my potato pancakes

pictured above: dinner: chorizo grilled chicken breast and savory potato pancake w/ crema fresca. I also included photos of the step by step preperation of the savory potato pancake. A potato pancake has to be one of my favorite dishes, the potato is so versatile in its raw and cooked state, it's one of the most lovely root vegetables. I easily clean, peel and grate each potato one by one(5-6 potatoes), then squeeze out all of the starches. I place shredded potato in a bowl, and mix with sliced green onion, kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, flour(1 tablespoon), water(1/4 cup), and one egg (bind very well). I mold the pancakes, and place in a skillet with heated olive oil...cook for a few min on each side then serve.

I prepared my pancakes as a side dish with crema fresca

Poem by Evana Vleck

working on a poem. I thought about the phrase "Life goes on" and to me it's not really true, only to some degree. For me life is breathing and existence, and death is a part of life. Death goes on moreso than life, and with death, memories are the strongest.



Life Goes On in memory of Javier Pena RIP 1/21/76 - 7/27/2010

You know the phrase, “Life goes on”
Well…it does.

But it mainly pauses.

It comes to a standstill as you may have experienced…
It comes to a halt, as you might have noticed.
Life takes a hiatus at times: seldom when solemn, rarely when lethargic,
but often, when tragedy plagues.

As life gaps, our consciousness proceeds to a voyage into the past.
The tour is muted and vague, but the destination vivid, like the Valley Sun shining on Christmas day

Life sits in limbo as our mind journeys as we choose only the memories we desire to evoke
We take a road trip,
A road trip of the mind…
Those are the best kind. A memory that turns into thousands of entangled roads
Intersecting at: “that one time”
Making a U-turn at “our first kiss” or getting lost at “secrets we both shared in pure bliss”.

We mentally expedite to revive laughter, to resuscitate happiness because those are the things that we chose to remember about you.

My mind can see you, even though my fingers can no longer touch you
My mind can hear you, even though you are no longer here.
You made your impression, and it has seemed to exceed you! Your impression is valued above many things tangible and solid. Your impression is eternal more so than material; it’s influential and it soars with the South Texas sun, it burns –burns- burns and brands itself within us all.

Never-ending smile
Perpetual
Inimitable
Vigorous
Caring

My Tomato Sauce w/Pasta

My Tomato Sauce

4 tablespoons good quality extra virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, peeled smoothed into a paste using kosher salt, and the edge of a knife
One 28-ounce can whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed with your hands
1 small yellow onion finely diced
Red pepper flakes
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

heat olive oil in a pot, add finely diced onions and cooked down until tranlucent. Add the garlic, stir for a min or so then add the can of tomatoes. Once the tomatoes come to a boil, add red pepper flakes, salt/pepper to taste. I do not add basil to my sauce, if I want basil I rip the basil and serve it over the spagehtti for a fresher flavor. For a deep ragu, add beef/pork shank, a heavy splash of a deep bodied wine, cover and let sauce cook down for 45 min

Boil pasta till aldente, drain and toss together in sauce pan. Serve and top with fresh grated parmasean if desired.

Cheese Enchiladas

Making Cheese Enchiladas brings back memories

I grew up eating my Aunt Diana's cheese enchiladas...she owned her own restaurant "Montalvo's" in Harlingen, Texas and everyone passed her recipe around because it was the best. I learned to cook in the kitchen at a young age because I loved food and wanted to replicate all the food I ate in someone elses kitchen, to my stomach. My Aunt taught anyone who was willing to learn how to cook, to cook well. Fideo, picadillo, arroz con carne, and enchiladas were some of the staple meals that she taught me and my brother.
To this day, we use my aunt's recipe, however isn't written down anywhere (it was at one time on a napkin, but think it got lost). I am going to attempt to write down the recipe for her chile con carne even though I don't cook using written recipes...never have. I eyeball everything. Each time I write down a recipe I know a step or two is missing, either that or I might estimate amounts a bit differently. Here is my attempt in writing the recipe down and if you try the recipe I hope you enjoy your enchiladas :)

Recipe:

FIRST:
15-20 corn tortillas (please use good torts from a local tortillareia)
Most people deep fry their torts and use veg or canola oil, however I use olive oil and pan fry (trust me just as good, you don’t miss that fried corn tortilla flavor)
One hot skillet with oil (about 1 tablespoon) ok to add more oil as you fry your torts…but start with small amount please, we don’t want these torts soaked in oil.
Heat skillet, not smoking…but just about
Add tortillas (about 4-5 at a time) and flip. Tortillas should be soft and pliable
Place on paper towel to cool
Once all torts are pan fried, it’s time to stuff them, I use a mixture of American and Cheddar cheeses, and it’s always best when you get a good quality cheese and shred it yourself.
Stuff and roll each tortilla by hand and place in baking pan (make sure you first coat a layer of sauce on bottom of pan…very important!)
Once tortillas are finished, and pan is full…cover in chile con carne sauce (recipe below) then top with cheese and bake in 400 degree oven for 20 min (cover if you are afraid of enchiladas going dry) good idea to do this if you aren’t used to making enchiladas regularly.
THEN:
1 lb ground beef (not chuck and not sirloin)
1/2 yellow onion finly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp of cumin
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
4 tablespoons of flour
4 tablespoons of good quality chili powder (preferably fresh from Mexico if you can) I would say to purchase chili powder from a local meat market like *Aguilars* in Edinburg
roughly 2 cups of water
salt and pepper to taste

in a screaming hot pot, add the ground beef and sear
lower heat quite a bit (from high to low) add onions and garlic...and chop up beef in pot. Cook the beef/onion/garlic mixture slow and low (about 30 min)
Once it's finished, add cumin, a little bit of salt and a little pepper(not a lot) and stir
turn heat up to med/high then add tomato paste and cook down

add flour (one tablespoon at a time) this is a crucial step because it determines the thickness of your sauce...you can always add more later if you want it thicker, so be safe during this step. I like a lot of sauce (like my aunt's) so I use about 4 tablespoons.
cook the flour down with the meat...it will be pasty, but you need to cook the flour for at least 8 min so it doesn't taste like raw flour...it's not an ingredient, it's a cooking agent.
once flour is cooked down, slowly add water, but don't stop stirring...keep stirring the meat mixture and adding water until it's a consistency that you enjoy (it should be soupy but very thick) I use more or less a total of 2 cups of water.
Once sauce is at a consistency you enjoy, slowly add the chili powder. All chili powder is different, so taste the powder before you add because you might have a very spicy powder opposed to a mild chili powder which I recommend. At this point, salt to taste. You won't need to add any more pepper because the chili powder will have taken the place of that peppery bite.

I assure you if you follow this recipe you will end up with a gorgeous chile con carne sauce as seen in my photo. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you! I'm happy you all are interested in trying this recipe, and also one last thing...you MUST eat with saltine crackers, or you aren't mexican! Bon Appetit!

Patty Melt and Oven baked Home Fries

I love burgers, and Patty Melts are a type of burger utilizing sliced bread as a vessel.

Simple burger patty:
Organic beef
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper
2 tablespoons of mustard for each pound

mix all ingredients together, and cook in an iron skillet with a lot of thinly sliced onions.

Stack patty on sliced bread between onions and a mound of cheddar cheese - girll on both sides.

I serve mine with homemade oven fries (tossed in olive oil, and chili powder)
and a small green salad.

So good.

Hubby's favorite meal

Super Chicken
poached chicken in butter and garlic (shredded) then added to cooked fettuccini cut up into small pieces, homemade mushroom sauce, cheddar cheese and french's fried onion rings, or fresh fried onions (plus a secret ingredient) then baked to a golden brown...he LOVES it (I rarely cook it).

It's a heavy meal, but we enjoy eating on special occasions

ENJOY!

Homemade Pirata

This is a photo of a Pirata Taco I prepared for my son

It's filled with refried beans, panela cheese and fresh grilled fajita/onions
wrapped, then thrown on a flat grill to blend flavors together. He loved it, the end result was the rind of the lime. I purchased the tortillas and will definately purchase the same brand for future piratas.

and on a random side-note:

If I owned my own restaurant this would be the menu:

The slaw dog
Cincinnati spaghetti
Potato tacos (served all day)
rice and drunk beans
1 burger, our way
home fries your way
The salad bowl
pancake (stuffed, plain or with your choice of toppings)
mac & cheese
double layered BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avococado, tomato)

I've thought long and hard about it, and these are the things I like to eat