Sunday, July 29, 2012

Enchiladas so good - makes hubby postpone the abandonment of his home, wife, kids and family jewels…


So I decided to make enchiladas today. The norm at my home is the cheese filled ones. But the filling can be whatever you want. Perhaps worms & eyeballs! Just a suggestion

As I made my last few enchiladas my phone rang. The person ringing was my husband and our conversation is as follows:

Me: Hello!

Vic: Hello, what you doing?

Me: Oh you know cooking up a storm, you?

Vic: oh nothing (he said it sarcastically, he is at work)

Me: are you almost coming home?

Vic: No I’m calling to tell you that I’m not coming home anymore! (More sarcasm)

Me: Well that’s too bad I’m making enchiladas. Guess I will have to eat them all. (my turn)

Vic: Mmmm….well I guess I will come home one more time

So enchiladas have officially saved my marriage! The secret to saving many marriages:

For the sauce:

8-10 Chile Guajillo

4-6 Chile de Arbol-To make sauce spicier use more of these. The small chiles.

1 bay leaf

2 whole cloves

1 dash of black pepper, oregano and like a mini dash (perhaps even less than that) of cinnamon (Grandma Isidra’s secret)

¾ tbsp of salt

2 tbsp of flour

The chiles are the following:





First take stem off chiles and remove seeds. Rinse chiles and then put in stainless steel bowl and add water till it covers the chiles and bring water to a boil. Cook for about 20 minutes. Warning: wash hands real good after handling chiles. Or don’t listen to me and rub your eyes, pick your noise, and handle your baby. 

Now will be a good time to heat your comal or griddle if you lack a comal(above). Sorry my lighting sucks.

After chiles are tender put in blender along with the water cooked in. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend. After chiles and other ingredients are well blended pour mixture over a food strainer basket into a deep pan. The pan should at least be large enough to fit a tortilla in. Put pan over heat at low temperature to heat sauce. Taste to ensure no more salt is needed. More salt can be added if so desired. 


Okay let sauce cook. In a different pan put about ¾ cup of oil over heat too. You will use this to fry your tortilla. The comal is used to heat the tortilla too but this method is used to make the tortilla soft and pliable before inserting in oil.

So whiles we wait for the sauce and oil to heat up….Its cheese time or filling time if you are not using cheese. I use two kinds of cheese. I use a crumbly kind Queso Fresco(left) and a melting kind Queso Quesadilla(right).


 If you don’t want to use these kinds of cheeses I bet mozzarella or coby jack will work. I have to crumble the Queso Fresco and I purchased the shredded kind for the other. Mix the cheese.


Now to your enchilada station: Again lighting sucks....


Sauce and oil are almost hot!!!

So put tortilla ( I use tortillas blancas meaning white corn tortillas) on comal to heat up slightly. Next put tortilla in oil and flip the tortilla to cook other side. Tortilla may bubble a little. Just lift using your fingers NO NOT your fingers use tongs and let excess oil drain.


Then insert tortilla into sauce and cover tortilla in sauce. Lift tortilla and place on plate and put filling and roll.


Oh my gosh this is exhausting…. But worth it! Repeat the above tortillas steps. I transform a few tortillas into enchiladas as I go to monitor my filling usage. I make enchiladas until I run out of filling or sauce.

And…..drum roll please!



I made 16 enchiladas with this recipe and had some left over sauce that I can use to marinate some pork or beef at a later time. ENJOY!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Worms & Eyeballs


Warning! If you are easily grossed out by the thought of devouring worms in a bloody eyeball sauce then don’t read the following.

Who does not enjoy a plate full of worms with a dollop of bloody eyeballs? It’s one of my zombies favorite dishes. The recipe is as follows:



Sauce/Blood

2 28oz cans of crushed tomato

2 garlic cloves-finely chopped

5 fresh basil leaves-finely chopped

½ tsp sugar

1 tbsp olive



In a dutch oven (or any deep pan) heat olive oil and add garlic and chopped basil.



If you are not sure how to finely chop the garlic here is a fine how to video:






Take a moment and close your eyes. Enjoy the aroma! Mmmmmm garlic and basil!

I’m in Sicily, Italy. Taking a stroll accompanied by my bodyguards and come across this beauty in a purple dress with ribbons in her hair. I’m rendered speechless. Suddenly I see a small part of my life unfolding before my eyes in just 2 minutes and 54 seconds. It plays out like the following:







Alright back to cooking! So hopefully if the garlic is not fudged up by the distraction of taking my mind to Italy, you can now add the cans of tomatoes and sugar. Let simmer!



Meatballs/Eyeballs

1 pound of ground chuck. Sometime I like to mix meats but settled for grd. chuck.

2 eggs

1 garlic clove minced

1 tsp salt (rough estimate I eyeball all the seasoning)

¼ finely chopped onion-small onion (sometimes I use minced onion)

1 tablespoon of dried basil

¼ cup of breadcrumbs



Mix the above ingredients and form into one inch balls….eyeball size if you will.







Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Once done toss into sauce and continue to simmer. Top your favorite spaghetti pasta or worms with this delectable bloody eyeballs sauce. For the pasta I used “Garden Delight Enriched carrot, tomato & spinach pasta blend”. Delicious!



Once meal is done beware of the zombies that it attracts.






Bon Appétit!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

and so it begins


So where to begin I love food! I love to cook and eat food! I guess you can say I am a foodie. I am married to a cook and surely drive him crazy with my constant food network watching. So I decided to try this blog thing out with my obsessions about food, chocolate, Mark Wahlberg /Zooey Deschanel and whatever else my tummy or heart desires.

My BFF Guera has recently said the following about my cooking “the best cook throughout high school!” We have been friends for about two decades and some change now. Back then I specialized in lasagna, flautas and desserts(FLASHBACK ALERT:I recall my math teacher in elementary school Mr. Pellini said the way to remember how to spell desserts correctly and not incorrectly “deserts” is to think what you want more of so there should be more “S’s”. So according to that I personally spell it like desssssssssserts! Mmmm chocolate) I have that freak characteristic that remembers lots of crap. So anyway I use to cook back in the day things I enjoyed to eat but that mom didn’t cook enough or at all of.

Strange I could throw down on my specialties but failed at Jell-O shots. HA!

Since those awkward teenage years of cooking I have now expanded my menu of specialties and plan to share my recipes. So stay tuned….If you have had the pleasure of trying my cooking then I am sure you will stay tuned. Hahaha!  (Evil laugh)