Homemade Chipotle Chiles in Adobo: Guest Editor Tells Why

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It’s Carolyn this week and we Savor Sisters have decided that’s it’s time to share some of the brilliance of our cooking friends with our readers.  Tia Marta and I began experimenting with wild foods and Southwest flavorings five decades ago ( I wrote about that last month), Amy is a little younger. But as we have been cooking, and testing, and writing about it, many friends have taken parallel journeys to come up with marvelous and tasty dishes using Southwest ingredients, both wild and domestic. This year we are inviting some of them of do guest posts. We are going to start with David Scott Allen who writes a blog called Cocoa & Lavender that every week offers inventive and delicious recipes. You can check it out and subscribe here.

David’s post this week seemed perfect for the readers of Savor the Southwest–homemade chipotles in adobo sauce. I never considered it, but his reasons, avoiding garlic, make perfect sense. Chipotle chiles are jalapenos that have ripened to red and then been smoked. And it sounds delicious. I’ll let David take it from here:

A Smokin’ Hot Condiment by David Scott Allen

As always, it’s the condiments that (could) kill me.

When I dine at friends’ homes, and they know of my garlic allergy, they are so kind and careful never to cook with garlic. But it is hidden everywhere – not just in prepared foods where one might expect it, but in all sorts of condiments: mustards, mayos, ketchups, steak sauces, soup bases, hot sauces, and rubs.

Who would think that a teaspoon of Worcestershire Sauce would make me sick? Or that a run-of-the-mill mustard would have garlic. I have nearly poisoned myself by. Maybe my next thriller will be “Death by Condiments.”

Chipotle chiles in adobo (smoked jalapeño peppers in a tomato-based sauce) is one of our favorite condiments for adding to soups, stews, vegetables, marinades, and sauces. They are widely available in small cans but only once was I able to find a can that didn’t list garlic. And that was more than 25 years ago.

Thus, like many condiments everyone else has the luxury of taking for granted – taking from the grocery shelf – I need to make my own. Truth be told, this turns out to be a lot of fun, and the kitchen smells great.

Honestly, I think learning to make my own condiments has made me better cook. It certainly makes me appreciate how flavoring happens in food, and what the home cook had to do before there were millions of tiny bottles of this-and-that available for purchase.

If you are unfamiliar with this condiment, here is a link to a New Mexico corn chowder that will warm any winter night. I hope it is warm where you are… if not, make some chipotles in adobo and feel the heat!

Chipotle Chiles in Adobo

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 large white onion, peeled and chopped (a generous cup)

2 shallots, peeled and chopped

1 ounce dehydrated chipotle peppers (I got them from Penzeys)

3 cups boiling water

1 cup canned tomato sauce

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste

reserved soaking liquid, as necessary

Heat the olive oil on a skillet over medium-low heat and cook onions and shallots until clear and slightly golden.

While the onions and shallots are cooking, remove the stems from the chiles and place them in a bowl. Cover them with boiling water and weigh them down with a small plate; soak for 20 minutes. They will not soften as much as other chiles; don’t be concerned if they feel leathery.

Remove the soaked chipotles and place them in a blender (see note below); reserve soaking liquid. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, and brown sugar. Blend until you have a uniform paste.

Scrape the blended chipotles and tomato sauce into saucepan and add in 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid.

Add the cooked onions and shallots, along with the salt and vinegar to the pan. (If you are keeping some chiles whole, add them at this point.) Mix well. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 90 minutes until very thick. Check often after the first hour. If the sauce has dried too much, add reserved soaking liquid as needed, using water if you run out of soaking liquid. As it cooks, the mixture will turn a very dark, mahogany brown. (Note from Carolyn: watch this like a hawk. Putter around the kitchen to keep an eye on it. You don’t want it to burn.)

I like to purée the mixture one more time before putting it in jars. Leave it chunky, if you prefer.

Note: If you would like some whole chipotle chilies, purée half of them with the tomato sauce, and reserve the remainder to cook whole.

How can you use your homemade chipotle sauce? Add a bit to spaghetti, soup, or sauces. Find links to these recipes in the Cocoa & Lavender blog here.

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Carolyn Niethammer writes about the foods and people of the Southwest. Her most recent book, A Desert Feast, Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary History, tells the story of the last 4,000 years of food history in Tucson and the Santa Cruz River Valley. 

50 Years Exploring Wild Foods of the Southwest

Originally published by Macmillan in 1974

Current version published by University of Nebraska Press 1999.

It’s Carolyn here today with a walk down memory lane. This year celebrates 50 years since the first publication of my first book American Indian Food and Lore, now republished as American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest. In 1970, I was a young out-of-work journalist and through an unlikely set of circumstances ended up with a contract for a book on Indian cooking with Macmillan, a major New York publisher. Preliminary research showed that traditional Native American food revolved around edible wild plants and corn, beans, and squash.

My college science was zoology so I had a lot to learn about edible plants. I began by reading every ethnobotany written about Southwestern plants. I found mentors to take me on plant walks, including the late renowned botanist Richard Felger. When I knew enough to ask intelligent questions, I headed out to talk to the experts, Native American women. My first teachers were two lovely Tohono O’odham women on the San Xavier section of the reservation who spent an afternoon teaching me to cook mesquite the way their mothers had. I put the leftovers in the backseat of my car and had a head-on collision on a narrow dirt road on the way home. Woke up in the hospital with mesquite mush in my hair.

Here I am in 1971 trying to learn to distinguish one little green plant from another.

Perhaps that was some sort of christening, so for $150 I bought a Chevy wagon and the summer of 1971, I headed to remote areas on the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, Havasupai, and Pueblo reservations. Many very generous middle-aged Native women taught me about plants they had gathered with their grandmothers. I worked in an office that winter to gather some money and headed out again the summer of 1972.

Finding a communal grinding stone at Hawikuh (founded c. 1400) near the Zuni Reservation. Imagine the women sitting around the stone doing food preparation.

Then it was time to test the recipes when I had them and develop recipes when necessary. A friend lent me an electric typewriter (such a luxury), and I wrote up what I had learned. A small grant allowed me to pay Jenean Thomson to do the gorgeous and accurate line drawings of the plants.

Jenean Thomson’s ocotillo illustration.

The book was “in press” for two years and was released by MacMillan in 1974. Euell Gibbons had published several well-known books on edible wild plants, but they were all Eastern species. American Indian Food and Lore joined a very few popular books on edible Western plants. Sunset Magazine even came and did an article on my wild food gathering class. Writer and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan joined me, and one year we did a class we privately called Gary and Carri’s Thorny Foods Review.

After two decades, with changes in ownership, Macmillan decided the book didn’t fit their line, but the University of Nebraska Press liked it. In 1999, they republished the book under their Bison Books line as American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest with a lovely new cover.

I have followed this title with four more books on Southwestern food, but my first foray into cookbooks with the all the memories I have doing the research remains a high point of my life.

Here is one of the original recipes taught to me by a Navajo cook.

Navajo Griddle Cakes

(Makes 14 4-inch cakes)

Although this calls for lamb’s-quarter seeds, you can substitute amaranth, quinoa, chia, or sunflower seeds.

¾ cup ground lamb’s-quarter seeds

¾ cup whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons sugar or honey

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons oil or bacon drippings.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl beat together egg, milk, and fat and add to dry ingredients. Heat the griddle and add a small amount of oil. Test the griddle by letting a few drops of cold water fall on it. If the water bounces and sputters, the griddle is ready to use. Bake the pancakes.

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Note from SavorSisterTiaMarta:  If you want to find other fascinating, flavorful, and from-the-earth Indigenous recipes that were gifted to Carolyn 50 years ago and which she published in American Indian Food and Lore, you can chase down used book copies via Thriftbooks, Amazonbooks and other sites.  This first book is a treasure trove of totally useful, current ideas!

Celebrating Three Tucson Women and Their Innovative Work with Southwest Foods

An Interview with Gary Paul Nabhan

by a SavortheSouthwest.blog Fan

Caption:  Faces behind the blog–the SavorSisters left to right:  Mano y Metate Molera Amy Valdes Schwemm, Author/Culinary Artist/Hostess Extraordinaire Carolyn Niethammer, and Flor de Mayo Prickly Harvester/Frijol Aficionada Martha Ames Burgess

[Esteemed SavortheSouthwest Blog Readers:  Our friend, colleague, desert foods philosopher, orchardist, inspirational instigator of culinary action, and author Gary Paul Nabhan asked to be interviewed.  We were super-honored to learn he is such a fan of our blog!  Here are his shared off-the-cuff remarks.]

Author Gary Paul Nabhan, with local beef and lamb grower Dennis Moroney, owner/founder of Sky Island Brand Meats (enjoying a concert by musician- grasslands botanist-author Jim Koweek in Sonoita, AZ)

INTERVIEW FOLLOWS

Question from a SavortheSouthwest.blog Fan:  So Gary, why are you eager to celebrate these Southwest foodies’ lifework, that of Carolyn Niethammer, Martha Ames Burgess, and Amy Valdés Schwemm?

Gary:  Aside from the fact that they have had enormous influence, not just on me but our whole community, each of them has been a remarkable pioneer or innovator with Southwest foods.  I value their friendships –but also their brightness.

Question: When and how did you get to know each of them?

Gary: When I moved to Tucson in 1975 or so, both Kit Schweitzer and Lloyd Finley heard of my interest in food ethnobotany and said I had to meet Carri.  She was probably working on her book American Indian Food and Lore by then, which was one of the first regional books on Indigenous cuisine in the Southwest.  We did some field harvesting workshops together on seasonal wild foods in the Tucson area, calling it “Gary and Carri’s Thorny Food Review.”  Next we worked together on Pima County Public Library’s amazingly innovative live-talk series, the Sonoran Heritage Program.

With Muffin, in the 1970s we were both engaged with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and with Tumamoc Hill’s Mescal,Marching,&Menudo Society. As fellow grad-students, we’d practice our research findings on each other with presentations and potlucks.  Later, we were conserving seeds and traditional planting know-how with NativeSeedsSEARCH [the organization Gary co-founded] and shared by Indigenous farmer friends. To this day, no single educator of nature and culture has eclipsed Muffin’s capacity to bring Tucsonans out for hands-on experiential programs.  I recall an event that she organized, a Desert Museum program with Tucson explorer Tad Nichols showing his 1943-44 film of flying over the newly-exploding Paricutin volcano. Over 600 people were attracted to Tad’s presentation thanks to Muffin’s enthusiasm. We both had friendships with Tohono O’odham Elder women on the Nation, so traveled out there together a lot, learning from them.  She actually was a model for one of the characters in my first book.

[Nabhan’s book The Desert Smells like Rain, a Naturalist in O’odham Country, first published in 1982, has been reprinted recently by University of Arizona Press!]

I got to know Amy later through her work with Mano y Metate and Desert Harvesters.  Her Mano y Metate moles—which she re-created from scratch when NativeSeedsSEARCH’s Mexican mole source vanished–have always been extraordinary in both honoring tradition–and in kicking fragrances up a notch. Amy agreed to cater one of the first dinners we had in Patagonia when I founded the national network on rare food conservation called Renewing America’s Food Traditions. Our guests from all over–Deborah Madison from Santa Fe, leaders in Chefs Collaborative, and Slow Food USA–loved her creativity as much as I did.

[Amy’s Mole mixes make being a gourmet cook almost instantly possible!]

Question:  What do you think these three Savor-Sisters have in common, in terms of values and strategies for promoting Southwestern foods?

Gary:  That’s easy to respond to:  They all have deeply listened to Indigenous and traditional home cooks, rather than –excuse my Espanglish—simply sitting on their nalgas in front of their desks to make up mierda without any tangible ties to historic traditions. Carolyn’s first book was really a food ethnography acknowledging dozens of Southwest Native women and their traditional foodways. Muffin has done the same with Tohono O’odham women–listening and participating in food harvesting and preparation with elders. And Amy has continued the traditions of her own grandmothers. Not every writer or chef takes that time:  each of these three Tucsonans stands in the tradition of Paula Wolfert, Diana Kennedy and Lois Ellen Frank.

Question:  Any other thoughts you dare share about these Three Mesquiteers?

Gary:  Actually yes–one more thing:  One of the aspirations that Jonathan Mabry, head of Tucson’s City of Gastronomy program, and I had when we were submitting the proposal to make Tucson the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the U.S. was this:  to continue the elaboration and celebration of the unique gastronomy of this place and its many cultures. Shortly after getting that designation, I knocked on Carri’s door and said, “Tag, you’re it! No one else can offer the detailed overview of Tucson’s complex culinary legacy in print better than you.  What still needs to happen is to create or articulate a collective identity for a Sonoran Desert cuisine that is identifiable, unique—as it is in New Orleans, Charleston, Boston, or Santa Fe.  So, it’s up to you to express what a distinctive regional cuisine means for us, and illustrate it with great sample dishes, sample menus.”

That’s really a huge task—larger than what one book can ever do—but she started that process.  She had Tucson’s home cooks, chefs, growers–young, veteran, Indigenous—even brewers and distillers all understand what they, as a community, have to build on– that no one in Phoenix, El Paso or Albuquerque can touch.  The result was her latest book A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Traditions.      

Each of Carolyn’s books is a treasure trove of local food delights, ideas and info.

Question:  Okay, so what are you up to these days as Extinguished Professor Nabhan?  We’ve heard a rumor that you sometimes write books in the middle of the night.

Gary:  Yeah, sleeplessness is my only real asset.  Of course, I’m still rambling around festivals promoting Agave Spirits, my latest book coauthored with David Suro. But I’m also at work on a book with James Beard-award-winning chef and food writer Beth Dooley on the links between and benefits of desert cuisines from around the world in this time of rapid climate change. We’re showing a commonality between what people grow and how they prepare foods from the deserts of India and Persia, through the Middle East and North African “Maghreb”, to the Canaries, Caribbean, northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. These will be recipes so aromatic and full of healthful antioxidants that no one will ever say again that living well and eating sustainably in a hot dry world is difficult–if not impossible. And most hopeful, these deserts’ foods can even buffer us from heat stress, dehydration and damaging solar radiation…  So stay tuned!

[The Savor-Sisters thank you, Gary, for your candid thoughts and perspectives about us and our mission in sharing what we do via this blog.  Indeed all of us, dear blog readers included, are anticipating Gary’s next book.  (We can hardly keep up with his blistering writing rate.)  Bravo to him for continuing to share his significant desert stories, and to inspire us resiliently into hotter, drier times! With appreciation, Carri, Amy, and Muff]

Rellenos Nuevos

Hello friends, Amy here celebrating the harvest. At Tucson CSA this fall we had several batches of gorgeous, fleshy, green chiles! Farmer Frank of Crooked Sky Farm has been supplying us for years and years. The smell of charring them at home reminds me of doing it with my grandfather.

First things first, I made my great grandmother’s chiles rellenos with my family. Stuffed with cumin spiced beef, fried with a light egg batter and toped with a mild tomato sauce, these must be eaten immediately after they’re done. Yes, at the beginning only one person is eating a relleno at a time.

We also made chiles en nogada, filled with a complex pork and raisin filing, topped with walnut and almond sauce.

Next I wanted to try something new… I started with sweet potatoes from my CSA.

After peeling and cooking, I mashed them with some Mano Y Metate Pipian Picante powder, butter and salt.

I loved how the mixture didn’t fall out of the chiles like the other fillings did!

Also, I loved the color combination of orange and green so I overstuffed them to let it show.

To finish, I gently heated ghee and more Pipian Picante powder.

Then drizzled it over the still warm chiles. Since these chiles were so mild, I really welcomed extra spice. (Pipian Picante is medium spicy). If my chiles were hotter, I would have chosen the milder Pipian Rojo powder.

The filling and topping were so good I can imagine eating it without the chile if they were not on hand. Or chopping the chile and mixing it in to the sweet potatoes. Enjoy the chile until the frost!

We’ll be selling mole powders at Holiday Nights, so come visit with us at Tohono Chul in Tucson, Friday and Saturdays Dec 8, 9, 15, 16 from 530-830pm.

Cheering with Agave Spirits!

Tia Marta here, tipping a glass to Mayahuel, Goddess of the Agave, for her many gifts–and, in addition, I’m toasting the current voice of Agave: Southwest native foods author/philosopher Gary Paul Nabhan. Heads-up for a not-to-be-missed event SOON!! — Make plans for Saturday, October 21 to meet Nabhan at a totally celebratory book-signing in downtown Tucson for his latest book, AGAVE SPIRITS!

More than just literary, this event will be laced with enlivening tastes of small-batch mezcales! So take note: NOON til 3pm THIS SATURDAY at PETROGLYPHS EMPORIUM at 160 S.AVENIDA DEL CONVENTO just north of El Mercado along the trolley route west loop.

I just got a copy and can hardly wait to dive into Gary’s special way of weaving us into a sensual and spiritual world of amazing culture, botany, cuisine, all with such humor and human sensitivity. Yay another gift from the Guru! There will be plenty of copies of the book for sale at the event, but just in case, you can also find it available at Antigone Books on 4th Ave. Tucson..

Many native species of agave–known as A’ut to Tohono O’odham ancestors who cultivated them long before European colonists arrived in the Sonoran Desert–were and can still be used for food, fiber, drink, and landscaping. To grow your own, check out the agaves for sale at Mission Garden (such as this Agave murpheyi).

For celebrating–yea honoring–mezcal and other agave spirits in their many forms, here is my very local idea for a Century Plant toasting:

The Torch-bearer Mezcal-Saguaro Sunrise–Tia Marta’s recipe

1–In the bottom of a lovely glass, pour 1 TBSP precious thick saguaro syrup (if you have been so lucky to have bought some from a traditional saguaro harvester, or to have made your own syrup last June).

2–Reserve a jigger of small-batch-mezcal (bought or smuggled from a grower, fermenter, or trader.)

3–Dilute 1 jigger mango juice (available TJ’s, Natural Grocers) with 1/2 jigger drinking water to thin its density.

4–To garnish rim, slice a lime harvested from your own tree or a neighbor’s…

5–(a secret from my formerly-bartender partner): Gently pour the diluted mango juice atop the saguaro syrup layer by placing a spoon upside down to slow the flow against the glass interior, thus preserving the horizonal layers of different densities.

6–Similarly as illustrated over clean inverted spoon, gently pour jigger of mezcal for the top “layer.”

7–Salud! a toast to Agave and its Spirit

A step above and beyond the traditional “tequila sunrise,” this glorious libation is named for the Torch-bearer, who, I was taught by O’odham mentors, lights up and brightens the eastern horizon every dawn with the glowing red, orange, yellow of his solar torch…. This drink helps us rejoice in our local saguaro fruit and spirit of Sonoran agave with its colors, flavors–even nutrition.

Celebrate agaves also with notecards of my painting “Sacred peak with Agaves,” available at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge visitor center and at Mission Garden. For 11″x17″ matted prints, call Flor de Mayo, 520-907-9471.

More mezcal ideas await…. Check out SavorSister Carolyn Niethammer’s post about the yearly Agave Heritage Festival in Tucson– with agave roasting at Mission Garden– late April. For specialized mezcal tastings locally, visit ExoBarTucson for Thursday evening samplings–It’s an “educational experience.” And stay tuned for more Agave Spirit posts as the holidays approach. Cheers to Mayahuel, to Nabhan’s new book, and indeed to the patient and giving A-ut plant!

See you at Petroglyphs Emporium this Saturday!

Easy Tricks for Pomegranates and a Recipe

The pomegranate tree in my backyard produced five fruits this year.. The blemish on the top of the closest fruit was made by a leaf-footed bug. A small part of the interior will be bad, but the majority of the fruit will be usable.

I wrote about pomegranates at this time last year, but I’ve learned some new tricks to prepare them so it’s worth another post, especially since so many people find themselve intimidated by these gorgeous red fruits with the hard outer shell. It’s Carolyn today, and I learned these tricks at a teaching and tasting experience at Mission Garden in Tucson given by Emily Rockey, the plant whisperer responsible for the health of all the plants at the garden. Mission Garden is a living agricultural museum of Sonoran Desert-adapted heritage fruit trees, traditional local heirloom crops and edible native plants in the same location as the original garden of the San Augustin Mission in 1770s. Before that this land was farmed for a thousand years by Native American agriculturalists. Among its many varieties of fruit trees, Mission Garden grows eleven different cultivars of pomegranates, all sourced through cuttings from spots around Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora Mexico. 

Pomegranate trees like the heat and sun and are drought tolerant,  and although they love the desert climate, they are not native to the Sonoran Desert. The trees were brought to the New World by the Spanish. They originated in Persia and much of early Persian art features pomegranates. When it comes to eating pomegranates, the challenge is getting through the thick skin to access the seeds with their lovely juice. 

Cut along the sections.

Here’s an easy way to get into the sweet arils (the little flesh-covered seeds). First, cut a slice off the blossom end of the pomegranate. Inside you will see some definite sections. Cut on these sections and pull apart. This pomegranate in the photo is the White Sonoran Heritage pomegranate that has developed in the Sonoran Desert. Botanists aren’t sure why it’s lighter than the red or pink varieties. But it is sweet and the seeds are softer. We just chew them up. Then you can just carefully pry the fruit open and there will be wedges that are easy to eat.

Sections ready for eating or separating.

Another way to get the seeds is to cut the pomegranate from blossom end to stem end and twist the halves apart. Hold the half in your hand seed side down and pound hard with the back of a spoon. The seeds should drop out.

Just whack that pomegranate half with the spoon so the seeds release

You’ll still have some of the inedible material surrounding the seeds. An easy way to get rid of it is to  submerge the seeds in a small bowl of water and the connecting material will float to the top where you can skim it off.

Submerge the arils in water and the seeds will sink and the inedible fiber will float to the top.

You can munch the seeds or add them to a salad or entree where their sweet flavor is welcome. To make juice, process in a food processor or blender in short pulses. You just want to break the seeds to release the juice, not pulverize them. Then strain. If you are using a blender, you might have to add a little water to get the process started. 

The recipe below is a great way to use your pomegranate juice. The late caterer Sue Scheff was renowned for providing regional dishes for the parties she served. She offered Autumn Chicken as an entree using something like this Pomegranate Sauce.   Saute your chicken parts until brown, spread in a oven-proof dish, then cover with this sauce and bake until chicken is done, about 25 minutes. Garnish with pomegranate seeds and fresh cilantro. Good for family but fancy enough for company.  Sue’s complete recipe is in my book The New Southwest Cookbook which includes recipes from dozens of top professional chefs throughout the Southwest. 

This sauce is very close to grenadine syrup, which is reduced pomegranate juice and sugar. If you ever had a Shirley Temple as a child or ordered one for your kids, grenadine syrup is what makes the drink pink. 

Pomegranate Sauce

2 cups pomegranate juice

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon balsalmic vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring to make sure sugar is dissolved. Reduce by about a third to concentrate the flavors. Spread over the browned chicken parts. Or store in a jar and use to flavor drinks.

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You can learn more about the history of food in Southern Arizona in my latest book A Desert Feast, the story of the last 4,000 years of food in the Sonoran Desert. Want more recipes using  foods of the Southwest? You’d find ideas for collecting and using 23 easily recognized and gathered desert foods in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Foods.  . Recipes from top Southwest chefs are collected in The New Southwest Cookbook. Just click on the titles for more information. You can learn more about me on my website.

Stuffed Squash-Blossom Time!

Squash vines absolutely LOVE this monsoon-season humidity! If you’re growing squash this late-summer season–or if you know anyone who is–now is the time to harvest for the rare and wonderful treat of stuffed squash blossoms! I was inspired by a fantastic meal in Winslow, Arizona, at the Turquoise Room in the lovely old La Posada Hotel, by the SP Railroad and historic Rt.66. The chef there served batter-fried squash blossoms to die for! Tia Marta here to share some experimental ideas for going SW-Gourmet in this short season.

The glorious flower image above is from NativeSeedsSEARCH’s heirloom Magdalena Big Cheese squash grown out at Mission Garden.

Image to left: Hiding under that green cloak of giant spotted leaves of this year’s Tohono O’odham HA:L (growing in the Hohokam-period Timeline Garden at Mission Garden) you might find male flowers, then later, female flowers

.

Knowing the difference between male and female flowers is really important! You can tell them apart because the female flowers, which usually appear later on the vines, have a bulbous base below the fused petals which will become the fruit. Keep the female flowers protected on the plant! You can actually aid and abet pollination by “playing bee”–by cutting off male flowers to hand pollinate the stigma of the female flowers. Then–tah dah!–instead of throwing that male flower in the compost, take it to the kitchen to prep some fun hors d’oevres!

Squash flowers are so sculptural, even animate with a jaunty twist to the petals. These male flowers are washed and ready to stuff!

Gently slice open one side of each male flower vertically “with the grain”. The thick yellow pollen-covered anther will be visible.

For this stuffing, I mixed blue cheese with enough cream cheese as a binder and added garlic, dried basil, pimenton, and a touch of sea salt. I spooned the mixture into the “cavity” of the flower calyx.

I then carefully closed the petals and sepals together….

….and simply sauteed them in butter on all sides. The cheese stuffing melted slightly. I served them with toasted Barrio Bread cut melba-thin, and oh my, what a delicacy!

With a new harvest of squash flowers at a later occasion, I decided to try a batter-blossom. I found fabulous Navajo blue cornmeal and made a simple batter with one fresh egg beaten with a generous pinch of sea salt and 1/3 cup cornmeal. (I didn’t add milk but you could if you want a thinner batter.)

This time I made a chilpotle and cheese stuffing mix: Melt a 1/2 cup of any good grated Mexican cheese and lace with a 1/4 tsp chilpotle flakes or chilpotle powder to taste. I added garlic salt, and pinches of dry Mexican oregano and parsley leaf…..and mixed it to the consistency of a thick dip. I

I spooned the cheese mix again into the open flower cavity and, holding the stuffed closed flower by the petal ends, I dipped each into the blue cornmeal batter….

…..so that 3/4 of each stuffed flower was covered with the batter. I then sauteed these little gems in lots (2 tbsp+) butter on 3 sides….

….and served them with enchiladas. What a surprise–They looked like little baby tortoises! And oh they were SO tasty, with a crunch on the outside and a hot spicy, creamy center.

Tia marta hoping you enjoy your late summer in a garden–perhaps with a visit to Tucson’s amazing Mission Garden–exploring for squash blossoms with which to invent new recipes! And do let me know of your successes!

Plan now for next year’s monsoon garden, Tohono O’odham-style. Seeds for many delicious time-and-temperature-tested local squash varieties are available from NativeSeedsSEARCH and Mission Garden. Next summer, have your garden plot ready to put your seeds in the ground with a song when monsoon clouds begin to form. That’s when the O’odham know the squash will be happiest and perform the best.

Eat Mesquite and More: a Cookbook for Sonoran Desert Living

Happy Summer, friends!

Amy here, on a hot, hot morning, sitting the shade. Have you seen Desert Harvester’s new edition of the cookbook??? It is 400 pages! with lots of color photographs and original art. It really is worth getting the book for the art alone.

But today I want to highlight the ethics in book. It starts with a poem by Ofelia Zepeda, followed by a land acknowledgement, and a Desert Harvesters ManiFEASTO in English and Spanish. There is a recipe for Abundance and a detailed primer on Reciprocity, elaborating on “Get to Know vs Grab and Go” and “Rewild vs Defiled” and a whole other section on living and eating in place. So yes, even if you don’t live in the desert where these plants grow, and even if you never plan to cook, this is still a tremendous resource and inspiration.

As the title declares, Desert Harvesters has morphed from mesquite milling focused to offering intimate portraits and recipes of over 20 desert ingredients. Have you harvested: mesquite, ironwood, saguaro, acorn, devil’s claw, wolfberry, hackberry, mushrooms, chiltepin, barrel cactus, prickly pear pads and fruit, cholla, chia, agave, palo verde, yucca, ocotillo, globe mallow, purslane, packrats, grasshoppers or cicadas? With detailed harvesting instructions, seasonal timing and expert tips, a novice harvesters can actually get out there and try! Many desert plants offer multiple delicacies, such as ironwood tree as green seeds, mature seeds, flowers and seed sprouts.

There are a LOT of recipes, some easy and some taking days or longer to make. I didn’t count how many recipes are in the book, but it says only 80 of them are bilingual, English and Spanish and 65 are new to this edition. There are a few medicine recipes, too. This book really does have something new for even the most seasoned harvester. The recipes are contributed and tested by community members far and wide, encompassing ancient wisdom and modern innovation from many cultures. It also includes many recipes from us Savor Sisters, Carolyn, Tia Marta and I.

If you still aren’t convinced to buy this book or find it in the library, go to Desert Harvesters Facebook page. There you will see recipes for Seed Balls for planting and Saguaro Fruit Truffles for eating. Don’t mix them up!

A Traditional Recipe for Nopales (Prickly Pear Pads)

Delicious combination of nopales, onions, tomatoes, and chile paste.

Last weekend I gathered with a few friends to reminisce about a time decades ago when we were all just starting out in the world of learning about the food and animals and lifeways of the Southwest. At that time many of the members were working on graduate degrees and others of us had already launched our careers. We  formed an informal group called The Tepary Burrito Society to share our experiences in occasional “seminars” which involved a potluck and sitting cross-legged on somebody’s floor with a plate on our lap. The name Tepary Burrito Society came from the local tepary bean that had almost been lost. We were all most excited about learning how to cultivate teparies and cook with them. ( Tia Marta discussed teparies at length in this post).

Back in our “seminars,” someone would be chosen to present what subject they were working on. By the time of those meetings, I had already published my first cookbook, then called American Indian Food and Lore, now republished as American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest. I had done the research by traveling around the Southwest talking to Native American women and gathering recipes from them. At this weekend’s potluck, my friend Nancy Ferguson surprised us by bringing a recipe from that first cookbook, Beavertail Stew. No beavers are in this dish! The name comes from a nickname for prickly pears because the big flat leaves resemble a beaver’s tail. I haven’t heard that nickname recently, but this book was researched fifty years ago. 

I have always made this dish with fresh nopalitos that I have gathered and cleaned myself or from already cleaned and chopped nopalitos from a Mexican grocery store. Nancy said that she makes them with jarred nopalitos which she rinses before frying them. If you want to use fresh, I give instructions on how to do it in this previous blog post here. 

This spicy dish can be a side dish or a dip for tortilla chips.

Beavertail Stew

(Warning: this dish is spicy. Reduce the hotness by using much less chile paste. Start with a little)

1 cup nopalitos, fresh or jarred

1/4-1/2 cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

3/4 cup chopped fresh tomato or canned 

1 to 2 tablespoons chile paste (I use Santa Cruz chile paste)

2 shakes cumin

1/4 cup shredded chicken or pork (optional)

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Fry the nopalitos and onions until they are slightly crisp. Add the garlic, tomato sauce, chile paste, cumin, and salt. Stir and cook a few minutes until well combined. Add a little water or tomato juice so the mixture can simmer without burning. Stir in the meat if using. Serve with toasted tortillas.

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Interested in learning how to gather and prepare edible wild plants of the Southwest? Two cookbooks can guide you. American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest has traditional Native American recipes, some of them very old. These recipes are usually simple. Cooking the Wild Southwest includes more modern recipes for 23 edible wild plants that are easy to gather, easy to recognize and taste good, especially in these recipes. 

Happy Yellow Moon! S-ke:g Oam Maṣad!

Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa), known as tohaws in O’odham, is spreading its glory over the Sonoran Desert this month!

April– at last!  The Sonoran Des is in cheer-mode after a long, chilly-wet and wonderful winter-spring!  Our plant neighbors are blessed with deep moisture, so brace yourself as they explode into their glorious garb of yellows. Tia Marta here, inviting you to celebrate a rite of spring with a bow not only to the bunnies and birds but also to buds and beans….

Any rite will be fine. You choose your rite way. Here at Casa Choyita, I have some interesting projects in the works to celebrate spring–both involving cookery but of two different “ilks”:  a creative recipe for heirloom beans and cholla cactus flower buds, plus,  colorful dyes cooked from beans and brittlebush.  Every step of the way we’re honoring the plants with thanks for their varied gifts.

S-cuk mu:ñ c ciolim —Frijoles negros con botones de choya–Black beans with cholla buds– by any Borderlands name this combo is delectable. Try my recipe below for a Cubano style. and enjoy! (Dark water from soaking your blackbeans can be saved and used creatively–See explanation below…)

Watch your backyard ciolim (pronounced chee’oh–rlim) closely these next couple of weeks to know when to harvest!

The Sonoran Desert’s staghorn cholla (Cylindropuntia versicolor) and other cholla species’ flower buds will be swelling daily. Those little succulent prongs you see on the buds are actual cactus leaves! (This is the only time we’re able to see real leaves on cholla and prickly pear.)

Wait til the buds are as fat as they can get before blooming to harvest while still in the bud stage….

….These buds are not quite ready, still swelling…..

 

…. My O’odham teacher instructed me to check when the first cholla flower opens on a plant. Then you’ll have a comparison to know the maximum size the buds will get on that cactus–Now the buds are ready to harvest!

RECIPE: Tia Marta’s Black Beans with Cholla Buds, Cubano style:

Simmer your fresh despined (or prepped, dried, reconstituted) cholla buds ahead, until they are soft.

Pre-soak beans: Cover black beans in water (3x the amount of beans) and soak for 6-8 hours minimum. Strain and SAVE your darkened water for future dye projects. You can soak beans a second time and strain to derive even more dark dye-water.

In a crock pot or sauce pan add lots of fresh water to your drained beans, then simmer until softened, 1-2 hours or more, checking water level.

Add to the cook pot: 1 cup of sauteed chunks of sweet red bell peppers, 1/2 cup sauteed chopped onion, 1 Tbsp fresh minced garlic, 1 tsp wild oregano, 1 tsp cumin powder or seed, 4 bay leaves, sea salt to taste, 1 Tbsp agave nectar, 1 Tbsp wine vinegar, 1/2 cup cooked and drained cholla buds, chiltepin peppers to taste (sparingly). [These are my preferred herbs and spices. Do try your own variations!]

Simmer all ingredients for another hour until it thickens and flavors meld. Serve over steamed brown rice for a fabulous veggie meal, or serve cold for a savory summer dish.

For a Tohono O’odham Community College art class we had experimented dyeing yarn and cotton with blackbean juice (left, gray/taupe), cochineal insect (center, pink/lavender), and brittlebush (right, yellow).
Later (seen in my chicken basket above for the season) I further experimented with a new medium, eggs! My plant dyes, used cold, actually worked–a warm gray from blackbeans, bright yellow from brittlebush flowers, and deeeeep purple from cochineal!

Here’s my close-up process: I placed boiled white eggs (from Mission Garden’s heirloom chickens) into cochineal dye (left) and brittlebush flower dye (right) to bathe for an hour and–voila!–we had Easter eggs. The dye didn’t even penetrate the shells.
Who knows–My next step may be to make fancy deviled eggs with pickled cholla buds….

S-ke:g Oam Maṣad!--a happy Yellow Moon to desert harvesters and Southwest cooks from Tia Marta! May we all celebrate visually and gastronomically!

Since we have a short window of opportunity for collecting cholla buds this month, you are invited to get a head start by checking more blog posts full of great ideas. Here are some good links:

https://savorthesouthwest.blog/2017/04/21/cholla-crepes-with-hollandaise-and-mulberry-compote-yogurt-crepes/

https://savorthesouthwest.blog/2014/03/18/theyre-here-theyre-ready-cholla-buds-grand-opening/

https://savorthesouthwest.blog/2021/04/21/curry-puffs-with-cholla-and-palo-verde/

https://savorthesouthwest.blog/2021/04/30/quiche-sonoraine-a-la-cholla-bud/