The Almost-Fire

Inspired by a trip to City Cafe, a wonderful little restaurant in McAllen, today I made beef stroganoff for dinner and corn casserole for a little dinner party.  As always, my cooking adventures were fraught with mishaps.  I forgot to drain the corn for the casserole, so it was too runny.  The stroganoff involved using flour as a thickening agent, which I am incapable of doing at all ever under any circumstances.  But, I cooked beef for the first time (raw meat is guh-ross) AND the casserole was a hit.

The dinner party also featured a very delicious pumpkin pie from my friend Janet, a pumpkin pie that almost burned the house down.  She and I went on a run with our other friend Lia and COMPLETELY forgot the pie in the oven.  We had to run back to the house to get the pie out and then went on our regularly-scheduled run after that brief "warm-up."  We ran four miles in all (almost died) but the pie was great and basically calorie-free.  Lia also burned her oatmeal this morning, so it seems I'm not the only one who struggles in the kitchen.  You see what I'm up against now? You see what I'm surrounded by?

My mom gave me some great advice this morning that you can't do things with happiness as your goal, you just do the best you can and happiness will find you.   Cooking trouble aside, I feel incredibly blessed to have such excellent friends to share a meal with on a lazy Sunday.

Did You Know They Sell Frozen PB&J?!

So there I was, standing in my kitchen and eating my 2nd plain tortilla of the day, when I thought to myself, "There has got to be a better vehicle for consuming all these tortillas."  Then it came to me.  Chicken enchiladas.  This recipe has been, honest to goodness, the EASIEST recipe I have made so far.  I used chicken that I cooked and froze last week, and bought pre-made flour tortillas from HEB so all I had to do was put it all together and it is ABSOLUTELY THE MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER.  Word to the wise, though, they have an entire bucket of sour cream and many other very unhealthy ingredients.

Which leads to me to my #2 big realization.  I am eating a huge portion of delicious, unhealthy food twice a day.  Moreover, the average amount of time I have for lunch is 12 minutes.  If I spend 3 minutes of that heating up my food and 2 minutes walking to and from the staff lounge (this attention to time is just one charming thing about the monster that TFA has made me), I barely have enough time to hoover my food before 4th period starts.  So I've decided to go a more healthy and less time-consuming route for lunch-fruit, carrots, almonds, yogurt, etc.  Although I would love to include those delicious frozen PB&Js, those are a heart attack waiting to happen.  Much like my chicken enchiladas.  Enjoy.

Finally, and most excitingly, my sister is having a baby on Wednesday!  She's incredible and I'm so happy for her!  Pretty much my biggest accomplishment is writing a cooking blog once a week, and she has created human life.  It's the most amazing thing ever.  Those chicken enchiladas are second place, though.

Success

Much like this picture of boil-in-bag rice (which I did not use this week because that would be cheating), I have experienced success.  And it's the best kind of success-the kind that means you will never have to leave your house again.

Because I have made thai food.  Yes!  Thai food!  And you know what, it fell victim to the same complaints I make at thai restaurants which is that there's not enough sauce but IT TASTES PRETTY GOOD AND IT LOOKS HEALTHY TOO.  And guess what?  Once you can make your own Thai food, there's no reason to ever leave your house again except to buy peanut butter and broccoli!  It's just me and my boyfriend Netflix forever and ever.  

I also whipped up some French Onoin Soup (I found this one after I ditched Alton Brown's recipe.  Sorry Alton).  Also, a ROUSING SUCCESS.  The broth for French onion soup (which uses beef consomme, which I found out about at a teaching leadership conference) is just so good-smelling.  You have to put toasted French bread on top and then bake the soup to finish it off, which is very surprising!  I got some really good bread off a recommendation from the Breadsmith lady.  I remember the day I discovered Breadsmith in the Valley.  When you go into Mexican bakeries, there is no bread.  There are only donuts and cookies and pastries.  I thought I was going to starve and die, but luckily I found Breadsmith four short months later.  It was the second-happiest day of my life.  Number 1 is this day, the day where I finally make food I want to eat.

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the top of the pyramid is self-actualization.  When I used to talk about that stupid Maslow in debate, I used to think, "Wow, self-actualization, that sounds like funsies."  And now I'm there, friends.  I'm actually doing it.  Time to try something harder and slide back down to safety.

Shmitalian: Attack of the Ketchup Curse

Inspired by a recent dinner party I attended where the host served up some delicious stromboli that he made RIGHT IN FRONT OF US (like Benihana only Italian and without the awkward small talk), this week I made stromboli for dinner and barbecue chicken pizza for lunch.

Stromboli is actually awesomely easy to make.  SUPER IMPORTANT RULE #1: SECURE A ROLLING PIN.  If you forget or can't find the rolling pin, your life will be really hard.  Like mine.  You could also use a wine bottle to roll out dough, which my mom and I did once making pies.  I also forgot about that little trick.  Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with me.  Anyway, I used pizza dough, which I wouldn't recommend.  Just pick up some frozen bread dough and let it rise.  Put your favorite toppings in the middle, roll it up, and bake it in the oven.  Awesomely easy.  Unless you're me, in which case tragedy will strike anytime you are allowed to choose your own toppings or really anytime that you're in the kitchen.  This was true of BOTH the stromboli and the pizza.  My Ketchup Curse strikes again. 

Instead of thinking about things that might taste good together, I resorted to putting all the things I like inside a bread substance and eating it.  I could have just stopped the pizza after I'd added the four essential components: chicken, barbecue sauce, onions and mozzerella.  BUT NOOOOOOO.  I had to add goat cheese, one of my favorite things in the entire universe but NOT a cheese that tastes good with barbecue sauce.  It's not totally disgusting, but it smacks strongly of failure.  Each of my four stromboli has a different combination of ingredients, two of them include roasted red pepper which has a very distinctive taste that doesn't always play well with others.  We'll see, but I will probably go buy some Top Ramen tonight just in case. 

Finally, I want to wish my dad a very happy birthday.  Sorry that I'm so bad at cooking, even if I am great at picking out new cards.  You win some you lose some. 

The Library (Of All the Horrifying Miserable Things in the World)

Today, in an attempt to better myself, I braved... yes, the McAllen Memorial Public Library.  The McAllen library is, in itself, quite a sight to behold.  It's a masterpiece of 1970s architecture, which was not a good time for architecture.  They're building a new one, thank God, because there is just NOT ENOUGH SPACE in the cooking section.  No section of the library, including fiction or the children's section, commands so many shelves as the cooking section.  I wanted to find some new recipe ideas, but unfortunately there's no "I'm New to This" part of the cooking section.  Nor is there a Dewey Decimal number for "Throw Me A Bone, Rachael Ray" or a "I'm Too Tired for Your S**t, Jamie Oliver."  Player, I am not a gourmet.  Doesn't anyone write recipes for the common man?  No, guys.  Only me.  I'm the only person writing for the common man.  And you're welcome.


In the end, I did pick out a Rachael Ray recipe-she's gotta be kidding me with the 30 minutes, but her Pork Chops in Spiced Apple Pan Sauce turned out delicious.  Pork chops are a tough thing to come by in the Rio Grande Valley, but I got me some thin ones and it smelled just like Christmas in my house.  Later this week, I'm going to bake some butter nut squash with butter and brown sugar in the middle and have a regular holiday meal.  It is getting to be fall outside, after all, which means that I can lay by the pool comfortably.  With my pork chops and my squash.  FINALLY.

And for lunch this week, Jambalaya! I thought jambalaya would be more soupy, but it is HEARTY and SPICY and SO SO GOOD.  Can you put Sriracha on the top of jambalaya?  I think you can.  According to that recipe book at Urban Outfitters, you can put Sriracha on top of anything. 

I feel like I did what I promised you guys.  I stepped my game up.  And I'm feeling pretty successful.  If we were together right now, and I were singing you a song, the song would be this.