Queso Freak

I do not know when it first came about, but a few years ago my reward for a week of eating well was a Friday night trip to one of several Tex-Mex restaurants in Austin that served what I considered to be good queso. Queso, chips, and salsa became my Friday night fix.

I could have a worse fix than queso.

At various points across the years I have had an entourage who joined me on a regular basis. We would get into such a routine that the staff knew what to bring me when I walked into the establishment. For the last year, I have mostly had my queso fix alone because my regular friends moved away or our schedules no longer align.

Does eating queso alone make me an addict?

I am somewhat picky about the queso. Heated Velveeta does not do it for me. It actually has to be some kind of cheese sauce. I also prefer the queso compuesto which means it comes with pico and meat and sometimes guacamole. I mix everything except any included guacamole into the cheese. I do not care for the avocado taste in the cheese, but I leave the guacamole floating in the hot cheese because warm guacamole actually tastes really good.

Recently I have been mastering the process of making my own queso from scratch. Getting a smooth sauce is not as difficult as I long imagined. I just had never done it right. Simply melting cheese does not a queso make.

I firmly believe that, much like bacon, cheese sauce makes almost anything better. Mastering the base for a cheese sauce allows for so many variations. One of my favorite variations involves making a smoky cheese sauce. When mixed with the right meats and pasta, it gives a sense of the grill. Properly incorporating fresh peppers into the base makes a very spicy sauce without the lumpy nature that sometimes happens when going for spicy. Using a variety of cheeses creates sauces as varied as the variety of cheeses in the fromagerie.

As much as I look forward to the queso itself on Friday nights, the real enjoyment of it comes from the company with friends and lively atmosphere in the restaurants. By going to the same ones so regularly, I recognize, and even know some of the regulars now. Despite my naturally introverted nature, I am comfortable enough in these places to relax and enjoy the company of others. Queso is just the bait to get me there.

Snap!

Last night as I prepared for bed, I sent out a tweet saying, “I need the AC to go to sleep tonight and the heater to wake up in the morning. #Texasweather.” The weather proved me correct. I struggled early in the morning to bring myself to climb from under the warm blanket with my even warmer dog cuddled against my back into the cool air of the house and switch the unit from cool to heat in time for some of the chill to come out of the air before I had to get up for the more serious business of brushing my teeth, shaving, and showering.

The rapid change in temperature commonly happens this time of year. Yesterday had a high of 82 degrees and a low of 68 degrees. Today’s high temperature was about 70 degrees at midnight and began a steady drop through the entire day as the front blew in with its frigid chilly air.

The arrival of cooler temperatures is one of my favorite times of the the year. I am a life-long Texan, but I have never adapted to the heat. I prefer sweater-weather. The highs and lows of the weekend all remaining in the mid-thirties to mid-forties range have me excited about the prospect of an active weekend cooking and wearing my cozy sweatpants.

While at work today, I sat almost giddy at the prospects for the weekend. While others were bemoaning the fact that they restricted to in-house activities, I could not wait for the time I could spend doing things in the house. This is also the time I start planning my garden for the coming year and begin to prepare the beds. As I have made some major changes in my landscaping this year I may also take the time to plant some winter vegetables.

The end of the work day could not come fast enough. My bags were packed and I was pushing people out the door so I could get my normal Friday night fare (chips and queso) and then home to enjoy the temperatures. Others may be unhappy, but I am thrilled about the cold snap.

South Texas Potato Corn Chowder

Most of my culinary reinterpretations originate with a dish I try at a restaurant or a recipe I come across in random places. The dish I call South Texas Potato Corn Chowder came from a grocery store recipe card highlighting the store-brand ingredients. I particularly like soups in the winter and began to identify ways to make this one more to my liking.

The original is rather bland and the only texture in the chowder came from the corn. I added cubes of real potato, diced jalapeno, and garlic. And I added bacon which instantly improves it.

South Texas Potato Corn Chowder

1 C chopped onion

2 t diced garlic

2 C chopped or crumbled cooked bacon

1 can (15.4 oz) whole kernel corn

1 C sour cream (I prefer regular)

4 medium jalapenos diced

2 tabasco peppers diced

2 C ¼” potato cubes (I use southern style frozen hash browns)

2 C instant mashed potatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

In a 3 quart saucepan cook the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon but reserve 4 TBS of the bacon fat in the pan to cook the onion, garlic, peppers, and potato cubes. If there is not enough bacon fat, supplement with butter or grapeseed oil. Cook the onion, garlic, peppers, and potato cubes until the onion is translucent and the potato cubes are soft. Add the corn, including liquid, bacon, and 5 cups hot water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium. Add sour cream and stir until sour cream is dissolved. Add potato flakes and stir until dissolved. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.

For my personal taste, I actually add more peppers because I love the flavor of peppers and I love the fire. Many recipes and every cooking show host will say to remove the seeds from the peppers, “because that is where the heat is.” I say that removing the seeds is for wimps, but if someone cannot tolerate overly spicy or hot foods, take the seeds out (and send them to me). The peppers will still flavor the dish as well as with the seeds.

Instead of instant potatoes, I sometimes use boiled potatoes. When I do this, instead of the diced potatoes in the initial fry/saute I reserve several potatoes that I cut into several larger chunks that I add to the mixture just before removing from the heat and serving. The rest of the potatoes I mash as I normally would but without adding salt, pepper, or any other seasoning. When it is time to add the potatoes to the chowder I start with about 3 C of mashed potatoes then gradually add more potatoes until I reach the consistency I like.

Soups with creamier consistencies tend to lure us with their rich hearty satisfaction. This chowder definitely fulfills this expectation, but it also surprises with the peppery tingle.

The Grocery List

Over the course of the year I have written several times about how much I have come to love Google drive and my Chromebook. I know people hate how much Google knows about us - but if you are not doing anything wrong, does it really matter if they know about it? One of the nicest uses of the drive is that I have access to it on my phone.

A few months ago, after leaving my grocery list at home, I came up with the idea of creating a document titled “grocery list” in my drive and then I could pull it up when I went to the store and erase the items as I picked them up. Perfect! Using a list definitely helps cut down on impulse buys and keeps me wheeling my cart through the store with purpose.

Since I also use Docs for almost all my blog composition, I have a recurring fear that I copy and past my grocery list into the post rather than the intended document.  It is highly unlikely that that will happen without it being caught as I give each post one more (or the first) edit after I paste it.

I have seen grocery lists published as poetry.

I have seen other grocery lists published as political commentary.

I have seen still others published as a wish-list for those in need.

I looked my list over - it is chaotic utilitarian. I add the next item as I run out of it in my pantry or refrigerator. There is nothing thoughtful about it and if I followed its order, I would never make it out of the store. My list for the store this weekend is rather short. My pantry is stocked about to normal levels - which means I will not be starving for six months.

butter

sour cream

cream cheese

eggs

cake mixes

green beans

plastic containers

rice vinegar

white wine vinegar

catsup (sue me)

sugar

mushrooms

With only these items, I may actually make it out for under $100. Yes, there will be impulse buys - I never said the list eliminated them, it just limits them.

Enchanted

I love my kitchen gadgets. Last night my new immersion blender arrived and I spent the evening dancing around the kitchen. It came with attachments! I did not expect a mini food-processing bowl or a whisk.

Expect salsa, meringue, and whipped cream to dominate my upcoming dessert recipes.

I need to build new house. After over seven years in my current house, I have decided that the house in which I live is about the right size, but the distribution is wrong. My dream house needs to have a living room with a couple chairs and a coffee table; a bedroom or two with room for a bed and dresser and space to walk between; a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower; a library/office that takes up (at least) the space of my current master bedroom. The remainder of the house would be kitchen and pantry.

I love my kitchen gadgets so much, I am seriously considering turning one of my guest bedrooms into a second pantry with shelving to house my pots, pans, bowls, gadgets, etc. My counter and cabinets cannot take any more. I no longer have a dining table. My china cabinet has every nook and cranny taken (with turtle figurines and with cookware). There is barely room for me to cook. The guest bedroom will definitely be a theme room for anyone who sleeps there.

The current theme in the guestroom of “things I haven’t taken to Goodwill yet” is too difficult to decipher.

The dancing in the kitchen when I got the new immersion blender is just the start. I will giggle and applaud - then take a picture and tweet it whenever something turns out just right after using an appliance. While dancing in the kitchen last night, I did stop long enough to tweet to the appliance maker, “Does @(the brand name) have any idea how ecstatically happy I am when a box with 1 of their products arrives at my door? #cooking #gadgetaddict” They did not respond, so apparently the do not have any idea how happy I am when I get a new one of their appliances.

Next time, I will do a Vine of the happy dance so they can see.

Since I am so disenchanted with sports at the current time, I will turn my touchdown dance into my enchanted-happy-appliance dance for this season. And no, I am not ashamed that a hand-held blender makes me dance.

I am certain that if I did a thorough search online I could find a name for my condition. Surely someone who gets as happy as me over a new appliance deserves a diagnosis, but I am not going to search for it. I am perfectly happy calling myself easily amused, and my friends are happy calling themselves deliciously fed.

Nicked

As much as I wanted to call this post chopped I equally wanted to avoid a second Cooking Channel show reference within a week despite the topic being all about related to cooking. Upon reflection, the event leading to my whine did not live up to the billing of being “chopped.”

After picking nearly a peck of unpickled fresh peppers from my garden on Saturday, I set about chopping some for the dishes I was making - chicken soup and Mexican rice. I am much the same way with peppers as the rest of the world is with bacon - everything’s better with peppers (Yes, even chocolate cake and fruit cobblers.) I can be a bit of a heat freak, but mostly, I enjoy the flavor of peppers. When you get past the idea of “oh, it burns!” the flavors in pepper make the dishes as distinct as they are.

Typical for my time cooking, I had a sports show on in the living room television that I watch from my prep station (kitchen counter). I quickly looked up to watch a purported “spectacular highlight” and I swiftly brought the knife down across the end of my fingertip, cleanly removing a chunk of nail and flesh.

I love sharp knives; the cut itself did not hurt. But in the days since, EVERYTHING that makes contact with the exposed nailless tip of my finger reminds me just how vulnerable we are when our defenses are down. Even typing - maybe especially typing - proves painful because it is my middle finger with the most popular letter on the left hand its responsibility (at least 21 poundings in this last sentence alone).

I know from experience that one must pay close attention when dealing with sharp or hot objects in the kitchen. I earned every scar on my hands and arms. Now that the surface has mostly healed and can possibly survive the flood of capsaicin from the fresh hot peppers, I need to finish preparing them for a vacuum seal that will allow me to continue using them throughout the winter months when my peppers slow production

This time I am thankful that I was only nicked as I chopped the peppers.  

And I never found the nail or the finger tip so you may want to avoid this batch of Mexican rice.

The Passion of the Kitchen

Recently I watched Julie and Julia, the movie adaptation of the book by the same name describing one woman’s goal of cooking all of Julia Childs’ recipes from her original cookbook in the span of a year. As much as I can empathize with Julie’s desire, if the scenes detailing Julia’s rise to kitchen stardom had not been included I would have turned the movie off in the first thirty minutes. Despite the unlikability of the focal character, her desire to do something daring in the kitchen struck a chord in me.

Each week,  I spend one quarter of my weekend making my food for the coming week as I rarely have time each evening to cook food from scratch. After gaining nearly 20 pounds from eating out multiple times a week during my last round of graduate school, I determined to never do that again, and cooking and pre-packing my meals for the coming week not only helped me lose those twenty pounds, but keep them off. Nevertheless, the idea of cooking, sometimes multiple, new recipes each evening seemed especially fascinating to me as someone who goes to the grocery store once (only by necessity twice) a month. I do not do a weekly menu; I do a monthly one.

Still, as a person who LOVES to cook and to teach others to cook in the way I learned from my grandmother and mother (smell is EVERYTHING), the idea of doing something challenging such as cooking a new recipe (the steps and ingredients of which I normally take as suggestions rather than directions) each night absolutely fascinated me. I have a wide variety of cookbooks ranging from the 75th Anniversary Edition Joy of Cooking to collections of recipes from various churches and high school classes. My favorites are those collections of recipes real people use on a regular basis. I know they are good because people shared them when they had the opportunity to give the one recipe they knew was good.

Discussing the value of taking on such a challenge, my roommate and I brought up a number of ways such a challenge could be taken and what ways we would do it differently. While the idea caused me to reflect on what kind of cooking challenge I would undertake. Living in Austin, Texas is vastly different than a borough of New York. I drive past a dozen grocery stores each day, but none of them are an easy access off and on the interstate routes I travel. That is why I only go to the store once or twice a month. If I lived in NYC, based on what I have seen in the apartments of the friends I have visited there, I would have to shop and cook each day; that is not my reality.

In the week that followed, the more I reflected on the idea of some kind of cooking challenge the more I realized I do not need a challenge to demonstrate my passion in the kitchen. My weekly meals and the other meals I prepare for friends from time to time all come from the passionate cook within. It exists in every dish I make and that is what I want to sustain.

Summer Gardening

Summer has arrived in full force in central Texas. Yesterday when I got in my car after work, the temperature outside showed as 111O. In all honesty, it was only 97O, but sitting outside, in the sun, with no shade other than that of the lamp-posts, the car surface was probably 111O or higher.

That same heat taking a toll on my car’s thermometer is taking a toll on all my garden plants - especially those in pots. I watered most of the plants three days ago, but when I came home today, most of them appeared as if they had been in a years-long drought.

I planted them all from seed this spring, there is no way they know we have been in a years-long drought.

I even bought Miracle Grow Moisture Control potting soil.

Texas Heat 1 - Miracle Grow 0.

Some of my plants are growing like crazy and are leaving me wondering just how much eggplant and bell pepper I can eat in a year. Allrecipes.com lists some 240 recipes for eggplant, so I should be good.

Last year I made more gazpacho than I could eat. This year I cannot get my cucumbers to put on a single cuc. They tease me with thousands of blonde deceptions, but no fruit appears.

At least the squash have started to produce.

Maybe I should have planted okra this year. It does well in the heat.

Each summer having a garden is taking a chance that the weather will not be at its worst. The last few years; however, the weather has been at its worst. Despite the weather with its heat and drought that dash the best laid plans and the critters that nibble at my plants (and sometimes my feet), gardening is the second most hopeful thing that I do (my job as an educator is the most hopeful thing that I do). Every seed I drop into the ground contains the promise of bounty. A little help from mother nature and my faithful stewardship and that seed will produce foods far better than can be purchased at the store.

I do not know if the food is “really” better or if the sweat and effort make it seem that much better. Whatever the reason, I know I enjoy everything that comes from my garden.

And thanks to my new food vacuum-sealer, I do not have to enjoy it all right now.

Chicharrones Chicken and More

         Yesterday I decided to clean out the pantry and freezer. My roommate and I are both fans of the television show “Chopped” so I declared that I would prepare a meal with whatever ingredients I pulled from the freezer or pantry that were at or near (or maybe past) the expiration date.

         The fact that it was my own pantry gave me a perhaps unfair advantage, but there was always the chance of that one-off ingredient I had to figure out how to work in. In this case I think it was a bag of mixed-frozen fruit (strawberry, mango, papaya). The other ingredients I had were left-over crumbly bits of tortilla chips (plain and super spicy), chicharrones, coconut milk, frozen hash-brown potatoes, and yogurt. All in all, though, the ingredients were easy to work with.

         I decided the chips and chicharrones would make a perfect coating for fried chicken, so I put them in the food processor and ground them down to crumbs (even more than they already were. I pulled out some boneless, skinless chicken breast, coated it with an egg wash then dredged it in the crumbs and let it rest for about ten minutes while I let the oil (olive and grapeseed) in the frying pan heat and the oven come up to temperature. I then seared the chicken on each side and placed in a baking dish in which I would finish the cooking.

         After doing a quick fry on each side of the breast, I sprinkled them with more of the crust mixture which I had set aside and mixed with fresh, finely-grated Romano and mozzarella cheese. I put them in the oven to cook for about 30 minutes at 350°.

         How can anything coated in pork fat not be good?

         I have a bad habit of overcooking chicken breast, but this batch turned out perfectly done and nicely moist on the inside.

         I used the potatoes, more of the cheeses, and an Alfredo sauce to make creamy twice-baked potatoes. I sprinkled some of the same reserved chips/chicharrones crumbles over the top to connect the chicken and potatoes.

         I did not take pictures of the fruit, yogurt, and coconut milk concoction because I had no idea it would actually turn out. I decided to make a pudding with pureed veggies and yogurt to which I added the two cans of coconut milk and a cup of sugar. I cooked it until it was hot through, added a cornstarch mixture, let that cook briefly, and then refrigerated it overnight. It actually turned out perfectly! I am going to have to work on the recipe some more, but this is one I can use to surprise friends.

         Given the fun I had in the kitchen (aside from slicing my finger open on the arm of the dishwasher), I will have to clean out my cupboard more often to see what I can come up with.

Fresh is Best

Over the years watching cooking shows, the mantra, “fresh is best,” rang through every show. In all that time I have had a garden and have raised some of my own herbs and have used them from to improve the freshness of my cooking

The older I get, the more important good food is.

This spring, I focused on some of my favorite herbs along with the vegetables I most enjoy. They are doing better than I could have hoped.

Cilantro grows quickly.

I did not expect to use it as the dominant flavor of hummus, but today as I readied to process the garbanzo beans, the most available spice I had on hand was cilantro, Working it with garlic and pepper into the garbanzo beans resulted in one of the best hummus mixes I have created in the last nine years (since I started eating hummus). The flavors exploded in my mouth.

But what could I use to eat it with? Pita bread has been my favorite vehicle for eating hummus, but I did not have any on hand. I made a bread that included rice, wheat (white and whole), and oats. Combined with honey and beer, the flavors dominated the bread.

I decided to make a egg/oil spread with the same ingredients - garlic, salt, cilantro and pepper. I imagined a egg/oil spread to increase the browning of the bread. I ended up with a strongly flavored mayonnaise that spread beautifully across the rolled-out dough for the bread. Dashes of salt, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper were sprinkled across the mayo just moments before the bread was placed on the heated pizza stone. Within ten minutes, I the bread was cooked and ready to eat.

The sweet flavor of the bread matched with the spice in the baked-on topping led to surprising experiences in the mouth. Flavor came from every direction. There is the flavor on the tongue - and there is the flavor waiting in ambush.

In addition to the cilantro, my basil, rosemary, and oregano plants needed trimming so they would become more bushy and productive.  Because I was not doing any cooking with them, I put them directly in my food dryer for preservation. This morning I woke to a house fragrant with the smell of dried herbs.

Now to figure out what to do with the mint.

Au Gratin Potatoes My Way

My dad is a meat and potatoes kind of man. Every meal we had offered some kind of meat. Almost every meal had potatoes in some form. Even though I grew up in one of the largest rice-producing counties in the nation, I did not begin to eat rice regularly or appreciate it until I was nearly forty and had moved away from that county. Even though I grew up with them at nearly every meal, I rarely eat potatoes. As a result, most of the “fresh” potatoes I purchase at the grocery store go bad before I get around to using them.

Such was the result with some baking potatoes I purchased a while back (6-8 weeks). I do like baked potatoes because by the time I am done adding butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon, chives, garlic, etc. etc. etc. the potato is almost indistinguishable.  Even though I do like baked potatoes, these had begun to shrivel and future potato plants began to shoot from the various eyes. I almost threw them away, but reference to au gratin potatoes in a recent cooking show prompted me to get creative with old potatoes.

Most of my memories of potatoes au gratin were ones that came from a box.

That’s what I get for growing up in the 1970’s.

I decided to pretend I was on a slow-motion version of Chopped and make a good homemade version of au gratin potatoes from scratch with the ingredients I had on hand.

First, I peeled the potatoes removing the shriveling skin and the growths emanating from each eye.

Then I soaked them in a salt water bring. (In this case for a day because I was busy and did not get back to them). The salt water helped to get flavor into the potato and they firmed back up to about 90% of fresh potato rigidity.

I rinsed each potato. Then using my mandolin adjusted to the thinnest slice possible (in the future I will use the middle setting) I sliced the potatoes and let them soak in a fresh, warm, salt-water bath for a few hours.

During the times the potatoes were soaking and regaining their turgor, I searched online for various au gratin recipes. Combining the various recipes I settled on a sauce that agreed with my taste (and what I keep on hand):

1.5 C half-and-half

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Salt

Pepper

Cayenne pepper powder

Diced garlic

1 TBS flour

Cheese (in this case Monterey Jack)

As I put the dish together, I began by coating the pan with olive oil. I used a 2-quart casserole (but in the future will go with a larger, shallower pan – took too long to cook through and I was hungry). I layered in a couple layers of potatoes (they were potato-chip thin), then spooned a coating of the sauce. I repeated three times then sprinkled a layer of cheese.

I continued the process until I used all the potatoes. I poured all remaining sauce on top (it soaked through and filled the empty spaces).

Oh – no cheese on top yet.

I covered the pan (a lid or aluminum foil – whichever work best) and cooked it for four hours at 250 degrees (the reason I am using a shallower pan next time). Once the potatoes were done through, I uncovered the pan to get a layer of crisp on the top. As soon as the potatoes were well-browned, I added a healthy layer of grated cheese. Put the pan back in until the cheese is melted and starting to brown.

Done.

Making au gratin potatoes takes a bit more time and effort than I put into most dishes that come from my kitchen, but for these results, it is all worth it.

Salisbury Steak

Another comfort food that I enjoy from time to time is Salisbury steak. I had actually forgotten about it until I saw a mention of it a few weeks ago on a cooking show. When I came across cubed steak at the store yesterday, it inspired me to try it out. The relatively few ingredients and ease of preparations makes these older recipes favorites. With a few new ingredients, they can be as current as anything else with a regular rotation through my kitchen.

 

6 cube steaks

Flour

Salt

Pepper

1 Can diced tomatoes with green chilies

½ cup diced onion

½ cup diced green pepper

Water

 

Mix flour, salt, and pepper together and coat cube steaks. Fry on each side in a little oil (enough that it does not stick). Spread about ½ the diced tomatoes, onion, and green pepper in the bottom of a Dutch oven or similar baking dish. Spread the fried steaks over the vegetables, doubling them over one another if necessary. Cover with remaining tomatoes, peppers, and onion, add a little water. Bake at 350° until the steaks are fork tender.

In addition to being remarkably simple to make, Salisbury steak is one that has been much maligned because it uses such cheap and basic ingredients. While cube steak is often one of the cheaper cuts run through a tenderizer a few times, it can still be challenging to even the best of teeth. Cooked long enough with the liquid, just like slow-cooking a roast leads to tender, flavorful meat. With the colorful vegetables in the mix, it is also nice to see on the plate.

 

Pineapple Upside Down Rum Cake

A couple months ago I got on a kick of making cakes with spiced rum after my roommate brought that home instead of regular rum.  While the standard recipes were good, I knew I could continue to improve the cake with variations. I wanted to make a pina-colada cake, but since my roommate is allergic to coconut, I opted to try the pineapple upside down version and pulled out the maraschino cherries.

To date it is my favorite of the multiple variations.

 

Cake:

1 box French vanilla cake mix

1 box (4 serving) vanilla instant pudding

½ cup liquid drained off pineapple (no sugar added preferably)

½ cup spiced rum

½ cup oil (I use olive)

4 eggs

Pineapple chunks or rounds

Maraschino cherries

 

Glaze

¼ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

¼ cup spiced rum

 

 

Preheat oven to 325°. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil, eggs, rum, and allspice. Beat until combined. Grease and flour a Bundt pan. Spread pineapple and maraschino cherries around the bottom then pour in the batter. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

When the cake comes out of the oven, leave in pan. Boil butter, sugar, and drained pineapple juice, glaze ingredients for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in spiced rum.

With the cake still in the pan, poke holes in the cake – I use a chopstick. Pour hot glaze over the cake. Allow the glaze to soak into the cake before turning it out onto a plate (about 5 minutes).

 

Food and Spirituality

         Making and eating food are among the most spiritual acts I perform. From gardening, ranching, and hunting in childhood, I have always had a close relationship with much of the food I ate. From the fresh vegetables raised in our garden, to the beef from the calves we raised then sent to slaughter, to the venison and other game meats we hunted, my hands had a role in the processing from beginning to end.

         Living in the city now, I have a modest garden in my back yard that produces more squash and tomatoes than I can eat, but certainly comes nowhere near sustaining me. The back yard definitely will not support a herd of meat animals or even a flock of chickens, so I am forced to rely on the grocery store or meat market for them. Until the time comes for me to slice and cook, I have no connection to most of the food.

         Despite the void between ground/hoof and table, the act of preparation remains spiritual for me. I do not exercise enough. I do not sleep enough. I drink too many high-caffeine drinks. Cooking and eating well prevent my body from going totally to pieces. Cooking and eating well honor who I am. I enjoy it and gain great satisfaction in preparing something delicious from the ingredients I am given.

         The relationship between each part of the meal encourages reflection on the connections between parts of my life. Too much of any one ingredient puts the dish out of balance. Friends, work, family, and God all shape who I am; they are the ingredients to me. Just like a recipe, any one out of proportion alters me and the person that I am. Food connects every aspect of life – friends, work, family, and God. At the table, at a restaurant, or even in passing, food offers that moment of connection – even if it is in passing.

         Perhaps, at a certain point, my career will allow me the opportunity to live on land again instead of being confined to the small spaces of the city and will allow me the chance to raise the majority of the food I eat. I like that connection, but it is not necessary for food to be a central spiritual aspect of my life. God is present no matter how many hands touch the food and I take solace in that knowledge.

 

Queso Mac and Cheese

         What do you do when you make WAAAAYYYY too much queso for the football game? Turn it into mac and cheese of course. I have not experimented much with mac and cheese in a couple years since I started watching my carbohydrate intake due to an expanding waistline. It remains one of the comfort foods I turn to when I really want home.

         Such a simple dish to make with so many variations possible I keep finding new things I like about it. I have switched to whole grain pasta I rarely endorse a particular brand (because I am cheap and normally stick to generic), but in the last few years, I discovered that the enormous distinction between generic and brand names when it comes to pasta and a few other items. I almost always use Barilla Plus whole grain pastas. They have a wonderful nutty flavor and solid texture that holds up to almost everything I want to do with it.

         In the case of queso mac and cheese, I opted for rotini as the pasta with grilled sausage for some added flavor (and to make it a main dish). Other than the pasta, the entire dish was put together with leftovers from previous cooking events. Putting it together and baking it, altogether, took about 1 ½ hours. The queso and sausage were done. I cooked the rotini to almost done, sliced the sausage. After draining the pasta, I mixed together the queso, pasta, and sausage then poured into a greased 9X13 baking dish (cake pan), covered with foil, and baked in a pre-heated 350° oven until heated through. In the last few minutes, I pulled off the foil and let the top brown.

         As a queso freak, this version of mac and cheese helped satisfy that urge as well as my craving for home food.