes delicious. it’s a nice sweet coiunterpoint to the savory filling

Believe it or not, this is the recipe that got my fire started about writing a blog… a friend of mine, Kathleen writes a blog Kathleen’s Kitchen and she tried my recipe and liked it.

Hope you enjoy it too.