Today was one of those where we ran around all day without accomplishing much besides some basic food shopping in the morning. Things have been very stressful for us so far this week and we both have not been able to concentrate on much. I decided that it was not worth trying to do some important work and ruin it, so I spent the rest of the day doing some research on many project and gathering data so I can process it properly on a better day.
When we went food shopping in the morning we bough some nice French rolls with sesame seeds and a nice big chicken breast and some jalapeño tortillas. We were planning to make some nice chicken soup today and with the cooked chicken make some chicken and mole almendrado sandwiches today, and some enchiladas de mole tomorrow. Since we both were not in any mood to cook, we decided to prepare some nice ham and cheese sandwiches with the French rolls with some nice fresh avocado inside, accompanied by the leftover couscous and green salad from yesterday. We plan to do the soup and enchiladas de mole tomorrow. I’ll head for the kitchen and see if I have the energy to split a roll…
We are actively looking for renting or buying a house in a good colonia of Mexico City. We have been renting classrooms and space for our various courses and conferences for a while and renting space for this in a good area of town gets very expensive very quickly. It prevents us from giving as many course as we wish, or making the courses as long as we wish. We also cannot cater to smaller classes like I prefer to do as we have to have a certain amount of people registered to justify the rental of a room for the course. Add to that that traveling time from where we currently live to most centric areas of town have increased from around an hour to from 2 to 3 hours each way 7 days a week, so even going to give the classes is getting more and more difficult and I do not see any real change except for getting worse.
We want to remedy the situation by either renting or buying a house in a good area of town and use part of the house to give our courses and conferences. This would solve the problem of being able to offer as many course as we want, being able to offer course for smaller groups, and definitively eliminate the traveling problem.
If anybody reading this post has something to offer us, or know of someone who might have something, please contact me directly as I am open to any suggestions.
You might have noticed in the past few weeks that I am posting a lot of quick recipes and dishes made with frozen ingredients and dried condiments. The reason is twofold.
First we are actively looking for a place to move where we could give all of our courses in-house instead of renting space for each course or series of course. So we are trying to go through our supplies and frozen reserves to make the move easier on us. To achieve this we are buying a lot less and using what we already have in stock.
Second, in the area where we are currently living the availability of many ingredients we consider staples that we normally count on having in every grocery stores and on a regular basis are no longer available. Due to the very hard economic downturn of the past 18 months here in Mexico, and the high devaluation of the peso, the major grocery stores in our area are not stocking things that are not sold on a regular basis. Since the area is one of lower socioeconomical status this means what is not part of the daily diet is difficult to get. Case in point I have been trying to find for the past month some simple black peppercorns as I ran out, and they are not on the shelf anymore. I will have to make a list of basic things we cannot get anymore in the area, and the next time we go in town proper I will go shop for them. It is a real pain…
Getting back to the task at hand, I was not sure today what I would be serving with the thawed pork chops. I did not want to spend much time in the kitchen so I made one of my favorites, a simple couscous that takes about 10 minutes to prepare. I used some of last reserves of precooked couscous, which reminds me I should be adding that also to the list of things we will need to buy when we next go to town.
The simple ingredients for the couscous
Couscous is one of those things that makes a very satisfactory and very tasty side dish. It can be prepared in about 10 minutes if you use the precooked type and I plain love it. There are essentially 3 steps in preparing it. First, you boil some water and flavoring.
The water and flavorings
Second, when it starts boiling you just shut the burner and mix in the couscous.
The couscous added to the water
Third, you put the lid on the pot and wait 5 minutes for the couscous to absorb the water. You then add some butter and mix it in and server. It cannot be simpler.
I had a craving for nuts today, so I prepare a walnut couscous that was simply stunning. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
1 cup water
1 tsp herbes de Provence
1 tbs dried onions
1 tsp dried garlic
1 tbs hazelnut oil
1 tbs chicken broth powder
1 cup precooked couscous
1 handful of hand-crushed walnuts
1 tbs butter or margarine
Preparation
1. Put the water, oil, onions, garlic, chicken broth powder and herbes de Provence in a small pot.
2. Bring the water to boil over high eat.
3. When it starts boiling shut the burner.
4. Add the couscous and nuts and stir them in.
5. Put the lid on the pot and let rest for 5 minutes until the water is all absorbed.
6. Add the butter and mix in, then serve.
Today I defrosted the last of those thin pork chops we bought some weeks ago. I was rushed for time and since the temperature is still high I did not want to spend much time in the kitchen. The entire meal was prepared in around 20 minutes. I simply marinated the thin chops for a few minutes with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, sesame oil and “Jugo Maggi” a vegetable flavoring sauce. Then I grilled the thin chops to perfect crispness on a grill pan. This took only minutes. As a side dish I prepared a quick walnut couscous and a simple green salad. From entering the kitchen to the table only took a bit over 20 minutes and the results were very tasty.
It is one of those types of meals that takes longer to describe than to actually prepare. I will post some pictures before and also the recipe of the couscous.
The pasta I finally chose for today’s meal was spaghetti rigati. I cooked it to a perfect al dente, and with the heated sauce the meal turned out very good yet again. We relaxed a bit during the meal while watching a bit of TV, and now we are back at work for a few hours.
The cooking meal, sauce in front and pasta in the back
The plated spaghetti rigati all bolognese
The meal turned out exactly as I wanted. Very easy to prepare, as the sauce was from my private frozen stash, and also very tasty as the sauce was perfect as usual and the pasta was cooked like we like it. A great meal to end a great weekend.
Before lunch today we enjoyed a nice relaxing drink. It was a takeoff on a regular screwdriver, normally simply vodka and orange juice. The temperature was very hot in the house and I did not feel like having something too sweet like a huge glass of fresh fruit juice. I decided to first prepare “agua de frutas” a typical Mexican drink that literally translates to “fruit water”. It is normally made with many different types of fruits namely pineapple or guayaba or orange or lime or even hibiscus flowers (jamaica). The fruits are normally juices or “blenderized”, and a large jar is filled about one third full with the juice. A bit of sugar is added for flavor and to cut the acidity or tartness depending on the fruit and water is added to fill the jar. This makes a light refreshing water that is drunk with the meal.
The fruits before making the water
The fruits after making the water
I did press some of the citrus fruits I collected this morning from our trees and then added a bit of fructose and filled the jar with water. To make the drink I put ice cubes in a tall glass, a healthy shot of vodka, and filled the glass with the citrus fruit water. It make a nice tart refreshing drink that helped us cool down. I am glad that the fruit bowl is still mostly full and that the trees outside are loaded with a lot more fruits. I think that since the hot season is starting we will enjoy this nice refreshing drink regularly.
When I went spelunking in the freezer this morning I came across the last container of my Bolognese sauce that I made last month. I have been making my adaptation of this sauce for more than 30 years and it is very versatile. I make large patches and freeze it in individual portions. This was the last container so I should be making more in a few week. We normally do not eat pasta twice in the same week, but I was looking for something that would be tasty without any preparation. I will just have to boil some water for the pasta of unknown type I will make, and heat up the sauce. It will make a nice filling meal with no real intervention on my part, which is exactly what we need after a long day of work around the house.
I will see if I can convince Normita to make some nice fruit juice for the tropical punch while I go take a long-deserved shower…
We spent the morning outside today as we normally do. Every morning starts with me sweeping the front of the house to remove the accumulated dirt and leaves, and Normita waters all the plants and trees around the house.
When we moved here about 3 years ago the place had not been maintained in ages and the trees were not producing any fruits. We planted a lot of flowers in large pots in front of the house and created a flower garden the first year we lived here, but it took some time for the trees to start producing as the area is very dry and the trees were planted here with no regard to if they can thrive or not. Last year we had a great crop and we were mostly self-sufficient in fruits from June to December. This year the trees are loaded and we are already eating fresh fruits and we should be good until the end of the year if things goes well. It is a lot of hard work as the area is mostly desert and we only have water from the street for a few hours each morning. We need to do all the garden work early when there is still water. We have big water tanks for the house, but we do not want to use that for garden work. Whenever we have our own place I want to plant a big vegetable and herb garden for the kitchen, lots of fruit trees, and also some vines so that I can start making my own wines again with my own grapes… one day…
While we were working around the house I collected a bunch of citrus fruits and some of the first peaches of the season. Here they are in the sink waiting to be washed:
Here are the fruit in the sink waiting to be washed
We had the peaches for breakfast with the last of the grapefruits we have bought last week, but they were still a bit acid so we will wait a few more days or weeks for them to mature. The trees are loaded with them and it will be a great crop this year. The boyz will be happy as they normally eat everything that falls off the trees. I saw Bacchus looking up at the peach tree near the kitchen door this morning as it he was trying to hypnotize the tree to drop a few peaches for him. I think it worked as later I heard him munching on some stones from the peaches. The peaches only last a quick bite with him as he just crushes everything including the stone in one fell swoop.
With the citrus that includes some mandarins, some sour oranges, some limes, and some “limas” (a round sweet yellow citrus from Yucatan that seems to be a cross between a lime and some sweet citrus). With them we will shortly make a nice tropical fruit punch to relax after a long day of work. I will let you know later how it turns up.
I ended up finding a lot of things to put in the omelette and it turned out great. Since the mishap with the suadero earlier this week, thinks have improved dramatically and every meal was simple and just perfect. I hope that the trends continue…
I started by dicing the bacon and salami like yesterday and shredded a bit of Oaxaca cheese.
The diced salami and bacon and a bit of shredded Oaxaca cheese
I then diced a small zucchini, some mushrooms and a sweet red pepper.
The diced zucchini, mushrooms and sweet red pepper
Then it was time for 4 eggs some dried onions and oregano, a splash of sesame oil, a tablespoon of heavy cream, and some salt and pepper. I whipped them until light and fluffy.
The whipped eggs
The cooking then started buy sauteing bacon and salami until crisp.
The bacon and salami cooking
I then added the veggies and sauteed them until lightly cooked.
The veggies cooking with the bacon and salami
Then it was time for the eggs and then the Oaxaca cheese. I cooked the eggs until they were set and had a nice brown crust on the underside. As the pan was smaller and the omelette was thick, at that time the top was still not totally set. Like I normally do in those occasions, I used my trusty kitchen torch and set the top of the omelette with it and gave it a nice gratiné look.
The cooked omelette prior to plating
I split the omelette in half and plated it and we enjoyed a nice simple meal yet again…
