Fresh Pinto Beans with Tomatoes

Fresh pinto beans arrived recently in my Greenling @greenling_com Local Basket. (More on Greenling in a later post.) Time to experiment!

Printable recipe

Ingredients

· 2 medium tomatoes, quartered
· 3 T olive oil
· 1 1/3 C fresh pinto beans
· 3 C chicken stock
· 2 slices bacon, diced
· 1/2 C onion, diced
· 1 clove garlic, minced
· 1/2 jalapeno, stemmed, seeded and diced

 

Preheat oven to 400°. Arrange the tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with a silicon mat or parchment paper. Coat with olive oil; salt and pepper to taste. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the skin begins to char. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Roasting the tomatoes brings out richer flavors, especially if your tomatoes are less than perfect.

 

Bring the stock to a boil, and add the pintos. If you don’t have fresh, use dried; just soak them overnight. But the fresh ones taste much more vibrant. Cook for 25-30 minutes, or just until tender. The beans taste best when they still have a little “tooth” or al dente texture. Drain well.

After the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, remove the skins.

While the pintos are cooking, render the bacon until crispy. Set aside. (Sorry…no photos of the bacon. I decided afterward that crispy bacon would add a nice crunch and saltiness.)

 

Sauté the onion in the rendered bacon fat for two minutes, stirring frequently, until translucent. Add the garlic and pepper and sauté another two minutes. (Yes, the photo has celery. It didn’t add much to the dish, so I removed it from the final recipe.)

 

Add the tomatoes and pinto beans. Stir gently until heated through. Salt and pepper to taste.

I hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Butter and Herbs

Usually a sweet and earthy acorn squash warms souls on cool winter evenings. But I enjoy the rich flavors year-round. I find the tender squash, scraped into the oozy melted butter, hard to resist the other nine months of the year.

(Printable recipe)

Ingredients

· One acorn squash

· About 1 C  water

· 4 T butter

· 2 sprigs fresh rosemary

· 6-8 sage leaves, chopped

· Salt/pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 400°.

Using a large chef’s knife, carefully cut the squash in half. Squash often resist easy cutting, and their shape makes them prone to rolling about. I usually ask my husband to tackle this task.

Scoop out the seeds. I use my favorite kitchen multi-tasker: a grapefruit spoon. Even if you don’t eat grapefruit, the spoon’s serrated edge quickly and neatly scoops seeds from melons, squash, and cucumbers.

 

Carefully slice a small divot off the base of each half of the squash, so they don’t roll around in your baking dish (or on your dinner plate). Don’t cut off too much, or you’ll puncture the inner hollow, and all the yummy butter and herbs will run out into your baking dish!

 

Pour the water into a casserole or baking dish. Place the squash halves in the dish face down. The water should come up the sides of the squash about ¼ inch. Bake for 30 minutes.

 

I snipped this rosemary and sage right from my container garden. If you don’t grow your own, many grocery stores carry fresh herbs.

 

While the squash bakes, melt the butter in a skillet. Stirring frequently, cook the butter until the foam subsides and you see some browning. “Brown butter” (or buerre noisette) is simply butter cooked until the milk solids start to turn brown. It concentrates the flavor by burning off most of the water and creates a warm, nutty flavor (also delicious on other vegetables and fish). Stir in the rosemary sprig and the sage. Set aside.

 

Remove the squash from the oven and place the dish on a trivet. Using tongs, turn the squash so the cut side faces up. Be careful! That water in the base of the dish is hot, and you do not want to splash yourself. Brush the squash with the brown butter/herb mixture.

 

Let the extra butter and herbs drain down into the scooped-out portion. Bake it in the oven for another 30 minutes.

 

When done, remove rosemary leaves and stems. When plating, don’t spill any of the butter and sage—it’s too tasy to waste!

 

 

Have You Visited Groomer’s Seafood?

Since we’re eating more fish these days, I frequently visit our preferred local provider—Groomer’s Seafood (9801 McCullough, @groomerseafood).

Tucked away on McCullough off of E. Ramsey Rd., their shop is a bit challenging to find. Today, I missed the not-well-marked turn and sailed halfway down Ramsey before realizing my mistake. And I’ve been there before!

The company started with commercial fishing in the Gulf (in the late 1800s) and opened their San Antonio shop in 1982. They move over 250 tons of seafood a month, so you know what you’re getting is fresh.

Their weekly email lists specials for the weekend. (Sign up on their website.) I’ve taken advantage of sales on cobia, blue crab, and snapper. Their extensive menagerie includes normal fish (such as striped bass and flounder), as well as harder to find items, like branzini and uncleaned squid. You can purchase whole fish or fillets. I haven’t asked, but I’m sure they’d also sell fish bones if you wanted to make stock.

Their cavernous refrigerated processing area buzzes with bundled-up workers deftly filleting, cleaning, and prepping fish for both retail and wholesale customers. I enjoy watching them while I wait for my order. The service folks out front can recommend the best way to prepare your purchase.

The recently expanded shop stocks grilling supplies, Asian ingredients, frozen specialty meats (such as antelope filets), and a variety of rubs and sauces. They even have quail eggs!

Their popular “Lobster-Mania” event takes places this weekend. They’ll have 1,500 cold water Maine lobster tails for $5.95 on Friday, and another 1,000 on Saturday. They sold out of 1,000 in two hours on Thursday, so get there early!

I’d love to hear about the fish you prepare from Groomer’s!

Introducing the 2012 San Antonio Hatch Contest Winner!

For those of you not "in the know"...our favorite grocery store (Central Market) sponsors a Hatch chile recipe contest in conjunction with their Hatch festival every August. They've selected Bruce or I (one entry per household, please) as finalists for every year of the contest. (I've posted lots about Hatch on Alamo A La Carte.) I won in 2008 with a Hatch Key Lime Pie; Bruce won the following year with a Hatch Fudge Sundae. To our knowledge, we're the only family that has participated each and every year in San Antonio.

Bruce's entry this year was a Smoked Hatch Penne Casserole with a Hatch Corn Salad. They made us sweat bullets for a bit; they didn't make the phone calls until after this year's festival had wound down. But we did indeed get the call, and Bruce whipped up a batch for the contest on September 1. (I've posted a video on my YouTube channel.)

Many of our friends (who help us select the recipe to enter; we come up with five or six every year) stopped by to root us on. One by one, the nine finalists presented their dishes to the panel of five distinguished judges (from the local food world).

Entries always run the gamut; this year's participants prepared three desserts (which have won the past four contests), a quiche, and tabouli, among others. (You don't cook there at the store; you bring the prepared dish. So unfortunately, the earthy aroma of roasted Hatch chiles is missing.)

Bruce presented his dish next-to-last. He explained how we choose our recipes. We always prepare a vegetarian version of all our dishes (for one of our best friends). In this particular case, the vegetarian version tasted better than the version with meat. So he submitted his recipe with soyrizo (a soy-based chorizo).

Finally, the scores were tallied. Third place went to the quiche, and second place to the "hot kisses." At that point, Bruce said he had written it off; he didn't think he had a chance against the desserts.

Then Patric announced, "The 2012 Hatch chile winner is .... Smoky Hatch Penne Casserole!" Our cheering section whooped and hollered, and Bruce went up to accept his prize basket and chile crown. (And 75 pounds of chiles; no kidding. We're still trying to foist them off on friends.)

We brought extra so audience members could have a taste after the contest (only the judges get to taste every dish). It was all gone by the time we left.

People ask us when we start coming up with next year's ideas. The answer: NOW! My notebook is full of scribbled ideas to try next summer.

I hope you enjoy the recipe!