Mexican Independence Day - Viva Recipes!

On this auspicious day  in 1810 a brave Roman Catholic priest (and a real Father of two daughters) in the village of Dolores rang a church bell and made a powerful speech that set in motion the War of Independence from Spain. To read all about it, just click here. 

¡Viva México!

 I can think of no better way to celebrate bashing away shackles from an oppressor than a deep cultural dive into Mexico's culinary arts. And, boy, do I have a barricade of recipes for you to attempt to go through. And, of course, the ingredients are cheap but tasty. So join the charge and follow the Revolutionary Chef !

(By the way, Hispanic Heritage Month begins the day before, on September 15.)

Flag of the Mexican Empire of Iturbide - template for the modern Mexican flag. 

Fire the first volley with a Calabasitas -- a Mexican veggie stew made of a bunker full of summer squash. It's lightly spicy comfort food, a dish always ordered by my late wife at our fave local Hollywood Mexican restaurant and shared over Happy Hour frosty margaritas.

Along with squash, you'll need an ammunition belt of onion, corn (fresh or from a can), tomatoes, a can of mild green chiles, cilantro, and, finally, some melting cheese as a topping.

Be sure to choose a cheese that is firm, like Jack, mozzarella, Swiss, mild cheddar, or my favorite, Mexican Queso Fresco (avoid processed American cheese; it will melt into a soup - save it for a gringo grilled sandwich).

They say the military marches on its stomach, well Calabasitas is hearty enough to satiate any soldier's appetite.

Pozole is a rich pork dish, a stunning stew of hominy (corn,) red chilies, and pork. If you had a bit too much Tequila the night before, or, just coming off a firefight, recuperate with a rich bowlful. 

The American Revolution broke British rule over our original 13 colonies, and later Mexico removed the yolk of Spain's oppressive reign. And speaking of "yolk," in the Battle of Breakfast Huevos Rancheros wins hands down. 

I've been making Huevos Rancheros often lately. And the reason is, it's the bomb! You got corn tortillas, creamy refried beans, crumbly Mexican cheese, and fried eggs topped with more cheese and tangy salsa. 

You are hit from all sides with this Gatling gun of disparate flavors. And it's an easy recipe to make. Just heat up some tortillas and refried beans to add to your fried eggs. I prefer Mexican cheese, but you can use what you have on hand. Deliver the coup de grâce with your favorite salsa, either fresh (simple recipe click here) or from the jar.

Just check out my video below to see my cheap$kate version.

I come from illegal stock. As young men, my grandfather and his brother crossed into Texas from Mexico, and after a few years, they applied for and became U.S. citizens. He spent his working life as a Shrimp Boat captain. Now you know the genesis of Tex-Mex cuisine. His daughter, my Mom, has a classic Tex-Mex Chili-Cheese Enchilada recipe my high school buddy Marvin raves about to this day. Check it out below.

My Mom learned to cook from Big Mama, her mom. A mess kit can easily contain heaps of her Shrimp and Rice. This hand-me-down recipe is a keeper, and you can be sure any private will line up for seconds. Check it out below, it's really easy to do. It's the kind of recipe soldiers dream about on a cold night in a wet foxhole.

Fusion or multiculti cuisines are made by true Americans, and my "brother from another daddy," the Swamp Chef, has his own version of a Cajun-Mex dish called Cajun Natchos. You have to see it to believe it below.

Tacos are THE secret weapon. I can have tacos morning, noon, and night. So read on and you'll know what I mean - just click on any taco name, or highlighted text, to see all the tasty details from my blog post recipe or review.

In the morning it's spicy Mexican chorizo with scrambled eggs and refried beans nestled into a warm corn or flour tortilla.

Breakfast Tacos

And my Chorizo & Egg Taco is about as cheap as you can get. I get Mexican chorizo from the 99c only Store natch, and all kinds too, like beef, pork, and even soy (which is a recent favorite.) Eggs still show up at my local Dollar Tree.

*Click on any recipe name to see the original blog post recipe or review*

The simplest breakfast taco to make is one made of Scrambled Eggs & Refried Beans. You can use canned refried beans or make my Homemade Mexican-style Pinto Beans.

This breakfast taco blows all others out of the water! It's a killer recipe and the title says it all: Shrimp, Jalapeño & Egg Tacos. Thanks, Mom for this recipe, I can now hand it down to my fellow food warriors.

And for Breakfast Tacos, it's all about the salsa toppings. I like salsa from a jar especially when I'm in the food trenches, but sometimes I just gotta go for it and make my own Homemade Salsa, and it's easy to do.

My Mango Salsa recipe with yummy photos and tasty text is right here, but you can check out the video below:



I'm ready to party on this awesome day, and when this cheap$kate does it you can bet pennies will be pinched without a sacrifice in flavor. For my backyard soirée, it's my favorite taco: slow-cooked pork Carnitas. Just check out my video below to see what I'm writing about.



I buy a 5 to 6-pound budget pork shoulder, and I can get a couple dozen tacos out of it, too.

 And, boy, it's the perfect budget recipe that your friends, neighbors, and troops will line up for. You let them do most of the work -- they get to build each taco to suit their taste. I like to set out some chopped onion and cilantro. You can make your taco bar any way you like, go ahead and add a bowl of shredded cheese, chopped lettuce, and tomato, and a cheap jar of salsa, too.

Here's another gringo fusion rip-off recipe based on a classic Mexican salsa, Peach Salsa. Take your ripe Georgia peach and mix it with onion, jalapeño, cilantro, and lime juice. All it takes is a bit of chopping. What a great and refreshing appetizer on a hot summer day under the shade of a sombrero.

Mexico is a major producer/exporter of produce (and labor,) and Californians get the benefit of Hass Avocados 4 for $1. As far as these invasions go....bring it on!

A lighter version of pork Carnitas, and just as delish, is my Turkey Carnitas made with dark leg meat. After a long day on the battlefield, gather around the campfire and make a few tacos or a fat burrito.

Carne Asada, or grilled steak, is a favorite taco of mine. Just make my marinade for thinly sliced steak, let it sit for half an hour or so, then slap it on the grill. After the Carne Asada is done you chop it up and serve on a corn tortilla.

Carne Asada Taco - The marinade is a simple mix of lime juice, oil, cilantro, cumin, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Drive anywhere in Los Angeles and you will see taco trucks, sidewalk taco vendors, and taquerias on almost every street keeping the Mexican Culinary Revolution alive and kicking. And I've stopped at most of them. What follows are a few of my faves - with a few recipes I cribbed from them, too.

When I moved to Los Angeles over 40 years ago, I discovered the taco truck. Boy, have they evolved over the years. In the beginning, it was just hamburgers and tacos made with ground beef. Well, that all changed about 10 years ago when a hotel chef named Roy Choi, who was down but not out, rebounded from couch surfing to start Kogi Taco Truck.

A fellow co-conspirator came up with the idea of a Korean taco, and Roy Choi assembled the taco ingredients of Korean barbecue short ribs with a kimchi-style coleslaw, served on corn tortillas. His truck was an instant hit, and Kogi jump-started the neverending nouveau taco truck renaissance.

Kogi is still around and I still love them. Check out my video below, where I hang out night and day, for L.A.'s most uniquely mouthwatering taco. 

¡Viva Taco Revolution!

Inspired by Kogi's mashup of Korean BBQ and Mexican Tacos, I came up with the Loxaco, which combines Jewish and Mexican cuisines.

A Loxaco is comprised of homemade lox (cured salmon) in a fast food crunchy taco shell topped with cream cheese and thin sliced red onion. I introduced this preposterous concoction at a book signing in Libros Schmibros, a lending library in East Los Angeles. How did it go over with book lovers? The following video is a twofer, you get a recipe plus a literary happening scene -- even the late great food critic Jonathan Gold makes an appearance - while his wife and kid tried them Jonathan gave them a pass )-:



After a double feature at my fave art house cinematheques like the Egyptian or New Beverly Theater, on the way home I swing by Leo's Taco for a few al pastor pork tacos. They're still cheap, and the line can be long, now that the word is out.

This is porcine perfection on a paper plate. It's tender and flavorful grilled marinated pork, that's cooked in front of a gas grill called a trompo. A cook manning the grill slices off thin slivers, finishing the taco with flare: a flying slice of pineapple. Check out the yummy action below.



I've followed the Two Hot Tamales from the beginning when the Border Grill was in a storefront with half a dozen tables on Melrose Avenue. Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken are fixtures on the L.A. dining scene who jumped on the taco truck train, bringing their nuevo take on Mexican cuisine to four wheels. They primarily park their taco truck in the environs of Silicon Valley West Coast, Santa Monica.



My Tacos El Primo video review has gone viral. That means this YouTube video gets thousands of views per month - right now it is pushing half a million. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see... in this video, I review Buche and Tripas tacos, or tacos made from slow-cooked stomach and intestines. Gross right? One thing I noticed is half my visitors are from Mexico, so maybe half my audience is curious about how gringos react to offal?

I did the taco review because Tacos El Primo was a midnight munchies stop on my return home from various Hollywood treks. When you have a neighborhood food stop, you eventually dive deeper and try eats you would not normally taste.

Tripas (intestine) Taco

Well, join the multitudes and check out my Cheap$kate video review of Tacos El Primo.

Deep-fried Fish Tacos are one of Mexico's great culinary contributions. These battered depth charges of crunchy perfection are based on the street food of Baja Mexico and other coastal communities. If you like British Fish & Chips, you'll love Fried Fish Tacos.

Fish Taco

The battered fillets of fish are typically served on corn tortillas and topped with a white crema and chopped cabbage. I have my own recipe for Fish Tacos you can see by clicking on the recipe name.

And this is the best taco deal in town: Wednesdays are $1 Fish Taco Day at Tacos Baja! Yeah, that's what you heard - don't believe me? Just watch the video below that I shot in Whittier (East L.A.) and see it for yourself.

Chicken is one cheap protein. My Chicken Tinga recipe will have your compadres coming back for seconds...and thirds! Chicken Tinga is a stew simmered in tomato sauce with a can of spicy chipotle peppers, but you can make a mild version with a can of enchilada sauce.

 Chicken Tinga

My no-cook Fake Krab Ceviche just takes some veggie chopping. Because Krab is cooked you just shred it and add as much as you like to the chopped veggies and cilantro. Now I know that real Mexican Ceviche uses "citrus-cooked" raw fish and/or shellfish, but I'm a Cheap$kate Internet Chef, right? So you will have to grant me amnesty for this recipe! But I make up for any shortcomings with the addition of creamy avocado and flavorful black beans. Give my recipe a shot and let me know if it's a successful maneuver.

So do celebrate Mexican Independence Day with me today now that I've shown you an ammunition dump of taco recipes you can make easily and cheaply. I guarantee your family or guest will light up the sky with praise!

And, what the heck, I'll end with a queasy taco review, from Jack In The Box with its 2 for 99 cent tacos (the price has risen since I made the video, but the taste is the same)...ugh, whoever came up with this abomination should face a firing squad!!

Hey, I know these tacos are affordable and actually liked, so skip the firing squad, just put the chef-inventor in solitary confinement...please.

Yogurt and Pineapple - Video Recipe

 Fresh fruit and yogurt go well together in my latest recipe video,  Pineapple and Yogurt.

Pre-mixed yogurt with fruit is too sweet for me. It is easy enough to mix a handful of pineapple chunks into yogurt. The smallest can of pineapple is plenty for this recipe. Try slicing the whole pineapple sometimes. It takes a bit of work for the freshest taste.

This fruit and yogurt mix will keep a couple of days in the refrigerator -- if you can resist finishing it off in one sitting!

This isn't so much an original recipe as a recipe reminder of how easy and nutritious it is to add fresh fruit to yogurt.

Anytime I find fruit on sale at my local 99c only Store or Latin Grocer I immediately think of a light breakfast. My most common homemade yogurt with fruit includes strawberries, pineapple, sliced mango, blackberries, and blueberries.

Fresh frozen fruit mixes nicely into yogurt, although the texture is mushy when defrosted. Some canned fruit works well, I like canned pineapple and peaches in natural juice.

As for yogurt I just use plain. Vanilla and other flavors are usually too strong and often have added sugar. But, if you like a certain type on sale then use it.

Sometimes an unusual brand will show up on sale like this creamy French-style yogurt called "oui" made by Yoplait. It was so good I got half a dozen jars. They also had a lemon-flavored. It's one of those Deals of the Day that has come and gone.

"Oui" is advertised as "French Style," whatever that means. But it is milder tasting - less sour than typical yogurt, with a slight almond flavor. And the glass jars are collectible too.

As with any new find at a 99c only Store, I will try it in the car parking lot, and if it's good then I will go back and get a whole bunch more. I've learned you gotta be impulsive there or it may be gone an hour later -- snooze you lose!

So do check out my latest stop-motion animated video. There's really nothing to this recipe and anyone can make it. Sometimes less is more, for a perfectly delicious recipe.

Raspberries & Yogurt - Video

Play it here. The video runs 49 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

Shepherd's Pie Recipe

This International  Poor Man's Chef brings a traditional English dish from across the pond to these cheapskate shores -- a hearty Shepherd's Pie that will leave you gobsmacked. Also called a Cottage Pie (when using ground beef,) it's a thick top crust of squidgy (mashed) potatoes covering a rich beef sauce loaded with carrots, onion, peas, and ground poultry. You may think I'm off my trolley,  but I guarantee you will be begging for seconds!

This one-pot meal is the Mutt's and absolutely fabulous on a cloudy and parky winter's day. Plus it's cheap, just the way this threepenny bit pinching bloke likes it. You could even bring this as a potluck dish to your next do.

I'm not codswalloping when I say it's really so easy peasy to do: just saute some ground meat, onion, carrots, and green peas, then add a cracking rich broth of beef stock and tomato paste flavored with Worcestershire sauce. This luscious filling is thick like a chicken pot pie. You finish it with a topping of your favorite mashed potato recipe, bake for half an hour, and Bob's your uncle!

A traditional Shepherd's Pie is made with leftover meat, usually lamb. You can my recipe low-fat using ground turkey or chicken -- but don't worry it's still scrummy.

I get beef shank because it is the cheapest cut of meat I could find. These days even ground beef is more expensive! It's easy enough to use lamb if you like.

You can't get cheaper than onions, carrots and potatoes. Frozen packages of carrots, corn, and green peas are an easy way to go.

There's more to British food than popular Fish and Chips (of course I have my own recipe version here) -- so, if you fancy, do give my latest entree a butcher's hook. You will happily devour The 99 Cent Chef's savory Shepherd's Pie, it's the bees' knees.

Cheers!

Click here to translate all the italicized British slang that I used.

Shepherd's - Video

               Play it here, video runs 4 minutes, 33 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

Ingredients (about 4 - 6 servings)

• 1 pound Beef Steak, cubed - Okay to use ground beef for a faster cooking version. For a traditional Shepherd's Pie use lamb.
• 4-6 medium-size Potatoes - about 3 pounds. At least 2 cups total when mashed. I used russet, but okay to use any type you like, even sweet potato.
• 1 cup Carrots - roughly chopped
• 1 cup frozen Peas - thawed. Canned peas are too mushy, but go ahead and use a drained can if that's all you've got. Okay to use fresh peas or even peas in their pods.
• 1 Onion - chopped.
• 2 tablespoons of Tomato Paste - If you use tomato sauce, about 1/2 cup.
• 2 tablespoons of  Worcestershire sauce. 
• 2 cups Water - or favorite stock.
• 1 cup Red Wine - optional. Okay to use white wine.
• 1 tablespoon of Oil - to saute veggies and meat.
• 3 tablespoons of Flour - to thicken the sauce.
• 1/2 cup of Milk - for mashed potatoes. Add more milk or cream to suit your taste and mashed potato texture. Okay to use half and half or whipping cream.
• 2 tablespoons of Butter - optional.
• Salt and Pepper to taste. You can leave out the salt if you use a salty bouillon cube.
• Water to cover and boil potatoes.

Directions

Start potatoes boiling. Should take about 1 hour, depending on how large they are. Done when a fork pierces the potato easily.

Peel boiled potatoes when cool enough to handle. Add milk or cream with butter.

Mash potatoes to desired creaminess. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside until final assembly for baking.

You should get about 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups of mashed potatoes. If you have a favorite mashed potato recipe then use that.

Slice beef into bite sizes. Add to pot at medium/high heat. For fatty beef, no oil is needed. Add oil for lean beef. For ground beef no oil is needed, as it has enough fat. 

Add flour and mix well. Saute for 5 minutes to take out the raw flour flavor.

Next, add the chopped onion. Stir and saute until onion is tender, about 5 minutes.

Now it's time to make the sauce. Add tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, red wine, water, or stock to sauting veggies and meat.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer. Cover and cook until meat is tender, about 2 hours.

If you are cooking with ground meat, it will be quicker to cook, about 45 minutes.

When meat is tender add chopped carrots and cook another 20 minutes to tenderize to your taste. 

Finally, add the fresh or fresh frozen peas. They only need about 10 minutes of cooking.

Now time to assemble it all. In a deep baking dish add the meat and veggie filling - don't fill it up all the way, leave about an inch clearance. Now spoon on the mashed potatoes to cover the top of the meat and veggie filling. You can carefully smooth out the mashed potatoes to cover the top. 

Place the uncovered dish of  Shepherd's Pie in a preheated 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes. You may want to place a large cookie sheet pan underneath the dish in case some of the beef stew liquid bubbles out.

Remove from oven and allow to cool down for a few minutes, this will also allow the sauce to thicken. 

Hindsight

For a more diet-friendly and healthier topping (I know spuds are too carb-heavy for some) try boiled or microwaved sweet potatoes. You could use steamed and mashed cauliflower, squash (butternut or acorn,) carrots, pumpkin, turnips, or any favorite veggie that you can mash.

You could also substitute green peas with shelled edamame (soybeans) or green beans. Sometimes, I'll add a few sauteed sliced mushrooms.

Instead of peas and carrots, you can just use a bag of your favorite frozen veggie blend. For frozen veggies allow to defrost in the heating of the sauce (after the meat is done.)

If you like a saucy filling, then add more stock - you may need a larger (or an extra) baking dish or pot.