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Chimichangas: Tex-Mex? Mexican? Delicious!

March 19, 2010 by 1 Comment

For real: I cook a lot of food that is quasi-Mexican, but I feel as if I’m insulting a whole nation by calling my recipes “Mexican.” So.. I guess Tex-Mex? Although I don’t like the sound of that either. Why is life so hard?

I have today off from work today, and my immediate plans were: go through my books and figure out what I want to bring with me on the move to the new Casa Shenanigans and go to El Pelon for some delicious fish tacos. Sadly, El Pelon is still not yet open and we had to go to another local place that wasn’t as good. So I figured I’d post about some other delicious taco-esque food I made last week.

Okay, maybe it’s a bit ignorant to say that a chimichanga [really, spell check? chimpanzee?] is taco-esque. But… it kind of is. Meat, cheese, beans, chilies, tortillas…. yup. Sounds like a taco. The big difference here is that it’s all wrapped up in a little rectangular package and then cooked. It’s typically fried, but we all know I can’t fry something that large and dense without hurting myself, so I baked mine.

The possibilities of what you can put in chimichangas is basically endless. You can opt for a vegetarian version with zucchini, cheese and beans and that would be amazing. All you’d really need to do is swap out diced zucchini [or mushrooms or any other firm vegetable] for the ground beef I used in the recipe below. I think the spices and the cooking method would work well with quite a few different options. You can also add in any vegetables of your choice; I had meant to add in roasted corn but of course forgot to do so. It’s amazing I supervise a whole department at work, no?


Baked Chimichangas

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup crushed tomatoes
1/2 can of diced green chilies with sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon of chili powder, or more to taste
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 or 1 cup fat free refried beans
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
6 – 8 large tortillas, 10-inch diameter

Preheat oven to 400F. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add in the diced onions and cook until translucent, then add the garlic and cook just until fragrant. The ground beef can then be added to the pan and browned. Once the meat is cooked through, add in the chilies, tomatoes, cumin, chili powder and cinnamon. Stir to combine, and let that cook over low heat for several minutes for the flavors to mingle. [Oh god, now I'm the type of person that says things that douchey Food Network chefs say. I'm sorry.]

Remove the pan from the heat. Take a tortilla and spread two tablespoons of refried beans down the center. Top with the meat mixture (roughly 1/3 cup) and then shredded cheese. Fold the tortilla envelope style and place in a baking pan seam side down. Very lightly coat with oil. Continue with the rest of the tortillas; depending on what else you add in here, this can serve up to 8. Cook for about 20 minutes in the oven, until the tortilla is golden brown and everything is heated through. Serve garnished with fresh salsa, sour cream, guacamole or any other toppings of your choice.

What can I say? These are so simple and so good. The cumin and cinnamon add a warm, earthy-spicy note to the meat, and the tomatoes and diced chilies give it just enough sauciness. These are perfect for a quick week night dinner, or would be great served at a party if using smaller tortillas.

Filed Under: Tex-Mex Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The weather outside is weather…

February 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

And what weather it is. Goddamn New England. I don’t understand why our weather is such absolute crap; cold one minute, warm-ish the next but only enough to melt some ice, then cold again to make more godforsaken ice. Jesus. I should probably stop being blasphemous, seeing as how it’s Ash Wednesday and my poor mother-in-law is probably horrified. Especially since this week’s blog is about a recipe she gave me.

As part of the delicious Christmas dinner she cooked for us, she made Venus de Milo soup. I had never heard of it before, but it’s one of my husband’s favorites. And since he is her favorite son, she made it for the holiday [note: I'm sure she loves both of her delightful sons equally]. It’s an extreme comfort food; a rich, meaty broth peppered with diced vegetables and pasta, topped with Parmesan cheese. How can you go wrong?

Not a lot of pictures for this one – you know how I feel about soup and it’s unattractiveness.

Venus de Milo Soup
1 pound ground beef or sirloin
48 oz chicken broth
1 pkg. onion soup mix
2 large ribs celery, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1/2 an onion, diced*
1/2 cup orzo
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt & pepper to taste
grated Parmesan cheese for topping
* this is not in the original recipe, but I can’t help adding unnecessary steps.

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, brown meat. Add in the Worcestershire sauce, celery, carrots and onions and let vegetables soften. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the onion soup mix and chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 20 minutes. Add orzo, cook an additional 8 – 10 minutes. Season again with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce if necessary. Serve immediately with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

That’s it; a bunch of simple ingredients, but they come together really well. I’ve also looked at various website and have seen other variations on this soup – different vegetables, adding in diced tomatoes, different broths, etc. There’s a million ways you can prepare this, but I’m pretty sure all of them are going to be tasty.

Filed Under: meat, pasta, vegetables Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Casserole of Doom!

June 7, 2009 by 3 Comments

Doom doom doom doom … really? No fans of Invader Zim? Huh. Anyway.

This casserole is awesome-slash-ridiculous. It was inspired by one of my favorite blogs, Nuclear Toast. As soon as I saw it posted, I knew it had to be a poker night dish. The guys that come over for poker night are my guinea pigs for food I’d like to try and cook, but can’t bring myself to make it for just the husband and I.

My casserole has the basic same ingredients as the original, except I used ground beef, and I used homemade macaroni and cheese.

First, I put the tater tots in the oven at 400 degrees, to get them cooked through, and somewhat crispy.

While those are cooking, I cooked 1.25lbs of ground beef with half an onion, diced, and a generous sprinkle or twenty of seasoning salt.

Mmm, meat. As exciting as that is (okay, I know it’s not really, but you get step-by-step instructions regardless of how easy it is!), the best part was making the macaroni and cheese. Now, I’ve never made homemade mac and cheese, as my husband insists he doesn’t like it. He is a liar, because as soon as he saw me making it, he started hovering over the oven every time he got up. I have now decided that I will no longer listen to him when he tells me he doesn’t like things (note to husband: pretend you didn’t read that).

For the macaroni, I cooked a pound of elbows, and then made up a mixture of milk and cheese. If I were making the dish to stand on it’s own, I probably would have started with a béchamel sauce and gone from there, but for poker night this was good enough. I used two eggs, a cup of milk, and a pound of cheese consisting of mild cheddar, sharp cheddar and monterey jack, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and some garlic powder. None of the seasonings were measured, I just threw some in, and as I was stirring the mac and cheese while it was cooking, I adjusted the seasonings to taste.

About halfway through baking, this is how the macaroni looked. The cheese wasn’t fully melted, but I kept mixing it and eventually it did reach a smooth and creamy consistency. When it was all done, I layered the tots in a 13 x 9 baking dish, with the ground beef layered over that, and the macaroni and cheese topping it. Because everyone loves cheese, I added a layer of shredded cheddar on top for good measure. I threw all of that into the oven at 450 for about 20 minutes. When it was done, it looked and smelled amazing:

Surprisingly, it also came out of the pan pretty easily. I was half expecting it to fall apart, but it stayed in shape pretty well.

This went very quickly and people had bigger portions than I had expected; even though there was over 3lbs of food, there still wasn’t enough for everyone! A few people got stuck just eating brownies for dinner (aww, life is hard). I will definitely be making this again, most likely trying something different for one of the layers just to experiment.

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