Cebollitas

Cebollitas (little onions) are a popular side dish at taco restaurants in Mexico (some taco stands also sell them) Usually they're just grilled green onions, but I make them differently:

Ingredients:

As many green onions as you want to make, short stem, and make sure you cut off the roots at the other end.
2 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
The juice of 1/2 a lime
A little cooking oil or cooking spray.

Heat up the oil in a skillet. In a cup, mix the soy sauce, Worcestershire and lime juice, stir well. Place the onions on the skillet and cook them until they begin to turn black on one side (see photo above), turn them and keep cooking  until the next side begins to turn black. You need to cook them this much so the inside will be soft.

Add the sauce mix to the skillet and keep cooking until about a third or half of it is consumed.

That's all there is to it. The mix above should be good for 10-12 onions. If you're making more, add more soy and Worcestershire and lime.

Mushroom Barley Soup

Third time's the charm, it seems.

 

The secret is to use sherry and a little flour.

Ingredients:

500 gr. mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup barley
1/4 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon fine herbs
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 teaspoons all purpose flour
2 liters water
3 chicken bullion cubes, low-fat, low-sodium
1/4 cup sherry
2 bay leaves
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

In a soup pot heat the olive oil, next add the mushrooms and saute for about three minutes. Add the barley (raw), garlic and onion, keep cooking until the mushroom begin to brown, or about 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir well. Keep cooking until the mushrooms are a nice golden brown, or around two minutes more. Reduce the heat to medium and add the sherry. Stir well and cook for about a minute. Reduce heat to low and add the water. Bring to a slow boil. When the water's hot, add the bay leaves and fine herbs. When it begins to bubble, add the bullion cubes.

Let the soup simmer until the barley's tender. Taste from time to time and add pepper and Worcestershire as needed.

Re: Cabbage Soup

As I was saying, I updated the recipe for cabbage soup. This version tastes more like cabbage with chicken broth than chicken broth with cabbage.

And I took a photo:

I used green cabbage rather than red, because the red tends to dye the other ingredients. Not to mention the broth turns purple. But you can use red cabbage if you like it better. 

1/3 of a head of green cabbage chopped or 1 small red cabbage
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup green bell pepper, diced
1.5 carrots (I cut it into sticks, but go any way you like)
About 1/4 of a medium sized jicama (in sticks, too, or see about the carrot)
3/4 cup soybean sprouts
2.25 liters of water
2 cubes chicken bullion low-fat, low-sodium
1 teaspoon olive oil 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
Ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon fine herbs
Worcestershire sauce

Preparation

Saute the garlic and onions with the olive oil in a soup pot until the onion turns translucent. Then add the bell pepper and mushrooms and cook for two minutes. Add the carrot and jicama and cook for another two minutes. Add the cabbage and soybean sprouts. Cook for about 10 minutes, don't let the veggies get too soft. While this is going on, add pepper to taste.

Lower the heat to medium and add the water. Add Worcestershire sauce, ginger and fine herbs. Stir.

When it warms up, add the chicken bullion cubes and stir until they dissolve (if possible, crumble them first). Reduce the heat to minimum and bring to a slow boil. When the soup begins to bubble let it simmer for 5 to 10 minutes and then remove from heat.

I do like the stronger cabbage flavor.

Bean Soup

Sorry for the delay. My day job this week was far harsher then usual for this season.

I love beans in almost every kind of way, but I love bean soup best of all. So here's my recipe:

300 grs. of beans (I used a local purple variety called "Flor de Mayo," 250 gr. worth, and 50 gr. of white beans)
1/2 liter of chicken broth
440 gr. tomato puree
1/3 onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon oregano
1/3 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon fine herbs
3 turkey sausages sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

First you cook the beans. You can use a pressure cooker. I considered it, but quite frankly I'm afraid of all tools that require high pressure (yes, this includes the espresso machine, but there's no other way to brew espresso) So first I soaked the beans for about 18 hours (at room temperature, covering the container with a paper towel), I poured about 1.5 liters of water in a pot, added a half teaspoon of olive oil, let the water boil, then added the beans and cooked them for about 2 hours on low fire. The beans aren't quite done, but they'll cook further when making the soup.

Next, cook the onions and garlic in a skillet along with 1 teaspoon olive oil. When they're done, add the sliced sausages and let them brown a bit. 

In the bean pot, add the chicken broth, tomato pure and spices, stir well and add the onions, garlic and sausage. Add a hefty dash of Worcestershire and Tabasco to taste. Bring to a slow boil, then let it simmer for about 40 minutes covered (be sure to use a pot lid with a hole or a valve on it).

You can skip the sausages if you want, or substitute some other kind of mean, such as bacon (any kind) or chicken. When serving, you can add more Worcestershire or Tabasco, or a little lime if you like.

Simple spaghetti recipe

I didn't feel like making anything complicated this weekend, so I got some spaghetti and Prego sauce. If that were all, I wouldn't post about it, but I tend to add some things to the store-bought red stuff.

Ingredients:

350 gr. Spaghetti cooked to taste
1 Jar Spaghetti sauce (about 650 gr. if memory serves)
1 Cup snow peas
1 Cup Soybean sprouts
1/3 Red onion, thinly sliced
1 Clove garlic, minced
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/3 teaspoon fine herbs
1 Tablespoon oregano, crushed
Ground black pepper to taste
2 Turkey sausages, diced
A dash of Worcestershire sauce

I've found it best to prepare the pasta and sauce at the same time, because cooked pasta left in a colander tends to get sticky. It also helps to spray the cooked pasta with cold water after draining it.

So, in a deep saucepan, and I mean deep, or a pot, heat the olive oil. Saute the onion and garlic until the onion begins to turn flexible. Next add the bell pepper and keep cooking for two minutes. Add the soybean sprouts and snow peas, and sprinkle the black pepper. Cook for a few minutes longer until the vegetables are cooked to your taste.

Next reduce heat to minimum and add the jar of sauce and stir. Add the fine herbs, oregano, Worcestershire and sausages next, stir again. Bring the whole thing to a slow boil, and add the cooked Spaghetti (if it's done then). Stir/toss the pasta to mix it well with the sauce and veggies.

The added vegetables make the sauce really thick, so it's easier to ad the pasta to it rather than the sauce to the pasta. Also, commercial Spaghetti sauce already has oregano, so taste it beforehand and see if you want to add more.

I have been looking for recipes for tomato sauce to make my own, but I haven't had much success there. One time I attempted my own recipe with tomato puree and spices. The result were ok, but no better than store-bought sauce, so why bother?

On the plus side, my inability to find good recipes led me to develop my own recipe for Green Bell Pepper Fettuccine, which led to the recipe for Fettuccine with Poblano Chile Sauce.

Cabbage soup

This is the first recipe I tried making on my own. I find it tasty and hearty, yet low in fat. It keeps for about a week in the fridge.

I used jícama in this recipe, but it isn't essential. If you can't find any, just skip it and add more carrot or other crunchy vegetable you like. Celery ought to work well.

Ingredients:

1/4 white cabbage shredded, or 1/2 re cabbage shredded

1 clove of garlic finely chopped or minced

5 small mushrooms chopped

1/2 onion chopped

1 carrot (I cut it into sticks, but go any way you like)

About 1/4 of a medium sized jícama (in sticks, too, or see about the carrot)

Chicken stock or broth (enough to cover the vegetables)

1 teaspoon olive oil (or more or less to taste; and you can use any kind of oil)

Ground black pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

A dash of Tabasco sauce or to taste

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a pot for a little while, then add the onion and garlic.Saute until the onions begin to turn translucent. Next add the rest of the vegetables and cook uncovered until they reach the level of softness you want, or until the mushrooms turn brown. Stir occasionally

Reduce heat to low and add the chicken broth or stock. Bring the soup to a slow boil, stirring occasionally. When it starts to boil, add the pepper, oregano, Worcestershire and Tabasco. Once it boils, let it simmer uncovered for about five minutes. Remove from heat, allow it to cool a bit and serve.