What We're Eating - A Food & Recipe Blog » Sides

Kickass Mexican Chorizo Cornbread Stuffing

Amanda — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:08:59 +0000

Stuffing on the plate. Tamale in your mouth!

We’re eating Mexican chorizo cornbread stuffing filled with sweet white corn kernels, roasted poblano & jalapeno peppers, cilantro and roasted garlic.

You can’t have a holiday meal without the stuffing (or dressing depending on your semantics of choice)! At least that’s my opinion. Since I wanted to play with the Mexican theme and I knew I had the frozen mole I made earlier this year, what I really wanted to do was create a cornbread dressing that, when eaten with the turkey and the mole, would remind you of a tamale. It utterly delighted me when Justin said (without me prompting!) that it reminded him of tamales! YAY! Success! The chorizo cornbread is great without the mole since it’s choked full of delicious chorizo and fresh corn but if you’ve already gone through the trouble of making the mole you should definitely try them together.

As a side note – I have to admit to eat T & I eating a little slice of the cornbread when it was fresh out of the oven the night before so maybe to keep it legit you should “sample” a small slice of bread when it’s still warm and delicious.

Recipes in this post:

Mexican Chorizo Cornbread Stuffing

Butternut Squash Succotash w/ Sage Brown Butter

Amanda — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:09:24 +0000

Ignore the duck confit and focus on the squash, people!

We’re eating crisped duck confit on a bed of caramelized butternut squash, green beans and dried cranberries sauteed in sage & lemon zest brown butter then deglazed with lemon juice for a little brightness.

It’s finally beginning to feel like fall here in San Diego. I’m pretty sure it was in the 50’s this morning when I woke up.. either that or I’m a serious weather wimp (the latter option is definitely plausible). Either way all of this crisp, brisk weather has me in the mood for fall food. In this case, some butternut squash sauteed with brown butter… yeah yeah yeah, sure, there were other parts of the dish but really, it was the butternut squash and brown butter I was craving. The sweetness of the squash made a great match for the tartness of the cranberries while the crispness of the green beans added a nice texture. When we were eating this dish I realized how great of a side dish it would be for a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal in addition to rocking on any given work night. If any of you guys give it a try we’d love to hear what you thought about it and if you liked it as much as we did!

Recipes in this post:

Butternut Squash, Green Bean & Dried Cranberry Succotash w/ Sage Brown Butter

Holiday Recipes: Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Rosemary and Persimmon

Amanda — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:44:33 +0000

What? You didn't know rosemary & cranberry go together like PB&J?

Cranberries are the unsung heroes of holiday meals in my opinion. With sooooo many other really uber-rich dishes at the table, it’s the cranberry sauce that give your taste buds a break and brightens up the meal. It’s just like me – tart, with a touch of sweetness. (Alright, so maybe I’m more tart than sweet, but who’s keeping tabs?!?) For our pre-holiday feast, I made a fresh cranberry, persimmon and rosemary sauce. The addition of rosemary to the sauce added just the right hint of herbiness to really play well with the herb roasted turkey breast. As everybody knows, turkey and cranberry are BFF, just like me and pork fat.

Rather than having two cranberry sauces at the feast, Nicole made a cranberry applesauce with ginger. While I can’t say that apple sauce was ever a traditional holiday dish for for my family, I do love a good homemade apple sauce and the addition of the cranberries and ginger really set this one off. All and all I would say that we ate damn well at our pre-holiday feast. Geez, maybe we at too well… now the actual Turkey Day is going to have a lot to live up to!

*In case anyone hasn’t been to What We’re Eating in a while, this is part of a special Holiday series featuring recipes that Nicole, from Pinch My Salt, Tyler and I cooked and feasted on together! Here’s a list of all the dishes:

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes Wrapped in Prosciutto
Extra Creamy Mashed Potato Casserole
Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls
Herb Roasted Turkey Breast
Sourdough, Bacon & Apple Stuffing
Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing
Cranberry Applesauce w/ Ginger
Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Rosemary and Persimmon (you’re reading it!)

Recipes in this post:

Cranberry Sauce w/ Rosemary and Persimmons

Holiday Recipes: Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing

Amanda — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:00:11 +0000

Stuffing or Dressing? Call it what you will - it's damn good!

Mmmmmm mmmmm who doesn’t love stuffing(aka dressing)?!? Stuffing has to be one of my all-time favorite parts of any holiday meal. Moist, carbalicious, frequently involving some kind of pork product – honestly, what’s not to love?!? We happen to love stuffing so much, that for our pre-holiday gorge-fest Nicole and I made two different versions. I went for a southern classic: good ol’ cornbread stuffing. My stuffing was made with day old cornbread, garlic sausage, sauteed onions, celery, leeks, garlic and peppers. The outcome – a moist, savory sausage cornbread delight perfect for drenching with gravy! (Did I mention that’s one of my favorite things about stuffing? Eating it with lots of gravy!)

Nicole made a sourdough, apple & bacon stuffing that was also out of this world! I was surprised at exactly how much I loved the flavor that the sourdough added to the stuffing. I shouldn’t have been surprised considering how much I love sourdough and bacon, but I’m kind of dense. Perhaps we should start a new tradition of having two different stuffings at every holiday meal! Even if there are only two people in attendance.

Recipes in this post:

Holiday Recipes: Stuffed Sweet Potatoes Wrapped in Prosciutto

Amanda — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:48:54 +0000

Ho Ho Ho Merry Thanksgiving! As the holiday season quickly approaches, we thought it would be a great idea to get together with our good friend and fabulous food blogger, Nicole over at Pinch My Salt, and eat some great holiday food…early! With this post we will begin a new seasonal series: Fan-freakin-tastic Holiday Recipes perfect for whatever fall/winter celebration you may have. We’ll try to hit some traditional highlights and even give some new ideas on classic ingredients.

(And no, you can’t shorten the title. Whenever you speak of this post you must say “fan-freakin-tastic holiday recipes perfect for whatever fall/winter celebration you may have”.)

To start things off, we’re featuring baked sweet potatoes stuffed with blue cheese and herbs and wrapped in prosciutto. Everybody knows there has to be a sweet potato dish at holiday feasts… but why’s a hommie have to eat all that extra sugar and marshmallow crap with it? I believe that sweet potatoes are sweet enough with out the addition of extra sugar. Actually, I even like to down-play the sweetness by combining the sweet potatoes with other savory items. Let’s just say that the flavors in these sweet potatoes will hit the walls(NC-17 link) of your taste buds and make your mouth sing.

The other potato dish at our pre-holiday fest was Nicole’s insanely delicious cream cheese mashed potatoes. Apparently these potatoes are a tradition for her family’s holiday meals and I can see why. Seriously – they were dy-no-mite! Truth be told, I prefer plain old, non-sweet potatoes to sweet potatoes almost any day but I think I gave her a run for her money. Right now I would love to a have a big plate of both potatoes and enjoy a carb-fest of a dinner!

Recipes in this post:

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes Wrapped in Prosciutto