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No Tortillas?????
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Tag Archives: food
Whatcha Got Cooking?
Themes on blogs seem to be falling into categories lately. Travels home, shopping lists, isolation activities, pets and what’s cooking! Here is what was being cleaned, chopped, combined, cooked and/or eaten today at my house. No, I didn’t eat all of this. Some of it I just cooked.
(Click on photos to enlarge and read the details on what’s cookin’.)
Popcorn with grated chocolate. I know. Naughty.
Nachos with salsa and refried beans.
Strangely enough, when I copied the above photos onto the media file, this song just added itself. I promise. I had nothing to do with it, but since it has to do with food, I’m letting it stay. I was just thinking I wish I had some chocolate as I used the last of mine on the popcorn above. Words to this song are by me. Music and performance by Christine Anfossie. Click on URL below to hear “Chocolate.”
Culinary Timing
We reached Corfu this morning and are now 8 hours ahead of my usual Central Standard Time in Mexico. This can wreak havoc with both maintaining contact with friends back home, sleep and appetite. This morning as I ate breakfast at what would have been midnight back home, I wrote a poem that had nothing to do with this subject. Unfortunately, I unthinkingly ripped it up and threw it away later after I used the same paper to record our scores for a dice game, so here is a substitute on the subject of what big time changes do to the psyche as well as the appetite.
Culinary Timing
I’m in trouble with reason. My time’s taken flight.
I don’t know the difference between day and night.
My head can accept we’re eight hours ahead,
though my body prefers to stay longer abed.
The diet they serve us now we’ve reached Corfu
agitates me with a troubling snafu.
When it’s breakfast time here, I am taken aback,
for my palate’s desirous of a midnight snack.
Time’s not in contention. I know I am wrong.
As they change the time, I should go along.
All day, it’s my stomach that keeps on resisting.
Shrimp cocktail? I’d rather they desist insisting.
Whatever they’re serving is not what I wish.
I’m ready for pancakes. They want to serve fish.
The meal I desire is not what they’re makin’.
They want to serve lobster when I prefer bacon.
I truly like visiting different places,
seeing strange sites and different faces.
Yet, I may give up traveling merely because
they cannot keep time the way that it was!
Words for today are agitate, diet, flight, contentious and trouble.
Ode to the Shipboard Buffet
Ode to the Shipboard Buffet
In the hierarchy of buffets, spaghetti is the king
no matter what competing dishes they may bring
to grace the laden, groaning boards: rich soups and shrimp and cheeses.
They advocate for salads, but somehow no Caesar pleases
half as much as pasta, well-laden with rich sauce:
ground beef, basil and parmesan, tinged with just a toss
of fennel and oregano. It simply has no peer.
We gobble it with cabernet, chianti or a beer.
We leave the smorgasbord serene, replete and full and sated.
Our emptiness has been fulfilled, our appetites abated.
No hunger pangs outlast thin noodles topped with smashed tomatoes.
Spaghetti beats out hamburgers and crisp French fried potatoes.
It beats out cured Virginia ham. It beats filet mignon.
It beats twice-baked potatoes and things put thereupon.
I’m sorely tempted by ice cream and pastries, cookies, tarts,
but such things aren’t exclusive of main courses that are starts.
A plate piled with spaghetti deserves a proper ending.
Just plan when loading up your plate. Dessert is also pending!
Words for the day are serene, advocate, hierarchy, outlast and spaghetti.
Addendum to the Strawberry Post
Once you’ve taken the center out of your strawberry with the soda straw, please don’t dispose of the straw. You can buy these tiny brushes especially created for cleaning out both small and large soda straws. If you already have plastic straws, use them to death. I’ve used the same dozen straws for over a year now. Soaked and brushed out in hot soapy water and rinsed, they are as sanitary as any other dishes you use over and over.
!
Gaaaaahrlic
Gaaaahrlic
I hate dealing with garlic! So, I’ve devoted a bit of research and a few dollars to resolving the problem and would like to show you my process for dealing with those little cloves more efficiently.
Click on first photo to set up slide series with explanatory notes. Continue hitting on the arrows to proceed through the series:
These two little devices have helped incredibly.
The other device is readily available in your kitchen no doubt. Put an entire bulb of garlic into a mixing bowl.
Put another bowl over the top and shake vigorously.
With larger juicier cloves, this process will separate the cloves and remove all the skin the skin, but with smaller cloves, the outer skin will detach
and leave you with cloves with the inner skin still attached
Put the cloves individually into the roller
and press down with the heel of your hand. Roll on hard surface, back and forth.
Cloves will be slipped out of their inner coats.
Roll the garlic mincer (available on the internet) over the clove.
Voila! minced garlic.
Hunters and Gatherers
Hunters and Gatherers
Each animal survives because of some unique ability.
The chipmunk gets along in life because of its nimbility.
It scampers over rocks and logs with speed and grace and pluck
to grab up errant picnic crumbs (on days when it’s in luck.)
Lions live by tooth and claw and speed to hunt their prey.
Cows just use their molars to masticate their hay.
Incisors furnish beavers with foliage and bark.
Raccoons have larger eyes than us for hunting in the dark.
If food in lofty places is what monkeys desire,
they can use prehensile thumbs to journey ever higher,
but an elephant’s long trunk can help him reach what he may please
obviating his necessity to climb up trees.
Humans , however, do not need trunks or speed or climbing.
They do not need agility or viciousness or timing.
They have no need to wait in hiding by some water hole.
They simply use their money to buy filet of sole!
Today’s prompt words are nimble, obviate, desire and money. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/rdp-monday-nimble/
FOWC with Fandango — Obviate
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/your-daily-word-prompt-desire-april-29-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/money/
How Spreading Fake News about Haile Selassie led Me to Ramar’s Incredible Green Chile Enchiladas
Oops.. I’m far away from home and find I don’t have the photo of Haile Selassie and me in my computer’s photo album, so I’ll just use the single photo of him above and describe the one I wanted to use. In the photo, I am standing next to Haile Selassie with one hand on his shoulder and the other one pressed against his chest. Below is the little vignette I wrote to go with the illustration with which I was going to introduce the recipe. Phew. I’ll run the photo when I get home. Someone remind me, please? In the meantime, I’ll team up his photo with one of Ramar’s Incredible Green Chile Enchiladas which, although it seems highly unlikely, do actually have a link to Haile Selassie. Intrigued? I’ll explain.
Spreading Fake News about Haile Selassie
When I was en route to Ethiopia the second time, this time flying back after a visit to my parents in the states, I stopped off in London to see my friend Deirdre, who’d been my roomie in Australia as well as my 5 month traveling companion between Australia and Ethiopia a few months before. While in London, we went to Madame Tussaud’s where she took a photo of me with Haile Selassie’s wax effigy. (photo unavailable but upcoming.)
A year and a half later when I moved back to the states, a reporter from the Cheyenne, Wyoming newspaper came to interview me about my adventures in the year leading up to and during the beginning of the revolution in Ethiopia. As she looked through my pictures to find one to go with the story, she picked up this photo and asked where it was taken. I told her Madame Tussaud’s and she asked if she could take it to run along with the story.
The next day, she called me back and said that her editor had requested that she once again ask where the picture of me with Haile Selassie had been taken. When I told her, she asked me just who this Madame Tussaud was and when I said that it was the name of a famous wax museum, she let out a long breath, “Oh, I thought it really was you and Haile Selassie.” When I asked if she hadn’t questioned why I’d have my arm around him and my hand on his chest, she said, ‘Yeah, that’s what we were wondering about.” And that’s how I avoided spreading fake news about Haile Selassie and me.
And this is the long way around explaining where I got this wonderful recipe. That reporter, Ramar Gorby, ended up becoming a good friend and it was she who first made this recipe and shared it with me.
To read recipe and see illustrations in a larger format,
Click on first photo and arrows.
12 scallions, cleaned and sliced into small slices, white and green parts both used. (You might not use them all, depending on your preference.)
1 lb. grated cheddar cheese.
2 1/2 lbs. chicken breasts with all fat removed.
Velvetize by cooking in chicken broth on top of stove. (Just the chicken. You’ll use the rest of the ingredients later.)
Combine and heat in a saucepan on stove: 1/2 cup of sour cream, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup (if you wish, substitute cream of chicken soup for one of the cans) and one 7 oz. can of Ortega diced green chiles.
Deep fry each of the 12 flour tortillas, one at a time. When bottom side begins to get golden, flip over and fry other side. If they bubble up, press down with tongs.
We don’t want this to happen!
Remove with tongs and hold over pan to allow excess oil to drain back into pan.
and draining fried tortillas
Cook remainder of tortillas, stacking all on end to drain.
Set dishwasher to work.
Put one tortilla on plate. Arrange chicken down the middle and top with sauce.
Sprinkle scallions over meat and sauce.
Top with grated cheddar.
Fill pan with enchiladas and if you wish, put a narrow stream of sauce down the middle of enchiladas and top with scallions, grated cheddar and black olives.
You can store covered in refrigerator and heat uncovered at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes to serve later.
Or, if you want to serve them immediately, place uncovered in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and enchiladas are golden.
Ramar’s Incredible Green Chile Enchiladas
*12 scallions, cleaned and sliced into small slices, white and green parts both used. (You might not use them all, depending on your preference.)
1 lb. medium or mild yellow cheddar, grated. (You probably won’t use it all.)
*2 1/2 lbs. chicken breasts with all fat removed. cut up into bite-sized pieces and velvetized in boiling chicken broth until totally white. Be sure pieces are totally white and tender.
*1 small can of diced black olives
Combine and heat in a saucepan on stove:
1/2 cup of sour cream
2 cans of cream of mushroom soup (if you wish, substitute cream of chicken soup for one of the cans)
1 can of Ortega sliced green chilis
*12 flour tortillas, deep fried in hot vegetable oil. If bubbles form, push down with tongs. When one side begins to turn golden, flip over and fry other side. When they begin to turn golden, hold over fat with tongs to allow excess oil to drip off , then stand on end over several layers of paper towels to drain. Blot off excess oil that collects at bottom.
Lay one tortilla on plate, spread a line of chicken down the middle. Cover with a line of the sour cream, soup, chile mixture, then scallions and cheese. Roll and put seam down in a large cake pan. Repeat until all tortillas are rolled and lined up in pan. If you wish, drizzle a line of the sauce down the middle of the enchiladas and sprinkle cheese, green onions and sliced black olives on top of it. Put in uncovered in pan in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted. If more time is needed before serving, turn oven down to 150 degrees.
May be made ahead and stored covered in refrigerator. To finish, preheat the oven to 350°F, uncover the enchiladas and place in the oven while still cold and bake until the cheese is melted and the centers are warm, about 20 to 30 minutes.
Leftovers are good warmed up individually in a skillet with a little oil, turning so all sides brown. I also like them cold.
Enjoy.
Pied Beauty II
Today’s prompt being “spoof,” I decided to resurrect this parody of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty,” one of my first blogs ever back in 2014:
Pied Beauty II
Thanks be to Sara Lee for appled things—
For pies, for apple fritters and for thin-rolled strudel crust;
For pastries of the fruit of Eve and sauce it swims within;
Fresh-cooked in ovens, how their sweet juice sings;
The sugar clotted and pierced— place it on plate we must;
And all taste, for how can tackling it be such a sin?
All things made of flour and Crisco and of apples sweet;
(How can they by nutritionists be so sorely cussed
With words professing they won’t make us thin?)
With their tart flavor are sure our lips to meet;
And meet again.
—Judy Dykstra-Brown
And now, the original:
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Ragtag prompt is spoof.
“Since You Asked” The Recipe for the Best Sandwich in the World
Okay, since I’m cooking this, I can guarantee four things.
1. It will be as easy as possible.
2. It will be flavorful.
3. It will be cooked in a crock pot.
4. It will feed a party of 8, at the very least.
Ingredients:
4 or 5 large stalks celery
One pork loin or tenderloin
4 or 5 scrubbed potatoes, skin on. (If you wish, you can omit the potatoes.)
4 or 5 whole scrubbed carrots with each end cut off. (If you wish, you can omit the carrots.)
1 medium-sized onion, diced
Garlic powder
Kirkland 21 herb saltless dry seasoning mix
Pepper
KC Masterpiece Kettle Cooked Barbecue Sauce
Shredded cabbage (I buy already shredded.)
Shredded carrots (I buy already shredded)
Balsamic vinaigrette
Sweet Chili Sauce (in oriental seasoning aisle)
Bolillos or other large dense rolls. Ciabatta would work, or French rolls.
Method:
Wash and cut the ends off the celery. Place in the bottom of the crockpot to form a “rack” to cushion the bottom of the pork loin. Rub the pork loin with the garlic powder. seasoning mix and pepper and place over the celery. Sprinkle the onions on top, reserving a few.
Place the carrots and potatoes around and on top of the meat and sprinkle the rest of the diced onion over the top. Sprinkle with the seasoning mix, garlic and pepper.
I use a rectangular crockpot with a removable cooking receptacle. If you are using a regular round crockpot whose receptacle can’t be put on the stovetop, there is no need to brown the meat and veggies first as is described below. Just put everything in the crockpot on high, then reduce to medium after it is well heated.
If you have a crockpot with a removable pot that can be placed on the stove top, place lid on crockpot and put on top burner of stove . In a few minutes, when you can hear contents begin to sizzle, turn to medium and allow to cook until well heated, then place on heating unit of crock pot. Turn to medium and allow to cook until potatoes and carrots are tender and meat can be shredded with a fork.
Remove potatoes, onions and celery and place pork on a cutting board. Shred and then cut shredded pork into into 1 to 2 inch portions. Or, slice into 1 to 2 inch slices and then shred. Place back in crock pot covered with bottled barbecue sauce to taste. I use KC Masterpiece Kettle Cooked Barbecue Sauce and use quite a bit as I like my barbecue zesty.
Put carrots and potatoes in the fridge to be reheated as a side dish. I add them to give moisture to the meat and because they pick up the flavor of the pork and can be used on their own as part of a different meal or to accompany the heated up pork that isn’t made into sandwiches. Cook the meat for another hour or two until well blended, then store in refrigerator.
I think barbecue has a better flavor cold or at room temperature, so I cool it off in the fridge, but if you prefer it hot, you could make the sandwiches immediately or reheat the meat before making sandwiches.
Cut the shredded cabbage and carrots into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces and mix. Combine balsamic vinaigrette and sweet chili sauce to taste. I use 1/3 portion of chili sauce to 1 portion of vinaigrette. Pour over slaw mixture and blend well so the cabbage and carrots are well-coated but not soggy.
To make sandwiches, cut bolillos or long buns in half lengthwise and remove some of the soft interior of the top part of the bun. Butter the inside sides of the bun and place on a warm griddle or frying pan. Press down with something weighted to insure all surfaces touch the griddle and allow to brown.
Spread a generous portion of the barbecue pork over the bottom of the bun, top with the oriental coleslaw mixture, Put top of bun on top and enjoy. The mixture of hot and cold, soft and crisp, sweet and vinegar is to die for. Hope you agree. Let me know what you think.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 