Soup & Tostadas

I ran into a friend this weekend [WHO I GUESS DOESN'T STOP BY THE HOUSE OFTEN ENOUGH] who also happens to read this blog and he asked me if the food posts and recipes here are really typical of things I make every day at home.  Yes and no. 

I like to play two different games when I'm making dinner during the week: a) Buy an item or items constituting a dish at the grocery store that I've never prepared at home before and make a go of it, and 2) play what I like to call the Use Everything Up in the Fridge Game.  Given that most everyone I know is in the same economic state right now (I like to call it "conservation mode") I'm guessing most of us aren't exactly strangers to the latter anymore.

Tonight I played the Use Everything Up in the Fridge Game, which included some of the stuff my mom gave me today from her garden.  She apparently grew a serrano superplant this year because I have approximately 43,344,357 of them right now.  A typical weeknight meal at my house:

Here we have a Mexican veggie soup and some black bean tostadas.  Very simple, prepared in about half an hour and mostly with things I always have around.  I did have to run to La Plazita on Central & 19th for pre-made tostadas and an avocado but that was it. 

Mexican Veggie Soup: Just One Variation of Many
© 8/13/08

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
3 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 16-ounce can garbanzos, drained
1 zucchini, diced
3 canned chipotles, seeded and cut into thin strips
1/2 quart veggie stock
1 sprig fresh epazote
Salt

1 avocado, cubed
1 lime, wedged
1 serrano, finely diced

Sautee onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat for 7-8 minutes.  Add garbanzos, zucchini, chipotles, veggie stock and epazote.  Simmer 20 minutes, salting to taste.  Toss 1/4 of the cubed avocado into each bowl and ladle soup over it.  Serve with lime wedges and diced serrano.  This soup will be spicy.

The tostadas are ridiculously easy and can be made while the soup is in the home stretch.  Pop open a can of refried beans and smear a scoop onto each tostada.  Top with grated monterey jack cheese and broil until the cheese bubbles.  I also topped mine with a diced tomato (thanks Mom!) and a sprinkle of serrano before broiling.  Dollop with sour cream when serving.  The Mexican and I each ate 2 tostadas and 1 bowl of soup.

When I first tried epazote, I thought it tasted like gasoline.  Actually, I still kind of think that, but it has a flavor that really can't be replaced by anything in Mexican cooking and now I use it frequently.  I planted a baby one from Linder's this spring and it's been supplying me all summer long, despite the cilantro I bought at the same time that suddenly died without warning last month.

Comments

[Alexis]

Pacifico optional.

[MOM]

Are those enough serranos to freeze and last you through the winter? Let me know. I have more. The plants were mislabeled because I was supposed to have serranos, jalapenos, and cayenne. I just picked a tomato the size of a quart saucepan. How about a little sliced roma in that chickpea soup?

[Alexis]

The tomatoes are spoken for; I'm already making room in the freezer for a couple batches of salsa ranchera and all-purpose tomato sauce (garlic, onion, bell pepper). Serranos shouldn't be a problem to use. They go in aforementioned salsa ranchera and in salsa verde, which can also be frozen and easily used in the next 6 months. Expect Mexican food these coming holidays.

[ranty]

What a beautiful meal! I especially like the Pozole. You are the first person I've known outside of Mexico to actually make it at home.

[Alexis]

Not to totally dork out over here, but the garbanzo/chipotle/epazote/avocado combo makes this one specifically a tlapeño soup. I believe a pozole is specifically a soup with a lot of hominy, and I've also made quite a few of those since diving headlong a little over a year ago into the fabulous world of Mexican cooking. I've developed awesome (if I do say so myself) vegetarian versions of pozole and menudo, the latter one I especially love because of all the oregano! Luckily The Mexican really loves soup--who knew Mexico as a country was so dedicated to it, even eating certain soups on on certain days of the week?--so I can make a batch and we'll eat it for a couple of days, just keeping it in the pot in the fridge and tossing that on top of the stove when we're hungry.

For me, the soups have been the best way to explore all these different herbs and flavor combinations that I'd never had before. Moles have been fun, too, just because of their culinary ad lib nature (half a piece of bread, one cracker, a burned tortilla, etc.) Guajes/huajes/uhuajes (however you want to spell them, because apparently anything goes) have also caught my eye and my next mole with involve them. I make moles more for The Mexican, though, since I haven't yet found a satisfying vegetarian application for them, aside from adding them to soups for depth. My only gripe is that certain things are harder to find here, like Mexican limas, Oaxacan oregano and, something I've yet to find anywhere, romeritos.

Today I'm pickling the 40-odd serranos I have leftover from what my mom gave me last week, after making a few batches of salsa roja and salsa verde for freezing. I was going to throw in some nopales with them, too, but the cool air outside is making me want to boil the nopales with salt, serranos and oregano instead, and just eat a bowl of steaming hot nopales. They make a perfect tangy cold salad in the summer, but this is how I prefer them when the weather starts cooling down.

Compared to our consumerist way of grocery shopping and cooking here in the States, I'm absolutely fascinated with a lifestyle that involves plucking wild herbs and cactus paddles from road ditches and open fields, then taking it home and making a meal out of it. How blissfully simplistic! And to have trees on your land that bear citrus fruits, and a chayote vine that literally never stops sprouting those delicious, juicy little squashes? I dream about it.

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