Last week, the world celebrated two important events: the birthdays of myself and Mr. Bobby Lincoln of Chicken ‘N Waffles fame. If you were cool enough to listen to our podcast, you most likely drooled over the incredibly unhealthy but delicious meal we made. I thought you might enjoy reading about the dirty details and recipes we used, so enjoy! In case you don’t remember, our meal consisted of a delicious huevos rancheros with a sauce made from scratch, and an apple-bacon-cheddar pie with cinnamon ice cream. Just typing that out, I am getting short of breath and my pants are feeling a bit tighter! For the ranchero sauce, I took inspiration from a hilarious mom blogger I have been following for years, Elizabeth @ Damomma. She spent some time living in Mexico, and created this sauce based on her memories from there. You can find her recipe here, but I will also explain how I made mine. You need a giant bag of dried ancho chile peppers to start. I reckon I ended up using around 20 peppers, which seems like a lot, but this sauce freezes well, so make what you have room for. Elizabeth deseeds and soaks her chiles in water , but I had recently read a book by Rick Bayless, Chicago’s own Mexican cooking diva, and he suggests frying dried chiles in oil before soaking them to intensify the flavor, so I decided to give that a go. After I deseeded the chiles (wear gloves, unless you like your eyes/face/nether regions to burn afterwards!), I heated up enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of my cast iron skillet. Then, only after I opened up every window in the house and turned on every fan, I fried the chiles for 30 seconds on each side, until the chile slightly changed in color and started to smell good.
There was still enough smoke to clear out a Sarah Palin sit-in, but sometimes, you have to suffer for the greater good. I soaked them in hot water for an hour, pureed the chiles (using extra soaking liquid when it got too thick), and pushed the chile goo through a strainer to get any stray bits. Then, I fried a few garlic cloves in oil until they were nice and roasted.
I added some chopped onion, and when that got soft, I threw in a bit of Mexican oregano to let the flavors infuse in the oil, then I took it off the burner to cool. I pureed the oil, garlic and onions with the chile puree, strained it again. I reheated it with some apple cider vinegar like Elizabeth suggested, but I still felt like the sauce needed some zip, so I pureed a fresh clove of garlic, and threw that in. Perfection. I packed up as much sauce as I could fit into my freezer, and took the remaining bit and cut it with some pureed tomatoes. This is what I got:
This sauce had so much more flavor than my sauces in the past, which were mainly tomato-based. Look how good it made my eggs look!
And since then, I have used the remaining sauce to make the best chicken and cheese enchiladas this side of the Mississippi…three times. I have issues with moderation. Don’t judge. Bobby really surprised me by tackling a difficult job for someone who doesn’t bake ever–he made the pie crust for the apple pies!
The recipe came from the book, Everything Tastes Better with Bacon by Sara Perry. The pie dough was pretty basic, but the recipe had Bobby add in some shredded cheddar cheese while mixing the dough together. Once that was done, Bobby rolled the dough out and pressed partially cooked bacon into it.
I really wanted to cook the bacon until it was crispy, but as Bobby pointed out, the pieces would have burned in the oven. Plus, with only partially cooked bacon, the fat would render out and make the dough even more delicious. I sauteed the apples with sugar and cinnamon until they were soft, which also help cut down on baking time.
And this what we ended up with:
The pies were delicious–but huge. I almost would have preferred them made into the size of turnovers, or even cut the size of the pies in half (mine took up an entire dinner plate!). In the end, it was a delicious meal, but more importantly, we made it together. All too often, I end up as the cook for my friends, but since this was our shared birthday celebration, Bobby didn’t even hesitate to throw down and cook along with me. He was eager to learn, even more eager to eat some bacon (as a former vegan, can you blame him?), and it was just a fun experience. Thanks Bobby, for helping us celebrate our birthdays properly! Love you, boo! ~LTG!
