by Sam Tackeff | May 21, 2014 | Meat, Mexican, Vegetables
Let me just say, thank goodness for Trader Joe’s. When I’m running late, and haven’t meal planned, I tend to stop by Trader Joe’s to purchase protein and a vegetable, and go from there.
Tonight I did a “double” at the gym – the WOD (workout of the day), followed by the Olympic Lifting Clinic (where we practiced snatches). The main workout was AMRAP 20: Run 400 meters, then three rounds of {5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 squats}. Feeling sluggish from a track workout yesterday, I managed through only two full rounds (two runs and two sets of three rounds) before calling it. After two hours in the gym, I went for a long walk with my friend AA to make our respective Jawbone/Fitbit step goals. I headed home feeling very accomplished, and decided to support my fitness behavior with a home cooked meal instead of takeout.
Tonight’s dinner – a twist on one of my favorite dinners: taco salad. While I’m not competing in my gym’s nutritional challenge this time around, I’ve been feeling inspiration to eat delicious home cooked meals and share ideas with friends. This dinner takes about 8 minutes to put together if you buy the salsa and guac pre-made. (I like Trader Joe’s Avocado’s Number guacamole, or sometimes if I’m feeling spend-y, the freshly made guac at Whole Foods.)
Beef and Cabbage “Taco” Salad
beef, cabbage, pico de gallo, guacamole
Sauté a pound of ground beef (I use organic, free range when possible) with a large pinch of salt and a heaping teaspoon or so of cumin. When the beef is cooked, add a few large handfuls of shredded green cabbage (about 5 ounces), and another large pinch of salt. Let the cabbage cook for about 4 minutes, until slightly softened but still toothsome. You want the cabbage to still have a little bit of crunch. Once cooked, assemble your salad – the beef and cabbage as the base, and then spoon on pico de gallo and guacamole on each plate. For some added vegetable, add a few chopped cherry tomatoes. Nice with a little squeeze of lime. Serves 2, generously.
by Sam Tackeff | May 5, 2012 | Lunch, Mexican
A Cinco de Mayo lunch from Formaggio Kitchen’s weekly Saturday Outdoor Barbecue. Tongue tacos, topped with a punchy heaping of cabbage slaw and a side of pickle. I can never turn down a pickle. I hope everyone is enjoying today’s festivities!
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 2, 2009 | Mexican, Pantry Staples, Soups
Ok… I may have… in a fit of passion… ordered a massive quantity of beans two days ago from Rancho Gordo. And by massive quantity I mean… 15 pounds of beans. So, I’m going to do my best in the next few days to reduce my current bean pantry, and hopefully share with you all some of my results.
This morning I was surfing around the interwebs and found a recipe called “Good Soup for Sick People” on Heidi Swanson’s site ‘101 Cookbooks‘ and even though I’m not sick, it sounded like a good soup for cold people, tired people, and people on their day off work huddled on their couch, (ie: me.)
Heidi makes hers in the oven, using her nice Le Creuset pot, [which I’m about to be blessed with for the holidays but I’m having trouble currently making the choice of color and size (Dijon? Carribean? Onyx? Advice anyone?)] but as I don’t have one yet, I had to make do with the stove top. It works out just fine.
This recipe basically has 6 ingredients, all of which were in my pantry, and is completely hands off. Prep time? About three minutes. And it’s pretty flexible – if you have shallots instead of onion, you could do that, or if you need to use canned stock, that’s fine too. Although I’d go for a low sodium variety so that you can adjust your own seasoning. No chipotle in adobo (although really you can get these everywhere)? – go for a dried chile.
So you put it all in a pot. And you wait. And then what you get at the end is this savory, spicy, and hearty soup – the beans will have plumped up and the onions and garlic become so soft they melt in your mouth. It tastes a little bit like french onion soup… with a kick! Believe me, that chipotle really fires you up! I think this one is going to go into heavy rotation in the next few weeks.
Spicy Bean Soup (Good for Sick People)
adapted from 101 cookbooks
serves 2
Ingredients:
1 cup of dried borlotti beans (or other cranberry beans), preferably that you have soaked overnight*
1 large onion, sliced or roughly chopped
8-10 cloves of garlic, peeled, whole, trimmed
8 cups of stock (I used home made turkey stock)
1 chile pepper in adobo
1 bay leaf
To serve : (optional, but highly recommended):
fresh cilantro
freshly grated parmesan
1. In a soup pot, add all of the ingredients, and bring to boil. Cover, turn down the heat to a simmer, and let it go for an hour or so. After the first hour, check to make sure your liquid hasn’t decreased too substantially, and add water if needed. Let the thing simmer for a second hour until beans are tender, and you can’t hold yourself back from eating it all.
To serve, top with some fresh cilantro, and a shaving of Parmesan.
Eat. Feel restored.
*Note: I didn’t soak my beans. They were done in just over 2 hours. But then again, that’s because I buy them from Rancho Gordo, and they are fresh, fresh, fresh!
by Sam Tackeff | Jul 24, 2009 | Mexican, Pantry Staples, Soups
I’ve been working all week long in the bookstore (Omnivore Books on Food), while Celia, the owner is away in Paris (so jealous!), and find myself spending the entire day pouring through cookbooks and food memoirs, only to find myself hungry and a little exhausted by the time I get home for dinner.
While I don’t subscribe to the 30 minute meal mentality, I am enamored by recipes that take no more than 15 minutes to put together, and then cook on the stove for an hour or more with little to no fuss – enough time for really rich flavors to develop, and delicious aromas to perfume the house. I’ve been on a bit of a Mexican kick for the past few weeks, reading through our selection here in the shop, and came up with this Pozole – drawn from many sources and adapted for my own kitchen.
This is one of those great recipes where you need a big pot and a cutting board and really nothing else. It’s really a pantry recipe, and it’s basis is the hominy, which is made from maize but almost has the consistency of potato. Add the growers trinity (three sisters): beans, corn, and squash, and you have a delicious stew. They say what grows together goes together, and its certainly evident in this dish.
I get this started the moment I walk in the door, and then have a good amount of time to wind down, organize myself, read my email, and check in with my friends and family before dinner.
An Easy Pozole
serves 4
Ingredients
– 1 29 oz can white hominy
– 1 15 oz can white kidney beans (cannellini beans)
– A corn cob, kernels stripped, cob in the pot as well
– a 1/2 pound of green beans or romano beans, cut into 1 inch strips
– 4 or 5 pattypan squash, cubed
– Ham steak, cubed (the 1 inch thick prepackaged variety works fine)
– 1 onion, chopped
– 2 garlic cloves, smushed with your hand, or the flat of a heavy knife
– 1/2 teaspoon of dry marjoram (or a large sprig of fresh)
– 1/2 teaspoon dry oregano (or a large sprig of fresh)
– a teaspoon of chopped chile (or red pepper flakes)
– 3/4-1 Tbs. Cumin
– salt and pepper to season
Method
Add everything to a big pot, cover with water, to about an inch over everything, gently bring to a boil on medium high heat, and then turn heat down to medium low, cover loosely leaving the lid just a tiny bit ajar, and simmer an hour or more, stirring every once in a while, until you are too hungry to wait any longer. Take out the corn cob, and serve.
Serve with Lime and Cilantro, for garnish, and some warm tortillas for dipping.
Variations: Consider this a recipe that you can easily adjust based on what you have in the kitchen or on hand. I’d keep the onion and spices the same, but feel free to vary the amount of squash (any type of summer squash would do), and the types of beans, etc. You can pop in more vegetables if you’d like, such as chopped red pepper, tomato, or even leafy greens. You can also kick up the heat by adding more pepper – it’s really good hot!
by Sam Tackeff | Mar 26, 2009 | Mexican, Restaurants, Seafood
On our way back from our day trip up the coast, we stopped for a quick bite at Salsalito Taco Shop, in Sausalito, CA. I had a craving to fulfill, a baja style fish taco (fried fish, topped here with slaw), which somewhat tragically I missed out on even though I was actually in Mexico last weekend. I’m sure this doesn’t come close to Tacos El Fenix (in Ensenada, Mexico), but it was pretty tasty. 
I also had some fish Ceviche, which was marinated really nicely in lime, and had a decent kick. It was also served on a fish shaped plate, so bonus points, in my opinion.
