Real Food Rants and Ancho Ketchup

It has been way too long since I last posted a blog entry, so I may put at least two recipes in this one. Teri and I just finished a nice baked chicken with a root veggie gratin that was very basic, but tasted oh so good. This morning, I had a nice bowl of chopped, fresh fruit with yogurt and honey (and I use organic yogurt without all the thickeners and sweeteners that the ugly store bought stuff has). Point being, it really is easy to eat well, and healthy. I’m currently reading a book by Michael Pollan called “In Defense of Food.” I can’t recommend this book highly enough. If anyone wants to see what motivates me to cook real food, read this book. Food should be something that has real ingredients that you can pronounce. Food should be grown by a local farmer or rancher, not shipped in from New Zealand (though I do like NZ lamb, a lot). Of all the states in the US, Texas has an incredible amount of natural and locally grown produce and meats. Buy it, and cook it. Pollan suggests that if your grandmother or great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it. I agree with this up to a point, as there are some fabulous fruits and vegetables available that were not always easily available way back when. My wife suggested that jicama wasn’t something one ran down to the store to buy in our grandmothers’ time, (hard to believe in Texas), but it is a wonderfully tasty root vegetable that can be peeled and sliced, and eaten with a squeeze of lime juice. It is very nutritious as well. Even if getting to the farmers’ market isn’t something that is convenient, at least spend most of your shopping time in the fruit and vegetable section and the outside isles of the grocery store. STAY OUT of the middle isles which are nothing but processed foods for the most part. I call them the cancer and heart attack isles. Pollan has a subtitle to his book that I think is very appropriate. “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” While I’m a meat eater, and a hunter and fisherman to boot, we Texans eat entirely too much protein (and I am guilty of it as well). I’m not going to advocate we give up our proteins, but rather make sure we add a lot of the foods our bodies have been nourished by for hundreds of thousands of years (And to quote my friend, Greg Hodges, train, train, train!). I don’t believe our distant ancestors ate too much processed flour and sugar.

That rant out of the way, I think I should add a recipe or two. My wife makes fun of the fact that I’d rather make my own condiments than buy the chemically heavy substances they sell at the store that pass for things like ketchup. So my first recipe will be Ancho Ketchup. Next time you buy ketchup at the grocery store, read the ingredients, understanding that they are listed from most used to least. You will find lots of sugar type substances, such as high fructose corn syrup, which is a very unnatural substance that even in small amounts causes some serious insulin problems within our bodies, regardless of what the idiotic commercial says. I’m going to go to the recipe before I get off on another rant about sweeteners. Use real sugar, unprocessed (organic if possible) for a sweetener, for goodness sakes.

One more note. Many of these spices can be picked up at an Indian Foods Market, where they are quite fresh, and much less costly than at your local grocery.

Ancho Ketchup

4 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 stick cinnamon
¼ tsp celery seeds
¼ tsp chile flakes
¼ tsp whole allspice
2 lbs tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 ½ tsp kosher salt
2 tbsp ancho chili powder
½ cup white vinegar
5 tbsp brown sugar (organic if possible)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 anaheim chile, chopped
1 clove garlic (a rather large one if possible)

Create a sachet with the cloves, bay leaf, cinnamon, celery seeds, chile flakes and whole allspice by wrapping them into a nice bundle with cheesecloth and securing it with twine. In a 4 qt or larger saucepan, put the tomatoes, salt, ancho chili powder, vinegar, sugar, onion, anaheim, and garlic (smashed). Cook for approx. 45 minutes on medium-high.

Remove the spice bundle and puree the sauce in a blender until smooth. Strain through a mesh strainer back into the saucepan and continue to cook until the desired thickness, which will be about 30 or more minutes. Add more salt, sugar, vinegar, or ancho to suite your taste profile.

Chill in the refrigerator in a small jar. It will keep for 3 or 4 weeks. I keep my in the fridge door in a ketchup squeeze bottle so that I can grab it as I need it.

Enjoy this recipe. It is fun and easy to make, and your kiddos will be very impressed that you actually made ketchup.

Tomorrow, I’ll blog another recipe. It is bedtime for TOG (the old guy).

Pico de Gallo

Pico de Gallo

Hola’ everyone. I wanted to add a quick recipe that is just perfect for the summer. Pico de Gallo is something most everyone likes, and with the availability of fresh vegetables at the farmer’s market, it is a great way to create a condiment that can go with most every food you put on your plate. The nice thing about this pico recipe is that I use it as a base for most all of my pico’s. Depending on what I’m going to prepare for the meal, I’ll make additions to it that support the meal. For example, and I’ll share how I do it, when I’m cooking fish from the gulf, I like to make a tropical pico. And while it is somewhat of a Mexican or Southwestern style condiment, it can easily be fused into other cuisines as well. Much of my Louisiana style foods get garnished with a nice pico, especially my blackened or sautéed fish. And for the health conscious, there are few things more healthy than a fresh batch of pico de gallo. It is just loaded with vitamin C. I tend to make a large batch of it and keep it handy in the fridge to add to most any meal I’m preparing, breakfast, lunch, dinner or supper. It also works as an appetizer, or an accoutrement to the appetizer, such as seared sesame tuna on a crustini topped with pico. This is a very versatile creation.

Base Pico de Gallo

Ingredients

4 medium tomatoes – fine dice
1 medium onion – fine dice
3 good size cloves garlic – minced
3 jalapeños – very fine dice (add more or remove based on your taste profile)
zest and juice of two limes – very important part of recipe
juice of one lemon

Method

Dice it all up, mix it all up, and enjoy!

OK. What can we do to mix this up a bit? This can be left up to your wildest dreams (careful there, jalapeños can burn). I’ll add a few additional ingredients below.

For a Southwestern/Native American touch add:

The kernels from two ears of fresh corn – boil and cool before removing kernels.
1 Roasted Red Bell - fine dice
Add 1 or 2 hatch chilis and remove the same amount of jalapeños.

I love this over the top of a seared or grilled pork chop (at least 1” thick) that has been seasoned with kosher salt, pepper, Ancho chili powder, garlic powder and onion powder. Serve with a vegetable tamale and you have yourself a very tasty combination.

For a more tropical bent, add:

2 or 3 blood oranges (supreme, or cut it to where you remove only the meat of the orange, not any peel or pith)
1 ½ cup of finely diced pineapple

This works over a sautéed flounder seasoned with kosher or sea salt, white pepper, and a little bit of Ancho chili powder. Serve over a bed of rice with a green vegetable, and again, you have some pretty good eats (not to mention very healthy).

So I think you should be getting the picture. Feel free to experiment with lots of different additions to the base. You will find what goes well together and what does not. What I suggest, if you are not sure about the mix of your ingredients, pull a little of the base aside, and add just a bit of whatever new ingredients you want to, and see if it works. If it does, then add the proper percentage to the remaining ingredients.

Have fun and let me know how some different things you do with it.

Bon Appetit!