| I began yesterday by setting aside some pinto beans and dried hominy to soak overnight. Then I headed to Gold Mine Natural Foods for organic masa harina. If you're in the San Diego area, it's in Miramar. And it's expensive. I bought the 5 lb bag, which is more than twice as expensive per pound as the 50 lb bag. But what would I do with 50 lbs of masa? The moral of the story is: Find friends to split the big bag (and the big cost) with you. For the sake of just trying the stuff out, I didn't mind getting the smaller bag at the bigger price. They have white, yellow, and blue corn masa. White's traditional but I went for blue because I hoped it was made a variety of maiz criollo, the native, biodiverse, open-pollinated corn varieties of Mexico. And it's pretty.
Horchata
When I got home, I hit the kitchen. First, I made the horchata, which ideally needs to chill overnight (although in a pinch you can just let it chill for 2 hours). Using the recipe in Viva Vegan!, I brought 2 cups almond milk and 2 cups of water to a boil with lime zest, cinnamon sticks, cloves, sugar, ground almonds, and long grain white rice. Then, lower the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes. At the end of this stage, remove it from the heat and remove the lime zest. Let it cool to room temperature and chill overnight. Strain and add 2 c. almond milk before serving.
The ingredients in the pot, starting to cook.
The mixture smelled so good that I had to try it. And it tasted good too - but it didn't taste much like the horchata I've had at farmers' markets here or in Mexico. The recipes I've seen online call for water, rice, sugar, and cinnamon. Some call for milk, and some call for vanilla. I haven't tried any of those recipes, but I think it proves that you can make vegan horchata without the almond milk, lime zest, etc, from this recipe. That said, this is delicious in its own right. It just doesn't taste how I expected.
If you're going to use the Viva Vegan! recipe, the moral of my cooking experience is: use cheesecloth to strain the rice out. (The book DID recommend it, I just didn't do it because I didn't have any cheesecloth.) That probably goes for any type of horchata, actually. I tried using a strainer like I would for tea, and the rice is just so bulky that the water doesn't drip through very quickly. On the other hand, this would make a very tasty unstrained rice pudding! I might just give it to the kids that way and tell them it's dessert. (I must also give credit to the book here: it also recommended saving the rice for rice pudding. It just didn't recommend doing that with the entire concoction.)
Attempting to strain the horchata with a colander
My delicious finished product
Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
Next up, roasted tomatillo salsa. This was incredibly easy. Peel tomatillos and rinse in water. Dry and set aside. Chop up onions, add a whole green onion (white part only), some peeled garlic, and some peppers without stems and seeds. Put them in the oven to broil for a few minutes. Remove. Blend them with cilantro, water, the green part of the green onion, and salt in a food processor. Now put the tomatillos in the oven on broil for a few minutes. Remove them, add them to the food processor, and blend. You're done! Serve at room temperature.
Peel the tomatillos
Onions, garlic, and pepper, on their way into the broiler. The recipe called for more peppers than I used. I'm a wimp.
Into the food processor
Everything but the tomatillos, blended
Adding the tomatillos to the food processor
Done! Now where's the tortilla chips?
This recipe is easy and delicious. My only gripe was that it called for 1 lb of tomatillos. I have no idea how many tomatillos equal 1 lb. Fortunately, I don't think it matters terribly if you use too many or too few tomatillos in this recipe.
The next diary will include refried beans, posole, my organic blue corn tortillas, and hopefully sopes. I had intended to also make virgin mojitos for the kids but given the ingredients in the house, I think the closest I can get to that is minty limeade. And chances are they will complain about the mint in it. So why bother? |
