Hot Morning

Some mornings I feel that my kitchen has horrible lighting. But also I feel like I can't fully wake up. And I'm groggy and I'm whiny and unable to think straight, so I look forward to something to get me excited, and happy and going.

So, today I made myself some chilaquiles for breakfast! Yay!

Ideally, of course, a nice husband, boyfriend, or fuck buddy would be the one making them for you. But, the truth is that chances are that you are the better cook and it is probably a better idea for you to make them yourself.

I love chilaquiles, they are easy to make, delicious, hot, and crunchy. You can throw an egg to one side and beans to the other, and you are in heaven, Mexican heaven. Your morning just gets better, brighter, and more exciting. And this before you even taste them, just by smelling them your day betters.

That's until you get the shits.

The only thing I'm not too excited about is that by making a dish like this you realize how much oil goes into frying the tortillas, and you panic and you already don't want to eat them. Same way you don't want to eat bacon when you remember that pigs are as smart as dogs and all around awesome and social animals. But just like the first sight of bacon removes the remorse and the mental images of a beautiful intelligent animal suffering, the cautionary fear of developing heart disease disappears the moment you see golden crispy tortillas.

I love the food I grew up with. Notice how there's no cheddar cheese anywhere? Leave it out some days, you'll be able to taste greatness. If you can though, find some queso fresco and crumble it all over everything on that plate, sadly I was out of it.

With a Pestle in Hand!

A few weeks ago I got my very own, and very first, pestle and mortar, nothing fancy, nothing great, but something!

Since then I've been extremely excited about the possibilities, about all foods that I now I can make! Of course, it'd be easier to buy a food processor and make them with that but that also costs a lot more money money that I rather spend on drugs, porn, and video games.

I must admit that even if I had one I'd probably still occasional choose to attack food with my pestle, smashing things and crushing things makes you feel quite great in the end. As long as they are digital or not sentient or alive, of course.

So, I decided to try and make a dish that I quite love because it is so fresh and so tasty, and in theory so easy to make. In practice it turns out it was true, not hard at all to make! As usual, and because I like to pretend there's more hours in the day than I actually have to spare, I made everything from scratch. I had quite a lot of fun doing it too, from roasting the sesame seeds to make the fresh tahini, to smashing everything together into a creamy heavenly food, it was neat.

The end result I think could have use more smashing and crushing, as well as more garlic, but, it was passable and exactly what I was craving today and I am now incredibly happy. At some time though I'd love to learn how to make my own pita bread from scratch.

But, next thing I do should be to take a nap!

Dreams of Mochi

Many years ago I had mochi for the first time and I fell in love. It was squishy, sweet, yummy, strange. Love at first bite.

A few weeks ago I came across a video online that showed an older lady and an older man beating the shit out of rice, the video was about making mochi. Immediately I got excited, "This can be done by my mortal hands!" I thought, and a few days later I went to the local Japanese market and bought what I needed: mochigome, sweet rice flour, adzuki beans, etc.

Today, a few weeks after I got all that, I finally got around making my mochi. It was a complete and utter failure. After about an hour of beating the rice the way you would a demon haunting you at night, the rice just didn't have the right consistency. So I gave up, threw it on the counter on top of some flour, and hoped it would magically fix itself. It didn't.

After emptying half my box of rice flour on my dough in hopes I would be able to wrap it around anything I wanted, I accepted defeat. My mochi ended up being incredibly floury, and kind of bitter.

Thankfully my anko was very tasty, so the end result was edible and to a degree enjoyable. But next time I know what I need to do to end up with some quite amazing mochi.

I had some leftover mochi dough at the end and I remembered that one of the videos I saw earlier had a picture of deep fried mochi wrapped in nori. So I cut some of my overly floury mochi into squares and did what humanity has always done when they want to be happy, threw it in a pot of boiling oil.

This was the highlight of my culinary adventure, fried mochi wrapped in nori. So good, incredibly so!

I'm already hungry, what should I make next? Stay tuned, and find out!

Lazy Spring Day

It is a lazy day today, a beautiful, yet lazy day. Called in sick from work to work on my drawings, and got hungry, but not really feeling like putting much effort into making a meal. So, I opened my fridge and started pulling vegetables out, you just wash them, chop them, and you make yourself a salad.


There were some apples on the counter and since the day is nice, I got the impulse of making a salad with some fruit in it. Problem is, I don't quite have any idea what to do with apples, so I dug into my fruit basket and pulled out some mandarins. I started craving a taste, so I went with them.

I made a quick badly made dressing with two mandarins, a bit of lime juice, some orange juice, and olive oil. Salt, pepper, and a bit of ground ginger. I tasted it, and yup, it hit the spot. So then I proceeded to chop my veggies:

-Romaine Lettuce

-Spinach

-Cucumber

-Cabbage

-Red Bell Pepper

-Cilantro

and a fruit: 

-The Third Mandarin that survived the squeezing. 

I stared at the radishes in the fridge, they stared back at me, I closed the door on them. I regret it, a little, but, like I said, lazy day.

I did open the fridge again to pull out some dried cranberries. But still ignored the radishes. Next time!

And then, I just put everything together and made myself a nice little meal. It was actually quite... perfect. It went well with the climate, and with my mood. And now I can go back to doing some drawings, possibly painting.

Mmmmm.

Coming Back Soon

Haven't had time to do anything serious in my cooking other than quick stuff, but I will try to get back at doing something I want to talk about here once a week, in the mean time, I leave you with a wonderful page of The Joy of Cooking from the 60s:

You never know when you'll need to skin a squirrel!

Queso Fresco Tacos

The fridge was full with veggies, Queso Fresco, and brand new Tortillas, so it only made sense to make a taco out of it, well make that two. Super simple, super fast, very delicious, and Queso Fresco doesn't have that much fat, so somewhat healthy. I accompanied with, yes, you guessed, a bowl of lentil soup.

Ingredients:

-Queso Fresco

-Pico de Gallo

-Anaheim Pepper

-Radishes

-Avocado

-Cabbage

There's not much more to say about it, other than, it was very tasty.

What Can I Call This?

Today has been a busy, active, day between working on projects, working out, watching animated films(?) ... Busy day! It would have been very easy to eat the delicious Costco Pizza that my brother brought home, because there's so much to do today, but, what's the fun in Pizza a day before the Super Bowl?

Not to mention, it's way too greasy.

So, I went on and made my own... actually, also greasy meal! The irony! It's somewhat, kind of, remotely inspired by a similar Paula Dean recipe that I made quite some years ago. I don't really remember what her recipe had other than Mayo and Potatoes and Broccoli. It probably had a ton of sugar as well. But, what it practically is, is a potato salad - Or is it a coleslaw? I've got no idea!

It pretty much chopped every veggie I had in the fridge (that would go together, of course):

-Cabbage
-Broccoli
-Red Onion
-Yellow Onion
-Tomato
-Celery
-Romaine Lettuce
-Carrot

I also cooked:

-A Potato
-An Egg
-A Poblano Pepper

And then I thinly cut:
-CHEDDAR CHEESE! MMMM! (when making the salad, put it on top of the veggies, then, when your potatoes are done, chop them into tiny squares, and while still hot, drop them on top of the cheese. Paula Dean taught me this!)

The Dressing was a mixture of that Rooster hot sauce, Mayo, rice vinegar, and white vinegar, salt and pepper. I still don't know why the two vinegars, don't ask me. But it was a spicy dressing, very very good.

The end result was very very yummy, very filling. I don't know if in the end it was healthier than Pizza, but, I don't really care. All I care is that I made it, I had fun, and my stomach thanked me.

Now I can go back to finishing my projects, hopefully before it is time to go out!