Recipe: Echiladas

A friend was decluttering, and gave me a giant stack of Cooking Light magazines - maybe 4 years worth. So many that at least half of them are still stacked in my office at work. From the stack that has already come home, I was intrigued by this recipe from 2006.

I don't actually know much about enchiladas. I've never made them, I don't generally order them in restaurants, though apparently our fav place has good ones. But for some reason, I got weirdly fixated on the idea of making a pan of enchiladas.

I kept running out of this and that, and, happily, kept getting invited out to dinner, which I never turn down. But last night, having fed the kid his requested pasta, I decided to go ahead. We had 2 tortilla. We had a rotisserie chicken that was passing its prime. So, inspired by Cooking Light, I present:

Half-Assed Enchiladas

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Heat your cast-iron skillet, and squirt it with cooking spray. Cook a huge sliced onion for 5 minutes or more, until tender.

Add some cooked chicken, a couple cloves of chopped garlic, a small can of tomatoes, with their juice, and chilis.

The chilis are important. I had one can of pickled jalapenos, that looked like this:

they are tasty. They are HOT. This can is 11 oz; the recipe calls for 8 ounces. As you can guess, I used the whole can.

I recommend you use less than 11 oz of chilis.

Anyway, turn the heat down a little and simmer about 10 minutes.

Combine 2 cups milk and 2 tablespoons flour in a small pot with a little salt. Cook over medium-high heat about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. You're waitning for it to thicken, and it seems like it never will, but then all of a sudden it does. Take off the pan off the heat.

Lay a 8-inch tortilla on a plate. Spoon some of the chicken/onion/tomato/jalapeno stuff done the middle, add some shredded cheese (not much - a medium sprinkle.) You'll end up with 6 of these.

Roll each tortilla and line them up, flappy side down, in a baking dish. (if you only have 2 tortillas, like I did last night. you can use a pie pan.) Pour the milk mixture over tortilla lineup (you won't need it all if all you have is a pie pan.) Drop more shredded cheese over the top of everything, covering evenly. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or more - until cheese is bubbly.

If the cheese isn't brown after 25 minutes, you can run these under the broiler for 2 minutes or so.

These were really really good. I was shocked, they were so good. They were sinus-clearingly spicy, and next time I make them, I believe I will use the recommended 8 oz. But we ate every bite and are anxious to make them again. Eric declared them "as good as anything I've had in a restaurant." So, half-assed pantry enchiladas for the Epic Win.

The political trail may be littered with mud, lies, shouting, and personal attacks — but the polling place is sacrosanct. Here, we come to do our patriotic duty and exercise our precious right to vote. We don't come to argue, debate, or demean one another. Here, in hushed tones, we outdo one another in showing honor."

CANDACE CHELLEW-HODGE, Polling Place as Sacred Ground, posted on Religion Dispatches

God bless the election. (And God bless the election judges, on their feet for 12 hours and more, welcoming, helping, protecting, making sure. Polls here close at 8pm.

A Fabulous Story about my Glamorous Life in Vocational Ministry in which I am shown in the Best Possible Light.

So, picture this scene. I'm at work, which is to say, church, on Wednesday afternoon. I'm just about on time to get out of the office and go pick up my kid, and as I run out the door and hop into the car, my phone rings in my back pocket.

I wriggle around, contorting to answer the phone. It's my husband. He has phoned me up to ask if I know where our duct tape is. Toolbox? Kitchen junk drawer? (His guess, as always, is as good as mine.)

Since I don't have much confidence in our ability to find what we need at the apartment, I slip back into the church building to borrow a roll of tape. It's in the sound booth, at the back of the sanctuary.

As I walk through the building to the booth, I continue the phone conversation with my husband. He told me why he needed the tape. As it turns out, a day or so earlier, my husband got himself a new prop for a magic effect. It is something handcrafted, rather technical, quite expensive, and terribly terribly delicate.

yes, indeed, it broke.

Joining him in his stress and irritation, I asked him a rhetorical question.

If you had overheard my side of the conversation, it would have sounded something like this:

"Umm hmmmmmm...

Ummm hmmmmmmm.... (punctuated with the slamming of cabinet doors and drawers as I search for tape in the booth.)

Really?

REALLY? Are you kidding me? And just what sort of fucking cheapass piece of shit is this, that breaks the very first fucking time one fucking rehearses with it?"


and it was then that I heard voices. Quiet, polite voices.

Prayerful voices.

Yes indeed, I was banging doors and snarling profanities into my phone while two people were holding a counseling appointment in the sanctuary. I didn't see them, and they didn't see me.

They certainly did hear me.


I stayed long enough to apologize to the boss. He, of course, thought nothing of it, and was very gracious, as he always is.

But dude.

"For Halloween, I'm going to be a skeleton, except with spider legs, a lizardman tail, and the speed of wolves. And teeth."

Ian's now showing his anteater to androgynous emo kid (skinny jeans, converse, dyed black shag.) He's making it talk to him/her. And expecting a response.

Ian to stoner teens at the playground: "I have a Batmobile and an anteater. I also have a Spiderman comic with Doc Oc and of course his greatest enemy, Sandman"

recipe: pumpkin cookies!

I made these pumpkin cookies last night. They are kind of weird - they have a texture unlike any other cookie I've ever made. They're soft and fluffy, only a tiny bit chewy around the edges, but very smooth. Someone on allrecipes compared them to muffintops, but they don't rise or have a bubbly crumb.

I added quite a lot of spices - ground cloves and ginger,allspice. Next time I make them (and I have most of a can of pumpkin left, so I imagine it won't be long) I think I'll try adding some fresh ginger and some walnuts. I'll report back.

What I Did This Week.

upholstery -the after picture!
Originally uploaded by funky fat girl

I know I haven't been posting much lately. We're all moved in, though, tragically, not quite all moved out yet. We have about 2 weeks.

I do have a couple of accomplishments - 3 of these chairs, to start with. I re-covered the icky stained beige fabric seats on these chairs - you can see one to the left, with my staple gun on it - and I am so pleased with the way they came out, I can hardly contain myself. I want to carry photos of them in my wallet and show them to strangers.

I had planned to use a solid red twill on the seats; they would have played off the painted twine seats on the two ladderback chairs that I finished back in 1992, our first year in our old house. The ladderback chairs look really great in our new apartment, so I thought I'd continue the theme.

But when I got to the fabric store, this riotous print jumped into the cart and wouldn't get out. Hmmm, I thought, it has yellow - and the table and wall are pale yellow. (As you can see in the photo.) It has pale blue..and the walls in the kitchen are pale blue! Plus it has red! Plus...well, I mean, just look at it. On the bolt, it's obviously either a stroke of genius or an unmitigated disaster,

You may not believe this, but it was quite weird for me, unusually daring, to pick the print.

You know what else I did yesterday? I bought a dress.

And I wore it to work today.

okay, enough with the suspense - we are moving. Across town.

We are in the midst of giving away about 50% of the stuff in our house. The Salvation Army is planning a new drop-off center just for us.

here's me

created by internet champion Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half.

my adventure is apparently coming in stages. This stage involves faxes and garbage bags.

Lots of faxes.

and LOTS of garbage bags.

Dinner tonight - sweet potato soup.

Seriously, this came out really really good.

Cut the ends off a peeled Vidalia onion. Quarter it and then roughly chop it.
Peel a pretty big chunk - about the size of two thumbs - of ginger. Chop that.

Heat a cast iron skillet, film it generously with olive oil, and drop in the onion and ginger. Add a couple tablespoons of good curry powder (mine was hot) and turn the heat down to about 7. Give it a good stir.

Peel and chop 2 large sweet potatoes. (Take a break in the middle to stir the onion mixture so it doesn't burn.) Drop the potato chunks into the pan, stir everything together, let it cook for about a minute. Pour water into the pan, enough to mostly cover the vegetation, and cover the pan.

Leave it alone, boiling insanely, for a few minute. Even if the cover's tight, some steam will escape, so check back and make sure it doesn't boil dry. The stuff is ready when the potatoes pierce easily with a table fork.

Scrape the stuff from the pan into a food processor, and puree until very smooth.

Transfer to a saucepan, and warm gently, stirring in some skim milk. Perhaps some butter or salt. Or more curry powder, if you were timid before.

This will look troublingly like Jell-o brand instant butterscotch pudding. And it's a little washing-up intensive, with 2 pans, plus the processor, not to mention various knives/blades/boards/turner/ladle. But it's super, super fast, nutritious, and really delicious.


edited to add: here I had posted an extremely festive picture of some butterscotch pudding, which had been featured on the cover of the 1958-or-so cookbook, Gay Ways with Jell-O. But it isn't staying put. The Jell-O people must be having copyright issues. So sorry.

I've got issues.

I wanted to spiff up the place, but recent "improvements" to Blogger have given me the choice of 'plain ugly' (which I have settled on for the moment) and "way way way too distractingly busy ugly" (which has been my theme for the past month or so, until tonight.)

I need to figure out how to get my old template back.

Thanks for your patience.

Today is my first Godchild's birthday. Not her first birthday, which I celebrated with her. Her 17th birthday, which I celebrated 'with' her via Facebook.

Tomorrow is my blogiversary, which I celebrated by starting yet another blog. I guess, counting
my 2 LiveJournal starter blogs, Funky Fat Girl and Life With Sticky
my blogger blogs, this one, The Mulligan Years (On which i have not posted in more than a year and yet I keep thinking it's still a real blog), our "Christmas Newsletter" blog to which we post less than once a year, and now my hipster sell-out product recommendation blog, Extra-Fabulous...okay, seriously, why aren't I more famous?

Anyway, Happy 7th Blogiversary to me. And to you. Thanks for reading.

Hello?

we should just quit now while we're ahead.

Ian said this morning:
"Watching shows is boring. DOING shows is fun."

Dinner Tonight: beans and cornbread in the crock pot

So we have this great crock pot, right? Actually, we have 2; for years, we've had a 1970 harvest gold one that belonged to Eric's family, and it still works fine.

But more recently, a friend of mine was upgrading to a more technical crock, and he gave me his excellent cooker. It looks like this:

(Well, said another friend, if you're ever called upon to make curry in a duck blind, or a tree stand, you're totally ready. )

Anyway, I made some really good beans tonight, and I wanted to tell you how to make them. I based them on a recipe in a magazine, and they're quite related to this recipe, but of course I had to do my own thing.

Place in slow cooker:
2 vidalia onions, sliced thin
2 peppers (I had a red and a yellow), sliced thin
Open a large can of beans (mine were Goya pink beans, 19+ oz) and rinse them really well, God only knows what that stuff in the can is. Add the beans to the pot.
Season with: 1 teaspoon cumin,
3 Tablespoons hot sauce,
as much leftover salsa as you have sitting around in jars in the back of the fridge,
frozen corn kernels (up to a whole bag),
2 Tablespoons brown sugar. Stir everything together and cook on low for 4-6 hours (or more.)

When you get home, check on the beans. Taste to adjust the seasonings - I added a splatter of ketchup and a small can of black beans. I also threw in a couple handfuls of greens. Stir. Turn the cooker up to high.

Now, mix up a batch of cornbread batter. I used Betty Crocker mix, which I picked because it didn't have trans fats.

While the batter thickens, sprinkle some shredded cheese on top of the beans. Then pour the batter on top of everything, spread it around, and cover the cooker. Cook on high until the cornbread bakes - it won't get fluffy, more like spoon bread than baked or skillet-ed cornbread - but it will solidify so that a knife poked into the center will come out mostly clean.

Not a low calorie meal, but meatless and very very satisfying. We loved it. I don't think I would have missed the cheese if I had skipped it, so no cheese next time.

DUDE DUDE DUDE more random thoughts

1. hey, my uterus - seriously, wtf?

2. One of my goddaughters has announced that, as regards the Twilight Saga, she is "Team Guy Who Tried To Run Over Bella With His Car." I say, go Maeghan.

3. I think "Your Baby Can Read" products would more honestly be called "YOUR Baby Can't Read, because of your cheapass Parenting FAIL, so SEND US MONEY resistance is futile give the fuck up already." To which I reply: Never!

4. Last Airbender cartoon FTW. Voice work, animation, art, story - all terrific.
That fact becomes even clearer as I watch Dragonball Z Kai for the first time. Lord, this is undefendible crap. Worse than Pokemon.

5. Ian ran into the kitchen this morning as Eric and I were having lunch.
Ian: Can I have the fighting, attacking Zhu Zhu Pets?
Me: Like the battling armored Kung Zhu hamsters?
Ian: YEAH!!
Eric: Maybe.
Me: Yeah, we'll see.
Ian: I want the one that's part of an angry mob.
Me: Pardon me?
Ian: The angry mob one. It has a pitchfork.

6. It's 8:30. Perhaps we should eat dinner.

EDITED AT ADD: Incidentally, taking a big plastic cup of shiraz to the playground = WIN.

100% guaranteed true

Ian: When i close my eyes, all I can see is the dark.

Me: yep, that's to be expected.

Ian:....the dark, and the Crab and Lobster Army.

Mumford and Sons - Roll Away Your Stone