Food Lush

'Kay, So...Let's Talk Cheese

Editor's note: For our last week at Food Lush, I've asked the writers to share both a favorite post by another writer, from over the last two years, and a favorite post of their own. You'll see these posts linked to at the top of their new post for the week. Enjoy a stroll down Lush memory lane!

By Erica H.

(Post from the archives that I most wish I had written myself: Tara C.'s funny and informative write-up of Soul Cakes. Post from the archives that I am most pleased to have written: Granny's Lemon Pound Cake.)

***

As you know by now, this is a series wrap for me here at Food Lush, which has engendered a certain sense of urgency that I impart the absolute most crucial food-related information to you while I have the chance. Down to the hungry depths of my soul have I searched! And what did I discover there (underneath the layers of garlic and yea, even eggs) but a vast pool of spicy liquid cheese: my molten core of queso.

 

In the interest of making sure that you all can fend for yourselves in my absence, I now present a very important recipe round-up.

Quick and dirty queso for when you only have ten minutes: the classic RoTel/Velveeta combo.

Oh, you have fifteen minutes? Q&D version, slightly enhanced.

Killer, real-deal queso for when you are feeling fancy enough to make a bechamel sauce.

Or just come visit me in Austin, where you can't throw a stick without it ending up in a bowl of the stuff. Seriously, come see me. I already miss you.

Verde Chicken Stew

by Tara

Again with the soup, Tara? Yes. It is soup season! (Perhaps a lot of us need to send a memo to our local weather, because I hear my area isn’t the only one with 70-degree December temps?)

Ingredients:
-1 tbsp olive oil
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 can (15-oz) white hominy
-1 can (10-oz) green enchilada sauce
-1 cup water or chicken broth
-1/2 cup + 2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro*
-2 cups (about 1 lb) diced, cooked chicken
-1 cup uncooked rice**
-3 green onions, sliced
-shredded cheese***

Directions:
-Add oil and garlic to a large pot (at least 4 quarts) and cook over medium heat until garlic is fragrant, about 45 seconds.
-Drain hominy and add to pot, along with broth/water enchilada sauce, and 1/2 cup cilantro. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and let simmer for 8-10 minutes.
-Meanwhile, cook rice in a large pot or rice cooker, as instructed on package.
-Add chicken to stew and let simmer ~20 minutes.
-Stir in cooked rice and remove from heat.
-Serve topped with green onions, reserved cilantro, and cheese.

Mmmmm. Ignore my thumb. A photographer I am not.

*If you’re one of those people that hates cilantro, you can remove this. Just add something that has a flavor you like: Mexican oregano, an onion, more green onions, etc., if you remove this.
**I used brown rice, but it doesn’t really matter. Just remember that brown rice takes longer to cook!
***I used a combination of Colby Jack and Pepper Jack cheeses.

Traditional Welcome Home Dinner

By Jessica

I just came home from almost a full week away, having left for Arizona on Monday, landing back in Houston on Thursday and getting right back on a plane headed for New Orleans (for The Blathering) that same night. I finally arrived back home yesterday. Whenever I'm away from home for any decent length of time, I have a tradition wrapped around what I eat for dinner upon my return. I always, always go to Chuy's. 

More than once, pretty much this exact picture has shown up in my Instagram the night that I come home from a trip about 10 chips or so in (I am human, there is no way I could wait to dip long enough to take a pic first) and I don't even have to be asked where I want to go anymore. 

It's like having that basket of warm chips and creamy jalapeno dip solidifies me being home almost as much as the first time I snuggle my dogs or my head hits my own pillow. 

Do you have a traditional welcome home dinner?

Chicken Tortilla Casserole

by Elsha

I usually try to cook healthy, well-balanced meals, but sometimes the day just calls for a yummy, comforting, not-at-all healthy casserole. Chicken tortilla casserole is one of our favorites:

1 can evaporated milk

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

1 can chicken

1 small can chopped green chilies

1 medium onion, finely chopped

10 corn tortillas

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients except the tortillas and cheese, and bring to a low boil. Tear the tortillas into small pieces. Layer tortillas, soup mixture, and cheese in a greased 9X13 pan. (2 layers of each.) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. We serve it with chips and homemade guacamole and really, what else do you need?

(photo credit: www.livebetteramerica.com)

Do you have a favorite comfort-food casserole?

Taco Pasta Bake

By Ariel

Pinterest to the rescue again! This meal makes me a true believer that anything + carbs = amazing.

We do tacos approximately twice a month around here. It's easy and who doesn't love tacos? While on Pinterest I found this pin and knew it would be a hit. I wasn't wrong AND it makes for a great lunch for work the next day. 

I did make a few changes to the original recipe. I used ground turkey and rather than a taco seasoning packet I used Elisabeth's taco seasoning recipe from right here on Food Lush. I probably come back for that specific seasoning mix more than any other recipe out there on the internet. If you have not tried it, check it out! If you don't have all the spices, you're still going to save money (and sodium!) in the long run, I promise!

I also used reduced fat cream cheese and reduced fat mexican blend (Kraft, I believe). 

A couple things I discovered:

Drain the pasta once cooked, but don't rinse it. For the ground turkey/beef do not drain the juice. If your meat is on the dry side add a quarter to half a cup of water because the casserole is great fresh out the oven but will dry for lunch the next day.

This was a great comfort food, thanks to the pasta, and the recipe could easily feed a family of four with room to spare (so I'll be cutting it in half next time!). I'm just not sure if it can be made vegetarian-friendly, which would be nice in my quest to cut more meat from our diet.

Any suggestions from the vegitarians out there? Bonus points if I can make my husband believe it still has meat in it!

Guacamole

by Elsha

When I was a kid, I didn't like avocado, in any form. Fortunately, I came to my senses at some point and realized how delicious avocados are. Now I add avocado to everything to make up for lost time, and I'll use any excuse to eat some fresh guacamole. Here's how I make it:

2 large avocados
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tomato, diced
1 tbsp diced jalapenos
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp garlic salt

Mash your avocados, stir everything else in, and voila! Fresh guacamole.

Someday I'll learn to take pretty pictures of my food. Pictures that don't include my husband's hand.

How do you make your guacamole?

The best tortillas: shop around (within your supermarket!)

by Katie

Today, I would like to talk about the mysterious way normal supermarkets handle tortillas. You would think that all the tortillas a supermarket had to offer would be found in one place. In my experience, you would be dead wrong.

(Picture from: quichelorraineblog.blogspot.com)

In our local grocery store, tortillas can be found in (at least) three different places: some in the bread aisle, others in the refrigerated case near the cheese and pre-made cookie dough, and still others in the "latino foods" aisle.

It should come as no surprise that the best (and cheapest) tortillas, BY A MILE, come from the "latino foods" aisle. That's where, you see, you are most likely to find local tortillas delivered fresh daily by a local place - in my case, the very good El Milagro tortilleria.

Fresh tortillas are just the best- they may not hold up for a week's worth of wraps like the Mission ones, but I don't care. A pack of corn tortillas (do not even talk to me about flour tortillas. For tacos? Gross.) cost 39 cents, so if you don't finish the packet you've hardly broken the bank. You can also cut any extra ones into wedges, spray with a little cooking spray, and bake on a cookie sheet for some homemade chips.

And speaking of chips: the same "shop around the grocery store" advice holds true for chips. Our store also has three places to find tortilla chips: the chip and snack aisle (Tostitos for $3.69 or so) the "natural foods" aisle (blue corn tortilla chips, that sort of thing, for $3.50-$4 a bag) and the trusty latino foods aisle (huge bag of fresh amazing El Milagro tortilla chips for $2.69).

The lesson? While Tostitos and Mission may be the more familiar brands, it's worth it to hunt around a bit and see if there's a local supplier providing fresh tortillas and chips to your store. They'll likely taste better AND be cheaper. Win-win.

Allergy Diet Win: Quinoa Flour Tortillas!

by Caitlin

A quick search on Food Lush reveals that we love our quinoa around here. Despite this, it seems there hasn't been much experimentation with quinoa flour in the ranks. Until now! I'm here to help, friends. I'm wearing a cape with a giant Q on it and everything. I mentioned last week that I'm doing an Allergy Elimination Diet (for many reasons, that feels like it should be in all caps). It's forced some culinary adventure in my house, so my temporary inability to eat most foods is your gain!

Last week the Pumpkin Quinoa Pancakes were a hit, and this week there was further experimentation with quinoa flour tortillas.

Photo from carascravings.com

Specifically, this recipe from Cara's Cravings.

I can't have wheat right now and these were a treat. My husband whipped up some regular flour tortillas as well, and while I drooled over them, I ended up being very, very happy with these instead. I expected them to have the cardboard taste and texture that so often comes with whole grain substitutes for perfectly good white flour products, but that wasn't the case. They came out nicely shaped, didn't break or crack, weren't dry, and had a great nutty texture that not only went well with the filling (pork carnitas, cilantro, fresh lime juice, and shredded cabbage dressed with olive oil & lemon juice), but actually made the dish something new altogether - in a good way. They do have a bit of that distinctive, hard-to-place quinoa taste, but it quickly faded against all the other bright flavors.

There's no fat or oil in the recipe, just quinoa flour, water, salt, and psyllium husks. My very loose understanding is that the psyllium husk (which is the main ingredient in Metamucil!) keeps the dough from getting too tough, keeps it tender. My husband found a big canister of plain psyllium husks in the supplements/vitamin aisle of my Whole Foods for about $6. I don't know how many tortillas we'll be making with them, but they can always be thrown into smoothies as well. Any ideas for psyllium?

Have you worked with quinoa flour or psyllium husks before? Have you made a non-traditional, non-white flour tortilla?

Austin: Breakfast Tacos

By Tara C.

Breakfast tacos are really popular here in Austin. You'll find them at just about any morning event or meeting and they're sold almost everywhere--from sit-down restaurants to the corner gas station. Sometimes I forget that breakfast tacos are not ubiquitous in every American city. Then I'll hear from a friend who has moved out of state and laments the lack of breakfast tacos in her new town. Even the New York Times claimed a few years ago that Austin trumps all other American cities when it comes to the breakfast taco.

Around here, breakfast tacos are almost always of the Tex-Mex variety and served with salsa and/or pico de gallo (onions, tomatoes, chilis, cilantro). Most of the time breakfast tacos include eggs and cheese. Popular add-ons include potatoes, bacon, sausage, or beans. All wrapped up in a flour or corn tortilla, of course.

(photo from: CC Chapman via flickr)

I consider myself to be a bit of a breakfast taco connoisseur. That is, if eating a whole lot of something can make you a connoisseur. Okay, so I'm not entirely sure about that but I can tell you that I've lived here a long time and eaten my fair share of this stuff. Ergo, I thought I would share some of my favorites with you. Some are very popular while others are a bit more off the beaten path.

Elsi's Restaurant

Elsi's is a Mexican and Salvadorian restaurant that serves a variety of breakfast tacos. Their migas tacos include eggs scrambled with corn chips, topped with ranchero sauce and cheese, served with potatoes and refried beans. Edited: It looks like Elsi's has closed! One of the commenters mentioned this so I went to check. Sure enough, their number has been disconnected.

Maudie's Tex-Mex

At Maudie's, I like Pete's Tantalizing Tacos with sausage, egg, potato,cheese, serranos and onions. It's got some kick and is delicious with a cup of hot coffee. I've never had Tatiana's Tamale Tacos (eggs scrambled with a pork tamale and cheese) but they sound intriguing.

Taco Shack

Taco Shack's egg, potato and cheese breakfast taco was a staple of my diet when I was pregnant with my daughter. I was nauseous all the time. Something about the grease and protein settled my stomach. I don't know why, but it helped and I ate them all the time.

Texas Honey Ham Company

Texas Honey Ham Company may not be the first to come to mind when you think of Austin breaktfast tacos, but, oh my, their ham, egg, and cheese breakfast tacos are so delicious I would be remiss to leave them off my list of favorites. Although it's served with salsa, this is not your traditional Tex-Mex taco. But it's so, so good in its own right.

Torchy's Tacos

Torchy's started in a food trailer and now operates several wildly popular restaurants around town. Their breakfast tacos definitely veer to the side of the unusual and decadent. The Dirty Sanchez sounds, well, dirty, but it's delicious. It has scrambled eggs with fried poblano chilis, guacamole, escabeche carrots, and cheese. This isn't actually on Torchy's breakfast menu, but it has eggs in it, they serve it in the morning, so why not? Torchy's migas tacos are also fantastic. They include scrambled eggs, cheese, crisp tortilla chips, green chilis, pico de gallo, and avocado. I haven't seen avocado in migas very often, but they are a welcome addition as far as I'm concerned.

When In Dallas: Velvet Taco

by Slynnro

Taco shops are the latest Dallas food trend. You can't swing a Neiman Marcus bag without hitting one. Which is why it takes a decent amount of Taco Shop Buzz for me to pay attention to any new contenders. So after every single one of my Facebook friends checked in to Velvet Taco this week, I decided we should give it a try. So Aaron and I stopped in for lunch today and we were not disappointed.  

We ordered the #14 (Crispy Calamari), #17 (Ahi Poke), #19 (Bacon, Egg, Potato and Cheese), #7 (Chili Rubbed Pork), and #2 (Rotisserie Chicken):

Velvet Taco has a very earth conscious spin: no plates, everything is served on a reusable taco tray, fountain drinks and served in cups made from plant material, you can buy water in a box (!!!), menus are planted on non-tree made paper, etc. And all of the ingredients are made from scratch. You can taste it! The corn tortillas are the best I've ever tasted.  

The ahi poke taco had a surprising amount of tuna for $6.25:

Everything was super incredibly fresh, and well, it's just pretty food.

Aaron, breakfast taco connoisseur, hailing from South Texas, was very impressed with the Bacon, Egg, Potato and Cheese. And the egg is included in an incredibly unique fashion:

It's fried up as a flat layer that lines the tortilla.  Amazing.

And the pork taco was just delicious.

And though we didn't have a piece, they also served up Red Velvet cake, which looked amazing. I personally am looking forward to getting some Back Door Chicken to go -- a whole roasted chicken, served with Elote Rotisserie Corn (which upon seeing other diners enjoy, I seriously regretted not ordering), corn tortillas, salsa and Korean BBQ sauce. All for $20!

So when you're in Dallas, looking for something unique and delicious, I cannot recommend Velvet Taco enough!