a tough old bird

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tomatillo husks make lovely flowers, if you have both time and tomatillos on your hands

A while ago our pal Tommy brought us some frozen chickens.  He raises chickens like we do, in the sense that we both have chickens.  We differ in scale (by a couple of powers of ten) and in that his birds retire to the freezer when their egg-laying days are concluded, rather than reclining on a bed of free room and board like ours do.  His is the practical approach.  Ours is the ridiculous approach.  There's no vegetarian moral high ground for us to speak from; we eat chicken, just not our own.

“These are stew birds,” he told me, and I thanked him profusely and stowed them in the freezer and promptly forgot that little tidbit of information.  So the first one that I cooked I roasted, producing something with a texture that pretty well approximated a hot sneaker, or so I imagine.  I have never actually chewed on a sneaker.  But now I have come as close as I need to get to that experience.

Chicken Two was oven-braised, and that was absolutely the correct course of action to take.  I am not congratulating myself for thinking of it, because it happened pretty accidentally as I was whirling around trying to get my house in order for a week away.

Being far away from my family for an entire week is what you might call pretty unusual for me, if 'pretty unusual' is how you might describe a flying octopus.  My family is a stalwart bunch and will be fine while I am away—fine, you hear me, fine.  On a last-minute grocery run before I left, my younger daughter rattled off a number of very practical items she might desire for the making of her lunch while I am not on deck to do the usual nineteen runs to the store that normally occur during the week due to the fact that I shop like a dimwit and always forget something (usually it is my list) so I am perpetually circling back. Then she plunked, with a degree of defiant sass, a large package of mint Newman-O’s into the cart.  Have a nice time away, Cat, said the Mousie. 

Even with a large package of cookies to eat for breakfast or whenever else the mood strikes, any lingering anxiety my kiddos might feel around any departure of mine is generally held in the stomach region.  So I tried to bung a good selection of dinners in the freezer.  They may not eat them, but they were more content to see me go knowing they had something in the bank.  Or maybe that was me. Anyway, the oven-braised chicken thoughtfully supplied four meals—two while I was home, and a matching set that I tucked away.

I can’t show you a picture of any of these things, because the pictures that I may or may not have taken are (or aren’t) an ocean away from me.  Maybe I can rectify that later.  In the meantime, while I watch someone sleep, I will just talk to you about chicken.

You don't have to start with a retired egg-laying chicken, or even a whole chicken.  Parts would work, too.  

salsa in smaller quantities makes less of a mess, don't worry

You can make some green salsa (I did, with my canning pals, and it is heaven to eat and simple to make), or you can buy a jar of salsa and treat this like housewife food.  

It's all sounding kind of vague, I realize.  In recipe terms, I am not sure how useful this will be to you.  But writing it out sure is useful to me at the moment.

I set out to make chicken stew, the kind with chunks of chicken and potatoes and maybe a carrot or a dumpling.  Something Almanzo might have eaten in Farmer Boy.  I took my vintage bird, put a whole, peeled onion and several garlic cloves and a bay leaf in its cavity and set it into my big dutch oven.  I added water to about halfway up the bird, and I rubbed a little olive oil, paprika, salt and ground cumin on the exposed parts.  I brought it all to a low boil on the stovetop, then covered the pot and stuffed it into a heated 350 degree oven, which I promptly turned down to 275.

I went on about my day, which was a full one.  About three hours later, I recalled the chicken.

It resembled a roasted chicken when I looked at it, but a single poke revealed that I had pulled chicken on the menu instead of stew. The moisture in the covered pot had softened it to shreds, but the exposed part had browned and gave the whole pot a nice roasty aroma.  In a matter of minutes, using what my son used to call the "cooking tweezers" (these are tongs, to the rest of you), the bones and gridgy bits were separated from the meat.  The broth was pretty liquid, so when I threw the tidied-up meat back into it, I added the potatoes, since I had cut them up already, and I baked it some more, until the potatoes were done.  It was dinner time by then, so we ate some of it just like that, bland as it was, and were happy enough.

The more memorable thing happened with the second half: a green chile enchilada that was devoured as by a pack of wolverines (notoriously fond of enchiladas).

I think this is how I did that:

12 corn tortillas

3T oil

16 oz tomatillo salsa

1/2 cup chopped roasted green chiles (roast some poblanos if you feel jiggy; buy a can if you do not)

2 to 3c of coarsely shredded jack or cheddar, divided (half to 3/4 #, depending on your fondness for cheese; the cheesy bits are the most sought-after bits in our house)

about half a roasted, shredded or pulled chicken

optionally, 3 or four boiled, steamed or roasted potatoes, cubed

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a small, heavy skillet until it ripples. Using the cooking tweezers, lay a tortilla flat in the oil, count to four, flip it and repeat.  Raise it up to let the excess oil drip off, and fling it on a plate.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas, adding a little more oil as needed. Do not let them crisp, just seal them in the hot oil.

Spread about half a cup of salsa on the bottom of a 13 x 9 (or thereabouts) baking dish.  Lay one tortilla down, put a glop of chicken, a few bits of green chile, a small bit of cheese and a teaspoon or so of salsa inside.  Fold it in half loosely, informally and with a devil-may-care attitude, and shove it to one end of the dish.  Repeat this process until all the tortillas are filled and lined up more or less in two rows in the dish.  Pour half the remaining salsa down the center of one line of tortillas, sprinkle half the remaining cheese on top of that, and repeat for the other conga line.  This is where a picture sure would be worth several hundred words.  The idea is that the edges of the tortillas remain exposed to crisp a little in the oven; the salsa is a wide stripe in the middle, and the cheese goes on top of that to melt and be sought after.

Wrap it and freeze it and leave the house in peace; alternatively, bake in a hot oven, 350 to 375, for about 25 minutes, until hot and bubbly and the cheese is nicely browned.

free wife high

Back in the old days, a housewife in need of a pick-me-up had some options.  For example, amphetamines.  Those were an option.

courtesy of http://www.whale.to/a/weed_booze.html

These are harder to come by nowadays, and generally frowned upon as a solution to most common problems.  On the plus side, the house-dress and girdle have also gone the way of all things, so there is that to be grateful for.

Trying to get my cooking mojo back led me to resurrect some staples.  It's kind of like playing scales.  I made some granola bars, this time with lemon zest and apricots but no frosting.  I overbaked them a little when my unmedicated mind wandered, but they are still quite useful to have in a jar on the counter come lunchbox or low blood sugar time, and counted (just barely) toward feeling better about cooking.

Then, still thinking ahead to MondayMorningLunchBoxPanic, I made a batch of those quinoa and cheese muffins.  If I gave a concert, this would be the one you all would raise your lighters for.  Every Raisinette (and you know who you are) mentions this recipe.  My cousin's neighbor.  My daughter's classmate's mother's co-worker.  It even got anthologized!

I employed some first-rate second-grader labor to get the cheese sprinkled correctly:

 

and these turned out fine too.

But it is housewife food that has really saved the day.  Housewife food is not the food that anyone responsible for the caloric intake of everyone under one roof churns out, as above, to keep the wheels turning.  The person making that daily stuff may or may not consider themselves a housewife.  I mean instead a category of food-making that involves a can of this and a package of that and a general feeling that you are leaping from your minivan ready to feed a hungry crowd of teens after a sports event.  The term also refers to anything that involves cooking with mayonnaise, includes the word "mock" in its title, or tempts you to write "it's THAT good, people."

The substance below was concocted in a general sense in response to a number of recipes that had floated past my head in recent months, each with their appealing elements (in sum: hot cheese) and specifically because I was invited to an all-female evening and asked to bring a snack offering.  I leaped from my minivan and whipped this up immediately.  

It is a flexible item.  It served comfortably as a dip for tortilla chips the other night ("does this have dairy in it? then I probably have to skip it," said one of the females, who did not, ultimately, skip any part of it), then the next day I made it again and we ate it over rice and I heard no complaints.  I have made it now with sour cream and with whole milk Greek yogurt (also once with nonfat Greek yogurt, but it's best not to dwell on that).  It calls for fresh corn, and for good reason, but I imagine that if you are not making it in New England in the late summer or early fall (where and when the use of frozen corn is, as it should be, an actionable offense), you could use frozen corn, too.  Extra housewife points for that.  If you are making it for dipping purposes, use less corn as it's the cheesy part that you'll want to emphasize; if you are heading more towards a casserole side dish, strap on a girdle, use more corn and for a shot at the title of Housewife Champeen, crumble some tortilla chips on top before you bake it.

 

mock housewife food

2-3 ears of corn, cooked and cooled

1/2 cup whole milk Greek yogurt or sour cream

1/4 c mayonnaise (I like this one because it is not at all sweet and is actually tasty, whereas most bottled mayonnaise is unpleasantly sweet and is used as a sandwich lubricant but brings nothing to the flavor table, not that you asked)

1 4 oz can of chopped roasted green chiles

1.5 c coarsely shredded cheddar or jack

a handful of finely chopped cilantro

a handful of finely chopped scallions

1 t ground cumin

1t chile powder

A good dash of hot sauce, and if you really like some heat, a chopped pickled jalapeño and/or a teaspoon of finely chopped chipotle in adobo

Heat the oven to 375.  Mix everything together and smooth it into a baking dish.  Bake about 15 minutes, until bubbly, hot and lightly golden.

good housekeeping

Just had a romp through the women's magazines while I waited for my daughter at the pediatric dentist. I am resolved to be slimmer, make better use of my closet space, and get totally invested in date night. Also I am all about quinoa. Well, my children would tell you that is nothing new. Like the lamented chickpea, it is one of those foods that they reflexively express dislike for, even though they eat it pretty happily. But everyone else in the universe seems to be about it now, so my quiet devotion to quinoa no longer has to be a shameful thing for the family.

It looks to me from a scientific survey of the mainstream blog and magazine universes that this is the Age of Quinoa 'n' Cheese. Here it is, baked with chunks of ham. There it is, bright orange with conveniently pre-shredded colby. If it means more people eating quinoa, there probably isn't much to object to in the trend.

Also, they happen to be on to something. What suspect food is not improved with bakey crispy cheese on top? And when I saw the quinoa muffins (and wee little muffinettes) moving in herds across the Great Housewifely Plains, I decided to get a little of that women's mag action here at home.

"Don't think I am fooled by the whole muffin thing," said the Chief Quinoa Skeptic.

Fooled in what way?

"I can see that these are made of quinoa," said the CQS, but by then she had eaten it. And then she ate another. I really wasn't trying to fool anyone, I swear. But I will say I enjoyed the reduced grumbling. They come across like something between a nice, not-at-all dry muffin and an amusingly portable frittata. We ate them hot, with a big messy salad, for dinner, but they look like likely suspects for flinging into a lunch box, too, or onto a brunch table.

Like a frittata or quiche or omelette, they are kind of a blank canvas. I am not sure there is any limitation on what you could add here, so this is another non-recipe recipe. Go hog wild. Suggestions below, but feel free to ignore them.

convincing quinoa flingers
makes 12

2 1/2 cups of cooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups of coarsely grated cheddar, divided
1 c coarsely grated zucchini (about one 7" zuke)
3-4 eggs
a generous sprinkling of chopped fresh herbs, like chives or parsley
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly spray or brush a 12-cup muffin tin with olive oil.

Combine the quinoa, 1 cup of the cheddar, the zucchini, herbs and 3 of the eggs in a medium bowl and mix well. If it seems dry, add the remaining egg. You want a nice thick batter, not soupy but not a dry, clumpy situation. Add a fat pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper. Divide among the muffin cups and sprinkle the tops with the remaining cheese. Bake about 20 minutes, until nicely golden brown, and cool on a rack to ensure cheesy crispiness on the bottoms (they will sog a bit if left to cool in the pan).

Variations on that theme:

Replace the zucchini with shredded baby spinach, or finely chopped, cooked greens like chard or kale. Replace part of the cheddar with some crumbled feta.

Add some cubed & roasted sweet potatoes, drained black beans and a handful of chopped cilantro.

Roasted or sauteed red onion would be tasty with smoked cheddar or gouda, and a fat pinch of cumin.

Use mozzarella, or a smoky scamorza, and some chopped roasted or dried tomatoes, and a handful of chopped fresh basil.

Pig out: crumbled bacon, slivers of ham, cooked sausage....oh, you get the idea.

portion control

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, the midwives sent me in to see their new staff nutritionist to evaluate my vegetarian diet. If you have a mental stereotype for a dietician or nutritionist, it is quite likely it looks a lot like she did: pert, earnest and tidy, with her brand-new diploma hanging right over her desk. She asked me to fill out a diet summary and I did it diligently, recording all my protein sources and so forth. She began to look it over. “Now here with the tofu,” she said, tapping the paper with her pen, “what size portion would you say you consume? And here with the peanut butter,” (tap, tap)” is that about a two tablespoon portion?” And so on down the list, until I knew without much doubt that 16 years of being the vegetarian daughter of a worried Jewish mother was better preparation for reviewing my pregnant diet than whatever it was she had done to earn her diploma. But if doubt remained, it lasted only until she got to the bottom of my list.

“What about casseroles?” she asked. “Do you eat casseroles?” I said I didn’t. “Well you should,” she said with certainty, patting my list. “Two to three portions per week.” What they might be made of was not addressed.

My husband and I spent the rest of the pregnancy thinking up Horrifying Casseroles we might pretend we made weekly. Baked Snickers with Crack, and so on. But we behaved ourselves and didn't tease her, because I never went back.

As luck would have it, a few years later when my sisters and I were wrangling a collection of little cousins whom we often fed together, I stumbled across a recipe for Chilaquile Casserole in a Mollie Katzen cookbook. Making it as I did back then, I felt like I had either just stepped into our out of the test kitchens of a women’s magazine. A package of this, a jar of that, open a can, and presto! Six portions of casserole! I wanted to call up the nutritionist and let her know. But it was delicious and nourishing and totally simple to make and we abused the privilege of its discovery so severely that my oldest nephew re-christened it “Chili-Kill-Me Casserole.”

It is not really a recipe, I guess, but more of a platform on which to build something you will find tasty. I hope you enjoy your portion.

chilaquile casserole

Adapted from Mollie Katzen’s Still Life With Menu

The basics:

12 uncooked corn tortillas

2-3 cups of coarsely-grated jack or mild cheddar cheese

dashes of salt, pepper, cumin and/or chile powder

3 large eggs

2 ¼ c buttermilk

The options:

1-2 cups cooked, drained pinto or black beans (or use some leftover black bean soup or chili--just try to steer clear of canned beans)

1-2 c shredded cooked chicken or turkey, or browned ground meat

1 c corn kernels

1 4-oz can of chopped roasted green chiles

1 to 1 1/2 cups of salsa

1-2 c cubed roasted potatoes

Oil a 2-quart baking dish. Cut a stack of 4 tortillas in half and then quarters, so you have four little stacks of wedges, and repeat for the other two stacks of 4. Cover the bottom of the dish with one set of these wedges, and layer on half of your chosen additions, followed by one third of the cheese. Lay on the next set of wedges and repeat. Top off with the remaining wedges.

Beat the buttermilk, eggs and seasonings together and pour gently over the top. Distribute the remaining cheese on top (you can also reserve a few tablespoons of salsa to glob decoratively on the surface), and let stand at least 20 minutes before baking. You can pause here for a few hours if you want to bake it later; just put it in the fridge and let it come to room temp before you bake it, uncovered, at 375 for about 35 minutes, or until golden on top and apparently set.

For a true Good Housekeeping glow, be hereby informed that this serves well hot or at whatever temperature it is when you arrive at a potluck with it, doubles easily and re-heats without complaining.