…restaurant-style smooth red salsa is awesome and you totally want some so here’s one OF APPROXIMATELY EIGHT BILLION WAYS to make some for your face to eat.
1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 medium white onion, diced
2-3 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1 large jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 tsp. chile pequin, or more to taste
1/2 – 1 tsp. ground cumin, to taste
1/2 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper, or 1/4 tsp. regular grind
1/2 lime, juiced, or about 1/2 tsp. cider vinegar
salt to taste
Heat the oil in a pan over low-medium heat Add the onion, jalapeno, and garlic, and sautee for three minutes. Add the chile pequin, cumin seeds, and pepper. Sautee for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Add the sauteed mixture to the chopped tomatoes and puree — in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender — until smooth. Add any remaining tomato juice, lime juice, and salt. Adjust seasonings and serve with tortilla chips.
Notes: 1-Most of these measurements are ballpark; I think I used more oil and less pepper, but whatever, I was winging it. Everything is to taste. 2-You can add a few pinches of dried oregano or epazote if you want to. 3-You can also roast some or most of the ingredients for added deliciousness — the jalapeno, for example, would be great roasted — if you’re feeling energetic.
In which I made a pot pie! My first ever! And lo, it was good stuff!
From December 23, 2014.
Crust
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold salted butter, diced
• 3-5 tablespoons iced water
1. Using fingers, rub the butter and flour together until no piece of butter is larger than a pea.
2. Add 3 tablespoons of iced water and mix.
3. Continue adding water if needed until the dough just barely holds together. It will look ragged.
4. Turn the dough out onto the counter. Form dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, at least an hour (preferably 3) or overnight, or freeze for up to a month.
Notes: After dicing the butter, put it into a bowl and keep in the freezer until both are very cold, about ten minutes or so. You can also chill the flour if the weather is warm. Iced water must be literally iced, not just cold tap.
(Adapted from www.marthastewart.com/891257/classic-chicken-potpie.)
Filling
• 1 medium potato, diced
• 1 large carrot, diced, about 2/3 cup
• 1 small crown broccoli, cut into small florets, about 1-1/2 cup
• 2/3 (14-ounce) package firm tofu, preferrably frozen, thawed, and squeezed dry, cut into small cubes
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup half and half, warmed
• 1/2 c. of the water the veggies were simmered in
• 1/2 (8- ounce) package shredded cheddar
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• salt & pepper to taste
• Pinch of cayenne
1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the potato to the boiling water, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes.
2. Add carrots to the potatoes and cook for 2 more minutes.
3. Add the broccoli and cook for 4 more minutes. Turn off heat.
4. Melt the butter over low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
5. Slowly whisk in the half and half and broth and continue whisking until mixture is smooth.
6. Turn heat up to medium and whisk frequently as sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
7. Add cheese, paprika, salt, and cayenne. Stir until cheese melts. Add salt and pepper.
8. Fold in the tofu and drained veggies.
(Adapted from chezcayenne.com/2014/03/vegan-broccoli-cheese-pot-pie/.)
Assembly & Baking
1. Place the filling in a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish.
2. Roll out the dough to 1/8″ thickness and trim to a size that will overhang the edges of the casserole slightly. Lift the dough onto the casserole and roll the edges under, making an edge as you go. Cut steam vents in the crust.
3. Bake in a 350° oven (on a cookie sheet) until golden brown and bubbly, 45 – 55 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 – 15 minutes. Serve.
Makes 4-6 servings.
In which this soup came out PERFECTLY DELICIOUS.
Black Bean and Lime Soup
4 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, white, diced
1 bell pepper, red, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 rib celery, chopped
1 jalapeno, minced
2 cups broth
3 cans black beans
2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. coriander
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper, to taste
hot sauce, to taste
lime juice, to taste
Put a few tablespoons of oil into the bottom of a pan. Add onion, jalapeno, red bell pepper, garlic, and celery. Sautee until soft.
Add 2 cups of broth, two cans of drained and rinsed black beans, spices, and apple cider vinegar. Simmer until tender. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Puree soup in a blender or food processor. Return to pan, add final can of drained and rinsed black beans. Heat. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, and hot sauce.
To serve, add lime juice and garnish with sour cream, avocado, tomato, and/or cheese.
If you freeze this soup, withhold lime juice until serving time.
In which this is the restaurant-style enchilada sauce recipe you’ve been looking for!
Or at least it’s the one I’ve been looking for, for, like, ten years.
This recipe makes a mild but rich chili gravy absolutely perfect for the traditional Tex Mex cheese & onion enchilada. It’s also remarkably thick, but you can thin it with water to the desired consistency.
Enchilada Gravy
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/3 Tbsp. chile powder (I use ground ancho chile powder rather than American chili powder, which is a blend and cannot be trusted, but use what you have)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. salt, or to taste
1⁄4-1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
3-4 (or more) cups water (depends on your flour)
Cook the oil and flour together over low heat until the flour is no longer raw, at least five minutes, whisking frequently. It will be a very thick paste. Add the chili, cumin, and garlic powders and stir.
Add water, salt & pepper and whisk until smooth. Simmer over low flame for at least 15 minutes to marry flavors.
This makes a lot of gravy. Freeze the rest for next time!
Adapted from:
– www.food.com/recipe/authentic-tex-mexican-enchiladas-116046
Notes: This gravy doesn’t come back together after freezing until it reaches boiling. Just keep whisking it and adding small amounts of water; it’ll eventually stop looking like weird Jello!
In which… blargh. Brain dump, no thesis.
Okay, so, yes, I was still in bed at one o’clock when my better half called to ask me to find his wallet, which he’d forgotten and might be in his jacket, to read him a card number so he could put it on some gas station account and maybe be able to buy gas on the way home later. Yes, what of it? It’s my Day Off.
I may have drunk half a pint of vodka last night, with San Pellegrino limonata? Yum.
Also, sleeping is fucking wonderful. I oversleep to keep the balance for all you sleep-deprived conscious entities!
It’s a lovely and cheery sunny day. It’s fucking uplifting, is what it is. I’ve made the bed and have a coffee shop smooth jazz feed playing. I need to: do the dishes. Do a load or two of laundry. Figure out what to make for dinner. Order groceries. Put the Christmas shit INTO THE FUCKING BASEMENT ALREADY OMFG WHAT. Maybe write a journal entry.
I’d considered suiting up and going to Bob’s for coffee, but I have tons of espresso (ordered some from Amazon, figuring we wouldn’t get out to shop, then he bought me some anyway, and so come over if you want a shot or two of ‘sspro, okay) and there was still milk, so I made myself a latte. Pennies on the dollar, as they say.
My shitty hand-me-down office chair is so wonked now that if I sit perfectly still it wobbles to my heartbeat. Vrrr-vrrr-vrrr. One day I’m going to lean back to stretch and I’ll end up wiping out all over the floor. That will likely be the day I finally order a new chair. What I really want is a piano bench on wheels. That would be tits. Keep papers in it, sit cross-legged, still be able to move it around.
Or just, you know, get rid of this stupid desk altogether, put a board over a couple of milk crates for my monitors, and sit right on the floor like I used to. Most furniture is highly overrated anyway when there’s already a perfectly good floor to sit on.
Recently read some bullshit about millennial males not having bed frames, like, you go back to his place and his mattresses are on the floor and this indicates some psychological failure on his part. Our bed’s on the floor, and when I was single I, a Gen Xer, thank you very much, put the bed frame in the attic and put my bed on the floor. So whatever, nerds. Doesn’t matter if wasting time and money on a bed frame isn’t a priority for someone; after all, people move a lot these days, and bed frames are heavy and stupid, generally, and don’t really accomplish anything you need (beyond making space for you to shove crap under the bed) now that most floors are warm and don’t have rats. I mean, regardless of what your hormones are telling you, you generally know immediately if he’s immature without seeing his furniture, and nobody cares about fucking bed frames.
I think I’m getting bored of vaping. I’ve been buying the same strength (6mg) ejuice for over a year now and think I’ll drop to 3mg on my next batch. Honestly, though, and this is the main thing, I need nicotine to poop, and that’s why I keep blowing off going to 0mg juice: I don’t want to be constipated for the days or weeks or months it’ll take my body to adjust. When you’ve been ingesting nicotine for as long as I have, it definitely affects your gut behavior. The last time I was sick I got bronchitis, so naturally didn’t vape for like ten days, and probably pooped twice. Hell with that.
My terrible habit of letting my hair get super snarled and then brushing it rather violently with a shitty plastic brush has resulted in a chunk behind my left ear that’s much shorter than all the rest of my hair. Now it just sticks out and I have to use a bobby pin. I wish I had the sort of face and neck you need to just shave your fucking head… although I wear my hair up all the time because A. my hair is fine and annoying so I dislike it touching me and B. I work food service. So in terms of what people have to look at, I might as well just shave it off, really. It’s been years since I’ve had a proper posh cut and color and maybe I should just throw some money at that, so I can continue to wear it up anyway.
Okay, I’ve ordered groceries so I guess I’d better do the dishes to clear off the counter space. And then I absolutely REALLY SHOULD stack all the Xmas stuff on the sofa so it’s staged for Operation: Take This Fucking Shit Down Stairs Already You Utter Cow It’s Past Valentine’s Day Already What The Hell Is The Matter With You.
In which there’s a shitload of flowers.
HAPPEH V.D. TO ALL
In which it’s winter.
We’ve had, like, idk, 22″ of snowfall, in a week and a half?
In which there’s 28 pounds of history.
My mother and step-father are leaving Wyoming, where they’ve lived for many years, to return to the Pacific Northwest for retirement. This means they’re going through all their shit as they pack.
My mom emailed me to say she’d found a box of my stuff that appeared to have high school annuals, memorabilia, and diaries in it; did I want it now or should she just put it with the moving stuff?
Box? What box? Did I leave a box there, somehow, when I passed through on my way from Iowa to Washington twelve years ago?
I said that, since I had no idea what it was (I got my high school annuals back years ago), it didn’t really matter what she did with it, but if she had time to ship it I guess I’d take it.
She shipped it.
Holy shit:
It’s a box I vaguely remember! My senior annual and scrapbook, sheet music, scripts from when I played Kate in Taming of the Shrew. Concert ticket stubs!
And Jesus, my high school diaries!
I thought I’d left my journals at my dad’s when I moved out, and that he’d gotten rid of them along with the other stuff I’d left when he moved into an RV back in the 90’s. I remember being pissed they were gone, but that was a long time ago now.
Seven volumes of teen writing. Ye gods.
There’s stuff from after high school, too. Choir certificates from junior college, clippings and pictures, even three cassette tapes I have no way of playing. A piece of art from a boyfriend I’d dated. My name tag from when I worked at 7-Eleven. Looks like there might be a photo album in the bottom, too, but I haven’t dug it out yet.
I’ve opened three of the diaries and glanced at single pages; it’s pretty much boring, awful teen girl noise. (One page I opened to said, “My mom turned 39 today!” That’s eleven years younger than I am now.) I have basically no desire to read them, but will probably skim them anyway for shits and giggles.
I have no idea how mom ended up with this box, nor how long she’s had it — they must have moved it to Wyoming with them, and then, what, two or three times since? — without ever bothering to open it. I must have left it with her in the 90’s, because I certainly didn’t have it in Iowa, so I couldn’t have left it on my way back in ’07.
It makes no sense that it’s shown up now, after being gone so long, nor that my mother has had it and moved it multiple times without even realizing it. I’m pretty sure it rematerialized itself, if I’m honest. Probably something evolutionarily interesting in it, somewhere.
I don’t really want or need any of it, as interesting and precious as it may have seemed in my 20’s or 30’s; I may go through it and take pictures of the more interesting stuff (there are a few items from MHCC that I might post on Facebook, and tag the relevant people) and then get rid of it. But wow, talk about a blast from the past, as they used to say!
In which there are eggs.
I woke up here in the new year, grabbed my phone, and searched ‘egg & chips.’ (Leftover fries in the fridge, you see.)
Found this recipe from The Irish Times and had all the ingredients on hand! Got up and cooked.
So, here’s eggs & chips with a green sauce and a pot of tea!
That green sauce is super easy and quite good.
The teapot is new-to-me; my aunt Kathy sent it late last year.
Happy New Year!
In which there’s a review! Of a year!
Started the year in a chat pilot program, which meant typing rather than speaking with people, which was so much better. The pilot was a success! It was approved, made permanent, aaaand given to another call center. In India.
So I got moved back to phones. They said it would be months, but it was barely a few weeks and suddenly I was back in the queue after being on chat for a year. The volume was fucking ridiculous, the policies were even more hostile, and everyone was obviously stressed as hell. An upper management-type made a video that said, in essence, thanks if your attendance is perfect, but we’re going to fire the rest of you if you keep calling out. Fuck that. You’re so understaffed you can’t afford to fire anybody. Your attrition in new hire classes is, what, over 80%? I get that you’re stressed, dude, and that you may not be getting your annual CEO bonus or whatever, but suck my dick. My attendance is exemplary, thank you very much, and what sort of moron broadcasts that level of obvious anxiety to the people in the trenches?
Working at a call center that contracts for Comcast fucking sucks: shit hours, shit pay, no bonuses, hostile policies, and (rightfully) enraged customers. Being back on the phones after a year just made it that much more obvious: while working from home is a benefit in itself, that job was awful.
So I got a job in a cheese shop inside a liquor store! Quit the call center with about 32 minutes notice (because seriously, what’s the point of notice in a job like that? It’s not like they want you to train your replacement; they don’t give a fuck about lost knowledge/expertise) and started my new job the following Monday.
It’s so great! I’m so grateful for it! Hours are great, people are great, the work itself is great. My commute is a one-block walk! I get an employee discount! I got a Christmas bonus! The owners are good people! It’s such a welcome change, to have a normal job again; to not work for evil corporate America.
And, as much as I’d like to bitch about it, the physical activity of the new job, the getting up and leaving the building, the talking-to-people and all: it’s very good for me. Very. Sure, I have the organization and self-discipline for a work-from-home job, but apparently I don’t move unless moving is embedded in some other activity, like commuting or working.
Aside: I now own several pairs of support socks! Standing up for hours makes my ankles swell!
This year I realized there’s yet another “two types of people” division: those having crazy-painful-insane relationship woes all the time on the one hand, and really nice, boring, stable couples who never have ANY drama, at all, EVER on the other. Basically two different species, and they don’t really inter-mix. I used to belong to the former group and belonging to the latter is much, much nicer. We don’t look cool, we don’t go cool places, but there’s zero goddamned drama. Whoo!
I turned 50 this year. I think a lot of my misery over the past few years was hormonal hell due to The Change and is finally tapering off; I feel like much less like shit these days, and last week I actually got up and left the apartment on all of my days off! Without, like, doing so being an intellectual choice to force myself not to lie around all day. Nothing major, just to the bakery or coffee shop or whatever, but that sort of energy hasn’t been mine since right before I moved to Minnesota. Past few years if there’s a choice between doing anything at all and just sitting around, I always chose the latter. Now I’ll just pop out like a normal person! It’s great.
Oh, and I’ve become so fat and old and slat-assed and droopy I don’t even notice my bingo wings anymore, so that’s nice! Whoo! I can, somehow, still get down into and back up out of a deep, flat-footed squat, too. Also nice. Benefit of short legs and a lifetime of sitting cross-legged even in office chairs, I suppose.
Didn’t read for shit in 2018 (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Amazon Prime video, Netflix, and Plex got my eyeballs), but here’s what little I did read. There’s another probably ten books I started but haven’t yet finished.
My friends from the left coast called me last night. I MISS THEM SO MUCH. The call was nourishing and hilarious and wonderful. Later, I voice chatted with my brother. Being able to sit at your desk and still be “with” people is neat. Yay, technology!
I don’t do resolutions, really, but if I have any intentions it’s the same as ever: get out as much as possible during spring and fall when the weather’s not totally awful. Read more. Less fucking Twitter. Don’t buy any more damned fountain pens. You know, the usual.
