July 2008

BabyDaddy and I scored some excellent, fresh lady peas from the green grocer yesterday. We also got baby sweet potatoes and the Best Tomatoes In The History of Man. Here’s what I do with super fresh lady peas (my favorite cowpea variety):

Fresh Lady/Purple Hull/Cow/Black-eyed Pea:

Legumes

Water to cover

Salt to taste

Wash peas and remove leaves and strings and shell fragments (It ain’t Grammaw pickin’ them clean anymore, kids. Machines can now sit on the glider on the front porch in the heat.) Cover peas with water by one inch. Add one tsp of salt per inch of water. Bring to a boil. Test after 10 minutes. Fresh peas are done when there is a bit of resistance to the tooth and a slight grassy flavor in the end product. Serve with cornbread/biscuits, butter, and hot sauce. Greens and sliced garden tomatoes are mandatory.

You are now a Southerner. Congratulations. Now go support the Dixie Chicks. Sketchy LOVES them.

THIS RECIPE IS NOT CORRECT. PLEASE SEE FIFI’S COMMENT FOR THE REAL LIPSMACKER.

BabyDaddy ate himself sick and wanted more.

I saw the recipe and would still feed it to my family.

Meet the epitome of Bad-For-You-Food.

Sharon Ritz by Way of Aunt Bunny’s Vermicelli Salad v. Fifi 2.0

14 oz vermicelli, broken into pieces

2 t Accent aka MSG

Nature’s Seasoning to taste (I think this is an herbal MSG vehicle)

1 10oz jar sliced green olives, drained well

1 15oz can sliced black olives, drained well

1 bunch green onions, sliced

1/2 c shredded carrots

2 c mayonnaise

Cook pasta according to directions. Drain. Add Accent & Nature’s Seasonings while pasta is warm. Chill. Add olives, onions, and carrot, mixing well. Add mayo to taste. Chill well.

Warm up the defibrillator.

I present Capers:

The last time RockStar, BabyDaddy, and I saw my grandmother for a visit at home (the very last was at the hospital right before she died) we went to the Kroger in her town and got a regular Sunday morning schmear. Lox, capers, onions, tomato, the works. Out of the blue, she took a caper out of the jar and popped it into her mouth. She was in love with them. Every time I talked to her on the phone after that, she told me how good they were and how she loved to eat capers on her salad. It makes me very happy to know that life has pleasant surprises for us, even in your 80’s with dementia.

Happy Birthday Miss Mary.

(Here’s another pal we met on that trip.)

Et voila:

Jealous?

And lordy, we’ll need them all. This is our Ichiban eggplant right now:

That’s one plant. Luckily, we all love this variety so the other night I wandered out back and gathered 2 eggplant and a handful of grape tomatoes. Oh wait a minute. There were no ripe grape tomatoes. Squirrels are satan. I swear. So here’s what went down:

Simple Eggplant Saute

2 japanese eggplants or 1 medium globe eggplant, cubed

1 onion, cut into half moons

3 sprigs of fresh thyme

olive oil

sals & pfeffer

Diced tomatoes or 1/2 can diced tomatoes (squirrels, grrrrrr), optional

Mix it til it’s tasty over medium heat. Add tomatoes once eggplant is softened.

Duh, huh? Picture Time!!!

No tomatoes.

Yummy.

The Recipes preferred the tomato version, but I think that’s because I under salted the other version which was lovely and subtle.

Woo Hoo!!!

Lots of great posts are in the hopper for the next few days including a mac and cheese that is yumlicious.

It’s great to be back and thanks for the patience.

She was my grandmother, but so much more.

A real life force, Honey was the best person I’ve ever known. She was so kind, so gentle, so honorable. The last 10 years of her life were a blur of trying to keep her happy, in a good way. She loved her great grandchildren so much. It was almost more than she could take. She paid Mary, Mary and me to pick worms off of her Catawbas when we were kids. She was number one in the grandparent department, unconditionally. BabyDaddy knew it. We all did.

Miss Mary made horrible food, but she was the best person I’ve ever known. Fifi is allowed to have issues with her mom, but she was good nail polish, cheap paperbacks, terrible gossip rags, diamond watches, dirty Playskool toys, and white picket fences to me.

What a legacy.

The Last Thing Honey Made for Me

1 avocado, mashed

1 onion, diced

1 c mayonnaise

Mix all together. Let turn gray. Inform your grandchild you have made her favorite dish. Heap a 2 c scoop on her plate with saltines. Take 24 different prescriptions.

I love my Honey, but this was a Therapy Worthy meal. She would love that, lol.

Here she is, holding a bunch of random stuff a 4 year old gave her:

We’re moving on up. To the East Side. To a deluxe apartment in the sky-high-high.

Mooovin on up. To the East Side.

We finally got a piece of the pi-i-iii-iiiie, yeah-eah-eah.

You kids can drop the wordpress from the site name. We’ll now be just http://sketchyrecipe.com.

See how happy we are?

I made this tonight. It was not a total success. I think it would be in a rice cooker.

Much Lazier and It’s From a Can Enchilada Sauce Rice

1 c mild red enchilada sauce

1 c white rice

1 c water

2 tbs oil

Warm the oil in a skillet. Add the rice. Stir to cook a bit and then add water and then sauce when you can smell the rice toasting. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 10 minutes, covered. Add 2 parts water for 1 part sauce to the mix if you need to. Cook for 10 more minutes, adding water and sauce, until cooked.

This never cooked fully for me.

What I will do next time? Cook the rice in the rice cooker with the same 2 parts water to one part sauce plus salt.

I will update! (Because we celebrate the failures here too!)

This is how I found an interesting recipe on another blog, Karma-Free cooking. Madelyn has very kindly given me permission to recreate her recipe with some Recipe changes. There are a few more steps than I generally like in a pasta bake, but the efforts are interesting. RockStar and I think that we’ve come up with some changes to the next incarnation of Madelyn’s brainstorm.

Karma Free Pasta Bake, Recipe version

1 onion, diced

3 tbs butter plus 1 tsp oil

1 box Barilla Plus pasta

1 box frozen chopped spinach, thawed

1 c chopped tomatoes OR 1 c chopped carrots

1 c shredded medium chedder

1 c shredded Monterey jack

1 quart half & half

2 tbs mustard

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg or mace

salt & pepper

Step One: Melt butter and heat oil in a small skillet. Add onion, sprinkle with salt, and saute until onion is transparent. Pour into the bottom of a 9 inch by 13 inch baking dish. Add pasta and stir in onions and fat to coat pasta.

Step Two: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Press spinach in colander or twist in a towel to remove most of the moisture. Spread over pasta. Scatter tomatoes or carrots over spinach. Spread cheese over the top of the dish.

Step Three: Pour half & half into a bowl. Add mustard, nutmeg, pepper, and at least 1 tsp of salt. Whisk until mustard has incorporated into mix. Pour liquid over the pasta and veggies slowly. Cover dish with foil and bake for 40 minutes, covered. Uncover and bake for 10 more minutes.

This was good, but a bit, um, curdy. Here’s what we’re trying next time:

In a large saucepan, melt 4 tbs butter. Add onions & salt. When onions are transparent, add 4 tbs all purpose flour and saute for one minute. Slowly add 1 quart milk to make a bechamel (fully explained here). When bechamel coats a spoon, add mustard, nutmeg, pepper, and 1 tsp salt. You can also add the cheese to this sauce if you want it more uniform and less stringy.

You will have to boil the pasta for this version because the sauce won’t release enough moisture to cook the dry pasta. Otherwise, layer cooked pasta, spinach, tomatoes/carrots, cheese, cover with sauce, and bake as directed.

I will keep you informed about the version Recipe 2.0

I have no pictures of this, but I did find an old pic of RecipeDog looking like the camera is sketchy. So cute!!!

I also cannot tell you how they were, as I don’t eat turkey. I’ll give you the recipe and then BabyDaddy will have to give you the critique later.

Turkey Enchiladas in Hatch’s Green Sauce

2 turkey thighs, baked and meat pulled in bite sized pieces

8 flour tortillas

shredded pepper jack and colby cheese, about 1 cup of each

1 diced yellow onion

Hatch’s green enchilada sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put tortillas in a stack in the oven while it warms up. Pour about 1/4 cup of the sauce into the turkey and stir to coat. Remove tortillas from oven and cover with a kitchen towel. Take your first tortilla and put about 1/4 cup of turkey on it, sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt, sprinkle on onion to taste, add a sprinkle of both cheeses, fold and put seam side down in an 8 inch square baking dish. I can get 4 enchiladas per dish and it takes a can of sauce per pan of enchiladas, plus the rest of the cheese on top. I like to bake 2 and freeze at least one (don’t put sauce on these) pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Now, I do these with just cheese and onions for the RockStar and me and they are Migh-T tasty.

Street legal crack in sauce form:

The winner of the Bag contest is Leigh! I’ll be sure to share pictures of the horror that the Recipes create.

That wins the poorly decorated canvas bag by yours truly. Really. (Maybe)

You need to find the original post and put a comment there.

Good luck, hippies.

So her name is really Aunt Bunny, but she has been tagged as Monnie here. This is her Kick Ass sweet fruit salsa with cinnamon pita chips. My heavens, it was fantastic.

The LunaR moth. It comes to feed on our moonvine. Here are pictures of the Luna moth and moonvine from Morguefile.com. I love that site!

Looks like tuna to me?

Because it’s all food, all the time here.

Once upon a time, in a land exactly where I’m sitting, Sketchy and BabyDaddy adhered to the Weight Watchers gestalt. The only positive thing we lost, and then regained - in spades - from that experience, was one of BD’s favorite soup recipes. This is not a minor point, as soup/stew is considered a Perfect food by BD. We had heard of this mythical soup from Fifi and Mary,Mary (my sister). It was only in a Points System/No Meat format that this ubiquitous diet food entered our house.

Do Not Fear. I can make anything dangerously unhealthy. It’s my gift.

Firefly Thorax. Not mine, but one of my favorite summertime sights.

Check morguefile.com for more wonderful photos.

The Tomato Sandwich

2 slices rustic bread

1 garden tomato, sliced

mayonnaise

salt & pepper

kitchen sink

Spread a healthy, insulating layer of mayo on bread to protect you against evil. Sprinkle pepper on mayo. Layer tomato slices to desired slippage/depth. Sprinkle tomato slices with salt. Assemble sandwich. Cut sandwich in half. Eat over sink to catch drips.

Rinse. Repeat. Relax in the cool like these two ‘Mater Sammich Addicts.

I will in no way vouch for an accuracy in locale to this recipe (found in general status under Mexican Rice II at allrecipes.com, plus generous reviewer contributions which will be incorporated here.) It tastes just like what I get with the Number 3 Lunch Spechul at my local taqueria. If you have a basic level fuzzy logic rice cooker, you get the Lazy Man’s Special, if not, check your skillet often.

1 c white rice (never ever used here except for this recipe)

1 1/2 c vegetable/chicken broth

1/2 c tomato sauce

1 tbs oil or butter

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, smashed and diced

1 tsp salt, plus salt for The Onion Sweat - not a new band, by the way

1 tsp ground cumin

*Put rice in cooker. Add tomato sauce to cooker next so you can clean out measuring cup with broth. Add broth.

Over low heat, add oil to skillet. Add cumin, cook for 30 seconds. Add onion, salt, and garlic. Sweat for 5 minutes over low heat.

(If cooking rice on stovetop, add wet ingredients AND RICE now , stir and cover. Cook over low heat for 20 - 30 minutes. Fluff and serve.)

Add onion and garlic mixture to wet ingredients in cooker and mix. Close cover and cook per directions.

Enjoy and fight over leftovers. I would have taken a picture of the rice, but we ate it all. Tee Hee.

By the by, the tomato sauce is enough for three servings of Fuzzy Logic Mexican Rice. Just sayin…

* These are instructions for kitchen geeks with small to medium sized fuzzy logic rice cookers.

The Archer Farms Green Chile and Cheese Tamales have been discontinued from my SUPERTARGET. Yes, we are a SUPER U.S. Majority family, but do not punish us by taking away our most non-ethnic/homogenized “ethnic” food. Just like I dream we have a clothesline, and a pig, and hens roaming about the back 0.14 acre, I acutely now feel pain in paying $6.00 to burn sweet petrol to buy totally faux tamales. THEY ARE YUMMY. Damnation. The ironies in These Times do sting.

If only we had a Prius.

For the border. Tamales, guac, and mexican rice.

Yummy!