Maters & Eggs

Happy September, you guyssss!! September makes me happy for a couple of reasons:

1. Growing up, it meant school started. I loved school when I was growing up, and I love working at one, now. Everything. The environment, the excitement, the colors, the energy, and the kids. Ohhh the kids crack me up. Love, love, love my job.

2. September is when my oldest kid was born. YOU GUYS, he's going to be EIGHT! #imanoldlady

3. September = autumn. Autumn = sweaters. I'm so excited to wear sweaters and not sweat profusely at work. I just. love. sweaters.

4. I saved the best for last. Well, not really, my kid's the best, but the thing I'm actually excited about (certainly not that my sweet, squishy, giggly little baby is almost as tall as I am because you guys,  that is NOT COOL...). You guys. Comfort food is officially IN SEASON!

I love cooking comforting food like my chicken soup and chili, and now I have a new one for ya  - this is definitely one of those warm-your-belly types of recipes, good for chilly autumn days (even though "chilly" to Arizonans is like, 70 degrees). Its a little spicy, but totally avoidable if you're not into spice (just omit the peppers).

Chiles Rellenos

It means "stuffed peppers" in Spanish. Like everything, there are variations up the wazoo, because of taste preference, spiciness preference, regional traditions, and straight-up lack of or overabundance of know-how. I pretty much don't care at all about any other variation because.... well, this shiz is amazing, and ya don't fix what's not brok(en).

The recipe is cheese, encompassed in a vegetable, egged, fried, put into a delicious heart-attack sauce.... and accompanied by tortillas. Its a caloric nightmare, high in fat (at least its good stuff), and absolutely smothered in dairy. Healthy in any way? I'm not even going to try to justify it. There's some coconut oil in there, and some full-fat dairy... and veggies, but other than that, this isn't a good dish to eat on a regular basis. But is it delicious? You bet your buttons it is.

As always, this is a ridiculously time consuming recipe with way too many steps, but the outcome is delicious and technically vegetarian AND gluten free!

You're going to need a mixing bowl for whipping egg whites, a small bowl to hold egg yolks, a pan for roasting your peppers (every time I write "peppers," I first type "chiles," then have to delete it), a pan to make and contain your sauce, a pan to fry the peppers in, and a cooling rack for the chiles to rest on. Its a long list. And you're going to have a lot of dishes. This is also a doing-5-things-at-once recipe, so novice cooks, beware.

(Photography compliments of my phone - my four year-old decided my DSLR needed to be the catch of the day when he went "fishing" with his belt - when he saw that I saw what he was doing, he straight up dropped it. Children are not expensive because of food and clothing. Episodes like this are why children are expensive. Woosah...)

They're smaller than store-bought Poblanos,
but I GREW these sexy peppers.

Roasted Squash with Onions

I am quite possibly the worst when it comes to getting creative in terms of vegetables. I know how important they are to our diet, so I really do make a conscious effort to include them, but I'm so boring about it! I shy away from salads because my littlest will sit there for six hours before he ever eats a raw leaf (plus, I can't have ranch or blue cheese dressing, what's the point?!) My go-to recipes are usually just steamed carrots or a smoothie with spinach or kale. I'm glad no one ever fusses about those two things, but after it being a daily thing, it just gets old. Fortunately, as fate would have it, we figured out something new by accident.

When left to his own devices, my husband developed a love for kebabs. They were simple, filling, and pretty nutritious the way he was preparing them. He grilled them up for dinner a couple of times, but would frequently sacrifice the veggies to the gods of the charcoal, because they would overcook and fall off before the meat was cooked.

My solution: make only-meat kebabs, and just roast the veggies in the oven. 

Now aren't you lucky - I picked these honkin' zucchinis from my garden this morning, so lets use 'em up, shall we? There will be a proper recipe at the bottom of the post.

Take a picture of your shoulda-picked-it-two-days-ago zucchinis. Then set your oven to bake at 425 degrees.

Slice 'er up.

Dice 'er up.

Roughly (do you see this picture? I'm serious when I say "roughly") hack up some onions.

Mix it all together with butter (or oil of your choice), garlic, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

(I had some yellow squash in the fridge that needed to be used, so I threw some of that in there, too).

Mom's Pancakes

I. love. pancakes.

My mom raised me on uh-may-zing pancakes. Father's day, birthdays, and Christmas always involved those beloved, fluffy heart cloggers.

The only major holiday exceptions were Mother's day (which was reserved for blueberry waffle/mimosa brunches at Grandma's house- hello, first taste of real maple syrup), and Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, I don't even remember what we ate in the morning. I think I just snuck ginger cookies or something- Mom was too busy prepping everything. Heh, heh, heh...

My mom always cooked everything for family occasions. The funniest part? She loathes cooking. She'd probably rather be sewing something. Or rescuing poodles. Or gouging her eyes out with rubber-tipped baby spoons. 

So when I call and ask her for a recipe of any kind, she gets all flustered and is like, "Gawd, Meg! I dunno, I just ... ya know... throw a bunch this and summa that in there, sprinkle it with cinnamon and its zucchini bread. But I'm sanding this friggin' cabinet right now, so can I just call you later?!" 

Yes, Mom. Call me later. And elaborate what the #*%$# you just told me to do. 

I decoded and experimented with a basic pancake recipe Mom spewed at me in the middle of her experimentation with her brand new serger, and it is even better than my Mom's. Yes, Mumsie. Oh Yes. They're like IHOP and Jesus got together and whipped somethin' up. I will eat gluten and dairy on pancake days. Gotta make sacrifices for the pancakes you love.

Tips for Cooking Beans

My family lerrrrrvs beans. They're a nutritious addition to any meal, and sometimes serve as a meal by themselves in our house! A couple tortillas, some pickled jalapeños, nommmm.

I suppose we could just buy a can of refried beans, but aside from possible additives, BPA can linings, and way more salt than I'm interested in, dry, bulk beans can cost as little as $0.12/lb through co-ops or warehouse stores. From the "regular" grocery store, I get beans for about $0.79-$1/lb in the bulk section. Most of us pay $1-$10/lb for meat, why not cut some costs and throw down some beans and still get your dose of iron at dinner time? (And fiber, to boot)!

I'm gonna give you the basics - its how my mother-in-law (Mexican cooking ninja) taught me how to cook. Some of this, a little of that, "just cook it until it looks like this." I'll break it down with a little more reason behind why I do things, just because I love a good over analyzation...

Soaking

Soaking aids in digestibility, thus eliminating or greatly reducing your post-bean fart issue by breaking down oligosaccharides and phytates (among other things). If you soak them before cooking and your belly is still in an uproar, you may have a sensitivity that you could further investigate. But for the vast majority of us, soaking should suffice.

Beans at least double in size after a 12-hour soak. So to soak your beans, put enough water in the bowl/pot/bathtub to cover 3x as many beans as you have in there (1 C beans:3 C water).

Salting

Avoid salting the beans prior to cooking. Doing this hardens the skins on the beans... thus increasing cooking time. Add salt when the beans are done cooking. This way, you can add salt to your preference and its not a guessing game. Nothing worse than cooking something for 4 hours only to find out it tastes like a salt lick.

Here's my basic bean recipe.

**Note: It will be a few hours, so my suggestion is to soak the beans overnight, start cooking the beans in the morning, and they will be cooked by lunch or dinner time, depending on your ability to babysit the pot

Ingredients:

1 lb dry beans of your choice (pinto, black, and Peruvian are our favorites)
1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar (optional, but useful)
1/2 of one medium white onion, sliced
3 tbsp cooking fat (bacon grease or butter are my favorites)
salt, to taste

To Soak:

1. Dump your pound of beans on the dining room table. Pick out any rocks, sticks, or dirt clumps.

2. Put your beans in your soaking bowl. Rinse and drain the beans a couple of times. Something you may have thought was a bean was probably a dirt clod, and now its going to be mud. Now rinse.

3. Fill your soaking bowl (with the beans in it) with water (remember our 1:3 ratio), and the ACV. Let them soak for 12 hours.

To Cook:

1. Heat your bean pot to a medium-high heat and add cooking fat.

2. Slice your onions, add them into the pot when the cooking fat is hot (if the heat is too low, you will caramelize your onions and the beans will be sweet. If you start them on a higher heat, it's a very different flavor).
3. Cook the onions until the edges burn a little. Black-burn is okay! Just make sure your cooking fat doesn't start smoking.

4. Add your beans and enough water until you have about an inch left of space from the water line to the top of the pot.

5. Keep the pot on medium-high heat long enough to get a little boil rolling. When the pot reaches a smallish boil, set the heat to very low, and cover. 

6. Check every hour or so and stir regularly. This should take about 4-6 hours. 

7. To check readiness: Pop a bean in your mouth after letting it cool down for a second. If its not dry or powdery, you're done cooking your beans.  This is the time to also add your salt!

8. If you choose to mash your beans, or once they've simply cooked down a bit, you need to stir them frequently. They settle more easily and you risk burning them if you leave them to cook alone too long.

Now go figure out what you're going to eat them with. Yum!