Momocho

Even the name of the restaurant sounds like something a babbling baby would say to express hunger. Mo-Mooooooo- Choooos, Mommm-mommm-nomm! So, when my sister-in-law, Cris, was describing some of the food at Momocho [smoked trout guacamole, please!], I was finding new space in my stomach despite the previous day's Thanksgiving gluttony.

 The Ohio City restaurant, featuring "Mod Mex" cuisine, is nestled in a cozy neightborhood with quaint homes and narrow alleys. Once inside, The restaurant was very dark, very crowded, and somewhat intimidating because of its lucha libre and Dia de los Muertes themed decor, and its hip, slightly snobby wait staff. But that only made me feel more giddy... Date night! No kids! Restaurant featured on Food Network!

While our husbands ordered the first off beat beverages they found (cervezas especial michelada style with ice, lime, salt, worcestershire and hot sauce), Cris and I pored over the paper menu, squinting in the dark at the extensive guacamole list and scribbling tick marks in the margins of the main dish and appetizer sections.

We finally settled on:



Guacamole with smoked trout, bacon and chile poblano. I was thinking about it later, and the reason this works so well is because it's a little bit like a revved up California roll, minus seaweed, crabstick, rice and tobiko. OK, it's nothing like sushi, but the avocado and uncooked fish textures and flavors work so well in Japanese cuisine, that I'm not surprised that they dance together in this rich dip.

Just in case you're interested in the other varieties that we didn't try, I brought home the menu from the night. As avocados are on sale this week at Kroger, I think I will have to try to make some of these at home:

• goat cheese, tomato, chile pblano
• jicama, pineapple, chile habanero and mint
• garlic confit, blue cheese, chile verde
• honey crisp apple, mango, chile serrano and thai basil
• pickled corn, crab, chile chipotle

Seared Sea Scallops with cauliflower and hominy frita, jalapeno creamed corn. This was my favorite dish, aside from the trout guacamole. The flavors were light, creamy and sweet, so they didn't overpower the delicate flavor of the scallops, which were just slightly undercooked in the center, but still pretty good :-) The ball in the middle is kind of like a cauliflower hush puppy. It would have been better if there was more cauliflower than hominy.

Butternut squash and goat cheese empanadas with oaxacan red chile and chocolate mole.
This was Jack's favorite dish of the night. I also liked it, but it was almost a dessert with all the sweetness and richness. As far as I'm concerned, anything with goat cheese is good.

Smoked gouda tamale dumplings. Cris found these to be a little bit dry, but I thought they were pretty well balanced when forked with a bittersweet heap of the crisp onion and corn saute with which it was served.

 Our server recommended the sofrito green beans, adding that they were very popular. But these were actually my least favorite dish of the night. If you've been reading me for any length of time, you probably know I generally prefer vegetables to the other food groups. In my not so humble opinion, a good green bean should be flash fried just enough to be bright green, but still crisp enough to bite through the strings, OR they should be slow cooked down to a buttery-melt-in-my-mouth slurp of a legume, preferrably laced with pork fat. I would have expected the crunchy end of the cooking spectrum for this dish, which was heavily seasoned with the sofrito. (I'm guessing the mix included chili, cilantro, onion, garlic and maybe tamarind or something to give it bite.) Instead, the beans were in that no-go doneness zone in the middle. They were too cooked to maintain their crispness, and not done enough to eliminate the stringy toughness. In addition, I felt that the flavor was too sour and too bitter, when I was craving savory, zesty and sweet. OK. That's enough philosphizing about green beans! On to the wild boar....

No joke, we orderd chancho, adobo braised wild boar taquitos with pickled jalapeno and mustard crema. After all, the guys needed something to go with their worcestershire beers, and this was one of the more awe-inspiring meats on the menu.

(As a side note, please excuse the horrible quality of my photos from the night. The room was exceedingly dim and I didn't want to draw attention to myself by flashing the food every 60 seconds.)

I'm not a fan of tough meat, or even red meat in general. And this was overtly both very red and tough meat. However, a little dollop of boar shreds on a mini corn tortilla with copious amounts of the pickled jalapeno and mustard crema was pretty good. And if I wasn't so stuffed that I felt every bite was bound to come out my ears, I might have liked it more.

Ironically, neither Jack nor Joe really liked this dish, despite Cris and my chidings that they didn't add enough of the salsa and crema. If I were to get a do-over on ordering, I would have thought less about what others might like and ordered what I knew I'd like: the picadillo, ground lamb shoulder with mint, walnuts, red chile and chocolate mole, which sounds like a pretty amazing little taco. Or, the camarones, achiote shrimp al postor style with pineapple and jicama salsa... or pato, slow cooked duck confit with chile anco and pomegranate barbacoa. Or...

 

There's always next time.

Plantains

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that Stephen grabbed some plaintains and other goodies at the Indian grocery store in Chattanooga. We actually did buy them, but they didn't ripen until a couple of days ago.

I was worn out from round two of bagel boiling, so Joe decided to make this dessert from a recipe he found on the food network. I don't remember it exactly-- but it involved 2 plantains, butter, sugar and cinnamon. It was delish!

Vegan taco salad

The Daniel Fast has commenced at Parrino's. This morning we had oatmeal with plain soymilk, chopped dates, pumpkin seeds and a little pineapple juice skimmed from a can. I thought it was pretty good. Joe ate his... but he didn't have much to say :)

I had a Larabar at church for a snack while I fed Stephen... it just has dates and nuts. No added sugar. No dairy. No gluten. Just nuts and dates.

For lunch we had taco salad with baked corn chips (Tostitos); broiled tofu seasoned with oil, paprika, pepper flakes, garlic powder, oregano, salt, chives and pepper; a salsa of corn, black beans, avocado, onion, garlic and lime juice; crushed pineapple, chopped romaine and tomatoes.

My only regret is that I used half a small onion in the salsa, and thought the sticker said "sweet onion", the thing must have grown in extremely sulferous soil because it overpowered the entire meal for me. I'm still tasting, breathing and feeling onion. Boo on false advertising. Boo on me for buying three of those stinking onions.

Dinner is going to be a simple veggie stirfy with brown rice.

Fajitas without fuss

I don't know about the rest of you, but I hate having raw chicken fat stuck in my fingernails... something that inevitably happens whenever I have to chop the slimy stuff for a recipe. To avoid that most abhorrent sensation, I try to bake chicken in whatever form it left the grocery store. These fajitas use baked chicken breast tenderloins and tri-color bell peppers. As a bonus, they're easy enough to put together in between Munchie duties.

Chicken:
Arrange 8-10 small chicken breast tenders in a single layer on a foil-covered baking sheet for the toaster oven. Spoon your favorite salsa evenly over the meat and then drizzle with canola oil and salt to taste.

Veggies:
Cut 1 medium sweet onion and 1 each of green, red and yellow peppers into thin strips. Coarsely chop 4 cloves garlic. Heat vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet then add vegetables and cook until onions begin to caramelize, stirring occasionally. Season with red pepper flakes, black pepper, salt and chopped chives.

Tortilla: After removing the pepper mixture, heat flour tortillas, one at a time, in the skillet until browned on one side. Then flip and allow tortilla to bubble.

Add one chicken tender and a scoop of peppers to a tortilla, fold and eat!

Mexican Bakery

In Salem Plaza, within walking distance of my parent's house, and just a few storefronts down from the ballet academy I used to attend long, long ago, is a Mexican bakery. With shelves stacked high with all kinds of oversized buns and pastries and cookies, it looks like a wonderland for sweet teeth. But actually, Mexican bakery goods aren't very sweet or salty-- the main flavor that comes through is the mild flavor of fat... my guess is lard or someother shortening.

I'm a big fan of "estrelletas" or chunky star-shaped cookies covered in cinnamon and sugar. Unfortunately, the photo I took is on my mom's camera. The picture above is a pumpkin empanada. Instead of the deep fried pastry crust I usually associate with empanadas, it had a bready outside that reminded me of coffee cake. It made a great car trip treat as my mom and I drove from Hoffman Estates to Hopkinsville.

Quesadillas, cake mix cookies and anniversary

After having the chicken quesadilla at Coffee And... the other day, I decided to make my own with shredded chicken breast (baked in the toaster over in olive oil and lemon juice) and diced red bell pepper, tossed with salsa and sprinkled with cheddar.
And I've been craving both chocolate and cookies lately with the weather starting to act like it should in November. These are uber easy... inspired by Kai, who first turned me on to cake mix cookies. Just dump a chocolate cake mix in a bowl (on sale at Kroger for $1!) add two eggs, 1/2 cup oil and mix. Then plunk heaping spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bakeuntil the tops look set at 350 degrees. I ate three of these soft giants before Joe got home from work to take me out to dinner for our unofficial anniversary.

Coffee And... Stephen

Stephen had another checkup today. He weighs 10 pounds, 2 ounces! He gained more than 2 lbs in a month. Woo hoo! and is 22 1/2 inches long.

I've been doing a little freelance work for the New Era this week. So after his check up we went downtown to scope out some gift ideas for the New Era gift guide. Stephen eventually got hungry for lunch, so I fed him at "Coffee And..." Then I fed myself :-) Chicken Quesadilla, hold most of the cheese. The tortilla was really delicate and packed with tender chicken, tomato and a little green bell pepper. Really yummy.

I also found a copy of Leo Lionni's Fredrick at Books On Main. Since Stephen is starting to seem like he enjoys me reading to him, I decided to buy it. He loves looking at my other 2 Leo Lionni books.

All in all, a nice morning for us.

Tortilla soup at the Chappelears

Emily and Ryan had us over for lunch last Sunday... where we dined on Emily's 5-ingredient chicken tortilla soup and quesadillas. She used chicken broth with garlic, canned tomatoes with mexican seasoning, frozen pepper and onion mix, rice and chopped chicken.

Quesadillas with pepper jack and cheddar. Mmmmm.

Ecuadorian potato cakes with peanut sauce

I'm a little hesitant to disclose I subscribe to Gourmet magazine. I can tell from the publication's advertisers that most people who subscribe to the magazine (1.) have a large disposable income (2.) live in big cities where ethnic ingredients are plentiful (3.) know how to really cook. Please don't think I'm any of the above. I just really like to eat good food... or even imagine eating good food, which is what Gourmet allows me to do.

(Restoration House girls might notice this is what I was doing 2 minutes before I was supposed to be at O'Charley's.)

I've been getting this magazine for several months now (it was a birthday present from the huz) and this is the very first recipe I've ever actually attempted from it.
Having said all that, it didn't turn out quite as I imagined the image on that glossy page would taste. My version wasn't horrible... and I've never been very good at frying, so I can't expect it to be as good as I imagined it should have been. :-)