rancho_gordo

I think there as many recipes and rules as there cooks. I've spoken to a lot of regarded chefs and they are old over the map on Tarbais. Some insist on cocos. But to compare any of them to a Great Northern? I can tell the difference and I bet a lot of people can. And to go to all that trouble and expense and use an average bean?

Where do they keep it? Near the powdered milk? I haven't had it since 1988 and it was a weird flavor then. I'd love to hear it's better now.

We grew Tarbais beans here in California with a lot of success. We hope to offer them next year, if we can build our seed stock up enough. They are a runner bean (Phaeseolus coccineus), like Scarlet Runner or Runner Cannellini. Regular cannellini may make a nice dish but they're very different. If you want something more traditional, I'd go with a runner cannellini or an ayocote blanco.

Deborah Madison suggests for beans: 20 minutes at high, unsoaked, slow release and then about 20 minutes in the open air. This should be fine for most beans. Diana Kennedy, who lives at a high altitude, likes to cook hers in a PC and then "finishes" them in a clay pot on the stove. In a PC there's no evaporation so the beans can taste a little stale or dull, especially compared to clay pot beans.

You can still consider it one of your worst shows! I can't remember what the other Italian show was, with Maryanne Esposito, but she used to drive me nuts. She seems like a perfectly fine woman and good old-fashioned Italian home cook but she would drive me crazy and he food wasn't exactly wrong but it wasn't like the food I was eating in Italy.

I have no idea if he had a restaurant in Seattle, but he did in LA, before the show. I was dealing with him before the show aired. Please look up where Time or both Seattle papers claimed he had no restaurant or cooking experience.

Do you mean Nick Stellino? These are incredibly strong charges you've made against him. He is Italian, he did have a restaurant in Los Angeles and he has a weird accent that isn't typical but who is to say it isn't his? The weirdest part of your claim is the music. I was in music licensing and I talked many times with Stellino before his show aired because he wanted me to help coordinate the music. Of course at this point I had never heard of him. We were both in love with vintage Italian songs from the '40s and '50s and tried to use some of them in his show but the producers wanted a more generic Italian feel. We aren't friends but he was nice enough to send me some prints of Italy he had reproduced as a thank you and we kept up over the years. He has the very Italian habit of calling on New Year's Day to check in. You may not care for him but I think your remarks are getting close to slander!

Continuing with my "mole de olla" theme, this time I did it with the turkey, a ton of dandelion greens, potatoes, tomatoes and corn. This was incredible. i love the bitterness and the meatiness of the greens, kind of replacing more traditional quelites. This made four servings, perfect with tortillas. And of course I love cooking in clay. Not to oversell WW (as a veteran of one and a half weeks), but if this works, I think it means you can have your cake and eat it too. The thing most of us would hate about a traditional diet is it means you lose the joy of cooking. I think that's the real difference. I can use my beloved lard, my precious clay pots and enjoy the pleasure of the stove. So far it's a win-win.

Never heard of chaya so I Wiki'd it. Quoting: "The leaves must be cooked before being eaten, as the raw leaves are toxic." Not planning salads, I hope. I think I'll just pass on this one. Nope, not planning on using it in salads, but I did have it a couple of weeks ago in Mexico, fried with some chorizo, and it was just excellent. I even went for seconds. I love to try new stuff and this one is new (to me) for sure. It's incredibly healthy. I did have it in a juice with pineapple and I'd be surprised if it were cooked. It's great stuff but I would think very frost sensitive as it's from the Yucatan. I think it would be great to try and grow it.

But this was good for a laugh! As a one week veteran, I can see the biggest benefit will be no more binging. My problem is 10p and I want a cookie and suddenly I have a dilemma- does one cookie mean a cookie or a row of cookies? So far with points I've been able to completely avoid this. Last night we made fish mixiotes. Fish, some tiny cut potatoes, chile sauce and a tomato slice all go into a dried maguey leaf, bound up and then steamed in a tamal steamer. The leaves are now hard to get (maybe even illegal?) but you can use foil, or better yet, parchment paper. It's fun with kids as everyone can create their own and of course you can do it with all healthy ingredients. We also did a big one full of broccoli.

But be careful with tomatillos. Each fruit has tons of seeds. In a garden if you have them once, you'll have them forever.

I was googling for recipes and I came across Chicken Enchiladas. I was almost excited but I should have known better! ingredients are: Just saying Cheez Whiz makes me happy.

I could easily have added some zucchini and it would have been even better.

Chile sauce was about 6 guajillos and 2 anchos, toasted, re-hydrated in warm water, then blended with onion and garlic and enough water to move the blender blades. Then i fried this paste in 1 tablespoon of lard until it was almost like catsup. Then I thinned it out with chicken stock, added salt and Mexican orgeano, and then it cook in a cazuela for about 20 minutes. I figured it was 6-8 servings and it came to about a point a serving, even with the lard.

Oh. I added some canned tomatoes, chopped up, as well.

Last night I took some chili sauce I had made and thinned it out with broth. I added two small potatoes, 1/2 cup of frozen corn and a 4.5 oz turkey breast, cubed. It was great except for the corn was too sweet. If I'm adding up points right, I think that makes it just 6 points (not including the quinoa). A cup of cooked quinoa is 5 and that seems like plenty of points for a dinner. It's not a known Mexican dish but I think it would pass if I had field corn.

I just started WW and I'm kind of surprised how many points one gets. It's not very radical! I've noticed in my circle that people who lose weight and really keep it off all seem to be WW people, so I'm giving it a try. My frustration comes from their boards, where most people really seem to eat prefab food. I tried to find poached chicken and came up empty but every item on the In and Out Burger menu shows up. The boards are ok but it's really not for serious cooks. I hope never to experience diet mayonnaise but it seems a popular item there. Anyway, I'm giving it a shot, especially since I can do it from the computer and avoid meetings. I'd love to develop a full Mexican food repertoire of point friendly cooking.

I just found a video I did last year while visiting Boston, for How2Heroes.com. How 2 Heroes tortillas demo It's funny. I claim to press twice (and I normally do) but then I don't in the demo. I also notice I don't mention puffing. Oh well, that's show biz!

As long as you're going for it, try huazontle too. It's one of those things I never see in stores here but tend to eat a lot of in Mexico. And papaloquelite, if you want to make a proper cemita sandwich.

It's kind of shocking and exciting, isn't it? Next is the IACP and she's giving a presentation and I bet she wins that, too.

Great stuff. Do you think we could get samples of the beans for our bean trials here? Is this considered Los Altos de Jalisco (que bonitos) as in the song by Jorge Negrete? I love the Conaculta books but sometimes the recipes are very vague. Cook the meat with wild onions and chiles in the usual manner. re the Zacatecas article in Saveur, it's very sweet. I'm assuming what he calls Asada de Boda is known as Mole de Boda in town, and it's pretty awful. Home cooking is one thing but Zacatecas is the gateway to the culinary north and beyond gorditas, it's an odd place to celebrate Mexican cuisine. But the article is sweet and personal and just one small slice of the pie. I was surprised that he has you bake the gorditas. That was a new one on me.

Yes to Richters. I've even grown epazote from their seed before.

I have exactly one source to buy it from. But thanks for all the information, as usual. I don't go for the dried so much but desperate times require dried epazote. If you can get seeds you can grow it and it's a weed. I've found it by our train tracks. and it survives freezing winters. Or it comes back from bolted seeds.

Do you think I can just mix the beans and their broth into the masa or do you think I should use a kitchen aid and really go at it? I'm going to do this!

I think one question is what achieves the traditional taste. Olive oil is a SUBSTITUTE for lard; it changes the taste. Frijoles refritos made with olive oil? Not for me, thanks. Ditto chiles rellenos.But where I can, I do use less. Traditional for who? A Mayan? A Poblano? A Chilango? Neither ingredient is indigenous and there are traditions for both. It's true it changes the flavor and you may prefer one over the other but calling it a substitute is a push. Mexico is too regional for that declaration. I'm actually working on a project involving two home cooks in Hidalgo and the lard/olive oil issue is huge and funny and not concluded. One is a countrywoman from Hidalgo and the other is her cousin, from DF but now living with her in the country. They both are incredible cooks and love each others cooking but of course feel their own is the best. It really represents the conflicts (or contrasts) within Mexico itself. I think it's fascinating (and delicious). For the record, I have a swell tub of lard in my fridge from the local Mexican butcher. I tend to go through about one every six months. I love the stuff. But I love my olive oil, too. Eat Nopal wrote: Recipe or technique? Do we know how pre-conquest tamales were made?