Old Chef, New Trick

The last time I ate at Taco Bell would have been when my daughters were tiny young things. My eldest, Lillie, loved their bean burritos and would ask for them from time to time. And very occasionally, I would relent. You're beat; it's late and you're scrambling to get groceries after work; the kids are screaming; you know the drill!

Time flies and now that little girl is an internal medicine resident at a hospital in North Carolina. Seemingly without my noticing, it has been a very long time, a full generation or more, since I ate at Taco Bell (or for that matter, any fast food joint). As a consequence, I have no familiarity with their products, bean burritos aside, if even they sell such a mundane (although pure profit) item any longer.

Apparently in recent years, Taco Bell makes a thing called a crunch wrap, which according to hearsay is their biggest selling item, but one of which I have been woefully ignorant. Call me culturally illiterate.

Chipotle Black Bean Crunch Wrap

Ann and I first encountered crunch wraps at a local vegan food truck, a large flour tortilla folded to completely enclose a vegan filling and then the whole shebang browned on a flat-top. When I tasted Ann's crunch wrap, even though I wasn't enamored of the filling (not a huge fan of vegan cheese; sorry Tony!), I thought that the idea in itself might deserve to be permanently enshrined in the stoner-food hall of fame. 

Recently, Ann asked me to make crunch wraps for dinner so I made sure to get some really big flour tortillas at the store. Then, it was just a matter of making a decent filling (onion, poblano, cilantro stems, garlic, black beans, minced chipotle, cumin, New Mexico ground chile, salt, and Mexican oregano) and rounding up some other filling ingredients (cilantro leaves, sliced green onions, pickled jalapeños, grape tomatoes, and cheese).

The next step was to reverse engineer the fold to encase the fillings, which proved to be trivial. I understand that Taco Bell puts the crunch in the crunch wrap using a tostada that also helps stabilize the whole assembly.  For my part, I merely cut down a piece of flour tortilla to lay on top of the filling to give the large flour tortilla a good surface against which to seal. The whole thing folded naturally into a hexagon as if it were intended that way. I got it on the first try.

I didn't feel like it needed a tostada, but then, I'm not marketing to stoners and I don't need my crunch wraps to be stable for portability.

While my experience was trivial, I'm sure that the food engineers at Taco Bell spent countless hours determining how to fold the tortillas in a cost- and time-efficient manner such that their employees could knock them out profitably and consistently across all their stores. [My limited consulting with a large food manufacturer has shown me first-hand what a huge and involved process this is.] And no doubt, there is probably a patent or two lurking about the PTO to protect their product from commercial imitators.

Taco Bell: thanks for the idea! New trick for the old chef!

These stoner-food gems were so good, I confess to have made them two nights running, albeit with slightly different fillings each time.

Black Bean Tostadas with Poached Eggs

Huevos Rancheros, rancher-style eggs, makes a wonderful breakfast and, in my book, an even better dinner. It's a dish that Americans love and have adopted and modified (or corrupted, depending on your punto de vista) and taken (or stolen) as their own. The original dish was probably lightly fried tortillas topped with eggs and pico de gallo (salsa fresca), but has evolved beyond that, especially in the States where it almost always includes beans and cheese. Following is another loose variation on the theme, black bean tostadas with poached eggs, from a dinner last week.

Black Bean Tostadas with Poached Eggs

While I love to fry tortillas in oil for the rancheros, it's better on my waistline if I bake them between two baking sheets so they become tostadas. About 25 minutes in a moderate oven with a couple of turns will do it. Baking them between two sheet trays keeps them relatively flat.

Tortillas Baked Between Two Sheet Trays

Left over in the fridge, I had a little salsa colorada (dried red chiles, chile soaking liquid, garlic, Mexican oregano, and salt, all blended and fried in oil, then thickened with a little masa harina). So I put a bit of that on top of the tostadas before spooning on frijoles refritos (see below). The salsa helps start softening the tostadas so they become more like the lightly fried traditional tortillas.

Salsa Colorada

While the tostadas were in the oven, I made some quick refried black beans, cheating by starting with two cans of precooked black beans. I start by cooking very finely minced onion with minced garlic and minced cilantro stems in oil (lard, traditionally) until the onions are translucent. Then in go the beans and some liquid (bean cooking liquid, stock, water, whatever). You wouldn't hate me if I said that a finely minced chipotle may have fallen by accident into the pan as well?

Next, as the beans start to come up to a gentle boil, I introduce them to my bean masher, Sra. Machadora, my antique maple bean masher. After working them over for a few minutes until they are smooth, but not too smooth, I reduce the liquid to the consistency I want and then season them. Don't salt them before reducing the liquid or you risk oversalting them. 

Introducing the Beans to the Machadora (Bean Masher)

To complete the dish, we need some salsa fresca aka pico de gallo. I wasn't looking for anything fancy here, just a rough condiment of tomato, onion, serrano, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. It could not be any simpler, or better for that matter. 

Salsa Fresca/Pico de Gallo

The plate-up is trivial. Schmear the tostadas with salsa colorada, spoon over the frijoles, and add a poached egg. Most versions use fried eggs, but I love poached eggs. They are way sexier than fried eggs, plus I can cook six at a time versus only three fried eggs. I prefer to serve everyone at the same time. On top of the eggs, a spoonful of salsa colorada and another of pico de gallo with a sprinkle of grated cotija cheese finish the dish. ¡Buen provecho!

A Visit from Home

A very long time ago, in grade school back in my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, I played on the school soccer team for a couple of years with my buddy Chris. We both lived a very long way out in the county (and at that time, country) and were destined the following year (tenth grade) to attend Albemarle County High School, located on the outskirts of town, a 45-minute bus ride for me.

The student population was overflowing the high school, so the County built a new school much closer to Chris' house than to mine. The County then had to divide the students between the two schools. Chris was a lock-in to attend the new Western Albemarle High School. My situation was up in the air for some months: the dividing line would be right next to my house, one side or the other. Ultimately, the County decided that I would stay at the old high school. 

Had I lived another couple hundred yards down my country road, Chris and I would be be both headed for the new school. But fate would not have it so. The issue quickly became moot however, because at the end of my ninth grade year, just before the high school split, my father took a job in Alabama. Adios Virginia and all my friends.

Fast forward three years later, when I headed back to Charlottesville from Alabama to attend the University of Virginia. Who would be in my dorm but Chris? How crazy that we should both select the same college and be assigned, out of 20 or so freshman dorms, to the very same one! College being what it is, after first year, we developed different interests and went different ways.

Now add another 30 years or so to the tally and you find me in my restaurant in Winchester, Virginia. A customer of mine approached me about a friend of hers who made chicken pot pies to sell and who needed a commercial kitchen in which to make them so as not to fall afoul of the Health Department. My customer asked if her friend, Perrin, might rent my kitchen on Sundays when I was closed.

We set up a meeting between Perrin and me and I was already working at my desk on some paperwork when I heard the front door chime. Perrin walked in, introduced herself in her over-the-top ebullient manner, and said that her husband Chris would be coming in.

In walks this guy, totally backlit in the doorway with the dining room lights off. But something feels very familiar about him. He walked into the light and I looked at him and he looked at me and boom! Chris and I were together again. And it turned out that he and Perrin lived not five houses away from mine, not that I would know it, working all day and all night every day at the restaurant.

Perrin ended up renting the kitchen for a short while and then I ended up hiring her and one of her great friends, my next door neighbor Shawn, as lunch line cooks. Some time after that ran its course, Perrin and Chris decided it was time for a change and moved to Whitefish, Montana. They became friends there with Robert, my next door neighbor from grad school at Texas A&M. Clearly you can tell that this is a story about intersecting lives and fate.

After Whitefish, Chris and Perrin moved on to Portland for better employment opportunities for Chris, a school teacher. Then I retired from the restaurant business and decided to get into the wine business, as a pretty easy transition from the restaurant. After surveying the wine producing areas of the US, Ann and I decided on the Willamette Valley in Oregon where we currently live, about thirty miles south of where Chris and Perrin live.

Although Ann spent a decade in Winchester, she never got the chance to meet Chris and Perrin before they relocated west. But Ann and Perrin did manage to hit it off on the telephone. The two of them are very alike, two peas in the proverbial pod. In terms of outgoing personality, they could be sisters. Chris and I are much more reserved and let our wives handle the communication and planning.

Now that we are all four living in Oregon, we see each other when we can, which has been impossible during COVID, but is easing up now that Ann and I are retired.

Living in wine country, we get lots of tourists from all over coming to sample our world-class wines. Everybody wants to visit us and coming to wine country provides a great excuse for Perrin, Shawn, and I, old neighbors and colleagues, to get together and relive the old days. And drink a bunch of great Pinot Noir!

In July of this year, with COVID loosening its grip on the country and air travel, Perrin planned a girls' vacation for several of her friends from back home Winchester, the town where I lived for 25 years and in which my two daughters were born. Naturally, the girls planned to rendezvous with us in wine country where we would taste some wine, then head back to our house for more of the same and some munchies.

Maysara Winery Tasting Room Entrance

They left the choice of wineries up to Ann and me. Given that they were coming to wine country on a Monday, many wineries were closed. Add to this that many wineries are short-staffed because of COVID and even more wineries than normal were closed on Monday. Fortunately, we have hundreds of wineries within a short drive of the house.

We chose to visit Maysara Winery. They always do a nice job with their tastings and are a good introduction to Willamette Valley Pinot Noir for visitors. And they are located in a picturesque hollow between lots of hills, many planted to vines, others allowed to be what they have been for a very long time, a wildlife haven of Oregon White Oak savannah.

Maysara Tasting Room

The Weather Was Gorgeous

Shawn, Ann, Perrin, Catherine, Bridget, and Kelly

A Charcuterie Board

Perrin and Ann, Two Peas in a Pod

On the Patio in the Shade of Corkscrew Willows

Wild Turkeys at Maysara

After our tasting and catching up for a couple of lazy hours while sitting under the trees on a beautiful day, we went inside to buy some wine and have some shipped back to Virginia. And then we headed the 20 minutes back to our house in McMinnville to drink more wine and eat some munchies out on the front patio.

Dips: Artichoke Tapenade, Piquillo-White Bean, and Black Bean

After getting out of the restaurant business, I have finally figured out that it is way more important to me to spend time with my guests rather than to spend all my time in the kitchen cooking for them. What good is it if people come to visit you and you're stuck in the kitchen the whole time?

Accordingly, the day before, I made three different dips that we served with pita and tortilla chips. I put them out on the counter before we left for Maysara so that they would be at room temperature when we returned. They weren't high cuisine, but they were just what the doctor ordered for an informal afternoon gathering on the porch.

Charlie Took Right to Kelly

It was really great to catch up with everyone from back home and to show off to them our fantastic Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.

Cinco de Mayo

Time to celebrate! Ann and I are now three weeks or so past our COVID booster shots and we feel relatively safe to socialize in small groups outdoors with others who have also been vaccinated. To better get to know our neighbors, from whom we've been at a considerable distance over the last year, we're embarking on a series of porch parties, the first of which we held on Cinco de Mayo.

Unlike a lot of previous affairs, we kept this one really simple and now that we're retired, simple will be the model going forward. I made refried black beans with salsa fresca as a chip dip and a large bowl of rajas con crema, creamed strips of poblano chiles with corn, for tacos. Liz brought a platter of pork quesadillas and Sandy brought a black bean salad. Annie made tequila-lime cupcakes for dessert.

Annie was in charge of décor, arranging everything just so and picking some flowers for the bar. Libation-wise, I made a batch of margaritas and put cheap Mexican beer and white wine on ice. Easy.

After everyone left, Ann and I cleaned up from dinner (disposable plates and cups, not very Oregon eco-blahblah, but easy) and then went back outside on the patio to enjoy the first really beautiful night of the year.

This was the most normal we have felt in a very, very long time. What a relief! Maybe the light at the end of the COVID tunnel is not a train after all.

Fish and Black Bean Tostadas

Fish and Black Bean Tostadas

We eat a lot of tacos suaves at our house. Sometimes we are looking for a little different texture, so I have been making tostadas recently. The latest batch is fish and black bean, the black beans helping to stretch the expensive fish and also to bulk the dish so that we consume fewer tortillas. We might only eat 3 or 4 tostadas, but if we're just having tacos, we're probably going to eat 5 or 6.

This dish has three components: the tostadas, the beans, and the fish. If you need a refresher on making tostadas, you can find it here. The black beans are flavored with a soffritto of (scraps from the refrigerator) red onion, shallot, green onion, cilantro stems, garlic, and mild ground Numex chile. The fish (Pacific rockfish) is baked on a sheet tray after being sprinkled with a mix of mild ground Numex chile, ground cumin, granulated garlic, salt, and aromatic Mexican oregano.

For us, tostadas are a great change of pace. And these fish and black bean ones were so delicious that they'll probably become something of a regular replacement for fish tacos.

Sweet Potato-Quinoa Cakes

Going through the pantry the other day, I ran across a very large container of quinoa, something that I don't eat very often because it just doesn't do anything for me. Don't get me wrong. I will eat just about anything, quinoa included, but I've just never found it to be worth the effort to prepare. Ann likes it more than me which is probably why we have so much on hand.

Sweet Potato-Quinoa Cakes

In an effort to start using it, I thought that I might try to make some kind of cakes. In trying to figure out how to hold the quinoa together in a cake, I thought I might try mashed sweet potato.

To that end, I sautéed some onion, poblano, cilantro stems, and garlic with a little cumin, then added a drained and rinsed can of black beans, a cup of cooked quinoa, and then a couple of medium roasted sweet potatoes. The resulting mix was very tasty and would have made a great vegetarian stuffing for poblanos rellenos, but proved to be really soft for cakes.

I added a cup of rolled oats to the mix and refrigerated overnight to see if I could stiffen them up. They were stiffer and I was able to form cakes, but they were a bear to handle in the frying pan without breaking them. Still too soft I would judge. And the quinoa was not noticeable either.

Delicious but not ready for prime time, I judge this dish. Tasty, but without adding a lot more undesirable carbs, I just don't think this idea is going anywhere. To be honest, I would just as soon do a hash by sautéing raw cubes of sweet potato with the onion and poblano and then mixing them into quinoa for a warm salad.

Spaghetti Squash-Black Bean Casserole

Spaghetti squash does not have to be boring. I'm always trying to think of ways to make it taste good. We might be eating vegetarian, but there is no reason our food cannot have wide appeal, even for meat eaters. In this quest, I decided to make a southwest-inspired casserole using black beans and it turned out really wonderful. The little bit of cheese on top made us think that we were eating something really bad for us.

Spaghetti Squash-Black Bean Casserole

Just about any dish involving spaghetti squash involves first roasting and stringing the squash to separate it into spaghetti-like strands. Click here for a refresher on roasting spaghetti squash, if you need it.

Spaghetti Squash Mix

The dish is really simple. First I sautéed onions, poblanos, cilantro stems, and garlic with spices, then I added black beans, sliced green onions, and roasted spaghetti squash. Once the mix was well stirred and seasoned, into an oiled casserole it went with a thin topping of cheese.

Spaghetti Squash-Black Bean Casserole

The ingredients and amount of ingredients in this casserole are highly flexible. The quantity that this recipe makes is enough to fill my cast iron Le Creuset casserole, what the French call a plat ovale. A casserole in France is a sauce pan over here.

oil to film pan

1 large yellow onion, diced

2 poblano peppers, diced

stems of 1 bunch of cilantro, minced

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 ounce mild ground chile

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 chipotle in adobo, finely minced

1 large spaghetti squash, 4-6 pounds, roasted and removed from the shell

2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 bunch green onions, sliced

salt to taste

1/2-1 cup grated (cheddar) cheese

Film a large pan with oil over high heat. Add the onions, peppers, cilantro, and garlic. Sauté until the onions turn translucent. Add the chile, cumin, and chipotle and mix well. Cook for a couple additional minutes to cook off the raw cumin flavor. Turn off the heat and add the squash, beans, and green onions. Mix well and season to taste.

Spray a casserole dish with pan spray, then pack the squash mix into the pan. Top with a little cheese and place in a moderate oven (350F) until the cheese browns, 20-30 minutes.

Chicken, Nopalito, and Black Bean Tacos

I like to make these tacos when I have chicken left over in the refrigerator from some previous dish. By bulking out the chicken with onions, nopalitos, and black beans, seven or eight ounces of chicken will easily and fully feed two people by making a dozen tacos.

Chicken, Nopalito, and Black Bean Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

Garlic, Nopalitos, Chicken, and Onions

Start with a large yellow onion cut into strips, a couple cloves of minced garlic, a cup or so of pickled nopalitos, and something under a half a pound of pulled cooked chicken. In a pan filmed with oil, cook the onions until they become translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two longer. Next into the pan go the chicken, nopalitos, and a drained and rinsed can of black beans. Splash the pan with a little water just to get all the flavors to mingle and stop cooking when the onions are crunchy-soft. I could eat tacos of just these onions!

Black Bean Burgers with Poached Egg and Chipotle-Cumin Yogurt Dressing

I love black bean burgers and more importantly, so does Ann. She asks me to make them often and they have been a regular part of our diet for a very long time. This time, I wanted to do something that felt a little bit rich and bad, so I topped two black bean burgers with a poached egg and some chipotle-cumin yogurt dressing. Super delicious!

Black Bean Burgers with
Poached Egg and Chipotle-Cumin Yogurt Dressing

Each time I make black bean burgers, the technique is more or less the same, while the ingredients vary slightly based on what I have on hand.

Soffrito Mise en Place

Chopped Soffrito Vegetables Less Garlic

My soffrito for black bean burgers always contains onions (in this case, red, yellow, green, and garlic), peppers (in this case, two poblanos, a serrano, and a red frying pepper), and a bunch of cilantro. I was just cleaning out the refrigerator and this is what I had on hand.

Drained and Rinsed Black Beans

The procedure is simple. Start the soffrito cooking in a large pan and add some ground cumin and ground chile. Once the onions are translucent, add the beans and a little water. Bring to a simmer and adjust the seasoning by adding more spice, salt, and cumin to taste. Mash a few beans to let their starch start thickening the mixture. Let cook 20 minutes or so for all the seasonings to meld and for the beans to get thick.

The bean mixture needs to be really stiff to hold together in patties. Add panko or masa little by little until the mixture is stiff and then refrigerate overnight to get really cold and stiff.

Freshly Pattied Burgers

When the beans are cold and stiff, mold four-ounce balls of beans into burgers. I would not try to go bigger than four ounces: it will prove difficult to keep larger patties intact as they heat during frying. I serve two four-ounce patties per person rather than one large patty.

Frying the Patties

Although not necessary, the texture of the burgers will be much better if you get a good crust on them. Plus, the crust helps hold the burgers together. For these reasons, I dip the flat surfaces of the burgers in either panko or a thin layer of Wondra before they hit the frying pan. For more on Wondra, I did a small bit on the restaurant blog back in 2009.

Don't These Look Delicious?

While black bean burgers are really tasty and fun vegetarian fare, you can really take them to the next level with a poached egg and a little yogurt dressing.