In Tucson the mesquite trees have fresh new leaves and bags of grapefruits are looking for homes. Happy Spring! Amy here using grapefruits a way I learned from my friend and mentor Barbara Rose of Beantree Farm. You can find the original recipe as well as so much other inspiration in a new edition of the Desert Harvesters Cookbook available to preorder now.
Salsa is commonly made with tomatoes or tomatillos, but when fresh tomatoes are months away, grapefruit are plentiful, juicy, sour and pulpy with a hint of sweet. Yum! Start by cutting the stem end and blossom ends of the fruit.
Then cut down the sides to remove the peel, including the pith. Candy the rinds if you like!
With a paring knife, cut along both sides of each segment to release the pulp in wedges. This goes more quickly than it sounds.
I don’t worry about getting every little piece of pulp since I squeeze the juice out of the membranes left behind.
Remove the seeds and drink some of the excess juice. A mix of different colored grapefruit or even oranges is fun. Use what you have!
I’itois bunching onion tops have a unique onion flavor but any color onion will work: bulbous white, red or yellow, green spring onion tops, shallots… whatever you have.
Besides a smashed clove of garlic, a splash of cooking oil (any kind), a pinch of salt, and rubbed Mexican oregano, the not so secret ingredient is crushed chiltepin! Use as few or many as you like. Allow the salsa flavors of blend and the chiltepin and oregano to rehydrate.
Wanting something to go with the salsa, I made tostadas. Sautéed onion and cooked pink beans are a great base.
Mashed beans stick to tostadas better.
Fry corn tortillas in oil until crispy. In order to not set off the smoke detector, frying outside is the best, especially in beautiful spring weather.
Lettuce or most any green or sprout can all liven up tostadas. Wild mustard greens, like arugula, add a peppery bite.
Five dozen Seville orange cupcakes ready for transport to the Mission Garden Citrus Fest.
This is citrus season in the desert Southwest. All varieties of citrus can be found on trees in backyards, orchards, public gardens, college campuses and even street sides. It is a wonderful abundance. It’s Carolyn today and previously on Savor the Southwest, we’ve given you recipes for grapefruits, oranges and lemons (try this fabulous lemon pie or limoncello) . But one abundant fruit that is underused is the Seville orange. Sometimes it is called the sour orange. These oranges have bumpy skin, lots and lots of seeds, and a very tart flavor. Seville oranges make terrific marmalade, the kind with a bitter under flavor that is traditional in British orange marmalade.
The history of all citrus is a little murky, but botanists agree that it originated in parts of Asia where gardeners were growing citrus 4,000 years ago. According to plant expert Dena Cowan of Mission Garden in Tucson, as the various varieties of citrus arose, they interbred to produce even more varieties. Eventually, through human migration and trade, citrus made its way to the Middle East and Southern Europe where the various varieties found a home in the Mediterranean climate. One thing is clear though, the sour orange, the ones we call Seville, predated the varieties of sweet oranges we enjoy. Citrus was brought to the New World by the Spanish explorers and Catholic missionaries. Again, the climate was perfect.
During this season I make many jars of marmalade (recipe here) and store it for use during the year. But I’ve got enough now and was looking for other recipes, specifically something I could sell at the Citrus Fest at Mission Garden. I found a recipe on-line and was able to adapt it to use with the Seville oranges which grow in great abundance at Mission Garden. The five dozen Whole Orange Cupcakes I made sold out and people found them so delicious they wanted the recipe. So here it is along with some tips:
Cut the Seville orange into wedges and trim out the center with seeds and fiber. Discard what you have trimmed and grind the cleaned wedges.
Every Mexican nana anywhere in the US or Mexico has a special, probably complicated, and delicious posole recipe. But you shouldn’t feel intimidated. You can make a delicious posole, basically a pork and hominy stew, for a family dinner or a dinner with friends without much fuss. You can have the basic stew or fancy it up with condiment add ins.
Simply constructed posole all dressed up for dinner.
The thing that differentiates posole from ordinary beef stew is the hominy. My friend Michele Schulz wrote about hominy in a recent blog:
“Nixtamalization is the hominy making process and has been fundamental to Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times. Among the Lacandon Maya who inhabited the tropical lowland regions of eastern Chiapas, the caustic lime powder was obtained by toasting freshwater shells over a fire for several hours. In the highland areas of Chiapas and throughout much of the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize Valley and Petén Basin, limestone was used to make slaked lime for steeping the shelled kernels. The Maya used nixtamal to produce beers and when bacteria were introduced to nixtamal, a type of sourdough was created.
“Alkalinity helps dissolve hemicellulose, the major adhesive component of the cell walls, loosening hulls from the kernels and softening them. Soaking kills the seed’s germ, keeping it from sprouting while in storage. In addition to providing a source of dietary calcium, the lye or lime reacts with the corn so the nutrient niacin can be assimilated by the digestive tract.”
Here is a picture of the way corn kernels puff up to become hominy.
Unlike the ancient Mayans, you won’t have to grind seashells to make your posole. This simple recipe today uses canned hominy which is widely available in grocery stores in the West. Or if you are ready for some culinary fun, you can do what Savor Sister Amy did and make your own hominy from corn. Or maybe you just want to read about it!
To make our easy version of posole, start with some pork roast (not the loin , too lean) cut in chunks and some chopped onion. If you have a slow cooker, this makes things easy because you don’t have to keep an eye on it. Or you can use a heavy pot on your stove. You’ll cook it until the pork is tender, about 2 hours.
Start with pork cubes and onion.
Once the pork is tender, add the hominy and the chile sauce. The bouillion adds a little umami and savoriness and lifts the flavor. Don’t forget the salt. The dish will taste flat without it. How much chile sauce you add depends on the spiciness of the sauce and your taste. It should have a little kick but not burn your tongue.
Here are the canned products that simplify the process. If you can find the Santa Cruz chile paste, it is great. If not, a canned chile paste works.
While the posole is cooking, assemble the condiments which can include green onions, radishes, cilantro, avocado and lime wedges.
A nice selections of condiments.
Easy Posole
2-2 1/2 pounds pork stew meat
1 onion
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 cup water
1 teaspoon Better than Bouillon or a bouillon cube
1 25-ounce can posole
1/4-1/2 cup chile sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Condiments:
Sliced radishes
Finely shredded cabbage
Avocado chunks
Cilantro sprigs
Green onions
Lime wedges
Combine the pork chunks, the onion, garlic, and water in a slow cooker or heavy pan (like a Dutch oven), and simmer until the pork is very tender, about two hours. Flavor with salt and pepper. Add the hominy and the red chile sauce and heat. It should be a little soupy. Ladle into bowls and pass the condiments.
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Carolyn Niethammer has been writing about Southwest food for decades and had published five cookbooks. You can find recipes from renown Southwest chefs in the New Southwest Cookbook, recipes for edible wild plants in Cooking the Wild Southwest, and the history of food in the Santa Cruz basin and the arrival of agriculture in what is now the United States in her latest book A Desert Feast.
With a bounty of citrus in the low desert now beginning to fall off our trees, and neighbors leaving bags of limes or lemons to your doorstep, it’s the perfect time to consider some fun cook-with-citrus ideas for holiday treats!
OK, anyone can put sugar, butter and flour together, but if you give yourself carte blanche to invent new local variations on old-time favorites you can come up with some winners, especially for special winter occasions. Tia Marta here to share what I did with traditional lemon bars for a totally Southwest flair:
Try this delicious locally-inspired RECIPE for HOLIDAY CITRUS BARS:
You will need a 9×13″ baking dish and mixing bowls
Ingredients for crust:
1 and 1/2 cups flour mix (I used 1 cup organic fine whole wheat and 1/2 cup white Sonora wheat flour*)
1/2 cup mesquite meal (in place of crushed graham crackers used in other recipes)
3/4 cup butter, softened room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Ingredients for top layer:
2 cups regular sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice (lime juice or tangerine juice also are delish)
1-2 Tbsp lemon-zest (I used minced Meyer lemon rind; lime- or tangerine-zest would be great)
4 lg. eggs
optional wild desert fruits (I used saguaro fruit; prickly pear or hackberries would work great)
!/4 cup flour (added separately for this top-layer mixture)
*white Sonora wheat flour is available from Barrio Bread milled with heirloom grain grown by BKW Farms in Marana
Directions follow with pictures:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
To begin crust, sift flour mixture, mesquite meal, and and powdered sugar together.
(Since the crust is not leavened, you can make it gluten-free by using tapioca flour as your binder and amaranth flour with the mesquite flour.)
Mix crust ingredients–flours, confectioners’ sugar, and softened butter– to make a “dough”.
Press “dough” into the bottom of the 9×13″ baking pan, relatively evenly (maybe 3/4-1/2″ thick. Be sure to crimp down the edges with a clean knife so the thickness of dough is not tapered thin.
Bake crust at 350F until light brown, about 20-25 minutes. Keep oven on….
Grate 1-2 tablespoons lemon, lime or tangerine zest.
We have Meyer lemons which have such a mild sweet rind that I experimented by mincing, instead of zesting them. I had juiced the fruits previously, and had frozen the rinds for zesting and for making limoncello (that’s another fantastic blog by SavorSisterCarolyn!) . For the top-layer mixture I used 3 tablespoons of minced Meyer lemon rind.
While crust is baking, beat together the top-layer ingredients: sugar, citrus juice, minced or zested rind, 4 eggs, and 1/4 cup flour as thickener. (If you are using a pyrex bake pan, make sure this mixture is warm enough so as not to shock the hot pyrex when poured on crust.)
When crust is light brown and done, bring out of the oven. Pour top-layer mixture onto the crust.
To provide festive decoration and texture, I garnished the top with saguaro fruit collected last June, frozen and now thawed.
Return the now double-layered pan back into oven. Continue baking for another 20-25 or until top layer “sets” firmly.
When done, place on raised rack to cool evenly. Dust the top with powdered sugar.
When cool, separate crust from edge with sharp knife to make removal easier. Slice into small squares. These bars are so deliciously RICH –small is better!
Good and gooey –with that wonderful mesquite flavor, the crunch of saguaro seed,
…and the internalized hope that–with this–we can let the desert plants know how important they are to us!
Enjoy a cold-weather tea-time, a citrus harvest with purpose, or a Thanksgiving dessert made with your own variation on this Citrus Bar treat!
[Mesquite flour or saguaro fruit are special tastes of what makes Tucson an International City of Gastronomy! But these desert foods are not available just anywhere. Plan ahead–the way traditional Tohono O’odham harvesters have always known to do– future culinary opportunities will open to you if ye desert goodies while ye may, that is, when they are in season. Here’s a word of encouragemen from Tia Marta: Put it on your 2023 calendar now. Set aside time in mid-late June, tho’ it is super hot, to collect saguaro fruit, peel and freeze it in sealed container. Also mid-late June before the rains, gather brittle dry mesquite pods for community milling, and freeze the meal in sealed containers. In mid-late August, gather whole prickly pear tunas to freeze in paper and plastic, for juicing later. YOU WILL BE SO GLAD LATER THAT YOU SET ASIDE THESE DESERT FRUITS. Use the SEARCH box on this blog for instructions about harvesting a cornacopia of desert delicacies and staples.]
A lovely hot drink made from pomegranate rind and hibiscus flowers.
Hello! It’s Carolyn today and after nine years of Savor the Southwest, we have an updated look. All the old posts for wild food and Southwest specialties are still in the archives, although they all have the new look.
Today I’m going to talk about tea–well actually “infusions,” since tea must refer to the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. Fall is pomegranate season in Tucson and many people in the warm Southwest have the trees in their yards. Pomegranates are one of the Old World Mediterranean crops brought to the area by Father Eusebio Kino in the early 1700’s.
Many people let their precious pomegranates go to waste because they don’t know how to get out the seeds and then how to eat them. An easy way to do this is to quarter the fruit and then submerge the pieces in a bowl of cold water. Pick the seeds out with your fingers. The seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the fiber will float.
Pomegranate being cleaned in a bowl of water.
The cleaned seeds can be sprinkled on fruit salads or squeezed for juice. But what of the peels? I was amazed to learn recently that the dried pomegranate rinds can make a great tea–whoops, infusion. The imparter of this old-fashioned knowledge was Josefina Lizárraga, who comes often to Mission Garden to share her tips for dealing with local fruit. She is affectionately called La Madrina del Jardín. According to Josefina, the drink is also good to soothe colds or flu.
Josefina with pomegranate at the Mission Garden. (photo by Emily Rockey)
Another delicious drink can be made from hibiscus flowers from the variety Hibiscus sabdariffa, easily grown in the summer and dried for year round use. Mexicans use it to make a drink called jamaica (Ha-my-ca). In Cairo the juice is heavily sugared for a popular drink called karkadai.
While either the pomegranate or hibiscus teas are good alone, try combining them for a fruity, herby treat. If you have mint in your garden, you could even add a few sprigs of that.
Hibiscus sabdariffa, also called Jamaica.
Té de Granada(Pomegranate Tea)
Recipe by Josephina Lizarraga (as told to Emily Rockey)
Bring 2-3 cups of water to a boil. Put 1.5-2 teaspoons of ground pomegranate rind in a pan or teapot.
When water boils, pour over ground pomegranate skin. Allow to steep 10-15 minutes. The pomegranate will settle to the bottom. Alternately, if you don’t grind the skins, you can leave them in 1-2 inch pieces and boil them for 15-20 minutes.
Enjoy simply as it is, or add sugar or honey.
Drink anytime, or for soothing colds or flu, add honey and lemon.
Jamaica (Hibiscus) Tea
1 quart water
1/2 cup dried hibiscus flowers
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
Ginger slices, cinnamon stick, lime juice (optional)
Bring the water to a boil and pour over the hibiscus flowers and other flavorings you choose. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Steep about 20 minutes or until desired strength. You can also mix half and half with club soda for something a little fancier.
Hello friends! Amy here celebrating the harvest on the Autumn Equinox.
At Mexican Raspado places, I never order the shaved ice with sweet syrup, fruit, ice cream, etc. I always get Coctel de Elote, a corn soup served hot and it is DELICIOUS even in hot weather. It can be made with very immature flour or dent corn varieties also known as starchy “field corn” varieties. These are the same corn varieties that are allowed to mature dry on the plant and made into tortillas, tamales and countless other creations. But elote for coctel de elote can also be sweet corn and that’s what I had from my share at Tucson Community Supported Agriculture.
I started by cutting the kernels off the cob, with a sharp little knife within a big bowl.
The kernels can be cut pretty deeply, and the juicy insides scraped into the bowl with the rest.
Then the kernels are boiled in just enough water to cover, with a dash of salt. The cobs go in to extract every bit of their goodness to the soup and to add their own distinctive flavor to the broth.
After simmering for a few minutes, the corn was tender. I poured my soup for one into a small jar to serve, leaving the cobs behind. Then, butter!
At the raspado place, they will ask what toppings would you like, but the only answer is everything, the works!
I started with some Mano Y Metate Mole Powder, Pipian Picante. I think any mole powder would be great here, and the traditional would be plain chile powder or a dash of hot sauce.
I then juiced a lime into the glass. But this wasn’t enough and I resorted to lemon juice I had frozen in quantity from the spring. Also, homemade mayonnaise (just an egg yolk with mild oil whisked into it until it is thick), store bought creama (Mexican sour cream). Basically, just keep adding and tasting until it is irresistible. Then a final sprinkling of fresh cheese (in this case, homemade goat cheese) sprinkled on top.
Enjoy with a long spoon in the short, hot afternoon.
Hello Friends, I’ve always wanted to try mole with scallops since I saw saw it in a book. It paired a very modern white chocolate mole with scallops. Wanting to treat myself to a special meal today, I thought I would give it a go with my own mole.
Happy November full moon! Amy here today experimenting with roast poultry.
I wanted to make a roast chicken with mole as a seasoning, rather than as a sauce. Something exciting but still traditional enough for a roast chicken or turkey. Also, I couldn’t decide which variety of mole to use. So I separately mixed some Mano Y Metate Adobo and Mole Negro powders with olive oil and rubbed them one on each side of a chicken. I slid some under the skin and in the cavity. I sprinkled a little salt everywhere, too.
I trussed the wings and legs with dental floss.
I let it marinate uncovered in the refrigerator for 36 hours. Supposedly this helps the skin get crisp when baking.
In that time the mole dyed the skin a deep color, but it looked dull. So I moistened it with a little more olive oil and set in a 375 degrees F oven.
As it baked, I basted it a few times with its own drippings.
After it was almost to temperature (160 degrees F) I cranked the oven to 400 to crisp the skin for the last few minutes. Then I removed it from the oven, and while resting ensured the breast temperature climbed over 165F.
The skin was crisp and spicy! The meat was savory, flavorful and complex but less spicy. It was bold and special without feeling wild and crazy, or that the sides needed to work around the mole theme.
As for Mole Negro vs Adobo, I think the extra heat of the Mole Negro was my favorite, but the Adobo made the prettier crust and would be my choice for a serving a crowd.
I considered making mole sauce to spoon on the plate, but instead put some of the drippings into and on top of the mashed potatoes. Delicious!!!!!
The bones and drippings made an incredibly rich colored broth with hints of mole. It was spicier than I thought it would be. I can’t wait to make it into soups, the best part of roasting a bird. Enjoy the weather and happy cooking!
Amy here, sharing a classic dish that I’ve made several times recently. Years ago my young niece showed me how she made nachos. I didn’t grow up with them, and had never before gotten into making or eating nachos. Ava’s authoritative recipe in the microwave was such a delight that afternoon. So even if I make my own version now, I always think of her when I do.
I like to start with corn tortillas. Thin ones are best, and if they’re dried out a little, even better.
I fry them in a shallow layer of neutral oil until crispy and brown.
Then sprinkle them generously with salt right after coming out of the oil.
Freshly grated cheese is a must. I like jack, but of course anything that melts is good!
My niece used leftover beans and so did I. These are mayocoba beans cooked with just water, garlic and salt.
For sauce and spice, I made some Pipian Picante with my Mano Y Metate mole powder and the oil left after frying tortillas.
Then I added some leftover carnitas to it!
Since it is chile season, I roasted some from the Tucson CSA over the gas stove inside. After evenly charring, I put them in a lidded dry, cold saucepan, allowing them to steam in their own heat. Then the skins slip off easily.
Tucson CSA has had a good heirloom tomato year, so they go in whatever dish I’m making on the day they are ripe. And I sliced some white onion thinly.
I put the tortillas, cheese and beans to heat in the oven.
A thin layer of tortillas makes for more edges that can get crisp, but a full sheet pan with extra sauce and cheese is good, too! After baking, I top with the pork in Pipian Picante, tomato, onion and green chile. I recommend eating immediately like I did with my niece, enjoying the outdoors.
Hello friends, happy summer. Amy here, sharing a dream come true: goat sitting! Friends that were home all last year became new goat parents during quarantine, but are finally traveling and busy again. Ten years ago I co-milked a huge mama goat in my neighborhood with three other families. Eventually the goats moved to the grassland southeast of Tucson but sharing the responsibilities of milking twice a day suits me well.
Lyric is a miniature milk goat that lives a mile from my house. Her baby Skunky was born in February completely black and white, like a spotted skunk. Twice a day they go on guided foraging excursions in their urban neighborhood. Lyric is easy going, but Skunky gets stir crazy without her walks.
While Lyric is the easiest going goat imaginable, it still takes all my concentration and both hands to milk. I’ll have more photos someday. Lyric provides two cups twice a day, so I’m freezing it, saving up to make cheese. But a batch of ice cream only takes a pint!
I didn’t want to buy cream and I didn’t want rock hard ice milk. Wondering if I could add enough butter to make it work, I found this recipe and adapted it to make butter pecan. I started with just over 2 cups milk, a scant 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder (ground vanilla pods) and 1/8 teaspoon salt over low heat.
I separated 4 room temperature egg yolks and used the whites for another meal.
After mixing a small amount of the hot milk to the yolks, I added the mix to the pot. I stirred while heating slowly until the mixture was barely thickened. Then I strained the thin custard to remove any traces of egg white and cooled it somewhat in the refrigerator.
Meanwhile, I made the flavor. A friend from Bisbee gave me pecans from her tree.
I browned 5 tablespoons unsalted butter! (Remember, this is making it like ice CREAM instead of ice MILK.) Then I added over half a cup of broken pecans to toast in the butter. Yes, it smelled as good as it looks.
I added the slightly cooled custard to the browned liquid butter.
and poured the whole into a little electric ice cream maker. Some butter did solidify into tiny bits, which remained in the finished product. But the nutty butter pieces combined with the nut pieces and it is actually a DELICIOUS result. Rich and flavorful.
Soon it firmed up to soft serve. After a time in the freezer, it made perfectly delicious, not too hard. ice cream.
Savor the Southwest: 