Gimme Gimme, (More)

I think the Pandemic has brought on some Pandemonium in regards to cooking and eating.   Meals are less structured.  Like this, a hodgepodge of leftovers.  Chicken stew, salad, pizza snacks and later, assorted fruit.   Sometimes you just have to eat what you have, including leftovers and not make a production out of things but its reflective of the chaos of the world right now as well.  In some ways, this meal makes perfect sense, for the time, although to look at it, it seems like something Britney Spears would serve.  

This is a meal that says, I'm a little bit crazy right now, I'm a lot hungry, I do like to have fun...but by the way, I'm out of my effing mind or bored, I can't tell. 

You Can Do Magic

Chicken stew with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, celery, onions & corn simmered in beer and almond milk

I made this stove top, by quickly rolling the washed and dried chicken pieces in seasoned flour and browning before setting aside and making a roux in the same giant pot with the fond.  After the flour was cooked, I whisked in a bottle of beer, almond milk, Better than Bullion, then simply dumped in the chopped vegetables (carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, cabbage, onions), and chicken, covered and simmered with lid and came back an hour later to an amazing, comforting, rich stew.  

Everyone jokes about the fact that many people have reevaluated their life choices in the Pandemic and are making major changes.  For me, I only see transformation in my cooking.  It has definitely steered towards one pot, one pan, less fuss meals and learning ways to throw everything in a pot, close the lid and come back to magic.  I have less energy for cooking on all four-burners and a giant clean up.  But it doesn't mean I want to skimp on flavor, so working in depth and layers of tastes in these quick meals has been my evolution process. 

World Serves It's Own Needs, Listen to Your Heart Bleed

Some of yesterday's baked burgers were chopped up and used for my Stuffed Green Peppers, along with fresh tomatoes, Monterey Jack, Cheddar Cheese, and bread crumbs, baked and served over a bed of rice. 

In a stir fry or most other dishes, I love my green peppers crisp and vibrant, but for baked stuffed peppers I love the roasted flavor and softer texture.  So I salt, pepper and olive oiled the halves and par-baked them for a few minutes before putting in the filling.  

If I've learned anything in the Pandemic, it's that the best thing you can do right now as a cook is use all of your leftovers and never waste good food if you can help it.  And you can usually help it, it just takes effort. The challenge is to do it in the most creative ways.  And the bigger challenge is to care about making dinner when it feels like the world is ending.  

 

You're Messin' Up My Mind and Fillin' Up My Senses

As I'm coming out the ass end of this pinche pendejo COVID virus for the 2nd time (!!), I want to learn to speak Spanish just so I can sufficiently curse it out like a scorned witch from an old Mexican village.   

During my isolation, I eat out of necessity although I am thrilled to be served hot food on trays each day.  As someone in a long term relationship, I really have to give it up to my partner for completely coming through for me.  He's never been one to dote, so making breakfast, lunch, snacks each day is a true feat not to mention fetching meds, endless hot and cold drinks, washing dishes and sleeping on a tiny loveseat.  Everything I put him through with the two ER scares was above and beyond for anyone, let alone, you know, a man.  He's a guy-guy, not one of these new millennial empaths.  That's a nice way of saying he's not naturally considerate, its work for him.  He's a loner that never grasped the concept of union completely.  Usually he needs very clear instructions if I want help and nothing can be left for interpretation.  He'll do anything I ask, I just couldn't imagine he'd be up for making every meal for 2 weeks straight. People are dying alone though, so I can't help but be flooded with deep gratitude.  I know his limitations so I'm sure he was about ready to stop being nice to me like 9 days ago.  Afterall, this is real life and we all just want to be left alone, no one more so than my husband,  so I recognize the scope of his generosity.  These are some of the meals he left at my door like a tired, angry prison guard.

Rigatoni and bok choi

Chili Relleno and Chips

Spaghetti and meat sauce with sauteed mushrooms and garlic

Red Velvet Cake with tea and shot of whiskey

pot pie and steamed broccoli with banana

Bunless cheeseburger with vegetable soup

chicken noodle soup with grilled cheese and sundried tomatoes

Pizza slices

Chicken wrap with vegetable soup

Pot pie with 1/2 a sandwich

Corn Chowder with 1/2 sandwich

Ravioli and lettuce wraps

A proper sandwich and chips

Scrambled ham and eggs with spinach tortilla

pizza slices

I'm not far enough away yet from this virus but I do have to say, it is intriguing.  If you haven't had the pleasure, it's not what you might think.  Yes, it is closest to the flu and the lists you see on MSN are all true. Of course it's different for everyone, but there are so many more not so small oddities that come and go like little gremlins.  Some so severe, they wreak psychological havoc on your already tired mental state. Dry, cracked lips, stabbing leg pain, blurry site, achy eyes, sudden rash.  Here's one for you acid droppers from the 70s.  Remember when your eerily warm skin felt super alive, as if time stopped existing and you could feel all the microbial cities making your body work with some inner eye??  You know the one, where you find yourself in the bathroom examining this incredible foreign creature two inches from the mirror. Well, That feeling!  Ringing in the ears, extreme charley horses in the extremities, sudden hoarseness. I mean the list goes on, nausea, scary chest pain, teeth chattering chills, sweats, back punching pain and zombie like tremors.  I write this list to share but also to remember.  You never feel 100% but weeks from now I'll need to remind myself of waking up on the floor from passing out, sweating and running to get Patrick but realizing I couldn't move half my body, my arms and hands locked up in a crippled position.  I'm super lucky and although I'm still sequestered, it seems for whatever reason I have been spared again.  But the virus got me close enough to that frightful edge again that I stay on high alert. 

And You Can't Keep a Secret From the Ground Beneath You

Pizza Burger 

With P gone, I tried to restart my love affair with food.  Preparing meals had lost some luster during the Pandemic and has felt more a necessity than pleasure.  Ideas weren't flowing, cravings were just faint whispers.  It's a slow climb back to cooking with carefree passion again.  I hope it comes back.  Even this was a half-assed attempt.  The toasted garlic rubbed, oiled Ciabatta bread was a nice topper to this zesty pizza burger but in the end, I lost steam and only had energy to open a can of soup to serve alongside.  In better days, I would have added mushrooms, onions and possibly green olives, slathered the sauce on and definitely served a zippy, fresh side.  Meh.  I did broil the burgers and that developed the flavors. 

I took a walk around the neighborhood to get some perspective and felt the universe was trying to communicate in these abstract images.  

The shortest story ever told

An imprisoned giant stuffed elephant laying on a couch with garbage bags

An S shaped tree plant and interesting door in an abandoned building across from the underpass

A pumpkin patch graveyard

Breakfast was a bright note with yogurt, fruit and nuts

Yeah Love, Is a Long, Long Road

this post written on 11/4/20

It's funny that the outrageousness of the times will be named 2020 but it wasn't actually verbalized in my head until October and now it's almost over.  Seems so obvious now that this monumentally numeric year would have significance but maybe because of the let down that was 2000, I stopped connecting importance to the actual numbers.  Instead of concentrating on the negative, especially as I write this waiting on election results, I am recognizing the fun and lighter portions of the changes that came our way in this tragic year in relation to food.  For example since we're cooking so much at home, on top of using all of our leftovers which is definitely a positive, some cool creations have come about too.  Making a meal out of leftovers has always been a highlight for me but now it's legitimized by the Pandemic.  My poached egg on a pizza slice is now a staple menu item in my tiny apartment.  It isn't crazy to add a side of egg fried vegetable rice either, actually it was strangely the perfect accompaniment.  Taking cues from some of these amazing on-line vegan dishes I learned, many vegetables can be eaten together, spiced differently, roasted or fried, sauteed with raw, you name it. I had been looking for this evolution in music but it definitely happened in food.   And all the crazy works if by the end you are full and feel good.  Of course, I have far to go in making each of my meals more nutritious but due to the Coronavirus I am more committed to eating healthier.  I have been for some time, but it's a long road mentally going from eating to celebrate life, which is where I was born, to eating in order to be able to celebrate life.  I've always felt eating was an event in and of itself.  Now I'm trying to let it be the backdrop to a true festivity, even if it's for something as simple as quietly awaiting election results.  

So, 2020 has given me a deeper appreciation of all things great and small.  The details of life, like morning coffee or exchanges with friends, even washing the dishes somehow became meaningful and valued.  I know that so many horrid things happened this year but it may have nudged some of us just enough to fill with a new appreciation for life and hopefully a better ability to live it more fully.