Salsa Roja

Here's a simple recipe I picked up during my time living in Mexico. Just a few ingredients, but the charring in a dry skillet adds an amazing depth of flavor. It's my go-to red salsa for fajitas, tacos, breakfast tacos, eggs, and more. Enjoy!

Salsa Roja

Ingredients:

• 6 roma tomatoes, rinsed and left whole
• 2 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
• 1-2 serrano chiles, stemmed and unchopped
• Salt

Directions:

1. Heat a dry, 12 inch, cast iron or non-stick skillet over medium heat. Place tomatoes, garlic cloves, and chiles in the pan and allow to char on one side. Flip tomatoes, garlic, and chiles until majority of sides are charred. 
2. Remove from pan and place whole tomatoes, garlic with husk removed, and chile into a food processor. Pulse until as smooth or chunky as you prefer. I recommend adding chiles one half at a time until desired heat is achieved. 
3. Stir in pinches of salt to taste. 

Anna's Chili

I had been making chili for years, tweaking it along the way. Then I moved to Texas and was semi-forced into entering a workplace chili competition...long story. This was pretty intimidating because this is Texas, people! I was blown away when it won and started to believe in my recipe a little bit. It's one of those recipes that I make by "what tastes right" and haven't monitored the amounts I use until I decided to type it up here. I love to make this meal on days when I don't have a lot of time to cook and want to make something filling. Enjoy!

Anna's Chili

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. ground beef (or ground turkey for leaner chili)
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 1-3 jalapenos, deseeded and chopped fine
• Salt
• 1 T chili powder
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2-4 chipotle chiles to taste, diced
• 1 28oz can petite diced tomatoes, with juice
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 2 15oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 15oz cans pinto or kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 c frozen corn
• 2 T adobo sauce from can of chipotle chiles, or to taste

Optional garnishes:

• sour cream
• shredded cheese
• Fritos corn chips (to make the ever-popular regional favorite "Corn Chip Pie")

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot over med-hi heat, brown the ground beef or turkey. Set browned meat aside and drain off fat.
2. Add oil to the pan. Heat over med-hi heat until oil is shimmering. Add onions, jalapenos, and 1/2 tsp salt. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chili powder and cumin, toast for about 60 seconds.
3. Add garlic and chipotle chiles. Saute for 30 sec or until fragrant. Add tomatoes with juice and red wine vinegar. Stir until combined and beginning to simmer.
4. Add beans and corn. Taste for heat. Add adobo sauce to taste. I used a whopping 2 T of it. We like it spicy around here. :)
5. Add salt at the end to taste and to round out flavor.
6. Spoon into bowls and top with sour cream and shredded cheese. Serve hot.

*Optional: Corn Chip Pie- Place a handful of corn chips in the bottom of a bowl. Spoon chili over top of chips. Top with cheese and sour cream. For those uninitiated, this may sound like a strange combination. I may have even scorned it when I first moved to south Texas. But oh. my. goodness. delicious.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

I just bought a ton of broccoli and was tired of just roasting it in different ways, as delicious as that is. So I looked in the fridge and had some leftover goat cheese that needed to get eaten too. I planned soup for dinner and bread spread with goat cheese as a side. 

This soup isn't complicated to make, is packed with lots of broccoli goodness, and not overwhelmed with too much cream. Enjoy!

Cream of Broccoli Soup

from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 2 T unsalted butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• Salt
• 2 T flour
• 4 c chicken broth
• 1 1/2 lbs broccoli, finely chopped by hand or in food processor
• 1/2 c heavy cream
• Pepper
• Cayenne pepper
• Optional: sauteed crispy bacon pieces

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a large stock pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and 1/2 tsp. of salt and saute until onions are softened, about 5 minutes. 
2. Stir in flour and cook for about 1 minute. Slowly stir in broth and scrape up any brown bits from the bottom (those brown bits add tons of flavor!).  
3. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
4. While broth cooks, chop broccoli in food processor. Add to the soup and simmer until the broccoli is tender, about 8-10 minutes. 

   

   I hand chopped these, but food processing pulses would be much faster

   
   
5. Set another empty medium pot on the stove. Puree the soup in batches until smooth in your food processor. ***take the "food pusher" out while blending hot foods to avoid pressure build up and spewing hot food. Also, only fill half way and pulse a few times before running the processor to avoid leaking hot foods from under the lid. 
6. Pour the first pureed batch of soup into the empty medium sized pot. Continue until all the soup is pureed. Stir in the cream.
   
   Bring to a simmer just for a few seconds, then remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper. Add some cayenne pepper if you want a little heat. 
7. I didn't have time for this when I made it, but finely chopped, sauteed bacon sprinkled on top of this soup would work really well. What's not better with a little bacon??