Grandma Merri's Spanish Rice Dinner

Cooking was not one of my Mom's favorite things, but there were several things she made and enjoyed making. Spanish rice was certainly one of them, and I always loved it when she made it.
I have made it so many times myself that the little card it is typed on sits unused in my recipe file card box. Now I just make it as I do so many other things, adding this or that, changing something here or there.

This is a main-dish, not a side dish like Mexican rice. Its one of the very few things I find any use for "minute rice" for.

I'm reprinting the recipe exactly as it is on her recipe card. It is delicious.

SPANISH RICE
1 lb. ground beef
1/4 c. crisco oil
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. green pepper
1 1/2 c. instant rice
Brown above until golden in color
Add:
1 c. HOT water
2 -8 oz. cans tomato sauce
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. pepper
Bring to a rolling boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered 5 minutes.
She has a note that says: (I usually add a dash or so of catsup and stir it together before removing from the heat)

My own notes now:
Unless you buy really lean meat, you certainly don't need the vegetable oil. That stuff will kill you!
I haven't used sugar in it in years.
I often use diced tomatos in place of the tomato sauce.

For the 4th of July... Mom's potato salad

In the spirit of this article by Garrison Keillor, lets make some potato salad for the 4th of July!
I know it would never occur to you to buy potato salad.... would it? Uh... I must confess to having bought macaroni salad before. From Walmart. I'm sorry. There's really no excuse for that, is there? Especially when homemade is so easy and so, so much better tasting and better for you. Yeah, better for you. Read the ingredient label on store bought macaroni or potato salad. I guarantee you will find stuff on the list that you would not put in your homemade salad. If its not something your great grandmother would have recognized as food, it probably aint good for you!
So! Potato salad! Lets make some!

Boil about 3 pounds of potatoes. Drain. Now you come to a fork in the road... do you like chunky potato salad, or do you like it smooth? Up to you here, whether you chunk 'em up or mash.
I like to add a couple stalks of celery, some onion, sometimes a couple hard boiled eggs, just whatever you like in there, add it!
Now in a bowl, mix some REAL Mayonnaise, around a cup, with a tablespoon or so of spicy brown mustard. Mix well, and add to your potato mixture. Mix well and add more if needed. Add salt and pepper, taste, add more if needed. Chill well, its better after it sits in the fridge a while. Good stuff, and if you have used REAL mayonnaise, Great Grandma would approve of it!

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Warning. Trust me on this one. These will ruin any former enjoyment you ever had of store-bought flour tortillas. There is simply no comparison. They are easy to make, and the more you make, the better you will get at it. I will admit, the art of making them perfectly round, well, I don't have that part down just yet. But then I've been making my own pie crusts a lot longer, and they don't turn out all neat like the ones on TV either. But they still taste good! And they ARE getting rounder each time!
Necessary equipment:
a rolling pin: note. I have a cut piece of a garden tool handle that I find is a lot better for rolling tortillas than my regular rolling pin
some sort of griddle than can be heated to a high temperature. Non-stick surface is NOT ok for this. A "lid" from an old cast iron stove, or a cast iron griddle. I use one of those cast iron griddles that fits over 2 burners.
Ingredients:
If you have a scale, you need 500 grams of flour. 4 cups more or less.
a heaping 1/4 cup of lard. Don't go all wobbly on me here. Lard. Gotta be lard. Do not be afraid!
Back to your scale, 17 grams of kosher salt. Doesn't HAVE to be kosher salt, but I love the taste of it so that's what I use. Around a Tablespoon. Regular granulated salt has a finer grain, and you might want to use less.
You can use a pastry blender, 2 knives, a fork, whatever. But you have to work the lard into the flour. I prefer just to use my hands.
Now add between 1 and 1-1/2 cups HOT water. Mix this up with your hands. Resist the urge to add too much water. Dough should form together, but not be sticky. Turn out and knead on counter just a few times, gently. Now leave it on the counter and cover it with the bowl. Let it set 30 minutes or so.
After the dough is relaxed, heat your griddle. Then divide into 10-12 balls and shape into a disk and set aside. When your done pre-shaping the last one, you can start rolling the first one. Keep the rest covered with a kitchen towell. Roll them out into as close to a circle as you can.
The griddle is ready when water dropped onto it immediatly evaporates.
Use no grease, and be very careful. Plop the first one down onto the hot griddle. Let it cook a few seconds and flip it with a spatula. Continue flipping until done on both sides. They will have dark brown spots across their surface.
I lay mine on a towell and flip half the towell over them to keep them covered.
Eat while still warm or seal up in a zip-bag and refridgerate.
Next time I make a batch, I will add some pictures.

Carne Guisada

My middle girl loves carne guisada. Its almost always what she orders at Mexican Food restaurants.
So, I set out through the deep waves, surfing the internet for a good carne guisada for her. There are as many ways to make carne guisada as there are cooks and food blogs!
So, I took what sounded good from several places, combined it with what I knew her likes and dislikes were, and created my own version of carne guisada.
Whoops. Forgot something! What IS carne guisada, anyway? I hear its not such a common dish outside of Texas.
Carne guisada is literally "stewed meat." We have ran across a few places that make it from pork, but usually it is beef, and that is what my daughter likes, so this one is beef. Beef cooked in a gravy with (not too hot for her) peppers, onions and a few spices.

Here's how I made it:
In a heavy (well seasoned cast iron is best) dutch oven, in lard (yes, LARD) saute 1 onion, diced, 1/2 or so bell pepper, and 1 or 2 jalapenos, all diced. When its about done, add a couple cloves minced garlic.
Cut up about 4 pounds of round steak, and dredge it through some all-purpose flour.
Remove the onion mixture from the pot and add more lard if needed, then throw in the meat and brown it. Add "some" cumin, and 4 cups beef broth. Now put a lid on that puppy and throw him in the oven at a real low heat, around 200*, for several hours. Get it out of there and give it a good stir once in a while and check its progress. The meat will be very tender when its done.

Serve with homemade flour tortillas, (have I posted that recipe yet?) Homesick Texan's Mexican Rice and homemade refried beans.

Sourdough Bread

Several months back I posted about a new book that had come out, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.' Great book, I highly recommend it.
That book inspired me to get back into more "hands on" bread baking, and I ran across a great site for bakers, The Fresh Loaf. Through that site, and a couple of excellent books I have gotten, (Dan DiMuzio's Bread Baking) and (Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread) I have learned a lot of new info on making some very tasty "artisan" bread.
There are many opinions as to what constitutes "artisan bread", but to me it is bread made by a slower process than what I had learned when I first started making bread 20-some years ago. Then, the idea was to make the bread rise as fast as you could. With artisan the emphasis is often on slow fermentation.... allowing the bread to slowly develop, bringing out the subtle flavors of the grains. The exact opposite of "fast food." Often the loaves are hand shaped and baked on a stone instead of in a pan, though that is not always the case. I believe to, at least for myself, there is an emphasis on natural ingredients, you won't find the dough conditioners, high fructose corn syrup, or unpronounceable stuff that you find in store bought, mass produced bread.
Artisan bread can practically stand alone, the center of a meal instead of something to hold a sandwich together or slather with peanut butter and jelly.
Several times over the years I have tried to get a sourdough starter going. Each time I failed. I tried again a couple weeks ago. Due in large part to info and advice I received from The Fresh Loaf, and the books I now have, this time my starter succeeded! Its alive and well sitting on my kitchen counter.
Yesterday I used it to make a loaf of sourdough bread. I used Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough and I am pleasantly surprised not only in how it looks but also in the taste. This one is a keeper for sure!

Cream of Spinach Soup

I really enjoy Mark Bittman's blog. He has a lot of good recipes and really good advice from time to time.
Last night I made Cream of Spinach Soup, which I got from his blog. It was absolutely delicious, and I will bet that the 1/4 cup or so thats left over will be on daughter # 3's mind as soon as we get home today.

1 # spinach (I used frozen. I would not recommend canned at all)
onions (he calls for spring onions or scallions, I had regular "spanish onions, and diced them up fine)
3 cups homemade chicken stock
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to barely a simmer, cook about 10 minutes.
Add a pinch of nutmeg
Kosher salt
Blend the soup. (I used a hand blender, worked great)
Add a cup or so of cream, or as in my case, half-n-half

Slurp!

Chicken Stock

I made 5 1/2 qts of chicken stock saturday. I used a "recipe" (if it can be called a recipe, maybe its more of a method) from a guy named Michael Ruhlman, who is a food writer, and who has written a book called "Ratio" which I will be mentioning here on my blog in the following weeks.
Anyway, he suggests using a turkey carcass. I didn't have one, but I did have quite a few chicken backs.
When I make chicken, I frequently do not use the backs. Not much meat, WAY too many bones. I save them in a bag in the freezer, and when there's enough (backs and time) I make stock.
This time I used Mr. Ruhlman's method and I really like it! Isuggest you try it too!

I have been on a "soup kick" for the last week or two, making vegetable soups, just adding some of this and some of that until it looks good. I will try to get a "recipe" written up for one or two of them so you can try them out.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

This is so easy and delicious!

You need a 9X13 pan. Set your oven on 350*. Take a stick of BUTTER and melt it in the pan. Now put brown sugar over the butter. "Some." I really don't measure it, just eyeball it. Enough to soak up most of the butter. Now, open a can of pineapple and drain it into a measing cup.
Your going to use a cake mix. Yellow cake. I like the "butter recipe" one. See how much water the recipe calls for, and use the juice from the can in place of the water. If there's not enough juice, add enough water to make up the amount.
If your using chunk pieapple, just distribute it evenly. If using rings, you may need 2 cans to make it look right. I like to add a marachino cherry to the centers of the rings when I have them.
Now mix up the cake as the directions say, spread on top of the pineapples, bake as directed, and when done, let cool about 5 minutes and turn out onto a cookie sheet.

Leftovers: Mashed Potato Soup

This is so good, you would not guess its made from leftovers. Leftover mashed potato soup!

I made mashed potatoes the day before. Next day, I sauted some onion in butter, added the leftover mashed potatoes, a bit of ham cubed (leftover ham, as well) and added milk. A little less milk that potatoes. A little salt and pepper, and a shake or 2 of celery salt.

Delicious!

Exploding Enchiladas- A word of warning

We had gone to Oklahoma to see my Dad and step-mom in the nursing home. One thing I really wanted to do while we were there was cook up a batch of enchiladas for my brother and sister in law who also live in Oklahoma. I mixed up the dry ingredients for the sauce at home, and purchased the rest of what I needed at the local Walmart.

I made 2 pans, one of cheese enchiladas, one of beef ones. I buttered 2 pyrex baking dishes, placed the enchiladas in them, and placed them in my sister in laws brand new oven at 400*.

About 15 minutes later, and nearly time for them to come out of the oven, I heard a loud POP in the oven. I opened the door to see a terrible mess. The dish that the cheese enchiladas were in had exploded, and shards of glass and melting cheese were everywhere inside the oven, including in the other dish of enchiladas. There were some big peices of glass and there were tiny shards. It was all over the oven, including some that fell down below the "floor" of the oven, so that the oven had to be partly disassembled to clean it. What a mess!

Our dinner was ruined, and her brand new oven would require extensive cleaning. It was a horrible feeling.

When I retured home, I wondered if anyone had ever had a similar experiance with Pyrex or other glass type baking dishes. After a google search, I have learned that many people have had similar experiances, but quite a few of them have resulted in injuries due to broken glass embedded in them, burns, and cuts.

Many of the cases I read were simlar to mine, the pan exploding for no apparent reason while in the oven. Others explode when the door is open to check the cooking, others explode when set out to cool. Some even claim to have had them explode after having cooled. Some are new dishes, others are a number of years old.

Bad as the mess was in the oven, at least it was contained by the oven. I feel fortunate that no one was hurt.

If mine had been the only such experiance, I would chalk it up to bad luck, a flaw in the pan, ect. But I really believe Pyrex has got a big problem on their hands, and from what I have read, they are in a bit of denial about it. I just hope someone isn't seriously hurt or blinded before they do something.

I will not be using Pyrex or Fire-King glass baking dishes anymore. One pan of exploding enchiladas is enough for me.

You can click here for many personal stories similar to mine. Unfortunatly, some of these folks got hurt.

Left-overs: Too much spaghetti or too much sauce

I never can seem to get it right. I either make too much sauce for my spaghetti noodles, or too much noodles for the amount of sauce I make. Either way, you have to figure out what to do with the excess.

So, here are two great suggestions for either scenario!

Too much sauce: Cut up a chicken, put in crock pot, and pour your leftover spaghetti sauce over it. Cook on low until done. Sprinkle with a little parmesan cheese if you want. Very tasty!

Too much spaghetti: My family loves this one. Saute the noodles in a little oil. You can add a bit of diced onion if you want. You want the noodles to brown, but only slightly. Add vegetables, whatever you have on hand and want to use up. Then add a shake or two of soy sauce. Season with whatever you like. I am fond (as I have mentioned) of Peppered Season-all. Serve and enjoy! Good stuff!

Homemade Laundry Soap

A bit of a change here. This is not food, but a way to save money! I made a batch of this over the weekend, and was very pleased with the results on my husbands' work clothes as well as on all our clothes. The soap takes all of about 5 minutes to mix up.

There are many and varied recipes online for making your own laundry soap. Some are for dry powder type, some for liquid. I prefer the dry powder, so that is what I made.

Supposedly, about any bar soap will work. I bought 2 bars of ZOTE, but I think next time I will use Ivory, simply because its carried at the store I regularly shop at, and ZOTE is not. Most people recommended zote, fels-naptha, Kirks Castile, or Ivory, but several people said they save up their left-over soap bits and use them, using whatever type soap they had on hand.

I used a food processor to quickly grate a bar of ZOTE, then used the knife blade to further pulverize the soap. The whole process too under 5 minutes.

So here's thye recipe!

to 1 cup of the pulverized soap, add:

1/2 cup washing soda {note, all the recipes called for washing soda, however washing soda was not to be found in my town, so I bought a big box of baking soda instead}

and

1/2 cup borax {I bought 20 mules team borax, it is in the laundry aisle.}

Use about 2 tablespoons per regular wash load.

All together these 3 ingredients cost maybe $5.00, and there is enough soda and borax left over to make many, many more batches of soap.

This is incredibly less expensive that the Tide I have been using, and so far I am very happy with the results.

Mashed Potatoes

Put an 8 oz package of softened cream cheese into your potatoes as you mash them, and you will be suprised at the results. You will not taste the cream cheese, but will just notice that the potatoes are creamier and richer than usual.
To about 5 pounds, more or less, of potatoes, use 1- 8 oz package cream cheese.
Then of course use a stick or so of real butter and then add milk or heavy cream, salt, pepper. Fresh chives would be excellent in these, too.

Iced GREEN tea

I love green tea, its a great thirst quencher, not to mention its many health benefits.
Brewing iced green tea is about as easy as filling a pitcher with water. To make a good green tea to be drank cold, there is no need to heat the water or allow a steeping time. With hot green tea, steeping time can be pretty tricky. Too long of steeping time, and instead of a smooth drink you end up with something bitter.
And I don't know this for a fact, but I believe that the cold brew method might actually preserve more of the delicate good-for-you things in the tea, as opposed to subjecting them to heat.
So, here's how to brew a gallon of delicious, thirst quenching, good for you, green tea!

Simply put tea bags into cool water in a jar or pitcher! I use 4 tea bags to a gallon, but depending on your tastes and the size of your container, you may want more or less. Set this in the refrigerator, and it will brew on its own. In 45 minutes to an hour, its ready!
I leave the tea bags in there until its gone, then I start with a fresh batch.

LASAGNE!

This is my most requested "birthday supper" for the girls. We LOVE lasagne around here. And, it fits pretty well into the heart-healthy mediterranean diet, especially if you use whole wheat pasta!

Lasagne:
Meat sauce
1 pound ground beef (or more, I have made it with 2 pounds)
1 clove garlic minced (or more, its hard to get too much garlic, right?)
1 tsp. basil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 pound can tomatoes (diced, or whole if cheaper and scrush 'em up yourself)
12 oz tomato paste
1 tsp. parsley flakes
Brown meat, add the rest, let barely simmer

Cheese:
Combine:
3 cups small curd cottage cheese
2 eggs slightly beaten
2 T. parsley
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 cup OR MORE grated mozzerella
you can add some parmesan* to this as well

Lasagne noodles cooked al dente.

Layer:
noodles, cheese mix, 1 # (or more) grated mozzerella, and meat sauce until all igredients are used up. A 9X13 pan struggles to hold it all. If you have a "lasagne pan" that's best.

Cover and bake @ 375 for 30 minutes. Remove cover for last 15 minutes. Let stand 10-15 minutes before serving. You can make your garlic toast while its standing!

Serve with grated parmesan* cheese and garlic toast.
*I have taken to buying a solid wedge of parmesan cheese and grating it myself. Its easy to grate, and while, yes, its expensive, it keeps very well if well wrapped, and you are buying 100% cheese, not fillers, and "anti-caking" products.

GARLIC TOAST
Slice homemade bread, or store bought if you must... (see artisan bread in five minutes a day)
Set it under a broiler to just begin to brown.
Take a peeled clove of garlic and rub it over the surface of the toasted bread. This grates the garlic into it.
Now brush with extra virgin olive oil.
Most delicious!

Enjoy your lasagne supper!

frijoles refritos

Refried Beans. What could be more simple, more down-to earth? They are good at any meal, and are a good replacement for mashed potatoes. They are a must have with tacos, enchiladas, ect. I like them with eggs at breakfast!

I much prefer homemade refried beans to anything in a can, and with a little prep work it dosn't take long to whip up a batch of refried beans.

Start the evening before:

First sort your beans. Broken pices are ok. Rocks and sticks are not. Then wash. How much washing depends on the beans. I have bought beans that I have taken outside in a collander and shaken to get a lot of the dirt out, then brought back in and washed many times. Others, a couple good washings did the job. Wash till the water in the bowl is clear.

Now, refill the bowl of beans with cold water, you want the water well over the beans, like a couple inches. I cover mine with a plate over the bowl. We have a cat. I also leave the bowl in the sink. You are done with the beans until morning. Goodnight!

Next morning, pour out the soak water and rinse the beans well through a colander.

Now you can cook them any way you want. Pressure cooker, stove top, crock pot. I usually use the crock pot.

Many hours later, at least 6 or 7 on low, when they are done, you are ready to make your frijoles refritos!

Drain your beans, reserving the liquid.

Now you need a large skillet, preferably well seasoned cast iron. If not well seasoned and large, large and non-stick will do. You need a good amount of fat in that skillet. I use lard and bacon grease. You don't need lots of bacon grease, but some to give flavor.

Get your grease hot. Put a spoonful of the drained beans in the hot grease. WATCH FOR SPLATTERS, and be careful not to heat the grease to the smoke point!

Now with a potato masher, mash this spoonful of beans, working quickly. When pretty much mashed, add another, continuing until done with all the beans. At this point, or before if they get too dry, you will want to use some of your reserved cooking liquid to make them the consistency you want.

Now, add your salt, and pepper if you want. I do not add any other spices to my refried beans except occasionally a hint of garlic.

As I said at the start, refied beans go good with many things!

TACOS!!

More of a suggestion, really. Who needs a recipe for tacos? One of our favorite meals is tacos. There's just something comforting, homey, and yet festive about tacos.

There is a couple of things I do with mine that is different than the norm. I do not season the meat, unless you count salt and pepper. But the main difference is, I do not use the pre-bent, ultra crunchy tacos shells. I buy regular corn tortillas, the ones you have to bend yourself.

The beans are different at our house, too. I don't use canned refried beans. I use either dehydrated refried beans (located in the Mexican food section of our local Walmart) or I make my own.

Fry your hamburger. While its frying, either make your deydrated beans or re-heat homemade ones. (A recipe for homemade refried beans will follow soon) When everything else is ready, or being prepared by your helpers, (grated cheese, salsa, sour cream, shredded lettuce...) fry your tortillas. In a small cast iron skillet, heat about 1/2" of oil or lard. Heat it up until a small drop of water pops and splatters.

Drop a tortilla in, fry a few seconds on one side, turn over with tongs, fry a few more seconds, then bend using your tongs. Hold in the oil at the angel you want it, flip over and fry the other side of the shell for a couple seconds, and finally set upside down in a pan lined with paper towels. Immdeiatly start the next taco shell. These do not turn our real crispy, just slightly more than softened. But the taste is uncomparable to the pre-bent store bought kind.

Enjoy your tacos!

New Years Black-eyed Pea Soup

I have made this soup for many years, only and always on New Year's Day. This year I am omitting a ham bone because I don't have one.

Rinse and drain 2 pounds dried black eyed peas
Peel and grate 2 large potatoes and place in a bowl of cold water.
In a large soup pot, saute 1 or 2 large onion, some carrots, a couple stalks celery, and 1/2 pound bacon until bacon is cooked and onion is soft. When almost done, add 1 large jalapeno, sliced, and 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced.

Add the peas, drained potatoes, and meaty ham bone if you have one, to the pot. Add about 7 qts water. Since I don't have the ham bone, I added about 2 tsp. of "superior taste- better than bouillon" chicken base.

Add pepper and if needed, salt. I am fond of McCormick PEPPER season-all, and will add a few shakes of that when its close to done. It will need to cook about 4 hours.

I will serve it with warm corn bread.