What's Cookin'

Good afternoon!  This blog is getting later and later at starting up.  That's okay.  At least I made it to the post. :)

Well, today I thought I'd talk about why and how Mexican food is so good.  There's an awful lot of it out there now, what with Mexicans of many states and ethnic groups taking up residence in the US of A.  When I say, Mexican food, I basically mean the food of my border region when I was a kid, and to me that means beans, rice, tortillas, tomatoes, onions, garlic and chiles.  That's a rather small list of ingredients to adopt and say, "If I had to eat a limited diet for the rest of my life, that's the diet I'd choose."  The Mexicans in their wisdom realized that beans plus rice or beans plus corn (or preferably all three together) make a perfect protein.   With two or more of those you need no other in order to thrive.  Then, you can go for refreshment and flavor which are provided by the tomatoes, chiles and onions.  That is all and that's enough.

That being said, I'm making a stew today. I bought a Mexican cut of beef, skirt steak.  I am not in the mood to stir fry so I cut all those little steaks up and tossed them in olive oil in an ovenproof vessel, and browned them up in the oven.  When they were browned, I added onion, salt and water and, the day being warm, put the vessel on the flametop as it's versatile.  The meat is simmering away with its onions and salt and water.  I looked for my potato because I was going to make a convention American stew, but could not find the potato. So I added hominy, which led to other considerations.  I added thyme and a tiny pinch of cumin. I love cumin though it can take over a dish. After  while I am going to cut up a tomato and add it, and also will cube up a yellow bell pepper and toss it in too.  How delicious. If I had a sweet potato I would have tossed it in in place of the hominy...but we'll love the hominy. It is so much fun to eat; the bites are just the right size.  I have some leftover New Mexico green chile bits in the refrigerator, and I think I 'll throw them in too. Why not?

At book club the other night the hostess served a light brown colored spicy apple cake, with a tiny dab of creme fraiche on top.  I complimented her on it and told her how pleased I was to have gotten a corner, as I always like the crusty edges.  She said that the cake had seemed a bit undercooked when she took it out so she put it back in to crisp up those edges.  Very wise. She is a jewelry artist who makes things out of metal.  I am sure that she probably re-does those items too until they are just right.

I have moved away from the beans and rice, have I not? But that's the fun thing about food, one thing leads to another. It leads in the side to side thinking as well as the back and forth thinking of present and past time. I am thankful for all those delicious meals I had in the past.  Eating out, we had some wonderful food too.  Restauranteurs cooked, in those days, and there were no chains.  It was wonderful.

I think of the past today, with my ancestors eating beans, rice and tortillas, with--every now and then--a piece of nice roasted goat, or a chicken, or a batch of fish or shrimp or oysters since they chose to settle so conveniently near the Gulf of Mexico.  What a delicious menu. YAZZYBEL