Chili Rellanos - vegan style

Chili Rellano casserole

Whew! I know we don't really have much to brag about given that my friends and family on the east coast had both earthquake and hurricane this week, but nevertheless, it's still been hot here in Tucson. We've matched high records a couple of times this week and today was no different. While my friends are hunkered down braving wind, rain, and overdoses of Jim Cantore (or so I imagine), I was up at 4:45 am so I could get a bike ride in before it got too damned hot :)

In the dry heat conditions we have here - today's humidity is a whopping 23% today and that IS whopping - one of the best ways to stay cool is to warm up to a sweat. Unlike the sweltering tropical conditions back east, sweating feels good here because it evaporates and cools you down as it's meant to. So, I've been thinking hot food lately - Indian and Thai mostly, but the need for Mexican surfaces every few days which is one of the main reasons I <3 Tucson.

The green "Hatch" chili harvest is upon us and last week we got some "medium" green chilies from our local Sunflower Market which have been sitting around waiting for some inspiration.  My first thought: chili rellanos! Now, I haven't had chili rellanos since I went vegan in January, due in large part to the eggs, cheese and fat contained in them, but after last week's smashing success with Susan V's (FatFreeVegan.com) Eggplant Parmesan recipe, I knew just what to do. I used the "cheese sauce" as the base of the recipe and made up the rest. Here are the basic instructions:

What you will need:

6-8 green "Hatch" chilies  - mild, medium or hot as you like them
1 recipe Cheese sauce (see below)
1/2 c. prepared enchillada sauce
1 c. fresh or toasted breadcrumbs
1/4 c. Daiya cheddar vegan "cheese"

1. Prepare the chilies: Split and seed the chilies. Boil them in salted water until they are somewhat tender, drain and rinse to cool them.

2. Prepare the "Cheese sauce": While the chilies are cooking, mix the "cheese sauce" which I have copied verbatim from Susan's blog. I'm not messing with perfection! Don't worry about how this looks or tastes out of the blender. Trust me, it will be fine, no not fine...perfect!

Susan V's. "Cheese sauce":

1/2 cup extra-firm silken tofu
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 tbsp. cashew butter or tahini
1 tsp. onion powder
1 1/2 tbsp. nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
1/8 tsp. white pepper
2 tsp. corn starch


Place all the "Cheese sauce" ingredients in a blender and blend until completely smooth. Blend again right before using to make sure that the ingredients haven’t separated.

3. Open the enchilada sauce: I used Rick Bayless's Frontera Oaxacan Red Chili Mole sauce, but you can use any prepared enchilada sauce (or better yet, make your own and send me the recipe!).

Assembling the casserole is easy. Simply layer the chilies (I ripped/cut mine in smaller pieces), pour the "cheese sauce" on top, and add the enchilada sauce on top of that. I had meant to put a layer of breadcrumbs between the chilies and the cheese sauce, but I forgot and it was fine without them, so put them on or not as you like. Finally, top with a little bit of Daiya cheddar vegan "cheese" and bake at 400 for 15 -20 mins or until its lightly brown and bubbly on top.

We enjoyed ours with a wink and a nod to those wet east-coasters by raising a bottle of Genessee Cream Ale that we also found at Sunflower the other week. The chilies were hot, hot hot (!) even though they were marked as medium. Be extra careful if you buy the ones marked "hot." We were coughing, sneezing, and watering while these were being cut. They seemed to calm down a little after cooking, but still held enough heat to make us sweat and grab for our beers. The red chili mole was a little sweet for my taste, but that didn't stop me from devouring half the pan. DC ate the other half :) Here's to the back end of Irene!

Brown Canyon hike with Susannah

Drove south east to Sierra Vista today to meet up with my friend Susannah. Haven't seen her in a while and besides missing her, I wanted to take a gander at her new house. There to greet me was her cutie pie puppy Chewbacca or Chewie. Isn't he just adorable?  He even posed for a few pictures which is apparently not his normal behavior.

After a quick stop at Starbucks, we headed over to Brown Canyon for a little hike. I found it difficult to juggle both optics (bins and camera), so I compromised and used the bins on the way up and the camera on the way down. :) I think we did 4-5 miles in all in about 3 hours. My heel seemed to do pretty well - so far so good since that Utah trip is coming up quickly!

Signage near the trailhead.

Susannah is glad we're headed back (and so am I)

An old rusted stove by the side of the trail.

Here's the foundation of the building I'm assuming the stove came from.

A squashed bright green bug

And two live bugs doing I don't know what...

Storm's abrewin!

As we got back toward the trailhead, dark clouds moved in.

These ladies were just starting their ride

Hope they brought rain jackets!

A last look at the flowers at the Brown Canyon trailhead.

We got out before the storm hit and followed our stomachs to the SV Olive garden for lunch. After soup, salad and dessert (!) we decided to head back past Brown Canyon and up into Ramsey Canyon for a lazy look at some hummers. The storm had apparently raged for quite a while in that area as was evidenced by the now flowing stream. While nursing daydreams of buying the Ramsey Canyon Bed & Breakfast (how much IS that place going for???), we watched an aggressive male Magnificent hummingbird chase just about all the others away from the headers. I did get one or two good shots of the birds though, including the busy male himself.

Male Black-chinned hummer (and a honeybee)

Male Magnificent Hummer

Mag hummer feeding

Thai Time!

So yeah, no hiking lately! What with DC finishing up his Master degree (he'll officially finish tonight! Woohoo!) and my stinkin' heel spur flaring up again, we just haven't made it out there. I'm not sure when we'll be able to go either since many of ou favorite spots are being closed (or destroyed) due to wildfire danger. :(  It looks to me like the Saguaro Park West trails are still open, so maybe soon we'll get there. I'm gonna give DC a weekend or two of sleeping in before I start getting him up in the dark on a weekend. He deserves it :) So, instead of a hiking update, here's a foodie post that I've haveon the burner for a few weeks...

Been on a Thai jag lately. I think it got started with this video a few weeks back from the soon-to-be-famous Vegan Black Metal Chef.

 

 

These fabulous Thai green curry tofu cakes from the FatFreeVegan site have also been on the menu more than once in the past few weeks. They are crunchy on the outside, smooth and creamy inside, and oh-so-yummy all over! I've made them both with fresh and frozen tofu and either way, they totally rock!

So I've been trying to come up with my own Thai-inspired dish. I want one that was low in fat and vegan, but still intense in flavor. That's not an easy order since I associate peanuts and peanut butter with Thai food and at around 16 grams of fat in one serving (2 Tblsp), peanut butter is off the menu until I can find a jar of Walden Farms calorie-free Peanut Spread. I'm interested to taste this stuff. The nutritional label looks like this(!!):

 

 

While I haven't had any luck finding that, I did have lots of success using coconut flavoring and soymilk to make a damned good substitute for coconut milk! Thanks again to the FatFreeVegan blog site. It was no easy thing finding coconut flavoring, extract or essence, but I eventually found it at Spices, Etc. Shipping cost as much as the actual bottle, but on the brighter side, they did send me a coupon for 15% off my next order and free Fleur de sel.

So looking around, I found a Heavenly Pineapple Fried Rice dish, but there were several things I needed to fix to make it a) suitable for my fat-free and vegan diet and b) tasty, more "Thai-ish". I just can't leave well enough alone! It goes something like this:

 

FRIED RICE:

• 1 small can pineapple chunks, drained
• 3 c. cooked jasmine or long-grain brown rice, leftover or cooked and cooled
• 3-4 T. vegetable stock for stir-frying
• 1/2 onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 red or green chili, thinly sliced
• 1/4 c. mashed soft tofu
• 1/2 c. frozen peas
• 1 small carrot, grated
• 1/2 c. broccoli florets, cut in to very small pieces
• 1/4 c. raisins or currants
• 3 green onions, finely sliced including white & green parts
• 1/3 c. fresh cilantro or culantro

 
STIR-FRY SAUCE:

• 3 T. soy sauce
• 2 t. curry powder
• 1 t. peanut butter
• 2 t. lime juice
• 2 T. soymilk mixed with 1/8 t. coconut flavoring or extract OR use 2 T. coconut milk

 DIRECTIONS:

• Use your fingers to separate any chunks of rice into grains. Set aside.
• Stir together the soy sauce together with the curry powder,  peanut butter, soy "coconut milk" and lime juice until smooth.
• Drizzle 1-2 Tbsp. vegetable broth in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots, garlic, and chili, stir-steam until fragrant (1 minute). Whenever the wok/pan becomes dry, add a little stock (1/2 to 1 Tbsp. at a time to keep the pan sizzling).
• Put the tofu into wok and stir quickly to cook.
• Add the carrot and peas, and broccoli. Stir-fry 1 minute in the same way, adding more stock if needed.
• Now add the rice, pineapple chunks, and currents. Drizzle the stir-fry sauce over and gently stir-fry to combine over medium-high to high heat until the rice "dances" (begins to make popping sounds) - about 3 minutes. Avoid adding any more stock from here on, or your rice will turn out soggy. The pan should be hot and dry.
• Remove from heat. Do a taste-test for saltiness, adding a few shakes of salt or up to 2 Tbsp. more soy sauce, as needed.
• To serve, scoop rice onto a serving platter. Top with green onions and cilantro. ENJOY!

 

Personal note: I had to keep the pineapple out until the end b/c DC is allergic to it. I fried it up separately in a small pan and then added it to my plate.

 

 

http://vegetablesoup.posterous.com/58194509

Mount Lemmon Lookout Trail

Lemmon Lookout Trail
Santa Catalina Mountains
Length: 5 miles round trip
Change in elevation: 1800 ft.
Time it took us: 5 hours (including breaks)





After last week's adventure and this week's rising temperatures, I thought it would be nice to escape the heat for a bit and ascend Mount Lemmon. It was a little bit of a problem though finding a trail that looked easy enough for us to venture on and not be out all day. Last night I finally found this trail which is just under 5 miles. Cool!

We started a little later than usual. David "slept in" until 6:40 and we were out the door by 7 thanks to my super-organized packing and loading last night. We made a quick stop at Starbucks and then made the long trek up the mountain. We were slowed a bit by the Mount Lemmon bike time trials, but it was really cool to see all the bikers out there cranking it up the hill.

We reached the trailhead at 8:30. The car's temperature gauge read a chilly 54 degrees! It was a beautiful day - nice breeze, fresh pine air, & lots of sunshine.

Lemmon Trail trailhead

The journey begins...

downhill.

I brought my binoculars this week, so was able to do a little birding. In the parking lot we were greeted by several Yellow-eyed juncos. Those guys always seem a little creepy to me - I think it's the eyes. Shortly after we started hiking, we saw (rather I saw since DC was fighting with his camera) a Hairy Woodpecker, Hermit Thrush, and American Robin. It's always nice to see those robins :)


About 0.4 miles into the hike, we turned onto the Lookout trail and started heading downhill. For those of you who haven't hiked Mount Lemmon, it seems almost all the hikes start by going downhill and end uphill. So we went down and down and down and down! And not at a gentle grade either, no way, this sucker goes tippy toe downhill. All I could think about was how hard it was gonna be to get back up! Yikes! As we descended it also got warmer, but never too warm to be really uncomfortable.

Sign at the head of Lemmon Rock Lookout trail

Some interesting dried flowers

We had beautiful views

Still lots of evidence of the Aspen fire 6 years ago

We met this little guy about halfway down the trail

One spot had lots of marble rock

Some of it inlayed

After 2 hours of going downhill, we reached a little pool of water. We crossed it and the trail continued on, but it continued on without us. We looked at each other and decided that since it might take us at least twice as long to get back up and since DC still had school work to do, we really should turn around and head back up even though we could see the terminus of the trail "just over there."

Here's the pool near the end of the trail.

So we sat by the stream and had our snacks (carrots, crackers, grapes, and a Lara bar for me & Nutter Butter cookies, grapes, and a Power bar for DC). We were visited by several Red-faced Warblers which is a great treat! It was hard to get good pictures. They kept moving around, but leave it to DC, he got one that looks great.

One of the many Red-faced Warblers we saw in the area

Then we started the long walk uphill. We climbed past this huge rock. I saw something large moving on it and for a second I thought it was a large mammal, maybe a big horn sheep or a mountain lion, but when I put my binoculars on it, it was a rock climber. He moved too quickly from our side of the rock to the other that we couldn't get pictures of him :(

As I said before, we thought it might take up to twice as long to go back uphill. Honestly, it was a slog and DC was feeling the altitude, but we did make it eventually and it only took us 2 hours! Back at the 0.4 mile mark, we took a tiny detour that leads to the Lemmon Rock Lookout and the one-room cabin occupied by the fire service lookout.

I'm still smiling

Stairs up to the lookout

Lookout cabin

Views from the top of Mount Lemmon!

Another view of the lookout cabin.

A small manmade pool. A bath tub? A horse waterer?

DC wants everyone to know that he is NOT smiling at the end of this hike! This was all the smile he could manage.

Back at the car, it was still a cool 66 degrees at 1:30pm. Ahhhhhh! Afterward, we took the obligatory cookie and pizza trip to the Cookie Cabin in Summerhaven and enjoyed the fresh air, cool breezes, and sunshine a little more. Then we made our way down the mountain where it was MUCH warmer.

Saguro Nat'l Park - East: Wildhorse trail

Since I was too tired to post about our open house last weekend, I'm going to do a double post today and hope I can hold out. :)

We had a great time last week showing off and warming our my residence. About 20 people came over throughout the weekend and added the echo of laughter and goodness to the house. Several of my current and former running buddies and work friends came in as well as my friend from elementary school, Les. Crazy, crazy Lesley! David and I are so lucky to have friends that, even though they don't know each other, have so much fun together.

Pictures of the new place can be found on Fb. I also took a whole bunch of photos of people at the party, but afterward, DC (that's "Dear Chino") informed me that there was no card in the camera, so if you were there, you'll have to savor those memories in your mind and if you weren't, you'll just have to trust me that it was a great party!

The menu consisted of Vegetarian Planet's chilled mango soup (I left out the yogurt part), PA Dutch pepper cabbage, fried plantains (not plantations!), pigeon peas and rice, pork fricassee, fat-free vegan banana cupcakes, and shoo-fly pie. Every thing, even the banana cupcakes which I thought need help, was devoured with delight. We even needed to make more pigeon peas on Sunday!

So many people had questions about the whats and wherefores of shoo-fly pie (in-between bites, that is), so a reasonable history of shoo-fly pies can be found here. The shoo-fly pie recipe I use is my Uncle George's. He was a baker in the navy during WWII and was, at least among our family, well-known for his shoo-fly pies. Alton Brown comes close with this recipe, but I think Uncle George's would have a better texture since you're not mixing the flour with the liquid which would length the gluten strands in the flour and toughen the pie (I think).  This one has a gooey "wet bottom" as opposed to the more cake-like filling in a "dry bottom" pie.

Uncle George's Shoo-fly pie
 
Pastry for one 9-inch pie crust (I use frozen - grasp!)
 
Bottom part:                                                                 
3/4 cup dark molasses
1 egg (optional)                                                  
3/4 cup of boiling water
1/2 tsp. baking soda
                                
Top part:
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup cold butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar

Mix the molasses and the egg (if using). Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and add to molasses.

Combine sugar and flour and cut in the butter to make crumbs about the size of peas.

Pour 1/3 of the liquid in unbaked crust. Add 1/3 of the crumb mixture on top of it and use a fork to tamp down the crumbs into the liquid. Do NOT mix them!

Add 2 more layers ending with crumbs on top.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes (approximately)

Makes one 9" pie. Das es gut, ya? 


OK, on to our hike today. This is the hike we should have done two weeks ago! It was easy, well-marked and the time estimate was much closer to the mark. In fact, if we factor in the time we spent getting distracted by pictures and Mother's day greetings, it was about perfectly timed, so I don't feel so badly about how slow we are!


We started out at the end of Speedway near Tanque Verde Ranch at the Wildhorse trail head. Well, here's the basic idea. We made a clockwise loop from north going south for almost exactly 4 miles as shown on the open street map and then the USGS topo map.

Basically, we took Wildhorse trail to Garwood, Carrillo, and then Deer Valley trails. We then followed Deer Valley wash for about a mile to meet up with Schantz trail back to the car. That's the quick and dirty, now's here the pictures which are worth thousands of hours of typing!

Our starting point

Since we started early, we had packed an on-the-go breakfast for the trail. After we had the first mile under our belts, we found some shade and had apples, oranges, power bars, and amaranth graham crackers.

Chino enjoying the shade & breakfast

The Garwood trail

We had some incredible views of the saguaro forest, including some pretty weird looking ones.

I've not seen this many saguaros growing so close together before

This one is shedding it's "skin" revealing the stalks that hold it up and bring it water inside

A close up

The next several are of a cristate or "crested" saugaro...

Scientists are not sure why some saguaros do this

but about 1 in 250,000 do!

Crazy, huh?

Sagauro blooming

Brown-headed cowbird - one of my least favorite birds since they add their eggs to the nests of smaller unsuspecting birds. The young cowbirds then crowd the smaller nestlings out :(

We also traipsed through strands of mesquite along the Deer Valley wash. They're all in bloom right now.

Deer Valley wash

That's me slogging it up the wash

Mesquites in the wash

Mesquite blossoms

As we neared the end of the trail, we found this cholla with funny scars on it.

This little guy was sooo cute!

Oh noooooooo, Mr. Cholla!

One last giant saguaro cactus

Take the picture already!

Here's DC (Dear Chino) still smiling at the end of the hike.

One thing that seemed to help today, besides the well-placed trail marker system, was the geo-caching GPS "toy" (Magellan eXplorist GC) that DC recently found at Target. It's meant to help find geo-caches, but he was able to put route flags on it from home last night that reassured us we were on the right path. That's sure to be helpful on those less obvious trails.



I attempted (without binoculars) to mentally tally the bird species today:


Mourning dove
White-winged dove
Brown-headed cowbird
Cactus wren
Curved-billed thrasher
Gila woodpecker
Lesser goldfinch
Gambel's quail
Greater roadrunner...


and lots I couldn't identify. Boy, my birding skills are feeble-izing! Next time I think I'll bring my bins to see what else I can find! 

In all it took us about 3 hours to hike the 4 miles. Much better than 2 weeks ago. We will need to be starting earlier very soon. It was a very comfy 56 degrees when we started at 7am, but 88 by the time we got back to the car at 10am! I also think we need to start bringing some bug spray. Lots of gnats around us today. I'd love suggestions on where we should hike next. Sabino canyon? Mount Lemmon? Tucson mountains? Some many hikes, so little time!


Wow! This has been a loooonnnngggg post and if you've read to the bottom, thanks! :)