If you have a better Caesar salad recipe, fire it up!

What you will need:
Good size head of romaine lettuce or 2 small heads
2 bulbs fresh-fresh-fresh garlic
red wine vinegar
mustard powder
anchovy paste (tube)
olive oil
one egg
1/2 grated parmesan cheese
small chunk hard parmesan
fresh lemon
croutons if you want them
fresh cracked pepper

Serves four

So take the romaine, remove the leafy green ends, cut the stock and head in half, v-cut the core out, then tear the leaves into roughly inch by an inch pieces.

In a glass dish, use about 2 ounces of olive oil. Add the egg and and whisk to blended. Add a solid teaspoon of mustard powder, the fresh garlic after you have peeled and diced finely, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar, half the lemon squeezed though the hand to catch seeds, 1 1/2 tablespoons of anchovy paste, and now whisk all together, making sure the anchovy paste is well blended.

(Note: anchovy paste gives the recipe great foundation without adding the fishy taste whole anchovies are known for.)

Next add 2 big tablespoons of grated parmesan and whisk again. Slowly add more until the dressing is thick but not pasty.

The worst thing you can do next is toss the salad well before serving. Soggy salad sucks.

When your guests are seated, add about half the dressing and toss gently. Continue to add until coated lightly. Once on serving bowls, add croutons and shaved fresh parmesan on top. Dust with fresh ground pepper.

I like this salad with an oaky chardonnay but go white with your choice.

If you want to add some heat, increase or double the garlic. Just make sure you are waking up with someone who also had the best Caesar salad ever!

Last point, this recipe is easy and so much better than any store bought Caesar dressing.

Chile con Queso and Frijole dip

Maria asked for this and Trips wanted more so here goes..

You'll need a double boiler or the ingenuity to make one. Think large pan with water, small, inverted oven-proof dish, and smaller pan with cover placed on top.

You'll also need: 8 oz. sliced yellow American cheese
4 oz. whole milk
cumin
coriander
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh garlic
1/2 small onion, finely chopped onion
one small can chopped green chiles
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder

Heat the water in the double boiler, add milk, cayenne, onion, garlic, dust top with cumin, dust about 1/3 cover with coriander. Whisk ingredients and then add cheese. Cover pan and let sit, stirring every 15 minutes as cheese melts. After 45 minutes or so all the ingredients should blend into a thick soupy mixture. If cheese has melted and mixture is too thin for dipping, add a couple decent pinches of shredded cheddar cheese.

The queso will stay in the double boiler for some time, you'll just need to stir when ready to serve with corn tortilla chips

For frijole dip, you'll need heated refried beans or black beans that have been drained well. I like to dice a little onion and garlic, heat in teaspoon of oil, add beans, and then add a tablespoon of chopped fresh cilantro.

Puree one or two jalepenos with water to make bug juice.

Ladle a scoop of the beans into the queso dip along with a tablespoon of bug juice and fold mixture together and serve hot with my favorite store bought chips, Utz.

You can also add chopped, cooked chorizo, diced tomatoes, scallions, or whatever else you might like.

Either of these will be a great dish to serve while watching the Pats beat the Giants. (Sorry Trips but I had to!)

Filet mignon with gorgonzola and harbeneros

I haven't got to the chile rellanos yet but it's coming. In the meantime I made this dish the other night using the "other white meat" and omitted the mushrooms.

This dish seems to be a descendant of a Todd English dish made with smoked ham and onions. It's unbelievably tasty but I do call it "heart attack on a plate". I got this version from www.epicurios.com

You'll need: 2 filet mignons or ribeye steaks. (I subbed boneless pork chops)
1 tablepoon chopped garlic
Olive oil
2 shitake mushrooms
2-3 ounces light cream
1 chopped harbenero in adobo sauce
one finely sliced scallion or small amount of fresh chopped leak
2 ounces crumbled gorgonzola cheese
white or brown rice for each plate

Stoke up the grill to 300-400 hundred degrees after prepping the racks with a little oil

Cook the steaks for about 5 minutes each side for medium rare

While the steaks are cooking, in a medium size saute pan over medium heat, add a little olive oil. Once the heat is up, add garlic and cook about a minute until fragrant.

Add the mushrooms and cook while stirring, about 4-5 minutes

Add the harbenero. These babies are spicy; you can add a little of the sauce to turn it up

Add the cream and once it bubbles lightly, add the gorgonzola cheese. Once melted it will thicken the sauce

Pull the steaks, plate some rice, add steaks, then spoon sauce over top. Garnish with scallion or chopped leaks. Have a cardiac nurse standing by!

This is a really great dish to enjoy every once in a while!

Essential green chile sauce

Sorry this is late but we just got back from southern California where we ate way too much Mex but almost all of it was oooo-sooo good! Met Lindsay and Jen at the Local in SD and enjoyed lobster tacos among other things. Also had lunch at http://www.georgesatthecove.com/ocean-terrace where Jody scored seared fish tacos with mango salsa and a jalepeno creme fraiche with guac and shredded cabbage. All this on cilantro-infused corn tortillas. Died and gone to heaven!

This sauce is a staple of many Mexican dishes and can be used on enchilada-style burritos as well as tasty enchiladas. The key to this sauce is to make it early, stew it for 2-3 hours, and add water periodically to bring back the volume. Here's what you'll need;

4-4oz cans of diced green chiles
Coarse chopped onion to fill one of those cans
2 bulbs coarse chopped garlic
2-3 same cans water
1 tablespoon cumin powder
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 bay leaf
Some heat. (We used to use jalepenos because they were hot but these days they seem mild. I now use either cayenne pepper or chalula sauce. Anything that is not vinegar based like tobasco.)
Teaspoon of salt.
A dab of olive oil.

Place all BUT the bay leaf in a blender and puree 3-5 minutes. Move to a sauce pan, add the bay leaf, and cook over low heat for 2-3 hours, adding water to keep a sauce-like consistency.

To make the burritos you'll need flour tortillas, boneless chicken breast, chicken stock, and cheddar+monterrey jack cheese.

To make a burrito, take about 12-14 ounces of chicken stock in a pan. Add finely chopped garlic (note here; we used to make garlic puree with 8-10 bulbs in a blender with a couple of laps of olive oil, puree to a paste that drips just a bit. This will keep for quite some time in the fridge and when you need a blast, grab a teaspoon or to and add it to your favorite recipe. Johnny Demarkis will attest to JP's garlic butter on the back shelf of the stove, a true staple.)

So dice up about a 1/2 pound of boneless chicken per diner, add to the chicken stock with a pinch of oregano, time, and a little bay leaf. Cook really slow (we used a double boiler) until chicken is white outside but a bit pink inside.

On an oven-proof plate, lie a flour tortilla. Add the chicken for a row about 2 inches wide. Throw on some shredded cheddar, and roll burrito over to a uniform size.

Spoon green sauce down the middle and puddle to one side. Next lay a slab of monterrey jack over the burrito and bake for about 15 minutes. Use oven mitt to remove and warn your guests that the plates ARE HOT!!!

Serve with rice and beans plus ice cold margarita or sangria.

Next up, chile rellanos per my brothers request, plus some photos and video.

Enjoy!!

Jeff's Digital Recipe Box

So over the years I've had many requests for the original Edgewater Cafe mexican recipes. I still have them, complete with dried, spilled sauce droplets. I have decided to start this blog and once every week or so offer these recipes along with some of the many favorites we've tried to cook at home.

You won't need any special tools other than a blender. You will need a couple of the staples of mexican recipes: powdered cumin or cumino, coriander, chile powder, crushed red pepper, and fresh cilantro from time to time. I'm going to start with fresh salsa so you will need cilantro (sometimes called chinese parsley) which you can get in any produce section.

I'm going to add photos soon but for now we'll have to do without.

This will make a nice appetizer for 6-8 people max.

Salsa Picante

Combine the following and fold together with a large spoon.

Core and dice about 1.5 cups of fresh tomatoes and put them in a bowl
Peel and dice half a good size spanish/white onion, add to the tomatoes
Remove most of the green ends of 2 scallions, slice the rest on a bias, minus the roots of course
2 cans mild diced green chiles
Finely chopped bulb of fresh garlic
One tablespoon cumin
One teaspoon coriander
One tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 solid tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1-2 teaspoons pureed jalapenos (bug juice, recipe below)
Salt to taste
1/2 cup tomato juice

Fold all together EXCEPT the tomato juice. Once mixed, slowly add the t.j. to your desired consistency.

Bug juice: in a small blender add water to cover 3-4 jalapenos and mix until pureed.

Now the fun starts! You have the base, from there you can add things like sliced black olives, drained, canned black beans, grilled or frozen corn, or substitute red onions. Or skip the tomatoes and juice and substitute diced mangos for a great addition to grilled salmon.

You can make your own chips by doing an 8 way slice to packaged corn tortillas and then frying in vegetable oil about 1 inch deep but there are great chips on the market that make this too much of a pain.

Next; chicken burritos with green sauce and monterey jack cheese.

Enjoy!!