Friday Food: Eggs and White Meat on Repeat

Last time A. went to the grocery store for me, he came home with chicken and pork, but no beef. We're anticipating a whole cow in our freezer by the end of the month, but in the meantime, it's all white meat, all the time. And eggs, thanks to the preschool teacher's chickens.

Friday

Short version: Pork chops, rice, green salad

Long version: Second dinner in the new house, and I still hadn't mastered the stove. When the burners light, they explode into a bright yellow flame that will scorch the bottom of the pot. If I don't turn it down veeeerrry carefully, the burner goes out. And then I can't restart it for awhile without using a match. Tricky. Very tricky.

On the upside, this stove--a brand I've never even heard of called a Holiday--has nothing on it that can break. It has five knobs for the four burners and the oven, and that is it. Not even a light in the oven. No digital touchpads for the Holiday. No sir.

As A. likes to drolly proclaim, every day is a Holiday in my kitchen. Ahem.

And here we have Cubby stoically enduring our holiday (geddit?) oddysey to Arizona. 

Saturday

Short version: Chicken tacos, pinto beans

Long version: I have now perfected the order of making this meal. First thing in the morning I start the chicken simmering in water with onion, carrot, celery, and a bay leaf. I also wash and let the beans come to a boil and then let them soak for two hours while the chicken cooks. By the time the beans are done soaking, the chicken is done cooking. I pull the chicken out and strain the stock, which I then add to the drained beans along with half a sauteed onion and garlic, juice from a can of whole tomatoes, and cumin and chili powder. The other half of the onion is used for the chicken mixture, made from the shredded chicken, onion, garlic, and some of the whole tomatoes chopped up, plus more cumin and chili powder.

It's really good, if somewhat labor intensive.

Sunday

Short version: Egg scramble with bacon, feta, bell pepper, and onion for me and A., grilled cheese for the boys, leftover pinto beans, and a green salad

Long version: Man, I love feta in eggs. So salty and good. The boys do not agree. That's why they had grilled cheese. Their loss.

Monday

Short version: Pork chops, mashed potatoes, green peas, curried squash soup

Long version: I cooked another one of the three large "ornamental" pumpkins that A. had bought at Walmart just before Halloween. The first one of these that I cooked was delicious. This one was . . . not. It was quite watery and bland.

Nevertheless, it is cooked squash. It just needs a lot of help, flavor-wise. Curry to the rescue!

To make the soup, I just sauteed onion in coconut oil, added the curry powder to fry for a bit, dumped in a bunch of the chicken stock left from making the chicken tacos, and stirred in the bland squash. Then I added a lot of salt and a tiny bit of sugar. It was pretty good. Cubby, who loves curried anything, had three bowls. The only one who didn't eat it was Charlie. He does not love curried anything.

Tuesday

Short version: Sausage and potato skillet, Miss Amelia's frijoles, green salad

Long version: The chicken I had planned on for dinner was unfortunately frozen in a large solid block that stood no chance of thawing before dinner. We had to go to the bank in the village, though, so we also went to the tiny grocery and I surveyed my meat options. They were very limited.

In the end, I got two packages of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage. I sliced it, browned it, took it out and cooked some diced onions, then added a bunch of sliced potatoes and chicken stock and cooked it all together until the potatoes were soft. I told Charlie we were having sausage for dinner. He took one bite and said accusingly, "This isn't sausage. It's hot dogs."

He had a point. It did taste exactly like hot dogs. Which he does not like. Sorry, Charlie. Have some more potatoes.

Miss Amelia is an elderly lady who lives about half a mile away from us. A. stopped by her house yesterday with Jack to see if she needed more firewood, and she sent him home with a bag of (storebought) cookies and a jar of frijoles. Miss Amelia is a traditional New Mexican cook of the purest order, and I'm pretty sure these beans were not much more than pinto beans and salt.

A. peeked in the pot and noted there was a potato in with the beans. Miss Amelia said she always cooks a whole potato with the beans. She says it helps with the, ahem, digestive issues related to beans. I think maybe it just makes for a starchier, creamier pot of beans, but whatever. They were still hot when A. brought them home, and I kept sneaking spoonfuls as I was cooking the rest of dinner.

Cubby, who loves beans almost as much as I do, ate three helpings. He would have eaten more if I hadn't feared for his digestion (and the air quality of his classroom the next day) and stopped him.

Miss Amelia also makes her own flour tortillas. I suspect that if I ever get the chance to eat both her tortillas and her frijoles at the same time, I will find New Mexican culinary nirvana.

Wednesday

Short version: Collaborative paella con pollo, green salad

Long version: So. A. grew some saffron. Why not, right? I mean, doesn't everyone decide to try to grow one of the rarest spices in the world in their backyard?

Of course not. But A. did. He wanted to see if saffron crocuses would grow here, so he ordered some bulbs and planted them at our rental house. They duly came up and bloomed, and then A. carefully harvested the threads with tweezers, dried them, and aged them for about a month. At this point he announced that the tablespoon or so of saffron he had collected before the cold weather ended the harvest was ready to be used.

I've never cooked with saffron before, but of course the most well-known use for saffron is in Spanish paella. And I just happen to have a Spanish cookbook I purchased many years ago during our trip to Spain.

The recipe for paella in it is complicated and included many ingredients--such as squid--that I did not have. So I sort of used the method, but also used the ingredients I had.

One that I had was freshly ground paprika, courtesy of the MiL. She had grown paprika peppers in her garden this past summer specifically for Charlie the paprika lover. She ended up with about half a dozen peppers, which she dried and sent to me. I ground them up in the food processor and used them in this paella. Paella is supposed to have smoked Spanish paprika in it, but I figured fresh sweet paprika would be good too.

As I was beginning my preparations--toasting two whole cloves of garlic and a bay leaf in olive oil--A. came in the kitchen and asked if I was making paella. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he jumped up and exclaimed, "But you didn't soak the saffron yet!"

Well, no. Janet Mandel didn't instruct me to. But A. did. Apparently, everything he read online about saffron said that soaking it in warm water first intensified the flavor and allowed one to use less saffron. My recipe said to use half a teaspoon of saffron. A. put 16 threads--we counted--in warm water to soak while I did everything else.

"Everything else" included browning chicken pieces. I also covered the pan and mostly cooked them all the way during this step, as I knew the big bone-in pieces I had would never cook in the same amount of time as the rice.

After the chicken was browned, I cooked the diced onion and chopped bell pepper, plus a couple of chopped tomatoes. Then the rice--basmati, which is not the right kind at all but is all I have--went in to fry in the oil for a bit. I also added a bit of dry vermouth.

Next I added a clove of raw garlic, salt, the paprika, and the soaked saffron threads to the two toasted garlic cloves and the bay leaf and pureed it all in the food processor. This was added to the rice, along with chicken stock. When the rice was simmering, I put the chicken pieces on top, covered it, and cooked it until the rice was done.

Verdict: Everyone liked it. The saffron was noticeable, but could have been a more pronounced flavor. Next time I'll use more. Also next time, I'll only make it when I have really good meat. The recipe is kind of a pain in the ass and would be more worth it to me with good meat. It was fine with super-cheap chicken, but it would be excellent with really good chicken or rabbit next time Cubby shoots one.

Even cheap chicken is exciting for this girl. Especially when she can double-fist it.

Thursday

Short version: Smorgasbord, Miss Amelia's green chili soup

Long version: Leftover chicken, sausage, pork chop, mashed potatoes, sliced potatoes, pureed squash, and paella rice=choose your own adventure. Plus some steamed broccoli.

Miss Amelia called in the afternoon to let us know she had an envelope for us to drop in the offering basket for her at church on Sunday. I thanked her for the beans. She said she wished she had had some red chili to send as well. I told her we still have trouble eating the chilis here, though she said she doesn't like things really hot and makes her chili mild.

I'm still skeptical that anyone native to New Mexico has the same definition of mild that I do, but when she told me she had "a bowl of green chili" for us, I expressed great delight and anticipation at the prospect, of course.

When Cubby got home from school, I sent him right over to Miss Amelia's house on his bike. He came home with the envelope, a bag of (storebought) gingerbread men cookies (I'm seeing a theme), and a jar of green chili soup. It had ground beef, potatoes, and carrots in it, too, and it was the perfect addition to our meal of leftovers because it was NOT HOT, ALLELUIA. There was just a slight heat as an aftertaste, but even I could eat it.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?