Chile Time

It has been a busy month for us at The Truck Farm.  Twice in August we have had pictures on the front page of the local paper, the Las Cruces Sun-News.  The first time was in early August for an article about the green chile season, and it had a picture of Justin loading up our chile roaster.  The second time, we had a picture of our Fire Salsa that was taken at the Las Cruces Salsa Fest over the weekend.  We've proven to be quite popular with in the past 31 days.
Cleda Hawman
Addendum:  Jim's picture is in the Las Cruces Bulletin this week as well, and while he appears to be yelling like a crazy person, he's just excited about salsa.  Also, the new paper My Las Cruces is coming by to do another interview with us about green chile today. 09/03/10

One of our longtime customers held a ribbon cutting ceremony for their store yesterday, we were there and decided to share some pictures.  Solamente de Mesilla has been around for some time, but just recently joined the local Chamber of Commerce.

The Truck Farm

24 Shelled, deveined uncooked extra large shrimp

3/4 cup Red Chile Marmalade

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

 

Thread shrimp onto skewers, heat grill.  Combine remaining ingredients, reserve about half, brush the remaining glaze over shrimp.  Oil grill grates and grill shrimp, covered for about 2 minutes, brush both sides with glaze, grill an additional 4-6 minutes or until shrimp turn pink.

Cleda Hawman

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken cut into pieces
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup yellow onion, sliced
1/2 cup Just Plain Green Chile
1/2 cup red bell pepper, sliced (fresh red if available)
2 tbsp. garlic, minced
1 each jalapeno, minced
12 oz canned diced tomatoes, drained
2 quarts water (chicken broth or stock)
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
1 tsp. Ground cumin
1 pkg  Mexican Meat Seasoning
½ cup Masa or corn flour
1 cup cilantro, chopped (optional or see note beow))
(one corn tortilla per serving, sliced in thin strips and deep fried, as garnish)
Instructions: Put olive oil in a medium size pot, heat it up and add chicken. Brown chicken slightly. Then add onion, Just Plain Green Chile, bell peppers, and garlic and sauté for about a minute. Add diced tomatoes and water. Then bring mixture to a simmer. Add seasonings and cilantro. Then check for flavor; if you think you need more seasoning add some. Bring mixture to a boil and whisk in Masa or corn flour until slightly thickened. Simmer for 15 minutes or until chicken is completely cooked. Take out chicken pieces and take the meat off of the bone and add it back to the soup, discard the bones. Serve the soup hot with fried tortilla chips, avocado, and cheese of your liking.

Over the years, habaneros have gotten a reputation as being scary hot and thus not a viable ingredient for most dishes.  It is true that those little orange pods can pack a wallop, but they aren't as overwhelmingly hot as most have been led to believe.  Get a green chile that is of an extra-hot variety and you may burn worse than if you'd eaten a habanero.  The heat can be a little much to most people, but if you can get past it, the flavor is one of a kind.  There is a bold, fruity flavor when you first bite into a habanero (before the heat comes).  It is one of the reasons our Besito Caliente is so popular.

Anyways, here's a recipe for those of you willing to take the chance.

 

Mean Squid

1 pound squid cut into rings

ground dried habanero

1/4 cup peanut oil

2 teaspoons sesame oil

3 small green onions, chopped

2 teaspoons soy sauce

lime juice

 

Dust the squid with the powdered habanero.  Heat the oils in a skillet and saute the calamari until dark, about 1 minute.  Remove and keep warm.  Add the onions, soy sauce, and a little lime juice to the skillet and cook the onions until soft.  Return squid to pan and toss with sauce.  Serve immediately.
Jim Hawman

 

The green chile season has started in the Mesilla Valley.  Anywhere you go these days you get hungrier and hungrier every time you take a breath as the smell of roasting green chile permeates the air.  For those who have never experienced that smell, it has a similar effect to smelling fresh baked cookies or steak cooking on a grill.  There is nothing quite like the smell of green chile though.  While cookies and grilled meat smell safe and homey, the chile scent is a little wild, dangerous, and somehow illicit (even though it is actually better for you than a hunk of meat or cookies).  There are people who come every year to our little spot on the globe from all around the world just to taste what the aroma comes from.
Justin Hawman

Last Friday, we were descended upon by 19 FBI agents!  It wasn't scary Feds though.  The FBI is becoming more involved with the bioterrorism aspect of Homeland Security and they were here to learn more about food safety from a small producer's point of view.  They had many questions for us, but were most interested in traceability of products and ingredients.  They had heard that we have an excellent low tech program for tracking what comes in and what goes out that we call "dirt to dessert", which we explained to them.  Bottom Line:  They went away happy! 
PHEW!  Jim Hawman

We are looking for new recipes and uses for our products and are wondering if you can help us out.  Please send us whatever recipes you can think of to us at sweethot@sweethots.com and the winning two recipes will be posted on our recipe page for the next year with full credit given to the cook.
The Truck Farm

Last Friday we had the pleasure of having Jeff & Madeline from our local PBS station here filming.  They are doing a 13 episode series entitled "Field Trip" exploring all aspects of New Mexico agriculture, from the earth to your mouth.  Naturally this series has to include chile and its most prominent use- salsa.  We made our Cannon Fire Salsa for them and they even got Jim on camera for an interview.  It will be aired  several places around the country in January, so check out your local listings then to see what NM agriculture is all about.
Cleda Hawman

In the June issue of New Mexico Magazine, three of our customers are featured in articles.  Of course, the most prominent one is one of our co-pack clients, Xerach's Salsa out of Alamogordo.  They won the Salsa of the Year for New Mexico which we are proud to make for them.  In one of the travel articles, Trinity Hotel in Carlsbad is mentioned.  Too bad there is not a picture of their specialty appetizer, the one that features Besito Caliente and goat cheese.  Also mentioned are Caliche's Frozen Custard and their Green Chile Sundaes.  They use our Green Chile Marmalade as the topping, as has been mentioned before.  We are always glad to read about our customers and hope you are too.  You can check it out by reading the digital version on line---free for a limited time.
Cleda Hawman