A Recipe Signed, Sealed, Delivered

It's been about two weeks since my niece sent me an email asking for some of my old recipes. She's a college student here in town, but she's doing a semester abroad in Uruguay. When she's in town, here at the university, we have a standing date on Tuesday nights when she comes over for dinner, sometimes bringing a friend.

We catch up over dinner talking about her life as a university student, her classes, her quirky professors, her political activism.  I sigh to myself...how time has passed. I allow myself to imagine our son at the table with us too. At the end of the evening, we load Natalie down with her uncle's homemade bread and enough leftover meals to last several days.

When she asked me for a certain recipe recently, or even any of the things she's eaten here, there wasn't an obvious answer.  I needed to know what was available or seasonal. Cooking is about looking around to see what inspires you and it became difficult to narrow down my choices without imagining what she might find in what is currently the fall in Uruguay. And then there's the cooking paraphernalia that she may or may not have, not to mention the small amount of time she might have for cooking.

I settled on this recipe for huevo con calabacitas, a kind of Mexican style frittata.  It's easy, the ingredients are accessible, and it's what Natalie is hoping to make for herself.

Huevos con Calabacita a la Florentina

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Recipe Type: Appetiser, Entree

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• Ingredients


• 6 eggs


• 3 regular sized zucchini or 6 baby zucchini (about 400 gr) cut lengthwise and sliced thinly


• 1 1/2 to 2 leeks sliced thinly, using only white and pale green parts


• 1 tablespoon butter


• 2 tablespoons olive oil


• 1/2 jalapeño sliced thinly


• bunch basil leaves sliced in ribbons


• salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat broiler.


2. Rinse the sliced leeks in a pot of water and swish around and separate to clean.


3. Drain well and dry well with paper towels.


4. In a large oven proof pan at medium heat melt the butter with the oil.


5. Add the leeks and cook until they soften, for about 4 minutes.


6. Raise the temperature slightly and add the zucchini and cook until slightly brown or golden, for about 5-8 minutes.


7. When everything is just about cooked, add the basil.


8. Arrange everything evenly with a spoon on the pan, then pour the beaten eggs on top.


9. Add salt and pepper.


10. Lower the heat and cook slowly, running a spatula or knife along the sides of the pan to keep it form sticking.


11. When the sides and bottom are set and the center is loose, put the pan under the broiler until the top is firm and golden, about 3 minutes.


12. Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.

Camotes con Leche

Being a teacher at a boys' school where we sit at the table with our students for lunch, I have an unusual opportunity to observe the appetites of these hungry boys. There are those boys who are willing to eat the meals prepared by the school staff, which on most days are healthy, tasty, and presented appetizingly. Then there are the boys who perplex me with their fixation on eating the same cold sandwich of processed meat, rubbery cheese or a limp peanut butter and jelly, day after day. To me the question is whether this is nature or nurture. Does early exposure to different foods, their natural colors, textures, and smells make a difference for a child's developing appetite? Is it like a second language where if you get it early enough, you internalize it?

I am not a nutritionist, a pediatrician, nor a child psychologist, so I'm left to ponder this. I do know that as a child of my generation and region (the border to Mexico), I had no choice but to eat food in its most natural state. My mother didn't have the choice of reaching into a pantry filled with several varieties of Corn Flakes, Fruit Loops, or Lucky Charms; and actually, I'm thankful for that. In the winter, our breakfast might be atole de avena or maís. Another favorite was a poached egg in its shell with the top broken off (to be used as its own cup) with salt and pepper stirred into it with a toothpick. Not to be beaten for its basic simplicity was the baked sweet potato smashed into a bowl of cold milk my mother often served us. The texture of the sweet potato, or camote, as it is called in nahuatl, was smooth and creamy; the color was bright orange or straw colored and the taste of the cold milk against the steamy-hot sweet potato created an odd hot/cold sensation that added to the magic of this taste.

As it turns out, many nutritionists, including those at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) believe that the single most important dietary change for children would be to replace fatty foods with foods rich in complex carbohydrates, such as...yes...the very plain and simple camotes we ate when we were little. According to the CSPI, sweet potatoes are considered at the top of the nutritional scale among vegetables. They are high in dietary fiber with naturally occurring sugars, protein, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium.

So, I submit that eating well doesn't need to be complicated, and teaching your child to be curious about food doesn't have to be impossible. And starting early is key. But, as a caveat, I would also venture to say that, for your three year old, the presence of colorful boxes and bags in your pantry might possibly be too much competition. Or maybe not.

Camotes con Leche

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Recipe Type: Breakfast

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins

Total time: 1 hour 35 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• Sweet potatoes, whatever quantity you prefer


• Milk, to add to the bottom of your bowl of hot, smashed sweet potatoes

Instructions

1. Bake the sweet potatoes at 350 degrees for about 1 hour or more, until they are completely soft and the peel begins to separate from the sweet potato


2. Spoon some of the sweet potato into a bowl of milk and smash it so that it more or less blends with the milk.

Notes

I prefer to buy the thin purple skinned sweet potatoes in the belief they are sweeter and faster to bake since they're not huge.
Bake a large quantity and keep them in foil in your refrigerator for up to a week until you're ready to heat them quickly in the oven.

Chila-Migas

There is quite a bit of debate about the differences between chilaquiles and migas.  They are both considered Mexican comfort foods and are made with some combination of corn tortillas, salsa, cheese and eggs, depending on whom you ask.  Some argue that it has to do with the way the tortillas are fried and when the salsa is added.  Others contend that chilaquiles are made with eggs and baked while migas are simply fried tortillas with onions, cheese and salsa.  Is this a regional dispute?  A case for a panel of Food Network judges?  The stuff that family feuds are made of?  Even Gilda "La Madrina" and I can't seem to agree.

During a recent discussion about this, Gilda remembered that she had written down my mother's recipe for chilaquiles while my mother dictated it to her over the phone--when they were teenagers!  Gilda dug around and found the recipe.  Written in pencil and the page now yellowed, the instructions are vague and fail to settle the question of whether chilaquiles and migas are different interpretations of the same dish.

I remember my mother frying triangles of corn tortillas with onion, then adding salsa and scrambled eggs.  She called this dish chilaquiles, not migas.  I have made the dish pretty much the same way over the years.   But in honor of the recipe as dictated and written by two best friends over 40 years ago, I have deviated from my usual practice.  This is the result and, as is the prerogative of a daughter/ahijada, I have renamed this dish Chila-migas.

What is the tradition in your family?  Are you a chilaquiles purist or a migas connoisseur?  Enlighten us!

Chila-Migas

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Recipe Type: Breakfast

Author: Gilda Claudine

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of Canola oil


• 1/2 chopped onion


• 1 tomato, diced


• 1 serrano or jalapeño pepper, chopped


• 5 corn tortillas


• 6 eggs


• Salt and pepper to taste


• Queso fresco or queso cotija, about 1/2 cup or more

Instructions

1. In a heavy skillet, heat half of the oil.


2. Sweat the onions, tomato and pepper and set aside when done (about 10 minutes).


3. Cut 5 tortillas into triangles.


4. Add the rest of the oil to the skillet and, when hot, fry the tortillas.


5. Remove the tortillas with a slotted spoon/spatula and drain on a paper towel.


6. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.


7. Return the tortillas to skillet, layering the bottom with them.


8. Add tomato mixture and another "layer" of tortillas.


9. Whisk the eggs and add to the skillet, allowing them to cook.


10. Add salt and pepper to taste.


11. When the eggs are cooked halfway through, remove from the burner.


12. Add the desired amount of cheese and place skillet in the oven.


13. The chila-migas are ready when the cheese is melted and the eggs are cooked through.


14. Serve with slices of avocado, red or green salsa, and garnish with chiles.

Notes

I chose to sauté the onion, tomatoes and chiles and did not add salsa to the dish. Adding a red or green salsa when layering the tortillas in the skillet is optional. If you choose not to add salsa at this stage, serve the dish with a side of salsa.

Eye-of-the-Storm Enfrijoladas

Beans.  They’ve been on my mind.  Specifically, pintos that, in a refried state, rank high on my list of comfort foods.  This is probably because my grandmother always had a pot on the stove.  Always.

She served them with everything: with fried eggs for breakfast, mounded next to enchiladas at lunch, slathered across a tostada for a snack and dolloped on a milanesa-dominated plate for dinner. But my favorite variation? My grandmother’s enfrijoladas, corn tortillas warmed on a comal, then dredged through mashed, refried beans and topped with a crumbling of queso fresco.

As I’ve mentioned before, I spent my summers and different periods of my life living in Laredo with my grandmother.  I wish I’d paid closer attention to the world then.  I didn't know until years after I'd left Laredo, for example, that my grandmother's house was located in the "El Cuatro" section of Laredo, west of downtown.  The battered barrio has historical significance and recently caught the attention of The National Trust for Historic Preservation.

As a child growing up, I probably knew on some visceral level that most of the buildings on Lincoln Street were dilapidated.  But I was oblivious to the fact that the area was home to some of Laredo's poorest families, including my own.

A Spanish colonist founded Laredo in 1755.  Laredo remained a part of New Spain until the land port was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.  Another historical tidbit that I learned on one of my visits to Laredo as an adult:  in the late 19th century, Fort Macintosh (now the site of the Laredo Community College and one of my childhood "playgrounds") was home to some of the first peace-time, African American U. S. Army units known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

El Cuatro was another early barrio which sprang up west of the centro. The name, El Cuatro, was derived from the city voting precinct in which the barrio was located - the "Fourth Ward." Many early residents were employed with the railroads, and their box-shaped board and batten houses are still present throughout the neighborhood. Due to its proximity to Fort McIntosh, the neighborhood attracted a small enclave of blacks. For a short time in 1865, the post was manned by a company of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry. Since that time a number of black units were stationed at the fort, including Company K of the Black Twenty-fifth U.S. Infantry in 1906. The soldiers' families and their descendants made their homes in El Cuatro and the small barrio across the tracks called El Tonto. Saint James Tabernacle and the Grayson school remain as the only architectural relics of Laredo's black history. (http://tiny.cc/xlyx5)

I don't recall learning about Laredo's rich history while I was in school there and I wonder now whether it was taught at all.

Also out of my intellectual reach at the time were the complexities of life.  My grandmother was the matriarch of a sprawling family and ran a household that was made for a high-ratings reality show.  There was always a stream of visitors, old friends from Mexico, cousins from California or my assorted aunts and uncles and their children, some of whom also lived with us.  There were borders at the house from time-to-time.  A man named Cecil who parked his car in front and stamped out social security cards from the back of his camper. The boy with liquid-green eyes who lived around the corner, one of my first childhood crushes who, years later, was stabbed in a bar fight.

Along with a bustling, busy household came the concomitant family crises and commotions, garden variety goings-on whose meanings I did not comprehend at the time.  Those were the long, hot summers of my innocence and I observed it all from the center of my grandmother's universe.  There was always so much activity that I now realize my grandmother was a quintessential multi-tasker.  She could negotiate a great deal on a used appliance while strategizing about its resale.   Listen empathetically to a neighbor whose son was in serious legal trouble while watering the lawn and tending to her plants.  Yield to the demands of her large family while shopping and cleaning and cooking for them—from scratch.

There were rare moments of quiet.  The old house was without air conditioning most of the time, the little window unit in the front room turned on only for special visitors, if it worked at all.  This meant that the windows and doors were always open.  The oscillation of stand-alone fans provided a relaxing rhythm for a summer borderland soundtrack: the cooing of pigeons, trains rumbling by, the thwack of a neighbor’s screendoor, cicadas in the trees and crickets in the grass, the clucking of chickens in a nearby yard.

And I am ten again, sitting at the oval, formica table top in my grandmother's kitchen.  I notice the way the sun spills into the window above the sink and how the light dances in the sudsy water.  I’m sorting tomorrow’s beans, separating the shriveled and broken ones and the bits of sediment from the rest.  Meanwhile, my grandmother stirs freshly-squeezed lime juice, water and a little sugar in a plastic glass because she knows a limonada is my favorite drink.  I take a sip and watch her at the stove, turning the dial and perfecting the gas flame.  I smell the oil warming in the pan and hear the spit of onions in the moment before they succumb to sizzling.  She ladles beans from yesterday’s batch into the pan and effortlessly squashes the macerated and formerly-speckled seeds into a brown pulp.

I’m done discriminating against imperfect pintos and my grandmother thanks me with a kiss, placing in front of me a plate of earthy and savory enfrijoladas.  A little something just for me in the eye of the storm.

Eye of the Storm Enfrijoladas

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Recipe Type: Breakfast/Desayuno

Author: Gilda Claudine

Ingredients

• 1 lb pinto beans


• 1/2 small onion, finely chopped onions


• 2 or 3 slices of bacon, cut in pieces or diced


• Salt to taste


• 1/2 cup of Canola oil


• Corn tortillas


• Queso fresco


• 1/2 avocado (optional)

Instructions

1. Soak the beans in 4 cups of water overnight.


2. In the morning, drain the beans.


3. Over medium heat, warm the bacon until it yields some fat.


4. Add half of the onion and simmer.


5. When the onions and the bacon are almost cooked through, return the beans to the pot.


6. Add another 3 or 4 cups of water.


7. Add salt to taste and cover.


8. Allow the beans to cook at a low temperature for several hours or until they reach the desired consistency.


9. The beans should be soft and easy to mash.

Refried Beans

1. In a skillet, heat the Canola oil.


2. When the oil is hot, add the rest of the onion.


3. Sweat the onion until it is completely translucent.


4. Add three or four ladles of the beans in their liquid.


5. Raise the temperature and when the liquid begins to bubble, mash the beans.


6. Add water as needed to keep the beans from drying out.


7. Once the beans are mashed to the desired consistency, turn down the heat.


8. In a separate pan or on a comal, heat a corn tortilla. (Optional: warm the tortilla in a bit of oil here).


9. Using tongs, place the hot tortilla in the pan with the refried beans.


10. Dredge and/or coat both sides with the bean mash.


11. Using a spatula, remove and place on a plate.


12. Crumble the queso fresco on top and add avocado.


13. Serve hot.

Remembering a Mesquite Tree and a Recipe

A venerable, old mesquite tree grew in front of our yard, almost obstructing the so-called street. This unpaved street would remain that way until 30 years later when I was long gone and far away from my hometown. The ubiquitous mesquites that grew near the Rio Grande were usually shrub height, but this one was old, its branches reaching probably 15 feet up into the blue skies. There was nothing better on a hot, dry day than biting into the red-striped mesquite pods that dangled from its branches to get to the sugary juice. The wood from it's fallen branches was perfect for our wood fires, and some of my father's carpenters sometimes made boxes for us out of this hardwood.

In recent months, I've had the faintest of memories about that mesquite appear, like little pieces of the puzzle of long ago events. A white dishtowel blows softly from a branch, hung there by my mother in expectation of a delivery. But a delivery of what? I've wondered lately if it was a delivery of corn masa, or corn tortillas. I even called my 99 year old aunt in San Antonio.

I've come to the conclusion, actually, that it was probably the barbacoa man. Early on Sunday mornings, I could hear his call: barrrbacooaaah. If the towel was out, it meant we would be wanting a delivery. In Laredo, this was a traditional Sunday breakfast for many people. This must be the case for all of northern Mexico as well, because I remember also, that when I visited my aunt Oralia in Monterrey, I would hear the same call early on Sunday mornings.

So, the white dishtowel on our mesquite would guarantee a delivery. This mesquite tree also offered shade for another old man who often passed our way selling frozen fresh fruit popsicles that he sold out of a cart with dry ice. When he got to our house, exhausted, he would spread a cloth under our mesquite and take a nap. The mesquite is gone now, chopped down in the early eighties, when the street was finally paved; Laredo, itself, is a completely different place. Only the spirits of all those who climbed this old tree, walked around it and slept under it remain. Part of me is always there, even though I've lived in and traveled to so many other places for so many years. But this is the place that made me what I am, this is the place that gave me a sense of what is right and wrong, the radar for false or authentic. This is where I learned that comfort, in part, comes from good food and the love that accompanies it.

I was thinking about the Taco Bell debacle last night as I wrote this. So, does it have more meat, less meat..where's the beef...blah, blah, blah...Why in the world would people eat food like this? Why would we addict our children to food like this? Why aren't there laws that regulate this industry more efficiently? Why don't we have the sense to know that we shouldn't put junk like this in our mouths or offer it to our children? Whew! Enough ranting for today. I had to get that out. So, where was I?

My mother never let us out of the house without breakfast. There was a variety of different things we would find at the breakfast table: atole, huevos a la mexicana, huevos rancheros, frijoles, etc., all served with warm tortillas. It's taken me years of living with my Italian husband to wean myself away from this hearty breakfast and have a simple Italian breakfast of cappuccino and a minuscule piece of bread. But sometimes...he's the one craving for huevos a la mexicana for breakfast. So, today, let me put out a typical breakfast served in most parts of Mexico: huevos a la mexicana. This is what I usually order for breakfast in San Miguel de Allende at Casa Carmen as Doña Beatriz, the cook, prepares them. When I was growing up, we just called them huevos revueltos con salsa.

The tortilla I try to eat with all my (Mexican) food is the traditional corn tortilla. The tortilla in Mexican food is a "spoon" used to pick up food. You can use the one-handed approach or use two "spoons" to scoop your food into the folded tortilla wedge.

Huevos a la Mexicana

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Recipe Type: Breakfast

Author: Gilda V. Carbonaro

Serves: 2 to 4

Ingredients:

• 2 tbl Canola oil


• 1 small onion (minced)


• 1 large tomato (chopped in small cubes)


• 1 serrano pepper (minced)


• 5 eggs

Instructions:

1. Coat the bottom of a non-stick pan with canola oil and cook the onion at low heat until it's almost transparent.


2. Add the serrano pepper and continue to cook for about 3 minutes.


3. Add the tomato and cook for only about 3-5 minutes.


4. Don't wait until the tomato dissolves: you don't want runny tomato sauce in this dish.


5. Add the eggs straight into the pan.


6. Pop the yokes, add salt, stir and wait until all the egg has cooked.

Notes

This is not a bad thing to have as a lunch or light dinner, (not just breakfast), as long as you've got these basic ingredients.

1.2.4

Serve with hot corn tortillas that have been warmed on a comal (griddle). Enjoy!

Atole de Maís

This cold January weather makes me think of the creamy atole de maís my mother used to make.  The last time she made it for me was a few years ago when she visited me in the fall and we shared a bowl one cold afternoon for la merienda.

Some people put vanilla in theirs; in my family it's just the corn masa, sugar, cinnamon, and milk.  For the corn masa, you can use Maseca, a corn meal used to make tortillas. Our mother usually served us this atole for breakfast.

Floria's Atole de Maís

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of Maseca corn meal
3 tablespoons sugar
2 cups milk warmed in a 1 quart pot
2 large cinnamon sticks broken up
2 vanilla pods


Preparation:
Place one cup of milk in a pot and warm over medium-low heat on the stove.  Gradually whip 1 cup of milk with a small whisk in to a bowl containing the masa.  When the corn meal and milk mixture in the cup is smooth, slowly add it to the milk on the stove. Continue to heat the atole in the pot,  adding the sugar and broken up cinnamon sticks. You may also add the vanilla.  Cook until the mixture begins to thicken. Some like it watery, others like it thicker. Stop cooking it when it's got the consistency you like.

Pour it into a bowl and eat it while warm.