The Little Things

A knarled tree,
A twisted fence,
My fancy is caught
Like a thread on a nail.

An impression in a stone,
An unusual bird sitting high in a tree,
My fancy is caught
Like a thread on a nail.

A pair of interlocking ripples,
A group of parading catepillars,
My fancy is caught
Like a thread on a nail.

My eyes can see,
My ears can hear
The little things
In a writer's world.

Cooking on Day 1

Menu item? Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Salsa (curtesy of Chef Tyler Florence)

Side? Spanish Yellow Rice

Estimated Time? 1 hour and 45 minutes

Actual Time? 3 hours

Monday dawned, and I knew that tonight I would be making dinner. I was not apprehensive or distraught. I was actually quite excited. I looked at the recipe and calculated the time I would need to have dinner ready by 6. I also factored in extra time because I'm slow whenever I'm cooking or baking. Then, I donned my Star Wars apron. Everybody should own a Star Wars apron. :D

My first task was to make the tomatillo salsa. I had to chop up the tomatillos, garlic, and put the jalapenos on a pan to roast in the oven. Then, I pulled the pan out after 14 minutes, and put it all, along with the juices of the onion, into the food processor. It was my first time using this appliance, and I liked very much pulsing everything and having it be so easy. The salsa was supposed to be combined well but still chunky. 

Around this time, I had to shred a whole deli chicken. Now, I've never shredded chicken before so it was quite an interesting experience. I'll let you know that your hands sure do feel nice and slimy afterwards. I didn't mind so much about ripping apart the rib cage and dismantling the legs. My issue mainly came with the jelly. You probably know what I mean, if you've eaten refrigerated deli chickens before. At the bottom of the tray or bag or whatever it's in, and often on the bottom of the chicken as well, is a nice browish colored jelly that consists of fat drippings and bone marrow juice. It's pretty nasty to just look at, but when you've got to plunge your fingers into the stuff and pull it from the meat, it gets a bit...not nice.  



After the chicken was shredded, my next step was to prepare the filling for the enchiladas. The first step of this was to dice an onion, which I've never done, and then carmelize it in a saute pan. I took the onion, it was actually just half, and poised my knife, remembering all my watchings of food network chefs dicing onions. I first cut it sideways, working my way up, but of course not going to the very end. Then, I cut down into the thin strips. Lastly, I chopped it the opposite way down, and voila, I had a not badly diced onion. That was the proudest moment for me. I had just diced an onion. It felt really cool! To the left is a picture of my nicely diced onion.

After carmelizing the onion, I added garlic to the pan, then cumin and flour, and then chicken stock. When the velout had thickened a lot, I added half of the tomatillo salsa and lastly, folded in the chicken. Next, the tortillas had to be filled.

Now, the recipe tells you to flash cook the tortillas on the stove top and then coat them in some of the remaining salsa. I tried it with one, and it had no affect on anything. So, I'd skip it entirely next time. I put the filling in the tortillas, sprinkled them with Monterery Jack cheese, and proceeded to roll them like a cigar. By the way, there was about half of the filling left, after all the tortillas were rolled. In the bottom of my pan, was a thin smearing of the salsa, so that nothing would stick. You put the tortillas down and then dump the rest of the salsa on top, as well as cover everything with a layer of cheese.

Getting all nice and melty

The enchiladas had to bake for 30 minutes, so that was just enough time to fix up the yellow rice. While everything finished cooking, I cleaned up the kitchen and had almost all the dishes loaded. I felt quite productive. Okay, now for the big question, how was it? They were good. They weren't stellar, but the flavor of everything was good, and the family all agreed on that point. I still prefer Mom's recipe, but, if we're wanting to make them a little different, this would be a good kind to make.

The recipe is here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-enchiladas-with-roasted-tomatillo-chile-salsa-recipe/index.html

So, my first cooking day was a success. And, I'm very pleased to say that. I was hoping for a good kick off. Also, while it did take nearly 3 hours, because I'm so slow, I never really got flustered, and I enjoyed myself. Ready for meal #2. Here's a final picture to leave you with how it looked coming out.

New Designs

Yes, I've changed the blog look again. I was getting a bit bored with the rain look, so I decided to ask my brother (who's extremely gifted in the area of computers), if he wouldn't mind helping me out. Well, what do you think of his work? I love it! It's purple which is perfect for me and is fun and interesting at the same time. Thank you, Ryan for doing such a great job.

Chef for a week

For a long while now, I've been really wanting to learn how to cook. I want to be able to cook and cook well. Now, I can make a few things like meatloaf, Crockpot Chicken, and Chicken Chilie, but I haven't ever made anything new. Well, I have....once. But it was a horrible experience and a not much better meal, so I try to block that memory from my mind.
I've tried my hand at making pasta salad twice. Both times it's been fun and satisfactory to put some creative effort into my food and then eat it. Well, with these successes, I took the advice of my brother, Ryan, and decided to make a meal plan for the dinners of the week.
So, without telling anyone, I went snooping around foodnetwork.com for recipes that captured my interest. I knew I wouldn't have to plan anything for Sunday, and I wasn't going to do anything for Saturday either. So, I was going to find 5 recipes. Suddenly, everything started coming together so I talked to Mom and told her about how I wanted to take over the kitchen for the week. She was all too pleased, as you can imagine.
Well, I'm not going to tell you the recipes until I make them. However, I promise to write a post for each recipe so you can follow me on my journey of cooking. Also, I'll take pictures. :)

Tori's Birthday Outing

Even though this is rather late, I said I'd post it, so, I'm gonna post. I wanted to take my friend Tori out for her birthday. So, we planned to go shopping at Plato's closet which is a resale store that sells name brand clothing. Then, we'd go and hit the movies to watch X-Men: First Class. We hooked up and had so much fun looking through the racks and finding hilarious shirts.

Tori almost wanted to get this shirt. :D 

I thought this one was great.

After Plato's closet, we headed to the theatre where we walked around and looked at posters. On the way, we spotted the cut out for Taylor Lautner's new movie, Abduction. Tori had to stop and take a picture with him. So, I got in it too.  

We had such a fun time! It was really great and she enjoyed the movie as did I (I'd already seen it though). Can't wait to go out with her again. 

July=Fun

While these last few days of July have not had any huge stand outs, the rest of July will be pretty fun packed. On Tuesday, I'm going to be hangin' out with one of my girlfriends! (I'll post on it, with pictures!) Then, next week I have a Region Camp. I'm sure all of you know what Region is, 'cause I've explained it before. I must have. :D Anyway, so it'll be the first time I get my music that I'll be singing for the next few months. Plus, I'll be there with some of my friends! That always makes something fun, more fun. After all of this, I've got an event planned for my choir which will be tons of fun! After that? Who knows? Maybe even more fun things will present themselves!

Rediscovering

     So, with all of this reading I've been doing lately, I have neglected my writing. Shameful, I know. I myself was appalled in thinking back to when I'd last written. And I mean, WRITTEN! Not editing or rereading what I'd written, or adding a sentence here and there. I mean, locked up in my room for several hours, sitting on my bed with the computer on my lap, the open document before me, and wrestling with myself on how to write one page. That's real writing. And I hadn't done it in awhile.
     Well, on Sunday, I was talking to some of my friends about my past books. Thinking over these books that I'd completed, I suddenly got this craving to write again. I got home and when I got the chance, locked myself in my room (not litereally of course), got on my bed, put the computer on my lap, opened the document, and stayed in that position until I'd written about a page. It was something like two hours later. :D
     Boy, did it feel good! I mean, I always know I enjoy writing, but I neglect it so often for something else. Then, when I finally get back to it, I'm like, "WHOAH! Why do I not do this everyday?!" Watching a blank page fill up with words that have come out of you is a feeling that no can understand, unless you've done it yourself. It's surreal, let me tell you that.      
     Also, I've been trying to work out my plot for my upcoming Nano novel. Yes, I start planning early. :) Well, I have the general shell of an idea, but for a few days the names of the characters were really illuding me. And when I can't think of names, it drives me crazy. This may be due to the fact that I have trouble fleshing out my characters until they're named. A lot of other people I know that write make their characters first and then name them. Not me. I've always got the loose idea of what the character's traits are, but I can never find the right words to describe them. When the name hits, then the exact words come.
     So, I was struggling with the names until yesterday. All of a sudden, I had this name streak, and all these names came pouring into my brain. And I found the perfect ones for my characters!!! All 4! It was so exciting. You know what I did next? I went ahead and made their characters. ;)
     Yes, these last few days have been very exciting as I rediscover my passion for writing. There are few things I enjoy doing more. So, I think today, when I have my free time, I'm going to write. :D