Pumpkin Mole Enchiladas

After roasting and pureeing the large musquee de provence pumpkin I got from Mariquita months ago - I had 15 cups of pumpkin in my freezer!  Since I have been so happy with my red and green enchilada sauces, I decided to go for something more exotic - pumpkin mole sauce for enchiladas.  It came out STUPENDOUS! 

Here's the recipe - or process, rather - for the mole.

Ingredients:

• 1 very large yellow onion, chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 5 c pumpkin puree
• 1 c tomato sauce
• 3-4 c mushroom broth
• 2 chipotle peppers, softened in hot water
• 2 ancho chile peppers, softened in hot water
• 1 bar mexican chocolate
• 1/2 c toasted black sesame seeds
• 1 c toasted pumpkin seeds
• Herbs: 1-2 tsp sage, marjoram & epazote
• Spices: 2 tsp ground Mexican cinnamon, 1/2 - 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp ground allspice
• Cayenne chili flakes - to taste
• Salt - to taste

Directions:

1. Soften the onions & garlic in a large cast iron skillet or dutch oven in olive oil.
2. Add the pumpkin, tomato and coarsely chopped or broken up chocolate to the pan.
3. Stir to keep the sauce from sticking and add mushroom broth about 1 c at a time throughout the process - you want this sauce to pour nicely over your enchiladas and keep in mind that while it is in the oven, it will reduce so you want to make it a bit thinner.  
4. Carefully toast the sesame & pumpkin seeds - either in the oven on a small cast iron skillet, on the stove top or in toaster oven - the sesame seeds burn easily!  Grind half the pumpkin and sesame seeds and add to the sauce - reserve the other half for garnish.
5. Grind dried herbs & spices in the spice grinder and add to the sauce.
6. Chop up the chipotle & ancho chiles - add the water used to rehydrate them to the sauce, and add the chopped peppers to the sauce in batches and stir & taste.  Add more mushroom stock as needed.
7. Taste & adjust seasonings.  Let cool on the stove.
8. Puree in the blender - add more mushroom stock if necessary - taste and adjust seasonings.
9. Pour a small amount in bottom of casserole dish - use some sauce to soften tortillas (I nuke them in the microwave for 1 minute inside the plastic bag to soften), roll with your filling - then pour enchilada sauce all over the enchiladas.
10. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
11. Garnish with cashew cream (1 c cashews soaked for 20-30 minutes, put into blender, add liquid as necessary, brewers yeast, cilantro & lime to taste - puree til you get a cream consistency) and toasted nuts.

ENCHILADA FILLING:
Since the sauce is the main show, I like to keep the filling a bit simple firm tofu with some potatoes, chard, kale or other greens, some mushrooms, a little onion & garlic, maybe juice of a lemon, salt & pepper - cook til it is "dry" and let cool so you can roll it up into the tortillas and cover with your enchilada sauce.

Enchilada Casserole Deluxe

MAKING ENCHILADA SAUCE was probably one of the best things I did this year. I have been eating up the enchilada sauce at a much quicker rate than the marinara sauce, truth be told. This weekend, I am off in the Sierras at the cabin of friends of a friend - and the two of us are relaxing, skiing and cooking up a storm (well, at least I am). I helped my friend Eric at his cooking class at Millennium last weekend - and being that I hate to see anything go to waste, I ended up bringing home a pint of fantastic hominy, a pint of shredded parboiled brussels sprouts and a pint of pepper puree (not too spicy). I didn't quite know what I'd do with it til I realized I was feeling too lazy to make pappardelle for chanterelle stroganoff after a post-skiing first time session making chipotle caramels (which came out awesome, btw).

One of my favorite dishes is chilaquiles - which is basically diced tomatoes, with onions, garlic & green bell peppers, maybe a minced jalapeno - all simmered, made into a casserole with fried up strips of stale tortillas, covered with crema fresca and cheese. I've heard chilaquiles referred to as an "artery clogger" or "heart attack on a plate." In San Francisco, they are usually made with scrambled eggs... making a heart attack more eminent.

Being that I was feeling completely lazy after the skiing/caramels activities - I decided first to make enchiladas, and then decided to layer it - like lasagna. The result was essentially a roasted peppers based chilaquiles casserole - without the dietary cholesterol associated with the traditional recipe:

Step 1:
2 cups large white hominy
1/2 cup chile paste (dried chiles soaked in hot water & pureed)
1 cup water

Simmer hominy, chile paste & water til substantially reduced.

Step 2:
3 Tb olive oil
1/2 minced onion
2 cups shredded parboiled brussels sprouts (or some other green veggie - kale or mustard greens would work)

Sautee onions & brussels sprouts til onions are soft. Once hominy/chile mixture has cooked down, add to the pan. Add:

1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 Tb cumin
salt & pepper to taste
16 oz silken tofu (mash into pan or puree in blender first)
2-3 Tb tomato paste (optional)
1/3 c finely chopped cilantro (optional)

Cook this down til it reduces substantially.

Meanwhile - warm up your tortillas - you want to dry out a package of about 12 tortillas just a bit. Drizzle the bottom of the casserole dish with olive oil and then cover the bottom one layer of corn tortillas. You'll put down the filling and cover with the rest of the tortillas before putting the enchilada sauce on top.

Warm up 1 pint of Red Enchilada sauce - add about 1 Tb of powdered toasted chipotle pepper. Once the filling has reduced - spread it into the casserole pan, cover with a layer of tortillas, then spread all the enchilada sauce on top.

Bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove - spread the enchilada sauce smooth across the top with the back of a spoon or spatula, pour on 1 cup of cashew cream (or unsweetened Mimic Cream), sprinkle with toasted pumpkin seeds & crushed tortilla chips, Let sit for a few minutes to cool (it makes serving easier!) - use a nice sharp metal spatula to heft out a chunk of delicious casserole to your plate and enjoy!

Sweet Red Pepper & Persimmon Chutney

Chutney is one of my favorite things - on bread, on potatoes, on a nice vegan wheat gluten "field roast" - and it's a great way to use up a lot of persimmon!  Using the same winning spice combination as the Fig-Early Girl Tomato chutney recipe from 2 months ago, I whipped up a big pot (but not too big - lest I get myself into trouble as I did with the gigantic proportions of last year's persimmon chutney recipes!).  This time - I built the recipe to the pot, minding the proportions of my favorite chutneys, and happened to have on hand a pile of sweet red peppers from Mariquita's Mystery Box - so the combination fell into place.

Sweet Red Pepper & Persimmon Chutney

• 6.5# persimmon pulp - scooped from skins & coarsely chopped (you don't want it to be fibrous/stringy after it cooks)
• 3# finely chopped white or yellow onions
• 2# - 2.5# finely chopped sweet red peppers (stems, membrane & seeds removed)
  
• 2.5 oz garlic, fine chop
• 2.5 oz ginger - chop, put into blender with 1/2 c vinegar and add water as needed - blend til smooth and then press through metal strainer with a rubber spatula - reblend with a bit more water if you think you can get more pulp out (goal: no ginger "hairs" in chutney this year!)
• 2 c. apple cider vinegar
• 2 c. packed brown sugar
• 2 Tb chili flakes
• 2 Tb salt
• 1 tsp each: white pepper, coriander, fenugreek, black mustard - ground in spice grinder & added to pot

Simmer til onions & peppers are soft.  Pack in jars & process in hot water.  Eat what doesn't fit into jars with a spoon or on warm bread.  Yum.

YIELD:

• 4 - 12 oz jars sweet red pepper & persimmon chutney
  
• 16 - 8 oz jars sweet red pepper & persimmon chutney
• 9 - 4 oz jars sweet red pepper & persimmon chutney

Red Enchilada Sauce

Friday night found me putting together red enchilada sauce - after reviewing a ton of recipes, I decided a course for my own version which turned out quite well.  It isn't as much a rockstar as the Green Enchilada Sauce, but quite good.  I've noticed this happens in my food experiments - the Fig-Early Girl Tomato chutney had a combination of spices & fruit that worked so amazingly well together that it nearly made me want to chuck all the other chutneys I have made.

Faithful readers - for your review - here is the recipe.  If you have suggestions for tweaks that might send this over the top - please chime in!

Red Enchilada Sauce

• 8 c roasted/seeded/peeled red Anaheim chiles
• 6-7 c veggie broth
• 2 c water (add'l as needed)
• 1/2 lb tomatillos, husked & halved
• 1.5 lb white or yellow onions, peeled & quartered
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1/2 bunch parsley
• 3 Tb dried epazote

Simmer all ingredients except peppers til soft.  Mix in peppers & puree in blender in batches.

Measure spices:

• 1 Tb cumin seed
• 1 Tb coriander
• 1 t white pepper
• 1-2 dried chipotle peppers, snipped into 1/4" bits
• 1 6-8" stick Mexican cinnamon (soft cinnamon - aka "Ceylon cinnamon") - broken into 1/2" pieces
• 1 star anise
  
• 1/2 c white sesame seeds

Toast  all spices except sesame seeds together - place in spice grinder.  Toast sesame seeds & place in spice grinder.

Toast & grind:

• 2 c whole raw almonds

Add toasted & ground spices & nuts to puree, mix and reblend everything.  Next -

• 3-4 c yellow cherry tomatoes
• 2 Tb salt
• 1-1.5 c cocoa powder
  

Add remaining 3 ingredients to puree & reblend in batches to ensure thorough mixing.

Prepare your enchiladas with fillings of your choice or ladle into sterilized jars for canning.

YIELD:

• 1 large pan of 12 enchiladas
  
• 10 - 16 oz jars of red enchilada sauce
  

Green Enchiladas

The first time I made green enchilada sauce, it was with a recipe from "The Vegetarian Table: Mexico" by Victoria Wise.  I always found that it didn't make quite enough sauce for my tastes and frequently used more tomatillos than she recommended.  After a recent review of recipes for green enchilada sauce across the internet, I have come to the conclusion that the recipe is fairly basic and should bear the personal touch of the person preparing it.

I defrosted the roasted green Anaheim chiles from a few weeks ago - that yielded about 5 c of roasted, peeled peppers.  After shelling out some bucks for tomatillos and onions at Rainbow Grocery, I was ready to go!  You can modify the amount of ingredients to taste, and remember - it's easier to add than to take away ingredients.

Green Enchilada Sauce

• 5 cups roasted & peeled green Anaheim or Poblano chiles 
• 2 cups vegetable broth
  
• 3 small-med white or yellow onions (mine were just smaller than tennis ball size), peeled and quartered
  
• 1 - 2 lbs husked tomatillos, halved or quartered
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, peeled
  
• 1 c raw pumpkin seeds
• 1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes
• 1 bunch of cilantro, stems trimmed off
  
• fresh parsley, stems trimmed off
  
• fresh leafy greens - Romaine, white mustard, arugula (careful with strong flavors like spinach)
  
• sea salt
• 1 Tb coriander seed
• 1 Tb cumin seed
  

Instructions:

1. Pour 2 cups vegetable broth into a sauce pot, add garlic, onions & tomatillos, add water to cover and bring to a boil.  Let simmer til onions are transluscent and tomatillos are soft.
2. Heat up a dry cast iron skillet, spread the pumpkin seeds in a single layer and heat til they start to pop.  Turn down the heat if necessary to prevent burning.  Use a wooden spoon to keep the seeds moving as needed and pop/toast as many as you can.  Put into a separate dish.
3. Put cumin and coriander seed into the hot pan - warm and slightly toast but don't burn - then put spices into coffee or spice grinder and pulverize, set aside.
   
4. Check your veggies - add half of the cleaned cilantro to the water to soften, and turn down the heat if your veggies are soft.
5. Mix in the roasted peppers with the veggies in the pot.  
6. Reserve 1/8 c toasted pumpkin seeds and put rest of toasted pumpkin seeds into food processor or blender, add water from veggies to get it moving when necessary, until all seeds are ground.
7. Continue adding veggies & cooking broth til all is processed and smooth. Add yellow cherry tomatoes and leafy greens -- I used white mustard because it was in my garden, you might try romaine (it's got Vitamin C!).  
8. Add about half of the ground cumin & coriander.
   
9. Taste - adjust cumin, coriander, salt and cilantro as needed.
10. Return to pot and heat on medium, stirring.  Cook down if necessary, or add more water/broth if necessary.  Taste and adjust as needed. 
11. Make a batch of enchiladas and freeze or can the rest of your sauce!

YIELD:

• 1 medium size pan of enchiladas
  
• 4 - 16 oz jars
  

Green Enchiladas
Enchiladas are one of my favorite things to make because they are so easy and you can put whatever you want into them.

Ingredients:

• 1 package corn tortillas
  
• 1/2 yellow onion, minced
• 1/2 package Westsoy seasoned seitan strips, julienned
• 1 c yellow cherry tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 c chopped cilantro leaves

Instructions:

1. Sautee onions and garlic with oil or broth til translucent.
2. Add cherry tomatoes and cook til they start to split.
3. Add seitan and cilantro.
4. Stir and add broth or water to deglaze when it starts to stick to the pan.
5. Warm up the tortillas in the microwave for 20 seconds, or steam them - you want them to be soft but not cooked so that they don't crack when you roll them up.
6. Lay tortillas in the sauce - get both sides wet with the sauce, then lay the tortilla over your casserole dish. Put down a line of fillings along edge and roll up the tortilla, put it in the casserole pan.  
7. Once your pan is full of tortillas drenched in sauce and filled with seitan, cover with a little more enchilada sauce and bake for 15-20 minutes while you set the table or make your guacamole.
8. Sprinkle with toasted pumpkin seeds and serve!
   

Chipotle - FAIL!

This evening, before dark, I got a really good fire going. Scott helped me clean the quince, and we sat outside for a couple hours, had some awesome cucumber-cherry tomato-avocado salad with a pistachio butter-blood orange vinegar dressing, and chatted while grilling seitan sausages & corn, enjoying the Unti 2005 Dry Creek Zinfandel, nearly full moon and sounds of four different aircraft and the freeway from my North Oakland neighborhood.

Finally, the fire died down and it was time to put on the mesquite chips in the heavy aluminu foil pan I made for Sunday's test run. Scott thought the fire would die down too quickly so bade me add more small bits of wood - some oak bark the size of my wrist - around the sides of the pan. I put the 5# of red jalapeno peppers above the soaked mesquite and put the aluminum foil covered spar arrestor back on. It was smoky.

Soon enough - I saw weird lights - I knew what it was - a few weeks ago at my friend Freeze's house in West O, we were visited by firefighters looking for a housefire. I went back into the yard and stepped up on the fence to see my new neighbor Pete showing his cold grill to a firefighter. I told him "I'm smoking peppers back here on my BBQ, do you want to come see?" - he said no and left. Then, less than 10 minutes later, I saw more weird flashing light from the front of my house - I went out and saw another fire truck - they wanted to see my grill. One of the first things they did was hand me half an 8.5x11" sheet of paper with a phone number of the fire dispatch - next time I have a BBQ, they said, just call and give my address.

The three firefighters followed me to my back yard - I showed them my fire pit and they said, "That's fine - fires in that kind of contained setting are good." I lifted the lid to show them my red jalapenos that were supposed to be smoking - and the flames jumped up and the flashlights showed charred peppers.

"Oh," said one firefighter, "That's a do-over."

Gee. Thanks, dude. Scott took responsibility for it - he said to add more wood and the fire went way too high. I salvaged 1 cup of roasted pepper for 5# of peppers. *sigh* That's expensive. Time to check with Julia at Mariquita to find out if I can get more red jalapenos in a couple weeks when I get back from my big off road motorcycle adventure.

Dilly Beans (Again) & Peppers

Since I have such poor impulse control, I responded affirmatively to the call for orders for peppers from Mariquita, and had to pick up 25# of peppers on Friday after work. Saturday was dedicated to quince (and I still have 10# of quince!). After various motorcycle & household chores, Sunday night saw me roasting peppers on the fire pit in the back yard in the company of three friends - in the dark. Less than ideal as it was late and I ended up not seeing what I was doing quite as well. I was up well past midnight peeling and seeding peppers with Scott's company & Season 1 of Mad Men.

My purchase consisted of:

• 10# mixed sweet peppers (mostly yellow & orange, a few red)
• 10# Anaheims (equal mix of red & green)
• 5# red jalapenos

I managed to smoke about 9 jalapenos as a test (for making chipotle peppers) - seemed to work out alright. I added the rest of the peppers and went to bed, but so did the fire! It went out overnight and the 2nd larger batch of peppers didn't even roast! The 9 test peppers are in the dehydrator, drying out the rest of the way.

The Anaheims are destined for red and green enchilada sauce, while the sweet peppers are to be canned plain for use in recipes over the winter.

I also picked up 3# of string beans and some habaneros to make even more spicy dilly beans... so, tonight, I managed to actually finish the dilly beans and put the roasted sweet peppers into jars! I also had two japanese cucumbers in the garden so in jars they went as dilly spears (with some slices of red jalapeno and yellow sweet pepper).

That leaves only freezing the roasted Anaheims to make sauce later, smoking the rest of the red jalapenos, and making a quick batch of quince jelly with the half gallon jar in the fridge before I can actually start packing for my trip! I do wonder sometimes why I do this to myself! It's a good thing I am off on Friday and the Lost Coast Dual Sport ride is on Saturday!

YIELD:
5 - 16 oz jars spicy HOT dilly beans
2 - 16 oz cucumber dill spears
1 - 16 oz pickled yellow sweet pepper
1 - 16 oz roasted yellow pepper
4 - 12 oz roasted sweet yellow-red peppers
2 - 8 oz roasted sweet yellow-red peppers

Tomatoes, Figs & Peppers, oh my!

Perhaps I overcompensated but... the tomatoes were so friendly at Mariquita's U-Pick day, and their skins so warm and compelling to my touch... I ended up bringing home 67# of San Marzanos, and 60# of mixed heirlooms, Early Girl, Beefsteak and Green Zebra tomatoes. Along with 2# of pimientos de padron (including a big bag that Julia warned were "too hot" to sell because most of her customers fail to appreciate the charm of super spicy pimientos de padron), several pounds of red and yellow bell peppers, 20 (more) bunches of basil (because I just can't get enough pesto!),

I still have to put up the figs and am looking over fig chutney recipes to occupy my afternoon while the tomatoes cook down... some ideas are fig & tomato chutney, fig chutney with Meyer lemon zest & (canned) pineapple, fig & red pepper chutney, and fig & persimmon chutney. I'm also going to try my hand at tomato jelly this week, as well as defrosting the apricots to make up some apricot chutney.