Monday, March 16, 2009

CHILAQUILES!



What to do with a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa?


The above recipe is from Moosewood's Low Fat Cookbook, and it. is. awesome. I made mine with black beans, frozen corn, tomatoes, onions, salsa, Swiss chard, and pepper jack... and of course the crushed tortilla chips. I only used half the amount of cheese called for in the recipe because that's all I had, but it was plenty. 

The bottom layer of crushed chips turns into a salty cornmeal, while the top stays a bit more crusty. You could serve this with more salsa, or sour cream, but it's great as is.  Cheap, easy, delicious... it doesn't get any better than that. Plus you get to yell "CHILAQUILES!" as you cook.

I must say I have become a convert to dried beans instead of canned. It's a little extra effort, but they have so much more flavor, it's lovely. I boil up a pot on Sunday and then have them ready to go for the week's meals.



Sunday, March 15, 2009

Spring Cleaning

I've been horribly remiss in updating ye olde blog. Mea culpa! At first it was because nothing at all worth mentioning was happening, and then because life got a little too busy. In the future I will attempt to keep this place a little fresher.

First order of business: I've added a few new Bad Vanity Plates to the sidebar, although not nearly as many as I've seen lately. There have been a rash of first names, for people who apparently suffer from amnesia but at least can remember where they parked the car. What's my name? Hold on, let me check my plates. Oh yes: Otis. 

Most exciting update: Mike and I signed up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Midlands. It was originally Mike's idea, as with so many of our life improvements (see: vegetarianism), after he was inspired by President Obama's call to public service. When Mike went to his orientation session, he learned that we could be a Big Couple, so I signed up as well. I just completed my orientation last week, and we can't wait to get a Little Brother. We were told that because there are so many boys awaiting mentors and not enough Bigs for them, we should get a match soon. For girls, the opposite is true: Big Sisters go on a 6-9 month waiting list. So I am happy to help out a little boy who is waiting to find a friend. Out of respect for our Little's privacy, I will probably keep any future blogging about this experience to very limited & general updates, but we are so looking foward to this new adventure.

In more recent news, we had another excellent restaurant meal last night. We went out with friends to Stokes Grill & Bar in the Old Market. It is a Southwest spot that we've been meaning to try for ages, but which I always seem to forget about when we're deciding where to eat; finally, we made it down there. I had somewhat low expectations, and this is probably unfair, mainly because it looks cool and the ambience is well put together. Sometimes restaurants that focus so much on appearances fall apart on the food, but this is not the case at all for Stokes.

I'll mention the one downside up front: not a whole lot of choices for the vege-pesca-tarian. There were only one veggie and two seafood entrees for us to choose from; however, there were also four salads and eleven appetizers that could easily combine to make a meal. The four of us started out by sharing nachos with cowboy beans and some crab rangoons. The rangoons were good, nothing spectacular, but tasty and crispy as they should be; the sauce was a little on the sweet side for me. The nachos were great, with blue & yellow corn chips and plenty of topping.

I ordered fish tacos for my entree: grilled tilapia in two flour tacos served with beans and rice. I usually don't like tilapia all that much, because it has little flavor of its own and is often badly prepared. However, the fish tacos were very good! The tilapia were cut in nice little filets, neatly blackened and well seasoned. The soft tacos seemed fresh and were just a little toasted. Best of all, the beans and rice were absolutely delicious. I have had many Mexican meals since moving to Omaha, and in pretty much every instance the bean & rice sides have been travesties: cold, dry and completely and utterly without flavor. At Stokes, they were hot, seasoned, and zesty. I almost would have been happy just to eat the sides, and that's saying a lot when it comes to beans & rice. Mike ordered the Twisted Garlic Shrimp Pasta: radiatore pasta with Southwest spices, tomato, avocado, and shrimp. He thought it was also very good. I stole a few bites of his pasta and it was tasty: kind of like a Southwest-style mac and cheese. 

One other minor complaint: I ordered a margarita, and, while pleasingly large, it was weak and off-the-charts sweet, with a pretty artificial-tasting lime flavor. Like a limeade with a couple extra teaspoons of sugar. Probably would not order again, but it didn't take anything away from the meal.

Today we have been busy doing some much-needed but much-dreaded housecleaning, including washing the curtains and table linens, and doing poop patrol in the backyard. Of course, two hours after mopping all the floors, it all looks crap again because Russell has dragged in two tons of dry leaves. Lesson for next fall: RAKE.