Posole

At holiday time people throughout the world honor traditions, and New Mexico is no exception. One tradition many here look forward to on Christmas Eve is a steaming bowl of posole (po-SO-lay), a spicy corn stew that is known as the ceremonial dish for celebrating life's blessings.

New Mexicans have been enjoying posole for centuries. The cuisine here springs from three cultures: Native American, Mexican, and European. The Rio Grande Pueblo Indians, and their ancestors, the “Anasazi,” or "ancient ones,” relied on corn, beans, squash, and chiles for sustenance. These early crops became firmly entrenched in the culture, forming the foundation of New Mexican cuisine even before the Spanish arrived.

Corn has been and is the major food plant of the Native Americans. Red, yellow, and blue corn are cultivated in New Mexico. The corn is ground into meal and flour for use in breads and tortillas, and it is processed into posole corn.

Posole corn is prepared by soaking hard kernels of field corn (traditionally white, although blue is sometimes used now) in powdered lime and water - a method thought to mimic the ancient preservation of corn in limestone caves. After several hours, when the corn kernels have swollen, the liquid is allowed to evaporate and the kernels to dry.

Posole is different from hominy, another kind of processed corn, which tends to be softer and more bland. Compared to hominy, posole’s flavor is intense and earthy, its consistency more robust. Since posole corn can be difficult to find, hominy is often used as a substitute in posole stew.

The variations for posole are many. Some make it with chicken rather than pork; some prefer to use vegetable protein rather than meat. While posole in Southern New Mexico is always made with red chile, it is not uncommon to find Northern New Mexico posole made with green chile.

Ingredients for Posole

2 lb. Pork chops or tenderloin (cut into 1" cubes)
dried long red chile (or you may use frozen or canned chile)
2 T. salt
2 t. Oregano
2 t. garlic powder
4 cans White Hominy
1 t. cumin

Preparation

Place cubed meat in a large kettle with oil and one tablespoon of salt. Cover meat and cook over medium heat. Add all other spices and cook; then add red chile sauce and hominy. Let simmer for 30 minutes. Add the additional salt or more if needed for taste.

To serve, ladle the posole into bowls and serve with flour tortillas.

Happy New Year!

Today is New Year's Eve and I am making the traditional Mexican "posole" which is like a red chile soup. It is always made on New Year's Eve and is supposed to bring luck for the new year. It's make with red chile, white hominy and pork. It's very yummy and pepper hot.

Here's hoping the new year brings much joy, happiness and good health. I'm speaking about my "back" issues. Thanks to all who ventured to my blog and read what I had to say. Hopefully next year I'll be blogging more than I have!

One more thing to buy

As Christmas approaches, I find myself thankful this holiday season isn't stressful for me. Afterall, the reason for the season is the birth of Jesus.

Today I have one last gift to get and then I am done. It's nice to just sit back and look at the Chirstmas tree, the decorations, the presents and everything else that goes with this holiday season. And the weather will be great today...in the 60's.

Now I didn't say anything about what the traffic will be like!! ;-)

Cold Sunday Morning

The rains are gone and I'm glad. Since AT&T worked on burying fiber optics in our neighborhood they made a royal mess of our driveway. Most of the gravel (at the end of the drive) is gone and they recovered it with what seems to be this "clay dirt" so now we have a muddy drive. I just wish they had done a better job. So anytime I walk out there with the dogs I ended up tracking mud in the house - no matter how well I clean my shoes! grrr

It was about 29 degrees when I got out of bed and it's slowly warming up. We should be about 45 today so that's not too bad. Don't get me wrong I LOVE cold weather...after the hot summer we had it's a welcome change ;-)