Breakfast at Rancho Gordo – Page 3 – Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

Breakfast Beans: Santa Maria Pinquitos in Tomato Sauce.

Santa Maria Pinquitos with a wee bit of crumbled breakfast sausage, some tomato sauce, oregano Indio and farmer cheese.

I’m trying to use meat more as a flavoring. The beans need to be the star. The bean broth and tomatoes were very happy together.

Happy Hippie Breakfast

I’ve been on a Yellow Indian Woman kick these days. They’re such a delicious, dense yet soft bean and they have a superior broth. You can have them in a salad or you can be like me and enjoy them with brown rice, making your inner hippie happy. As I get older, my inner hippie is never far from the surface.

I also had some leftover nopalitos (boiled cactus paddles) and just to make it all seem like a party, I chopped up some fresh mozzarella. The mozzarella started to melt and mix with the bean broth and suddenly it was a pretty good breakfast.

I have a ham hock sitting in my fridge but I still prefer these beans with just olive oil, onion and garlic.

Breakfast at the Hacienda

I just came back from co-hosting our last Beans Tour (The Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Food and Agriculture Tour and Workshops) in Hidalgo. I'm sad to say goodbye to this project but I'm more than happy to linger over the photos, especially of the food!

The first morning. Waiting for the guests.

Chabela and her kitchen staff prepare the masa treats. This morning, it's tlacoyos stuffed with refried beans and cheese and sopes, topped with several different ingredients. (Tlacoyos can be many things, depending on where in Mexico you are.)

It's starts with the masa. Without it, you're off to a rocky start.

What did you have for breakfast?

One of many, many sopes I consumed that first morning.

Breakfast of Champions

I was visiting my friends Maria and Isidro in their little village called Tepehuaje, right on the Lago Chapala and the first morning they asked if I wanted to join them for a pajarete. I had no idea what they were talking about but I wanted to be a good guest. We drove to a small glen where we were greeted by a lot of their friends. About 20 cows were eating and being milked. The women all had little kits with mugs and mysterious bottles. Everyone waited and gossiped but I still wasn’t clear on the concept.

At one point, the man tending the cows gestured to Isidro. Isidro grabbed the mugs from Maria and held them while she dutifully placed a spoonful of instant coffee, a spoonful of sugar and a shot of tequila in each mug. Then Isidro when over to the cow and then finally it dawned on me why everyone was so happy and why my friends start out the day this way. The drink is warm and frothy and I don’t think you need much of an imagination to guess how good it was or what I did for breakfast everyday while I stayed with them.

Aside from the drink, it was a chance for all the neighbors to get together and swap stories. It wasn’t too much different than a café. Only this one smelled like cow turds and there was no attitude or tip jar.

(From a post in April, 2007)

Breakfast with Eggs Poached in Heirloom Tomatoes

The more I read about breakfast cereal, the more I question its value as a breakfast food. Processed grains with sugar floating in milk. I have the habit but like a lot of things these days, I'm re-examining it. Why do I need sugar to wake up? Why does this thing need to float in milk? Do I really love the taste?

If I think about it, I'd much prefer something savory. And of course any excuse to cook in a clay pot is a good one.

I've had too many tomatoes from my CSA this year but not enough to can. I ended up cooking them a bit and running them through the food mill to catch the skins and seeds. Now it's ready to use and more importantly, easy to use. I sauteed some onion, garlic, Mexican oregano and olive oil and when soft, added some of the tomato puree.

Once it reached a gentle simmer, I poached two eggs in the liquid until they just set. Then using a slotted spoon, I took them out and gently added some of the cooking liquid to the bowl. Served with buttered whole wheat bread, it easily beat a bowl of Kix and cold milk. My youngest was licking the bowl. Something I act like I discourage but when it's real food, I'm happy inside, despite my protests. Shhhh. Don't tell him.

Scrambled Eggs in Tomato Sauce

I used to make this a lot when I first had chickens and for no reason it's fallen out of favor.

1-2-3 and it's done. The tomato sauce is 14 ounces or so (about half of a large can) of whole peeled tomatoes. Obviously at the end of summer I'd be using good tomatoes from the garden or farmers market. Add the tomatoes and some of the liquid to a blender jar and then add 2 serrano chiles, one half a white onion, a very small bunch of cilantro and salt. Blend well and then "fry" the sauce in a saucepan with a spoonful of olive oil. Cook for about 10 minutes. You may need to add a little water. It's delicious and you can use leftover sauce for chile relleno or entomatados, which are like enchiladas but they use tomatoes instead of chiles as the base of the sauce.

A Good Spread with Mexican Oregano

This weekend I made an omelet filled with this simple goat cheese filling.

Roasted pine nuts, Mexican oregano and goat cheese. Ta-da! It was great.

Masa Fantasies: Oaxacan-inspired Corn Love

Hoja santa (or sometimes Yierba Santa) (Piper auritum) is a delicious leaf used throughout much of Mexico for flavor and as a wrapping. I’ve had very little luck growing it at home, which has been frustrating as I’ve heard over and over that’s invasive! Well, this year they decided they were happy and I have a nice crop of hoja santa leaves to play with.

In Oaxaca, where this plant is used a lot, they make a delicious little masa snack called tetela. I wasn’t sure about how to make them but I did steal the technique and the results were great. You can make these without just about anything that inspires you. I liked the fact that the leaf helped block the bean juices from permeating into the wet masa.

Diana Kennedy came up with the phrase “masa fantasies” to cover the hundreds of snacks and treats you can make with masa. The same item may have a different name in other parts of Mexico but they all have a certain creativity in common and they all tend to be delicious.

The secret is to take your time and let the weight of the tortilla do the work for you. This filling was simply Sangre de Toro beans (I’m loving these more and more) and a few ripped hoja santa leaves.

After all three sides are done, you can wet the seam and try and make it seamless, but I didn’t care that much.

You just heat them up on a medium skillet or comal. My next experiment would involve deep frying them. Or maybe you can and report back.

Remember, the filling could beans and cheese, cheese and salsa, just about anything.

I’ve seen Oaxacans scramble eggs on yierba santa leaves on clay comales. They would use the leaf as almost a non-stick pan and then scramble the leaf into the eggs right before serving. I’ve also seen them press the leaf right into the masa and then toast both sides. I love these when lightly toasted as they have a very mild, almost minty flavor. When the leaves are fresh, it’s somewhere between anis and root beer that you taste.

This last snack I just pressed the leaf into the masa to make a tortilla that I toasted on both sides before adding scrambled eggs and Sangre de Toro beans and Felicidad hot sauce.

Chilaquiles with Sangre de Toro Beans

I was a guest at an excellent traditional Thanksgiving dinner so the rest of the weekend I got to play around in my own kitchen making whatever came into my head. The thought of shopping on this holiday weekend filled me with terror so I tried to make do with what I could do with things from the pantry.

Chilaquiles are almost always the right answer, no matter what the question is. I used our own Rancho Gordo heirloom corn tortillas and an accidentally indulgent guajillo/ancho chile sauce. I'd made the sauce the night before and thought I had turned off the heat and planned to finish cooking in the morning. Well, in the middle of the night the delicious smells sent me to investigate and I saw I'd left the gas on! Thanks goodness I am always hungry and thank goodness I'd had the good sense to cook with clay. A metal pot would have burnt long before.

I had the smallest bit of chicken left and lots of Sangre de Toro beans from our Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project. I didn't even have any kind of cheese. Still, it was delicious and the kids and I agreed these were great.

Amaranth for Breakfast.

Ancient grain diva Maria Speck has an interesting article in the December Cooking Light using grains and her recipe for Amaranth Pudding with Amaretto Cream caught my eye. I made it and it was a universal thumbs down, especially for kids who have a clear and distinct idea of what pudding is.

I didn't really care for it as a pudding either but it was a good start for a breakfast cereal.

3 cups water
1.5 cups amaranth
1 stick of canela (cinnamon)
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup piloncillo
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine 3 cups water with amaranth and canela in a large heavy pan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened and the grain is translucent, about 18 minutes. Add more water if the amaranth is sticking to the bottom. Discard the canela. (You will have molten hot cereal all over it so beware!)

Stir in the milk, piloncillo vanilla and salt and stir. Reduce heat to a bare simmer and cook for 5 minutes more. Makes about 8 servings, which can be reheated throughout the week.

A pat of butter doesn't hurt.

I wouldn't serve this for guests but as a healthy weekday breakfast when you might have eaten oatmeal or 7 grain cereal, I think this is tops.