Lucky Cowboy Caviar

You may know that eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s day brings good luck in the new year, but did you know that Cowboy caviar was invented in the 1940’s by Helen Corbitt, head chef at the Zodiac Room, at the flagship Neiman Marcus Department Store in Dallas, Texas? Cowboy Caviar is the perfect mix of simple cowboy taste and upscale living which is why I had to include my version of the recipe in The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook. Everyone knows the Dutton family needs all the luck they can get.

Crispy Tortilla Stars with Guacamole

Topped with chunky guacamole and jewel-like pomegranate seeds, these crispy tortilla bites from The Unofficial Elf Cookbook by Jackie Alpers exude holiday joy. Use Jackie Alpers’ Sonoran-Style Chunky Guacamole Recipe or your favorite store-bought version.

Green Chile Tamale Pie with Molé Cómodo

Christmastime is officially tamale season here in the Sonoran Desert, and according to my inside sources It’s also tamale season at the North Pole. This vegetarian recipe for green chile and cheese tamale pie with a quick-cooking Molé Cómodo is an excerpt from The Unofficial Elf Cookbook written with Buddy the Elf in mind. It’s a dish fit for any elf – slightly sweet and very chocolatey yet still appropriate for dinner for regular old humans.

How to dehydrate chile peppers and grind them into chili powder and custom spice blends. Preserve an abundance of homegrown chiles or buy and dry store-bought fresh chiles when they show up at the market. You can save jars of single-variety powder or mix them into custom chili powders and spice blends. Some varieties of chiles can be expensive and/or hard to find, so don’t let a treasure trove of chiles go to waste.

Homemade Dried Chile Powder

How to dehydrate and grind chile peppers, with recipes for chili powder and custom spice blends using fresh homegrown and/or exotic store bought chiles. Preserve expensive and/or hard to find chiles.

Arizona Cheese Crisp with Green Chile Ranch Salsa

Tucson’s Sonoran style Mexican Arizona cheese crisp made with flour tortillas, roasted Hatch green chile strips and a creamy green chile Ranch salsa. Thank you Fry’s Foods for sponsoring this recipe.

Chunky Gazpacho

Cold gazpacho recipe with chunky fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions and peppers. The colors in the photo are a bit of an homage to Pedro Almodovar’s wonderful film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), which was the inspiration for me making gazpacho for the very first time, years ago. (Minus the pills and drama.)

Chipotle Lime Mexican Grilled Corn

Recipe for a lighter version of Sonoran – Mexican style grilled corn on the cob, with chipotle, crema and lime.

Arizona Cowboy Caviar

My Arizona Cowboy Caviar is made with is made with lentils, chile peppers and red onion in a spicy citrus vinaigrette. It’s similar to Texas Caviar made with black eyed peas and the lentils do resemble fish eggs.

Spicy Sonoran-Style Mexican Green Rice

Spicy, Sonoran-style Mexican green rice (arroz verde) recipe made with tomatillo salsa verde, peas and cilantro from the Taste of Tucson cookbook.

Thai-Mexican Coleslaw in Serrano Vinaigrette

This crunchy, salty, and spicy no-mayo Thai/Mexican coleslaw is an excellent companion to Sonoran style dishes. It’s inspired by Som Tum (green papaya salad).

Sonoran Salsa Chicken Lettuce Tacos

Chicken slow-simmered in salsa, then shredded for serving in as a filling for tacos, tostadas, enchiladas, and is keto when served in lettuce cups.

Chicken Fried Steak Dinner

How to make the perfect chicken fried steak dinner – includes recipe links to my smoky mashed potatoes, sausage gravy, and garlic butter green beans. Fun fact!: The vintage plate shown in this photograph matches the one from Yellowstone that this meal was served to “Jimmy” on at the 6666 Ranch in Texas.

Sonoran-Style Spicy Salsa Verde

This Sonoran-style spicy green rice is like summer in Tucson – dependably hot, greener than you might expect, and full of complexities that must be experienced to be appreciate

Chipotle Chicken Salad Wraps

Southwestern chipotle chicken salad recipe utilizing all of the elements of a great chicken salad: something oniony, something crunchy, something pickled, and something a little bit spicy. This recipe is Paleo, low-carb and gluten free.

Charro Cowboy Beans

Vegan recipe for the saucy, whole Sonoran-style pinto beans that you see cowboys (charros) eating in old Western movies, from the Taste of Tucson cookbook by Jackie Alpers.

Tucson’s Famous Topopo Salad

The topopo, Tucson’s most iconic salad is visually stunning. It’s made to look like volcano with lettuce piled on a bean tostada and surrounded with grilled shrimp, Tajin dipped vegetables and cheese. It’s crowned with a green olive and a slice of tomato.

Sonoran-Style Red Pozole

This pork and hominy Pozole is a traditional “low-and-slow” braising recipe. It takes about 3 ½ hours to cook from start to finish because pork shoulder is a fatty cut of meat that takes a while to break down. But the pork fat is what gives this soup its richness. My Sonoran-style version of this dish is topped with lots of fresh vegetables and citrus.

Bison Nachos

Bison are a seminal component of Western American history. The massive bison hunts of the 19th century resulted in their near extinction. With conservation efforts in place, the Yellowstone bison are considered the last truly wild herd of American plains bison in existence. Regenerative bison farms have reintroduced this healthy beef alternative into American food systems.

Chile Colorado with Beef

Cubed beef simmered in red chile sauce for enchiladas, tacos, tostadas, salads or burritos. From the Taste of Tucson Cookbook by Jackie Alpers.

Sonoran Enchiladas

Recipe for Enchiladas Sonorenses: Flat Sonoran-style enchiladas are unique to the desert Southwestern region surrounding the Tucson/Sonora, Mexico border are small corn masa pancakes covered in red enchilada sauce.

Texas-Style Chile con Carne

Chile Colorado con Carne recipe from The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook. In the season 4 finale of Yellowstone, the bunkhouse gets into a heated debate over whether or not chili has beans. The Unofficial Yellowstone cookbook shares a recipe for both chili with and without beans because Texas where the character “Jimmy” had recently visited, is famous for their Chile Colorado which is made without beans – it’s mainly beef and red chiles, and it is fabulous. Get the chili with beans recipe… and more in The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook.

Beanie Weenie Tacos

Is it a hot dog? Is it a taco? Is it Beans & Franks? Yes, it is! My hot dog tacos are made with charro beans and topped with pickled red onion and a special sauce. This recipe is an excerpt from Taste of Tucson: Sonoran Style Recipes Inspired by the Rich Culture of Southern Arizona by Jackie

Sonoran Hot Dogs

Sonoran Hot Dogs are a Tucson, Arizona tradition. This recipe comes from Daniel Contreras whose restaurant, El Guero Canelo was presented with a James Beard America’s Classics Award. This is his version of the Sonoran style hot dog which I am honored to include in my cookbook, Taste of Tucson.

Grilled Sonoran-Style Carne Asada Quesadillas

Grilled flour tortillas stuffed with carne asada, green onions, cheese, & crispy corn tortilla chips for extra crunch! It’s everything you always wanted in a quesadilla but with more crunch!

Spicy, Smoky, Southwestern Mashed Potatoes & Gravy

Because I’ve been known to eat a Thanksgiving meal that consists almost entirely of mashed potatoes and gravy, I replace the cream and some of the butter in the recipe with an aromatic garlic and chile infused broth that I cook the potatoes in, resulting in lighter mashed potatoes that are BIG on flavor.

Sonoran Mexican Street Corn Cups

Recipe for Elote en Vaso. Roasted corn kernels in a creamy, cheesy sauce seasoned with chile, lime and chives.

Old West Style Chili

Old West style spicy vegan chili recipe made with plant-based meat, black beans and mushrooms. Served with vegan shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream.

Arroz Con Pollo Recipe – Tucson Sonoran Style

This Tucson Sonoran style Arroz con Pollo recipe is made with Salsa de chile fresco for medium spicy kick of heat.

Sonoran-Style Chicken Tortilla Soup

Make this Sonoran-Style Mexican chicken tortilla soup from the Taste of Tucson cookbook in 30 minutes or less!

Molletes for Breakfast Anytime

These open-faced breakfast sandwiches are made by slathering refried beans onto toasted bolillo rolls and then heaping avocado slices, a fried egg, hot sauce, and lots of cheese on top.

Nachos Supreme Stuffed Bell Peppers

Sweet bell peppers stuffed with creamy nacho cheese, avocado, pickled jalapeños, black beans and crunchy tortilla chips.

Strawberry Habanero Infused Tequila

This infused tequila makes a mean margarita or straight-up sipper.

Chorizo, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Taco

I ate this for breakfast every day for weeks while writing my Taste of Tucson cookbook. The fat from the chorizo makes the egg really crispy and adds a lot of flavor without too many extra calories.

Chicken Molé Amarillo Recipe from the Taste of Tucson Cookbook

Nuttier and less sweet than its chocolate based cousin, this version of Molé Amarillo is the personal creation of Chef Suzana Davila of Tucson’s Cafe Poca Cosa. She specializes in these complex sauces, and her recipes are longtime local favorites which is one reason why I wanted to feature the recipe in my upcoming cookbook Taste of Tucson: Sonoran Style Recipes Inspired by the Rich Culture of Southern Arizona. Serve this dish with tortillas and a pretty, salad, as Suzana would.

Chelada Beer Cocktail

This super-refreshing citrus beer cocktail is served in a chile and salt rimmed glass over ice. It’s kinda like a beer margarita. I love it because it’s a big drink that lasts a long time and it has considerably less sugar and calories than a margarita.

Grill The Perfect Cowboy Steak

Making authentic cowboy steaks is really easy. When I asked Bryan Keith, the Grill Master from Pinnacle Peak Steak House if he had any additional tips he said, “Put some love in it!”

Mexican Street Corn Hot Dogs

How to make The Elote Hot Dog. A whole beef jumbo hot dog is topped with roasted corn, mayo, lime and spices and served in a top-cut, whole grain bolillo roll. Food photo and recipe by Jackie Alpers.

Spicy Ranch French Onion Dip

Spicy Ranch French Onion Dip. Two Dips That Live As One, Together At Last!

Sonoran Quinoa Burrito Bowl

Healthy burrito bowl recipe with quinoa, black beans and avocado tossed in a chipotle lime vinaigrette dressing.

Three Sisters Pizza With Corn Masa Crust

Corn, beans and squash are three of the earliest domesticated crops grown by Native Americans in the Sonoran region. For this recipe, prepared corn masa, which is usually used to make tortillas or gorditas, is pressed into a cast iron skillet for the crust. If you’ve never tried tepary beans, this recipe is an excellent way to experiment with them, but you can substitute black beans instead if you want.

Southwestern Recipes