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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Cheese & Poblano Quesadilla with Black Beans and Sweet Potato Stew


There's nothing like roasting poblano chiles to fill your house with an exotic and appetizing fragrance. After looking through my new Dona Tomas cookbook, I was definitely in the mood for Mexican food.

For the quesadilla, I used corn tortillas filled with cheddar cheese and roasted poblano chile. One thing I note from the Dona Tomas recipes is that they call for Mexican cheeses that I don't recall seeing anywhere, like queso Oaxaca and queso Cotija. There's also many other ingredients I've never heard of like Achiote Paste, Huitlacoche, Nixtamal, Piloncillo. This is going to be an awesome learning experience and I'll need to find a good local Latin American Grocery store (let me know if you have any recommendations).

The Black Bean and Sweet Potato Stew was a simpler version of this recipe. This time I used just sweet potatoes, black beans, and salsa and served it with a more elaborate avocado salsa. I really love the combination of sweet potatoes and black beans! Not only do they taste great, their colors really compliment each other.

3 Comments:

Blogger Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

Black beans and sweet potatoes are a fabulous combination. Last winter I started making a chili with the two together; I'd never tried it before, but fell in love instantly. Have fun hunting for some of the ingredients listed in your new book. Achiote paste is something you can make easily, but huitlacoche...well, you're in for a surprise!

10:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Catherine: I recognize quite a few of those ingredients; you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. Cotija cheese, in fact, might be at Whole Foods (and probably some of those other items). In San Rafael, the La Azteca market on 4th street (at Lincoln) will probably have all the rest.
(Piloncillo is brown sugar pressed into the form of cones or stumps; look in the "sugar" aisle if such a thing exists; huitlacoche usually comes in small cans in the vegetable aisle, near corn.)
I'm excited about your new venture!

11:35 AM  
Blogger Catherine said...

Thanks, cookie. I'll check out La Azteca!

9:32 AM  

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