Green Chili and Cheese “Tamales”

polenta tamales
polenta tamales
Not authentic, but really good.

Okay, a confession. We have no idea how to make tamales. Well, that’s not quite true; we know that you make a dough from masa harina (flour made from dried hominy), place some on a corn husk, layer with chili and cheese, more masa harina, wrap and tie the husk, steam, and finally enjoy. We’ve always heard that it’s a lot of trouble, and, because it is, one makes dozens of tamales at a time. Well, we don’t have masa harina in the house, and we’re not going out to buy some. We really don’t need yet another type of flour in our cupboard. Maybe we can use stuff that’s in our cupboard to come close enough.

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Roasted Cauliflower Tacos

cauliflower tacos
cauliflower tacos
Have everyone fill his or her own tacos.

We had these several weeks ago for a quick meal — everything can be made ahead and reheated for dinner, which is what we did — that we decided that we’d make them again, and turn the recipe into a post, so others can try Cauliflower tacos, too. The real key here is seasoning and roasting the cauliflower, which brings out a lot of nutty flavor, turning a somewhat bland vegetable into an outstanding vegetable.

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Green Chili Polenta Casserole

green chili polenta casserole
green chili polenta casserole
Looking at this, we’re getting hungry again.

You remember a while back when we made that Green Chili and Corn Soup? Well, we had numerous pieces of green chilies left over that we had to use, so, that night, we made up this casserole. We didn’t really follow a recipe, but it’s vaguely, very vaguely, based on the idea of corn tamales; however, we hope it’s easier to make.

The other reason we made this dish was that, in a cookbook we were perusing, the author/chef was enumerating her rules for making a staff meal. One rule that intrigued us was don’t make a fusion of wildly disparate cuisines; the example she gave was to never mix Italian with Mexican food. Ah, a challenge! As an aside, we’re not 100% positive that this was the example, so we won’t specify the book or author

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