Red Beans and Rice

1 Onion, diced
1 Bell pepper, diced
1 Tbsp. oil
1 Tbsp. garlic, minced
1 tsp. Tony Chachere's spice
1 tsp Thyme
1 Bay leaf
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 can Kidney Beans, drained
1 sausage, diced, andouie or anything really
1 cup diced ham
2 cans chicken broth
2 cups rice

saute onion and pepper in oil until tender.
Add garlic and spices. Stir and cook 30 seconds.
Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil.
Cover, turn down fire, simmer 30 minutes.

Quick Mole Poblano

1 can chicken broth
1 tbsp store-bought chili powder
2 tbsp ancho chili powder
1 circle of Mexican chocolate, or a handful of chips
1 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tbsp roux to thicken

simmer chili powder in chicken broth 15-30 minutes

Add chocolate and roux to thicken

Serve with baked/broiled/boiled chicken, grilled pork, or fish. Goes well with rice as well.

Lamb Stew with Red Wine and Mushroom

1-2 lbs. left-over lamb and lamb bones
2 cans low sodium chicken broth
1 cup red wine
3-4 dried Chinese shiitake mushrooms
(fresh crimini mushrooms work well too)
1/2 C. flour
1/2 C. vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
2 parsnips, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 tbsp. oil or bacon grease
3 carrots, pealed, large diced
4 potatoes, peeled, large diced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

1. Add lamb to broth and wine, bring to a boil, simmer gently 1 hr. or
until lamb is falling apart. Remove bones.

2. If using dried mushrooms, rehydrate by placing in 1 C hot water for
30 minutes. Afterward, remove and discard stems, and slice the
mushrooms thinly.

3. While lamb is simmering, make a roux with the flour and vegetable oil.
Stirring often. Cook until it is the color of peanut butter. Cool.
Pour off any excess oil. Unused roux may be kept in a jar in the
refrigerator for up to one month.

4. Saute onions, celery and parsnips in bacon grease until golden brown, add to lamb.

5. 30 minutes before serving, add carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, and spices.
If needed, add water to cover (or mushroom soaking liquid). Bring to
a boil, and simmer gently.

6. 5 minutes before serving, stir in 1 tbsp. of roux, or more, to thicken.

Aw, Nuts! Corn Nuts

Take a handful or two of dried whole corn and place in a glass jar with plenty of water. Optionally, add a tablespoon of salt. Soak in the refrigerator for three to five days. Heat an inch of oil in a pan and heat on high. Drain the water, pat dry with a paper towel, and drop in hot oil. Fry until slightly darker than golden brown - maybe five minutes - stirring occasionally. Drain from the oil on paper towels. Season with flake salt, seasoned salt, chili pepper, and/or garlic salt or just about any other flavoring.

You can do the same thing with dried soybeans to make soy nuts.

Neatsfoot Oil

OK, why is it so hard to find Neatsfoot Oil in Norman, Oklahoma ? I guess you should believe that if Walmart and Target do not have it, you don't need it. Why, it must be un-American to want to actually spend hard-earned (fiat) currency on something other than the 14,743 items in Walmart...

Michael's doesn't have it either - no surprise there - I bet Tandy Leather does, but I didn't want to drive up to the city. I thought, surely Athletic Village would have some. I walked into their brand new store and saw fifty different baseball gloves, but no oil to be had. The twenty-something guy behind the counter looked at me funny and said, "duh, what's that?". At least his early fifties manager knew what it was, if he didn't bother to stock it.

I did finally find some, $8 for all of 4 oz., from the shoe repair place on Main. That business is not long for this world, so I bought everything he had. Who knows how long it is going to be before I can get restocked.

And in case you (and apparently everyone else in Norman) do not know what it is, Neatsfoot oil is an animal-derived oil - no petroleum products - that is ideal for conditioning leather - hence the baseball gloves - and essential in the final steps of tanning a hide, which happens to be the reason I was needing some.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neatsfoot_oil

Cormac McCarthy

Just finished 'The Road', which won him the Pulitzer a few years ago. Reminds me much of Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea', with a little Faulkner thrown in. Read 'Blood Meridian' earlier, very dark - and 'The Cities of the Plain', just strange - but I liked the cameo that G*d has in the final chapter as a homeless wanderer the main character meets under a highway bridge. That's where I'll be looking for G*d.

Can't wait to find a few more by him.

Reading Bruce Sterling

Reading Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire from 1996. Not his best, but an interesting element in the cyberpunk genre. I think I like his short story collections more.

Nothing to do with religion, at least not directly. The underlying implication is that there are few people who are consumed with the holy fire, an almost divine ability to create, whether it is pottery, photography, writing, etc. The quality of the work is so much above that produced by even a master in the field. There is also another side of it - holy fire consumes. It burns you up - burns you out.

Are you burning ?