For San Diego Foodies

Yay! It’s my favorite time of the year! Another San Diego food blogger joins the club! Tess is a beginning culinary student who shares her experiences at cooking school, as well as local restaurant reviews. Check out The Journey of a Culinary Student.

Carmen Electra and Ashlee Simpson were in town this week to support the opening of the San Diego Hard Rock Condos Hotel Launch. Any one thinking of buying?

Recipes on the Radar

Check out this phenomenal meal that Chika from She Who Eats created from the cookbook Chef Interrupted. On the whole, this looks like a dream meal to me, totally suited to my tastes. And that cookbook was placed on my Amazon wishlist within 30 seconds of reading Chika’s post. Mega-yum!

Mushroom Tart from 80 Breakfasts

Goat Cheese Salad found on Leite’s Culinaria

Sounds like Indian comfort food to me… Waran Bahaat from One Hot Stove

Authentic Enchiladas from Simply Recipes (Oh! And her Bittersweet Chocolate Cake, too!)

Over the last 6 months, my husband and I have initiated ourselves into the world of Indian food. I’ve heard several times that there’s no good Indian food in San Diego. That may be true. I can tell that Indian cuisine is very complex and regional, so maybe it’s hard to get it precisely right. But we’ve found a couple good Indian spots this year and Monsoon is one of them.

Upscale and located in the downtown Gaslamp district, Monsoon is nowhere near the business park lunch buffets that we are used to when it comes to Indian food.

Recently, my husband Daniel and I took our Saturday night and totally winged it. With no specific plans in mind, we parked in Horton Plaza, got our parking validated for 3 hours, and set off to do whatever we pleased. After a cocktail or two on the roof of the Marriot overlooking the eerily vacant ballpark, we walked to dinner at Monsoon.

Dinner didn’t start off very auspiciously. We ordered a bottle of wine and were instantly disappointed. The thought of drinking this sub-par wine for the entire meal felt oppressive. Fortunately, our waitress was nothing but compassionate and didn’t make us feel bad at all for sending the bottle back. She totally salvaged our meal by doing everything possible to make sure we were happy with our wine before taking our dinner order. We ended up ordering a couple wines by the glass and then we were on our way to good meal. If our waitress had been difficult or annoyed with us, the whole evening might have turned out quite differently.

The next cool thing that happened was that a lady came around and gave little rhinestoned bindis for all the women in the restaurant. I told my husband that this is a pretty brilliant marketing plan because it’s pretty easy to make most girls happy - give them something cute and sparkly to wear and they’re good to go. Or at least I am! Anything sparkly… I have a hard time resisting.

As for food, first we got the Non-Veg Appetizer Sampler (shown above) which included Lamb Samosa, Chicken Pakoras, Seekh Kabob, and Tandoori Chicken. I’m sure my husband was thrilled because I usually insist on vegetarian or fish appetizers. I guess it was his lucky day! Everything was yummy, but it was a pretty heavy, filling appetizer. The portions were huge, too. I don’t think we finished everything.

Paneer Masala for me… this might be a good starter dish for me to try making at home…

I’d definitely recommend Monsoon for high-end Indian cuisine with a energetic atmosphere that makes for a fun night out in the Gaslamp Quarter. I’m sure the food isn’t terribly authentic, but it was definitely delicious and you get pretty good portions for your money.

Now I just have to get my act together and try making Indian food at home!

Monsoon
729 4th Avenue
San Diego, Ca 92101

As the picture above shows, I still need to figure out how to remove casserole servings from the dish without making a big ol’ mess! Any tips?

I don’t know what it is about casseroles. I realize that they’re very 1950’s and not too sophisticated, but I just love the comfort and simplicity and melding of flavors that comes from a one-dish meal.

Thus, I’ve had my eye on Lisa’s recipe for Southwestern Lasagna ever since she first posted it in October. I finally whipped it up the other night with several modifications. I changed out the lasagna noodles for tortillas and used only pinto beans instead of black. I also added some diced green chilies to the cottage cheese mixture as well as some corn to the bean mixture. A little avocado to garnish and you’re good to go.

Thanks for the recipe idea, Lisa!

Southwestern Lasagna
Adapted from Lisa at In a Nutshell
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 45-50 minutes
Serves: 6-8

1 10 oz. can enchilada sauce
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 6 oz. can tomato paste (no salt added)
2 16 oz. cans pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 small can of corn, drained
12 corn tortillas
1 small can diced green chilies
1 pint (2 cups) cottage cheese
3 cups (12 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese
sliced ripe avocado and chopped cilantro to garnish

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl, combine enchilada sauce, tomatoes with their juice, and tomato paste. Mix to blend well. Stir in drained pinto beans and corn.

Combine cottage cheese and chilies in a small bowl.

Spoon one-third of tomato sauce mixture over the bottom of a 13×9 baking dish. Top with a layer of 4 tortillas. Spread evenly with 1 cup cottage cheese mixture and sprinkle with 1 cup cheddar. Spoon on half of the remaining tomato sauce mixture.

Add another layer of 4 tortillas, remaining 1 cup cottage cheese, then sprinkle with 1 cup cheddar.

Add remaining 4 tortillas, remaining tomato sauce, and remaining cheddar. Cover tightly with foil.

Bake 45-50 minutes. Let stand at least 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with sliced avocado and serve.

For San Diego Foodies

I just heard about The Cask Room downtown. Has anyone been there? Sounds like it’s a jazzy, wine-y, snacky fun place for after-work winding down.

For All Foodies and Food Bloggers

Kate from The Accidental Hedonist lays out the case against Coca-Cola, weighing how bad it really is for you. As Coke’s #1 fan, I won’t be swayed from my favorite sugary beverage. But it was an interesting read, nonetheless.

I don’t know how anyone could have missed it, but in case you did… check out the Food & Wine magazine article that basically calls almost all food blogs as boring as a cheese sandwich. First of all, sign me up for cheese sandwich any day of the week! Secondly, get ready to strike back as a community on Thursday which is now going to be Cheese Sandwich Day in the blogosphere. Who’s participating?

In fact, there’s a whole Cheese Sandwich blog now dedicated to the author of the offending article.

Recipes on the Radar

You know how I am about quinoa! QUINOA WITH MOROCCAN WINTER SQUASH AND CARROT STEW from Epicurious.

I love the commentary that Rorie includes in her post on her Potato Olive Frittata. It’s one of her best and most requested creations, but she’s never tasted it because she hates eggs! Too much!

Creamy Quinoa Primavera from KitchenSpace.

And Joe from Culinary in the Desert modifies an Eating Well recipe for Broccoli Chowder into a total keeper. Yum!

Baby Green Salad with Goats Cheese Parcels and Honey Shallot Vinaigrette from The Unemployed Cook.

If you want to see how different my sister Amy and I are from each other, compare her version of Tortilla Soup with mine.

Where hers has big chunks of veggies, mine is finely pureed. Where hers has a chicken broth base and additional spiciness, mine gains most of its flavor from tomatoes and corn. Hers is chockful of chicken while mine is vegetarian except for the chicken broth. And the last difference I’ll point out, crunchy store-bought tortilla chips are crumbled into her soup almost as an afterthought; in my soup the tortillas fried right into the soup with the onions and garlic with homemade tortilla strips added as a garnish, too.

Both soups are tasty in their own ways, despite being worlds apart in technique and final product.

As I watched her in action preparing her soup in Kansas last week, we decided that we could do a very entertaining (if combative) cooking show on the Food Network where the producers give us each and assigned dish to prepare and we bicker our way through the process using our very disparate styles and preferences. Then we could have a “taste-off” to settle the arguments. We would call it “The Bickering Sisters” or something to that effect. It would be so compelling, don’t you think?

By the way, if anyone happens to make both soups, please feel free to email me and let me know your objective thoughts!

So to complete my portrait of two very different chefs who happen to be sisters, here is my version of Tortilla Soup. It’s based on the California Pizza Kitchen recipe which I love every time I eat there. I’ve changed it quite a bit over the years and I love its final incarnation.

Beth’s Tortilla Soup
Serves 6-8 people

3 T. olive or corn oil
6 small corn tortillas, cut into 1″ squares or thin strips (divided into two equal piles of 3 tortillas each)
1 1/2 T. minced garlic
1/2 of a medium onion, chopped (or more to taste)
1 1/2 tsp. minced jalapeno pepper and/or 1/2 of a small can of diced green chilies
2 cans white (or yellow) corn kernels
1 28-ounce can diced stewed tomatoes, with the juice
1/3 c. tomato paste (about 1/2 a container)
1-2 tsp. ground cumin, depending on taste
1 T. Kosher salt
1/8 tsp. ground white pepper
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 qt. chicken stock

Garnishes:
2 c. shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro

Optional:
sliced ripe avocado (I’ve never added this before, but I imagine it’d be great!)

Over medium-high heat, fry tortilla squares in oil until they begin to crisp and turn a golden yellow. Add garlic, onion and jalapeno, along with a pinch of salt; cook 1 to 2 minutes, until onion becomes translucent. Add half the corn along with all other ingredients (except garnishes), reserving other half of corn to be added at the end. Bring the soup to a low, even boil. Boil for 5 minutes.

Remove soup from heat. Use a hand-held propeller blade processor to process in batches to the consistency of a course puree. You can also process in batches in a blender. Return the soup to the burner and add the reserved
corn. Bring the soup to a boil once again being extremely careful to avoid scorching or burning the soup.

Meanwhile, take the other half of the uncooked tortilla strips and put them on foil in the toaster oven, sprayed with olive oil or Pam. Toast on medium for 5-10 minutes (watch carefully) and then keep them aside for garnishing the soup right before serving.

To serve, garnish with tortilla strips, freshly chopped cilantro and sharp cheddar cheese.

Yum!