Slap Yo Thigh It's So Good Chicken Tacos

I love, love, LOVE Mexican food. There's just something warm and comforting about it. The first bite into my favorite burrito feels like tucking into a pair of fuzzy slippers on a frigid, rainy night. Similar to Indian cuisine, the barrier of entry is rather high -- the stew recipes call for all sorts of exotic chiles and herbs, and even more esoteric ingredients such as tamarin paste and chocolate. The sauces are multi-layered and often time consuming. 


As one would expect, I was rather intimidated when I made my first foray into Mexican cooking. After poking around the inter-webs, I found a crash course to initiate myself on the various dried chile peppers, the foundation of many Mexican dishes. Turns out that scores of the peppers that we're most familiar with aren't all that spicy; their main purpose is to provide that smokey, caramel-y depth to the sauces. I discovered a great little Mexican grocer in the Mission that offer an extensive selection of herbs and spices at rock bottom prices. I got a huge bag each of ancho, negro and California chiles for less than $8! 

Recipe

3 pounds of chicken
3 ancho chiles
5 chile negro
5 chile California
1 medium sized onion
1/2 head of garlic
1 inch segment of ginger
20 sprigs of cilantro (give or take)
3 limes
3 bay leaves
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon dried Mexican oregano
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 cup tequila (plus more to sooth the nerves if you almost started a grease fire like I did)
8 warm tortillas
1/4 head of cabbage
salt and pepper to taste
oil for browning chicken

Savory Whole Grain Sunday Brunch Muffins

I have been making muffins bi-weekly for a few months now. After experimenting with several recipes, I discovered a great base formula that uses bran, flaxseed and whole wheat flour. The best part is that I can skip any fat or oils altogether and miraculously, they still come out moist! The trick is substitution, substitution, substitution!! A variety of healthier options, such as mashed ripe bananas, unsweetened applesauce, canned pumpkin, even shredded carrots or zucchinis, will add moisture to the batter. After trying out a slew of the more traditional muffin, banana nut, apple spice, blueberry, just to name a few, a light went off in my head while I was trying to conjure up more flavors. Who says muffins have to be sweet? That's right, I'm going to make a savory muffin. It should be similar to the frittatas that I baked in the past -- instead of the meat and veggies swimming in a egg mixture, they'll be boogying with bran 'n friends.


This being my first foray into the dark side of baking, I decided to keep it simple. My first consideration was to find something similar to apple sauce as my oil substitute. Well, that was easy, what's better than creamed corn? I add it to my favorite corn bread recipe for a super moist corn bread so it should be a shoo-in. Then I made a list of what I would like in an omelette, and chicken apple sausage immediately came to mind. After several wiggles of the nose, I added scallions, corn and tomatoes to the list. Well, here we go!!

Recipe
1 1/2 cup oat bran

1 1/2 cup flax seed

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons ground pepper

1 teaspoon ground thyme

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3 eggs

2 cups milk

1 can of creamed corn (15.25 oz)

1 can of drained whole corn kernels (15.25 oz)

1 package of chicken apple sausage wieners (1 pound, cut up around 2 1/2 cups)

6 scallions (cut up around 1 cup)

3 diced red chili peppers (cut up around 1/3 cup)

1 cup quartered grape tomatoes

1 cup ricotta cheese

cooking spray