It’s funny how a humble dish you grew up with can make a big splash when you share it with friends. I first posted about these “drunken” beans years ago on a group food blog I contributed to, and I recently revisited the recipe for food52’s “Your Best Recipe for Beans” challenge. Since then, and to my delight, these soupy, homey beans have gained some new fans. These really are a go-to dish for me – they’re a breeze to prepare, they’re inexpensive, and they are a great option when you need to serve a crowd. They can be made in advance (in fact I think they taste even better after a day or two), and they hold beautifully in a slow cooker or a heavy pot in a low oven. They’re as good with summer barbecue or burgers as they are alongside heartier winter fare like enchiladas or roast chicken, and they stand alone quite nicely with a stack of warmed tortillas alongside.

We are lucky to have had great dried heirloom beans from Freedom Bean Farm in Maine available at our farmers’ market earlier in the season, and I stocked up to get us through the winter months. My favorite beans for this dish are a variety called True Vermont Cranberry Beans, a smallish, red-mottled bean with a tender bite, but you can certainly use whatever variety of dried beans you have available. Pinto beans, borlotti beans, and the like all work extremely well. (Rancho Gordo is a great online source of heirloom beans.)

For this latest version, I decided to skip the pork entirely, omitting the bacon and its rendered fat, instead adding some of my favorite spices – ground chipotle powder and smoked Spanish paprika – to mimic the smoky depth the bacon would impart. I used olive oil here to soften the onion, but any vegetable oil will do. I asked my pork-loving husband to taste them before even telling him what I had done differently, and he had no clue they were meat-free.

I use my own home-pickled Serrano chiles in this dish, but if you don’t make your own, feel free to use canned green chiles from your local grocery. I like my borrachos with a little zip, but if you’re sensitive to heat, you can of course dial back on the amount of chipotle and chile peppers (or serve the pickled chiles alongside so guests can add them to taste).

Borrachos, Vegan Variation

1 pound dried Pinto or other small pink/red beans
6 cups water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly smashed
½ to 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
1 tablespoon dried Mexican oregano or dried marjoram
2-3 canned pickled whole Jalapeño or Serrano chiles, plus 2-3 tablespoons of the spicy brine
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes with juice
1 bottle amber or dark beer
Kosher salt
Juice of one lime, about 1 oz.

Pick over the beans to remove any stones or debris, and place them in a large pot. Add 6 cups of cold tap water, cover the pot, and bring it to a boil. Let boil for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the beans stand, undrained, for an hour. (Note: the beans should be fairly tender at this point, though older beans may need more soaking time.)

In a large, heavy bottomed pot, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering.
Add the onion to the pot with a pinch of salt and cook until softened. Add the garlic cloves, chipotle powder, smoked paprika, and the oregano or marjoram, rubbing the dried herb between your palms to crumble it a bit, and cook until fragrant. Add the beans with their cooking liquid, then add the tomatoes, the beer, the chile(s) and the chile brine.

Bring the beans up to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook, partially covered, for 1 to 1½ hours, stirring occasionally and tasting to adjust salt as needed. Stir in the lime juice just before serving, then ladle into bowls.

I know, I know, Mexican again. I’m feeling overwhelmed by life this week, and when that happens inspiration goes out the window and I just want something comforting and familiar.

These are comprised of the other half of a hunk of beef bottom round I bought over the weekend, marinated with lime, seared, and sliced paper thin, then topped with diced tomato, avocado, jack cheese, red cabbage, scallions and lime crema. I had some leftover Rancho Gordo pintos in the fridge, to which I added some of my pickled serranos for a little extra punch. Good enough for a Tuesday.

I love a good, authentic chile relleno as much as anyone, but as Nick over at The Paupered Chef learned, they can be very time- and labor-intensive. But when a craving hits and you just happen to have some chile-braised pork left over, you can bang out a reasonable facsimile pretty easily on a weeknight.

For my simplified version, I charred my peppers over a gas flame and placed them in a plastic bag to steam, then warmed up my shreddy pork in a small sauté pan. For the sauce, I roasted some halved plum tomatoes and peeled garlic cloves, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with a little olive oil, in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, plucking the shriveled tomato skins off when they were cool enough to touch. In the same pan which I used to re-heat the pork (don’t wipe it out – you want to use the tasty pork fat that remains in the pan), I toasted some cumin, freshly grated canela and dried Mexican oregano, then added the tomatoes and garlic, smashing them against the bottom of the pan.

I whipped up an egg batter like the one Nick used, dipping my pork-stuffed chiles into flour before battering them and frying them in a mixture of rendered fatback and canola (I did a shallow fry in our iron skillet), turning them once and removing them to a paper towel-lined plate as they finished cooking. I pressed my chunky tomato sauce through a fine mesh strainer, spooned some onto our plates, added the chiles, some grated cheese, and served them with a side of creamy black beans.

I’m sure these lacked the complexity and depth of flavor of chiles stuffed with a proper picadillo, but this was a great way to use up leftover pork and satisfy my hunger for this favorite dish.

You wouldn’t know it by looking outside, but the official start of Summer has arrived. Mother Nature has decided to ring in the season with a heaping helping of rain, wind, and grey skies, and I am none too pleased about it. For starters, it makes meal planning a challenge – I want to be outside, grilling something fresh and light and eating it under the stars with Mike, not rummaging through the pantry for an alternate dinner that isn’t another. damned. pasta dish.

Don’t get me wrong – I love pasta, but I was desperate last night for something, anything other than old reliable pasta, and as I stood in front of the open freezer, a plan began to form. I pulled out two little zip-top bags of previously cooked Rancho Gordo posole and some homemade red chile sauce. From the fridge, I gathered homemade stock and a big bunch of beet greens, which I stemmed, chopped and rinsed. I chopped up some red onion and a hefty amount of garlic, and sauteed them until soft before adding the chile sauce to the pan to warm. The stock went in next, then the hominy, and I brought the whole thing to a boil before reducing the heat and adding the greens. When the greens were tender, I turned off the heat, tasted it for seasoning, and brightened the flavor with the addition of plenty of fresh lime juice. To dress our plates up a little, I added shavings of a tangy sheep’s milk cheese, sliced radishes, chunks of creamy avocado, and a scattering of chopped cilantro.

And that was dinner. And it was good – better, in fact, than this mishmash of leftovers had any right to be. Take that, Mother Nature.

And then there are weeknights when I come home, tired and achey, but too stubborn to let Mike cook, or help, or do anything more than mix us a round and keep me company while I stand at the stove. And on those nights, I turn to the familiar, the things that, while they may require a few extra pots and pans, I can almost turn out in my sleep. The chicken, mole sauce and beans were all left over from previous dinners, and last night, they got remixed into a meal of enchiladas, refried beans, and Mexican rice, as comfortable and comforting as an old sweater. Sometimes, that’s just what you need.

There’s no question that duck is one of our favorite proteins to work with, but I will admit that we tend to rely on the same preparations for it: the breasts are usually grilled or simply seared in our iron skillet, and the legs and wings (and fat) generally make their way into confit. So when I spotted Mark Bittman’s recipe for a Vietnamese-style duck with green beans a little while back, I was intrigued: it had flavors that we love and don’t play with enough at home, and it looked like a good bet for a weeknight dinner, using things we already had on hand.

Mike volunteered to make it for our Wednesday night dinner, and while he would like to make a few tweaks to the recipe, we were both pretty pleased with the result. In particular, the method of putting the duck pieces in a dry pan and letting them cook in their own rendered fat was brilliant – the whole house smelled amazing, and the duck was intensely flavorful. We’re planning a do-over soon.

Thursday night’s duck dinner was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing: some friends started tweeting about burritos in the morning, which led to Mike and I both developing a massive craving for Mexican food, which led me to start desperately thinking of what I could put together with the stuff we had in our fridge and pantry that night. Which takes us to our ever-present tub of duck confit. It really is one of the best “convenience” foods I can think of, but as I said above, we tend to prepare it the same way. And while there’s nothing wrong with a crackly-skinned, seared confit leg, with potatoes fried in the duck fat and a salad with sharp vinaigrette served alongside, I planned to go in a very different direction.

I started by putting together a quick sort of mole sauce: shallots and garlic softened in a bit of duck fat, some toasted spices (whole cumin, coriander and cloves), toasted almonds and pumpkin seeds, reconstituted dried chiles, a couple of chipotles in adobo, and a bit of thawed, reheated roasted tomato sauce and stock (a chicken and duck blend) from the freezer. This all went into a blender, along with a blob of sesame tahini (we were out of the traditional sesame seeds, so I figured, why not), a bit of tomato paste, some sherry vinegar, salt, canela, Mexican oregano, and unsweetened cocoa powder, and I blended it to a creamy puree. I adjusted the salt and acid until it tasted right to me, and added a little of the liquid left over from soaking the chiles to thin it out a bit.

With the mole done, I set my attention to the duck, shredding off the meat from a leg and a couple of wings, cooking it in the little bits of fat that clung to the meat until the edges were a bit crispy. I softened up some tortillas in a little more duck fat, stuffed each of them with a bit of the duck, then put them in a baking dish and spooned some of the mole all around. I added a mixture of grated cheeses (Smith’s cheddar and Divine Providence) to the top, and baked the enchiladas for about 25 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

I made a sort of lime crema by whisking a little fresh lime juice into the last of a container of crème fraiche, which I drizzled over the tops of the finished enchiladas, sprinkling some minced scallion and lime zest on for garnish, and spooned some slow-cooked Rancho Gordo beans onto our plates as well.

The rich, flavorful duck was a wonderful match with the flavors in the mole sauce – we liked these enchiladas so much, in fact, we ate the entire batch. I made enough mole to feed an army, and I plan to portion out the remainder and freeze it, so we’ll definitely be doing this version of enchiladas again.

This was a meal built on leftovers, the sort of thing you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of around here as we tighten our belts in the months ahead. We had the better part of last Friday’s roast chicken left in the fridge (minus a drumstick, which Mike had lunched on), as well as portions of cooked hominy in the freezer from my last pot of pozole, so I decided to combine the two for a lighter, quicker take on that spicy Mexican dish. I started with a bit of leftover pork fat melted in the bottom of my heavy pan, and added a large onion, chopped, and a healthy pinch of kosher salt.

Mike had made a particularly potent batch of chile powder for me earlier in the day, and I added a judicious amount of that – probably a tablespoon – as well as additional ground cumin and some Mexican oregano, which I stirred through the onions. The bird went in next, with 5 or 6 cups of water, and I lidded the pot and let it simmer away for about a half hour, so the chicken could make its own stock. I fished out the chicken and the few bones that had fallen away from the carcass, and when it was cool enough I shredded the meat off in big chunks with my fingers, adding them back to the pot. The thawed hominy went in next – about 2 or 3 cups worth, and when it had all come back up to a simmer, I started tasting and adjusting the seasoning, adding enough freshly squeezed lime juice and salt to balance out the heat of the chiles.

I served it up in my favorite deep bowls, with a grating of cheese, some sliced radish and creamy avocado on top, and crunchy tortilla chips on the side (which were great crumbled into the broth). This was a warming, hearty meal on a snowy night, which didn’t require much in the way of time or energy to assemble, and it was a great use of that leftover roast chicken.

I can tell that I’m missing my family when I keep pulling out comforting dishes with flavors that remind me of home. The approaching holidays make me miss them even more, as it has been far too long since we’ve been in a position to celebrate together. This year will be no different. Like many of you, we’re dialing back our spending, keeping things low-key for the holidays as well as in our day-to-day lives.

I took a personal day on Thursday, a day to recharge my batteries a bit, handle a few errands and to relax at home. We took the bus out to Pawtucket for part of the day, with a stop at LJ’s BBQ for lunch on the way back in, but before we headed out, I made us breakfast. It’s such a treat to have breakfast at home during the week, and since we had the last of a package of tortillas to use up, I made migas.

They may not look like much, but they’re one of my favorite things in the world – little bits of tortilla, fried up with seasonings (I used a bit of leftover enchilada sauce I had made previously), and scrambled with eggs until the whole mess is soft and creamy and bound together. Give it a little hit of grated cheese, and you’ve got pure comfort on a plate.

Dinner was my latest version of a pork and hominy stew, which I think might have been my favorite yet. We had a pork shoulder from Pat that Mike divided up to be used over a few meals, so we portioned out a bit for the stew, cutting it into chunks and letting the meat sit in a bit of a dry rub of chipotle powder, salt, cumin and Mexican Oregano from Rancho Gordo.

Also from Rancho Gordo, the hominy – this was my first time cooking with the dried kernels, and though the process is time-consuming, the resulting flavor and texture are totally worth it (and since we had soaked and cooked an entire pound of it, we have plenty of prepared hominy portioned out in bags in the freezer for future meals).

I browned the meat in a little rendered fatback (also from Pat) to boost its porky flavor, then added plenty of chopped onion, a couple of fat garlic cloves, a puree of roasted tomatillos and poblano peppers, and some of our homemade chicken stock. I added a little more salt, cumin and oregano, squeezed in some fresh lime juice for balance, then finally stirred in a couple of cups of the cooked hominy for the last half-hour of so of cooking.

I think you could say it was a success.

I can’t believe it’s September already… Labor Day weekend is behind us, the unofficial end of Summer, and it’s back to school and the old routine for many of us. I’ve always loved this time of year, though, looked forward to new Fall clothes, blank pages in fresh new notebooks, the seemingly endless possibilities ahead.

I’m looking at transition and change in the weeks ahead, riding out the last few days of my current job and starting the new one next week, so to prepare for that, and to preserve as much of Summer’s bounty before it’s gone, I cooked. A lot. Pounds of tomatoes were blanched, peeled, ground into sauce, chopped into salsa, pounds of peppers were roasted over hardwood, charred skins removed, the flesh processed into sauce or silky strips marinated. Beans were trimmed, blanched and frozen, berries too – spread on a sheet pan, frozen and bagged. And then there was the meat.

Our last few trips to Whole Foods saw us stocking up on various cuts of grass-fed beef from American Grass Fed, a good chunk of which we planned to grind ourselves. We processed nearly 3 pounds of chuck through the coarse blade, set about a pound of it aside for burgers, then ground a pound of pastured pork loin (from another source). Finally, we combined the beef and pork, running it through the machine a second time with the fine blade. This was our first go at grinding our own meats, and it was totally worth it, both for the difference in texture and the knowledge of what exactly was in there.

But what to do with all of this ground meat? Well, there were the burgers I mentioned above, served patty melt style with plenty of caramelized onions, local baby Swiss and tasty French Rye from Seven Stars.

I made a huge pot of Bolognese as well, 5 cups in all, combining our beef and pork mixture with a pound of Bobolink‘s ground suckled veal and letting it cook for hours over low heat before cooling it and portioning it out for future meals.

I took the remaining meat mixture and browned it in a pan with plenty of Mike’s chile powder, some ground cumin, a dab of tomato paste and a couple of spoonfuls of fresh tomato puree. I had visions of meaty, cheesy enchiladas swirling in my brain, so I cooked the seasoned meat until it was almost dry, not wanting to leave too much moisture and end up with a soggy dish.

For the enchilada sauce, I whizzed up a couple of reconstituted dried guajillo chiles and a bit of their soaking liquid, a peeled charred fresh poblano, ground chipotle, cumin, and a wee splash of fresh tomato puree in the blender, did the usual dip-and-fry, and stuffed the seasoned meat inside of the tortillas. I had a little bit of meat left, so that got mixed with the remaining chile sauce and slathered on top of the enchiladas. A layer of cheese, then 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, and dinner was served:

Rich, spicy and comforting, these enchiladas might have been some of my best yet. And while my hands, feet and back are pretty unhappy with me today, all of the time I spent in the kitchen over the long weekend was positively restorative. I’m hanging on to as much of Summer as I can, but looking forward to the changes to come.

I have a confession to make. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since our move, a lot of time to spend puttering around in the kitchen, working on photos and putting together meals. I haven’t been working, you see. And by the time I start my new job next Monday, I will have had an entire month off from working, more time off than I have had since I was a teenager.

It drove me crazy, at first, the time off, the vast stretch of hours ahead of me in any given day in which I could choose to do anything or nothing. I took advantage, sure, taking the time to set up our kitchen, going out to explore our new city, hanging out with friends, but no job means no paycheck, and as you can imagine, that has been a bit limiting.

Though I had questioned the wisdom of moving so much food from our Brooklyn freezer and pantry to our new home in Providence, I’m glad I did, as it has made it far easier to prepare interesting and tasty meals without having to shell out a ton of money for fresh ingredients. I’ve also been able to really stretch the things we have bought fresh, using them in two or three different dishes.

These enchiladas were built almost entirely on pantry staples, leftovers, and odds and ends. Diced potatoes, sautéed until golden with lots of red onion, provided the base of the filling, and reconstituted dried mushrooms added an earthy, meaty bite. The sauce was a smoky combination of grape tomatoes, garlic and more onion, roasted until meltingly soft, then pureed in a blender with the last roasted red pepper lingering in a jar in the fridge, ground chipotle and ground cumin.

The tortillas, left over from a couple of earlier meals, had gotten a little stale, but a quick fry in olive oil and a dip in the enchilada sauce softened them up nicely. I crumbled the rest of a chunk of Narragansett Creamery Queso Blanco over the top of the stuffed enchiladas and baked them until the cheese was soft and burnished. They got a squirt of fresh lime juice at the end, as well as a drizzle of thinned crème fraiche, some chopped radish and fresh cilantro.

And then there were the beans – oh, those beans. Rancho Gordo, of course. Vaquero beans, simmered gently with onion and garlic and bay leaf and oregano until soft, seasoned toward the end with salt and cumin, and then mashed and fried with a little fat until super-creamy. I could marry those beans.

Speaking of marriage, as I’ve mentioned before I usually leave the stunt cooking to my husband, but unlike me Mike has been working very hard since we arrived here and hasn’t had much time for it. I think I’ll take advantage of the time I have left before going back to work to have some labor-intensive fun in the kitchen. Time to put all our fabulous counter space to use, right?