Green Chile at the Beach

It's Family Week at the beach for us. That usually means sunshine, kite flying, long walks, and hours spent building sand castles and hunting for shells on the beach. This year Mother Nature played a mean trick on us. While it is simmering hot just a few miles inland, the coast line has been shrouded in a cool "weather system". For us that has meant fog, low clouds, wind and very cool temperatures.  It hasn't slowed us down too much, but we have spent far fewer hours playing on the beach. On about day two the focus of the week subtly shifted from outdoor activity to games, books and, fabulous food.

Luckily, I have been blessed with a family of talented and energetic cooks. We love to eat and love to cook. This year each of our children took responsibility for one major dinner. Last night was Green Chile and Smoked Chicken Night - provided by Tyler, our youngest child, who now resides in Colorado. He spent the entire day smoking chickens, roasting chiles, chopping ingredients and watchfully simmering his precious concoction to perfection.  He has been honing his recipe for several years and has proven himself to be the King of Green Chile. The chicken stock he used had been made with from previously smoked chicken. The smokey flavor of the stock added a surprising depth and richness to the green chile. We served the smoked chicken taco-style in corn or flour tortillas topped with the Green Chile, onions, cilantro, and arugula. The chile was spicy hot and delicious combined with the smoked chicken.

I must add that Tyler prepared two different versions of the Green Chile: Hot and Hotter.  We loved them both and while Hot seemed pretty spicy to us the first night (we felt like fire breathing dragons), we had moved on the the Hotter version for our breakfast burritos the next morning.  When all was said and done, we had managed to squeeze one dinner, one lunch, and two days of breakfast out of the Green Chile.  Boy were we sad to see the last of it go.

In the coming days I'll give my rendition of Tyler's Green Chile recipe based on my observations.  I'll also report on a few other fabulous meals enjoyed at the beach.  Stay tuned.