The Experiment

Happy Sunday, dear readers.

Success! You CAN mix meat and veggies in a pita!

Last night, I decided to try something new. I knew I was gonna make a pita, but I wasn't sure how it would turn out. The reason for this doubt was because I was making pita with both meat and vegetable filling. While meat, vegetable, as well as cheese are common pita fillings, I've never seen meat and vegetable combined in a pita filling before. I had ground beef and spinach, and I wanted to use that for my pita.

Unsure, if anyone else had made a meat and spinach pita, I consulted the oracle known as Google for help finding a recipe. There was nothing in English, and when I searched the Serbian-language net, I did find one recipe for meat and spinach pita from Montenegro. I thank God for giving me the inspiration to watch cooking tutorials in Serbian because even though I've never been particularly proficient in the language, I now could read and follow a recipe in a language other than my dominant English. I looked at the ingredient list and though I had almost all the ingredients the recipe called for, I did not have sour cream. No matter, I would substitute a cup of milk instead.

There was one other novelty I was trying out with this pita. While at the swap meet a few weeks ago, I bought a 10x10 Corningware casserole baking dish with a lid. I'd washed it and was now ready to test it out with my pita. I intended to make the pita on my barbecue after the resounding success of my most recent attempt, but a summer storm blew through and not only put the kaibosh on that plan, but it cooled down the temperature enough to where I could run the oven inside and not turn my home into a furnace.

Using my handy dandy cast iron pan, I browned the meat, onion, and garlic. For spices, I added salt, pepper, a dusting of paprika, and a pinch of turmeric to enhance the flavor of the beef. I added the spinach last, but not before roughly chopping it. In the last pita I made using spinach filling, I didn't alter the spinach and I didn't like the way it lay for the filling. I decided to try the chopped spinach to see how well it lay in the filling. All this went into my mixing bowl filled with milk and beaten eggs.

Assembling the pita itself was actually much easier in this casserole dish than it was in the old recycled aluminum cinnamon roll tin I'd been using previously to bake pitas. The casserole dish is square, and the rectangular fillo dough sheets lay much better in that than in the round aluminum tin. I didn't even need to use that much oil to grease the fillo dough sheets between layers. Sure enough, the chopped spinach lay in the folds of fillo much better than they previously did. It wasn't until after I'd popped the pita into the oven that I realized I forgot to add the baking powder to the filling. To be fair, though, until recently, I had no idea that baking powder was used in pita filling. Growing up, nobody I knew used it. Baking powder helps the fillo dough puff up some, so that the pita isn't so dense.

After baking for about an hour or so until the top was a gorgeous golden brown color, it was time to answer the ultimate question: how did this pita turn out.

A better shot of the fillo and filling

The answer: delicious! The outsides were nice and crispy, the inside was nice and tender, and the filling wasn't too dense either! Having a dairy product in the filling definitely helps. Next time, though, I will add the baking powder. I may or may not use the sour cream too, given how satisfied I was with the milk, but if I get some, I'll use it just to see how it compares. But that casserole dish was a wonderful investment. For $10, I leveled up my pita baking to a whole new level. I don't have to be ghetto about my baking equipment anymore! Also, this pita confirmed that despite being somewhat rare, you CAN mix meat and vegetables in a pita filling, and it will come out tasting delicious.

I've almost gotten my pita making technique down pat. Thank you for bearing with me while I figure out how to make this classic dish from my ancestors.

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The Pita Breads

Good evening, dear readers.

After a fulfilling afternoon spent helping a friend and former neighbor fix up a trailer for her son, I had a hankering to make some more bread. Bread making, as I've come to figure out, isn't that hard. It can be time consuming, yes, but you're letting chemistry and physics do most of the work for you.

Playing with the curtain door at our friend's home

Since we had some leftover hummus in the fridge, I decided that pita bread was in order for dinner. Thanks to that amazing culinary school known as Youtube cooking tutorials, I found an easy and not-so-time-consuming recipe for Greek pita bread from my favorite Greek chef, Akis Petretzikis. I didn't have any fresh thyme, which the recipe called for, but since we have loads of Italian seasoning which we've acquired from moving inheritances and trailer cleanouts, I used that instead. It had thyme in it.

After kneading, rolling flat, and grilling them in my trusty cast iron pan on medium heat, the resulting pita breads were absolutely divine. They were soft and tasty with a bit of crisp on the outside. Since they were homemade, the pita bread loafs were different sizes and thicknesses, which gave them some variety. The Italian seasoning I added to the dough made a tremendous difference and gave the breads a very nice aroma in addition to a subtle taste. My husband really liked the pita breads too as he broke apart the piece and dragged it through the hummus.

My beautiful pita breads (note: I have no idea why the image is rendering sideways. It was taken right-side up!)

Akis was right: once I made homemade pita bread, there's no going back to store bought. It didn't even take that long to make, from activating the yeast to plating the finished breads, it took probably about an hour and a half total. It was a breeze compared to English muffins, which when made fresh is pretty much a whole-day affair.

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The English Muffins, Part II

Happy Sunday, dear readers!

Earlier this past week, I bought a jar of fresh yeast to replace the bag of yeast that had been sitting in my fridge for at least a year and a half. The first thing I tried making with that bag of yeast was English muffins, but they came out dense. Unable to pinpoint exactly where I went wrong, I decided to try making something else with the yeast. I settled on a pita bread recipe from Youtube, but when I tried activating the yeast, it wouldn't activate. I knew then that the yeast was bad and that I needed to get some more if I was gonna try making any bread recipes. Once is an anomaly, but twice is indicative of a systemic failure. Almost by chance, however, I discovered at the store that the kind of yeast I'd been given wasn't the normal dry active yeast used by the chefs in my Youtube tutorials, but bread machine yeast! It also goes bad after six months if it's not used up before an expiration date. I had no way of knowing this information beforehand, and there's no telling how long the family friend who gave me the yeast had it sitting in her pantry.

All ready to cook! Yes, I wrecked one, but it still came out tasting good

So with my fresh new jar of regular dry active yeast, I decided to give the English muffin recipe a second go. It was literally night and day working with really activated yeast. The starter sponge looked, well, like a sponge and when I set the dough on top of the dresser to rise, it REALLY DID RISE! It definitely doubled, and then some. Kneading the divine-smelling dough was much easier too, and it blew my mind how big the dough balls were once they'd finished proofing. They actually touched! I also used a fresh bag of flour that hadn't been hijacked by bugs, so I think that helped too.

I did make two small errors during this little endeavor. The first error came when I cut the dough into smaller pieces to roll: I forgot to put some flour down on a second plate that was needed when I was arranging the dough balls to proof. The dough balls on the second plate wound up not only expanding to be touching each other, but they also stuck to the plate's surface and wound up kinda misshaping the muffin a bit when I put them in my trusty cast iron skillet to fry. The other error I made was when I cut one of the dough balls in half because I hadn't realized how big the balls would be once they had finished rising, and deflated it. Oops! Needless to say, I left the other dough balls alone. They were about 2-3 times the size of the store-bought English muffins.

All done! Yeah, they don't look much like English muffins, but that's ok. I'm still learning this shit

I changed one other thing from the first time I made these English muffins. This time, I fried them in butter instead of olive oil. Even though I'm notoriously bad at this, it sometimes pays to read and follow the instructions in the recipe exactly as they're written.

Finally, the moment of truth came after my fresh batch of English muffins had cooled down enough to be handled. My husband insisted on using a knife to slice open the collapsed English muffin to toast and butter it. It was almost a complete 180 from the first English muffins I made. These were tasty, fluffy, held in the heat well and had a significant number of nooks and crannies! My husband was delighted with the result, even if this second batch was bigger and more misshapen than the store bought English muffins I was accustomed to seeing.

Look at that fluffy, buttery goodness! If my husband had been civilized and used a fork to separate the halves of the English muffin, I think the nooks and crannies would have been more obvious

Needless to say, this recipe is a keeper. Now that I have a better idea of how big everything is gonna get, I can either cut smaller pieces of dough or I can make a big batch of proofed dough balls and then freeze them, taking out only what I'd need to make English muffins for a weekend breakfast or something the next time I feel up to making these. I now feel very confident that I can try making other bread recipes.


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The Upgrade

Good evening, dear readers.

Today, my kitchen received some much-needed upgrades. For a while, we've been lacking in a few kitchen basics like a liquid measuring cup, baking sheets, a rolling pin, a whisk, and a 9x13 casserole dish. We've made-do without them, but since I've been taking a more active role in meal prep now that my husband has to work, cooking becomes a real bitch when you don't have the proper tools for the job.

Since we needed a few non-food items at Walmart, I got my kitchen tools. I even got a small Teflon-coated pan for when I make palacinke! The only thing from my list that I didn't get was the casserole dish, but only because our neighbor down the street was having a yard sale and my husband saw that she had bakeware for sale.

My new starter. It works beautifully

Even though the kitchen arsenal upgrade was great, the best upgrade I got today was a proper charcoal starter! My mom sent my husband a gift card to Home Depot for his birthday, and we used that to get my starter (as well as some needed hardware). I was happy because now I could light my charcoal in a relatively safe and effective manner as opposed to using the propane stove and risking burns during the transfer of the charcoal from the stove to the grill. Before we were married, I remembered that my husband had a small charcoal chimney starter which he used periodically for when he wanted to barbecue something, but his birdbrained roommate threw it away while she was cleaning his room (she insisted on it because she was attracted to him for all the wrong reasons). Now that we had a proper replacement of that doomed starter, it was time to break it in. Good thing I had thawed out some pork chops and a bit of ground beef. Baked beans were on the menu too!

The starter itself was pretty straightforward to use and easy to light. I'd seen Youtube chefs use chimney starters for barbecuing, so it wasn't hard for me to copy them. After all, it's not difficult to stuff old newspaper underneath the wire mesh separating the charcoal hopper from the lighting chamber. Some old grocery fliers were put to use as well as plenty of the hard-to-light wood charcoal I've been using. It took about 15 minutes or so before the coals were ashed over enough to be dumped into the grill. The handles were a bit hot, but I had some wet rags to help me grip them.

Sure enough, the starter did its job well. The coals were lit and put to use in a shorter amount of time than it would have taken to do the same job on the propane stove+transport to grill. I didn't even nearly-burn myself like last time.

Kickin' it old-school. I even remembered to add the molasses this time!

In characteristic fashion, I proceeded to barbecue my pork chops, some vegetables, and then cook the pot of beans on the grill. There's something relaxing about just kickin' back and letting the hot coals cook a pot of baked beans. It brings to mind old West cowboys around a campfire, relaxing and making their food.

Tomorrow I'm gonna retry making English muffins. I bought a jar of fresh yeast earlier this week and so I'm itching to test it out.

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Return of the BBQ Queen

Greetings, dear readers!

It's been a busy week, but tonight I'm pleased to make an announcement: I have resumed my seasonal role as the BBQ queen of Arizona!

As I've written, I've had the cooking bug for a few weeks now. On Friday, I spent the afternoon diligently cleaning the inside of my trusty little BBQ to get it ready for the summer and the heavy use it will undergo. Cleaning the grill of what had to have been a few years worth of ash buildup made me wish I had a larger grill for some of my more ambitious projects (like baking!), but until I can afford a larger grill, this bitty broiler will have to suffice.

The grill is ready

Tonight's debut dish of the season was none other than a London Broil. We bought one on sale from the store about a week ago, and now it was time to eat it. I looked up a few recipes online for cooking it, but in a twist from my usual protocol, I did not want to make a marinade for the meat. I decided that I would score the surface of the meat, but I wasn't sure what else to do in addition to that. I then found a video where the cook massaged the meat with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper before throwing it on the grill, and I decided that would be the extra step I needed. I tend not to marinate my London Broils because I feel like they don't add anything to the overall dish that can't be achieved through a low-n-slow cookdown on the grill.

London Broil

Before grilling the meat, I lit the coals using an old propane camp stove, and carefully transferred the hot coals to the barbecue one by one with my tongs because there was a strong breeze blowing in and I didn't want to start a fire in my yard because it's been so dry here. I then threw in several handfuls of hickory and pecan woodchips which I'd been soaking in water for a few hours so they were nice and moist and ready to smoke. I've come to appreciate the use of woodchips, since they enhance the flavor of the meat quite well. Finally, I plopped the meat onto the grill and let it do its thing. I only periodically would come back out to turn the meat, since I was doing this brisket-style in preparation for 4th of July, when I will make a REAL brisket.

Beans on the grill. Kickin' it old-style (note: I have no idea why the image is rendering sideways. It was taken right-side up!)

After about an hour or so, I called the broil done and brought it in. Since my husband asked me to make baked beans to go with the broil, I then proceeded to grill up some onions, peppers and sausage to put into the pot with the cans of baked beans. I was gonna do this old-school and cook the beans on the grill since the heat was already there and I REALLY didn't feel like heating up the house after hearing that it would be over 110 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow. After adding some fresh coals because the old ones were pretty burned out, I placed my cast iron pot full of baked beans on the grill to cook. Some periodic stirring, and they were good to go after an hour or so. BBQ baked beans aren't bad. It feels like I'm camping when I cook them on the open grill.

All done! Look at that meaty goodness!

When my husband got home from work, he just about had a foodgasm while eating my broil. I was a bit worried that I'd undercooked it because while London Broils have to be pretty rare to be edible due to the nature of the cut, I didn't want my broil still mooing while I was cutting it to eat. Fortunately, my husband called it just perfect and had a healthy helping before going to bed. He had a bit of the beans too, but the broil was far more preferable. I, on the other hand, was glad it came out great. I'm very careful about not undercooking or vulcanizing food so as to render it inedible.

I'm very encouraged by this first creation of the season. I wonder now what other creations I can make for my family. Maybe I'll bake something next. That's something I've been wanting to try for a while.

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Adventures in Cooking: Glazed Pork Chops

Happy Sunday, dear readers!

My creation for tonight's dinner: glazed pork chops with a green bean and insta-mash potato side dish

Since today was Sunday, it was my day to cook. I've had the cooking bug now for a couple of weeks, but in spite of the number of cooking videos I've spent the evenings binge-watching, I just did not know what to make. I was leaning strongly towards spaghetti sauce, especially since there are a number of vegetables in the fridge and in cans that need to be eaten, but it was too hot and I felt too lazy to make them. Boiling spaghetti is quite the heat producer too, though I managed to get around that by microwaving the noodles with some water in a bowl.

However, we did buy a pack of pork chops on super sale at the Mexican grocery store earlier this week. It had been a while since we'd eaten pork chops, so I figured I'd make something with these. As much as I love beef, I need a break from the stuff periodically. Since I haven't had the time or energy to clean the grill, there would be no marinate and BBQ for these pork chops. Instead, I decided to try glazing them after I saw a picture that a friend of mine posted to Facebook about her delicious-looking attempt at making glazed pork chops for her family.

While sweet pork chops aren't really my thing, I decided to give them a try because my husband advised me how good brown sugar and pork chops are together. I scoured Pinterest for a few recipes and found some that had some appealing ingredient combos, but none were to my liking overall. I knew I would need brown sugar and molasses for sure, but I didn't know what else I could add. After looking at a few different recipes, I had a basic idea of what was needed, but I would ultimately be pulling the recipe off the top of my head.

For the rub, I mixed up some salt, pepper, paprika, garlic and onion powders, and a substantial amount of brown sugar. The end result of the rub was sweet but with a spicy punch. I decided to add the molasses while the chops were being caramelized in my handy cast iron pan. Since there was already kind of a sweet crust on the chops from the sugar, I only drizzled a little molasses onto each side of the chop. My big fear was that I would vulcanize the chops (I'm pretty good about judging how well they've cooked on the BBQ grill, but frying can be a little tougher), but after my husband sampled a bit of my work, he was delighted by how tender they were and how well the flavors melded together. The baby liked them too, since they were tender enough for her 2.5 teeth to chew on.

I was overall pleased with my work too. While I don't remember exactly how much of each ingredient I used to make them, this glazed pork chop is definitely a keeper!

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The Couscous Challenge

Good evening, dear readers!

Yesterday, I came across a video on Youtube of British chef Kerryann Dunlop making a Turkish-inspired couscous salad. After watching it and realizing I had pretty much all the ingredients needed to make this dish, I decided to answer her call challenging us to make this recipe. I decided it was gonna be for dinner.

Here's the video:



And here's my take on it:

Even my husband loved it, and he's not crazy about couscous! (note: I have no idea why the image is rendering sideways. It was taken right-side up!)

There were a few deviations that I took when making the couscous salad. I didn't have smoked paprika, just the regular kind. I also didn't use chili peppers, nor did I feel like opening up a can of chili tomatoes to compensate, but I also added three large cloves of garlic and used different proportions of fresh herbs based on what I had available and could tolerate eating (I'm cool with cilantro and parsley, but I'm not much of a mint eater so I used the littlest bit of yerba buena I could cut off since that was the only mint I have. I'm not sure exactly what type of mint yerba buena is (I think it might actually be spearmint. It certainly smells like it), but it's a common herb used for teas by the local Mexican population. A neighbor gave us our yerba buena plant a year ago and it has gone absolutely gangbusters in the garden). I also didn't have any tomato puree like what the recipe called for, but I think in this regard it would have ruined the dish.

This is not the first time I've had couscous salad. A few weeks ago, I cooked up a box of couscous we'd been given a few years ago and added my usual salad staples of tomato, cucumber, garlic powder, olive oil and vinegar. I won't say I fell in love with couscous, especially since I'd never eaten it in my life prior to then, but I genuinely liked it. I make it a point to now always have a box in the pantry for when I feel like having some.

The first couscous meal I ever ate. Certainly not as fancy or colorful as tonight's creation, but it was good enough to get me to make it again

Overall, I was quite pleased with the way this dish came out. Next time I make this, I'll add some chicken to it since I think the two will go well together. My husband was also delighted with the result since he'd eaten his fair share of couscous in the past, but had grown tired of it as he got older and stopped hanging out at the Sufi mosque where he was introduced to the dish by some Palestinian congregants. The one thing he griped about was that it was hard for him to gum the cucumbers, but everything else was chewable for him. Periodontal disease in his 40s robbed my husband of his teeth, but he can still eat most foods and speak without impairment. The only things he really can't eat are nuts and anything really tough or hard since teeth are required there. This has proved to be a blessing for the baby cuz if my husband can't eat the food, neither can she.

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The Palacinke

Greetings!

I hope you all had a safe and happy Cinco de Drinko yesterday. Yes, I know it's actually Cinco de Mayo, but what was originally a minor Mexican holiday celebrated locally in the city of Puebla where the famous battle took place, has been co-opted blown up into an event for the express purpose of pushing cheap, crappy booze here in the US. This is why I call it Cinco de Drinko. It's like a boozy version of President's Day.

Everyone's Mexican for a day on Cinco de Drinko!

While the rest of the nation made fools of themselves getting wasted on Mexican food and margaritas, I decided to try out my grandmother's recipe for palacinke (pron. pa-lah-cheen-keh). Palacinke are kind of like flat pancakes, very similar to crepes. I hesitate to use the word "crepes" as an analogy because to me, palacinke have more char to them than the light-colored crepes. This could just be because of the way my grandmother made them, as hers always had some char to them (she considered light colored palacinke to be underdone).

In a major departure from my usual protocol, I actually followed the recipe as it was given to me! I suppose this was probably because I was making it for the first time, and I didn't want the batter to come out too thick (palacinke batter is thin). I had tried making palacinke on my own in the past from memory, but they never seemed to come out quite like how I remembered them. Maybe now, I had a chance!

After combining the ingredients, I pulled out one of the cast iron skillets. My grandmother makes her palacinke using a Teflon-coated skillet, but since we don't have one anymore (the one Teflon skillet we had was used until the Teflon literally started disintegrating off the surface of the pan!), all I had to work with was cast iron.

The first palacinka

My husband likes to say that the use of cast iron cookware is a verifiable demonstration of one's cooking skills. Despite some recent successes in the kitchen of late, on this family recipe I failed miserably. Even though I poured some oil into the skillet, the rough surface caused the batter to adhere to the bottom of the skillet and thereby completely destroy the palacinka (singular version of palacinke). Even after I changed skillets to the smaller, enamel covered iron skillet that I usually use for frying eggs, I just could not get the resulting palacinke to stay together or fry to the point where it was cooked, but not crispy (properly done, palacinke are flexible enough to roll up). I changed the heat levels, the amount of oil and batter in the pan, and I just could not get them to come out the way my grandma made them. If they stayed together, they were hard and crispy, not soft and flexible like how she made them.

It would start out like this in the skillet...

...And then turn into this crumbly mess every time I tried to flip it!

Despite this disappointing first batch of palacinke, they were as tasty as I remembered. They tasted lovely with some raspberry jam. My husband was quite pleased with them, and encouraged me to try making them again. I suppose cast iron is not the most optimal cookware for making palacinke, but until I can find a small Teflon pan, this is all I have to work with. Maybe it is a matter of finding the right heat settings or oil-to-batter ratio. My grandma wasn't specific on what level of heat she used, but she does have a gas stove (ours is electric) in addition to the cookware differences. This will make for an interesting journey-the quest for the perfect palacinka!

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The Burek

Happy Monday, dear readers! I hope your weekend went well.

Recently, I decided to call upon my Serbian roots and make some traditional food. The fillo dough I bought at the Euro mart a few weeks ago was sitting in my freezer and needed to be utilized. When she was here, my grandma gave me her recipe for making cheese pita, a kind of savory pie that is a staple of Serbian cuisine. Though she always made her dough from scratch, her advanced age had caught up with her and my grandmother was now using fillo dough to make her pitas.

Fillo dough, out of the box. It's supposed to be available in major grocery store chains, but I have yet to find them outside of the Euro mart here. Pic found here 

Though I understood her reason and rationale for doing so, this admission saddened me because my grandmother's pitas were always doughy and thick, which was what I came to understand pita as being (though to make things especially confusing, pita can be made with thick or thin dough and that pita, gibanica, and burek are all mostly interchangeable terms to describe savory pies in Balkan cuisine). However, when she made burek, that was the only time she used fillo dough for something that wasn't a pastry.

Burek, like pita, is a savory pie from the Balkans. Just about every country and dialect there has a name for burek, and it is usually filled with cheeses or meats (though vegetables like spinach are common). Burek can be rectangular, round, horseshoe, or spiral shaped (the latter is common in Bosnia). It is usually made with dough stretched thin that can be either handmade or from fillo.

This is how I remember burek from my childhood. If fillo dough is not used, then the dough is handmade and stretched very thin over a large surface area and folded over with the fillings. Pic found here

Since my husband positively despises cheese, I decided to make meat burek. I remembered there was a Serbian deli a few towns over from where I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and to this day I remembered how good the owner made his meat burek. He used ground beef seasoned with a little salt, pepper, and a pinch of paprika. I don't remember if he used anything other than beef, but the taste has remained burned in my memory all these years. This would be a good way to use up my fillo dough.

After I let it thaw in the fridge for a day or so, I took out the fillo dough along with some canola oil, and a pastry brush. When making these pies, it is essential that the dough be greased with each layer.

I started off by cooking the meat filling first. We had a leftover pound or so of ground beef that needed to be eaten, and I added in my customary chopped onion and garlic for flavoring. I then added some salt, pepper, and a touch of paprika.

Filling in progress

When the meat was finished, I turned on the oven and as it warmed up, I set about assembling the burek. I had no clue how fragile fillo dough was until I began unraveling its sheets from the roll and layering them in the pan. The sheets were tearing and literally disintegrating in my hands, no matter how carefully I picked them up. My grandmother and mom made handling them look so easy! HOW?!

After oiling each sheet and before laying the next one down, I added my meat filling after every few layers. With the fillo dough fast becoming dry, I finished off the package by just throwing on the last few sheets, oiling them up and putting them in the oven. My grandmother's baking instructions were just to let the pita (or burek, in my case) bake at 350 until golden brown, which I figured wouldn't take that long.

FINALLY assembled and ready to bake!

Despite me periodically opening the oven to check on the burek (our oven does not have a light), it took almost an hour and a half before the top looked even halfway tan, but as I would discover when I cut the burek to eat, I had overcooked it. The bottom was kinda burned, the middle layers were alright, but the top layers were dry and the whole thing was quite greasy from all the oil I'd slathered the fillo sheets with. Despite the amount of meat I made, I felt like I hadn't used enough for this dish to turn out as good as I remember it being.

Finished

My first burek. Needs more meat and less time in the oven

Even though I was disappointed by the way this burek turned out, it was a learning experience in a number of ways. Fillo dough is fragile and dries out very quickly, so I have to figure out an easy way to keep the layers moist and if there is a way of handling the sheets so that they don't disintegrate as I'm handling them. I could also take a stab at making the dough from scratch, although my counter is tiny and I may have to get creative about space. Also, I feel like my dough to meat proportions were off and that the next time I make burek, I'll see how well 2 lbs of ground beef works with a package of fillo dough. I'll also use a different pan next time to see if the kind of pan I bake with has an effect on how the burek turns out.

It may take a while and a few bombed bureks before I finally get it right, but for better or worse, I don't give up. To make a good burek is an art, one that I aim to achieve.

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One Pot Zesty Chicken Rice with Black Beans

Good evening, dear readers!

Chef Tamtam has made a comeback! After last night's dud dinner, I was looking to redeem myself in the kitchen. That cilantro still needed eating, so it was time to look for another recipe that included the damn thing. I knew chicken would be the perfect accompaniment to the cilantro, since I was tired of just rice. Though I hate cooking chicken because I tend to either vulcanize or undercook it, I knew I had to face this demon of my kitchen because chicken is something I enjoy eating and there will be times where my family will want to eat some. I got some boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which were on sale at the grocery store since I considered them a good starting point.

Though I don't go on it much nowadays, I took a stroll on Pinterest to see if the site had any ideas for cilantro and chicken. Sure enough, there was one recipe that stood out: a one pan cilantro-lime chicken with rice and black beans. I scrolled through the recipe and it looked fairly easy. I had most of the ingredients too.

Time to get to work. Tonight's ingredients for the main dish!

Being the kind of person that I am, I almost never follow a recipe exactly as it's written. I usually have to tweak something about it either to enhance the taste or because it was an experimental whim. I did not have the can of green chilies that the recipe called for, but because we eat chili fairly frequently here, I had plenty of cans of chili tomatoes (tomatoes with green chili peppers already included) that could be used. Also, the recipe called for minute rice, which I did not have. I have brown rice by the bag and a large coffee can filled with white rice, so this would have to suffice.

All set! Everything is chopped and ready to go

I started off as usual, chopping my vegetables and the meat. Since I don't have a kitchen scale, I just guesstimated how much chicken I would need and I used about half the pack of chicken (it weighed in at a little over 3 lbs). I also made it a point to go light on the cilantro, given the overpowering result from yesterday. I washed the rice as usual, letting the bowl sit under the running faucet until the spillover was clear and giving the rice an occasional stir to get the starch up. Finally, I prepared 3 cups of chicken broth, using some powdered stock we keep in the pantry since I didn't have the broth in liquid form already.

Sauteing the chicken. Are you afraid of me?!

Just after adding the beans

I've added the rice and remaining broth at this point

Given my tumultuous history with cooking chicken, I was careful to watch the pieces as they sauteed in the oil over medium heat. I also periodically would break up the pieces and see how pink it was inside. Once I was satisfied with how white the meat was, I added the garlic and onions, letting them saute together. I then added the contents of the chili tomato and black bean cans. I never drain the cans because I think the juices enhance the dish. I then squeezed in the remaining juice from my dried-out limes, dumped the rice in, and added the chicken broth before proceeding to cover the pan and letting the rice soak in the liquid for about 20 minutes. I added the cilantro in at the last few minutes of cooking and let everything sit for a bit before eating.

Tada! All done (note: I have no idea why the image is rendering sideways, even though I took the pic normally. My browser does this sometimes. It's weird and annoying)

My hubby was very pleased with the result. I hadn't overcooked or undercooked the chicken, which was my biggest concern, and the end result was a flavorful blend of tomato and chicken with a hint of cilantro and spice from the peppers. I was proud of myself because now I know I can cook a chicken and cook it well.

Try this recipe out for yourself. I think you'll like it too.

One-Pot Zesty Chicken Rice with Black Beans

1-1.5 lb chicken thighs
4 green onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 cups of white rice
1 can of chili tomatoes (do not drain)
1 can of black beans (do not drain)
4 limes
3 cups of chicken broth (if using powdered stock, it's 1 tsp stock per 1 cup of water)
1/3 cup cilantro
canola oil for frying
salt and pepper

Chop the green onions and separate the light-colored parts from the darker colored parts, mince garlic and finely chop (or cut) the cilantro. Cut the chicken thighs into small pieces, about an inch in size, taking care to remove excess fat, skin, and bones. Measure out rice and wash until water runs clear, set aside. Prepare broth, if necessary.

Over medium heat, add a spot of canola oil to the frying pan and add the chicken. Saute the chicken until it is cooked all the way through (times vary), adding salt and pepper to taste. Add the light colored parts of the onion first and the garlic, let saute until translucent. Then add the contents of the canned chili tomatoes and black beans. Squeeze in the lime juice and add as much of the pulp as you can. Finally, add rice and pour in the stock. Stir, then cover the pan and let boil for about 20 minutes. Check and stir periodically.

Around the 17 minute mark, add in the remaining cilantro and give a final stir. Cover the pan, let sit for a few minutes until the rice is done and turn off the heat. Let the pan rest for a few minutes, then serve.

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Picture of the Day

Greetings!

Today was Robert's birthday. Robert, as you may recall, was my husband's late best friend, most loyal student, and most trusted dope dealer. Though I never met the illustrious Robert Contreras, I have him to thank in part for my marriage. If it hadn't been for his funeral, my hubby might never have been inspired to pray to the Virgin Mary for a wife. It is for that reason that we periodically visit Robert's grave and usually leave him a candle and a Black and Mild cigar. It's good to have a grave to take care of, since it serves as a reminder of our own mortality and lets the deceased know they're not forgotten in this world.

We'll come visit you soon

While my hubby and I wanted to go and visit the grave, we wound up not going because hubby was too tired. His job had him working late into the night sweeping out the trash in the stands of the basketball arena. It was also pretty hot today, and he didn't want to subject the baby to the heat by being out for an extended period of time. Also, the liquor stores here in the neighborhood were out of Taddy Porters, Robert's favorite beer. The last time we were at Robert's grave, my husband promised to bring him a Taddy Porter for his birthday. We will be going to the cemetery on Sunday after church, since we'll be in the general vicinity.

Since today was Friday, alas it was a no-meat day in our household. During Lent, all Catholics who are able to must abstain from eating meat on Fridays. Exceptions are granted for pregnant and nursing mothers, the elderly, the infirm and of unsound mind, but such groups can still participate in fast if they so choose. Since I'm still nursing the baby, I technically can eat meat, but hubby can't. Still, we try and minimize the cooking so I wind up eating fish too. My hubby usually fries up some catfish, but I'm tired of catfish. So while giving our neighbor a ride to the grocery store, my hubby bought some large shrimp and the box mix from Zatarain's to make jambalaya. After boiling the shrimp, I peeled them while hubby chopped up the vegetables and then combined all the ingredients in the pot to cook. The delicious result is today's picture of the day.

"Jambalaya, crayfish pie and file' gumbo..."

Who says vegetarian food has to be inedible?

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Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

Hello dear readers! Welcome back.

In our household, normally it's my husband who does the cooking. However, Sundays are usually reserved as my day to cook so that I can practice making edible food with minimal guidance and supervision. I wasn't entirely sure what to make, but it occurred to me to do a stir fry because we had some beef, broccoli, asparagus, and green onions that needed to be eaten.

In a fortuitous twist of fate, I told my husband to thaw the remaining flap meat so that I could finish it off in the stir fry, but he pulled out the tamale meat instead by mistake because he could barely see the grain of the meat through the ice. It was only after the meat was thawed that the mistake was realized, but I didn't mind because I could still use it.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the stir fry. However, I will find a similar-looking picture online because what is a recipe without a picture of the finished product?

Not quite the same, but it was the closest I could find to what I made. Pic found here

Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

1-1 1/2 lbs of flap meat or tamale meat (beef chuck roast)
2 large heads of broccoli
1 bunch of asparagus
1 bunch of green onions
1 medium white onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 large chunk of ginger
2 large handfuls of spinach
3 stalks of celery, leaves included
1/2 tsp of Kitchen Bouquet flavor enhancer
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp molasses
canola oil
rice for serving

Slice the onion, mince the garlic, ginger, and chop the green onions, taking care to remove the roots and other wilted parts. Chop the celery into small pieces. Cut the asparagus, leaving about 3" from the tip and chopping the remaining stalks into 1/2" thick pieces. Cut the broccoli florets down to about 1" in height and chop the remaining stalks into smaller pieces. Place the asparagus and broccoli into a large microwave-safe bowl with about an inch of water at the bottom and microwave for six minutes to blanch the vegetables.

While the broccoli is blanching, chop the meat. If possible, try and cut against the grain of the meat and slice them into slivers no more than 2" long and 1/4" thick. Once finished, set a large nonstick skillet on the stove and pour a small amount of canola oil into the pan, swirling it around to cover the bottom.

Over medium heat, add the onions, garlic, ginger, and meat. Let simmer for a bit and once the meat is slightly browned, add in the Kitchen Bouquet, the soy sauce, and the molasses. Let simmer and stir for a bit longer until the meat is browned. Add the celery and after five minutes, add the spinach so that it covers the meat in a layer. Let sit for a few minutes until the spinach wilts and then add the broccoli and asparagus. Stir occasionally for a few minutes, then cover the skillet and turn the heat down to low to let it simmer for the next 20 minutes. Serve on top of a bed of rice and enjoy!

*Tips:

• To save time, use broccoli and asparagus that have already been cooked. Same goes for the rice
• Use frozen ginger. It's easier to peel and chop if there is still ice in it
• Any kind of boneless beef works for this stir fry. Use what you have available, even ground beef works as an acceptable substitute
• If you don't feel like chopping the vegetables, you can use a grater. I don't recommend doing this, however, because a grater is a pain in the ass to clean thoroughly.
• Mushrooms are a great addition to this stir fry. Add them in at the same time as the celery so that they absorb the flavor of the sauce.

I was quite pleased with how this stir fry turned out. It tasted just like the beef and broccoli I would order from Chinese restaurants. Give it a try. You may even find yourself going back for seconds!

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What To Do When Your Kid Won't Eat Their Food

Greetings, dear readers!

This is the end! Despite the many delays caused by technical difficulties, my health, and life just generally getting in the way, I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED THE 21 DAY BLOG CHALLENGE!!! I will share my thoughts and reflections on the challenge at the end of this post, but onward to the prompt for day 21.

Carrots are for rabbits, not people!

Since I write a family and lifestyle blog, I had to do a bit of thinking to narrow down a list of topics that would work well with the prompt. I realize that getting a nine month old child to eat vegetables isn't the same as getting a three year old to do it (or even a grown adult, for that matter), but for parents starting out with solid feeding, here are some things I observed that help make feeding her nutritious food easier.

• Stay away from the prepackaged baby food!
• It may come as a surprise, given the huge industry that has sprung up around babies and raising them, but don't buy premade baby food. While the jars may have the right proportion of food or texture appropriate for the age of the baby, they are expensive and limited in flavors. What you can make at home is far cheaper and more nutritious.
• Note: if you do buy baby food, get limited amounts and save the jars. Even though my husband and I avoid the baby aisle like the plague, there have been times where we needed to get something quick for the baby to eat. We saved the jars because they were glass and reusable for future feeds.
• Expense aside, my big gripe about baby food is that the end result is unrecognizable from the ingredients that made it! A jar of garden vegetables has pictures of peas, carrots, and potatoes on the label, but what is in the jar looks like a radioactive green mush that tastes as terrible as it looks. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. If you won't eat something, they wouldn't either.
• Note the taste, temperature, and texture of the food
• A baby pushing away a spoonful of squash may frustrate parents and look like an act of willful defiance, but this isn't necessarily so. Check the temperature of the vegetables-are they too hot or too cold? Take a quick taste to make sure the cabbage has the right level of salt and vinegar. Are the beans too spicy? Might the carrot slices be too tough for the child to chew or the vegetable soup too runny for her liking?
• A tremendous amount of patience and empathy are required when getting children to eat vegetables. Due to their age, their nerves and taste buds are far more sensitive to taste and texture than our adult bodies are. It takes time to train them.
• I admit, I am an adult who detests vegetables. I would never eat them unless I absolutely positively had to. One thing that has helped me to maintain a healthy diet is to have the vegetables incorporated into whatever the main meal is. My husband, also a vegetable hater, will combine the vegetables with meat so that the flavors will combine and balance each other out, thus avoiding overwhelming the dish or our palettes with something gross like carrots. Instead of feeding children the vegetables straight, try mixing them in with something else like casseroles or stews. As a general rule, kids have similar tastes to that of their parents; if you won't eat something, neither will they.
• Get them involved with meal preparation
• A kid won't know what a stalk of broccoli is unless he sees it. By getting the kids involved with meal prep, even if it's just strapping them into a papoose and carrying them around while you make dinner, they begin to associate what different kinds of vegetables are, what they taste like, and how they play a part overall in what makes up the main meal
• It may be hard, but don't make special food for them
• If all else fails and the baby will not eat her mashed sweet potatoes, even though she was eating them without complaint just last week and there is nothing wrong with them taste or texture wise, don't make a special food for her instead. 
• As they get older, children love to push on the boundaries set for them because they don't understand moderation and need to learn it. It may be exhausting trying to convince your child to eat the beef and vegetable stew you made for dinner, but don't cave. I would recommend telling the child he doesn't have to eat the stew, but that you're not making anything special for him. Take it or leave it, to put it bluntly. There may be a tantrum thrown in response which may or may not involve food winding up on the floor (at which point, apply appropriate disciplinary measures), but the neural connections in the child's brain are beginning to form the association that when it's mealtime, the child needs to eat what is put in front of him or else he will go hungry.
• Check your child's health
• If your child is sick (has a cold, a headache, or just generally isn't feeling well), this could definitely impact whether or not they will want to eat their vegetables. Their condition might leave them with little to no appetite, or might make certain foods taste strange.

Mealtime is a family affair. Use this opportunity to expand not just your child's palette, but your own as well. You may be surprised what kinds of foods your child likes that you don't or wouldn't have thought of.

Can you think of anything else I missed? What helped your children eat their vegetables? Let me know in the comments below.

Before I sign off for the night, I would like to take this moment to share some final thoughts on this whole 21 day blogging challenge I undertook. Before my health and later my botched computer update issues derailed my progress, my regular posting of entries did lead to a spike in traffic, though it didn't stay that way because my posting regimen got sporadic for a while. Still, I did enjoy taking part in the challenge. I challenged myself in many ways, coming up with topics for the different prompts. It made me refine what I really wanted my blog to be about. I also became more familiar with the more technical aspects of blogging, like meta tags.

If I had to do a blog challenge again, I would definitely do it. I wouldn't do one in the immediate future since I need some time now to decompress and digest the whole experience, but I am definitely up to doing another blog challenge if one should come to my attention. For one, it was refreshing to have something of a structure to follow instead of letting my prose meander all over the place. Some discipline goes a long way towards making a quality product.

For anyone who is interested, here is the link to Alana Le's 21 day blog challenge. Sign up, take the challenge, and let me know how it goes for you.

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The Encharitos

Happy Sunday dear readers!

This weekend, I got a lesson in humility. Since I married my husband, I have come to appreciate "peasant food" like beans and rice, or pork and cabbage because they're cheap and can be consumed over the course of a few days. My husband, being our household cook, likes to make these sorts of dishes from scratch and adulterate them as he sees fit.

Yesterday, my neighbor's wife made encharitos and gave us some as a thank you for my husband giving her an old microwave of ours, in addition to giving her family a ride to the grocery store. My husband was quite thrilled to get some, but I had never heard of such a dish and was puzzled about it.

That cheese-covered thing is an encharito

Encharitos are a poor person's dish indigenous to the Southwestern part of the US, where the Frito-Lay snack factory began. Essentially, it's a combination of Mexican enchiladas and burritos; hence, encharitos. As my husband explained, you have to have either lived in the Southwest or Texas for a long time, or be a native to the region to have familiarity with this dish. My neighbor is of Apache-German ancestry, and grew up on the reservation here in Arizona.

The way my neighbor made the encharitos was that she used store-bought frozen bulk burritos and covered them with sour cream and lots of cheese before putting them in the oven to bake for a bit. Since we were having chili for dinner, we had the encharitos to go with it instead of the cornbread my husband planned to make. Given how drenched they were in melted cheese, something my husband positively detests, I was surprised he would even stand the sight of them. His response: scrape the cheese off the encharito and dump the remaining burrito into his bowl of chili. I ate the cheese.

What was my take on this bit of impoverished culinary ingenuity? It was filling, but I was not sure what to make of it. It blended well with the spicy chili, but on its own it was probably pretty mild. It was quite edible, however, and I commend her on that, but it was a far cry from something my husband could make. If this was one example of impoverished cooking indigenous to my region, I was a bit apprehensive about trying something else from this particular culinary genre.

After dinner, my husband proceeded to school me on gratitude for having someone who can cook cheaply from scratch. Since he'd lived the vast majority of his adult life in poverty and drawing upon his family's tradition of male cooks, my husband figured out some basics about making good food from scratch so that he didn't have to rely on pre-made foods from the store very much. Not everyone, he explained, is so fortunate. Some lack the education to cook from scratch, others lack the time or talent to do an effective job. Either way, I should not begrudge such individuals, since I too could very well have followed in their paths.

And that was how I spent my Saturday

Shrimp Boil Heaven

Greetings everyone! Hope your day has been good.

A few weeks ago, one of our regularly frequented Mexican grocery stores had shrimp on sale $2.50/lb. They came in 5lb boxes, and we got 2 of them. I was pleased because I'd been wanting shrimp for a while, but none of the stores (American or Mexican) had them for a reasonable price, despite us being so close to Mexico and the Sea of Cortez. So when the sale came, we got some!

After putting one of the boxes out to thaw yesterday morning, my hubby went and got a package of Mexican seafood boil seasoning and a tin of Old Bay seafood boil. He'd been wanting Zatarain's seafood boil, which is what he traditionally uses for this sort of purpose, but the store didn't have any in stock. This morning, after the box of shrimp had thawed completely, he poured them into the pot with the water and seasoning mixes and set it all to boil for a bit.

The results were absolutely divine! The shrimp was a perfect pink color, and when we had a bowl of them for lunch, they were tender and sweet from having absorbed the spices. They just about melted in my mouth.

For a real down-home boil, I would have added potatoes, corn and other vegetables. But, for that we'd need something like a large tamale pot

This batch of shrimp will make for one bodacious gumbo, and whatever else we decide to make with them (I've got a hankering for shrimp and grits). There's nothing like down-home cooking to make the mouth water and fill the tummy up right.

Always be thankful for the little good things along the way.

Sunday Night BBQ

The BBQ Queen has done her duty tonight!

Pork chops cut like ribs, and chicken

After whipping up two batches of my favorite Ginger-Lime Marinade (the batch for the pork chops was gonna have sugar. I used a 1/2 cup of light brown sugar instead of my preferred dark brown sugar cuz that was all we had available) and my usual overnight soak, they grilled up tasty and tender.

Two things:

1. I never would have guessed that the skin would be the hardest part of separating chicken quarters (the bones weren't that bad, and I was able to do the job without resorting to using a saw!)
2. It's hard as hell to cook a chicken leg all the way through. The thigh will cook fine, but the drumstick will be pink at the bone. Or, the drumstick will be fine, and the thigh will be pink in a couple spots. This is why I seldom buy raw chicken and prefer to buy it already prepared.

But in spite of the hassles with the chicken, the pork chops turned out marvelous. Juicy, flavorful, and melt-in-your-mouth tender. I take great pride in my marinades, so it pleases me to see how great it worked. The 1/2 cup of light brown sugar helped enhance the taste of the pork without making it too sweet.

Have a blessed Sunday and a safe Labor Day!

E-Z Chili

Regardless of what time of the year it is, chili is a staple meal in our home. It's cheap, delicious to eat, and doesn't heat up the house more than usual.

Goes great with cornbread!

It's pretty easy to make it, too. Here's what you'll need:

2 packets of chili seasoning
2 lbs of ground beef
2 cans of chili tomatoes (like Rotel)
A few fresh chopped tomatoes (optional)
A handful of chopped green onions (optional)
1 large chopped chili pepper (like Hatch chilies; optional)
2 cans of red beans
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic

First dice the garlic and onion, throw into either a deep skillet or a metal pot with a bit of oil, and let fry for a bit. Then, add the ground beef and brown. After the beef has browned, throw in the chili seasoning. Add in the chili tomatoes and the cans of beans, let simmer for a bit. Finally, throw in the chopped tomatoes, chili pepper, and green onions. Let the chili stew for about 30 min or so to blend the flavors. Serve and enjoy.

Tips:

• Extra chili powder can be added for additional spice if the seasoning packet is too mild. However, I recommend using fresh chilies whenever possible (Hatch chilies are in season right now!)
• If chili tomatoes are not available, you can purchase canned diced tomatoes and canned green chilies separately, then combine
• I recommend using 80% lean ground beef so that you don't have to drain the fat (keeping the fat adds more flavor to the chili). Anything less than 80% lean will require draining, do that before adding the seasoning.
• For a richer chili, use beef chuck roast (like what would be used to make tamales) and slow cook it separately before adding to the chili.
• You can use any onion available, but I recommend using either purple or yellow onions. I like the way they make the chili taste.
• Cast-iron cookware is highly recommended for making this dish 
• Black beans are acceptable for chili, but I recommend red beans. They taste better than black beans
• Mix with scrambled eggs for a hearty breakfast with a kick!

Breaking Bad, Home Edition

Today, my wonderful hubby decided to surprise me with a treat: homemade root beer!

He bought the root beer extract (he'd tried to find Zatarain's, but the store didn't carry it) and dry ice. My husband then proceeded to make the root beer, mostly according to the package directions, but using water carbonated with the dry ice instead of soda water as the directions called for.

Dry ice in water

So far, so good

Just about ready to bottle up

But what happened next was both a spectacular display of physics, and something to make Walter White and Jesse Eisenberg jealous.

After he poured the finished root beer into my beer growler for storage (which also contained dry ice to maintain carbonation), the pressure from the carbon dioxide in the dry ice caused the root beer to explode, the force of which shattered a glass on the counter top. The only reason my growler hadn't turned into a root beer and carbon dioxide-filled bomb was cuz my husband, seeing how the root beer was rapidly bubbling up in the growler, quickly took the cap off just in time to see his creation blow.

Oops...

I actually had not witnessed the explosion. I was in the bedroom, playing with the baby, when I heard a loud BANG! My first thought was that my growler had exploded. My husband reassured me that it hadn't, but called me into the kitchen to survey the damage.

There was root beer EVERYWHERE. It was on the floor in the kitchen with the broken glass, the ceiling, the counter, and the root beer even made it all the way up into the living room! The work area and server were splashed with sugary brown root beer, as were our shoes and the front door. My husband spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the fallout and vacuuming up the broken glass.

The aftermath

Miraculously, the growler survived. Its cap went missing (if it hasn't been blown into another dimension, I suspect it's under the fridge or between the counter and the fridge), but the vessel remained intact. My husband, though, cut his hand. How it happened remains a mystery, but I suspect it was from flying bits of dry ice.

I refused to drink what was left of the root beer since the remaining glass was covered in blood from my husband's hand. After bandaging his hand, my hubby wiped down the glass, drank the remaining root beer, and said it was tasty.

The costliest glass of root beer in the world

As it turned out, the critical error was not letting the carbon dioxide vent before sealing the bottle. My husband resolves to try again, but hopefully with less explosive results next time.

No matter what, "science MUST be served!"

And I'm still searching for my growler cap...

*Update 8/28-I found the cap! It was somewhere clean on the other side of the living room. The Doctor was kind enough to drop it off as the TARDIS buzzed by during the night. Hope it helped defeat whatever villain he had to deal with next.