tres leches

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The man chefs made Mexican brunch today (nom nom nom), so this lady baker opted for a classic Mexican cake to bring for dessert. I’ve made tres leches a time or two before, but this was by far the fastest (most recipes call for a multi-hour soak!) & most successful. The cake was so spongy that it sopped up lots of liquid in a relatively short amount of time, and I know it’ll be even better tomorrow!

To recreate this sweet, make sure you have the following:

5 eggs, separated

1 c & 3 tbl sugar

1 c flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

vanilla

1/4 c whole milk

1 pint + 1/4 c heavy whipping cream

1 can condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

cinnamon

 

Preheat your oven to 350 & prep a large rectangular pan. Start by mixing your yolks & 3/4 cup of sugar until they’re pale yellow. While that’s mixing, mix your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the milk & as much vanilla as you want to the pale yellow mixture & then gently fold into your flour mixture. Next, take your egg whites & the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and mix those until the peaks are stiff. Be patient and wait for those peaks, then gently fold that into the mix. Pour into your prepped pan and bake for 30ish minutes or until you pass the toothpick test.

Let your cake cool & then poke holes in it with a fork. Combine 1/4 c heavy whipping cream, evaporated & condensed milks in a pitcher & pour it all over the cake watching it slowly sopp up all this sweet milky mixture. Let that cake relax and make your whipped cream topping. I made a simple whipped cream with 3 tbl. sugar, 1 pint heavy whipping cream, and vanilla & cinnamon to taste. Try to be as patient as possible to let the flavors absorb, but slice this baby whenever you please.

¡Buen provecho!

Red, White & Blue Nachos

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Don’t wait another four years to make these red, white & blue nachos!  While this patriotic platter is a strong candidate for any gastronomical election, it can also make an appearance at a Fourth of July celebration or your next All-American Sunday potluck.

You’ll Need: 

1 bag blue corn tortilla chips

2 cups Monterrey Jack cheese (I used slices because it’s all I could find, but you could use shredded)

1 cup Pico de Gallo (store-bought, or make your own with tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, lime juice & jalapeno)

1 cup sour cream

1 lime

1 jalapeno, diced very small

1 can black beans

1 bunch cilantro

 

This is all about the construction, people.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and lay aluminum foil over a baking sheet (no mess!).  Spread your blue corn chips over the sheet pan and layer monterrey jack cheese on top.  Then spoon a tablespoon of black beans over each chip.  Yes, I know black beans are not red, white, or blue.  But what they are is delicious and full of protein.  Top with a sprinkle of cilantro and pop these in the oven for 6-8 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling.

While the cheese is warming up, combine your sour cream, juice of half a lime and half of the diced jalapeno.  Start stirring until…bam!  You just made Kicked Up Sour Cream.

Once the nachos are out of the oven, squeeze the other half of the lime over the whole thing.  Then top with your pico de gallo, jalapenos, cilantro & Kicked Up Sour Cream.

peace, love & snacks,

hungry texans

Favorite Things: Dominican Republic Edition

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1. A chilly election night in DC calls for some Election Night Chili.  We gathered around CNN with hot bowls of meatless goodness to watch the results.  The results?  Chili for president, Nachos for VP.

2. Our bought-on-a-whim LivingSocial Escape to Punta Cana was the perfect weekend respite from plunging temperatures and a Sandy aftermath in the District.  It also quickly turned into a couples retreat.  #LightMyFire

3. Praise the Mostachioed Gods for Movember.

4. Essential reading materials for a Dominican beach.  Cook’s Illustrated definitely made it into the beach totes of these Tejanos.

5. Tastebud Highlights of the Week: Fresh Coconut, Pineapple & Bananas, Sancocho (look for a blog post soon!), and the illustrious Coco Loco- a perfect blend of white rum, creme de coco & nutmeg.

6. The views in Punta Cana are unrivaled- ok perhaps rivaled only by our fave entry in the DC High Heel Race this year: The View.  There was no lip syncing for their lives- these ladies were perfect!

Election Night Chili

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“Chili today, hot tamale” has long been one of my fam’s favorite phrases. While yesterday brought chilly temperatures and piping bowls of chili, today brought neither warmer temps nor hot tamales (stay tuned for these HungryTexans annual holiday tamales coming soon!). Today did bring reheated lunch and dinner chili and I dare say this funky spin on chili improved with age. Important to note, this is not this HungryTexan’s normal chili recipe — that I can whip up blind folded, but this was inspired by a real recipe (Cook’s Illustrated, of course) and required a wee bit more focus. It also requires a lot more time, so I might recommend you file this as a weekend recipe or a weeknight you’ll be glued to your TV (ahem…election night).

los ingredientes:

2 cans of black beans

2 cans of white beans

4 racquetball-sized onions

12 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup walnuts

2 ounces dried shiitake mushrooms

1 can diced tomatos (reserve that juice!)

3 tbl tomato paste

3 tbl soy sauce

2 jalapeños

1/4 cup chili powder

3 tbl oregano

cumin

veggie oil

1 cup barley

3 cups water

I recommend these three prep steps first:

  1. Combine mushrooms & walnuts in food processor until you’ve got a coarse walnut/mushroom meal
  2. Combine tomatoes (sans juice), tomato paste, soy sauce, coarsely chopped jalapeños, & garlic in your food processor
  3. Chop all your onions

With these steps under your belt, you’ll be ready to start simmering. Heat the oil (about a 1/4 inch high in your pot) and then dump in your onions, let those get soft and start browning, and be sure to salt them while they’re sizzlin’. Next, dump in your beans, add your chili powder, cumin, oregano. StirStirStir. Add your tomato mixture. StirStirStir. Pour in your walnut/mushroom mixture. StirStirStir. Add 1 cup barley & 3 cups water. Cover and let this bubbling pot ride the heat wave until your bulgar’s tender.

Serve piping hot and serve with your favorite dairy (I recommend that other HungryTexan’s sauced up sour cream!)

Pumpkin Bread

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Still crawling out of your Halloween candy coma? Believe it or not this HungryTexan resisted most of the tricks and treats this Halloween season (save a few handfuls of ceremonious candy corn), but I couldn’t resist nibble after nibble of this perfectly punk-in-y loaf. Baked at the height of the hurricane, this Fall treat warmed the home, hearts & tummies of our house-full of hurricane refugees. OneSockWonder described it as, “Fit for a pum-king!”

You’ll need:

Topping:

5 tbl brown sugar

1 tbl flour

1 tbl butter

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

Bread:

2 c flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 can pumpkin

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

a hearty swirl of vanilla

1 c sugar

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c canola oil

4 oz cream cheese

4 eggs

1/4 c buttermilk

Mix all your toppings together in a small bowl. For the BREAD, preheat to 350 and prep a loaf pan (or two). First, combine your pumpkin, spices, and vanilla and heat on the stove for 8ish minutes (stirring constantly!). Remove from heat and add both sugars, the cream cheese, and your oil. On the side, combine your eggs & buttermilk and then add that combo to your pumpkin mix. Finally, fold in your flour mixture (flour, soda, powder, salt). StirStirStirStirStir. Pour into your pans and bake 35ish minutes or until your loaves pass the toothpick test!

a saag story

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this one was a literal saaga, but well worth it in the end. Complications with the creation of this recipe include, but are not limited to:

  1. This is one stubborn HungryTexan, when she has her mind made up on what she wants to cook for dinner, she will go to great ends to make it happen. With my mind made up I braved Giant (gasp!), which I do everything I can to avoid on a normal Sunday, let alone Hurricane Sandy Sunday. While everyone else was stocking up on all their Frankenstorm supplies, this girl’s just trying to fetch ingredients for some Sunday Saag Paneer. After conservatively 35 minutes in line reading all of the Internet and exhausting all my coins in Scramble with Friends, I made it through checkout and all the way home just as it started to drizzle.
  2. Note: there was no buttermilk in all of the Giant.
  3. So you thought an absence of buttermilk was an inconvenience, yes, but did you know it would go on to be the “paneer” portion of this recipe’s kryptonite? Neither did I when I thought I could pull a clever few tablespoons of vinegar in cream substitution. May work in a pinch for pancakes, but paneer…no way. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to curdle my milk and my amateur-attempt at cheese mongering was for naught. I’ll try again, but that’s a story for another day and proper ingredients.

Once the stress from the shopping and mess from the mongering were behind me, I got started on the spinach and that, my friends was a relative breeze! For this HungryTexans-twist on a Cook’s Illustrated version you’ll need:

a bag of baby spinach

3 heaping handfuls of mixed greens (I used a mustard/turnip/kale mix)

3 tbl butter

onion (finely choped)

3 cloves of garlic

1 tbl fresh ginger (I used more!)

1 jalapeño

1 can diced tomatos

1/2 cup of peanuts

1 cup water

1 cup heavy cream with a tablespoon of vinegar

+ All of the spices! 

 

 

 

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cardamom

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Continue reading →

Gingered Parsnip & Carrot Soup

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As survivors of many a hurricane & tropical storm, these Texans weren’t terribly concerned about the Frankenstorm Sandy that threatened the East Coast.  But still, a girl’s gotta eat.  This is a recipe from my Boston Boy’s mama- she made it for Yom Kippur dinner last year and I would have seriously slurped up the whole pot if the rest of dinner hadn’t been so yummy (well, and because slurping up a whole pot of soup in front of your new boyfriend’s parents is pretty inappropriate.)

Full disclosure: I made this soup 2 days ago, also, for my house’s portion of an 11th street progressive dinner.  And then I made it again because it was so good.  It was the perfect amount for ~10 people at a dinner party or 2 people for lunch one day and breakfast the next morning when your eggs have somehow turned gross overnight.

you’ll need:

2 tbs olive oil, divided

1 lb carrots

1 lb parsnips

2 1/2 cups diced onion

1 tbs fresh ground ginger

4 cups stock (I used veggie stock the first time b/c my fellow HungryTexan is a veggietarian)

2 cups water

1/4 cup cream (omit if you’d like. BB’s mama doesn’t use this, but I couldn’t help myself)

1/2 cup thinly sliced parsnip to garnish

1 tbs chives to garnish

s&p, to taste

Start by dicing up your onion (I used red onion because that’s what i always had). Heat 1 tbs olive oil in a soup pot or dutch oven and let your onions simmer, covered, for about 5 minutes until soft.  While the onions are getting happy, peel and chop your carrots and parsnips into ~1 in slices.  Add your parsnips, carrots, ginger, stock, and water.  Bring this to a boil, then reduce to medium-low heat and cover.  Let this simmer for ~40 minutes until all of the veggies are tender.  Remove the pot from the heat for about 10 minutes.  Then blend using a food processor or your new adorable green emulsion blender.  I chose the latter 🙂  Season the soup with salt and pepper, to your taste.

And to top the soup, heat 1 tbs olive oil in a small saucepan and crisp up the thinly sliced parsnips until golden.  Finish with chives.

But wait!  You’re not quite finished yet.  I made some tasty gruyere croutons (which translated to a gruyere grilled cheese for our lunches).  Layer slices of Gruyere cheese between two thin slices of french bread or ciabatta and bake at 375 for ~15 minutes or until toasty.  Cut them into halves or into croutons.

Stay Dry!
xoxo,

The HungryTexans

itty bitty crabcakes

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A tale of two bays: the Chesapeake meets Galveston Bay in this Papa Lovett classic. I needed a simple, but substantive app for our house’s leg of the progressive dinner party this Saturday, so crab cakes were an easy answer. These ‘lil guys couldn’t be simpler and they’re oh, so scrumptious. The calories don’t count if they’re bite-sized, right?

All you’ll need is:

a container of crab meat (I used backfin, but if you want to #treatyoself spring for jumbo lump!)

juice of a lemon

Ritz crackers or their Whole Foods equivalent (tip — crumble them all in their sleeve, so you can pour in the crumbs!)

mayo

stick of melted butter (+ more for pan frying)

scallions

old bay + salt + pepper + some splash’s of tabasco

Mix everything together in one big bowl (that’s right — one big bowl #oneanddonedishes) in this order: crab meat + lemon juice + mayo + melted butter + scallions + seasoning (you should be tasting throughout!). I add the egg last (nothing scientific except the aforementioned tasting throughout and a desire to minimize my raw egg consumption). Then add your Ritz Cracker breadcrumbs. Take a tablespoon and start scooping mini-patties. Lay ’em on a cookie sheet and keep ’em in the fridge until you’re ready to pan fry ’em. Once it’s time to sizzle — melt a combo of butter & olive oil in your pan & cook these lil guys have a golden glow!

favorite things: singin’ in the rain edition

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1. A new green emulsion blender from LivingSocial Shop.  Perfect for soups & sauces.

2. Vietnamese Caramel Sauce– I could use this on everything forever.

3. It’s not even Halloween, but it’s already Christmas.

4. These parsnip chips are delectable little treats, perfect as toppers for a parsnip-carrot soup, or just to snack on.

5. Adam & Tessa’s homemade cinnamon rolls. A totally unexpected dessert to top off a marvelous progressive dinner on Saturday.

6. 3-day juice cleanse. Florida Ave Grill’s short stack. ’nuff said.

sesame ginger udon noodles with vietnamese caramel pork belly

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Hello!  or should I say, Konnichiwa… or wait- Chào bạn!  Okay, so I admittedly mixed cultures with this dinner.  But it’s delicious and I’m busy surviving a hurricane, people, so forgive me.  Now that the apologies are over, let me count the ways that I love these Japanese noodles and Vietnamese caramel sauce:

1. Pork belly is cheap.  I found three bellies for $3, enough for dinner for two.

2. You don’t have to cook it for days in order to get tender, flavorful results.  Sure, you could brine it, braise it, slow cook it, and eat it 36 hours later.  But this recipe proves that you don’t need to.  It takes less than an hour from start to finish.

3. In Vietnam, this caramel pork belly is called Thit Kho and it’s usually served with a soft boiled egg.  You could take the traditional route, or you could stack these delectable treats on a crusty French baguette a la Bahn Mi.  But for this easy dinner, the flavored udon noodles were just perfect.

you’ll need: (2 servings)

1 lb pork belly

2 tbs fish sauce

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

2 cloves finely chopped garlic

scallions

for the caramel:

5 tbs water

5 tbs sugar

for the noodles:

1 package udon noodles

3 tbs sesame oil

1 tbs toasted sesame seeds

1/2 tbs freshly grated ginger

In a large saucepan, heat 2 tbs of vegetable oil and saute the chopped onion and garlic.  While that’s getting soft, slice the pork belly into one inch bites (I half-froze the pork belly, which made this much easier).

When the onions and garlic are happy, throw in the pork belly.  Let it brown on each side over medium-high heat (should be about 10 minutes).

While the pork belly is browning, add the water and sugar to a small sauce pan.  Keep an eye on your caramel and stir it with a wooden spoon regularly over medium low heat.  When the sugar melts and the mixture turns from sugar-water to caramel, you want to be there for it.

Once your pork belly is browned, add the fish sauce and then the caramel sauce.  You’ll notice that the pork belly is already starting to look more like scrumptious pork and less like fatty belly.  Let the whole thing simmer for another 30 minutes.

Onto the noodles!  These are super easy and you can use whatever type of noodles you prefer.  I’m not a huge fan of vermacilli, so i try to choose a thick wheat or egg noodle when I’m shopping.  Cook the noodles per instructions on the box, then toss them with the sesame oil, sesame seeds and grated ginger.

Serve the pork belly over the noodles, top with scallions, and enjoy!

xoxo,

hungrytexans