Potato salad with creamy roasted poblano dressing

Harvest time is prime time. Even from my small urban garden, the ripening of the vines of tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables and herbs is cause for much annual excitement and creativity.

Every year, I plant a selection of heirloom tomatoes – thanks to the seeding efforts of others much more skilled at this than I – as well as a few other things I want to try out. Space and direct sun are pretty scarce around my house so the vegetable garden is set right up on the sidewalk, where, I’m happy to report, neighbours and others are kind enough not to pilfer my produce!

The last few years, my little plot has included poblano peppers, those shiny, dark green Mexican pods that deliver what I consider one of the greatest flavours on earth: slightly smoky, fresh, a bit of heat, and a great colour!

In this recipe, all the herbs, poblanos, and the knob onion come from right outside my front door. That’s 100-foot eating if you’re counting! The salad is also best with some of the unique potatoes you can get from your local farmers’ market or that you may grow in your own garden (maybe I’ll do that next year).

The dressing is creamy but light and fresh; not cloying like many the many mayonnaise-based potato salads I am not a fan of.

And, of course, summer is the time for eating outside and grilling things on the bbq. This salad goes great with carne asada, grilled steak tacos, or pretty much anything else cooked over a flame!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 large poblano pepper
2 pounds potatoes
1 knob onion or a couple of green onions

Dressing:
1/4 cup plain, low-fat greek yogurt
1/2 roasted poblano pepper (you only need 1 pepper in total for the salad and dressing)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove roasted
2 tbsp chopped chives
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 tbsp chopped parsley
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper

Roast the poblanos. If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred. (Get your little garlic clove into this action as well to roast and sweeten it up).

Put the hot peppers in a bowl, cover them with a tea towel, and let them sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it. Remove as much of the skin as you can then cut out the stem and seed. Rinse it to get all the black stuff off and remove the final few stubborn seeds.

Then roughly slice or chop half of the poblano to use for the dressing and more finely chop the other half to use directly in the salad.

To make the dressing, put the roughly chopped poblano half as well as all the other ingredients into a blender or food processor and waz it up. Check for salt. It should be a pleasingly light green, fresh, smooth dressing. Personally, I could just eat this dressing straight up, it’s so amazing.

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into one-inch cubes and boil until fork tender in salted water. Drain.

Place the hot potatoes in a bowl with the finely chopped poblano and green onion. Dress the potatoes while they’re still hot as it really helps them absorb all the gorgeous flavour. You can eat it warm or refrigerate for a couple of hours if you prefer it cold.

Marinated flank steak quickly seared on the bbq with the creamy poblano potato salad and "solar flare" heirloom tomatoes: summer eating at its best.

6 Weight Watcher smart points per serving (using less olive oil will bring your points down a bit)

© Gail J. Cohen 2016

A spicy meatball (aka albondigas picantes)

The coming together of two loves is a beautiful thing. In this: the meatball and the flavours of Oaxaca. It’s Sunday and I want to whip up something delicious that uses some of the many Mexican chiles in the cupboard as well as the ground beef I took out the other night but didn’t end up using.  This happened:

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Sauce:

4 medium tomatoes

2 Oaxacan pasilla chiles

1 ancho chile

2 avocado leaves

2-4 garlic cloves (depends on the quality of your garlic)

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

1 small onion, sliced into four or so thick rounds

¼ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp ground cumin

1 tsp Mexican oregano

1 cup chicken stock

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tbsp oil

Meatballs

1 lb extra-lean ground beef

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 egg

¼ cup breadcrumbs

Salt & pepper to taste

Stem and seed the dried chiles. On your comal or in a large non-stick frying pan, gently toast the chiles for a 10 or 15 seconds on each side until they are soft. Don’t burn or blacken them because your sauce will be bitter. Then place them in a bowl of enough boiling water so they are covered. You can add your avocado leaves to this too if they are very dry (ie: have been at your local grocer or in your cupboard for some lengthy period of time.)

Then dry roast the garlic (you can leave the husk on and peel it off afterwards), onion, and tomatoes on the comal.  Turn the tomatoes so you get blackening on all sides but don’t let them get too soft or all is lost. (You can also roast them under the broiler in your oven for 10 minutes or so until they’re blackened). Once everything is nicely toasted, add it all to your blender.

Add the chiles, avocado leaves, chopped cilantro, cumin, oregano, coriander, salt and a few tablespoons of the chile liquid to the blender and waz it up. Taste for salt and add more. If it’s a tiny bit bitter, you can add some sugar to counteract.

Heat the oil in a medium sized saucepan and once it’s good and hot, pour in the tomato-chile mixture so it sizzles. Add the cup of chicken stock and stir. If it’s still very thick, add a bit of the chile soaking water or just plain water to it. Turn it to low and let the mixture boil for 5 or 10 minutes. It’ll turn a deep shade of red.

In the meantime, add the egg to a glass bowl and beat it. Then add the ground beef, tomato paste, breadcrumbs, and salt and pepper. Mix it all together with your hands. Once everything is well mixed, form walnut sized balls and add them to the boiling tomato-chile sauce.

Bring it all back to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for half an hour.

You can eat them right away or let them sit and get cozier with the flavours for a while longer. They are fine overnight in the fridge too.

Serve with the rice of your choice and topped with some sliced avocado.

(Weight Watcher Smart Points = 6 per serving)

© Gail J. Cohen 2016

Sopa de albondigas de pollo

Wanted to try something new with the ground chicken we had in the freezer. I love soup and meatballs so figured I could Mex it up and create a deeply flavoured broth with some beautiful chiles. If you like it smoky, use chipotle or my absolute favourite pasilla Oaxqueno, otherwise guajillo would work well.

6 servings

Meatballs

1 lb ground chicken

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

1 egg, beaten

2 tbsp breadcrumbs or matzoh meal

1 tsp Mexican oregano

1 tsp tomato paste

3 tbsp chopped onion

1 clove garlic

Salt and pepper

Broth

½ onion

1 garlic clove

1-2 dried chiles

1 bay leaf

1 cup pasata or crushed tomatoes

6 cups chicken stock

¼ cup rice

Juice of half a lime

Salt and pepper

Slice an onion in thick rondelles and put that and the unpeeled garlic cloves on a comal or non-stick pan and dry roast.

Stem and seed your chiles and dry roast them quickly on the comal and then put in a bowl of boiling water for 15 minutes to soften.

Take a couple of the slices of onion and one of the cloves of garlic (peel it first) and chop them finely for the meatballs.

Put the beaten egg, ground chicken, chopped onions, chopped garlic, breadcrumbs/matzoh meal, cilantro, oregano, and tomato paste into a medium sized bowl and get your hands in there and mix it all together. Add a bit of salt and pepper to taste.

Take about a heaping teaspoon worth of the meatball mixture and roll it into a small ball with your hands. Put the balls on a cutting board. Continue until you’ve used up all the meat mixture.

For the soup broth, put the rest of the roasted onion and peeled garlic into a blender with the tomato sauce and chiles. Waz it all up and add a little bit of the chile water for extra oomph.

In a medium-large pot, pour in the chicken stock and then add the tomato mixture and bay leaf. Add a bit of salt and pepper then bring it to the boil. Once it’s boiling CAREFULLY drop the meatballs in. Finally add the rice, turn the temperature down to med-low and let it simmer away for at least half an hour.

Once it’s cooked, give the broth a try and add more salt if you need to. Add the lime juice to taste (you may want a bit more or a bit less), and then serve this up. With a salad, or all on its own, this makes a nice light dinner. Of course, if you have fresh tortillas, do eat them with the soup. Crispy tortilla strips served on the top would also be a nice touch.

It is delicious and super-low calorie! (3 points per serving if you're counting it in Weight Watchers Smartpoints)

(c) 2016 Gail J Cohen