Happy New Year!!!! (Easy enchilada soup and the UGLY TRUTH)

Hellooooo, everybody!! Happy, happy New Year!! I loved 2013 (like really, really loved it) but I am even more excited by 2014! It's time for planning ahead, dreaming big dreams and making all those awesome resolutions. 

(First of all, I promise not to use so many exclamation points. Unless I'm really, really excited. *ahem*)

Let's get to today's recipe and then I'll drop the ugly truth on you. 

What's that, you say? You're not aware of the ugly truth??

Well, it's all around us, including in this recipe (and I don't mean the chicken, Kav!) and sometimes we have to smudge a few of those sharp lines to make the world a bit happier. Are you with me? No? Well, let me start and maybe you'll catch up on the way.

Behold. Shiny enameled stock pot. The cast iron stock pot left a HUGE rust ring on my lovely, vintage sink so it went to a good friend. (Something about leaving the bottom a bit wet and setting it on the white enamel. Whatever it was, it kills me that this sink has lasted a long, long time and I was the one to mark it up. UGH. Ugly truth, right there.)

 Apparently, enameled pots will NOT harm the pretty vintage sink. 

Unless I drop it. 

Which I won't.

 So, ingredients needed: one big bag of chicken breasts (fresh or frozen, but since this is a quick meal, the bag came out of the freezer). Corn tortillas. Cheddar cheese. Enchilada sauce.
You can make this with red sauce but I've never really liked red enchiladas.

Fill your stock pot half full of water. Add the sauce. Add the chicken. Turn it on high. (Sorry these pictures are so dark. It's winter. I need a sun lamp for my food pics.)

 Boil the chicken.

 Add ten to 12 corn tortillas. Let them boil with the chicken and stir a bit so they're in fairly large pieces. Ovoid over-stirring. That would make enchilada mush, which is still tasty but rather icky looking.

 Add about five or six thick slices of cheddar cheese and let that melt into the soup. This gives it a really nice, creamy flavor.

 Remove the chicken and chop into small pieces. Now is a good time to taste for salt, pepper, etc. I usually add a bit of salt and some cumin powder. MMMMMMM.....

 Turn the oven on broil. Cover the top of the soup with thick slices of cheddar cheese. I saw this recipe with Pepper Jack cheese and it looked GORGEOUS. But I don't like Pepper Jack. Put the stock pot in the oven (make sure it's oven safe, of course).

 After 3 minutes or so on broil, pull the pot from the oven. The cheese should be melted very nicely over the top and a bit crunchy. Think onion soup. Think lasagna. Think enchiladas...

Now, here's where the ugly truth comes in. I could just pop this on the table and everyone could  serve themselves, but you know I'm a FOOL for ramekins. I love how they provide a bit of portion control (all that late night writing and eating and writing and eating has not been kind to my rear end). 

But the recipe I saw had the ramekins put in the oven on broil, so they cooked separately.

 Two problems with that:
One- I don't want to clean off the baked-on cheese from a bunch of tiny ramekins. Nobody got time for that.
Two- the ramekins would be incredibly hot. I have toddlers (okay, and older kids who grab their food without thinking) so I avoid handing out 300F serving dishes.
 Here we'll blur those rough edges of truth and make a little happy in our world. Nothing dishonest, just... easier.
Dip the soup from under the layer of cheese and add a bit to every dish. Then, using a knife, cut a bit of the cheddar and lay it on top. Ta-DAH! Baked enchilada soup and nobody is going to the ER. It's still plenty hot, but not enough to hurt you.

 I added a bit of green onion to mine. A friend put corn in hers. The flavor is really amazing and if I had time, I think I might want to experiment. But as it is, I'm sticking with what I know...

 Now, the only ugly truth (cleaning up) involved here will be with this baby. And since I've made this dish three times now in this enameled pot, I'm confident in saying I won't be scrubbing for hours. Not even ten minutes. One dish dinner! Great for a crowd and it keeps well in the fridge. Leftovers!

And now, time for some more of the UGLY TRUTH. This is one of our closets, disemboweled. The innards of the little boys' closet was so tangled and so jumbled that nobody even knew what was in there. Sometime in May, my husband "sorted" part of the laundry room and "stored" things in this closet.
Yeah... Scare quotes and all.
Disaster.
 (And yes, I realize it's January, but what can I say? I've been too busy to deal with the closet problem. Until now.. Now is the time of reckoning...)

 One day, I'd had enough! (Specifically, Sunday evening.) We took everything from the closet and sorted it out. Bicycle helmets stayed, but girl backpacks from ten years ago? Out. Booster seat from 7 years ago? Out. Hallowe'en costumes for little girls when I've had only boys for the last ten years? Out.
You get the idea.

 Also, this ancient old house had 'do it yourself' closets made by the previous owner/builder. Note the awesome paneling. This was all over the house when we bought it 12 years ago. I think this is the last remnant. The closet doors never worked right. EVER.
(P.S. Like my home made light switch covers? One Lego magazine, one layer of mod podge. La voila! Lego light switch cover that made little boys squee with happiness.)

So, everything out. (Sorry, this pic is pre-clean up. Before we swept and scrubbed. Gross, eh?) In preparation for the new carpet in this room, I've got a new plan for this closet. No more ugly truth behind closet doors. No more heaven-knows-what in this space.

Ready??

Here's the plan:

A reading nook!!

You can find a hundred ideas like it on Pinterest here. Go check it out and see what I mean. And next week I will update on our progress! The little people are VERY excited to have their own reading space. We have bookshelves in every room, and they have two in their room, but THIS will be fun. I'm letting the kids decide among themselves what sort of design it will be. So far, I'm hearing a lot of dragons and castles and Legos. We shall see!

 Have a wonderful start to your NEW YEAR!!! I've partied hardy over on Seekerville last night for their New Year's Eve party so I'm going to need a nap.

But first, we're going to open our 'Good Things Jar', which we've been filling of all the wonderful things that have happened this year. We started January 1st 2013, and we'll open it today! We'll read each slip and applaud every small success, rejoice over every blessing, and reminisce over every good memory. 

From my family to yours, may this year bring peace and joy! Happy New Year!

Disappointments and Desserts

Helloooo, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I'm bummed. Totally and completely floored.

the bulbustercafe

 

Our usual trips to the blueberry farm will not be happening this year. There was a late spring storm that took out most of the early varieties and then a heat wave that ruined the rest. I'm CRUSHED. We usually pick about 150lbs a year, freeze and share, and it doesn't even make it until January. Forget about how awesomely healthy blueberries are, how low in calories, and how you can use them 39 different ways.

I was thinking about this. These moments. Little boys with buckets. Toddlers picking perfect berries with perfect, chubby fingers. Older sisters squealing at spiders. Bigger boys pointing out frogs.

I thought of 'helpful' hands washing the berries and eating a whole lot. (The berries are unsprayed, all organic because the farm is part of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the animals are considered 'owners' of the land and they prefer their berries natural, thank you very much.)

I was thinking of those pie-making moments, the 'flour all over the floor and we're okay with it' moments. Those 'I got a really sour berry' moments.

I thought of those lattice-crust pies that were made by very small people and tasted better than mine.

I thought of the time we picked in an afternoon thunderstorm. Every time the thunder rumbled, the wild turkeys over the hedge answered with loud gobbles. We laughed so hard we could hardly pick.

I thought of the blueberry pies we made with crazy crusts because a two year old loved stars and wanted them on everything he ate.

I thought of the perfect summer night desserts, made with Greek yoghurt, graham crackers and a little wild honey.

I thought bowl after bowl of giant, sweet Toros that we shared with neighbors and visitors and family and friends. Toros don't freeze well. You pick them to enjoy, within hours.

 I must have made the same phone call twenty times: Come on over, we just went picking.

Or: Did you eat dessert yet? We're coming over and bringing fresh blueberries.

Sometimes we made ice cream and added home made blueberry syrup. Sweet, potent, addicting.

I've never actually taken a picture of the road. But if I ever did, it would look like this.

layoutsparks.com

 

 It's not the blueberries, it's the memories. And I thought this year would be just the same. I never considered how it would be if we didn't get to mark our summer with a sweltering trip to the blueberry farm. The kids always fought over who got to hold the buckets on the way home. The girls passed, knowing something with too many legs could crawl out at any moment. The boys fought for the rights to eat handfuls and handfuls while Mama was too busy driving the windy dirt road back to town.

  So, we wallowed for a while in our disappointment. Then I took a deep breath and tried to look at all the wonderful things that are happening.

My new book is being a total over-achiever. It sold 600 copies on the 14th alone, only 8 days after it went up for sale. It's not quite a bucket of fresh blueberries, but it's okay.

The blackberries are ripe. We picked and picked and picked, hoping to make a pie. But we'll have to go back because once we got them home and all washed... this was what was left after all the 'sampling'.
 The pie will wait. A summer's walk along the river as the sun sets, kids racing to fill their little buckets... It's not a blueberry farm, but it's okay.

A new writer friend sent me a gift out of the blue. Actual, honest-to-goodness Jane Austen stamps! I swooned. It's not a freezer full of Chandler blueberries, but it's pretty darn okay.

So, I've made peace with our summer-of-no-blueberries. I bought a little bag of frozen ones at the grocery store and made a dessert.

Cook and serve vanilla pudding.

 Store-bought oatmeal cookies. The crunchy kind.

 Broken up pieces of cookies in the bottom of the ramekin...

 Store bought frozen blueberries...

 Onto the cookies and sprinkle with cinnamon...

 Pour in hot pudding before it sets...

Chill two hours. Add more cookies to the top. It's not a blueberry farm, but it will do.

It will be a summer of memories no matter what.

And for that, I am grateful.



Pineapple Ricotta Custard

Hello, everybody!!

                                        You know I love anything in a ramekin.

 

 It just makes everything so much more elegant. Or maybe it's because they match, and I usually don't have enough matching bowls. And there's portion control, too, so I could make a point for it being HEALTHIER. :)

I've made chicken pot pies.

Spinach lasagne.

Blueberry pie.

 Lemon souffle.

And I wanted to make a dessert, but keep the portions small so I went looking... OH MY!

 

 Mini pineapple upside down cake!! But I think these would defeat the purpose of having something small. They look really, really yummy and really, really fattening.

So, I thought about what would have a good protein boost, use natural sugars, and no flour.

 

(At least Matt Groenig,the creater of the Simpsons, understands me. Did you know his dad was named Homer? And was raised in a Mennonite, Plautdietsch-speaking family? Yup. You'll never look at Homer Simpson the same way again.)

Anyway,  I had some ricotta left over and I remembered eating a wonderful ricotta dessert when I lived in France. It had pineapple and cinnamon and was soooo creamy and delicious.

I had those things. Ta-DAH! Magic pantry! And magic fridge. Don't keep ricotta in the pantry. That would be gross.
I found this recipe online but it had heavy cream. Something I didn't have... and didn't really want.

2 pounds ricotta cheese (drained)
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 large eggs

 

So, this is what I did.
Preheat oven to 450F (what's that sign for degree????? Well, now that I've wasted five minutes, you can just draw it on the screen with a Sharpie. :)

I mixed 1 lb ricotta, 3/4 cup sugar, 4 eggs, 3 tsp vanilla, 1 cup whole milk together until creamy. Then I reserved 6 whole rings of pineapple from the can, chopping the rest and adding it to the custard mix.

It looked a little soupy and I was wondering if I'd just ruined a whole pound of ricotta and some delicious pinapple. Fill each ramekin about half full.

Top with a pineapple.

Add more of the custard to completely cover the pineapple and then add a SPRINKLE of cinnamon. Yes, that's not quite the way it should be. Anyway. You get the idea.

Bake for 10 minutes at 450, then lower it 350F for another 15.  Here's one that's finally cooled enough we can eat it.

They did take a long time to cool off.

Here my 7 year old stakes his claim on the pineapple ricotta custard cup of his choice. I don't think anyone will jump that Fisher Price fence and dare Mr. Transformer to a Lego Ninjago firestick duel.

But I could be wrong.


So, until next time, keep experimenting with new things... Right until March rolls around and Speedbo begins because then we'll be doing the super simple, crazy easy dishes so we can WRITE LIKE THE WIND!
I thought I was starting a historical romance (to follow All The Blue of Heaven) and then jump directly into the sequel to Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits...

 

But I've changed direction! I'll leave you wondering until next Wednesday, when we're officially started on Speedbo. :)