AUNT BETTY’S TAMALE PIE

Mom told me that “It’s time for an agonizing reappraisal of things” is something that Aunt Betty used to say, so it is with thoughts of her that I post her tamale pie recipe.  

It is an old fashioned sort of recipe, with lots of cans of this and cans of that. This is Aunt Betty’s recipe as it is. Sometimes I use fresh tomatoes and I usually increase the amount of milk a bit. I also like to use lots of fresh corn, boiled for about 10 minutes and then cut off the cob, because I like the crunch that it gives. You can also add some garlic, diced hot peppers, and feel free to use your own fresh toasted and ground dried chilies with ground cumin added instead of chili powder. Occasionally I’ll serve it with enchilada sauce, or “chili gravy”. Topping it with cheddar cheese is nice, too, though after an agonizing reappraisal of things you may want to be light handed with the cheese.

This makes a large casserole. The measure that I use for a smaller casserole are in brackets to the right.

1 lb bulk sausage (well seasoned) ~ that would be home-made chorizo! [1/2 lb]

1 lg onion, chopped [1/2 lg]

¾ c milk (or more) [1/2 c]

¾ c ¾ c yellow or white corn meal [1/2 c –red cornmeal is nice too]

1 small can corn niblets [1/2 c]

½ c canned tomatoes, chopped [1/4 c]

½ c ripe olives, pitted and halved [1/4 c]

1 T chili powder (or more)

Fry sausage broken into small pieces, loosely. Add onion and brown all.

Add all other ingredients and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Transfer to casserole and bake for 1 hour, covered, in medium oven [a smaller casserole takes less time].

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE 5: GRINDING & CHORIZO + AUNT BETTY’S TAMALE PIE

So when I was in the midst of my recent Agonizing Reappraisal of Things, I was thinking that maybe I should write off making sausage and cheese. About sausage, Brian kept suggesting I use it like a seasoning and just eat a little bit of it at a time. And about cheese, Helen said, “I eat so little cheese anyway right now, I want to eat really nice stuff when I do.” And I started thinking that maybe I don’t have to give these things up entirely.

This month’s Charcutepalooza Challenge was to grind and make Chorizo, since it’s spicy

and flavorful, I also thought that I might be able to get away with making a less fatty

version. I know, that lovely fat is what gives sausages their succulent flavor and mouth

feel, and I know all about becoming one with a pork belly, but those test results are still

fresh in my mind, and I really don’t ever want to have to get intimate with gout! Brian did discourage me from using turkey, making such a nasty face about the idea, that I decided on being a little less gung-ho about it and going with a mix of  1.5 lbs pork shoulder to 1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs.

Mrs. Wheelbarrow has you blend the chiles in a slurry, which is an authentic Mexican technique, and also good for slathering on meat that you slow cook and pull apart for tacos. But I opted out of that technique this time as I tend to make a serious mess with a blender. I loosely followed Rhulman and Polcyn’s recipe, since I often find discrepancy between his US and metric measure, and I haven’t been able to figure out which should be the default.

Ever since I lived in New Mexico, I’ve kept a variety of dried chile peppers in my cabinet, to toast lightly and grind as needed. Each type has a distinct flavor, and for this I used a mix of 1.5 ancho chile to 1 each chipoltle, pasilla, and guajuillo chiles.

You have to love sausage to think that this looks delicious!

With it I made Aunt Betty’s Tamale Pie, next post. 

Smokey Bean Soup

Here's one of the first recipes I ran through the Analyze your Recipe feature on the Self Nutrition Data Site, and this is how it comes out. You pull ingredients from a list, which have set measurements, so the fractions indicate a portion of that measurement. Since not all of the specific ingredients I used were listed, I found a similar ingredient and made a note of it at the start of the recipe. If you click on the link at the bottom, it will take you to the complete analysis. I'm leaving this one as is, but I suppose it would be better to "translate" recipes, so I'll try to do that for future recipes.
[OK, this requires further explanation, and a proper transposition of the recipe, see below. I've edited the ingredient list from the original post, which was wacky)

Barley, pearled, raw
2.0  x  1 ounce (28g)

Beans, navy, mature seeds, raw [Includes USDA commodity food A918, A924]
0.5  x  1 cup (208g)

Beans, pink, mature seeds, raw
0.5  x  1 cup (210g)

Carrots, raw [Includes USDA commodity food A099]
0.0625  x  1 large (7-1/4" to 8-/1/2" long) (72g)

Chard, swiss, raw
3.0  x  1 cup (36g)

Garlic, raw
2.0  x  1 clove (3g)

Oil, olive, salad or cooking
0.125  x  1 tbsp (14g)

Onions, raw
0.56458336  x  1 large (150g)

Parsley, raw
0.5  x  1 cup (60g)

Peppers, hot chili, red, raw
1.0  x  1 ounce (28g)

Pork, cured, ham, whole, separable lean and fat, roasted
2.0  x  1 ounce (28g)

Potatoes, white, flesh and skin, raw [Includes USDA commodity food A215]
1.0  x  1/2 cup, diced (75g)

Salt, table
1.0  x  1 tsp (6g)

Soup, chicken broth, low sodium, canned
2.0  x  1 cup (240g)

Spices, bay leaf
0.125  x  1 tsp, crumbled (0g)

Tomato products, canned, puree, without salt added
0.5  x  1 cup (250g)

Read More http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/2110845/2#ixzz1MinretNo

PREPARATION

Ingredient notes: ham=Tasso ham or smoked ham + 1/2 tsp Creole seasoning; fresno chili, add according to taste; broth=smoked turkey broth or use chicken or turkey broth + smoked ham hock or turkey wing; parsley=lovage; canned tomatoes= Mrs.Wheelbarrow's Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup. Check beans for rocks and remove any shriveled or dark beans. Cover white and pink (red) beans by 2 inches of water and soak for at least 4 hours or overnight. Drain rinse, put in large pot, cover with fresh water. Add 1 bay leaf, 1 garlic clove, and 1 slice onion. Cook over low heat for several hours until soft (alternatively, cook for 20 minutes in pressure cooker). Rinse chard. Remove and slice stems. Roughly chop leaves. Heat oil in large soup pot. Add chopped onion, fresno pepper, chard stems, garlic clove, carrots, and Tasso ham. Cook until onion is soft and ham starts to brown. Mix in barley and add broth plus 2 cups water. Cook for about 30 minutes until barley is almost soft. Drain beans and add to soup with potato and tomatoes, and cook for another 20 minutes until potato and barley are soft. Fold in parsley (lovage) and chard leaves, and salt and pepper to taste. Add water to make more broth if needed.

Read More http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/2110845/1#ixzz1MSXI3koN

A PROPER EXPLANATION AND TRANSPOSITION OF RECIPE


A few quirks/limitations with the Nutrition Data recipe feature: it alphabetizes the ingredients, and you must determine a serving size, and then the program will give you stats on that serving size. For soup, it seemed to me that the best serving size would be an ounce so that I can put it into the My Tracking feature more accurately, depending on the size of my bowl of soup. I think that the wacky ingredient quantities of the original post were the program's calculation from the 1 oz serving size. It also puts everything in one paragraph. Here's the recipe in a more conventional form:


SMOKEY BEAN SOUP


1/2 c white or navy beans, dried
1/2 c red or pink beans, dried
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic
1/2 c chopped onion, + 1 slice for beans
1 T olive  or canola oil
A good handful of chard, about 3 c, stems removed and choppped, and leaves chopped separetely
2 oz Tasso Ham (or smoked ham + 1/2 tsp Creole Seasoning)
1 large carrot, chopped
1 fresno pepper, chopped (or any other red or hot pepper)
1/4 c barley
1 medium potato, peeled and chopped (I used a Yukon Gold)
2 c chicken or turkey broth (to get a really smoky flavor to the broth, use broth that has been made with leftover bones from a smoked bird. If you don't have that, add a smoked turkey wing or ham hock from the grocery store)
1/2 c tomato puree or crushed tomatoes (I used some home-canned Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup)
1/4 - 1/2 c lovage or parsley, chopped


1. Check beans for rocks and remove any shriveled or dark beans. Cover white and pink (red) beans by 2 inches of water and soak for at least 4 hours or overnight. Drain rinse, put in large pot, cover with fresh water. Add 1 bay leaf, 1 garlic clove, and 1 slice onion. Cook over low heat for several hours until soft (alternatively, cook for 20 minutes in pressure cooker).
2. Rinse chard. Remove and slice stems. Roughly chop leaves.
3. Heat oil in large soup pot. Add chopped onion, fresno pepper, chard stems, garlic clove, carrots, and Tasso ham. Cook until onion is soft and ham starts to brown. (Celery would be nice too, but this time I just used chard stems).
4. Mix in barley and add broth plus 2 cups water. Cook for about 30 minutes until barley is almost soft.
5.  Drain beans and add to soup with potato and tomatoes, and cook for another 20 minutes until potato and barley are soft.
6. Fold in lovage or parsley and chard leaves, and salt and pepper to taste. Add water to make more broth if needed.


Sorry about the mix-up~I'm new to this! And one of these days I'm going to figure out how to separate the recipe from the text and have a print feature too.

AN AGONIZING REAPPRAISAL OF THINGS: METABOLIC SYNDROME, DIABETES, GOUT, HEART DISEASE, STROKE, and VITAMIN D

Whenever Mom would say “It’s time for an agonizing reappraisal of things, Kid,” it meant that, be it your drawer or your attitude, there was no getting around it: things were going to have to change. It was time to think long and hard, and to straighten up. Back in January, I flippantly dubbed 2011 as “The Year of the Agonizing Reappraisal,” with the idea of getting everything around here in its proper place and putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls too, getting “war-ganized,” as Katie used to say.

The plan was to have an agonizing reappraisal of my stuff, not my self, but some months back Helen had urged me to have my cholesterol checked, just for good measure. I figured, “What the Hell,” and made an appointment for my first physical in many years.

My guess was that my numbers would be ok, that the doctor might tell me to lay off the cheese and sausages a bit, but that since I look like Dad on the outside, hopefully I inherited his ability to eat salami and sausages galore as well as his good looks. Not so. My cholesterol numbers are bad, my triglyceride numbers shocking, and I’m a step away from developing diabetes, which means that heart disease, gout, and possibly stroke are just up the street for me if I’m not careful.

I figured that all of these aches and pains I’ve been having in my joints, bones, and fingers were just a matter of getting older, from wrenching my shoulders carrying things, and from overworking my fingers with all of the typing, painting, sewing, and other things I do. I figured that my recent tiredness and exhaustion was simply from not being in as good a shape as I was when I was younger and chasing Jack around all over the place. I also figured that a little bit of depression was normal: of course I was bummed out, all of my kids were off and gone. Not so. That bone pain that kept me up at night, the fingers that could barely hold a brush or a needle or even type, all that tiredness and sadness, it all came from a vitamin D deficiency.

Now my first inclination was to be very “Conroy” about this. That is, to be private about it. Keep your personal information to yourself, and don’t bother or bore everyone else with the details of your latest medical exam. But then I thought about, and decided that you might want to know, because you might want to avoid some discomfort and pain. So pay attention to yourself, and have your blood work done every once in a while, especially as you get older. 

At first I was taken aback by this. I’m not skinny anymore, but at 10 lbs over the healthy limit for my age and height, and with a BMI of 25.5, I’m also not severely overweight. I admit that I don’t exercise enough, but I do take the dog on walks a couple times a week and go to yoga class once or twice a week. And, although I crave cheese, love sausage, and adore pate, I don’t eat it all the time. I don’t eat out often, and never eat “fast food”.  For years I’ve banned shortening and anything with any amount of hydrogenated oil from my kitchen. I make just about everything I eat from scratch, though I have been pretty free with the cream, butter and lard in the past few years. I eat plenty of vegetables, and grow many of them myself. I do enjoy wine, but not more than 2 or 3 glasses of it. I like what I eat, and I want to keep eating it!

So at first I started by just cutting down on any excess¸ cutting back on the wine a bit,  measuring my portions, recording all I ate, and making sure I went to yoga twice a week and walking the dog at least 5 days a week.  I thought I should be able to loose a few pounds that way. Not so. After a month, nothing. 

How sobering. Was I fooling myself? Was my cooking that bad for me? Was I going to have to give up my favorite recipes? Was I going to have to abandon cheese making? Was I going to have to start exercising for hours every day? I don’t even have time for all of the things I do as it is! What a drag!

Well, after moping around a bit, I decided that I had better have an agonizing reappraisal of my activity level, and of what I’ve been putting in my mouth. After all, moving more and modifying my cooking and eating must be less of a drag than diabetes, a heart attack, or gout!

So I’ve decided to do two things: start really analyzing my exercise, as well as my cooking, eating, drinking, and to modify it as need be. I also decided to take inspiration from my young friends Jeff and Katie, of Tasteful Gluttony, who said of their new 6 day a week diet restructuring, “We’re learning all kinds of new ways to cook lentils!”

Another thing that Mom has taught us all how to do is to dive enthusiastically into a new research project. Gather your resource material and get to it!  First, I rounded up all my “diet” cookbooks, old and new (thank you, Susie and Deb), onto one shelf. And then I dove into the ocean of online dieting information. Wow!  

These are a few online resources that I recommend.

Danielle Omar, MS, RD; eat smart, live confidently.  Danielle has a practical and positive approach that seems so grounded to me. The blog section of her site has a positive tone, nice pictures, and tasty looking recipes. I met Danielle through our food52 DC group, and she is as positive in person as she is on line.

Healthier Kitchen. Wendy, also a DC food52er, posts varied and interesting recipes on her site, but they also are recipes that I’d like to try and my family would like to eat.

Tosca Reno’s Eat-Clean Diet My friends Susie and Ben have had good luck with this diet, which is essentially the “no white death diet” that Arnold Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders have been promoting for years, but Tosca Reno has made it mainstream. This gal is definitely in the business of selling cookbooks and magazines, but she seems to also be promoting eating healthy foods that you cook yourself, and her recipes are straightforward.

Self Nutrition Data know what you eat. This is a site put up by Self magazine. It has an extensive database with nutritional information on just about any food you can imagine, tools for tracking your food intake and calculating daily needs. What I really like is the Analyze Recipe feature, where you can put in a recipe and it will calculate the complete nutritional information per serving. They also have information on diet and weight loss, diabetes, heart health, and recipes. Now you have to put up with all kinds of jumping animated ads and sell your soul to Conde Nast if you want to use the tracking and calculating features, but that’s the price we pay these days.

If you know of any others you like, please share them with me!

With food and love,

Sally