Saturday, March 28, 2015

Easy POSOLE for the last leg of the writing journey!

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got a repost from a few years ago.
It's almost the end of Speedbo and I'm very close to writing the end to my second Cane River Romance! (Even though I never officially signed up for Speedbo, it's really hard not to join in when everyone you know has taken a month to write until their arms fall off.)

When I'm working hard on the end of a book, I try to cook something that everyone will like. I don't have time to prepare multiple dishes. I just go for the favorites! And posole is a big favorite in our house.

  Posole! Say it with me! (Oh, pronunciation? Po-ZO-lay.)


So, here we go: (gratuitous shot of our attempt at Jan's garlic cheesy twist bread. Mmm.)


One whole medium onion chopped with three cloves of garlic minced, 2 TBS olive oil, sauteed in the bottom of a soup pot.
Add two cans of tomatoes and 1 tsp salt. (These are our tomatoes from the garden, I added two quarts, and the sea salt was a gift, yee haw!  I don't think it made much of a difference, but it was fun to pretend we were in Sicily... cooking posole.)
Hominy. 50% off. I have no idea where this came from, but it was in the pantry. Probably planted by my husband. This was a huge can, but even with this, it seemed a little short on hominy. So don't add a small can unless you're hoping to get a bowl without any. Add 6 cups of water or chicken broth. If not chicken broth, you can season with bouillon. If not bouillon, just let the chicken gently boil with some salt and a tsp of thyme, it will be good anyway.

At this point, you'll get it to a rolling boil, including 4-5 chicken breasts. Some recipes call for a deli chicken deboned. But who can buy a deli roasted chicken and save it for posole?? That sucker would be 'deboned' within minutes in this house. So, some frozen chicken breasts (which NO ONE wants to see) into the pot, boiled, and then simmered for 30 minutes.

During the final phase, you add the CUMIN powder. I put that in caps because don't think you can add oregeno and get away with it. That would be something else entirely.

Cumin is related to caraway which is related to parsley which is related cilantro which is related to feet. It smells a little musty, but in a good way. Cumin powder- 3 tsp. You can add some hot sauce at this point, but I didn't.
Here's a dish for one of the kids. It smells delicious!!
 Usually, there is shredded cabbage and corn chips, but I just plopped some lettuce and sour cream on there and called it good.
  So, I hope everyone is happy about their word Speedbo wordcount! True to form, I spent the first two weeks milling around, and the last two writing like I was on fire, for a total of 67K new words this month. 
More than that, I love this story, and these characters! The Pepper in the Gumbo was my favorite of all of my books until I wrote this one. Now I'm in love with a whole new crew. I'll post the cover when it's done but so far... I'm all heart-eyes. 

  Until next time!

9 comments:

  1. I really miss being able to eat hominy. I wonder if I could fool myself with garbanzos with this recipe.

    My arms haven't fallen off but I've discovered I have to switch to voice recognition software to write that much in a month. Not a bad lesson.

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    1. Are you using Dragon, Julie? I have friends who dictate everything but I just don't like speaking the story. Everything sounds strange to me on the first draft, almost conversational. Which is fine if it's all conversation, but I think my style is sliding more toward literary than contemporary romance. I enjoy the sound of the words, but only after they've been written.
      Hope you've had some great word count goals met!

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    2. I use Google Voice on my phone and on Chrome. I always hoped you'd move into literary. YAY!

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  2. Nom, nom, nom...this looks fabulous!

    My arms haven't fallen off, but my sit-upon feels like it's been sat-upon a bit too much, even with alternating standing/sitting at my desk and taking frequent breaks. Ah, what we go through for our readers! :)

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    1. YES.

      I hear you about the sit-upon. I was just telling my husband that I was going to cart out my laptop to the patio, even though it's very windy (my papers won't blow away, hahha).
      I can't sit at my little corner desk another hour. Just. Can't.

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  3. Yum! Thanks for sharing again! I had forgotten to try this. Will add to my grocery list!

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    1. I don't think I've made it more than four times since I originally posted it. Funny, since we all like it so much!

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  4. This is so fun. The image of the frantic mother tied to her computer and coming out with 67K.... I might be laughing. Or wincing. I'm not sure. But the recipe looks amazing.

    And I'm starving. Virginia, come feed me. No one here cares that I'm starving. I feel the possibility of whining coming upon me.

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    1. Ruthy, every time I hear "writing community" I envision an old-style hippie commune where those on deadline are delivered sustenance and backrubs until their word count is met. Then, not withstanding the fickleness of the muse, they would take a shift to support the next round of those madly writing until their arms fall off.
      I think we need to make this happen.

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