Thanksgiving, Course 2: Southwestern Potato & Veg

Next round!

Southwestern Potato and Veggie Medley

Corn tortillas
sprinkle cheese (topping)
handful cilantro, torn

1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
4 mushrooms, thickly sliced
5 small/medium red potatoes, THINLY sliced
5? tbsp EVOO
2 pinches of red pepper seeds
1/2 jar green chile sauce (medium or hot)
salt & pepper

Coat large saute pan with oil; heat. Add potatoes; cook on medium 3-5 minutes. Add garlic, cook another 2  minutes, approx. Add onions, tomatoes, belle pepper, mushrooms and half the cilantro. Cook another 5 minutes, adding oil when necessary.

When potatoes are slightly browned, add green chile sauce and red pepper seeds. Salt and pepper to taste; cook down until sauce has taken slightly sweeter, smoky backnotes (some brands you may want to add a pinch of sugar while cooking).

 Meanwhile, heat tortillas until pliable.

Split veggie medley and sauce amongst tortillas. Add cheese and cilantro. Serve immediately.

Thanksgiving, Course 1: Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Dates

Prepare for flavor overload!!! As I just love cooking, and this is a really special holiday for me, I've kinda went minorly crazy. I'll be posting recipes as I go along, because I'm kinda doing the pantser thing. Ready?

Here we go!

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Dates

Any number of medjool dates
Matching number of bacon strips

1/2 pomegranate seeds

1/3 cup honey, approx

1/2 cup torn cilantro, approx
1/2 cup salty/sharp/acrid cheese

1/3 cup dry white wine

1/3 cup browned butter

In a bowl, combine most of the pomegranate seeds (saving a few for garnish), most of the cheese, almost entirely all of the cilantro (garnish). Stir. Add teensy splash of wine. Stir. Add a couple squeezes of honey; stir again. Set aside.

Brown butter in small sauce pan over low heat. Remove and set aside.

Slit, pit and stuff dates with above mixture. Preheat oven to 400.

Heat remaining wine to low boil in another small sauce pan. Add most of honey (to taste). Cook alcohol off. Set aside.

Wrap each date with bacon slice. Place in baking dish, bacon edge down (slit up though), evenly spaced apart. Bake for 3 or 4 minutes, flip. Bake 3 or four minutes/until bacon is cooked through. Flip again; sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake just long enough to melt.

Meanwhile, arrange serving plate like this: squeeze honey onto plate in design. Sprinkle plate with last of cilantro and pomegranate seeds as garnish.

When finished, place dates on serving dish. Splash dates and dish first with the granules of browned butter, then with the white wine honey sauce. Serve immediately and enjoy!

ohmygodyumohmygodnoreallyyum...



Wolves just love to eat babies...

Okay...so I was reading a newspaper article the other day concerning the reintroduction of different wolves around the States, and I just...*shakes head*...don't quite know what to do with people sometimes.

lol.

Having spent a great deal of time in Yellowstone no doubt influenced my views on this subject, but it's not like I grew up in an area with wolves, so they were a big bad scary thing only to be found in fairy tales. They're completely non-existent where I lived as a kid, and yet I remember being excited about the prospect of wolf reintroduction back in the 90s, even if it was thousands of miles away. (Why? Cuz it's cool!)

We humans are not predatory enough to manage ecosystems all on our lonesome. Despite hunting season, about the most predatory we get as a culture are those crazy women who do extreme-couponing....you know, the dreaded great white grocery hunter.

That being said, certain ecosystems need large predators, like wolves, to keep things in line.  For humans, there's more to fear from the naturally territorial and therefore easily pissed off moose than there is from a skittish little wolf pack. Believe me. 

But errm...yeah...not everyone agrees with this. It's a big deal out west (western United States, I mean). In fact, I'm probably irritating a lot of people by my little introduction here. Oh well, I had to introduce the following somehow:

In 2007, a politician actually informed the public that there's nothing wolves like better than the sound of laughing and crying babies, and thus wolves with jump through windows and become baby-snatchers to gobble them up.

Yeeeah....uh... I'm paraphrasing of course, but not by much. A politician actually claimed this in 2007. Can you believe it! Not 1807, not 1907...2007. Get real.

So my next story kind of spins off from that...stay tuned!

Tuesday Teaser

Must keep up, must keep up! Here's this Tuesday's Teaser, which is a quick blip from wherever in whatever book I happen to be reading on Tuesdays. In this exerpt, the young witch-wizard-maybe-heroine Eskarina is perched in a tree, yelling to her brothers below. Terry Pratchett...gotta love him!

""If you don't want me to come then I'll come,' she said. This sort of thing passes for logic between sibblings."

--from Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett.

And there you have it. I love me some Pratchett, especially the ones with Granny Weatherwax. Or Death. Both are solid bets for a laugh.

Tea...and Assassination!

So just for kicks today I decided to revist old Chrysals Experiment prompts, to, you know, get the juices flowing. Haven't written a short story in, oh, ages... Anyhow, as I started the Chrysalis Experiment late, I began this time at, oddly enough, the beginning. Their first prompt was "I hate polite people. Especially when they're murderers."

Hello, cloud. Hello, other former Chrysalis peoples. Hello, everyone!

Tea…and Assassination

When she opened the front door, the cold air was so staggering it turned all the cabin to winter for a moment, and the blow of it made her paint brushes shudder in their jars. Silhouetted against the night there was a man; there were no clouds and his edges were made clear by starlight. He was dressed warmly. But he was not from anywhere near her small mountain cabin where the wind and the mice sneaked under the door seal, that much was quite clear.

“Yes?” she asked. “Please, come in out of that cold.”

Without a word, the man obliged. “Uhm,” she began, “why don’t I make us some tea.” And she turned to the stove and sink area, glad to be busy.

“I hate polite people. Listen, we’ve got to go.”

“Tea,” she replied obstinately. “It’ll be just a few minutes.” Her hands shook as she turned the kettle on its burner.

Back in the saddle again!



Image courtesy of www.free-clipart.com

 Howdy!

It's been quite a long time since I've posted anything, I know, I know. I am going to remedy that soon! For now, a quick update will have to suffice and then I'll get on with my writing as usual.

So.

Spent the summer in Yellowstone. Can't say enough; literally cannot say enough about it. Won't even try to write it here. I'll content myself with the following command: GO! And right before you do, let me know, because I can now direct you to all sorts of secret and wonderful and dangerous places unlike anywhere you've been on earth, guaranteed.

After Yellowstone, there was a short round of family visiting, and then Taos, New Mexico! Just moved in this week; I've got a writing meeting I'm going to tomorrow--how neat is that? That's pretty neat!

(Youtube "Neature Walk" to follow that last bit. I'd include the video myself but alas, my Internet is far, far to slow here to try anything so complex, so you'll have to do it yourself. But it's funny.)

I am woefully behind in NANOWRIMO. This year I've picked up again with my main novel, in order to knock out another solid 50k. Right now I'll be lucky if I hit 30. I could blame family visiting and moving, but we all know there are no excuses. As Professor Moody would say, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Yes, I quote Harry Potter to myself in order to stay on task. What, you don't?

Anywhosers, that's all for now, since I'm....

*Back in the saddle again!*