Our Sunday Staples
By Amy & Brad Lupton
For the past two and a half years, our Sunday mornings consist of volunteering and making breakfast for a congregation of people.
We have been in our church community for about 22 years, and we love the heart of the people there. We make anywhere from 200-300 servings of food, mostly in the form of breakfast tacos, egg bakes, parfaits or cinnamon toast casserole. We have an amazing team of people that work along side us, members of the church community and volunteers.
Since we are nutritionally minded, it is imperative that we use the highest quality food possible, within a budget, trying to source good local ingredients, and making sure everything tastes as good as the ingredients in it. We also strive to make the food available for several types of diets (gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian, pork free) so we make accommodations so the food tastes great as well as be nourishing and healthy for all.
We love sourcing local eggs (some from our Lupton hens), finding well-sourced and raised protein, making things fresh with simple ingredients, and serving with a lot of love. Acquiring food for this many people is always a fun adventure, with the menu tailored to what is fresh and available that week and season.
Each Sunday, we gather at 8 am and begin cooking. We have two hours to prep, cook and wrap all the food. The team has their assignments, and we make sure everyone is staying on task and things are moving towards the deadline. Eggs are cracked fresh, salsa is poured into single-serve containers, tortillas are warmed. Fruit is washed and cut, sausage is cooked, and beans are spread. Breakfast tacos are assembled in a line on a long set of stainless steel tables, wrapped and set in warmers.
The message board is set for the day, revealing the food offerings for that morning. People start lining up, eager and hungry. At 10 am, the food is set on tables with pressed tablecloths, and served. Over the course of 30 minutes, all of the food will be served.
Over the years, we have recipes that are requested over and over. It took us a while to get these just right, and are so happy people love eating them week after week. We thought we would share them here, so on your next whip up in the kitchen, maybe they will become staples in your home.
Here’s to Happy Sundays, and a full belly of nourishing food. Xoxo
Mojo Verde (Green Sauce)
This sauce is what my grandmother would call a kick in the pants! It’s hot, and even hotter in the summer when the peppers get the extra heat from the sun. We grow our own chili pequin bushes, and highly recommend you find one and plant it, especially if you like hot sauce. We harvest and freeze these peppers whole, and put them directly in the sauce to blend. The chili pequin bush will die back in the winter, but will pop back up in the spring. And Bonus! The birds love them. If you can’t find chili pequin, you can sub another hot pepper of your choosing. This recipe makes about two ball jars full.
Recipe:
1/2 onion
2 x Tbsp minced garlic
4 x tsp coarse salt (less if fine salt)
1 x tsp black pepper
1 x cup of cilantro (packed)
10 x jalapeños
3/4 cup of olive oil
2 x Tbsp lime juice
1 x Tbsp Cayenne pepper (for health benefits)
2 x Tbsp Chile pequins
Throw all in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy :) Refrigerate in a glass jar. Will last for about a month in fridge.
Salsa Roja
We love fresh salsa. Since we grew up in Texas and relatively close to the border of Mexico, we grew up surrounded by fresh and amazing salsa. Salsa can vary in ingredients, with all sorts of fresh vegetables and tomato types.
Salsa is different from hot sauce, in that salsa is more geared to a tomato forward flavor, rounded with fresh seasoning and some heat from peppers. Hot Sauce (like the Mojo Verde above) is a spicy sauce, with some rounded flavor, but mostly heat. Jarred salsa really doesn’t come close to what you can make in a few minutes with fresh ingredients. Salsa Roja is so amazing on so many different foods, especially your Mexican food favorites.
We love to layer the milder Salsa Roja with the Mojo Verde for a flavor filled power punch!
For this recipe, we love fresh tomatoes, but you can use canned as well and it will taste great. In the summer, we grow lots of tomatoes, and like to freeze them for later use for this salsa recipe, or in other recipes.
For a tomato storage hack (so you don’t have to can them), just harvest the tomato, rinse and store in a gallon ziplock bag in the freezer. When ready to use, thaw and the skin will come right off. Ready to use :)
Recipe:
This makes about 4 Ball Jars of Salsa. Go ahead and fill them up, keep two for you, and hand off a jar or two to your neighbor. They will be back asking for more. 😊
1 small to medium onion / or 1/2 large onion
4 x 14 oz cans of diced or stewed tomatoes OR four cups of fresh or stewed tomatoes (peel skin off)
3-4 mediuim jalapeños / to taste
1 cup or 1 bunch of cilantro
3 x Tbsp of minced garlic
3 x Tbsp of coarse salt (if you use fine salt, you need 1 tbs)
1.5 x Tbsp of black pepper
Add all contents to a blender and blend. You don’t want to blend for too long, just long enough to make a chunky salsa.
Optional add ins to elevate your salsa: You can squeeze in a half lime for a zest, you can add two carrots to blend in. Make it hotter with more jalapeño’s or 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper.
Amy’s Refried Beans
This was a hard one to perfect. We needed to make a bean recipe that did not contain pork, but tasted just a as good without it.
The kids in our congregation love bean and cheese tacos (we make about 100 bean and cheese tacos per week), and they were my critics for several months while I tried all sorts of variations of recipes. We finally came up with this recipe that the kids (and adults) are happy with. This makes a large batch of beans, so you can divide recipe down for a smaller batch, or make them and freeze in serving portions. The big batch is great for a party or gathering to serve along side fajitas or other Mexican food. We recommend freezing in a glass Tupperware for the best flavor preservation.
Big Batch Recipe:
70 ounces or 4.4 lbs of dry organic pinto beans
Filtered Water to Cover Beans
1 large white onion (Diced)
2-3 poblano peppers (Diced)
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons corse salt (add more or less to taste) if using fine salt, use less
2 teaspoons ground black pepper (add more or less to taste)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (add more or less to taste)
12 oz grass fed salted butter
Rinse pinto beans removing any debris and then soak pinto beans in a large pot covered with water for 8 hours (or overnight). Add extra water to allow beans to expand.
After soaking, drain beans and add new water. Add enough to cover beans with about an inch on top. Cook on medium heat for 2-2.5 hours or until bean is soft and will mash easily with a fork. Let cool for about 15 minutes, and then drain 1/2 to 3/4 of the water in the beans. We find pouring 1/2 the beans into a strainer helps drain the liquid a bit easier.
Saute the onion and poblano peppers in about 1 tbs of butter until the onion and pepper are cooked through with brown edges. Some traditions call for the onion and peppers to have black edges, but will leave that up to you. Put the onion and pepper mixture in the beans after cooking.
Add butter, cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper and garlic. Using an immersion blender, blend beans until smooth and creamy. Enjoy!