Not-Your Momma's Queso Sauce

I love tortilla chips and picante sauce.  When Nacho Mom's Original Queso Sauce came to Vegan Essentials, I tried it and liked it, but didn't love it.  But, when mixed with some Pace Picante Sauce, the mixture became better than either of its parts.

The beauty of this sauce is that it is low in calories, no fat, and can be used for a lot of things, like baked potatoes, in pasta sauce, etc.  

Having both Nacho Mom and Pace around to mix became the routine.  Nacho Mom's kept getting more expensive, and then seemed to always be out of stock when I placed an order. One day, the temperature dropped from 56F to 14F in a few hours, and it seemed like a good day to come up with my own sauce.  I expected it to take several tries, but it was actually pretty simple and took less than 10 minutes to do.

This recipe uses regular all purpose flour for the thickening agent, becasue Nacho Mom had flour listed as an ingredient.  However, I have also tried this with tapioca flour and it worked fine.

The recipe calls for two cans of 'RoTel Tomatoes with Green Chiles. Most chain groceries have a cheaper house brand of this product as well.  However, you can use a can of diced organic canned tomatoes and a can of green chiles from the Mexican food section of your grocery.  You could even chop fresh tomatoes, if you wanted.  I have also made this with diced fire-roasted tomatoes and fresh jalapenos, by adding the jalapenos, diced, to the liquid on the stove to soften while it thickens.

Not-Your Momma's Queso Sauce

2 cans RoTel Tomatoes with Green Chiles
water as needed
1/2 c nutritional yeast
3 heaping Tbs of all purpose flour
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4  tsp garlic powder (optional)
1/4 tsp onion powder (optional)
2 tsp Massel Salt Reduced Chicken Bouillon Powder (vegan bouillon powder)

Drain the cans of Rotel into your blender jar and squeeze as much liquid out as possible.  Set the solids aside.

Check the level of liquid in your blender, and add water to bring it to 20 oz (2 1/2 c)

Add all the other ingredients, and blend until the flour is well incorporated.

Preheat a 2 quart saucepan.

Add the blender liquid to the saucepan and cook until it bubbles and thickens, about 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the reserved solids from the cans and mix well.

Let cool , then move to a wide mouth mason jar. It will thicken up a little as it cools.  Refrigerate.

First Harvest Meal, 2011: Kale Chorizo Stew

The first meal from the garden is always an exciting event.  Today, the Red Russian Kale seemed to have enough large leaves to harvest, so harvest it, I did.

Last year, the kale didn't do very well.  The weather went from hot and wet to cold and wet to more wet, and it languished.  It still tasted terrific, though, and Tae and I ate all of it raw while standing over the container in which it grew.

This recipe is more of an assembly guide than it is a proper recipe.  The quantities of each ingredient are totally up to you, and you can add as you wish.  We were out of onions, so there was no onion.  If I had more kale, I certainly would have added it.  The vegan chorizo isn't shown, but here were all the other the ingredients.

I make my own chorizo, vaguely using the chorizo recipe from 'Viva Vegan' as my guide.  'Viva Vegan', is one of the best vegan cookbooks EVER, and I've tried a lot of recipes.  I mostly use them as inspiration and wander off on my own, but it has many, many interesting places to start.

If you don't have your own seitan chorizo on hand, I would recommend the 'Chipotle' sausage from Field Roast.  It was my favorite 'sausage' until I started making my own.

I used fresh corn and used the cobs to start a stock for the stew.  If you have to use frozen, skip the step making the broth and head straight to the Massels.  You might want to add an extra cube if you don't make the quick stock. Without the stock-making step, this recipe only takes 15 minutes or so to make.

As an option on this, try baby bok choi or gai lan (Chinese broccoli) in lieu of the kale, and mix in  1-2 tsp of miso paste right before serving.

Kale Chorizo Stew

serves 4

1 Tbs olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 c water

2 Massels vegan broth cubes

2 ears of fresh corn

Red potatoes, diced
1 bunch kale, cleaned, stemmed and chopped

3 carrots, diced

mushrooms, cleaned and chopped

corn from the ears

6-8 oz vegan chorizo, diced

Using a sharp knife, remove the kernels form the fresh corn and reserve.

Heat a 6 qt pot

Add olive oil and saute garlic for 30 seconds

Add corn cobs and Massels cubes

Add water

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes

Remove cobs and toss in the compost pile

Add kale and potato

Cover, bring back to a boil

Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes

Add corn kernels, mushrooms, carrots and chorizo.

Cover, bring back to a boil

Reduce heat and simmer 5minutes

Check veggies for doneness

Serve with a sprinkle of chile flakes if desired.  

In the photo above, we served the stew with home made kamut bread and a sprinkle of Daiya Pepper Jack vegan cheese.  And chile flakes, of course.  They go on everything...