[CH] run-on chat - serranos, hot sauces, mex cheese, kitchen sink

Tee Bear (traderbear@thehitchingpost.com)
Thu, 1 Nov 2001 17:11:02 -0500 

Thanks much for the welcome, Risa and Mary-Anne!

You know, I have screwed around so long that I had to go buy more habs.
Cheesecake still on the agenda.   The little red peppers I bought
previously are Fresno peppers, heat  between a jalapeno and serrano,
according to produce fellow.

Think I will try the green serranos in two recipes (if I can get my
tuckus in gear before the serranos go bad, too) -- an easy looking and
terrific sounding chicken enchiladas in green sauce (Rick Bayless
recipe), and an intriguing salsa recipe from The Sonoran Grill for
Coconut Serrano Salsa.   I bought a coconut and, providing I can figure
out how to hack into that lil sucker, want to make salted coconut chips,
a simple recipe I found in an Hawaiian cookbook.  In fact, am already
thinking chile and lime somehow with those chips.  Anyone got any ideas?
Or have tried it?

For me the above is a LOT of cooking!  <grin>  I am lazy lazy lazy.
Love to read recipes and think about how good the dish will be, but
somehow haven't done much beyond opening packages and cans and the like.
When it comes to truly good food, I am a virtual eater, devouring mostly
the recipes I read.  I need / want  to begin at least trying some of the
gazillions of great recipes floating around.

To give you an idea of how lazy I am, dinner a few nights ago was --
chileheads who cook, this meal will likely make you shudder-- saltines
spread with a thin layer of butter and dribbles of hot sauce (on
alternating crackers) straight out of the bottle.  One bottle was  Ass
Kickin Cajun Hot Sauce, which I didn't much care for.  Guess I am just
not into that Lousiana-ish hot sauce taste  More flavorful to me,  and a
decidely hotter sauce, was a green sauce, El Yucateco Hot Sauce (Salsa
Picante de Chile Habanero).  Whew, I like it but I cant handle as much
of it as I want.  Builds a slow burning fire.

Now, I was well satisfied with my dinner while I ate it, heat 'n all,
but those doggoned peppers set up a ruckus, yakking at me all night.
What pests!  And the next day, too. Cheez.  Which is why I must limit
the serranos in Bayless' Enchildadas Suizas to the three he calls for.
See? I am just nose-pressed-to-the-chilepeppa-glass chilehead!

Today I went on the prowl for missing ingredients for the above recipes
and could not find the Mexican cheese (chihuahua, asadero, or
quesadilla) suggested by Bayless so will have to go with his vanilla
alternative, monterey jack.  I visited three chain grocers as well as
two other stores.  Safeway, Giant  and Trader Joe had forty-leven kinds
of cheddar but not a lick of Mexican cheese.  A customer I accosted in
one store (poor hapless shoppers, I just foist myself on 'em), and the
meat/diary guy at the other, La Bodega, both told me to try the chain
grocer or to buy mozzarella for the enchiladas!  Neither had even heard
of the Mexican cheeses.  Mozzarella!  Heresy!  No way.  I did buy a
couple other kinds of Mexican cheeses to sample,  but was told they
would not be good in enchiladas. Will try again another time.  Fresh
Fields is further away, but I am fairly sure it will have Mexican
cheese.  That's where I finally found chipotles en adobo.  And the
equally pricey Harris Teeter is down the road from FF.

Altho the tiny LaBodega didn't have my cheese, I still hit the
motherlode in finding the store.  It is chock full of Latino goodies,
and on my way out I saw a short wall full of dried peppers.  Gotta go
back.  Among other things, I bought Bufalo Chipotle very hot sauce,
Dragones El Castano sauce (which I suspect will be wicked), and a jar of
iYaesta Piquin/Chiltepe pickled peppers to try.  I have NO idea what a
Piquin is, but  they look like cute lil peppas.  Time to find out if
cute is gonna kill me.

Sorry for such a long post-- my mouth shifts into gear and I can't seem
to shut up.

Tee

P.S. Mary-Anne, (like the cheese, Off Topic) I was also pleased to find
Garam Masala today, which I am sure was in some recipes I had earmarked
to try.  Just have to find them again.  My recollection was that this is
supposed to be a lovely lovely spice mix, tho I don't think it is hot.
Bet you know exactly what to do with it!