Calabacitas
Calabacita is Spanish for squash, but in New Mexico it can mean a dish made from squash. This is a recipe from New Mexico that came via Char Welch, whose sister lives in Santa Fe. Of course I modified it a bit, I always do.
The reason I got the recipe is because we have a wonderful new grocery store in town, Heinens, out of Cleveland, Ohio. A couple of weeks ago they were roasting Hatch chili peppers in their parking lot. I didn’t know a Hatch pepper from a hole in the ground, but I bought a couple of pounds of them, anyway. They were roasted, but the skin needed to be scraped off and the seeds removed, which I did. I used some in a couple of recipes and froze the rest.
Char bought a bunch, since she knew what they were, a staple of southwestern cookery, and a product of the town of Hatch, New Mexico. That’s why she gave me the recipe.
I will usually try recipes a few times before I put them on the website, but this one is a winner so here it is. I didn’t use Hatch peppers in the recipe, but my home-grown Hungarian banana peppers.
Calabacitas
Ingredients
- 2 medium zucchini (or mixture of green and yellow)
- 2 Tbsp. of olive oil
- 1 medium onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 12 oz. bag frozen corn
- 4 or 5 roasted chili or Hungarian or chili peppers (Mixture of sweet and hot according to taste)
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup cheddar, jack, or mexican cheese blend
Instructions
- Peel & chop the peppers.
- In a large skillet, saute the onion, garlic and zucchini in the oil until they just starts to brown.
- Thaw the corn under warm water and mix it in along with the chopped peppers.
- Cover and heat through.
- Mix in the cheese and serve.