Potato Enchiladas

One of my family's favorite "special occasion" foods is my grandma's potato enchiladas. Truth be told, they are about as "poor man's food" as you can get, but they are delicious. A few years ago, after Grandma Mary died, I got a wild hair up my butt to make these for our Christmas Eve celebration. They were a big hit, and Jay and I have been making them every Christmas Eve since.

I tried to get to the bottom of where the recipe came from, as it seems that only my family (and friends we have introduced them to) have ever eaten them. The consensus is that it came from either Grandma Mary or her mother, Great-grandma Claudia, in trying to feed all of the mouths in the family. They are made of ingredients that were cheap and readily available. The most expensive ingredient in the dish was/is the cheese, which back then came from the "commodities people" (a.k.a. the food pantry).

However, despite the recipe being invented out of necessity, it is a family favorite and I'm glad Grandma Mary taught me how to make them. Jay and I have cleaned up the recipe a bit, to make it a touch healthier, while maintaining the same flavors as the original.

Ingredients:

• 3 dozen flour tortillas (Grandma, of course, made hers from scratch, but I'm lazy)
• 5# potatoes (we use russet, but it doesn't matter which you use)
• 1 yellow onion, diced (optional)
• 1 c. peas (we use frozen, Grandma used canned)
• shredded cheese
• garlic olive oil
• vegetable oil
• chili powder
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• salt
• pepper 

Directions:

Dice potatoes, coat with garlic olive oil, toss with salt and pepper, then spread on baking sheets and roast in a 400*F oven until cooked through, about 40 minutes.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large pan. Add roasted potatoes, peas, and chili powder paste (see below). Cook for just a couple of minutes, until peas are thawed.

Make a paste of chili powder, garlic powder, and onion powder. I have no idea of the measurements (remember, this was a recipe handed down from my Mexican grandmother, who measured things by guess and by golly), but it's about a 4:1:1 ratio of chili powder to garlic and onion powders. Add enough water to make a paste.

Dunk a tortilla into the paste, coating both sides, and quick-fry in a hot skillet with vegetable oil (Grandma used lard), drain on a paper towel-lined plate.

Fill tortillas with potato mixture, shredded cheese, and raw diced onion (if desired). Roll and place in baking dishes. Thin chili powder paste with water to use as a sauce to pour over the rolled enchiladas. Cover with shredded cheese and bake in 350*F oven for 15-20 minutes.

Look at the mess on the stove from quick-frying and cry, then begin to clean. You have just enough time to clean the mess while the enchiladas are baking.

I Got A Craving...

Let's just get this out of the way - *cough* Mr Daddy *cough* - I am NOT pregnant.

But I am a breasted American, of the vaginated variety.  (It was pointed out to me at the range one day that there are a lot of breasted Americans of penised variety, hence the clarification.)

And being a breasted American of the vaginated variety, I get cravings.  And ain't nothing right in *anyone's* world when a woman gets a craving.

I needed popcorn.

But not any old popcorn.

Nope.

Remember back in the day when KMart had a snack counter and you could go buy ice cream, slurpies, and popcorn?

I wanted *that* popcorn.  The old, chewy stale stuff.

I tried.  Oh, I tried buying some good popcorn from the store, but that didn't do it.  I HAD to have KMart popcorn.

I hounded and hounded Jay for a couple of days and finally, we went to KMart yesterday.  The snack counter is long gone, but I was hopeful they still had popcorn.

And they did!

Unfortunately, they only had two sizes; the small size wouldn't have lasted the drive out of the parking lot.  However, the big size...

I'm pretty certain that Jay's banking on me being so sick of popcorn by the time this is finished that I'll never look at another kernel again.

Hey, Mom and Bill - guess what we're bringing for Thanksgiving dinner?

Taco Beans

It's been a while since I've done a food memory.  Like, over a year, I think.

Last week, groceries were a little "lean" in our house and so RCC had do scrounge something up for dinner for himself. 

Sidenote: don't you think Chopped would be so much better if the chefs had to cook out of a typical end-of-the-month cupboard?  You know, half a loaf of bread, moldy cheese, milk that's not quite bad, and a cupboard full of stuff that still in there because no one likes to eat it?  Not *that* would make a good show!

Anyway, he made himself some canned refried beans with spices in it and ate them with cold corn tortillas.  He made a joke about it on Facebook, saying he was eatin' like a poor man.  But when I came home and saw the beans he made and smelled the cumin, I knew I had to make some Taco Beans.

It took me a couple of days to get around to it, but I finally had my taco beans (alternatively called bean tacos or fried bean tacos, depending on who in the family you're talking to) today for lunch.  Truly, a poor man's lunch, but fabulous.  Grandma Mary used to make us taco beans when the larder was bare.  We always had beans and tortillas and spices, so we could always make taco beans.  I don't think she necessarily loved them, because she told me that Little Lita (her mom) would always make them when the beans went sour, just so they could get another day's meal out of them.

She may not have loved them, but they rank right up there with fried tacos for me.  And fried tacos are pretty much my all-time favorite Grandma Mary food on the planet. Top three Grandma Mary foods:

1. Fried Tacos
2. Taco Beans
3. Potato Enchiladas

The thing is, with the exception of fried tacos, they're pretty much poor man's meals and I love them.  I've been craving Taco Beans since RCC made his bean thing, so when I came home from work for lunch I broke out Grandma's molcajete and went to work.

If you're interested, here's the recipe.  It's quick and easy and you can feed a fair number of people (remember, it's poor man's food).

• garlic
• chili powder
• cumin
• onion powder
• pinto beans (already cooked or canned)
• tortillas
• lard
• cheese
• onion

Grind up the garlic, chili powder, cumin, and onion powder in the molcajete until it's a paste.  Add the beans and continue to mash/mix.  Season to taste.  I like my beans to take on a red hue from the chili powder and the cumin.

Once the beans and paste are well mixed, spread on one half of a tortilla with the back of the spoon, no more than 1/4" thick and fold in half.

In a skillet, heat the lard until hot enough to fry (about 1/4" or less should coat the pan).  Place the "tacos" in the hot lard.  Flip once to cook evenly on both sides.  It should take a minute or less on each side to cook through.

Remove from the skillet and drain on paper towels.  Gingerly pry open the tacos to add shredded cheese and chopped onion.

It's probably not the best thing on the planet to eat, but it's a whole heap healthier than a Big Mac, I'm sure.  I'm a big fan of lard, I make no apologies for it.  I don't cook with it often, but there are some dishes that *have* to be made with it.  If you wanted to make this a more healthy meal, I suppose you could substitute olive oil or something, but it won't taste as good.  But then, if you've never had taco beans, you wouldn't know the difference between cooking them in lard or olive oil.

My belly's happy and I've got a smile on my face - Grandma Mary may be gone, but I can still enjoy the memories of cooking my favorite foods with her.

What are your favorite comfort foods or food memories?

Baking Weekend, Day One

Well, Day One actually started last night with Jay whipping up a couple quick batches of flour-less chocolate cake for his favorite customers on his route.  He used my step-dad's mother's old crank handmixer until his arms gave out, then he had to change to the electric handmixer.  Using the crank handmixer would have taken far too much effort for me, I would have just by-passed it in favor of the modern, easy-to-use, plug in style to begin with.  While Jay's cakes baked, I whipped up four batches of Magic Window Cookies dough.  The dough has to chill for at least an hour before use, and I figured it wouldn't hurt it to sit over-night.

This is my parent's breakfast table, which seats twelve adults, when I started this morning.  I began the morning with two double batches of chocolate chip toffee cookies while I waited for the best part of Baking Weekend to arrive - my girls!  Baking Weekend started out as Baking Day twelve years ago and has evolved into a two day bake fest.  Baking Weekend has seen us through break-ups, marriages, and babies.  It's the only weekend that we can guarantee that we'll all be together, even if it's only for a few hours one day.  Back before the marriages and babies, it truly was girls' weekend, but with family comes obligations.

Two hours into Day One, we were starting to see some progress...

Neiman Marcus cookies joined the chocolate chip toffee cookies, along with some M&M cookies and we kept trucking.

Jay's mom and sister joined in the festivities this year.  They came up to see "what it's all about" and got put to work.  Next year, they'll bring their own recipes and to-do list.  It seems like everyone's first year is kind of an "observation", then they get into the spirit and join in full throttle the following year.

This is the table after about four hours; I didn't get to take a picture of the full table - I just wasn't fast enough before the girls had to pack up to leave.  But imagine that the entire right side of the table is full of candy cane cookies.  More than half of the cookies left with the girls for their cookie platters or boxes, whatever they'll make with them.  Tomorrow, my sister and her crew is coming up and we'll knock out another six batches of Magic Window Cookies and bourbon balls and whatever else we feel like.

Right now, though, my feet hurt, my back hurts and I'm exhausted.  And I can't wait to do it all over again tomorrow.

Bits 'n Pieces

First, it's freakin' cold here.  I remember winters like this when I was a kid, you know, when October hits the snow flies.  I remember Hallowe'en costumes being made to be worn over our winter coats.  No cute little ballerinas for the Colorado Kiddos.  But, honestly, I've gotten spoiled since childhood.  We've not had bad, snowy weather on Hallowe'en for a long time.  And it's not even Hallowe'en yet.  We've got weeks to go before then.  Being Colorado, it can be in the 70s come All Hallows Eve or it could be 7.  You just never know.  Neither do the weather professionals.

Jay and I watch a lot of cooking competitions now:  Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen, The Next Iron Chef and Chopped.  Our schedule revolves around those three shows.  There are others, of course.  Ash is a big fan of Food Network's cooking challenges.  One of the most common contests in these shows is to do a "biography of your life in food"; we see that over and over again.  Or, the variation, "make a favorite dish from your childhood."  Always, I'm stumped,  I couldn't just choose one favorite dish.  That was, until last night.  I really, really wanted some of Grandma Mary's fried tacos so I went to the store and bought the makings.  As I was making them, in all of their simple, fried glory, I realized that those tacos would be what I'd have to make for such a challenge.  Since it is a cooking challenge, I'd have to fancy it up a bit, I suppose.  Do something like make my own corn masa tortillas and use ground kobe beef (please don't gasp at the thought of grinding up kobe beef - it's okay) or something.  But the one thing, the absolute one thing that I would not give up...the lard.  The lard makes the dish.  Just can't fry Grandma's tacos in Crisco or vegetable oil.  It's not right. 

So as I was frying up the tacos last night, I was reminded of my all-time favorite meal EVER!  My all-time, very favorite, has-not-been-matched-since (sorry Jay) meal...drum roll please... the fried tacos we had in Mexico when we went to the tortilla factory, got fresh tortillas, made up the tacos in the condo and cut up and fried the remainder of the tortillas as chips to eat our fresh guacamole with.  Yum.  Just the smell of the frying tacos last night transported me back to that condo.  I guess that's what the judges mean when they are asking for a "food memory".

On another note, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time and was a little worried about my ability to write 50,000 words in just 30 days.  Last night, I worked on my Tales from the Trail post and in just under an hour and a half had completed a post of 1,400+ words.  That hour and a half included editing and formatting, not the stream-of-conscious writing that I'll have to do for NaNoWriMo.  As long as I have at least an hour and a half a day of seat time with my computer, I should do just fine.  I hope.  I did get Jay and Jordan to join me in the NaNo challenge, so it's kind of a family thing right now.  Wish us all luck.