It's time to Rumble! Mexican Style Mole Sauce (mo-lay)

I love Mole (pronounced mo-lay). I love the complexity and layers of flavors.  I love the comfort food feel and the spice without too much heat.  What I HATE is the time it takes to make a traditional mole sauce.  Traditionally it involves about a million spices that the cook needs to roast, crush, make into a paste and then cook forever.  Like all day and then some.  Way too much work for me.

But yesterday I was craving mole bad.  I figured there had to be an easier way to make it...right?  And I didn't have any of the traditional pablano peppers or onions.  I searched the internet for different recipes and stumbled upon a recipe that gave me the answer!  They used jarred salsa and a blender! Now why didn't I think of that?

So I broke out my blender and rumbled through my pantry to find the ingredients that I knew would make a good mole sauce and off I went.  Below is the full recipe.  Please don't be scared by the large list of ingredients.  These are spices that are pretty common and chances are you already having them sitting in your pantry waiting to be used.  Also, you can totally play with this recipe and leave something out and add something else in.  If you don't have mace or allspice, use a dash of nutmeg instead.  The only spices that are essential to make this recipe work are cumin, chili powder or paprika and cocoa powder.  The rest just make it taste yummier.  And yes...that is a word.

So now that you've made the mole what in the world do you do with it?  This is the BEST part!  You can use it for just about anything!  Traditionally it is slow cooked with pork or poultry but there is no reason you can't use this with beef or even tofu or seitan.  You can use it for an enchilada sauce (inside and out) or mix it with some sour cream/cream cheese and make a fabulous Mexican chip dip.

But whatever you do, make it.  Soon.  You will thank me for it.  Enjoy!

Upcoming posts:
~Solar Oven Cooking (tomorrow)
~Lemi Shine Review & Giveaway
~Rhubarb Festival (next week)
~Nielsen-Massey MexicanVanilla Review (coming soon)

Stromboli - A Guest Post

Hi, this is Amanda from The Eco-Friendly Family. I have fallen in love with Stromboli and wanted to share the recipe that I've played with and keep craving. I hope you like it as much as I do :)

Back to blogging...with Baking Bacon

It's been kinda crazy around here and while I have been doing some cooking (not as much as usual that's for sure) I have had no time to actually write down the recipes I've been using or making. I decided on Sunday night when it was the Monkey's turn to pick what was for dinner that I needed to get back to blogging. I missed it...and I missed the time I spent in the kitchen cooking for the blog.

Monkey picked Blueberry Pancakes and bacon for dinner on Sunday. I had NO desire to stand over a stove frying bacon...and somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that my friend Christie told me that I could BAKE bacon. So I called her up and tried it out. I am happy to report that I will never fry bacon again.

There are about a gazillion google hits for baking bacon. So we aren't off our rocker in suggesting this. It works...and here is what I did. Enjoy!