Manly Crockpotting (Now With Update)

Update:  I use Twitter in an effort to broaden my readership here. One response, from a friend:

YOU'RE A GUY? pic.twitter.com/NdZsSe0jPk

— MoxieMom (@moxiemom) January 27, 2019

I always thought the header pic on my Twitter profile was a dead giveway.  Huh.

* * * * * * * * * *

Once again, an e-mail to friends turns into a post:

I stumbled upon the Art of Manliness site a while back, and have subscribed to their weekly news letter.  I also have a link to their site in the blogs.  Anyway, they put out some (dare I say it?) good, old-fashioned advice on all sorts of things, from survival tips to tying neckties.

So, today, I found their advice on crockpots.  Since cooking and eating are required by everyone, not just men, I thought I'd pass it along.  Only problem I see (as a single guy) is the copious quantities of stuff it makes, but that can be frozen.

I just finished a batch my white chicken chili, and thought I'd pass it on with the article:

(Notes are in parenthises. I don't generally measure too much, as you will see, so the measurements are approximate where noted. Yes. I open the pot whilst cooking to check on taste and doneness, so I can tweak the flavors to my taste.)

Lee's White Chicken Chili  

2 can of navy beans (I only had one can, so I used a can of black beans)

One of those chicken-turkey hybrid skinless breasts

(I tossed in a thigh w/ skin for the flavor. Thumper approved highly.)

1 small can of diced ortega chiles

1 medium onion, chopped or diced

Teaspoon cummin

Teaspoon dried oregano

1 - 2 cups chicken broth

A splash of Tapatio hot sauce (more or less, to taste)

(Tapatio just adjusts the 'picante' of a dish without extraneous flavor, which is why I recommend it for general purpose cooking. Although I see it in a lot of gerocery stores, I usually buy it a Walmart, because their price is usually about $3.00 for the quart bottle. But use whatever you want.)

Cut the chicken breast into chunks.

Drain the beans.

Toss everything into the pot, add broth till you can see it peeking thru the ingredients.

(Sigh. OK, I was thawing a jar of frozen broth on the stove while prepping, adding it from the jar as I went, so the volume used is a bit hazy. And use the whole can of chiles, juice and all.)

Set it to high. After about 4 hours, it should be close to done. When the chicken chunks fall apart easily, you're there.

(I will try doing an 8 - hour version on low to see how that cooks. Science experiment!!)

(One more note: I added about 1/4 cup of Salsa Lizano, which is a condiment/sauce I discovered in Costa Rica. It gave the chili a bit of a curry flavor, which is what I like it for. I use it when I make Arroz Amirillo con Pollo, too. You can, of course, get it from Amazon.)

Enjoy!

Long Time, No Garden

Last time a posted about the garden was late June.  Things have changed.  But first, some of the fruits of my labors:

My very own canned produce.  On the left, crushed tomatoes.  On the right, not pineapple, but also crushed tomatoes.  The yellow tomato plant is going like gangbusters.  The latter is going to be used to make a chicken chili.

The kitchen garden.

The Basil is doing fine, as Basil is wont to do.

The tomatoes are not fairing so well. I do not know why.

Another view.  The Rosemary is healthy.  Unseen but also healthy are the two Oregano plants.

Front high bed.  Pumpking and tomatoes are well, as are a few of the pepper plants (hidden in the pumpkin).

 The Yellow tomatoes, and what I now believe is Honeydew melon

An almost ripe cluster of yellow tomatoes. The are meatier, and a bit less juicy, but they put up just fine. Also, a couple of Peppers hiding behind the Pumpkin.

The last Early Girl.  Some fruit is forming.

Blackberry.  I actually got eat the one that the critters didn't get.  Yummy!

The one red tomato that it still reasonably healthy and producing.

Once again, the Romas are coming in the what I'm calling "flat-bottom rot".  It isn't actually rot, but the bottom part of the fruit is flat and brown.  This has happened for the last two seasons.  One of the tomatoes from the bush directly above also had it.

Google is my friend.

In other news, I got bacon, and made bacon and tomato sandwiches.  Life is good!!

Comfort Food

...presented without comment.

Carefully lifted from Gerard!

Sunday's Friday Garden

Things are growing!

Well, sort of... the yellow onions seem healthy, but the reds look DOA.  Still gotta get some garlic in there.

Quince, tomatoes, peppers and garlic are looking good.

Blackberry is almost bush-like this year!

Tomatoes, peppers and melons all standing tall-ish.

Kitchen bed holding its own.  The basil is blooming already, which means I need to do some trimming.  Perhaps this evening...

Close-up on the Rosemary and Basil.

Production notes:

The colors are a tad washed.  I used the phone's lighting correction, because of the overcast.  I have other photos that are cyanotic, so I'm not using them.

I tweaked the layout a tad.  This lets me display the landscape shots at a larger size!  I'll go back and update the last garden post, now.

Memorial Day Crockpot (Updated, Finally!)

Decided yesterday evening that some feijoada was in order, but in a sort of "similar but different" mode.  It is originally a slave dish from Brazil.  At the end of the day, the workers in the butchering sheds would sort of sweep up the floor and put in the pot, along with black beans, onions and whatever else was handy.  I first heard about it on one of the cable food channels about ten years ago.  When I Googled it later, I discovered that no two recipes were alike, and some wildly different.

That said, here's today's take:

 First off, I used Great Northern white beans instead of black.  The meats are two large chunks leftover Easter ham, excavated from the freezer, two monster chicken thighs, and most of a pound of Jimmy Dean sausage.  I sauteed a largish onion with the sausage, then added that to the mix.  I was going to go with my standby pepper sauce, Tapatio, but then remembered the Thai Hot peppers from last year's garden, so three of those bad boys went in, along with a light handful of Thai Basil leaves.  There's about a pint of runoff from what might be a chicken stew in the pot, and a bit of water.

I will update as the story develops.  More, later!

Update:  I left the raw ingredients covered in the pot on high for about 6 hours, thinking that I'd take some out for dinner, and let the rest simmer on low for a couple more hours.  Turns out, it was done!  I was right in not adding any salt, as the ham contained enough to season the whole stew.  The Thai Basil, which has a more anise flavor than Sweet Basil, complimented the flavor of the Jimmy Dean sausage, and the three Thai Hot peppers gave it just enough kick to be interesting but not painful.

I will definitely make this again.  My daughter said she might try it too.

Christmas, 2012

My Christmas status report...

Well, it seems we are all still here, Mayan calendar not withstanding.  I kept telling people that their calendar stopped because they ran out of numbers!

I've been living here for about a year and a half now.  Doc Deb was gracious and invited me to move in when I lost my job last year.  I'd been doing maintenance stuff in exchange for my keep, until she lost her job in March.  She decided to move down to Texas to be with her parents, who are getting a bit frail.  I'd pulled the pin on my retirement benefits (such as they are), so now I'm staying in the house, making the mortgage payment.

The last three months have been exciting - I started working as a contract writer for a company called Remilon.  I'm writing on-line classes on programming for them, for starters.  The idea is, you could take a full class on one of many subjects for free, and then take the CLEP exam, and get college credit for the class.  It's an inexpensive way to clear out a lot of undergrad requirements, given that the cost of a CLEP exam is usually under $100.00.  My first lesson is finished, and I just uploaded the video for my second one yesterday.

Given that I live at the main crossroads in Red Lion, there is a *lot* of traffic, and traffic noise, which makes recording my lessons pretty much impossible.  I went to the local library, and asked if I could use one of their conference rooms as my recording studio.  I wound up talking with the director, Don, about it.  One thing led to another, and I wound up hanging a projection screen in the board room for them.  We are working on starting some computer skills classes there.  I use the library as my office sometimes, as it gets me out of the house and away from potential distractions (like Baxter helping me type).

Got the heater working, and think I've located the leak that flooded the basement.  It's not the boiler, nor is it the water heater.  I believe that it's in one of the pipes going through the cellar wall to the heater in the kitchen.  That means, the kitchen floor will have to come up in order to locate and repair said leak.  Fun.

I got an estimate on getting the old siding replaced.  The Home Depot guy (also named Don) was mostly worried about the sagging laundry room.  I did a little poking around, and it looks like there is no really code-grade footing for it.  The floor will also have to come up for diagnosis and repair, and possible jacking/shoring.  Yay.

Christmas... I'm going to get the place picked up and cleaned up this weekend.  My plan for Monday is to bake.  Current projects are to be two pumpkin pies and weapons-grade fudge topped brownies.  (I may do soft oatmeal cookies before that, just to get me through the weekend.)  Christmas day will be my Christmas movie marathon: The Ice Harvest (John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen), The Holiday (Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Jude Law), Scrooged (Bill Murray, Karen Allen), and a new one, the 200th episode of NCIS.  I think of as a take on "It's a Wonderful Life", with Gibbs taking George Bailey's place in the center of things.  And maybe, if I can find them, the "Eureka" Christmas episodes, too.  Dinner will be turkey tamales and Caesar salad.  And french vanilla ice cream laced with brandy (from the book "Ice Cream Happy Hour").  And, of course, I hope to chat with my daughter.  She is on the road from L.A. to Billings, Montana as we speak.  She expects to arrive today, and will be staying with my cousin and his wife until she can get situated.

Update - pictures!!

Living room with tree, candles, and Baxter

Dining area/work area

Bar, red hat, and Dakota

Kitchen work station, with pie!!

Close-up, workstation and pie!  Kitchen composting happens in the green bins on the left.

And that's about it for year end here in PA.

Merry Christmas to all!

Afternoon Farm-Wifery

We were predicted to have a little snow the other evening, so I decided to pull up the remainder of the garden goodies.  I got a fair amount of Thai Hot peppers, along with some green tomatos, oregano, and young garlic and onions.

I spent half my time getting  the basil leaves off the stems, while not getting the dried flower bits into the bowl at the same time.  I don't know if the dried flower parts are useful or not, but they smell stronger than the leaves.  Research required, as it is with the oregano flowers.

I decided to de-leaf the pepper plants, instead of making a pile of individual peppers (I have a small one going already).  Then, I got even more creative (hah!), and now have them hanging from the Pepto-Bismol pink shelves to dry!

All of that reminded me of farm and family.  My parents were first generation "off the farm" - dad from Billing MT, mother and step-mom from Illinois.  I have spent a fair amount of time 'on the farm' over the years.  One of my earliest memories is sitting on Uncle Paul's lap, steering (and I use the term loosely) the tractor down some king of chute from the stockyard to the barn.

I remember feeding chickens at Uncle Jordan's, and gathering eggs.  That's where I learned to 'candle' eggs too.  When I wasn't being a tourist, I'd go out and help the boys set the irrigation water for the sugar beets.

I discovered that cleaning produce is a form of medditation.  My mind was free to wander about.  I thought Deep Thoughts on relationships, family, politics, even (alleged) global warming.

I plan on doubling the amount of raised beds for next year, and making them all at least 12" deep.  Deeper - with Miracle-Grow soil -seems to yield significantly better results.  And a BBQ deck, and fencing so I can let Koda and Suzu out to meander in the back without worrying about them wandering off into traffic.

More, later...

Public Service Announcement

I have discovered (by careful trial) that green Thai Hot chili peppers are about 98% as effective ("hot") as red Thai Hot chili peppers.

That is all.