Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious stacked green chile and grilled chicken enchilada recipe in celebration on Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce, was found on FineCooking and written by Robb Walsh.

Being vegetarian, I obviously didn't use grilled chicken. Actually, the challenge allowed us to make almost any enchilada we wanted. Having made black bean and corn enchiladas a bazillion times before, I thought it was time for a change.

I adapted a recipe from Barbara Hansen's Mexican Cookery. This is a cookbook unlike any other I've seen. It resembles a novel more than a recipe book.

The sauce recipe was surprisingly well seasoned. It had a small kick and smoky undertones. The enchiladas were a basic cheese filled variety. Overall, a very good dish even it looks gross!

Salso para Enchiladas

• 5 dried California chiles
• water to cover
• 1 1/2T vegetable oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 T flour
• 1 t vinegar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 t oregano
• 1/4 t cumin
• 1 C vegetable stock

Method

1. Wash chiles and place in a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand 45 min. Drain the chiles, reserving the liquid. Rinse the seeds out of the chiles.
2. Place chiles and 1 C reserved liquid in a blender. Blend until smooth. Turn into a sieve and rub through. Blend chile liquid with vegetable stock.
3. Heat oil and garlic in saucepan until fragrant. Remove garlic. Mix in flour until smooth. Add chile broth and spices. Heat the sauce until thickened. Makes 2 1/3 C

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf's Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook by Matt and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

This was again a very good recipe choice from the Daring Kitchen. I've not made or eaten a Brunswick stew before so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Along with the two recipes given in the challenge, I looked through a few I had laying around. My main objective was to make a stew that was vegetarian yet still maintained the spirit of the dish.

I served this stew with Peter Reinhart's Anadama bread. They went well together with the cornmeal in the bread and the southern style of the stew. Making the bread is a bit more labor intensive but well worth the effort in my opinion. You can find the recipe in The Bread Bakers Apprentice: a book that is fast becoming a favorite.

The following is a variation of recipe 2 given in the challenge. Brunswick stew recipe from the Callaway, VA Ruritan Club.

Ingredients

• 5C vegetable broth
• 4 red potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 Roma tomato, diced
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 carrot, scraped and diced
• 1 can corn, rinsed and drained
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/4C brown lentils
• 1/4t smoked paprika
• 1/8t white pepper
• 3/4t sage
• pinch of rosemary
• 1/4t thyme
• 2 berries all spice
• 1/8t marjoram
• 1/8t dill

Method

1. Put all of the spices in a mortar and grind or pound together. You could also use a spice grinder.
2. Put all of the ingredients in a Dutch oven. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 45 minutes, uncovered. Serves 6

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

Yum! I like risotto. I like most things rice though. This challenge was great because we could basically make whatever type of risotto we wanted as long as we stuck to a few simple rules. We had to make our own stock. "Can do," thinks me. We also had to make the risotto base. Check on that one to with a few minor changes.

Looking through the forum, a lot of people used Jaden of SteamyKitchen's pho stock. It sounds good but I wanted to go a more traditional route. Especially since I've never made risotto before.

Stock Ingredients

• 9C water
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, scrapped and chopped
• 5 cloves roasted garlic (wrap the garlic in aluminum foil and roast in a 450 oven for 15 min.)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 T whole black pepper
• 1/3 bunch parsley
• 1 T oil

Stock Method

1. While you prepare the roasted garlic, heat oil in the dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook for 5 min. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Remove the foam from the top and continue boiling.
2. Let the stock boil for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. We want it to reduce to maybe a little over a third of what it was, enough to make the risotto. This concentrates the flavors.
3. Strain the stock and place back in the rinsed dutch oven. Bring back to the boil for the risotto.

As for the risotto itself, I used a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. This was pretty good to me sans meat. My husband didn't like it but that's to be expected. He hates rice. I'll be making it for myself I guess. Or trying various other stocks.