Oohhh, Hot Chocolate (recipe)

Sometimes nothing is better than hot chocolate. The weather last week was below freezing here. Surprise, surprise; California does get cold. Cold weather puts e in the mood for hot chocolate. I'm not a fan of instant hot chocolate packets, either. They're not very good, and hot chocolate is so easy to make without them.

HOT CHOCOLATE 
INGREDIENTS
4 T cocoa powder
4 T sugar
1 T corn starch
1 t cinnamon
1 dash cayenne pepper
(I used 1/16 teaspoon)
2 cup milk
1/2 T vanilla

In a small sauce pot, whisk together first five ingredients. Place over medium heat. Slowly whisk in milk. Continue to stir until completely incorporated and frothy. Heat until milk starts to steam but not simmer or boil. Whisk well scraping the bottom and sides. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla.

Voila! Rich, creamy, chocolaty. Really good with a warm blankie and a good book.

Pozole recipe

I have been craving pozole for a few weeks now. I love the rich stem with the zingy lime and the fresh toppings. I know several people who make really good pozole. But since no one has made any I could partake in in months, I decided to try my hand at it. I made a batch years ago, worked on it all day long. It turned out wonderfully. I haven't been able to duplicate that since. I've spent a good deal of internet browsing time looking at pozole recipes, but none seemed to duplicate my one successful pot of pozole.

So today, I just went to the store and bought a variety of ingredients I thought might make the rich, deep red chili-based broth that is the heart of a really good pozole. Then it has to have both pork and chicken, cooked for a long time to be tender but also make the flavors rich. Lastly, of course, if the hominy. I love hominy. There aren't enough uses for it in my opinion.

The wonderful concoction I created satisfied all of my pozole cravings. So good. So warming. A wide melding of lovely flavors.

POSOLE
INGREDIENTS

Note: I did not use all of the ingredients
pictured. Use the ingredient list for what
I actually did use.

four bone-in chicken thighs (I threw in 
     a little leftover grocery store 
     rotisserie chicken, too. I'm all 
     about using up leftovers.)
1 pound pork roast such as shoulder or    
     butt, I used a boneless leg roast
1-2 T canola oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 t cumin
1 onion, sliced
1 T crushed garlic
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup chopped parsley
1 cup chopped cilantro
sauce from one can of adobo chilis
4 oz can mild green chilis
8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 cup red taco sauce, medium heat
11 oz can tomatillos, quartered
29 oz can hominy

TOPPINGS: shredded cabbage, lime, cilantro, diced onion, salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese

1) Remove skin, if any, from the thighs. Cut pork into similar sized chunks.



2) Heat oil in a large stock pot. Add meat. Season with cumin, salt, and pepper. Sear.

3) As meat sears, add onion and garlic.


4) When meat has browned and onions have softened, add chicken broth, parsley, cilantro, adobo sauce, green chilis, tomato sauce, and taco sauce.



5) Bring to a boil. Cover with a lid and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for one hour.

6) Remove chicken and pork from broth. Set aside and let cool. Meanwhile, add tomatillos and hominy. Continue cooking with lid on over medium-low heat.
7) Once the meat has cool, remove chicken from the bone and cut into bite-sized pieces. Cut pork into bite-sized pieces. Return meat to the stew. Cook for another 30 minutes.

8) Serve with choices of toppings. Standard toppings include shredded cabbage, lime, cilantro, diced onion, salsa, sour cream, and shredded cheese. Could go with tortilla chips and guacamole or diced avocado, as well.

I like mine with cabbage, lime, cilantro, salsa, and cilantro. A little diced mild onion is always good too.

Santa Barbara

We also took a day trip to Santa Barbara over Winter Break. Another beautiful day.

Santa Barbara Mission

Santa Barbara Courthouse; it's still a real, working court house!

Me at the bottom of the tower

View of the coast from the top of the tower

View of the mission from the top of the tower

San Diego

The Boy and I took a short vacation to sunny San Diego over New Years. We had a great time.

Himalayan dinner

Balboa Park

Shrunk heads at the Museum of Man in Balboa Park

Museum of Natural History in Balboa Park

Greek dinner

Old Town San Diego

General Store in Old Town San Diego

Happy Birthday to Empty Nest

Okay, maybe I'm a couple of weeks late...

I didn't think about it until this weekend, but my blog is a year old now. It's pretty impressive. Impressive that I've stuck with keeping a journal for a whole year (even if it is primarily a cooking journal).

Other changes over the past year... Well, I've stuck to my diet plan I laid out last May. It actually has been working pretty well. I am now down 22 pounds. I've gotten lots of compliments in the last few weeks as the weight loss is really starting to show. I am down at least one dress size. Probably two, but I haven't been shopping in a few months because I still have more weight to go. I made it through the holidays without gaining any additional weight. (I didn't lose any either during that time, but that's a victory in my mind.) I'm down two more pounds since the holidays are over (maybe a couple more depending on which morning I weighed myself). Ten pounds to go.

Eating better has become much easier. It's I don't snack quite as much any more. I plan my meals through carefully so I know what to expect and not just grab anything. I still eat desserts more often than I should. I let myself enjoy meals out of special treats but now those don't seem to trigger a landslide of excuses. I eat more fruits and vegetables. More fiber. I drink primarily water and have stopped drinking soda and sweet tea at home. Definite success on that goal.

Also new since I started this blog, The Boy has now started college. He lives at his dorm, and I'm an Empty Nester. The living alone hasn't been as big of an adjustment as I thought. I was weird, but The Boy came home every weekend during the first semester. Plus I'm so busy with my job I have multiple late nights at work every month. The bigger shift, that I didn't expect, was the change in the parenting relationship. I didn't really expect that to be as difficult as it was. The Boy and I had several conversations about how being 18 may legally make you an adult, but doesn't necessarily mean mom loses any say in activities, decision, and choices. That adjustment took a lot of negotiating. I think we have it pretty well worked out now. The past couple of months have been really good again. The ah-ha discovery in all of this is the lack of parenting advice online or in-books for how to parent an "adult" teenager. If anyone wants to borrow my idea and write such a thing, please do. There's a gab in the information available there.

This semester The Boy doesn't have a car to come home every weekend. (There was a little car accident in early December that removed the car. Not The Boys fault, just no more car available.) So, now there is a smaller adjustment again in having him gone a lot more. I've been so busy at work, though, still, I have hardly been home since he left for college again. Actually, I'm really looking forward to some down time. I need it.

There have been other major changes in the past year. Ones I haven't written about here but have still redirected my life in unforseen ways. It always seen to happen that way. I think to myself, "Things have settled down. This next year life will just be status quo." But there never seems to be a status quo. It's inevitable. Life moves forward.

German Side Dishes (Red cabbage recipe and German potato salad recipe)

When I was little, my family moved to Germany for two years. We lived in a little village in Bavaria. I went to first and second grade in a German school. I spoke German with a Bavarian accent. In fact, when we returned to the U.S., the American school concerned I wouldn't be able to get along in an all English classroom so they assigned me a German classroom aide to make sure I transitioned well. To this day I am wistful for all things German; food, countryside, language, architecture, traditions. My big plans for my upcoming 40th birthday are a trip back to Germany. I haven't been there in over 20 years. Far too long for some place that still feels like home.

Occasionally I have an urge to cook a full-out German dinner. There are a lot of the ingredients we can't even get here. (If anyone knows how to get my hands on some quark, let me know. I have longed for quarktorte for years.) But, I've gotten pretty good at rotkohl, kartofflesalat, spaetzle, knodel. As I write this it dawns on me these are all side dishes. Maybe I need to try my hand at some main dishes.

So, when a friend requested some ideas for German dishes, how could I resist but to actually make a German dinner. In the end, it was quasi-German. Along with the rotkohl and kartoffelsalat, I made pork chops and braised kale. I'm not sure how German kale is, but it went well. I threw in some caraway seeds to try to tie it in a bit.

ROTKOHL (German Braised Red Cabbage)
INGREDIENTS

1 small head of red cabbage
1 large granny smith apple
4 cloves
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
salt and pepper to taste

1) Slice/shred the head of red cabbage as you would for coleslaw. Dice the apple.
2) Put all of the ingredients together in a large pot. 
3) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook for 1-2 hours. Stir occasionally. The red cabbage should not be too liquidy, but if it seems dry, you may wish to add a couple of tablespoons of water.

That's it! All done. 









KARTOFFELSALAT (Warm German Potato Salad)
INGREDIENTS
3 cups diced potatoes, I used Yukon Gold so I did not peel them

2-3 slices of bacon 
1 onion, diced
1/4 vinegar
2 T sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup parsley

1) Place diced potatoes in cold water. Add a good bit of salt. (I  don't measure, but maybe 1/2 - 1 tablespoon). Boil over medium heat until the potatoes are tender. Drain and set aside.




2) Meanwhile, dice and cook the bacon until it is crispy. Scoop the cooked bacon from the pan and place on a paper towel. 
3) Cook the onion in the same pan the bacon was cooked in with the bacon fat. (If you want a little less fat, you can drain off some of the bacon grease, but this is a big part of the flavoring.)



4) When the onions are soft, carefully add vinegar and sugar to the pan. Stir and scrape all of the bacon bits from the bottom of the pan.
5) While everything is still hot, place potatoes in a serving bowl. Pour the onion dressing over the top. Sprinkle on parsley. Stir together.

Simple and tasty. 

Quickie breakfasts for a work week (Freezer Breakfast Burritos recipe)

It's hard to believe winter break is over. As an administrator I have to work some of winter break, bills still need to be paid, people still want their paychecks, paperwork still needs to get done. But it is so different. For me, because my district is so small, I'm pretty much the only employee over the breaks. I can go in later, put in fewer hours, and it is so quiet. I can get much more done. I can focus on bigger projects without interruption. 

But tomorrow, everyone comes back again, staff, children, parents, full throttle.

So to make my transition back to the daily grind, I am putting up some quick and easy meals in the freezer. Yesterday I made a big pot of chili that I portioned into single serving containers and froze. Today I made ten breakfast burritos that should get me through at least two weeks of early mornings with a hot protein filled breakfast to start the day.

Freezer Breakfast Burritos

INGREDIENTS

10 low calorie flour tortillas 

5 eggs (I used liquid eggs, like Egg Beaters)

10 egg whites

1 cup frozen hash browns

1 cup shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese

1/2 cup fat free salsa

1/4 cup scallions, diced

1 cup spinach, chopped

1/2 pound turkey breakfast sausage, cooked drained and rinsed

Salt and pepper to taste

1) Brown hash browns in a skillet. Add the sausage and salsa. Cook until most of the liquid is cooked off of the salsa.

2) Scramble eggs and egg whites together. Season with salt and pepper. Slowly over medium heat, pour eggs into skillet and gently stir.

3) When the eggs are mostly cooked, add spinach, cheese, and scallions. Fold in. Remove from heat and allow to cool. The eggs will finish cooking as they sit.

4) Lay out the tortillas. Place about 1/2 cup of filling into the middle of each one.

5) Roll each one into a burrito with sides tucked in.

6) Wrap each burrito individually in plastic wrap. 

7) Put the burritos in a ziplock bag and freeze for up to three months.

Take one out each morning, as desired, and heat it in the microwave. Hot, delicious breakfast ready to go in only a minute or two.

(I'm not certain how long to microwave each one for, but I am guessing 1-2 minutes.)