My Weekend in Food

I love the weekends when I get a lot of cooking done.  It's just so fun trying new recipes, recreating old favorites, and having the time to be able to do so.

On Friday, I made two kinds of chili for my greyhound adoption group's retirement day.  Retirement days are when we bring in a batch of new retirees from the racetrack, and we bathe them, give them new names, give them a medical exam, draw blood, vaccinate them, cat and small dog test them, and then place them in a foster home to learn how to be a pet.  We usually have a ton of volunteers that help out with this; we must have had 40 people attend on Saturday.  One of the things we do for the volunteers to show our appreciation is serve lunch.  Since our normal food coordinator was at the greyhound gathering in Solvang that weekend, I volunteered to make chili, which sounded easy enough. Until the vegetarians piped in. : )  Nah, they didn't demand their own chili; in fact, they told me to not bother, they were happy eating cold sandwiches. Yeah, right, not on MY watch. : )

I bought 3.5lbs of ground beef for the regular chili, which made enough to fill my gigantic big-enough-for-a-turkey-(which I can't wait to try, by the way!) stockpot when all was said and done.  For the vegetarian chile, I sauteed onion, garlic, green pepper, button mushrooms, portabella mushrooms, zucchini, and jalepeno until tender; then I added diced stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans.  I seasoned it with chili powder, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne, and chocolate.  I let it simmer about an hour while I made the regular chili, which had onion, garlic, jalepeno, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, black, pinto, and kidney beans, and the same seasoning. My house smelled like a chili factory, which is nice for a while, but trust me, you can only smell so much chili before you are OVER it.  While the chilis simmered, I made a few batches of mini cornbread muffins, to which I added honey to sweeten them up a bit.  The next morning, I hauled my two crock pots, the chili, muffins, diced onion and shredded cheese down to the barn.  I was a bit nervous about the chili, because, well, because I always get nervous about my food, but someone must have liked it, because it was ALL gone by the end of the day.  That made me feel really good, and I was so glad to be able to bring the chili for everyone.

When I got home on Saturday, after processing 20 dogs (and let me tell you, I was EXHAUSTED, and I didn't even stay for the cat testing!) I had homework to do, so I did what I always do when I have homework due - I cook! I had bought a bundle of asparagus, but I wasn't thrilled on steaming it to eat plain, because it was the little skinny spears, which I think have less mouth appeal than the bigger ones.  I also had a container of cream I needed to finish, so I decided to make Cream of Asparagus soup.  I know you've eaten the cream of soups, and let me tell you, making it from scratch is NOT the same soup, at all. Not by any stretch.  I cut the asparagus into 1" pieces, and steamed them. Meanwhile, I made a bechamel sauce with butter, flour, and the cream.  I added fresh cracked black pepper and some nutmeg, and set it aside.  When the asparagus was done, I set aside about 1/2 cup, mainly the tips and the 1" sections just below the tips, and I processed the rest in my fancy schmancy food processor with a cup of chicken stock.  Both the processed parts and the tips went back into the cream sauce; I stirred it, and brought it back to a simmer, and that was it! Holy cow, it was a-MAZING!! The texture was so velvety and rich; the processed asparagus gave it amazing texture and flavor, and a beautiful color, and the tips added a wonderful difference to the creamy soup. Let me tell you, I'm not a fan of soup at ALL, but this soup was unbelievable.  I've always said you can't improve on the beauty of a simply steamed vegetable, but now that I've tried it this way, I think I was just blissfully ignorant. : )

On Sunday, I set out to make mole poblano.  Mole is essentially a sauce made with ground chilis, nuts, seeds, and dried fruits.  There are approximately 4 million mole recipes floating around. And everyone who likes mole seems to like it a very particular way.  I took that to mean, "good luck!"   I went though about 8 recipes, and picked and choosed ingredients I thought would work, in proportions I thought would work.  In the end, the ingredients list was 24 items long. Holy COW!!  It took me about 3 hours, I think, from start to finish, including making a mexican rice and corn tortillas. That's a typical time frame for a real dinner, so I was pretty pleased with that.

First, I put all the dried peppers in a bowl, and covered with hot water to soak.  Then I put chicken breasts in a pot on the stove, with water to cover, and fresh thyme, oregano, onion, garlic, and salt and pepper.  I simmered that while I made the mole.  In a large saute pan, I sauteed onion and garlic until the onion was translucent.  Meanwhile, I drained the peppers, reserving the leftover pepper stock.  Actually, not only did I reserve it, but I tasted it.  WHO DOES THAT??!?!  It was HOT!!!  I pulled the stems off the peppers, and deseeded them as best I could. (In the future, I am going to try slitting the peppers while they are still dry to deseed, I think it would be easier.)  I chopped them up, and threw them in with the onion and garlic to sautee a few minutes.  All of that mixture then went into the food processor. I added chicken stock, and processed it, then moved it into a bowl.  In the pan, I sauteed plantain, and added it to the food processor.  Then I toasted sesame seeds, peanuts, and pepitas, then added cinnamon, cracked black pepper, cloves, and coriander, then put all that in the processor.  Lastly, I sauteed a small corn tortilla, cut into strips, then that too went into the processor. I added more stock to the processer, and processed away.  I added the new mixture to the onion/pepper mixture, stirred to combine, and put it all back in the saucepan to simmer for about 5 minutes.  Then I added more stock to bring it to the right consistency. I deboned the chicken, added the chicken pieces to the mole, and taste tested. Holy CRAP it was HOT!!!  Forget using any of the reserved pepper stock to add heat!  I added more broth, and crossed my fingers.

Earlier, I had combined masa with salt and water, and let it sit while I finished the mole.  I pulled it out, divided it into portions, and started pressing it into tortillas and frying them on my new comal.  I've gotten the consistency of the masa dough right, I think; and I'm getting really good at pressing them out, and having them be the right size (about 6" in diameter).  It's the comal heat that is the problem; I think I am still cooking them at too low of a temperature. I need to research that a bit.  They turn out great, they just could be a bit better, in my opinion.

For the rice, which steamed while I made the tortillas, I added stewed tomatoes and their juice, after I processed them; and I added stock.  If I hadn't run out of onion, I would have processed some onion and garlic, and added that. It turned out good, though, and was a nice balance to the hot mole.

While I slaved away over dinner, my very dear friend came over and built a new door for my back porch with a doggy door cut out. I am ecstatic.  I tried pushing the shy greyhound through it, but she was having NONE of that, so I, like a really big dork, decided to show her how it worked by demonstrating how it worked. My head and shoulders fit through fine, but apparently my hips are about an inch wider than the cut out, which resulted in the door banging in the jamb, spooking the little greyhound. :sigh:  She did come through, though, and went back into the house the same way, so I think it will work out great.  The older greyhound took great joy in barking at me in the middle of the night, wanting to go out, TWICE, and the door was really put in for her, so we need to work on that. I didn't dare try to make her use it, since she HAD to go right that minute, but we will work on that, too. : )