La Morena

I've been craving a lot of Mexican food lately. Probably the lack of heat & sun it being February and all. But I thought I share one of my favorite things to make lately. It involves this fabulous little can. Actually, I use La Morena's Chipotle Sauce, but I've used the peppers in adobe sauce too. In either case, to use the whole can, you've got to make a bunch, but I've found that if you only use 1/2 a can, the left overs freeze fairly well for your next batch.

I use a can of black beans, a can of white hominy (both regular 15 oz cans, rinsed), throw them both on top of some sauted onions and garlic, add some cumin, a 1/2 bottle of beer, 1/2 a can of the chipotle sauce (or if using the whole peppers, cut up 1/3 of them into smaller bite sized pieces - or you can puree the can & use 1/3 of it). Let is simmer along for awhile, or better yet, pop the whole thing in the over at around 350 degrees for an hour.

It's all gone or I would post some pictures.

what's been cooking

This weekend I got to try some long awaited recipes and returned to some old favorites. Friday night I made the incredibly addictive Hot Glazed Tempeh from Veginomicon. I can not tell you how much I love this recipe. I crave this stuff, but since really only Jason and I like it, I don't make it that often. Alongside the tempeh we had baked sweet potatoes, cornbread (I got to try out the little corn cob cast iron pan that I got for Christmas), and a black eyed pea/greens soup that I had frozen from New Years. It was super delish. Plus maybe those black eyed peas gave us extra luck for 2010.

Sunday, Todd and Natascha came to brunch, so I had an audience for my experiment, the Italian Feast "sausage" from Vegan Brunch. I also test kitchened the Chocolate Stout waffles and made a batch of the raised waffles (we had tried those Christmas Day), both of these are also in Vegan Brunch. I really love that book. Every recipe I've tried from it has been a keeper. I will definitely be making both of the waffles and the fauxage (as Todd calls it) again. Though next time I think I'll try the choritzo variation.

I wish I could say I got more done this weekend. I needed to change the sheets on the bed, do laundry, and about a gazillion other things, but it just didn't happen. Nora and I did make valentines for the grandparents though, so at least I'm ahead of schedule on that.