Hatch Chile Cook-Off

WooHoo!! Just got home from the Hatch Chile Cook-Off at Central Market. I didn't find out about it (why am I always the last to know?) until 1:00 this afternoon and it was happening at 2:00. So I did what any foodie would do... rushed right over... no make-up, forgot my camera (which turned out to be a good thing because I met a new foodie friend, Nicholas Mistry, who blogs at Savor SA, who did have a camera and he agreed to share his pictures or at least, to let me copy them, with credit, to use on my blog... and no business cards (to prove I was a Foods and Flavors of San Antonio foodie). For all anyone knew, I was just a Hatch-happy person in a Hatch-happy world, looking at all the Hatch-inspired food. But I did have a pen and paper (being a writer, I ALWAYS have pen and paper, so never mind that I was writing notes on the back of the recipe cards... it still counts as paper.)

Anyway, back to the cook-off... There were six contestants with absolutely wonderful Hatch recipes. My new foodie friend's wife was one of the contestants with a delicious-looking Flourless Chocolate Cherry Hatch Cake. It just so happened that I was sitting right
next to where the eventual winner, Bruce Bray, was setting up his food--a really yummy-looking No Place Left to Hide Hatch Fudge Sundae--and got to talk to him a bit. I think I was kind of bothering him, but I was just doing what any foodie would do... talking food. He was nice enough to give me his email as he was preparing his food and agreed to an interview on my blog. Then, he WON the cook-off!! More details in a later post.

Here are the San Antonio Hatch-Happy foodies who were finalists
in the cook-off:

• Marisol Martinez, Open-the-Hatch Green Chile Stew
• Bea Nekrosius, Hot Potato Salad
• John Harrison, Chilly Hatch Chile & Yellow Pepper Soup with Ceviche
• Kristina Mistry, Flourless Chocolate Cherry Hatch Cake
• William Shipley, Caramelized Plantains with Raspberry-Hatch Coulis
• **Winner** Bruce Bray, No Place Left to Hide Hatch Fudge Sundae

Contestants, photo courtesy of Laura Bray

Being a good foodie, I did manage to collect the recipes from the cook-off, but since they're the property of Central Market, I need to get permission to share them. Don't you hate when someone does that (!?)... tells you about delicious recipes and then doesn't share them? I bet you thought I was going to give you the recipes.

And speaking of not sharing, I know I promised in two of my recent posts that I'd share my Hatch Cheesy Chile Chicken Cutlets recipe (which is possibly the best thing I ever ate) that I made last week, but after attending the cook-off, I'm going to enter my recipe in next year's CM Hatch Chile Cook-Off, so I'm not sharing that recipe either. But I will show you a picture. (I know I need to improve my food photography skills... or lack of skills, as the case may be.) Oh, and I should probably mention that while I was at Central Market today, I picked up 20 pounds of hot roasted Hatch chiles and will be making lots of recipes with them, and I will share those... maybe.

To make up for not sharing all these absolutely wonderful Hatch recipes, I will share a link to Ten Ways to Use Those Chiles, from Savor SA. That should keep you in Hatch Chile Heaven for a while.

If you have any Hatch recipes, and you do want to share, please enter them in my Hatch Chile Contest and Cookbook Giveaway.
I love Hatch chiles so much that I started a new Hatch Chile Heaven blog last week and I also created a Hatch Chile Heaven Facebook page a few days ago, and I'm writing a Hatch Chile Heaven cookbook.

And I'm trying my best to wrangle out of a booksigning scheduled for next weekend so I can go to the Hatch Chile Festival in Hatch, NM.

A Hatch Love Affair

I'm totally, completely, absolutely in love with Hatch chiles. I just couldn't help myself. I'm so in love with this beautiful green chile that I created a Hatch Chile Heaven blog a few days ago.

Then, today, with dreams of what to make for dinner with my Hatch chiles, I created a Hatch Chile Heaven page on Facebook.

If you love Hatch chiles as much as I do, follow my new blog and/or (both!) become a fan of Hatch Chile Heaven on Facebook.

I know I promised that I'd post my Hatch chicken recipe from a couple of nights ago, but I got caught up in the heat of the moment with chasing Hatch chiles all over the web. Tomorrow, I promise!

Chuy's Green Chile Festival

To celebrate the Hatch harvest, Chuy's invites you to be their extinguished guest August 24th through September 13th at their 21st Annual Green Chile Festival: Feeding the Fire.

They're offering five new food items to feed your fire: Stuffed Jalapenos with Panko Breading, Beef Tacos Nortenos with Mexican Slaw, Green Chile BBQ Chicken, Sour Cream Enchiladas Blancas, and Steak Tampiquena. If it's too hot to handle, try their new drink to quench your fire--a Mexican Mojito, made with Curevo Tradicional Tequila. In addition, you can try their new warm salsa made with green chiles. They'll also be offering limited edition T-shirts and giveaways.


To honor the Fire Department, all firefighters in uniform will receive a 50% discount (year-round) and fire department themed merchandise will be available for purchase.

This event is happening at most of Chuy's restaurants. Here in San Antonio, you can enjoy the food at 18008 US Hwy 281 at Loop 1604.

Hatch Chile Heaven

To celebrate and honor Hatch chiles, I created a Hatch Chile Heaven blog this morning... cause when you eat Hatch chiles, you feel like you're in heaven. I just couldn't help myself; it was love at first bite. I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven, and I got caught up in the Hatch fever with all the festivals, plus everywhere you look on the web, people are talking Hatch chiles (at least where I was looking on the web).

I'll be featuring lots of Hatch chile recipes and other things Hatch-related. Come on over to Hatch Chile Heaven and visit. I've only got one post up so far, but I'm making Hatch Cheesy Chile Chicken Cutlets tonight and I'll be posting the recipe tomorrow.

And speaking of recipes, don't forget to enter my Hatch Chile Contest and Cookbook Giveaway. If you have any Hatch recipes, share... I'll feature them in the round-up and on my new blog. Oh, and I should probably mention I'm having visions of a Hatch Chile Cookbook dancing in my head.

Hatch Chile Contest and Cookbook Giveaway

Of course I went to the Hatch Chile Festival yesterday at Central Market. Did you have any doubt, that as a San Antonio, Tex-Mex foodie, I would be there?

The first thing I smelled when I got out of my car was the wonderful aroma of roasting chiles, combined with the BBQ happening outside the front of the store where Hatch hamburgers and sausages were being grilled.

Inside the store, I found
The First Ever Un-Edited & Un-Tested Hatch Chile Pepper Recipe Book, which of course
I bought... it goes without saying.

Then I wandered around the store, sampling lots of Hatch-inspired foods, and got down to the serious business of grabbing my bag of hot roasted Hatch chiles, along with some jarred Hatch salsas and pre-made Hatch hamburgers, which I had for dinner last night, topped with Cheddar cheese, sliced tomatoes, and avocado. It was hugely wonderful with the perfect amount of heat.

Here's my stash from Central Market yesterday. I cleaned some
of the peppers and left some with the char on to show you how awesome they look.

After I got home and looked through the cookbook, which is 256 pages and filled with un-edited and un-tested (as the title says), mostly handwritten recipes along with some charming and hilarious Hatch stories from people who totally love their Hatch chiles, I thought it would be really fun to have a Hatch Chile Contest and Cookbook Giveaway to honor the Hatch.

The cookbook is currently unavailable
and Amazon doesn't know when or if it will be back in stock. But I have some; I bought several copies yesterday and I'd like to give you one.

Make a recipe (you can make more than one recipe) using Hatch chiles, post it on your blog, along with a link to this post, then email me the link to your post at gloriachadwick@gmail.com. If you can't find Hatch chiles, you can substitute an Anaheim or a Poblano pepper or you can order them online. If you don't have a blog and want to enter the contest, just send me an email with your recipe. The contest will run through September 14th. I'll post a round-up
on the 15th and everyone can vote for their favorite recipe. The winner receives a copy of the cookbook.

Hatch Chile Festival

Central Market, at 4821 Broadway in San Antonio, is celebrating its Annual Hatch Chile Festival on August 21 - 23 and August 28 - 30. Truckloads of Hatch chiles are being shipped in from Hatch, New Mexico. There will be chile demos, all sorts of specials, and tasting samples. The festival is happening at all Central Market locations: Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston, Plano, Dallas, and Southlake, TX.

Some of the items Central Market will be offering during the festival are: Hatch Sausages, Hatch Hamburger Patties, Monterey Jack Cheese with Hatch Peppers, Hatch Pepper Tortillas, Turkey Chile Meatloaf, and Native Texan Hatch Chile con Queso, to name
a few.

There's even a Hatch Recipe Contest. Submit your best Hatch chile recipe by 12:00 P.M., August 20th. (I know that's tomorrow, but I just heard about this today.) Winners receive a $100 Central Market Gift Card and a year's supply of roasted Hatch chiles. Check out the Hatch Recipes that Central Market has to offer.

Then there's the REAL Hatch Chile Festival, held in Hatch, New Mexico, over Labor Day Weekend, September 5th and 6th. Events include a chile cook-off, chile roasting, a parade culminating with the coronation of a Chile Queen, a chile pod competition, and more. Hatch is known as the Chile Capital of the World and rightly so; they produce the best chiles.

Taking a Bloggy Break

This was me, yesterday, when my computer crashed because of something in Blogger or because of how Blogger was reacting to something evil that had been downloaded into my computer. Whatever it was, it was completely blocking Blogger and I couldn't access any of my blogs... couldn't even see them. I could access everything else except Blogger. Ended up that I had 133--that's right--133 viruses planted on my computer. Thank God I've got a great Internet security service and they cleaned up my computer.

Just wanted to let all my blogging buddies know about this. Some evil person is placing malware on blogger cookies. The first hint you'll get that someone is messing with your cookies is when you click to publish a post, Blogger will tell you that your cookies are disabled and instruct you to enable your cookies to access Blogger. Things will go along fine for a day or two, then you'll get a "We're sorry..." screen that informs you "your computer or network may
be sending automated queries..."

Anyhoo, I'm taking a bloggy break for a while... not just cause of the crash; I've been ignoring my writing for the past year to blog. Blogging has been fun, but I've been really missing writing books and I'm working on a new book now. I'll be back sometime... even writers have to eat.