posted on May 19, 2008 07:31:20 PM new
We're in a mini-heat wave in Oregon and I have to get back to the preparing meals with no air condtioning mind-set. Tonight was pasta salad with veggies and swedish open-faced farmer's smörbröd ( ryecrisp, butter, havarti cheese and ham - can't wait until I can add farmer's market tomatoes). Unfortunately, outdoor grilling is verboten. Any idea for tomorrow's menu?
[ edited by pixiamom on May 19, 2008 07:32 PM ]
posted on May 20, 2008 05:33:01 PM new
No, I just got notice that it isn't permitted on apartment grounds. We used to occasionally fire up the hibachi and share brats with neighbors, but even that is nixed.
posted on May 20, 2008 08:45:40 PM new
There must be a whole lot of other good reasons to live in a place where somebody tells you you can't build a fire and cook some meat, but I can't think of a single one. How about chipotle chicken salad?
1 small can chipotle chiles en adobo
sour cream
chicken stock
water
chicken breasts
mesclun or spring salad mix
chopped green onions
black olives
tomatoes
cucumbers diced
buzz up the chipotles and their sauce in a food processor till they are pureed. Add equal parts sour cream and chicken stock. Buzz again till it makes a thick sauce, about like ranch dressing in consistency. Warm it up.
Brown the chicken in olive oil in a nice heavy lidded skillet. Cast iron is best but another pan will do. When you flip it, pour half the sauce over the chicken, cover it and bake it for about 15 minutes at 350 or so.
Spread the salad over the plates and add the tomatoes, olives and cucumbers.
When the chicken is done, slice it crosswise and parcel it out to the plates on top of the salad. Drizzle the remaining sauce over all and sprinkle the onions on top.
This dish is pretty spicy. You might want to use half a can of chipotles.
For anyone who doesn't know, chipotles are wood smoked jalapeno chiles. Real smoky flavor and nice and spicy. You can get them these days at most grocers', especially in the NW where there are so many of us Messicans.
posted on May 20, 2008 11:31:24 PM new
Profe--that sounds fabulous! I'm going to try it this summer.
Pixi: A lot depends on how much your family needs to have meat. We don't eat a lot of meat; fish occasionally, beef once in a while. I make tabbouleh or pasta salad, or taco salad with sauteed ground beef and beans with some spices and the trimmings (avocado, dressing, tomatoes, olives, cheese, etc.).
A George Foreman grill on the patio or deck can serve for some of the grilled stuff you might want, like hamburgers or steaks. Doesn't heat the house.
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posted on May 21, 2008 06:44:14 AM new
Pixia, your apartment owners are probably afraid of those arsonists who fry turkeys.
Profe, that recipe sounds delicious and I plan to try it too. I'll bet you don't use canned chicken broth for chicken stock but just thought I would ask.
You should write a cook book and call it, "Messicans Buzz it Up!"
posted on May 21, 2008 07:07:04 AM new Thanks Helen....we keep the organic chicken stock that comes in those european style cartons, you know the ones, like soy milk comes in, for emergencies but as a rule I make my own stock. When we make shredded chicken in bulk like for taco or burro filling, I add celery tops, carrots, onions, a few herbs, whole pepper corns and garlic cloves to the pressure cooker along with 4 or 5 cut up chickens that have been browned under a broiler or outside. The stock it makes is great. I pour it off and keep it. The meat gets pulled and parceled into ziplocs and frozen, and the stock goes into ice cube trays and then bagged for the freezer. 2 cubes is about a quarter cup so it's real easy to measure.
posted on May 21, 2008 07:42:45 AM new
Profe, that does sound delicious and definitely worth a try. I don't have a Geo. Foreman grill but remember rescuing an electric broiler from my storage unit - will have to fire that up.
posted on May 21, 2008 08:44:46 PM new
You don't need a pressure cooker, you can just use a stock pot. It just takes longer. I know people who think making stock in a pressure cooker is somehow cheating but I've found it really takes all the good marrow and flavor that's in the bones and pulls it out into the broth. My grandmother always made her broth for menudo that way, and some of the old ladies around here used to gossip about the fact that she didn't have cows' feet boiling on the stove all night and so her menudo wasn't "real".
posted on May 22, 2008 08:53:09 PM new
To paraphrase Franklin or Twain or whoever it was supposedly said it; menudo, like whisky, chocolate and beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy. It's the ultimate hangover cure to boot.
posted on May 23, 2008 07:21:24 AM new
I love these hot food suggestions. Only wimps eat cold food in the summer. So, indulge in everything; eat, drink and be merry!
Some may think that too much food or drink is your enemy but remember that God also said to love your enemy!
posted on June 2, 2008 10:24:21 AM new "buzz up the chipotles and their sauce in a food processor till they are pureed. Add equal parts sour cream and chicken stock. Buzz again till it makes a thick sauce, about like ranch dressing in consistency. Warm it up.
Excellent recipe which is also good on Pork! Next I'm going to try the buzzed chipotle in Adobo Sauce with chili.
Looks like this board is finished for awhile. In the meantime I'm reading a few Thomas Hardy books that I missed. I'm so used to reading on line that I find it more comfortable to download out of copyright books from Gutenberg. Then I can adjust the print etc.
I generally read the introduction from a real book after I finish the ebook.
Hope everyone has a happy summer!
To the people of Ebay Outlook, feel free to post your OT (off topics) here or continue with your OT (ostensible tactics} on EO. Whatever.
posted on June 2, 2008 08:48:45 PM new
Helen, glad you liked the chipotle sauce and you're right, it's great on pork chops. Try browning and then baking them in it. I also like it smothering boiled or roasted new potatoes, sprinkled with chopped cilantro or Italian parsley and coarse black pepper.
Can you elaborate on Gutenberg and the book DL's please? I'm waiting for Cormac McCarthy's new one to get here from Amazon..."The Road". Just finished reading his "Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West" for the upteenth time, really just skimming thru to favorite parts and tasty tidbits of his gorgeous prose.
I simply use it to download books to my computer. Of course all of their books are out of copyright. On the left of the main page just type the author, for example, Thomas Hardy. Press Go and select from that list one of the author's books; either audio or plain text. I haven't tried the audio version.
On the next page Scroll down to "Formats Available For Download". I usually select HTML, compression none, and main site to download.
I would like to be able to buy and download modern fiction such as you mentioned but I don't know if that option is available anywhere. Amazon sells a device called a Kindle and sells books that can be downloaded onto that device.
The Road by McCarthy (Kindle edition) is available immediately for $7.96 by free wireless delivery from Amazon but the Kindle Device costs about $360.00.
I have a lot to learn about this technique so if anyone has a correction or better info please let me know.
BTW...another good feature on Gutenberg is that the books can be downloaded in several languages.
posted on June 3, 2008 12:40:36 PM new
Thanks helen. I'll look at those links for some older stuff I've been looking for.
That kindle thing is not for me I'm afraid. I still like the feel and smell of a book when I'm reading. Plus, I have a tendency to dog-ear, sticky note and even highlight passages I like to come back to later.
posted on June 3, 2008 01:50:05 PM new
Profe, I could have sent you my Pulitzer Prize, First Edition but it's all marked up too...
From The Road...page 10
"They passed through the city at noon of the day following. He kept the pistol to hand on the folded tarp on top of the cart. He kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars on the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust. Fossil tracks in the dried sludge. A corpse in a doorway dried to leather grimacing at the day, He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, don't you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
posted on June 3, 2008 08:37:07 PM new
Awesome, thanks Helen I can hardly wait. The following is one of my favorite paragraphs of all time. I use it in class as an example of....lots of things.
As he turned to go he heard the train. He stopped and waited for it. He could feel it under his feet. It came boring out of the east like some ribald sattelite of the coming sun howling and bellowing in the distance and the long light of the headlamp running through the tangled mesquite brakes and creating out of the night the endless fenceline down the dead straight right of way and sucking it back again wire and post mile on mile into the darkness after where the boilersmoke disbanded slowly along the faint new horizon and the sound came lagging and he stood still holding his hat in his hands in the passing groundshudder watching it till it was gone. Then he turned and went back to the house.
One hundred words in that fourth sentence.
From my ragged first ed. of "All the Pretty Horses", chapter 1, pgph 5.
posted on June 3, 2008 09:05:17 PM new
When I taught high-IQ 8th graders, sometime during the year we'd have covered lots of esoteric grammar. I'd give them, first, a (long) paragraph of Faulkner's, usually one sentence long!, and ask them to correct the punctuation. And then a couple of paragraphs from Hemingway and ask the same thing.
Those poor kids would triumphantly labor over their work, and then I'd tell them who'd written the passages. My point was that you have to know the rules before you can break them successfully. They seemed to love that.
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And that passage was so perfect, Profe that I didn't notice the length of the sentence until you pointed it out.
I have so many favorites from so many authors that I would hesitate to choose only one. I just finished a book that I should have read in high school, Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, and found so many wonderful thoughts, but like you mentioned I would have underlined them in a book. Being unable to review those favorite ideas is a significant disadvantage in reading on a computer or some othe kind of electronic reader.
I'm sure that you will be impressed with the McCarthy book.
