A Few of My Favorite Things

I made another batch of potato queso. I made some basic brown rice and pinto bean burritos and smothered them with this sauce. It was totally worth the gluten cheat! I usually use canned fire roasted green chiles but in the interest of less waste I used a fresh jalapeno. I just boiled half of the jalapeno with the potato and carrot, and added the other half fresh and minced after I  blended it all.
I've made many potato cheese sauces. I think it was about two years ago when I first saw the idea on BuzzFeed. I've made potato cheese sauces with and without cashews or other nuts, I've used more and less veg and so on and so forth. I feel like I'm pretty close to making the perfect for me sauce. I'm going to try roasting the jalapeno next time to see what that brings to the mix. I think the flavor will be better than just boiling the jalapeno. There are a million recipes online, and when I roast the jalapeno then I feel it will be time to add mine to the mix. I can tell you a few things I've learned along the way. The most important is tahini. I don't know what it is, but tahini is the glue that holds this sauce together. Without it it just tastes like some veg and spices blended together. There's something about the tahini's bitterness an creaminess that makes this sauce become cheese! The second is use only potatoes, and either one small or half of one large carrot. No more than that and no onion. The carrot is only to provide color, not flavor. If you add too much carrot and onion, your sauce will taste too vegetable-y. And if you use tahini which you most definitely should, you don't need to use nuts which makes this a very inexpensive sauce to make. It really is that classic nacho cheese sauce texture.

I made the most basic of burritos with brown rice, pinto beans and some vegan shreds, and I made them the belle of the ball by smothering them in this sauce. I baked them for maybe fiftenn minutes to get the shreds to melt.

Although it isn't summer yet, I've been celebrating spring with these lime floes bars from Trader Joe's. If you like limeade, you will love these. They are tart and refreshing. When I was a kid and my mom would have me make lemon or limeade from concentrate, I would always sneak a spoonful of the concentrate before mixing so these are right up my alley! These are especially great after a hot day. Expect to see these a lot during the summer!

Joan saw me coming in for a picture so she posed extra cute! She and Kanye both will turn the cute on high volume when they see me going in for a picture. Such little tofurky hams!