Conversations in the car....

This past Saturday, as husband and I were returning from Coos Bay, I saw a dark blue car pass us and I remarked,

"Hey, there goes a Camero, Dad had a silver one with a big old hitch mounted in the back to haul his fifth wheel trailer to jobs".

Husband: "I don't think that's a Camero, but I can't remember what it is called at the moment."

Wife: "It's not a Corvette."

Husband: "It's not a Chevette."

Wife: "It's not a Cabriolet."

Husband: "It's not a Chevelle."

Wife: (by this time getting desperat) "It's not a Cadillac."

Husband: (Likewise desperate) "It's not a Caravan."

Wife: "I can't think of any other cars that start with C."

Husband: "Me either, I'm sure I will think of it after a while."

Crickets chirping.....

About 6 pm that evening husband roared into the kitchen,

"It's an El Camino!" "Yes!"

Husband: "What does 'El' mean?"

Ensued short discussion of Spanish grammar El male, La female etc.

We both feel so much better.

Cooking Lessons, oh my......

Good Eats Turkey Tamales (Alton Brown 2009) and where it all went wrong.

I loved watching this show and thought to myself…I can DO this!

I purchased two turkey legs and cooked them in the following spices:
Paprika (Could NOT find smoked Paprika), Chili Powder, Ground Cumin,
Pepper (Could NOT find Cayenne), Dried Oregano, Kosher salt, black pepper,

Put spices and turkey legs in a 6 quart pot in 2 ½ quarts of water, bring to a boil, cover, reduce to simmer for 1 ½ to 2 hours until the meal is very tender and falls apart.

Um, well on MY stove simmer must be cooler than Alton’s because my turkey legs SIMMERED for 3 hours and still had to be ..er.. gently hacked/coaxed from the bone.

It was late, I poured the cooking liquid into a bowl, shredded the semi cooled
turkey legs into separate bowl and threw it all into the fridge and retired from the kitchen until the next day.

The next day I had to work, so I remembered that I needed to purchase one of those little metal folding basket gizmo's to steam the tamales. Put in 8.5 hours and after work picked up a steam basket.

Got home, chopped onion and sliced and diced the Serrano chili. Now I have my doubts about the chili I purchased being Serrano, it was pale green and bigger than a Jalapeno.

Warmed ¼ cup oil in a good-sized sauce pan, threw in onions, chili and garlic. Onion cooked until translucent and I stirred in the shredded turkey meat and one cup of the cooking liquid. At this point I skipped putting in the 3 ounces of tomato paste and chopped up the two nicely aging small tomatoes after seeding them.

Time to make the masa. I measured 3 ½ cups masa, the salt, the baking powder, the ½ cup lard and mixed it together. To this, I gradually added 3 cups of cooking liquid trying for the consistency of mashed potatoes and it looked more like cookie dough. Oh well. I wasn't going to fool around with it any longer.

At this point I looked at the dried corn husks and thought, “Meh, I’m not making individual tamales, I’m making a TAMALE casserole!!!”

I tossed kitchen twine in a drawer,stored the dried corn husks on a shelf as it will keep indefinitely and put the still packaged shiny metal steamer basket in the junk cabinet/drawer. It may turn up on a yard sale, who knows.

I patted the bottom of the casserole dish with a layer of masa and pricked holes in the bottom layer with a fork. I poured in the cooked turkey mixture. I pre-rolled the top layer of masa,pricked with fork and as I carefully lifted the top layer, it broke up into smaller pieces so I uh, artfully arranged the masa dough all about the top of the casserole dish. I poured in another one cup of cooking liquid and sealed the casserole with three layers of tin foil and put it in a 350 oven for 90 minutes.

I checked at 90 minutes and removed the foil and finished it in the oven for another 30 minutes.

In the mean time I made a cooking liquid gravy. I browned flour in butter and made a roux (spelling?) When the flour had browned a bit I added a half-cup of cooking liquid, stirred until thick and added another half cup and let it simmer. I added half tsp of salt, perfect!

The pictures do not look like much but it tastes GORGEOUS! I may get this recipe a little more streamlined in future, I don’t think I need 3 ½ cups of masa, maybe half that for the top and bottom crust.

Reading list at the moment

I currently have four books open; one I started in bed and took down stairs to read while eating breakfast and left at the desk, a second one I brought home from a book exchange with my coding buddy at work and I have to get that one finished by next Friday in order to give it back, a third one I picked up at the store today and didn't feel like waiting until I had finished the other two, and the fourth is an old favorite that I have read often enough to be able to put it back on the shelf, pull it out and open it at the page where I stopped. I feel so much better knowing that part of my short term memory is working fairly well.

Let's start with my old favorite; "Midsummer Magic" by Catherine Coulter.
Set in Lords and Ladies times, 1810-ish or so. The Viscounts father calls him to make a dying wish. The son is stunned to learn that his father vowed to a Scottish friend that his son would marry one of his three daughters. Hawk decides that even though he has a mistress in London who he has no intention of giving up, to travel to Scotland to fulfill his father's promise. The three daughters are in various stages of excitement and dismay; the eldest does not want to marry an Englisman, the two younger sisters are thrilled and prepare to flirt their way in Hawk's heart. The oldest, Frances decides to disguise herself in thick glasses, dowdy mob caps, awful clothes, terrible singing etc. Hawk meets them, envisions a life of having either one of the two younger women hanging off his arm, demanding his time and he decides he will take Frances,the dowd. Frances is not happy. She and Hawk travel to his estate. She discovers the estate is a stud and he has thoroughbreds, right up Frances alley, she is secretly thrilled with the horses, not so much with her husband. She manages to drive him off to London by being very disagreable. Eventually Hawk returns and Frances has gotten rid of her ugly clothes and is now beautiful. The story goes on well to describe how they get along as she is no longer hiding herself. Lots of sexy revenge and very witty stuff.

I am now reading Heartless by Diana Palmer. This author specializes in angry frustrated men and repressed virgins. So far this story is holding pretty true to the standard plot. Oh and I'm sure there will be a villain in there as well.

The other two books shall unfold as most do. Nighty night boys and girls.

SUCCESS

Brief update on Cinco De Mayo. The potluck was very nice. I had a nice plateful of various Mexican type casseroles. The caramel pie with bananas went over very well, I didn't have to bring a darn thing home. The pharmacist tracked me down after lunch and asked for the recipe for the banana pie. When I told about the slow cooker and the rest of the recipe to him he was dumbfounded. You mean I can cook the canned milk in crock pot and store the cans on a shelf? Then we got to talking recipes and he mentioned a cookie recipe he had seen demonstrated with cajeta used as a filling. I'm thinking THUMB PRINT COOKIES and I better go purchase some more canned sweetened condensed milk.

I been dreamin' again......

DREAM 05 03 10

Dreamt I was traveling somewhere on a plane. Very big inside similar to that of a 12wide trailer house. My co-passenger was a man who seemed to be very protective of me. At one point I noticed that we were descending. The man told me that we were on autopilot. I told him to get on the horn and have someone talk him down because we had no pilot.

We landed and as we came outside there were lots of people speaking in French to us.
I don’t speak French but the man with me did. It seemed that the people were very happy to see us. We had been gone a very long time. 15 years or so.

The rest of the dream consisted of my watching various reunions of people. I watched one middle aged woman scream delightedly, “Mom, you became a nurse!”

Then I woke up.

Must consult dream site:

Flight

To dream of an airline flight, symbolizes a project that is about to take off. If the flight is delayed, then is suggests that you are unprepared in undertaking the project at hand. To dream of flight, signifies a new sense of freedom where you had initially felt restricted and limited.


Hmmm, since the “flight” was complicated without a pilot, i.e.; a leader, the new project may have a difficult time landing but will be successful in the end. I think this means that the new hospital project will take longer (No kidding!) than we think. Also I have been worrying about learning ICD10, which officially is coming on line October 2013. I need a few classes is all. Such a worry wart!

...and the speaking French, obviously a dream metaphor for communication problems. Oui!

RESULTS

This is cajeta or Dulce De Leche. I put those four 8 ounce cans of sweetened condensed milk covered with water in my slow cooker for exactly eight hours. I then turned the slow cooker off and left the cans to cool slowly over the next 5 1/2 hours. I then cooled them in the fridge until morning. I opened one today to check the caramelization, thick, rich,creamy, perfect!!

I love it when something works!!

Two COMPLETELY unrelated topics

I plan on making Cajeta De Lecha con platano for Cinco De Mayo next week. So in preparation I googled various recipes. I could not find any Nestles product already nicely made for me. However, I did find canned goat milk, which was recommended as being an authentic ingredient for the recipe as commonly used in Mexico. I went with good old store brand canned sweetened condensed milk. I carefully removed the paper labels and washed the cans. I dragged out my slow cooker, filled it water, four cans and let it go for 8 hours on low. I have since stored the cans after cooling in the fridge. I will take a picture when I open the cans to see how caramelized it got. The slow cooker method is wonderful, no peeking into the oven to add more water to the ban marie.



The precursor to actual ground breaking for the new hospital has begun. This oil drilling rig was driven onto the lawn by remote control. A handful of men scrambled all over it assembling long drilling rod things and adding water to a slurry mixture and pounding it into the ground. Checking for soil stabilization, I'm thinking. The soil around my house is pretty saturated. The worms have finally begun to come up out of the ground. Hope nothing starts to slip slide away.