I have a complete addiction to Mexican food, so thorough and cellular-level that it was all I craved during not one but BOTH pregnancies.  Making it at home has been a bit outside my patience quotient though…moles with 30+ ingredients??  Dude, I WORK for a living!

Anyway, I’ve been researching techniques, learning theory and practice…and this burrito sauce kicks all kinds of ass if I do say so myself.

Burrito Red Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 half diced white onion
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp black pepper
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 chicken bullion cubes

Saute the onion in the butter til soft then stir in the flour to make a nice roux.  Add everything else and simmer for 20 minutes.

I used thin sirloin steaklets for the filling in our burritos.  Sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and garlic powder, then cooked fast in hot pan (no more than 2 mins on a side).  Let the meat rest while you put the sauce together, then slice it up into thin cross-grain strips.  Take the lovely puddle of resulting meat juice and add to the burrito sauce.

As always, the spices above can be added/subtracted/substituted as you like, depending on your tastes.  Experiment!

**Please insert here my usual array of excuses for utterly abandoning my garden/food blog**

There, that’s better.  Even though I haven’t been talking about it, we’re still cooking of course.  Twitter has been my medium of choice lately, being both fast and succinct, so all the pics are winding up there.  There’s been turtles and a gorgeous pot roast.  Thanksgiving saw an amazing cherry-brined/cherrywood-smoked turkey, and a made-from-scratch Boston Creme pie.  Before that there was cashew chicken, my new favorite bread (recipe here), applewood-smoked chicken, and a rustic peach tart.

Likewise the garden is not completely fallow.  I started the very last of my tomato seeds (I’m completely out of tomato seeds…that’s never happened to me before!) a little too late in the season for a fall crop, and am now babying the plants along, trying to prevent these crazy December frosts from completely spoiling my freezer-restocking ambitions.  Global warming, hey?  *snort*

On the agenda in the next few weeks:

• Clean out planting boxes, dammit! Restock with fresh dirt and get the winter things started (greens and snow peas).
• Completely re-work the irrigation setup out back.  It’s CRAZY, I say!
• Post more recipes!  This week will see Joe Froggers, homemade tootsie rolls and salted caramels.

There, I think that’s enough for now.  Wouldn’t want to strain myself, ya?

Sorry for the long silence here, but a “strained ligament” in my right knee around Mother’s Day has turned into 6 weeks of anti-inflammatories, constant ice packs, painful stretching and finally a cortisone shot directly behind the kneecap…

— giving you a moment to envision that —

…which in turn translates into near-total neglect of the poor garden.  Yes, AGAIN.

The potato vines finally started to die back last week, so this week became Potato Harvest Time.  You may recall we have two large homemade vertical bins, and one commercially produced growing bag, and this year we planted Rote Erstling, Early Rose and Red Pontiac varieties.  My curiosity got the better of me on Thursday and I dug down into the bag to find potatoes!

This is the Red Pontiac, about 3 lbs worth.  I wound up discarding about five of them due to pest chewage, but a respectable haul.  The majority of them were near the bottom of the bag, so I think we didn’t get dirt into the bag fast enough to prevent the stems from hardening off.  (Sunlight will cause the hardening, and then they’ll be incapable of producing potatoes all the way up.)

Today we cracked open the vertical bins to see what we could see. This is done by laying a tarp in front of the bin (to catch the dirt)…

…then unscrewing the front boards down to the last one…

…then using a potato fork to scoop the dirt out onto the tarp.

Of the three varieties planted, this is the haul from the Rote Erstling and Early Rose varieties.  SIGH.

Of course the Red Pontiac harvest sort of makes up for it…

So next year we’ll keep experimenting with varieties, and if the fates and gods allow, actually not have any health issues to interfere with the timely addition of dirt!

One of the best yet, I think…

1. The XX – Intro
2. Fol Chen – Cable Tv
3. Keane – Spiralling
4. The Flaming Lips – Watching the Planets
5. The Antlers – Bear
6. Vampire Weekend – Giving Up the Gun
7. MGMT – Time to Pretend
8. The Morning Benders – Excuses
9. The Delta Mirror – He Was Worse Than the Needle He Gave You
10. The Dead Weather – Die By the Drop
11. Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground
12. Broken Bells – The High Road
13. Jonsi – Go Do
14. The Constellations – Felicia
15. New Politics – Yeah Yeah Yeah

And some bonus country (yes, COUNTRY) stuff I’m enjoying lately:

The Wreckers – “My, Oh My”

Little Big Town – “Bones”

Heyyy, what happened to February and March??

Pfft, it took 2 1/2 months to compile even one!   Slow music year I guess…

1. Sleigh Bells – Infinity Guitars
2. LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
3. Le Tigre – Hot Topic
4. Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
5. The Xx – Crystalised
6. Cold War Kids – Audience of One
7. The Heavy – How You Like Me Now
8. Metric – Help I’m Alive
9. Caribou – Odessa
10. Spinerette – Baptized by Fire
11. Ok Go – This Too Shall Pass
12. Broken Social Scene – All to All

Because I can’t *%^%$#% go, I am sending my sister, cub reporter for WFBY news, to the 16th  Annual APC/Crisco® National Pie Championships here in a few days.

Four words:  Never Ending Pie Buffet

Please anticipate pictures that will make your saliva glands burst with happiness.

(If you want to attend on your own, it is being held at the Omni Championsgate in Kissimmee, FL.)

So, to recap, this weekend I have already made 8 half pints of blackberry jam and 4 half pints of strawberry jam.  Figuring that wasn’t quite enough abuse on my poor knee joints, today I made 6 half pints of peach jam…

Then used even more peaches for fried peach pies…

These were simply amazing, most amazing pastry dough EVER.  The recipe came from a cookbook I knew I had to have once I saw the title:  Screen Doors and Sweet Tea I’ll probably get all lawyered if I repost the recipe here, so just buy the book, mmkay?

And finally, today (appropriately enough, Pi day) saw my very first attempt – EVER – at pie.  Why?  Well, not a huge fan of fruit in semi-sweet bread, on the whole I’d just rather have a piece of chocolate, but it’s kind of one of those things you need to know how to cook, like turkey and french bread.  Oh, that’s just me?  Anyway, here’s the pie:

The crust recipe came from the above Screen Doors cookbook, and uses the French method frissage (demonstrated somewhere in that damn video, I lost patience about 30 seconds in…looks like she starts on it about 4:18 in the timeline there), which is feathering the dough on your countertop…taking an egg-sized piece, smooshing it with the heel of your hand away from you, then repeating with the remaining dough.  You’ll see some say, “Gasp!  Mon dieu!  Frissaging will destroy the gluten!”  Pfft.  Don’t overwork it and you’re fine.

See?

The crust was crazy-good, flaky and tender.  I am not a Granny Smith fan, so I used Pink Lady apples exclusively.  This made for a non-goopy filling, with nice tender-sweet apples.  Not the prettiest pie in the world, but tasted damn good for a first ever effort.

I think it was the unmistakable scent of spring in the air, but sometime Friday I suddenly needed JAM.  Strawberry, of course, being the kids’ favorite, and definitely blackberry, being MY favorite.  Fruit was purchased, jars were sterilized, and the jamming began.

The strawberry jam recipe I started with was this one by Ina Garten…I changed a few things though.   The end result was perfect, I think.   Sweet, berry-y (that’s a word!) and makes nice small batches.

Strawberry Jam

• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 small lemon, juiced
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 pints fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

Combine sugar, lemon juice and water in saucepan over low heat, stir until sugar is as dissolved as it is going to get.  Add the strawberries and bring to a slow boil, let it do this for about 20 minutes.  Scoop off the foam as it develops and discard.  Jar as you normally would, yields about 4 half pints.

And then came time for my beloved blackberry jam.  Hate raspberries, hate blueberries, LOOOVE blackberries.  I’m like the only one in the house who does, though, so MINE ALL MINE!!!

Blackberry Jam

My favorite one yet, I think, particularly “Lions.”  Enjoy!

1. Spoon – I Summon You
2. The Matches – Wake the Sun
3. Foreign Born – Winter Games
4. We Are Scientists – Can’t Lose
5. The Features – Lions
6. Editors – Smokers Outside
7. Hollerado – Do the Doot Da Doot Doo
8. Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
9. Postal Service – Such Great Heights
10. Phoenix – 1901
11. Weezer – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
12. White Rabbits – Percussion Gun

Yes, we still live, hallooo!

Had dinner with some old friends last night at the tapas place Cafe Tu Tu Tango in Orlando, wherein Husband was entranced by the Sopa de Leon (a chorizo, chicken and chickpea soup), so today’s side project was cobbling together a reasonable facsimilie.   And here it is:

• 8 oz chorizo sausage
• chicken breast, cooked and shredded
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 1 32 oz can chicken stock
• 2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained
• yellow corn tortilla chips

Put oil in saucepan on medium high heat and cook chorizo 2 minutes.

Add onion, garlic and celery, sautee until onion is soft.

Add stock, tomatoes, chickpeas and chicken.  Add salt, pepper to taste and a pinch of sugar.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Thoroughly crush about three handfuls of tortilla chips and stir into the soup.  Let simmer for another 10 minutes then serve.