K Pasa !?

Retro Casserole: Fact or Fiction?

Thu, 13 Nov 2003 20:12:45 GMT

It’s sort of hard to find inspiration for blogging when you’re mired in domestic tedium. I don’t delude myself that anyone is going to find riveting entertainment in a description of my advanced laundry-folding techniques or an analysis of my home decorating shortcomings. For some reason people seem to like reading about food, though. Unfortunately I have been stuck in one of those spaghetti>takeout>tacos>takeout>stirfry cycles for a few weeks, which isn’t nearly as interesting as, say, gateau citron.

Last week I made one of those great crazy can-of-soup casseroles that have no nutritional value whatsoever yet are surprisingly tasty in a retro sort of way:

6 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin-on, browned (you could substitute chicken breasts)

1 cup uncooked white rice

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can (14 oz.) diced tomatoes with green chiles

½ cup water

½ cup shredded cheddar cheese

Put chicken into a 13x9 casserole dish. Stir soup, tomatoes, rice and water together into a semi-coherent glop. Pour soup mixture over chicken, cover with foil and bake for an hour at 375 degrees, possibly 15 minutes longer if rice isn’t quite done. Top with cheese and uncover for last 15 minutes of baking.

This is one of those dishes that’s born of desperation, you know, the “it’s 6 pm and there’s nothing in the house for dinner and if I have to go to the store I’m going to stab someone with a ballpoint pen” kind of desperation? But it was actually a pretty decent meal, served with canned corn, refried beans and tortillas on the side.

You know, now that I think about it, we didn’t have tortillas on the side, but I seem to have embellished my memory of the meal. I’m actually not sure if we had the beans either. Crap, I should just tell the truth: I threw some canned salsa over leftover chicken, served it over dried-out leftover rice from Chinese takeout, sprinkled moldy cheese over it and called it a “casserole.”

Nah, I’m just joshin’ you. The casserole was for real, at least. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me.

No, I didn't spend the last three months in Spain

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 20:57:20 GMT

I just went AWOL on blogging for a while. I was thinking of giving it up altogether, just to be contrary. Andrés kept hinting that I should start blogging again, and you know I can't do anything just because he tells me to, because that would set a Bad Precedent. So I just waited until the urge struck again. Which was today, for some unknown reason. (Perhaps the piles of dirty laundry awaiting me have something to do with it).

So, in the time since I've last blogged, what has happened? Let's see: we spent a lovely few weeks visiting the in-laws in Spain. Andrés and I took a brief trip to Portugal, where we ate at a strange, fantastic Lisbon restaurant called Bica do Sapato (part-owned by John Malkovich; I will have to blog about this meal sometime). Andrés Miguel started second grade. Lucia started pre-kindergarten. My folks came to visit. We went to Hawaii and California. I've just felt very unsettled this whole time -- enjoying myself, but completely out of normal routines. Also overwhelmed with the million daily minutiae that need to be handled (aforementioned laundry, kids' school, volunteer obligations, stacks of unread magazines). One would think that by now, I would have figured out how to keep all these tasks and obligations gracefully balanced, but it turns out that I balance about as gracefully as an elephant on a high-wire.

Instead of doing something useful and practical yesterday morning, I found myself trying to figure out what to do with a couple of pomegranates I'd bought on a whim the other day. They ended up as pomegranate/orange sorbet which is quite tasty, and I ended up with red spatters all over my t-shirt from my awkward, cumbersome juicing method. (Ah, somehow it always comes back to laundry.) If you need to juice a pomegranate, I wholeheartedly do NOT recommend crushing the seeds through a sieve with a pestle. At least put on an apron first.

I do recommend this sorbet, though:

2 cups pomegranate juice (from 2 pomegranates, though mine may have been especially juicy)

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup but I think it was too sweet)

juice of 1/2 lime

Heat juices and sugar in a saucepan and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Chill mixture in refrigerator (about an hour?). Add lime juice, strain, and freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 23:25:16 GMT

Apparently the sailors are enjoying haute cuisine on the high seas, and I'm in the midst of packing and other preparations to go to Spain to meet them when they arrive. We'll arrive Monday and it looks like they'll be there Tuesday or Wednesday. Blogging is going to have to take a backseat, first to trip preparations, and then to my actual vacation. I'll check in when I can!

Mon, 16 Jun 2003 18:35:45 GMT

Before the guys left on their sailing trip, my FIL kept saying that my mother-in-law and I should plan their meals for them and tell them what to buy, which I sort of passively-aggressively just did not do, because I thought it was just ridiculous in a sexist sort of way to ask the womenfolk to plan the meals for their big adventure. (I mean, if I were going on a camping trip with, say, my mother, I wouldn’t ask THEM to plan my meals for me). Of course it reflects badly on me that I chose to see this request as sexist as opposed to what it really was, a simple request for help and expertise. Anyway, I did help them come up with some meal ideas and a shopping list but I don’t think I provided the level of help they really wanted.

As it turns out maybe I should have been more enthusiastic about advising them, because (unbeknownst to me) my FIL decided that a big bottle of olive oil they had bought was too bulky to take along, so they didn’t, and now they’re completely out of cooking oil. Oops. Then again, my MIL also told them to take the big bottle, so maybe this is one of those cases where advice given isn’t necessarily going to equal advice taken. I’m not sure how they’ve been cooking, although I did hear something about bacon grease. Luckily they are mere hours away from the Azores, where they will be able to purchase cooking oil, refill their fresh water tanks, have a beer and perhaps take a real shower.

Oh, and what I said the other day about it being good when someone goes away for a little while. Scratch that. I am SO over this single-parenting thing.

Mon, 16 Jun 2003 04:33:35 GMT

Sometimes the repetitive nature of the domestic life just gets to me. Some days I feel like if I have to wash one more load of laundry, or plan one more meal, or pull one more weed, I will simply have to indulge myself in a drooling, babbling, nervous breakdown. It’s not that I don’t have a work ethic, but I just get tired of doing the same things ALL THE TIME. And since Andrés isn’t here, I can’t foist tasks off on him, either! Luckily my mother-in-law has proved to be quite amenable to being foisted upon.

I’ve completely lost all motivation to cook these past few weeks. I think it’s partly the repetition issue, and partly the lack of an appreciative audience; my mother-in-law is “dieting” so she doesn’t really want me to fix anything interesting for dinner, even if it’s low-fat. I did make polenta, lamb stew and cranberry-orange bread last week, to take to a friend who’s just had a baby. And turkey tacos with guacamole for another friend who came to visit for a few days, but that’s been about it.

Ooh, but I finally bought one of those Microplane graters and I was absolutely blown away by how well it grated orange peel. It is my new favorite kitchen tool. I'm not holding a grudge against it for grating away the top layer of one of my fingernails. My fault for grating too enthusiastically.

I do have some plans to do some cooking in Spain. Maybe the sea air will revive my appetite, and seeing my husband after three weeks will revive my spirit. Last year I made Mexican food for Andres’ extended family and it was a huge hit (even though the “taco seasoning” was, in my opinion, vastly inferior to what you can get here – it had paprika but no real chile powder as far as I could tell). So today I brought home some food items to pack since you can’t get them in rural Spain: chili powder to take to season the taco meat, some graham crackers and canned dulce de leche for a dulce de leche cheesecake, and cranberry juice to make Cosmopolitans which have nothing whatsoever to do with Mexican food but which my MIL and FIL have taken a liking to. It occurs to me that when you start packing food to take to foreign countries, you have a problem. And when you start typing up recipes to take along, you have a serious problem. And when you consider packing your new Microplane grater, and start thinking about how you will impress the Spaniards with your superior margaritas flavored with finely-grated lime zest, you should probably be committed.

While I'm on the topic, here's a recipe for what I think is the Best Margarita In The Whole World, from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen, a book anyone who loves Mexican food should own:

Frontera’s Gold Margarita

Makes about 4 cups, serving 8

1 2/3 cups Cuervo Especial gold tequila

¼ cup plus 1 teaspoon Gran Torres orange liqueur

OR ¼ cup Gran Marnier (Cointreau is good too)

1 cup water

½ cup plus 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, about 2-3 large limes

Finely grated zest of 1 ½ limes, about 1 teaspoon

5 tablespoons sugar

Lime wedges

Coarse salt

1. Steeping the margarita mixture: Mix the tequila, orange liqueur, lime juice, lime zest, sugar and 1 cup water in a glass or plastic pitcher until the sugar dissolves. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours (but no more than 24 hours). Strain into another pitcher.

2. Finishing and serving the margaritas: Rub the rims of 8 martini or other 6-8 ounce glasses with a lime wedge, then dip the rims in a dish of coarse salt. Refrigerate the glasses if desired.

Serve the margaritas either straight-up or on the rocks in the prepared glasses.