Ivan's weblog

Fabiola invented this waffle recipe today. It is fabulous!

1 cup flour
1/3 cup fine yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup wheat germ
1/3 cup milled flax seed
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 milk (or soymilk)
4 oz unsweetened apple sauce (one of those little single-serving packages). It works as an oil substitute!.
1 tbsp oil
2 large eggs

Mix all dry ingredients, then mix in the rest. Put on a waffle maker at medium temperature (or you can also try to prepare them as pancakes).

Makes 6 waffles. Leftovers may be frozen in sealed bags and are preserved pretty well.

(Translated name: sliced Poblano peppers with cream)

This is one of my favorite Mexican dishes. I learned how to make them by myself out of despair.

• 8 Poblano peppers
• 2 white onions
• 1 pound Mexican sour cream
• 1 cube chicken broth
• Cooking oil

Peel the peppers. That’s the most complicated part, but I use this technique: put them in the toaster-oven until the skin “boils” and gets a bit toasted; then take them out of the oven and peel them. Open and rinse the peppers and remove the seeds. Cut the peppers into long, thin (1 cm) slices.

Slice the onions and sautee them in a pot. Add the chicken cube and peppers, stir for a few minutes and then add the cream. Let it simmer for a few more minutes stirring occasionally so that the cream gets impregnated with the peppers.

Serve the rajas con crema as tacos, tostadas, or quesadillas. Yields about six servings (depending on your definition of serving!).

One of my heretical inventions:

• 1 pound spaghetti
• 12-16 oz sour cream (Mexican is best)
• 1/3 - 2/3 cup chipotle sauce
• 0-2 tbsp butter

Cook and drain the pasta (follow box directions). Add everything else and mix. So simple any bachelor can make it!

Fabiola gave me this recipe that Paty gave her. We have a picture of the cake in our album; I post it here because it has become popular: a guy named Rudy from Texas sent me an email asking for the recipe!

For the flan:
3 eggs
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
1 can of evaporated milk (carnation) (12 fl oz)
1 bar of cream cheese (8 oz)
1 tsp vanilla
Combine everything in the blender.

For the chocolate part use devil’s food chocolate cake mix and follow the instructions in the box.

The pan has to be buttered very well; then put the chocolate mix and on top carefully spoon the flan mix. If the surface of the chocolate mix gets disturbed a little bit it doesn’t matter, the two layers will flip anyway while they cook. Cover it with aluminum foil and cook it in “baño María” (water bath) for 1h to 1 h 10 min at 375 F. It is enough if the water just reaches half the height of the pan. Check the cake with a knife until it comes clean to make sure is cooked. The chocolate cake will be cooked for sure, but the flan is the tricky part.

After removing if from the oven let it cool down for 30 min-1 h and then flip it. If you put it in the fridge overnight it’s better because the flan sets better. If you have to eat it right away the flan may be still a little soft in the inside. But either way it tastes great.

You can add some butterscotch caramel on top, or chocolate syrup, or whatever you want just before serving. The original recipe calls for “cajeta", which is a sweet syrup made out of milk, is the Mexican version of Dulce de Leche.