Enchiladas, Beans and Rice

I've been trying to eat less red meat, a lot of my Fall and Winter recipes are stews, chili, and what-not. When Carla and I were talking yesterday we thought some Mexican food might be nice. We had a pretty busy weekend planned what with the beautiful weather we've been having and it being the boys birthdays. That meant no custom sauces; we'd see what we could whip up out of cans. Since I just bought a new rice cooker, Spanish (Mexican?) rice was a must.

Seven ingredients for the rice (eight if you count the water). I took the recipe from a vegan site called trans-planted.comTrans-planted.com. It's the blog of a woman who lives overseas and cooks her favorite foods abroad. I'm not vegan so I used some chicken broth along with the water. She most have a very large rice cooker so I adjusted amounts based on a jambalaya recipe I found on zojirushi.com That's the maker of my new rice cooker. My recipe can be found here.

Spanish rice ingredients. Cumin is in the ramekin. 

Seven ingredients for the pinto beans as well. I've continued to tweak this recipe for my pressure cooker; I used five cups of liquid (3 of chicken broth; 2 of water) and they were a bit wet. But thicken up on reheating. You can find my recipe here. If you don't have a pressure cooker, just cook on the stove in a Dutch oven and keep an eye on the liquid; you might have to add some boiling water after an hour or so.

Pinto bean recipe. Cumin and chili powder in the ramiken. 

 Only five ingredients for the enchiladas! I used 1 large and 1 medium can for 12 enchiladas. I went the easy route. I thought about making my own enchilada sauce, but canned is fine. I went for medium heat; of course you can go as hot as you want. I got the recipe from Rockin' Robin; she has a nice video of the process. My recipe is here. I'll tell you she was much neater than me when it comes to making these. It is helpful to have two people assemble these. One to fry the tortillas and dip them in the sauce and another person to build the enchiladas.

Enchilada makin's 

 Back in the 70's when I worked at the Idaho State Correctional Institution as a teacher, Carla and I went to my boss' house (Tom Lloyd) for Texas enchiladas. They were literally the hottest things I have ever eaten even to this day. Enchilada parties were also a big event in college and after. People would bring different items and we'd construct amazing tubes of awesomeness. Cheese, green olives, and chicken in flour tortillas were the basic ingredients.

Simple cooking but lots of burners. I got to use three burners plus the rice cooker!

Hot oil and enchilada sauce in the frying pans. Beans in the pressure cooker.

 Pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas and put in a 400˚ oven for about 15 minutes.

Enchiladas ready to be served.

 I lucked out; all 3 dishes came out pretty close to one another.  I prepped everything before cooking anything. The rice took about an hour to cook so I started it; then started sautéing the salt pork for the beans. Once the beans were up to pressure we started making the enchiladas.

Spanish rice is ready.

 The rice was the weak link here; they were pretty bland. But they mixed perfectly with the beans. I'll do a little more research before cooking my next batch.

This was actually a pretty quick dinner. 1 hour 45 minutes from walking into the kitchen to having dinner on the table. And that includes stopping and taking pictures in the process.

Dinner is served

 The nice thing about this is we'll have plenty to eat all week.

Left overs. 1 container of beans to the freezer and 1 to the refrigerator.

Ridgefield and Cathlamet

The second weekend of March brings the the Cathlamet crab and oyster feed as we did last year. 

We left at 10:30 and did a bit of hiking at the Carty Unit of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

The Carty Unit is just a bit north of Ridgefield, Washington

Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Not spring just yet

Carla looking at me; Jay looking at an otter in the pond

Jay nursing a hot coffee. John being amazed at something he sees

Terry leading a part of our group

I've gone to the River Unit of the refuge in the past for train pics. This hike features a pedestrian bridge over the same tracks. The Coast Starlight is heading to Portland from Seattle

Coast Starlight Southbound

After the hike we headed up to Norse Hall in Cathlamet. It's on an island in the Columbia River.

Norse Hall

The oysters were getting a shower before their steam bath.

Cleaning the oysters

Into the steam bath for the Oysters

The feed is in the basement which seats about 150 people in long tables. There are big plastic sheets running the length of the tables with Sharpie lines marking spots for the various parties. There are 3 layers of plastic sheets pre-marked for the 3 feeding times 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00

One of our table mates; she was in the group next to ours

At the beginning each table goes through a line to get 1/2 a crab, potatoe salad, cole slaw, and some beans. Then youngsters come around with 5 gallon buckets of oysters. We went back for seconds. 

Tasty.

Oysters; and plenty of them.

The guy in the blue shirt from another group told some great stories about growing up on a pig farm. 

Remains of the day. Norm, from our group on the left.

The feed is a big fund raiser for the community; apparently they have a giant fireworks display the 3rd weekend of July.

The organizers (I think). I should have gotten their names

The only thing lacking was dessert. So on the way back to Portland, Carla checked Yelp for ice cream parlors. She found Ice Cream Renaissance Vancouver. They make their own ice cream.

Dessert

Thanksgiving 2012

I love it when Thanksgiving rolls around and we get to host the holiday party. I usually roast a turkey and make the gravy. Carla makes the dressing and mashed potatoes; my brother-in-law Jim deep fries another turkey; and everyone else pitches in  bringing stuff vegetables, wine, dessert, you name it.

It had been raining pretty strongly all week; I was hoping for a break on Thanksgiving so I could cook the turkey in the smoker without my getting soaking wet. It turned out to be a beautiful day.

Thanksgiving morning was clear and crips

 Carla and I are delighted this Thanksgiving. Andrew and Henriët flew out Wednesday morning. They'll be in Charleston South Carolina over Christmas so we won't see them again for a number of months.

Andrew and Henriët prepped the turkey; chopping the herbs, preparing the wet rub, and smearing the turkey.

Henriët prepped the herbs for the dry rub. (Photo by Henriët)

Henriët preparing the wet rub. (Photo by Henriët)

Andrew and Henriët with their work of art

Howard takes the turkey out to the smoker

 Once the turkey was started, Carla and Henriët started the dressing.

Carla with the universal pleaser: butter! Starting the dressing

Henriët got  a lovely new hair style after the wedding

 We were expecting anywhere from 20 to 24 people (we ended up with 22). Normally we've had two or three tables spread throughout the living areas. This year we wanted to get all of us in one room. Wednesday night we moved most everything out of the living room and put 3 tables end-to-end and jammed chairs around. I think everyone was pretty comfortable

Table is set waiting for the food and the people

 I cooked the turkey out on the smoker for about 3 1/2 hours but it was too cold for the grill to keep up. The last 45 minutes needs the temperature to go from 325 to 450 to brown the skin. So, I brought it in the house and convected it.
I've had a hard time finding a turkey recipe that works but think I've finally landed on the right one. I took this recipe from Cook's Country. First, I dry rubbed the turkey with some herbs and spices and let it sit for an hour. Then added a wet rub of mayonaise, olive oil, vinegar and more herbs. Lift the legs up high and cookd for 3 hours at 325; then take off the foil, bump the temp to 450 and let ér rip the last 30 minutes

The turkey looks like the recipe photo!

Dinner is served

 A young woman friend of ours, Jessica Milano, is in the cake business. We ordered a carrot cake from her for Thanks giving and it was delicious. Carolyn and Glenn brought home made apple pie. And of course no Thanksgiving Day is complete without pumpkin pie.

And dessert

It was a wonderful night. After the dishes were clean and everyone had left Carla, Andrew, Henriët, Jeff, Sarah, and I topped off the evening with some glasses of Amarula - a South African liquer.

A WONDERFUL day

The BURGER Project - Skyline Drive In

The Oregonian ranked Skyline Drive In as the 2nd best hamburger in the greater Portland area. The rankings can be found here. They ranked Dea's In & Out 9th. We definitely found Skyline wanting and nowhere close to Dea's. That damn liberal elite media is at it again (Tongue definitely in cheek)

The entrance for our 2nd BURGER project establishment

Getting ready to go in

"Am I making myself clear?"

The hamburger rated a 2 for us; that is 1 step above "Horrible". We found the meat to be thin, dry, and small. The Ameican cheese wasn't close to melted. The buns were not very fresh. Now the bacon was another story. The bacon was sublime and almost lifted the burger to a 3; almost I said. We only needed 2 napkins, compared to the 4 napkins at Deas.

Skyline Cheeseburger; add bacon. The bacon was sublime

The fries were warm, not hot and not as tasty as those at Deas. I had tots and I normally love tots. They were hot but a little mealy inside.

Digging In!

Tots! I love tots!

The shakes were good but made from soft serve ice cream. Jay had an extra thick and it lived up to its name. They were much smaller than Dea's Funny thing; there is the price for the shake and you can pay for extra flavor or extra thick. They are saying in effect: "Here's the price for a mediocre shake; if you want it to taste good and have some ice cream in it you have to pay an extra $1"

Jay's extra-thick chocolate milk shake

The location is nice up in the west hills on Skyline drive. We got a booth with windows on two sides so we could take in the view.

Nice view from the window. It snowed a touch while we ate.

Service was okay. It's nice that you sit down and they come and take your order. So the ambience was nice but the service was only so-so. They have lots of rules posted; I don't like places where you have to follow the establishment's rules to have a decent meal.

We rate Skyline Drive In as 2 stars (or 2 napkins). Living on its reputation not its quality.

The BURGER project inaugural run

In December the A&E section of the Oregonian had a piece on the 10 best classic burgers in Portland. The list looked reasonable but I couldn't be sure I agreed with the ratings when I realized they left Red Coach and Beaverton Char Burger off the list. This called for some investigation.

I'm not up to the project on my own, I knew I'd need some other expertise. So I asked a couple of buddies to join me. Jay Watson has a science background and I knew I could count on him to help build an excellent measurement tool. John Lee has lived in Portland most of his life and has the kind of background history that I could never match having lived here only 30 years.

First thing we had to do was come up with a name. We've settled on The BURGER Project where Burger is an acronym for  Bulbous Urbanites Researching  Gutbomb Eatery Repasts. My son Andrew showed me how to create an online form using Google Docs which will feed a spreadsheet. A list of places to visit was called for. We started with the Oregonian's list and will add our own as we go on. Our current list is:

• Beaverton Char Burger
• Canyon Grill
• Dea's In & Out
• George's Giant Hamburgers
• Helvetia Tavern
• Humdinger Drive-In
• Mike's Drive-In
• Red Coach
• Roake's
• Skyline Restaurant
• Stanich's
• Killer Burger

We  had a group, a name, a goal, a willingness to eat plenty of grease. We had a few delays over the holidays but finally got our inaugural run in today. We hit Dea's In & Out in Gresham; it's not related to the California In & Out chain; it must pre-date that chain by many years. A buddy of mine at work used to work there from  1983 to1984. He suggested the fries.


It was a 45 minute drive from Beaverton to the DES (Dreaded East Side) but well worth it. 

Ready to enter

My order came out first so I thought I'd grab a pic before the carnage. This was my first encounter with a long burger in over 30 years. My first week in Caldwell Idaho a group of my new best friends and I walked off campus to "The Long Bun" where I got my first view and taste of a hamburger that isn't round. I loved it then (of course I probably had had a few beers). Loved it this time too

Ready to be enjoyed. A long burger with cheese and bacon; fries with special sauce and a root beer milkshake

May 27, 2012 update. I've been learning more about photo editing. Here's a little better version of a similar picture to that above

Notice the trays. Jay doesn't have any fries; turns out he's not fond of greasy potatoes. WTF?

Jay and John ready to dig in.

Research is more than just eating. Jay shows off the double long burger he had. 

John uses a paper version of our form to tally his results

All done!

We rate hamburger, side dish, drink, service, ambience, and overall score. Our scale runs like this

1 - Horrible 2 - Not the worst ever 3. Average 4. Pretty damn good 5. Epic

Average ratings for the day: 

• Hamburger: 4
• Fries: 5 (John and I both had the fries which are perfect; not greasy; perfectly crisp; and awesome secret sauce)
• Drink: 3 (Scores of 2, 3, and 4) Jay rated his chocolate shake a 4: "good value for soft serve ice cream; he could taste the chocolate." Jay ever the scientist notes that it is a 24 oz serving. John felt there wasn't enough flavor and the soft serve ice cream base was a little grainy
• Ambience and atmosphere: 2.67  I started to rate it a 4 as a nice mix between a diner and a burger joint. But then I visited the men's room on the way out. I don't think it had been cleaned since the 80's.
• Overall score: 3.3  We all really enjoyed it; rating is like judging gymnastics and ice skating. We have to leave a ceiling for later entries.

First day out was a blast; we'll be headed out on Saturdays as our schedules allow.