Mexican Pizza

I'm a HUGE fan. I'm telling you. When is Mexican food NOT good? I have so many recipes I want to post from many meals ago, but this was last night, and I couldn't wait to post it.

So, I made the good old salsa, crock-pot shredded pork the same way that many of us have made it. I guess it might be more well know to be made with chicken. It's much like the bbq chicken below, but instead I made it with a pork loin and salsa verde. I made a lot so I had a lot to play around with for other meals. We had it as soft Tacos the first night. I was feeling Pizza since I usually do it when we make bbq pork/chicken. But since the pork had the lovely Mexican flavors from the salsa, I thought maybe a cornmeal crust would help with the all around Mexican flavor. Lo and behold, someone has thought of this before, as I found when googling around for a cornmeal pizza crust. Here's what I did.You'll need:
One recipe Cornmeal Pizza Dough(we only used half and froze the other half, and I went ahead and used some wheat flour , like the recipe said, but I think you'd be able to get the cornmeal flavor better with all while flour.)
Shredded salsa pork (pork loin and salsa verde in a crock pot for about 7 hours)
more salsa verde
tomatoes
red onions
cheese
black beans
corn (this and the beans were acutally left over from our tacos. I had cooked them with an onion and a sprinkling of the same spices as below.)
cilantro
lettuce
cumin
chili powder
garlic power
s&p
cilantro-lime dressing (Made famous by Cafe Rio. The recipe can be found many places, though I used the one found here. I used like 3 times the amount of lime juice the said, and next time I'll use half sour cream, half mayo, instead of all mayo like the recipe says. Still so good.)

Roll your dough on a pizza stone that has been sprayed and sprinkled with more cornmeal. Spread a little salsa on as a base. Add as much pork as you'd like. Follow with the corn/beans, red onions, tomatoes, more salsa if you'd like, the cheese and the spices. Bake in a 475 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is baked, and the ingredients are warmed through. Cut into slices and serve with lettuce, cilantro (or any garnishes/flavor additions) and a good drizzle of the dressing. Oh, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed each bite. And, you probably need to eat this pizza with a fork.
The best part is, we STILL have tons of pork left. I'm thinking Navajo tacos. Tonight.

Turkey Fajita Burgers

This burger came about because I wanted to have burgers one weekend, but didn't have the traditional fixings-lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles. But I did have some peppers, cilantro and salsa, so I thought, why not. The result was pretty rewarding. Two of the things I crave mixed into one.For the burgers: (This recipe makes 6-8 burgers depending on how big you like them. We grilled up two and froze the rest for later.)

20 oz. package of ground turkey
1 small onion, chopped finely
1/2 c bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 salsa
a handful of cilantro, chopped
a squeeze of lime juice
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t chili powder
1-2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix all of that together with your hands and form into patties of your desired size. Place on a hot grill or skillet until they are completely cooked through (no medium burgers with poultry, folks). I use a meat thermometer and when it reads 165, I know they are good and cooked.

Toast your buns if you'd like. For the toppings, just use whatever you'd put on a fajita. I sauteed some red and green peppers with some onion, a little salt and pepper, and a little cumin and chili powder. Then I spread some salsa, and sour cream (with taco seasoning mixed in for fun) onto the bun with some cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice. We had ours with some sweet potato fries (I know, not really with the Mexican theme, but I had to use them up) and there you have it. We have decided to make this often. It helps to satisfy my obsession of Mexican food with out eating nachos every time I crave it. We went out to get an avocado just for this meal that night, but were disappointed to find that none of them were even close to ripe. The next time we ate them we did have a ripe one, and it was great, of course. You could also sprinkle on a little cheese, though we didn't this time.

This burger could easily be made vegetarian by replacing the turkey meat with mashed up black beans and rice in the burger recipe. Not that I'm vegetarian or anything, but that sounds good to me, just because it would complete the fajita flavors. Try it out.

Mango Salsa

I'm a HUGE fan of chips and salsa. I eat way more than I'm supposed to. I guess this salsa is a pretty good for you since it's purely fruits and vegetables so maybe I shouldn't feel so guilty that I ate a good portion of it. But then there are all the chips I ate it with. Oh well, it was worth it.

This is a pretty basic recipe and I'm sure there are an millions other like it out there. In case you wanted my version, here it is:

3 ripe mangoes
2 avocadoes
1/2 c red onion
1 small red pepper
handful cilantro roughly chopped
juice or 2-3 limes
salt and pepper
garlic

Dice everything to the size of your liking. I used my food chopper for everything except the avocados, cilantro, and garlic and it worked like a charm. Toss everything together and refrigerate until ready to use. It's good to give it at least 30 minutes to get all the flavors to blend. A couple of my mangoes weren't as ripe as I would've liked, but still good. These are the red white and blue chips we ate it with on the 4th of July. Those Garden Salsa Sun Chips on the right are awesome. Check them out sometime.

Spicy Caluiflower Soup

Any excuse to put sour cream and avocados on something, and I'm there. This was a nice change from regular chili or tortilla soup.

Saute a medium onion in olive oil. After 8-10 minutes, when they are translucent and starting to brown, add a clove or two of garlic, minced, a couple small bell peppers of your choice, 1-2 c of chopped cauliflower and a little, cumin, chili powder, curry powder, red pepper flakes, and a little cayenne if you really want heat. Cook for about 10 minutes to soften the veggies and add a can of diced tomatoes and about 1-1 1/2 c vegetable broth. Let simmer until everything is cooked and tender, then add a good amount of chopped cilantro. I had some half and half on hand so I added it at the end to subdue the heat a little, but you could certainly leave it out. Serve like chili with chips, cheese, sour cream and avocado. We just did a dollop of sour cream , avocados, homemade corn tortilla crisps and a fresh squeeze of lime juice.

Corn tortilla crisps:
Brush a few corn tortillas with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt. Broil until nice and golden, about 2 minutes checking constantly to make sure they don't get too dark. Slice into wedges and dip in soup.

Little variations: This would also work well as a blended soup. When the veggies are good and soft from all the simmering, blend or put in the food processor until smooth. You could even make it a day ahead, blended and all, and just heat before serving.

Chicken and chicken broth would also be a nice addition. I just wasn't in the mood the night I made this.

You asked for a recipe...

Sorry about the despicable photo.

I have a hard time when people ask me for recipes because I rarely know what I put in something unless I write it down as I go along. Therefore, You could probably make everything on this blog yourselves just like I do. Just add things you are inspired to add.

This is a stuffed red pepper with a Latin flair. It started as a regular stuffed pepper and I decided along to way to change it. I tried to write down everything I put in it so here goes:

3 red or green peppers
Filling:
One quater of an onion, chopped finely
1/2 c chopped celery
1/2 c olives (I used green spanish olives that I happened to have, but black would do)
about 3-4 oz. chorizo sausage, cubed
1-2 t cumin powder
1 t chili powder
A handful of fresh, chopped, cilantro
1/2 c cottage cheese
1/4 c bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 c salsa, plus a little more.
a couple big pinches of salt
a few grinds or pepper
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 small can of green chilies. I didin't have fresh on hand but it helped with the spice.
I think 1/2 lb Ground beef (I'm not sure how much I used, but it just depends of how many peppers you want to make. In this recipe it's just a filler so you can add up to 1 1/2 lbs. if you want.n The flavors go a long way.)
A little cheese of your choice

Preheat oven to 350. Mash it all together with your hand only until everything looks combined. Cut off the tops of the pepper and take out the ribs. Stuff the peppers with the filling pressing down slightly. Put in a grease pan small enough that they can help each other stand up. Bake for about one hour, or until the meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. Let them rest, covered with foil about 10 minutes before eating.

Spanish tortilla: This is similar to a fritata, but this is what they call a tortilla in Spain. I saw a chorizo sausage at the store and decided to make this, as it is commonly used in this, and completely forgot to put it in. It had red potatoes, onions, turkey bacon, and red peppers. A pretty hearty dinner. We'll have to make it again with the sausage.

Ethnic foods (mostly mexican)

I like to try ethnic food every now and then. Not just easy Mexican or Italian things, but really ethnic things. I haven't done that well with my experimenting yet, but I stick to the things we like. I'll start it up some day.

Salsa chicken: The famous crock pot salsa chicken. Sometimes I make tortilla bowls to put this in. Anything is good with sour cream, salsa, and cheese all over it.


Sesame chicken, pot stickers and stir fry: Okay, I didn't make the pot stickers, but I had to spruce up our Costco purchases with something.
Steak nachos: Oooooo, those were good.

Humongous quesadilla: I found these huge tortillas at the store and had to make this. You can read more about it here.
Shredded Chicken nachos: I LOVE nachos! I can't even say how much I love them. I order them every time we go get Mexican, and make them even more often than that. They have to have everything on them too. Loaded!

Thai noodles with peanut sauce: This and the two after it were part of our weekend of Asian food. You can read more about it here.
Oriental cabbage salad: Same old, same old. KC put his picture in the picture because he said he was tired of my pictures not having people in them.
Egg drop soup and egg roll: I loved those egg rolls. I think I'll make them again, very soon.