The Other Side of the Tortilla

tomatoes

Salsa de tres chiles

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In case you missed it last week… check out our salsa de tres chiles on the Kenmore Genius Blog – the ultimate fresh, homemade dip for your tortilla chip! Warning: you may never be able to eat crappy restaurant “salsa” ever again after tasting this stuff. You know what I’m talking about – that runny, watery, often bland mess of tomatoes, onion and jalapeños they serve at chain restaurants. You’ll have to visit the Genius Blog for the full recipe with instructions, but here’s a sneak peek of the video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjYHU9woZ1s[/youtube]

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Disclosure: I am compensated for my posts on the Genius Blog and provided with Kenmore small appliances to test but all my recipes and opinions, about the appliances and otherwise, are my own.

Albóndigas en salsa chipotle

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Albóndigas are a simple Mexican comfort food, easy to make and even easier to eat. I always serve these Mexican meatballs in a tomato chipotle sauce. Some people like to make their albóndigas bigger so they can accommodate a whole egg filling on the inside. My husband only likes them without egg, so I finally learned this recipe from our family friend, Esmeralda. It’s an easy but traditional Mexican dish sure to please the whole family.

A classic recipe for albóndigas al chipotle, a Mexican meatball dish with a tomato-chipotle sauce. Recipe via theothersideofthetortilla.com.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at the Blogalicious Weekend conference at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach in Florida. I had an absolutely incredible time and was inspired by so many of the women I met.

The kind folks at Kenmore hosted a pop-up kitchen at the conference and invited me several weeks ago to do a cooking demo using their kitchen. There was one challenge: I had to choose a recipe that could be made only using small appliances.

I thought for several days about what I could make with only access to a blender, a convection toaster oven, a toaster, a stand mixer, an induction pad, a food processor, a coffee maker or teakettle and a slow cooker. It was a tough decision because I really wanted to make rajas con crema, but without a sink and an oven, I didn’t think I could pull it off.

A few weekends ago, my mom was foraging through my refrigerator looking for a snack and I ended up giving her some albóndigas (meatballs) over rice. She loved them so much that she gobbled up the last of what little was left in a Tupperware from a few nights before.

The next day at 7 a.m. – a Sunday – my mom called to tell me she’d been up all night thinking about albóndigas and that she needed my recipe so she could make them herself that day. Seldom in my life has my mom, who is an amazing cook, called me for a recipe – it’s always me calling her. That’s when I decided if they were good enough for mom to call me at 7 a.m. on a Sunday and risk waking me up on the one day a week that I like to sleep in, then the Blogalicious crowd would surely love this recipe, too. If you weren’t able to see it live in Miami, check out the video below of the cooking demo from start to finish.

A classic recipe for albóndigas al chipotle, a Mexican meatball dish with a tomato-chipotle sauce. Recipe via theothersideofthetortilla.com.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGOeny70SdQ&feature=channel[/youtube]
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Sopa de fideo

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I’m sharing my sopa de fideo recipe because this tomato-broth and noodle soup is a comfort food for me that evokes one specific fond memory.

After more than a decade of dreaming about visiting Teotihuacan, I finally made the 40-kilometer trip northeast of Mexico City in 2009 with my suegro and my cuñada. I yearned to visit this archaeological site since I first learned about it in history books as a kid. The Aztec pyramids fascinated me and I never dreamed I’d be able to travel there, let alone make it all the way to the top of the Pirámide del Sol.

How to make Mexican sopa de fideo from scratch via theothersideofthetortilla.com

RELATED RECIPE: Tomato chipotle soup with star pasta…

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Calling all cooks: I'm looking for sopa de tortilla recipes

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3703322716_fc75434e76Though I’ve lived in Chicago most of my life, the chilly fall weather always seems to sneak up on me. Here we are in the middle of October and I’ve not made any tortilla soup yet! Those who know me will tell you: if I go to a restaurant with tortilla soup on the menu (even if it’s the middle of summer), I’ll order it. I’m serious about this soup, folks. I’ve been known to judge an entire restaurant solely on the quality of the tortilla soup they serve—no matter what else is on the menu.

The lack of tortilla soup in my house this far into October can only mean one thing: I’m about to go on a bender. So, I’m putting a call out. Send in your recipes and I will try each and every one I receive. The deadline to submit will be Friday, October 23rd and I’ll report back with both my recipe and my favorite recipe submitted by readers the week of November 15th.

I’ve got several favorite places in Mexico City where I go for tortilla soup and I’ll share those along with my recipe, too. You can submit your recipes here in the comments, or if you prefer, via email by clicking on the contact section to your right. There is one condition: your soup must be made from scratch with fresh ingredients (no canned soup bases) and should be based on tomatoes. I won’t try any recipe that isn’t based on tomatoes because then it wouldn’t be traditional tortilla soup.

Buena suerte!