These are a great little appetizer–we’re talking excellent Superbowl food!

Blend the following ingredients:

4 oz. cream cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup diced green chiles ( Use a can of green chiles or roast/sautee 2-4 fresh anaheims.)
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup black olives chopped
1/2 cup salad shrimp

4-6 6″ flour tortillas

Spread cream cheese mixture on tortillas. Roll the tortillas tight.
Wrap tortillas in plastic wrap and chill.

Slice and serve w/salsa.

Variations: Mix in a touch of dry taco seasoning with the cream cheese or substitute lump crab meat for the shrimp.

This recipe is for one pound of beef, sliced 1/4 inch thick. Obviously this recipe works for venison too!

Marinade:

1/4 tablespoon meat tenderizer
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup water
2 finely minced garlic cloves
1/4 tablespoon black pepper
1/4 cup liquid hickory smoke
1/4 cup worcestersire

Marinate the meat in a large sealed plastic bag overnight. Make sure the meat is properly coated (turn and mix a few times).

Dry for 24 hours at 140 degrees in a dehydrator. If using an oven, use a drip pan underneath. Hang strips from topmost rack. Do not allow pieces of meat to touch one another or fold over such that the two ends are touching. If you want the jerky strips to look their best, fold and use a weak clamp at one end of the strip of meat to avoid a large fold in the middle of each piece. Dry at 140 degrees for 24 hours.

When the jerky is done, use a 5% vinegar spray on both sides and allow to air dry. This keeps mold from growing for longer term storage. You can also freeze the jerky, but when you take it out of the freezer, you must thaw flat on paper towels to avoid moisture accumulation.

Chili is the ultimate Superbowl food, but it’s pretty darn good on an any cold winter day. I serve mine over fluffy white rice, but it’s awfully good with a side of sweet buttered cornbread as well.

In a crockpot combine:

16 oz tomato sauce
1 can (15 oz) chili beans or ranch style beans (you basically want pinto beans with spices)
1 can (15 oz) of diced tomatoes
I usually throw in a extra tomato or two if I have fresh ones from the garden–peel them by blanching and dice before adding to the pot.

Brown in skillet:

1 pound hamburger
2 medium-sized cloves of minced garlic
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 minced jalapenos or one large red/yellow/green bell pepper

When the meat is cooked, add it to the crockpot.

Add:

2 tablespoons BBQ sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Cook on low for about four hours. (About halfway through, taste the sauce and adjust spices to your taste!)

Serve over rice with extra chopped onions and grated cheese!

For cornbread I use Martha White’s Sweet Yellow Cornbread or Pioneer brand. Most excellent!

This stuffing can be made in the oven, or stuffed into a chicken or turkey. It will be more moist and have more flavor if stuffed into a bird!

Cube approximately 24 slices of bread (I like honey wheat!)

melt 1/2 cup of margarine in a deep pan

Cook the following in the margarine:

3/4 cup diced onion
1 1/2 cup diced celery

When the vegetables are tender add:

1 1/2 tsp sage
2 tsp thyme
pepper to taste

Add the breadcrumbs to the margarine and vegetables

Allow the margarine/bread mixuture to cool down for fifteen minutes. Add 1 egg and stir well. If you are baking in an oven (rather than inside a turkey or chicken), drizzle the stuffing with 1/4 cup chicken broth and bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until the top begins to brown.

If you are stuffing a bird, do not add any chicken broth. The broth will incorporate naturally while the chicken/turkey cooks. Stuff your bird and cook according to the bird directions!

There are a lot of online magazines, some offering all or partial content for free!

Speculative Fiction

The Town Drunk free, funny, eclectic! This one is a lot of fun to read! A particularly amusing story by Rod Santos: “The Great Deeds of Payven Larum.”

Coyote Magazine - There’s some good stories out here. Well-rounded with light, short, long, weird…a little bit of everything. So far I haven’t found any of the stories I’ve read to be too dark for my tastes!

Weird Tales As of 5/30/07 there are about 4 free short stories on the sidebar. All of them were good; “For Fear of Dragons” by Carrie Vaughn and “Conversations in the Tomb of an Unknown King” by Richard Parks were Excellent.

Jim Baen’s Universe (subscription only, but this is the magazine of all magazines!) You can read the first part of the stories for free, but they will hook you so watch out! Note: This magazine will end with end production in 2010.

Aberrant Dreams This magazine has some awesome graphics at the entrance and some very good stories. After reading three or four issues, I’d have to say there is more horror than I prefer, but it does have a bit of everything speculative.

www.anthologybuilder.com – this is a great site–you can pick and choose the stories you want to read and for about 15 dollars have it printed into a book and shipped directly to your door. I found a number of new authors via this site–there are some very good stories out there.

Podcast

www.clonepod.org This is my favorite podcast site so far. I enjoyed Jim Hine’s Jig the Goblin contribution as well as The Poisoned Chalice by Brian Stableford. I’m really looking forward to listening to Alien Hunt by James Hartley. The opening lines are great!

These short story podcasts make great listening for one and two hour car trips.

http://podcastle.org This is another site that has a lot of potential. So far what I’ve listened to has been a bit eclectic, but it’s a well-run site and I’m certainly going to continue downloading stories for car trips.

Print Only Fantasy
My favorite is Blackgate, but it doesn’t always come out on schedule. There’s about two issues per year.

Non-Fiction

Discover Magazine is my favorite. Not tons of free content, but each issue does have a few free articles and a new article rotates out every so often.

For excellent online non-fiction science stories, try LiveScience.

These dumplings are not hard to make, but they do take about a half hour prep time. I buy the wrappers pre-made from an Asian market. Most grocery stores carry these wrappers, although Asians stores will give you a larger choice of brands. In the Asian store where I shop, I buy them frozen. They thaw within minutes. The square ones are generally a little bigger than the round ones and a bit easier to work with.

You can add more or less vegetables to the recipe (or none at all.)

One package dumpling skins

One pound premium pork Jimmy Dean Sage or Hot Sausage
4 ounces minced mushrooms
Minced green onions (2 onions)

Hand mix the minced mushrooms into the sausage. Drop about two teaspoons of the sausage/mushroom mix onto a dumpling wrap and fold the dough over, pressing along the edges. The dough won’t stick in every place, but will adhere during cooking or freezing.

Other vegetables that you can add to the sausage mix:
Minced Chinese Cabbage (2 leaves, finely minced)
Minced sweet yellow onion (1/4 cup) instead of green onions
1 finely minced Jalapeno

I would not add minced carrots. I’ve tried carrots and they impart a strong flavor and tend to take over the dish.

To cook:

Steam method
Line a bamboo steamer with Chinese Cabbage and place the dumplings on the cabbage. Steam over a pot of boiling water for twenty minutes. (The bamboo steamer should be covered during cooking.)

Stir fry method:
Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a large flat skillet. Place dumplings in the pan and cook, covered, over low heat. When the first side has lightly browned (about 5 to 7 minutes) turn and cook the other side, again, leaving the skillet covered.

Dumpling Dipping Sauce

Dumpling sauce is very easy:

1/2 cup light soy sauce
1/2 tsp minced ginger (I buy the kind in a jar, but ginger root is readily available in the grocery. Cut off the dark outer skin and grate the root.)
1 tsp sesame oil (Get 100 percent Sesame oil, not one that is mixed with other oils.)

Let sit at room temperture for about 15 minutes before serving.

Serve dumplings with steamed rice.
As a meal, you will need about six dumplings per person.

Freezing
Dumplings freeze well. I do not cook before freezing. Lay dumplings flat in a large freezer bag (not touching one another as much as is possible). Store frozen for up to about a month. Do not thaw before cooking. Place directly in the steamer or fry pan and cook. If the dumplings are stuck together, heat gently (a few seconds in the microwave) and peel apart.

This green chile enchilada recipe is a casserole. Think of it as Mexican lasagna. It freezes very well, which is a good thing because it takes about a half hour to prepare.

Two dozen corn tortillas

16 oz sour cream
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/2 to 1 pound grated monterey jack cheese (or mix some cheddar in there too!)

Sautee:
1 minced garlic clove
6 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms
1 large sweet yellow onion, diced
6 fresh green chiles, diced (about 1 1/2 cups) You can use roasted chiles also.
2 diced jalapenos
1 pound hamburger

When hamburger and vegetables are cooked through, mix in the sour cream and cream of mushroom soup.

Spray bottom of large casserole pan with non-stick spray (glass or metal). Use at least a 9×11 pan a deep pan is best.

Layer the bottom with a row of corn tortillas. Spoon a thin layer of hamburger mix across the tortillas and then a layer of cheese. Add a layer of tortillas and so on until the casserole dish is completely layered, ending with cheese (you should get about 3 to 5 layers.) Refrigerate for two or three hours to let the flavors begin to meld. Bake at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes until the center is hot. You can bake covered or uncovered.

Serve with Spanish Rice and refried beans. Creamy jalapeno sauce is an excellent toppping for this casserole.

Refried beans seem to be an art, not a recipe. My grandmother made them without apparent thought, and I still can’t make them as good as she did.

Pinto beans usually darken as they age–so when purchasing beans, note the overall color and health of the bean. The lighter the bean, the better.

Sort and clean about 3 cups dried beans.

Soak the sorted pinto beans in water overnight or for at least four hours.

Drain the water and add fresh water–enough to cover the beans by at least an inch–before cooking.

Add 1 tsp salt before boiling.

Stovetop: Boil low, partially covered for about 2 hours until tender. You may have to add more water. Always make sure the beans have some water over the top. Watch to make sure the beans to not boil over.

Crockpot: Cook on high for about 5 hours.

When the beans are nearly done, chop four to five strips of bacon into very small pieces (think bacon bits). Cook the bacon in a fry pan until bacon is crisp. Add the bacon and the grease to the boiling beans.

Finish cooking the beans, removing heat when the beans are tender.

Cool to managable temperture and transfer the beans into large skillet. Be careful not to splatter!

You should still have enough water to just cover the beans, but not so much that you have to “search” for the beans.

Over medium heat, smash the beans with a potato masher and stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you need to add a bit more fat to get the right consistency/color/taste, you can either add a tablespoon of oil or even better, add a few slices of cheese.

Note: To make refried beans without bacon grease, just add about three tablespoons of vegetable oil when you smash the beans in the skillet. You can also substitute cheese for the vegetable oil. Each ingredient will give the beans a slightly different flavor. Restaurants often use vegetable oil and then top with cheese.

This is a great sauce–I use it as a dip for chips or veggies as well as a great topping for enchiladas, burritos and tamales.

Chop the stems/tops off two jalapenos. Remove the seeds if you want to reduce the “heat” of the sauce.

In blender mix the following:

2 Jalapenos
1 envelope Original Ranch salad dressing mix (1.0 oz dry)
1 cup mayonnaise
3/4 cup milk

Blend until smooth. You can eat it right away or refrigerate to thicken (twenty minutes to 1/2 hour).

If you take the seeds out of the jalapenos before blending, you may want to add a third jalapeno. Of course, the spiciness of jalapenos differs so some people may only want one!

I’m posting this “recipe” or technique due to searches on the website. See here for a red chile recipe.

Green chiles are often used fresh. For some dishes, including green chile sauce, I recommend roasting and peeling the chiles first. I generally only roast mild chiles such as Anaheim, Poblano or similar varieties. It is especially convenient to roast thick-skinned chiles in order to discard the skins.

Roasting:

To roast green chiles, you really need an outdoor grill. The hotter the chile, the more cayenne will get in the air during roasting, so trying to roast them in an indoor oven or small toaster oven can be dangerous. If enough cayenne gets into the air, you will be unable to breathe. Cayenne in the air is equivalent to pepper spray. Only roast chiles indoors if you are positive they are mild enough.

In New Mexico, green chiles are often roasted in giant fifty-gallon drums over an open flame. The drum has a handle that turns the drum round and round until the chiles inside are blackened.

When roasting on an open grill, take care not to breathe in chile air! You may want to poke each chile with a fork before placing on the grill. This will prevent the chiles from “popping” as they heat.

Place the chiles in a fish basket or if they are large enough to not fall through the rack, on the open grill. Use low flame.

Blacken one side (takes about five minutes) and turn, using tongs. You may want to “roll” larger chiles so that they are evenly blackened.

Remove the chiles with the tongs when they have blackened and deflated.

Cool completely before peeling. The roasting causes the chile skin to “blister” so it should be easy to remove. For hotter varieties or if peeling a large batch, use gloves. Chile juices can and will seep into your skin and will not wash off. You hands will later “burn” similar to a bad sunburn. If you touch your eyes—look out! It’s like dripping chile juice right into them. If you do enough chiles, the burning sensation can last for a couple of days.

Freezing
Once roasted and peeled, chop and use the green chiles immediately or place in a freezer bag and freeze. You can store chiles with or without seeds and with or without the tops. I have found that keeping the seeds makes for a hotter chile.

Frozen seeds when thawed can be “rubbery” and are therefore not appetizing to chew on. I remove the seeds and tops (rinsing them with water), drain and store in freezer bags. The seeds can be removed after freezing by rinsing.

I have had zero luck “blanching” or peeling chiles using water. The entire chile becomes rubbery.

Here we go with exotic fare again! From Lebanon, courtesy of Amer Habda, a wonderful parsley salad!

Taboule Salad

Soak 2 tablespoons of Burghul (crushed wheat) in water for about 1/2 hour.
The idea is to soften the wheat a bit. Drain off any excess water when done soaking.

In food processor, blend the following:

leaves from 2 bunches of parsley (remove stems!)
A few leaves of green mint (to taste)
1/4 cup onion
2 tomatoes

Add salt to taste to the parsley, mint, tomatoes and onions.

Add juice from two lemons and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Add the crushed wheat.

Mix well and serve as a salad. Taboule can be served with lettuce leaves and eaten as a wrap.

Amer has written a good travelogue that gives an interesting glimpse into the Middle East.