This post is sponsored by OXO, thoughts and opinions are my own.
If you’ve been following me on Instagram for a while now, you know I love to garden! When I was looking into buying a house, I knew I wanted a place that had a yard big enough for me to have a couple of raised beds because I wanted to be able to source fruits and vegetables from my garden for the many different recipes I develop! Some of the things I’ve grown in the past year include tomatoes, gooseberries, passion fruit, boysenberries, cucumbers, zucchinis, greens and corn! The recipe for this buttery pasta is inspired by my garden. It comes together pretty quickly, and it doesn’t require a ton of ingredients.
I hope you’re all comfy and cozy this morning! Today we woke up in Fresno covered in a layer of ice, so I’ll be staying in today wrapped up in my cobijas with atole catching up on the Mandalorian.
Before I go, I do want to share with a quick recipe for chicharrón en salsa verde that I tightened up. I also wanted to thank all of you who made some of my recipes a part of your Holiday traditions and festivities. I enjoyed seeing all of the pictures and stories on Instagram of you all who made my pozole rojo, the buñuelos, ponche and marranitos. It truly means a lot to see my recipes come to life in your kitchens.
Chicharrón en salsa verde is a dish that consists of pork rinds stewed in a tangy salsa verde. I like to use both regular pork rinds as well as chicharron with meat on it in my recipe so they release more flavor as they stew, and it also gives the dish a little more substance. You can serve it over rice with beans, but I love having it as tacos too.
I’m keeping it very brief today with this quick recipe. Stay warm, have a great weekend, and have a great rest of the year!
We are just 3 days away from Christmas, or 2 if you start your celebrations on Noche Buena!
This year, I decided to take the Holidays off. My partner and I bought our first house together over the Summer, so aside from wrapping up my first cookbook (which comes out in less than six months!!!!!!!) we’ve spent the past few months unpacking, organizing and fixing things around the house and are in dire need of some time to relax.
I’ll be making a small batch of tamales (rajas con queso and pork in a red chile sauce) and champurrado for the two of us, along with ponche. If you’ve never had ponche before, it’s essentially a hot hibiscus and tamarind tea with various warm spices that is served with fruit like guavas, sliced apple, and tejocotes sweetened with piloncillo. It’s tangy, it’s sweet, and it is a great way to stay warm and cozy during the Holidays, and adding a shot or two of tequila only makes it even more perfect. If you don’t follow me on Instagram yet, join me here, I’ll be posting a little ponche tutorial later today so you can follow along at home! If there’s a certain fruit included in the recipe that you don’t like, feel free to substitute with your favorites!
I hope you’re all able to take some time off to this week to enjoy the Holidays with your loved ones. I have a few recipes left to share before the year is over, but for now, nos vemos pronto!
If you still haven’t solidified your menu for Christmas Eve or Christmas, I’m including some recipe suggestions below:
I’ve been working on this recipe for the past week since I teased it on Instagram, and let me tell you, I am so happy with how this cheesecake turned out! There was a lot of trial and error, testing the cheesecake with a water-bath and without, and then letting it rest in the oven vs taking it out immediately and there were a few things that I learned a long the way after having to bake 6 different cheesecakes. It was really important to bake the cheesecake in a water-bath and let it rest in the oven after it was done baking to make sure that the cheesecake did not collapse or crack. The viscosity of the brow sugar slurry for the swirl was important to get just right as well because if it was too heavy, it would have sunk right into the cheesecake batter.
This cheesecake is comprised of a crust made from canelitas, a beloved cinnamon sugar cookie I enjoyed as a kid with a cinnamon and brown sugar cream cheese filling. To top things off we’re layering this cheesecake with a brown sugar cinnamon swirl that makes it look like you’ve got some serious skill. If you have any extra time, make yourself a batch of home made whipped cream to top your cheesecake with, and if you have any extra canelitas, crumble them over the whipped cream or simply sprinkle in a little bit of cinnamon over it and finish off with a drizzle of cajeta.
With Thanksgiving coming up in two weeks, this decadent cheesecake is the perfect addition to the dessert table. I’ll be making this cheesecake on my Instagram stories tomorrow morning, so if you’d like to follow along, follow me here to bake a long with me!
