Month: December 2024

I made pork tamales for the first time ever.

They’re delicious. Here’s what I did, and a tiny bit of how I managed.

I was in the kitchen from 10:30am until almost 5pm working a bit of magic with my first ever tamales.

When Ivan and I were either dating, or newly married, we helped his mom make tamales, dozens of them, by hand; no KA stand mixer back then. I swore never to do that again.

Were these great? No, but they’re pretty darn good. I learned a lot, and will make some changes to the leftover ingredients I have to make more tamales soon. I didn’t get the ratio of pork fat, and dried corn masa correct, but I have thought of a way to fix that. We’ll see. I also bought the dried masa specifically for tamales, not tortillas; though you can use either. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

That said, continue to have a wonderful holiday season. Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe.

Merriest of Christmases everyone.

Be happy, healthy, and safe. Enjoy every minute with your loved ones as you never know when it may be the last time you see them.

Until next time.

Peace, love, and happiness to all of you, always.

Here is a little trick I’ve picked up whilst on my “learning how to cook” journey.

I recently made a meatloaf for 2, had half of it leftover which I reheated for dinner, via a steamer, along with 6 small new potatoes, and 250 g. frozen mixed veg. What a banquet.

You folks probably eat like this all of the time, but Ivan, and I eat, or used to eat only things that went into a tortilla. I rarely had time to cook a decent meal as I worked so much.

Now that I have more time than money, I am learning to use it to our advantage. I’m learning how to cook decent, flavorful food without spending 6 hours in the kitchen.

I have also downloaded, and printed 2 weeks of a “weekly menu planner”. Here’s what I chose, and what I’ve done for the first week.

So, I started by cutting a narrow piece of parchment paper, cutting that in half again, and put the meatloaf into each piece. Covering the pan of boiling water with the lid, leaving it for about 4 minutes, I removed the now moist, reheated meatloaf onto our plates, and served it with the smashed new potatoes, and mixed veg. Of course both of the latter 2 items were buttered, with S&P added for fresh flavor.

That was my trick to pass along to you. Here’s menu planner.

I’m so excited to see how well I can keep to this type of working menu. It will help me use up the freezer full of food that seems to keep filling up when I’m not paying attention.

I’ll let you know how it goes, as it goes.

Until next time, stay safe. You know how.

I got so much done today. (Not the day you’re reading this).

I showered, had coffee, made eggs with chorizo, and fried diced potatoes, refried beans, tortillas, and avocado salsa, relaxed for about an hour, then started in the kitchen.

After boiling my 2 kettles of water, I made the pickled onions I told you about already, (I had forgotten to use the cutting guard, remember?)

After our groceries were delivered from Walmart, I put those away, then started processing the 3 different types of mushrooms I bought. Again. The others that I had cooked/frozen after they were no longer in prime condition, I got rid of those, and cut, partially cooked, froze, and vacuum sealed the fresh ones. I put them into portion sizes, ready to be used whenever needed.

I’m looking forward to a homemade pizza, or 2 in the near future. When we had spaghetti with a meat sauce the other night, I used the “other” mushrooms, and it was delicious. Thankfully, we’re still alive.

Now that I’m learning how to cook the correct amount of food for just the 2 of us, clean up, and storage is a breeze. I no longer have to find a half dozen containers to put all of the leftovers away. There has been only enough left over for one more serving the next day. It’s usually Ivan that eats the left overs as he is really enjoying the food I’ve making these days.

Without a week’s worth of the same food having been prepared, we are able to enjoy something different every night. that doesn’t mean I make a whole dinner meal every afternoon, but I do at least 3 times a week. For now. I’m hoping to be able to make a good tasting dinner every night.

Gonna go now. I’m so sleepy I’m making all kinds of mistakes. Very annoying.

Until next time.

Stay healthy, stay happy.

Close to 20 years ago, our daughter, and I, went to a college in our area, Augustana to be exact, to rehearse with their choir for their annual production of Handel’s “Messiah”.

We went once a week for about 6 weeks, best I can recall, and sang with their amazing choir, readying ourselves to sing at this most beloved concert. It was leading up to the Christmas holidays as it is right now.

Unfortunately, I got ill, and couldn’t perform the night of the concert.

However, as my loving husband knows how much I absolutely love to sing, he will, especially at this time of the year, lure me into his man cave, pull up on his computer one of my favorite renditions of the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah, sung by The Roches, and has me sing my alto part.

It always brings us to tears, and I swear I’m not going to fall for that again,

Until the next time.

Other than the Roche sisters, my most favorite song to sing is K.D. Lang’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. I don’t do either justice, but with enough liquid courage, I can, and do, sing from my soul.

Fortunately, it’s only for the two of us.

I have sung all of my life, and hope to continue to sing until I’m nothing more than a memory.

I hope to always be a memory, for someone. Anyone.

Until next time, stay happy doing whatever makes you so.

The journey continues towards my culinary growth.

This may not seem like much to you, but to me, it’s been a lifelong dream, to be able to cook decent, dare I say flavorful food.

I have never been blessed with the ability to “throw together this with that”, (Ivan calls it cooking by the seat of my pants), and have anything edible when it’s done. Now, however, I’m following recipes that were, in the recent past, quite foreign to me. Yes, I can read, obviously, but cook, not so obviously.

During the second week of “my weekly menu” use, I made beef enchiladas, with basmati rice, which were delicious. Check.

Then, I made a chicken tikka masala, with a spiced basmati rice, which was so-so, (the chicken). I didn’t care for the end flavor profile, (I’ve waited a long time to use that phrase ;), as it wasn’t the curry flavor I was anticipating. I’m going to try a definite curry recipe next time.

Albóndigas en salsa roja came next. That’s meatballs in a red sauce. They, too, were okay, but not quite what I was looking for, so I froze the leftovers.

Last night was Enfrijoladas, corn tortillas coated in an amazing black bean sauce, garnished with chopped jalapeños in vinegar, crumbled queso fresco, Mexican crema, and chopped cilantro. They were excellent. I had 3, Ivan had 4. He almost never eats more than 2 of anything. I was very proud of that dish.

Tonight I’m going to try making fish tacos, and Tortilla Soup. We’ll see how that turns out. Shouldn’t be too bad, but a bit time consuming.

Dinner, here, usually takes me 1- 1 1/2 hours to cook, so I plan accordingly. I’m usually in the kitchen by 3, hoping to have dinner ready by 5. Usually works. Beats sitting in front of my computer all day.

Gotta go for now. I’m walking down the block to pay the gas bill. It’s $178 MXN= $9.27USD for a month of showering, using the dryer, heating water on the stove for dish washing. Electricity was $583MXN=$30.37USD. Not too bad for being on a fixed income.

Until next time, stay safe.

I recently ordered a kilo of fresh onions, and garlic, with 600g of ginger from one of our local grocery stores, Soriana.

They were going to be delivered, as you can see, between 4-5pm, for $38MXN/$1.98USD. Not too shabby if you ask me. I was going to pay for them upon delivery.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. They didn’t have any ginger in their online store, whatever that means. But a “bot” offered to give me information to one of the local Soriana stores to see if they had any ginger on hand. I thanked him/her/it, (pronouns gone wild), and said I’d go out next week to find some.

You see, I’m going to start processing the onions, garlic, and, eventually, the ginger in the food processor, combining each with a teaspoon of salt, and enough avocado oil to make a lovely paste, put each into ice cube trays, and freeze them. I’ll just have to reach into the freezer, and remove however much I need for any particular recipe with no produce wasted.

I have to do a bit of weeding out of the freezer first as it is full of a bit of this, and a bit of that that I freeze so that little bit of something won’t spoil. Enough I say. Take control of your freezer I say.

So, that’s my plan. I’ll let you know how it materializes.

Until next time, stay safe. You could try for happy too, if you’re of a mind.

Post script: The groceries didn’t arrive. The website said it was delivered, but nope. Nothing. Will try elsewhere next week. Will probably have to actually go to the store, and get what we need. The audacity. At least we hadn’t paid for them.

I have always wanted to know what a “good” curry tastes like.

Heck, I’ve just wanted to know what “a” curry tastes like, good, or otherwise.

We did.

The other night I got a recipe online for a chicken curry that looked like it was going to be pretty tasty, so I tried it. It was “ok”, though I would say it’s not what I want from a curry. The chicken was very flavorful, but not, as I just said, what I’m looking for in a curry. It’s not a flavor, yet, that I want to have on more than one occasion.

I think that when I find have the “aha” moment, and find the flavor combinations that I’m seeking, it will be the sauce I make in quantity, and freeze, to have readily at hand.

Here’s, briefly, what transpired.

Here are the ingredients I used for the homemade curry powder.

It smells incredible, and if the final results of the curry sauce had tasted as good as the above smelled, that would have been a winner-winner, chicken dinner.

Alas, however, the search continues. There are thousands of recipes online for curry sauce, so eventually I’ll find the one that suits us.

Until then, stay safe.

Update: forget all of that. My search is over for awhile. I’ve buckled. I bought red, and green curry paste that is supposed to be really good. The list of ingredients is everything you could hope for in a curry sauce that’s not available to us here; lemon grass, galangal, well, you can see what I mean.

We haven’t tried either yet, and I have put half of each container in the freezer. Hope it tastes as good as it’s purported. I’ll let you know.

I’ve taken my sourdough starter out of the fridge after 4 months, have fed it once, 48 hours ago, and this is what it looks like.

And that’s just after one feeding. I can’t wait to see what it looks like next week.

I’m looking to make 2 loaves of bread; a sandwich loaf for both of us, and an artisanal loaf for moi. I can always make croutons with what doesn’t get eaten, right?

I also fed the kombucha, so now all I need to do is find the bottles I bought with the twist on caps. They can’t be far.

Until next time, stay safe.

Update: my starter developed a mold infestation, so I had to get rid of it. Fortunately, I had dried a batch in 2021, so I took a few pieces from the jar, and fed it with flour, and boiled/cooled water, and it’s coming back alive in just a few hours. Let me show you the dried sourdough.

2nd update: I found my jars, washed them, filled them with mango pieces, and they’ve been on the counter since the 9th of Nov. Let me show you.

I’d rather not.

That said, I remembered, recently, that over the past 2-3 years I’ve been printing out recipes that I’d like to try making, but haven’t. Yet.

I had put the notebook away in the pantry, in a plastic tub, and had forgotten all about it. The other, while I was in there looking for Heaven only knows what, I happened to see the tub, on the floor, and could make out the notebook inside.

It wasn’t difficult to see, it’s so big. But, as I said, I had forgotten its existence.

This evening, I retrieved it, and started looking through it. My enthusiasm has been rekindled to try finding recipes that I’ve been wanting to try.

Here’s what I’ve done so far.

I have my work cut out for me, for the foreseeable future that is. I now have to find the round punch hole protectors, and the 3 hole punch. They’re here somewhere.

In the meantime, going through all of those will refresh my memory, and help me with my weekly menu prep. (That’s been going really well, BTW.) Our food wastage has been cut back to almost zero.

Until next time, stay safe. Try to be happy as well.