I thought that we had made all of the various enchilada recipes from the Dish of the Day and Vegetable of the Day cookbooks. But it turns out that I'd missed one! This one involves a simple filling of black beans and kale (spinach in the original recipe) with a bit of cheese and some homemade salsa verde to bring it all together.

Personally, I felt like the sauce could have used a bit more kick. I would be tempted to add some jalapeños and/or finger chilies next time. But the kids seemed to enjoy it this way, so that's good at least.

I'm glad that I tried doing the sauce from scratch for these. It was nice. That said, if you're looking for a way to streamline the recipe, I wouldn't hesitate to use store-bought salsa verde in place of the homemade.

Kale and Black Bean Enchiladas

Slightly adapted from Dish of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

Sauce

• 12 tomatillos, husked and halved
• 3 poblanos, halved and seeded
• 1 jalapeño, halved and seeded (optional)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1 large onion, quartered
• 1 c. fresh cilantro
• salt and pepper, taste

OR

• ~1L store-bought salsa verde

Enchiladas

• 2 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 small red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. cumin seeds, ground
• 1 tsp. dhania-jeera masala
• ~300g frozen chopped kale or spinach
• 2 cans (~400mL each) black beans (or 1 1/2 c. dried black beans, cooked), drained and rinsed
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro
• 250g Monterey Jack (or pepper jack) cheese, shredded and divided
• 1 medium tortillas¹
• 1-2 avocadoes, sliced

Directions

1. Preheat the broiler (on high if it has multiple settings).
2. Place the tomatillos and chilies, cut-side-down, on a baking sheet and broil until slightly charred and softened (8-10 minutes).
3. Transfer tomatillos, chilies, onion, garlic, and cilantro to a blender and purée.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.
5. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
6. Heat oil over medium heat.
7. Add onion and bell pepper and cook until softened (~5 minutes).
8. Add the cumin and masala and cook for another minute or two.
9. Add the frozen greens and cook until thawed.
10. Remove from heat and stir in the beans, cilantro, half the cheese (~1 c.), and 3/4 c. of the sauce.
11. Spoon ~1/2 c. of sauce into the bottom of a 23x33cm (9x13") baking dish.
12. Put ~1/2 c. of filling in the centre of each tortilla, roll up into a tube, and place seam-side-down into the prepared baking dish.
13. Once all of the tortillas have been filled and placed in the baking dish, pour the rest of the sauce over them.
14. Sprinkle with remaining cheese, cover with foil, and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 30 minutes.
15. Remove foil and continue baking for another 10 minutes.
16. Serve topped with avocado and seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.

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¹ The recipe calls for flour tortillas and that's what I used this time, but I actually think that corn tortillas would have been better here. They just didn't have any when I went to the grocery store and I didn't feel up to making my own from scratch this time. The flour tortillas were fine. I just think that corn ones tend to work especially well for enchiladas. ^Back

I've been in a breakfast rut lately. Usually dressing up some ramen with some extra veggies and protein is a good go-to breakfast for me when I don't know what else to have. But that hasn't been appealing to me lately. Yesterday I had some left over pork chop and brussels sprouts for brunch. Now we're all out of pork chops and I'm faced with the breakfast question again.

Initially I was thinking that maybe I'd just have some ramen anyway, even if it didn't appeal. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a few minutes staring at breakfast inspiration to see if anything sang to me. What this revealed was that I wanted a eggs and toast sort of breakfast. I thought about making a croque madame, but we didn't have either the gruyère or the ham. Then I stumbled across this salsa verde baked eggs recipe... I even had an unopened jar of salsa verde in the pantry! I'd gotten it just in case I my mole de olla ended up needing some extra tomatillos/sauce, but didn't end up needing it in the end.

This is an incredibly simple recipe: Just put some salsa verde in a pan and bake some eggs in it. Then top with cheese and veggies as you see fit and serve with a starch of your choice. I topped mine with Cheddar cheese and a sort of cabbage-carrot-radish salad that we had on hand and served it with toasted sourdough and it was delicious. I don't have salsa verde on hand that often, but I definitely want to keep this recipe in mind for when I do!

Salsa Verde Baked Eggs

Slightly adapted from The Modern Proper

Ingredients

• 1 tsp. butter, oil, bacon grease, or lard
• 1 c. salsa verde
• 4 large eggs

Toppings & Accompaniments

Choose as many or as few as you'd like.

• cheese: cotija, feta, Cheddar, and/or monterey jack
• veggies: sliced radish, shredded cabbage, grated carrot, sliced avocado, corn, and/or shredded radicchio
• other: lime wedges/lime juice and/or chopped fresh cilantro
• starches: toast, corn tortillas, and/or flour tortillas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and grease a 25cm (10") pan with a fat of your choice. (I like using pork fat here, but follow your heart.)
2. Pour the salsa verde into the greased pan.
3. Crack one egg into each quadrant of the pan. Season with a little salt and pepper if you like, but I didn't find mine really needed it.
4. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 12-15 minutes¹.
5. While eggs are cooking, toast your bread and/or warm up some tortillas.
6. Serve eggs on (or alongside) toast and/or tortillas and topped with cheese(s) and veggies of your choice.

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¹ I baked mine for the full 15 minutes because TF and I really can't stand undercooked egg whites. This turned out to be a bit too much though and left the yolks cooked hard. I think next time I'd try cooking them for only 12 minutes. Or possibly separate the whites and yolks so that they can be cooked for different amounts of time. I might try putting a white in each quadrant, baking for 3-5 minutes, and then adding a yolk on top of each white and baking for another 8-10 minutes or something. Not sure what the best timing would be, but it may be worth experimenting with. ^Back

Mole de Olla (Mole Cooked in a Pot)

I picked up some pork neck bones on spec at the Asian grocery store a while back. If nothing else, they're great for making sisig. I didn't feel up to making sisig right away, so I dropped them in the freezer and forgot about them for a few months. Then I ran across this mole recipe in a Mexican cookbook that TM had lent me. It sounded interesting and not too difficult to put together, so I figured I'd give it a try.

It calls for ancho and pasilla chiles. I was all out of both, but ordered a few from a local kitchen store. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get them in time, so I ended up substituting poblano and Anaheim chiles respectively. Ancho chiles are just dried poblanos, but while poblanos are normally sold green here, ancho chiles are dried when the pepper reaches its red-ripe stage. So, between the drying process and the extra ripening, they do taste fairly different, but I was hoping it would still be close enough. Pasilla chiles are the dried form of the chilaca chile. I've never seen fresh ones for sale here, nor could I find any of the other dried chiles that I'd normally consider reasonable substitutes: California or guajillo. So I just tossed in a few Anaheim peppers and hoped for the best.

Sadly, I couldn't find the epazote for this dish either. I was especially disappointed by that since it's meant to be one of the key flavours. I added some cilantro and ground fennel seeds to make up for it, but everywhere I looked people kept reiterating that nothing tastes quite like epazote and you can't really replicate it with any of the substitutes. So, if you can find epazote where you live, definitely use it!

Mole de Olla

Slightly adapted from the Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy

Ingredients

• 1.25kg pork neck bones (or "boiling beef" with bone)
• 2L water
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 ancho chiles¹
• 4 pasilla chiles²
• 1 c. chopped tomatillos (tomates verdes)³
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1/8 tsp. cumin seeds
• 3 Tbsp. oil⁴
• 450g zucchini, cut into sticks
• 100g green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise
• 1 cob of corn⁵, cut into 6 pieces
• 250g chayote squash⁶, cored and cut into 5mm wedges
• 250g potatoes, cubed
• 3 sprigs epazote (Mexican tea)⁷

Directions

1. Have the butcher cut the meat and bones into serving pieces.
2. Place the meat and bones in a large pot and add the water and salt.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until tender (~50 minutes). If using beef, it may need an extra 20-30 minutes of cooking to become tender.
4. Meanwhile, heat a comal, tawa, or similar and toast the chilies well, turning frequently to avoid burning. (If using fresh chilies rather than dried see footnote 1 below.)
5. Allow the chilies to cool, then remove the seeds and veins. DO NOT SOAK.
6. Add the toasted chilies to the blender along with the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and cumin seeds and blend until smooth.
7. Heat the oil over medium heat.
8. Add the sauce from the blender and fry for ~5 minutes. (Longer if using fresh chilies.)
9. Add the sauce to the meat.
10. When the meat is tender, add the zucchini, beans, corn, chayote, and potatoes and cook slowly, uncovered, until vegetables are cooked through (~30 minutes).
11. Add the epazote in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
12. Adjust seasoning as desired and serve with warm tortillas, lime, and fresh minced onion.

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¹ I used poblanos in place of the anchos in my rendition. I halved and seeded them, then cooked them under the broiler until the flesh was soft and the skin was blistered, then tossed them in a plastic bag to rest/steam for ~15 minutes, then peeled the skins off and added flesh to the blender. ^Back
2 As I didn't have pasillas either, I swapped in some Anaheim chiles. I gave them the same treatment as the poblanos above. ^Back
3 The recipe calls for "1 cup tomates verdes, drained". To me this implies that the author is expecting you to bo using some sort of canned or preserved tomatillos. I ended up just getting a pint of fresh tomatillos and using those. If you can't find either fresh or canned tomatillos, I think that a jar of salsa verde would make a reasonable substitute. It'll have some spices and other things added to it, but I think it would be fine in this application. ^Back
4 The recipe calls for peanut or safflower oil. I think any neutral oil would work. I also think that lard or bacon fat would work well if doing the pork neck bone version of this recipe. I didn't get this recipe written up right away, so I can't remember which fat I ended up going with, but I think I probably went the bacon fat route since we have a bunch of that that we've been trying to use up. ^Back
5 It's best if you can use the corn on the cob, but if you don't have any on hand, a cup of frozen corn will do in a pinch. ^Back
6 Kholrabi makes a decent substitute for chayote if you can't find the squash. ^Back
7 Everyone seems to agree that there really is no substitute for epazote. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any, so I added ~1/2 c. of chopped fresh cilantro and 1/2 tsp. ground fennel seeds at the end of cooking to try to make up for it. I'm sure it wasn't the same, but it still tasted good. ^Back