Tomato box

Ingredients:

Golden Roma tomatoes and tomatillos, about 8lbs total Fresh peppers to taste (I used 1 medium-hot pepper about 2×3″ to get mild heat) 2 large white onions 2 tsp sea salt 1 tsp black pepper (didn’t measure but did 30 turns of the grinder) 2 tsp cumin seeds 1.5 TB fresh oregano 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro Fresh lime juice (used 7 limes which came to just under a cup) Apple cider vinegar to bring acid liquid total to 2.5 cups

Preparing the Equipment:

Fill your canner with the approximate amount of water you’ll need to put in all the jars and cover them by an inch, cover it, and get it boiling.  It can take a long time to boil this much water, so it’s best to start it early then just keep it warm. Wash jars and lids. Put lids into a pan of water and bring to a boil then keep warm. Put jars into a 200*F oven.  This tip was pure genius!  All the other instructions I read say to boil the jars and that means you have no room on the stove, have your canning pot in use (or have to use two), and the jars are wet.  With the oven they were out of the way and dry.

Making the Salsa:

Seeding golden roma tomatoes

Peel and quarter the onions and put through shredder of food processor. Wash tomatoes and remove any bad spots.  Cut in half lengthwise and seed (just stick your fingers in there and push the seeds into a bowl, don’t worry about being perfect).  Set aside seeds/juice for another use (I froze them for soup). I considered following everyone’s advice and peeling the tomatoes, but their skin is thinner than most and I really really didn’t want to.  I’m told that regular tomato skins get tough if left in.  To peel, immerse tomatoes for 30-45 seconds in a pot of boiling water.  Immediately place in to ice water.  The skins should come right off. Wash tomatillos and remove any bad spots.  Put in oven to roast (I should have cut them in half first and put them in a well-heated oven, but I just put them whole into the 200*F oven that was holding the jars).  You do not need to peel or seed tomatillos.  Feel free to make the recipe with just tomatoes or just tomatillos. Run tomatoes and tomatillos through food processor shredder. In the empty food processor, with the regular blade, put all tomato and onion scraps that didn’t shred plus the seasonings and herbs and the peppers you’re using, washed with stem and seeds removed.  Mince well. Put everything into a pot, along with the acid liquid.  Bring to a simmer.  Apparently this is all that is needed for safety and easy canning.  The recipe I had says to cook it for half an hour.  I wasn’t going to but it was very liquidy.  Since my sauce was yellow and green, I didn’t want to add the recommended (red) tomato paste. So I did cook it down some, but it’s still pretty liquid.

Salsa ready for canning

Filling the Jars:

Keep the salsa hot while you’re filling.  Take the jars out of the oven and the lids out of the pot of hot water right before you need them so they don’t cool too much. I used an 8oz ladle (same size as the jars) into a canning funnel.  I couldn’t find my real canning funnel so I used a make-shift one, the cut off top of a gallon plastic jug (the sturdy plastic).

Filling jars with salsa

Processing the Jars:

Wipe any spills off the rims, put the rubber rings on the plastic lids (I use Tattler BPA-free lids), and put the metal rings on loosely.  Tighten ring with finger pushing down on the lid.  Then loosen lid 1/4″.  (If you’re using Ball lids, follow the directions on the box.) I don’t own a canning rack so I put extra canning rings on the bottom of the pot and then layered them on top of the first layer of jars. They were not all perfectly not touching each other but I’ve seen other canning folks do this without any center racks, so I’m not worried. I did a double layer of jars (which left some for a second processing session, oh well). Have the water at a boil before adding jars.  Adjust water so it is at least 1″ over the top of the lids.  Bring back to a boil then set a timer for 15 minutes.  Remove finished jars with to a rack to cool (my jar lifter was a great investment!). Tighten the lids.  You don’t do this with Ball lids, just with Tattler.  I forgot to with the salsa, but it all sealed just fine.  Tattler lids do not ping.  There are no sounds at all with them. When jars are cool (the next day), remove the rings and make sure the lids are secure.  Label and store.

How Much did I Make?

The recipe I based mine on called for 15 lbs of tomatoes and makes around 8 pints.  I only had 8 lbs of tomatoes and tomatillos and I cooked my salsa down as long as the other recipe does.  I thought I’d get 5 pints or so.  Somehow I ended up with 12!  (You may notice that the original recipe called for 2 cups of acid liquid but I used 2.5 cups.  That was because I realized at that point I had more salsa than expected so added some extra just in case.) I canned 2 pint jars and 18 half pint jars and had a full pint for the fridge.

Salsa canned, labeled, and in the pantry

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Hand shaped tortillas from homemade masa

Masa, the corn dough used to make tortillas, tamales, pupusas, and more, is quickly becoming one of my favorite kitchen staples.  Unfortunately, it’s hard to get good quality product.  Even in Mexico, shops with fresh masa for home use are disappearing in favor of the powdered stuff.

I began my quest in early 2008.  My daughter’s 3rd birthday was coming up and I wanted to have a taco bar.  I looked and looked for plain fresh tortillas for sale but found nothing suitable.  I live in a semi-rural agricultural part of the San Francisco Bay Area.  You can’t do a cartwheel without hitting a Mexican neighborhood, market, or restaurant.  But almost every last tortilla I found had preservatives in it.  Why on earth??  Trader Joe’s has some pretty good ones, the “handmade” ones, but they’re a bit pricey for a large party, and they aren’t organic.  Whole Foods has organic tortillas with good ingredients but they’re dreadful.  Okay if fried hard but just horrible if you try to make them soft, like a real taco.

The first stop in my masa journey was the powdered stuff.  Masa harina.  Maseca brand.  I made pretty good (and very cheap) tortillas from it.  They tasted much the same as commercial tortillas…because most of those are made from the powder too.  It’s not organic, it’s probably GMO, it leaves a junky feeling in my stomach, but it’s easy to find, easy to store, and moderately easy to make.  It’s good in a pinch but is sort of like buying squishy “wheat” bread from a bag instead of baking your own from whole grains.

I’ve looked but haven’t found organic masa harina (harina means flour).  Bob’s Red Mill makes a non-organic one that is pretty decent.  Worlds better than Maseca but it still gives me that icky tummy and, like all masa harina, is difficult to work with and shape into anything but basic tortillas.

My next discovery was a true masa shop, practically in my backyard.  Primavera in Sonoma, California.  For a mere $1.50 a pound, I could buy beautiful organic whole grain masa, ready to cook.  Unfortunately, “practically” means a 45 minute drive each way and I have been having trouble sourcing it anywhere else.  The only Farmer’s Markets they sell at are an hour away and the stores they sell their finished products at don’t carry the masa because it’s so perishable (you can’t freeze it and it’s best used within a couple of days, though it will not go bad for a week or slightly more).  I was special ordering it from my local Whole Foods but they decided this was too much trouble.  I met their early morning delivery truck in parking lots a couple of times but, with a child in tow, this got to be a hassle.

The next step was obvious, I was going to have to make my masa myself.  But how?  First I (re)discovered the Good Eats (Alton Brown on the Food Network) episode where he makes it, effortlessly of course.

Then I worked on ingredients.  You need field corn for this, which simply means the kind of corn used for cornmeal, not for corn on the cob or popcorn.  Azure Standard to the rescue!  They grow their own and a 5 lb bag of organic dried field corn is a mere $3.05.  Note: you really do want organic here (or at least buy from a farmer you know isn’t using GE seeds or spraying).  Almost all field corn in the US is genetically engineered (and heavily sprayed).  Organic is not.

Next you need Cal, short for calcium hydroxide aka slaked lime (get food grade, not the grade for cement or whitewashing walls!).  Most Mexican markets will have this.

Calcium Hydroxide for making masa

The only other ingredients are water and salt but you do need a stainless steel (or other non-reactive) pot, a stove, and a food processor.  In my net searches, I came across another blogger, Rancho Gordo, who made masa using Alton Brown’s recipe.  My heart sank as I read their difficulty in getting the food processor method to work.  But I decided to plow ahead anyway.  And I’m glad I did, mine came out wonderful!

It’s pretty easy.  Measure 6 cups of water (I use filtered since the corn will absorb it) into a pot, add 2 tablespoons of cal, and stir as you gently heat the water.

Soaking the corn in lime water

When the lime is dissolved (a few seconds), add 2 cups of corn.  Rinse it first, though I forgot the first time and it didn’t seem to matter (since you will rinse later).  Bring to a boil then turn off the heat.  Alton Brown insists that you do this slowly, with the time to boil taking half an hour or more.  I did that the first time but the second time I forgot to watch it carefully and it boiled quicker and stayed at a boil for a few minutes.  Oops.  Didn’t make a big difference, though it absorbed more water.

Turn off the heat, cover, and let it sit overnight (I’m not sure what the minimum time for sitting is).  If you can’t get to it the next morning, no problem.  My second batch sat for almost 24 hours.  It swelled up more but was still firm enough to rub and rinse.

Dump into a colander and drain out the excess lime water.

Corn after soaking in lime water

Now comes the fun part.  Soak in fresh water (I use tap water here), rub, rinse, repeat.  Alton Brown says 5-6 minutes of rubbing while rinsing.  I wasn’t that throgho.  I put the colander in a larger bowl, fill with water, rub for a while, pour off the skins, add more water, rub, drain and rinse, etc.  Remember the purpose of the lime is to change the protein content and texture.  It’s not essential to remove the skins.

At the end, soak in fresh water for a couple minutes and repeat.  Then drain and process along with a teaspoon of salt.  Alton Brown makes it seem easy, with just a few pulses and 4-5 TB of water.  I found it takes more than that.  I pulse at first, scrapping down the sides as needed, but then just let it run.

Masa after a trip in the food processor

The first time I did use way too much water, as you can see above.  I put in about 10 oz (20 TB).  It made a nice smooth product but not one I could shape with my hands.  I still managed to make yummy tortillas though, so no great loss.

The second time I used half as much water (about 5 oz or 10 TB) and the masa came out lovely.  Not quite as smooth as my first batch, or as Primavera’s gorgeous product, but very usable and delicious.  It was still a little wetter than I would have liked but I could shape it by hand (see tortillas at the top of the page) and could have made pupusas or other foods from it.  See below.

Finished masa ready to shape and cook

Cost is pretty low too.  One batch (2 cups of corn) costs 61 cents for the corn (would be less if I bought it in 25 or 50 lb bags), 13 cents for the cal (again, I could buy in bulk and save), and another couple pennies for the water, salt, and electricity.  So let’s say 75 cents for enough masa to make 15-20 medium organic whole grain tortillas (masa weight will vary depending on how long you soaked it for and how much water you added). This is expensive compared to Maseca masa harina, which runs $4-6 for enough flour to make a couple hundred tortillas.  But less than Primavera masa or any finished tortillas you can buy.

All in all, is it worth it?  So far, yes.  My masa has a wonderful corn flavor, a great texture, and is making excellent tortillas (and soon to be making pupusas, challah, and other cool things).  It takes 2 minutes to set up at night, another few minutes to watch it and then cover, and 10 minutes to make the next day.  Tortillas take a couple minutes to make and cook.  Someone into convenience foods would be put out, but it’s really nothing in the great scheme of things.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Chimichurri Sauce Recipe

2 bunches fresh herbs (any combo of parsley, cilantro, or mint)
Juice of 3 limes
Salt
Seasonings as desired (hot pepper, garlic, etc)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Take any parsley or cilantro bunches you’re using, twist off the bottom half of the stems and discard into the compost.  Then wash the remainder very well (cilantro in particular tends to hold dirt) by swishing and lifting out of a bowl of clean water, three times.  Pull mint leaves off and discard stems.

Shake or spin dry the herbs and put most of them (maybe 3/4) into the food processor.

Add the lime juice and some salt.  Note that the amounts given here are approximations.  Bunches vary in size and so do limes.  Each of them vary by water vs flavor.  There is just no way to know exactly how much lime juice or seasoning you’ll need.  So start with 3 limes and add 1 or 2 more if needed after you taste.  Start your salt amounts on the low side too.

I like a teaspoon or so of cumin (the seeds are best but powder is good too) and some mild heat.  Sometimes I use chipotle powder, other times I use chili flakes.  All depends what I’m in the mood for and what’s on hand.  If you want garlic, use fresh peeled cloves.  Rough chopping will help your processor out but is optional if you have a good one.  I’d use 2-6 cloves in this recipe, depending on how much you like garlic.

Process until smooth and taste.  Adjust lime juice, salt, and seasonings.  Repeat until it’s perfect.

Now, drizzle in the olive oil and process lightly.  Use more or less if you wish.

Finally, add the leftover herbs and pulse the processor so they are well chopped but still have texture.  If you’re using a processor that can’t do this well, or you are using a blender, then do the chopping by hand and add the minced herbs at the end.

Squeezing limes for chimichurri sauce

This sauce lasts several days in the fridge and you can use it to punch up just about anything.  It’s great with mashed avocados, browned extra firm tofu slices, firm white fish, or on crackers.  But one of my favorite ways to use it is in a bean salad.  Here are two different recipes.

Black Bean & Lentil Salad with Chimichurri Sauce

I used black beans and lentils in this dish, but you can substitute any legumes you wish.  Be sure to cook them so they are done but still firm. If they are mushy, you’ll end up with bean dip, not bean salad.

2 cups dry black beans, soaked overnight and drained
2 cups french green lentils, rinsed in water
4-5 small bell peppers

I cooked the beans and lentils separately (though in the same pot) so I wouldn’t risk having to overcook one. Feel free to cook them together if you’re better with timing than I am. Cook until done but firm, drain well (liquid is great for soup stock (freeze it) or put on plants outside).

Cut peppers in half, remove cap and seeds and slice into thin strips (cut in half if more than 3″ or so). Put on baking dish with a touch of olive oil and bake until soft. I did 25 mins at 350*F in a convention oven. If you use a regular oven, stir them every 5-10 mins.

Add peppers to beans, stir lightly, and add the chimichurri sauce.

In a blender, put the following (these are approximate amounts):

Mix in sauce. Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.

Variation: for a bit of spice, make some of the peppers medium heat ones and cut fine (leave some peppers large and mild) or add hot pepper to the sauce.

Black Bean, Cucumber, & Tomato Salad with Chimichurri Sauce

Black beans (measure as 2 cups dried or 3-4 cups cooked, drain before using)
1 medium cucumber
2 large tomatoes, preferably heirloom

Dice the cucumbers and tomatoes and add to the beans.  Add the chimichurri sauce.  Mix and serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.

Black bean salad with chimichurri sauce

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

At our last time hosting a Jewish potluck with these friends, we made a great challah from a Pamela’s bread mix.  It came out great and worked well with a braid too.  But Miriam had her first life-threatening allergic reaction in August and our top suspect is tapioca (negative in the allergy testing but we’re not letting her have it until we can do it in a controlled manner with medical backup).  As anyone gluten-free for a while knows, pretty much every gluten-free bread mix or product on the market contains tapioca.  It’s a great flour, but Pamela’s has it too and we just can’t take the chance.

I ordered some more of Primavera’s fabulous organic masa and was going to make tortillas (to go with the ceviche I made for the main dish).  Then I thought…what if I braided and baked it instead?

First I took the fresh masa, scooped some chucks out of the bag with a spoon, evened them out, and rolled them into 3 balls.

Masa rolled into balls

Then, I rolled each ball into a log.

Masa balls rolled into lengths

And braided it, crimping the ends well and pushing down on the dough so it wouldn’t come apart.

Braided dough

Then it went for a roll (all sides) in a plate of sesame seeds.  I added some oatmeal so it would be “bread” we could say Hamotzi over.  This is completely optional if you don’t need it for religious purposes.  The oats didn’t change the taste or texture at all.  If you react to the wheat contamination in most oats, use ones certified gluten-free.  The sesame, on the other hand, was delicious and added a nice crunch.

Sesame seeds and oatmeal

I carefully moved each loaf to a baking pan generously coated with olive oil.

Challah ready for baking

I baked them at 325*F for about 35 minutes, turning once halfway through (use two spatulas so they don’t break apart).  I left them in the oven with the heat off for another 10 minutes or so.

Finished challah

Miriam ate about half of what was there and the rest of us made sure the plate was empty.  Even the nonallergic folks thought it was fabulous.   It came out dense and chewy, almost like a bagel (hmmm…) but still light enough to have the mouthfeel of bread.

I’ll have to experiment a little.  The oil kept it from sticking and also made it richer, which was what I was going for.  Without the oil, it might taste more like a tortilla.  But, overall, I’m very happy with how it came out.

Happiness is a little girl jumping for joy singing “it’s challah that doesn’t make me sick!!!”

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Pupusa stuffed with leftover veggies and burger

I won’t purport to have an authentic version but, so far, I’m doing pretty decently with the tortillas and am still working on fabulous fillings (cheese is easy but not on my diet). Since I can’t have most breads either, these have been like a sandwich substitute for me. I have to go easy because of the carbs, but they make wonderful treats.

You can make pupusas out of any type of masa, even masa harina (flour). But they are truly wonderful with fresh, unpowdered, masa (ground corn soaked in lime–that’s calcium carbonate, not citrus). I’ve been using Primavera’s organic masa. Just don’t try to make pupusas from pre-cooked tortillas. It won’t work.

Start with your fillings. For this recipe, I finely chopped some onions and sauteed them to remove water and add some carmelization. Then I sauteed some mushrooms, added salt to pull out water, and cooked them down.

Cooked onions next to cooking mushrooms

Next, I processed some leftover fresh tomato and basil leaves and added it to the mushrooms.  Then I mixed everything together in a large bowl.

Mushroom/onion filling for pupusas

I also sliced up some bell peppers and sauteed them in oil with some salt and a large amount of hot pepper flakes.

Spicy hot bell peppers

I rolled the masa into balls and pressed them one at a time in-between dinner plates that were inside gallon zipper bags (see my post about making tortillas for technique details).  The tortillas went down on a dry cast iron griddle in a single layer.  Then I put a spoonful of canned beans (not my first choice but no time to make anything else), some of the peppers, and a bit of the onion/mushroom mix.  Another tortilla went on top of each one, and I crimped the edges by hand, with a butter knife, or with a fork.

Cooking pupusas on a grill

Wait until the pupusas have cooked enough to release easily, then flip them.  Press down to make sure the top touches the griddle as much as possible.  You won’t get it all but you do want to avoid raw spots.

Finished pupusas cooling

After they cooled, I wrapped each one in foil and placed into a zipper bag then into the freezer.  I’ll let you all know how well they freeze and reheat.  So far I have heated a refrigerated foil-wrapped pupusa in the toaster oven and it came out great.

Some of my favorite fillings for quickie pupusas have been leftovers.  Use your imagination.

Pupusas stuffed with whole red beans, onions, and leftover tofu

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

“Using masa harina [masa flour] is like making mashed potatoes from a box.”

So says Karen Waikiki, owner of Primavera, the Sonoma company that makes masa, tortillas, and tamales from organic stoneground corn. And she has a point. Though the tortillas I made from masa harina were way better than the store-bought tortillas I’ve had and were definitely worth making as an alternative to them (a million times cheaper too).

I’ve used Primavera masa before. I got it from the Berkeley Farmer’s Market and froze it because the guy at the booth said I could to preserve it. Karen says no no don’t freeze it. I chronicled my adventures using the defrosted masa when I made tortilla pie. The short version is: they still tasted great and worked in larger applications, but I couldn’t make tortillas that didn’t fall apart.

I’ve been trying to find Primavera masa to try this again with the fresh stuff. But no store carries it. I can find the tortillas and tamales easily enough though. So I called Primavera and Karen called me back. Because the masa is more perishable than the finished products, it’s not currently sold in stores. My choices were to go to Farmer’s Markets in Berkeley, San Francisco (Ferry Building), or Sonoma, or to their shop in Sonoma (the closest but still about 40 mins each way).

Or I could special order it. I decided to have them send a bag to the Petaluma Whole Foods. Karen sweetly offered to comp it for me, since I told her I had blogged about them. I said I wanted to get it regularly so I didn’t mind paying.

I went to Whole Foods and ordered it and, a few days later, they called me to say it was in. And there was a big “no charge” label on it. I went to pick it up that afternoon and oh my God, the shock when I saw the bag.

10 lbs of Primavera Masa

That’s with some already used up. We’re talking 10 lbs of masa. Not the 2 or so lbs I had gotten before. What on earth was I going to do with it?

Well, over the next week I made some pupusas.

Pupusas

I made some tortillas and tortilla pie.

Hand-shaped tortilla pie stuffed with veggie burger and vegetables

And I generally tried to just use it up. But I was barely making a dent. So, finally, I decided to do a giant batch of pupusas. I made 16 of them (that’s 32 tortillas) and was too tired to go on (4 for our tummies and 12 for the freezer). But the bag isn’t empty yet.

Pupusas cooking on the griddle

With all that, the masa is holding up incredibly well. In the beginning, I only used clean spoons to pull out masa, not my hands. So it would last a long time. And it has. It’s been 10 days since I bought it and it’s still fresh.

In the first few days, the masa was like heaven. It rolled out into perfect discs with either a press or my hands. It never stuck to anything. Now it has dried out ever so slightly and the tortillas are starting to stick and crack a bit. I added some water which helped but nothing brings back the super freshness I started with. Even so, it’s amazing stuff. Puts that powdered business to shame.

Next time though, I’m going to specify the small bags.

Foods I’ve made with masa (fresh or flour):

1. Tortillas
2. Omelet stuffed tortilla pie frittata
3. Pupusas
4. Cornbread Challah
5. Corn Dogs

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

Primavera
17070 Sonoma Hwy. (Hwy. 12)
Agua Caliente, CA
(707) 939-9350

Some good articles:
Tortillas a mano
Rancho tamales are a family affair
Primavera in the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
Tortilla Spat: How Mexico’s iconic flatbread went industrial and lost its flavor

The seller told me it would keep in the fridge for a few days but I could freeze it too. I didn’t get to it right away, so I stuck it in the freezer. Between then and now, I had my tortilla-making adventures using masa harina (flour you mix with water). I defrosted the Primavera masa about a week ago.

Various articles I’ve seen talk about how it freezes well (both the dough in general and Primavera’s in particular), but mine didn’t fare as well. When I tried to form it, it was both soggy and dry. Tortillas made with it came out tasting good, with decent texture, but they are very thick (not a bad thing!) and fall apart.

I had better luck adding a bit of water and kneading the dough for a minute or two, as if it were being made from flour. Then letting it sit for a couple minutes. It still sticks to the tortilla press (despite using plastic covers) and falls apart, but not as badly.

So, tonight, I came up with a different plan. I added water to the rest of the masa, kneaded it, and set it aside. Then I divided it in two for top and bottom. The idea? a giant pupusa.

First, I sauteed some sliced onions (on a mandolin) in olive oil. My original idea for the filling was to saute onions and also fry up some tofu bits with curry. But I forgot and was too tired, so it was just onions.

Next, I put oil, then some cornmeal, in a hot cast iron pan, and plopped in half the dough, flattening it the best I could with the spatula.

Topped it all with a healthy dollop of onions.

Then added the rest of the dough on top, spreading it out first with the spatula, then with my fingers.

As I took pictures, I kept thinking that I should post it all anyway, as an example of failed meals. I get ideas in my head and, trust me, sometimes they come out pretty awful. I was sure this was another of those times.

Then I realized I needed to turn the pie over. I cut it in quarters (chop hard to get through the onions) and flipped them one at a time, adding more olive oil underneath. I stood back and looked and knew I had made something good.

Yep, these taste as good as they look. You can use any filling you want. The plain onions were a bit bland, though savory. Cheese would be amazing, if you eat it. You could make this a main dish by adding meat or tofu or another protein.

Serve it for breakfast…for the first time in 2 years, I felt like I could have omelets again. This is the closest I have come without actually eating eggs. It would be fabulous brunch food too. But I enjoyed it for dinner, with a big salad.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

It’s an international list, with most subscribers living in the US. Monica lives in Los Angeles, and I got to meet her when I was in LA for Expo West last year. This year, we planned a potluck and invited all local Foodlab members. Unfortunately, there were some last minute cancellations, but we had a lot of fun.

(Miriam, Cyndi, Jessica, Monica)

Monica and Matt, and 3.5 year old son Donovan, hosted the event. Jessica came with 2 year old daughter Roxie. And Michael and I (Cyndi) were there with barely 3 year old Miriam.

(Monica & Jessica)

(Cyndi & Monica)

Our first order of business was to go through the several supermarket-sized bags of samples and literature I’d brought from Expo West to share.

(Jessica, Roxie, Monica)

Next we started cooking.

(Jessica making vegan curry)

(Jessica & Cyndi making tortillas)

And then we ate.

(Miriam, Donovan, & Roxie ready to eat, with Michael in the background)

All of the food was amazing. We banned any ingredient that none of us could eat (dairy, gluten) and anything that would cause a problem for someone if they got a trace (soy, canola, orange, egg, chocolate). We allowed but discouraged foods that one or more people had a problem with (reaction or a choice) but where a trace wouldn’t matter (meat, corn). And it was a given in this group that everything would be fresh and free of food additives.

(Jessica’s vegan curry)

Here’s what we ate:

Monica:

Olive bread
Crab cakes
Misc pre-dinner snacks (veggies & chips)

Jessica:

Keifer (non-dairy keifer grains fermenting apple juice)
Curry
Hummus with eggplant
Cashew cream with fresh strawberries (similar to my recipe)

Cyndi:

Pickled red onions
Corn tortillas (made on site with Jessica)
Halibut ceviche

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

The basic recipe is for Mexican Ceviche at http://www.recipezaar.com/8899. There are as many ways to make ceviche as there are fish in the sea, but I like the classic Mexican. Being kosher at home, I stick with fin fish, though shellfish works very well in the dish.

Costco has amazingly good (and very fresh) wild halibut at a reasonable price (be sure to get the fillets). Halibut season starts about a week into March, so it was just in time for this potluck. You can use any firm white fish (or anything really) you like, just be sure it’s good quality with no off smells.

Start the recipe at least one day before you plan to serve it. The finished dish will keep in the fridge for several days.

Fish Recipe:

2 lbs halibut fillets or other fish/shellfish
4-6 large limes (buy a couple extra just in case)

Cut raw fish into cubes about 1/2″ wide (don’t worry about being exact, but aim for semi-uniform pieces). Put in large bowl (glass or ceramic is best).

Squeeze fresh lime juice over fish (or into bowl first if there are seeds to remove) until the fish is covered. I like to include the pulp. Try to avoid limes that are large and juicy because they are overly watery.

Put bowl into fridge overnight, stirring every few hours or when you remember.

Ceviche Recipe:

2 cups diced fresh tomatoes
2 green bell peppers, chopped
2/3 to 1 cup finely chopped herbs, a mixture of parsley and cilantro, with a sprig of oregano (the first two must be fresh but you can sub dried oregano)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped (this will be mildly spicy)
4 oz (8 TB) white or rice vinegar
1 large onion, finely chopped (optional)
1-2 dashes hot sauce

Remove fish from fridge, drain (not all the way) and save juice.

Add the rest of the ingredients, stir, and return to fridge for several hours.

Drain excess liquid before serving, mix with the saved lime/fish juice, and put into a cocktail or just drink it. Specific ideas welcome…I’m guessing vodka would be nice.
Serve in a large bowl, or on tortillas.

I’ve made this a few times now. The pictures are from the most recent time, the Los Angeles Foodlab gathering, and, I have to say, it never really came together. It was good, but never felt like a cohesive dish. Not even after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. Let me try to deconstruct the differences.

I added onion this time; I usually don’t use it. It was definitely a mistake to use yellow: red would have been better. I added back the lime juice I’d drained from the fish (in top picture) because the fish pieces were too big (the hazards of traveling without my own knives; this also led to the herbs being too coarse) and not fully “cooked.” But it meant I never drained the liquid later either, which I should have. Also, it wasn’t quite tomato season yet so some of them were under-ripe. You need the acid juice to help the dish meld. I also left out the hot sauce and pepper because of worries over allergies of the potluck guests.

Everyone loved the dish, but I know how good it could have been. Next time I will be more faithful to the recipe.

Update June 2008:

I made a new batch and it turned out amazing.

2 lbs fresh halibut marinated overnight in lime juice, then drain
Mixed with 1 cup fresh diced tomato
2 cups sweet peppers (yellow, red, orange)
Fresh oregano
Small dollop of Dave’s Insanity Sauce
Tiny bit of parsley (would have liked cilantro and more parsley)
1/2 red onion, diced
Salt, pepper, & vinegar

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

I knew I wanted to serve tacos at Miriam’s birthday party this year–it lends itself easily to accommodating any set of dietary restrictions, including Miriam’s, without being a pale substitute of the “real thing”–but my intention was to go buy some nice fresh corn tortillas. After all, I live in an area with a lot of Mexican immigrants and good Mexican food is all over the place.

I went to the biggest of the Mexican markets, Lola’s in Santa Rosa, where they sell several brands of tortillas, including their own. Imagine my shock to find that every last brand, even the storemade ones, was filled with preservatives and other nasty things. The only straightforward ingredients ones were at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and were both pricey and only so-so (some were pretty stiff and old looking).

So I picked up a big bag of masa flour. That’s just corn that has been treated with lime (calcium carbonate, not citrus) to make more nutrients available and then ground and dried into flour (even though they look alike, you don’t want to use cornmeal here). Maseca brand (which seems to be the big name brand) Masa Instantanea de Maiz. The 2 kilo (4.4 lb) bag makes (in theory) several hundred tortillas and cost me all of 3 dollars.

Now, I’d made tortillas before, in Nicaragua, and it was pretty easy. I didn’t mix the dough but I learned how to form the tortillas by hand (on a plastic covered plate) and put them on the griddle. So that’s how I tried it this time.

Attempt #1 (2/23/08):

I used the masa today to make tortillas. It was 1/2 cup of masa to 1/3 cup of water and a pinch of salt. Supposed to make 4 tortillas.

You mix for 2 minutes with your hands and adjust water and masa as needed to make the dough. Then divide into 4 balls, press, and cook for 50 seconds on each side on an ungreased pan/etc.

I couldn’t find my tortilla press so I decided to do it by hand. I started with a small plate, but they stuck. So I put a plastic produce bag on the plate which worked very well.

I couldn’t get them as thin and large as a press would have, though they weren’t even as thick as a Salvadorian tortilla. They fell apart some and I tried adding a bit more water but I’m not sure that was the problem.

I found they needed more than the allotted time to lose the uncooked taste, but that might have been because they were thick. There wasn’t any trouble using an ungreased pan, though mine is a well seasoned cast iron.

They tasted really good but a bit dry. I honestly thought the dough recipe would have fat in it. Because I had to cook them a bit more than suggested, they didn’t roll up well, but I could sort of use them for tacos.

They aren’t party ready I’m afraid.

Then I did some web searching and found a couple good sites with pictures. One uses a little shortening in the dough, the other does not.

It seems that:

1. I do need a press.
2. I need to knead the dough longer and better than I did, to help it develop (this avoids the stiffness).
3. I should add a bit more water to help the tortillas steam.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/004141how_to_make_corn_tortillas.php
http://www.cooking-mexican-recipes.com/corn-tortilla-recipe.html

I also was told that one of the secrets is to let the dough sit (covered) for 30 mins after kneading, but not to make it too far in advance.

Attempt #2 (2/26/08):

1/2 cup masa flour
1/3 cup water
pinch of salt
(same as last time)

This time I kneaded it well for 2 mins, covered it with a towel, and left it to sit for 30 mins (more like 40 because I got a phone call just before my timer went off.

I still can’t find my tortilla press but, looking at pictures of them, I realized that they don’t have a lip. The roundness of the tortilla is purely due to the fact that you’re applying even pressure on to a round ball of dough.

So I used a comal (not sure of the spelling) I happened to find in my cupboard (that’s a tortilla cooker, mine appears to be cast aluminum) as the base and a salad plate (Corningware) for the top. I put both into plastic bags, which was way easier than having loose pieces of plastic.

I rolled the balls of dough and pressed and ended up with a perfect round tortilla. I had to flip it around to get the thickness even and I couldn’t get it to be any bigger than about 3.5″ or so in diameter. I realized that was the diameter of the part of the plate that touches the table, so next time I’ll try a dinner plate.

The tortillas peeled off easily and cooked up well. They tasted great but the thick one (I did a double-size ball in an attempt to get a bigger tortilla and it was only somewhat wider) was a bit doughy and cracked when folded.

I think maybe I should add more water even though it will be slightly stickier because I think that will make them stay together better and steam cook, which is a point some of the sites I read stated.

With two people working at a time, and more than one pan on the stove, I think I could churn them out pretty quickly. The rolling and pressing is less than the cooking time and easy now, so if I can cook 4 tortillas at a time, I could do 100 in half an hour of nonstop work (make it an hour to include mixing the dough, set up, etc). I’m not counting the dough resting stage.

If I could only get the tortillas thinner and larger, I think they’ll be real winners.

This is from attempt #2. That’s the biggest I could get them.

Attempt #3 (3/1/08 & 3/2/08):

These are the ones I served at the party. I mixed up a big 8 cup (of flour) batch and added water and salt. Miriam and I kneaded it well for at least 2 minutes. Then I covered it with a damp towel and let it sit for half an hour (more like 45 mins because I got a phone call).

The pressing and cooking part took about an hour for 50 or so tortillas. Just me doing it. With a better press and more practice, I think I could cut the time in half. Another pan would have helped too.

Recipe:

8 cups masa flour
5 cups filtered water
1 tsp salt

Take some masa, roll into a golf ball size, place on the middle of the bottom of the press, and press the heck out of it. With a press you probably can just push hard, but with a plate, you have to roll it around a bit to get the tortilla even. I still didn’t achieve thin tortillas, but that was okay. They weren’t too thick and they looked more or less like the ones in the pictures of the sites above.

For the press, I used a dinner-sized Corelleware plate on the comal, both in zipper plastic bags. I loved not having to futz with loose plastic but there was a disadvantage because it was harder to get some of the softer ones off the plastic.

As I cooked up my first couple of tortillas, I played around with some of the parameters. When the dough was totally non-sticky and came off the plastic with ease, it tended to break in half, including after being cooked. If I added more water, it cooked up really well but was impossible to get off the plastic. So I came up with a brilliant idea (which I’m sure is not original, but I’ve not seen it before): make the dough more wet, form the ball, then roll it in a bowl of dry masa flour. Then press. Success! there was plenty of extra water on the inside to cook up soft but the outside was dry and peeled off easily.

I used the flat side of a cast iron griddle that lay over two burners on my electric (flat) stove. At high heat turned down a bit. No fat on the griddle. I have limited counter space so the bowl of dough went on the stove. The side of the bowl next to the griddle got pretty hot and the dough dried out easily; I had to add water a lot.

I cooked them for about a minute on one side, turned over, then 30-60 seconds on the other side, then over again for a few seconds. I know I overcooked a few but I didn’t want them to have a raw taste either. Just taste as you go along and you’ll get the rhythm of it.

To keep them fresh, every so often, I transferred the finished tortillas from the plate on the stove to a crock lined with a clean dish towel. It’s a good thing Miriam kept eating them or I wouldn’t have been able to fit them all in.

The hardest part was reheating the next day. I made a batch half the size of the one above the morning of the party, but they were cold by party time too. I still don’t have the hang of it. Obviously, these are best eaten just after cooking, but that’s not always practical. You can fry them but that isn’t what you want. We tried just putting the ceramic bakeware (not the crock, but a regular casserole dish) in the oven but only the couple tortillas on top got warm. Still, they came out nice and people enjoyed them.

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.

I made two big pots of beans for Miriam’s birthday party.

1. Plain whole black beans
2. Refried pinto beans

Start off by soaking them overnight (at least 4 hours but 8 is better; up to 24 is okay). Simply measure the beans into a pot and use filtered water to cover, plus several inches. They will expand a lot. I don’t bother to wash them since I dump the soaking water. If there is a chance of a stone, dirt clod, or bum beans, dump them on a table or cookie sheet and sort by hand while still dry.

I used 3 cups of dried black beans and 4 cups of dried pinto beans.

After soaking for some time (these went about 24 hours), and adding more water as needed, the beans look like this.

Dump each pot into a colander and discard the soaking water. Put the beans back into the pot, add more water (filtered) to cover plus an inch or so, and cook on medium heat until the beans are soft.

For plain beans, they are done at this point. I added a bit of salt to the black beans, but that was it. I used a slotted spoon to lift them into a bowl for serving.

For refried beans, you have an extra step (or two or three). I minced one very large yellow onion in the food processor (some liquefied, which was fine, but make sure some has some texture to it) and sautéed it in olive oil. I added two gutted jalapeños to the fine mince/liquefy part of the onion processing. The bite was there at first but got lost after the beans were fully cooked, so more would have been better for a non-kids party. When the onions had some color on them, I added the pot of beans, along with salt.

Cook until most of the liquid is gone. They will solidify when cool, so you can leave them slightly more watery than you think would work. At some point during the cooking, preferably after the heat has been off for a while, use a stick blender or potato masher to smash up the beans.

Serve warm with tortillas or anything you like.

(many thanks to Yorick Phoenix for several of the photos)

©2012 Norwitz Notions. All Rights Reserved.