Chile Pepper High

Super Bowl - The World's Best Chicken Nachos

I really don't give diddly about football or the Super Bowl. That said, Bill and I still watch parts of it and take the opportunity to make some not-so-good-for-us ooey gooey food. I am not much of a cook but I have two specialties - Moroccan Stew and Chicken Nachos.

I think my chicken nachos are the best - in the world! Something this good should not be horded, so here is how I make them.

I start with a bag of large corn chips - the larger the better. I prefer blue corn.

The key to these nachos is in the layering of flavors and the fact that every nacho is fully loaded.

Layer 1: Brown ground chicken, onions, mushrooms, garlic, and cayenne pepper. I often start with the onions and get them to the stage of being lightly caramelized. Lots of onion. Set this layer aside and allow to cool a bit (so that it is warm, but not hot). Just before you assemble the nachos, drain off any excess liquid (a little is fine) and then mix in sour cream (low fat is fine here and you won't noticed the difference).

Layer 2: Make a papaya salsa with fresh papaya, hot peppers like jalapeno or green chilies, cilantro, lime, a tiny bit of olive oil, and sweet onion. Everything should be chopped fine so it spoons well onto the nachos.

Layer 3: Provolone cheese, sliced as thin as possible.

Put on the oven's broiler and get ready to assemble!

Spread out the nice big corn chips on a cooking sheet with curled edges facing up so that the chip acts as a vessel for the layers. Put one heaping tablespoon of the chicken mixture, followed by one tablespoon of the papaya mixture, followed by a thin covering of the provolone cheese (one layer of cheese). It goes fastest if you put all the layer 1 down, then layer 2, then the cheese.

Broil the nachos until the cheese melts and is bubbly.

Serve right away with a variety of hot sauces for those that like a super spicy kick.

YUM! If you try them, tell me how you like them. Seems like a lot of work for nachos, but they will be the hit of the meal.

Chile Peppers Helps You Lose Weight!

Not that we need ANOTHER reason to eat chile pepper with every dish, but this Arizona Republic article called, Chile Pepper Could Aid Weight Loss, is an interesting and hopeful read. Here's a snippet:

What advocates claim: The capsaicin found in chile peppers is believed to be the agent responsible for the peppers' beneficial effects. It's the same substance that makes chiles spicy, so the hotter the chile, the more potential benefit. Some maintain that chile peppers aid weight loss by increasing metabolism. Peppers can support a healthful diet by adding flavor to otherwise bland foods, and they put the brakes on appetite. Anyone who has ordered a dish from a Thai menu with a three-pepper rating can tell you that it's hard to overindulge on a meal with that much heat. What's more, eating chile peppers releases endorphins that make us feel good.

As my husband says, "another spoonful of chile couldn't hurt." Go three stars today!

Hatch Chile Festival!

Hatch4.JPG
Originally uploaded by Lisa Haneberg.

I have loaded up seven pictures from the Hatch Chile Festival with descriptions. Click on this picture to to go my Flickr site and see the pics.

Taken while in Hatch, New Mexico for the Hatch Chile Festival - September 2, 2006. Roasting Big Jim Green Chile Peppers - Yum! People would buy a bag or half bag (the half bag was $15, $25 for the whole) and then they would be roasted. Then they take home their roasted chiles in a plastic bag, peal the burnt skin off and then freeze or use them or make green chile sauce to smother your enchiladas.

Blue Front Café

The window A/C unit is screeching
nonstop at the dive on route 180,
Glenwood. Best of the three
food dives in this five block town.

Nice lady brings me a vat of iced
tea and I pour in a cup of sugar.
Says she doesn’t want me to go
home thirsty – no chance of that.

Got red chile today they were
out last time and had green instead.
Nice lady asks the three people
eating if they got enough to eat.

Peeling old wallpaper held up with
cheap framed art, one says, beef it’s
what’s for dinner, one has pink hibiscus
that don’t grow in these parts.

Chalkboard lists today’s homemade
pies, coconut crème and carrot cake
which isn’t a pie but it’s on the sign.
Nice lady brings red chile enchiladas.

White cowboy hat man is cutting
hay today. Hoping it doesn't rain
later. Nice lady says winter will
be cold according to the almanac.

Cook chats with white cowboy hat man,
swinging a blue fly swatter up and down.
Nice lady asks if I had enough to eat.
Cowboy hat man has a vat of tea, one dollar.

I feel guilty leaving so much undrunk
tea so I gulp it, which I will regret down
the long twisty road back to the casita.
Nice lady smiles.

Pray for the Chile Peppers!

The rains hitting New Mexico are wiping out some chile pepper fields. While most of the state's crop is still fine, some farmers in Hatch have lost their prized peppers.

There are more rains in the forecast, so let's all send good karma thoughts to all the chile farmers! In New Mexico, when the rains hit, they hit. It's monsoon season from approximately July 1-August 21 and they get about half of their yearly rain fall during this time.

Here's an article with more about this tenuous situation.

Coming to New Mexico

I will be in New Mexico in a few weeks from August 23rd to September 6th. My agenda is a bit organic. Actually, it will be entirely organic. I have made hotel reservations for the first night, as I get in late, and I have a rental car. Other than this, I am going to take each day as it comes. That's right, no plans! I want to have a great experience and don't want to try and guess what will be the best use of my time there.

If you have any suggestions - things I ought to do or see, people I ought to meet- please let me know.

One thing I do know is that I will be consuming lots of red and green chile! I will take notes about the places I go and people I meet and will share the highlights with you here.

Why am I traveling this way? I think that our travel experiences are often muted by our needs to transfer work management skills to planning our vacations. What ever happened to genuine exploration? I don't mean expeditions at the magnitude of Lewis and Clark. Travel used to be a more creative and spontaneous act and I would like to rekindle this excitement. Also, by not planning the trip, I will be open to more possibilities including taking it very slow.

It will be a pleasure to soak in whatever experiences come my way and not be distracted by thinking about what's next and how much time I can spend in any one place.

More details soon.

2006 Chile Pepper crop is GREAT!

I was pleased to see this article in the ABQ Tribune about the 2006 chile crop.

It's a bumper crop!!!

This is wonderful news for the farmers and for we happy consumers. For some crops, the harvesting has begun. Here's a snippet from the article:

New Mexico hasn't had a crop to match this year's in size or quality in five years, said David Lucero, a marketing specialist with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.

Ideal weather and the absence of harmful insects and diseases have resulted in full fields and healthy plants, he said.

"It's been an ideal growing year, and the insects haven't been a problem this year. It's made for happy plants," he said.

I pulled this picture from the article as well. Order your chile now, or better yet, plan a trip! That's what I am doing and I will tell you more about that soon.

2006 is the Year of the Chile Pepper

Isn't EVERY year the year of the chile pepper??

According to the National Garden Bureau, 2006 is the year of the chile. Yippee! Here are several links to chile centric sites.

Check out the Hatch Chile festival September 2-3.

Click here to pre-order your fresh hatch chile peppers (which will be harvested in August/September).

Here's the link to the Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta Sept 27-Oct 1.

Here's the Whole Enchilada Fiesta site. This festival is held in Las Cruces Setp 22-24.

The Really Chile Festival is held in Santa Fe on Sept 18th and includes fun stuff like a low rider show and Santana look alike contest. fun!

Here is a great site with lots of amusing articles about chile peppers.

Here's a recipe for green chile stew from the Fiery Foods website. This is one of my favorite dishes.

Here's a chart that will tell you how hot each type of chile pepper is. Of course, this is relative because it depends on the growing season. Green chiles, for example, can be mild or very hot.

Here's another site from which you can order chile peppers. And here's a nice picture of farmers tending a green chile pepper field from their website.

Grocery List For My New Mexico Trip

The Pacific Northwest has a lot of good points, but it is hard to find good chile peppers and blue corn supplies. Whenever I go back to New Mexico, I carry extra bags so that I can bring back the following items:

Chimayo red chiles, powder
Frozen Bueno chile, containers of both green Hatch and red Chimayo chiles.
Blue corn flour
Blue corn posole
Blue corn tortillas
Fresh or roasted chiles if its the right time of year
Frozen tamales

What do you crave?

The Joy of Chile Peppers

Green Chile Stew High

Lisa picked a sack of spicy peppers
To make her husband a luscious stew
Hatch beauties, bursting with juicy fire
Red faced and happy, they howled yahoo!

When you consume spicy chile peppers, how do you feel? Do you enjoy the taste, or just the high? As a 3 out of 5 stars girl, I love both the taste of spicy chile peppers and the high. I can feel the physical reaction and it is neat. My body heats up and my face turns pink. If it is really spicy, my eyes water. And then the adrenaline high/calm.

I love spicy foods and I feel for people who cannot enjoy them.

What’s your favorite type of chile pepper? Your favorite dish?

I like New Mexican green (Hatch) and red (Chimayo) chile peppers. To me, they have just the right balance of flavor and fire.