Spicy Black Beans and Ham

Ham bones are a traditional flavoring for beans, and I remember my mother making pinto or navy beans cooked with ham and onions and served with cornbread. It was simple, homey food that warmed the belly and was easy on the budget. We use ham bones in soups and beans, and save the large ham bones when we cook ham for Sunday dinner, I just store them in the freezer.

I like black beans with ham and spice them up with Mexican flavors. We enjoy these beans as a main dish with jalapeno cheddar cornbread or rice or as a side dish for Mexican foods.

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Grilled Fish Tacos with Mango-Avocado Salsa

I wish I could come home after picking up the kids from school and have time to cook a nice meal. I long for a calm, zen-like cooking experience each day, but instead I find myself chasing after my sons who prefer to run amok, trying to keep them from raiding the refrigerator and the pantry even though I fed them a snack as soon as we got home. We had to put locks on to keep the Three Amigos from eating us out of house and home. Yesterday’s meal was supposed to happen on Monday, but the events of the day and the constant distractions left me disorganized and frustrated at dinner time and I pulled out some leftover pasta sauce and boiled some spaghetti. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, and in fact spaghetti with tomato sauce and/or meatballs is Michael’s favorite meal, but I had a grilling recipe up my sleeve for Cinco de Mayo which I had to grudgingly postpone.

I thought I could start some of the prep for dinner on Tuesday morning, but Monday night we remembered Top Gun, our three-year-old, had a project due for school the next day and I needed to finish some prep work on that before we could do it in the morning. So Tuesday morning was spent cutting photos and pasting them memory-book style onto a piece of paper describing his favorite things, and then we wrote our story about Spike’s visit (Spike is the class mascot, a stuffed kangaroo) and pasted more pictures onto that story. Read more

Tequila Lime Chicken Fajitas and the Great Chicken Marinade Controversy

The big Asian grocery store not far from my house had a great lime sale—20 limes for $1.00—so I came home with a bag of 20 limes and plans to make several lime dishes. This weekend we grilled some of this tequila lime chicken, which has become a favorite for us.

How long should you marinade chicken in a citrus-based liquid? Overnight or no more than a couple hours? For years I’ve heard you should not marinade your chicken in citrus liquids for more than an hour because it starts to “cook” the chicken, meaning that the outside layers of the chicken meat start to take on a white, cooked-like appearance. So of course when I saw recipes which called for marinating your chicken overnight in lime juice and other ingredients, I was skeptical and thought for sure that the chicken would be ruined. Read more

Mango-Lime Ice (Nieve de Mango con Limon)

I’ve never been to Mexico. There, I’ve said it. I’ve traveled in 24 countries on 5 continents, but Mexico is not one of them. I haven’t been to Canada, either, but that’s a different post.

For never having been to the country, I really enjoy the food. My favorite Mexican treat is paletas and for a few years I experimented with different recipes (before the blog) and our freezer was full of paletas in the summertime. So with the Cinco de Mayo celebration last weekend, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do paletas, but I’m not sure where my equipment is—it’s been MIA since the move—so I made a simple ice dessert this time.

The combination of mango and lime really works well, a nice balance of tart and sweet; very refreshing after a spicy meal or a hot afternoon outdoors. My boys love mango and they were constantly on me while making this. My two-year-old has such a cute way of opening his eyes wide and asking, “Mommy, taste? Please?” Read more

Michael’s Vegetarian Chili

Michael saw a recipe in the Washington Post about twenty years ago that inspired him to make this. It’s a very healthy, low-fat, vegetarian chili. He likes it chunky, and true chili mongers might even call this a soup done up tex-mex style.

When Michael makes it for himself, he uses lots of hot peppers. In fact, he likes to sweat when he’s eating chili. After we started dating, he asked me if I liked spicy foods and I said yes. Of course I did not realize that our ideas of spicy were nowhere close to each other. I like lots of flavor, he likes heat. So the first time he made this chili for me, he turned up the heat. Read more

Layered Bean Dip and a Tribute to Fundraiser Cookbooks

I have a relatively small collection of fundraiser cookbooks. One is from my grandmother’s church, two are from hospital auxiliary groups, two are from elementary schools, two are from overseas women’s groups, and one is from a law firm that donated the proceeds to charity. I would really like to have more fundraiser cookbooks, because these books are treasure troves of all the great regular kinds of foods that people eat. The recipes are contributed by moms and grandmothers—veterans of the kitchen who know what it’s like to try and put a meal together while juggling kids, job, and everything else. So when I go hunting for a recipe, I almost always start with these because there’s a good chance that I’ll find what I’m looking for, or at least something very similar.

Today’s recipe is a good variation on the layered bean dip. It’s called “Walking Tostada” and it’s from the ClearGourmet fundaiser cookbook, submitted by Lana Crist and Elsbeth Simon. This dip is great for parties, poker or Bunco night, or just whenever the mood strikes. Read more

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