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Archive for Around the House

Red Enchilada Sauce – Homemade Variety

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Two weekends ago we had a great family weekend here at the Party House. My sister, Laura, and her husband were here visiting from Montana, and we had a great weekend together. Laura had a red sauce recipe that she wanted to share with the entire family, to use on chicken enchiladas. The preparation for the big dinner on Saturday night started the day before on Friday afternoon.

Laura and I decided it would be best to make the sauce itself on Friday, let it veg and simmer, and mesh with flavor until Saturday afternoon. So on Friday afternoon, Laura took charge of the kitchen to make the sauce. Here’s the recipe from Laura:

Ingredients:

6-8 oz. whole dried chilis – Laura uses Ancho chilis which are fairly mild.
2 tsp. Mexican oregano
4 cloves garlic
2 cups chicken stock (or water)
1 tbsp. lard or olive oil
1-1/2 tbsp. flour or arrowroot powder
1 tsp. salt

Heat griddle or skillet until a drop of water sizzles on it. While heating, remove stems and seeds from chilis under running water. Gloves are recommended! Toast chilis on griddle until aroma is released – 30 to 60 seconds – do not burn! Put toasted chilis in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Soak until soft – 10 minutes. Drain chilis and discard liquid.

Lots of work getting the chili’s ready!

Place chilis, stock, oregano and 2 garlic cloves in blender or food processor, and puree until smooth. Add more stock if too thick. Work puree through sieve into a bowl – discard solids. Pour in a little more liquid to rinse sauce through sieve. In medium saucepan, heat oil or lard until rippling. Add the other two garlic cloves, pressing down in hot oil with the back of a spoon to release flavor. Remove when brown.

Add flour, stirring until golden. Add chili puree and salt, cook over low heat about 10 minutes.

Now, please remember we were making this sauce for a group of about 16 or 17, give or take a friend. Laura quadrupled the recipe for our gang. Our goal was to make (2) 13×9 pans of chicken enchiladas coated with the red sauce, and a pan without tortillas, as some of our family members are eating carb-free meals. And we wanted a bit of sauce to mix in with some rice.

For the enchilada assembly you will need:

Chicken – The chicken breast was cooked in the crock pot for 5-6 hours on low. Two crock pots with about 10 chicken breasts total. Place the chicken in the crock pot, sprinkle the chicken with your favorite taco seasoning, add about a cup of chicken broth, turn on low. When the chicken’s ready you can shred it or chop it, whichever your recipe prefers.
Black beans, drained and rinsed.
Sautéed onions.
Shredded mild cheddar or co-jack cheese.
Corn tortillas.

Once the onions are sautéed, add the black beans to heat them up. Then mix the beans and onions in a large mixing bowl with the shredded chicken. We mixed in a skosch of the red sauce just to moisten everything before baking.

For the assembly you need extra pairs of hands and you will make a mess with this step.

Dip the corn tortilla in the red sauce, and scrape off any excess on the side of the pan you are dipping in.
Pass the tortilla to the enchilada filler person.
Put a scoop of the chicken, bean, onion mixture in the middle of the tortilla.
Have the person in charge of the cheese sprinkle cheese on top of the meat mixture.
Roll the tortilla up and place in your baking dish.
Keep assembling and rolling until your baking dishes are filled.
Pour the remaining red sauce over the enchiladas, and sprinkle cheese on top.
When making these for a crowd it’s ok to put a double layer of enchiladas in the 13×9 pan. Just use some of the sauce in between layers.
Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 to heat them up.
Once the baking is complete, get those enchiladas on your dinner plate and enjoy!

Assembly in progress.

Finished pan right before the cheese.

To finish out our dinner menu we also had rice with some of the sauce mixed in, homemade salsa (thanks Naomi), wine, and our favorite almond champagne. The only thing missing from the dinner was Travel Man, and our youngest son. They were both working.

Try this recipe soon, your taste buds will love it! Thanks for schooling us on the sauce recipe Laura. Cannot wait to make this one again.

What’s your favorite enchilada sauce – red or white?

Photo credits- Joan Weise, Erica Bettencourt, and me. Thanks everyone for remembering to take a few pics!

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Food, Recipes

Technology Can Still Amaze Me

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Today is Friday, and presently I am texting with Travel Man via Skype while he is 30,000 ft in the air on his way to Denver. I am still awed and amazed that we are able to have this type of communication. I mean granted we just spent two days together, but to be able to continue our conversations while he is on the plane is fantastic. I’m a lucky girl.

Travel Man will tell you he is grateful to have the communication avenues that we have today to stay in touch. We like to use Skype for the video calling, and the occasional IM(instant messaging). When he is out of the country we use Tiger Talk to text with each other due to the roaming restrictions on the phones. For his international travel we have also used Skype’s phone calling feature to make international calls. We just buy a set amount of Skype credits, and this way we stay away from any roaming charges on our personal cell phone plan.

Travel Man uses TripIt to keep track of every bit of his travel information for every trip. It logs airline reservations, hotels, and car rentals, and it notifies me (aka the Domestic Goddess) when there is a new itinerary in place. TripIt also has mobile apps for either the Android or iPhone to stay completely connected, and it syncs with Outlook. TripIt helps me, to help Travel Man make sure all of his plans are in order. Especially when he has back-to-back trips. For tracking the air travel I like to use an app for my iPhone called FlightAware. This app tracks the flights and notifies you of any delays along the way. I have used many flight trackers over the years, and this is my favorite to date. The user friendliness of the app is what appeals to me, and the accuracy of the information.

Since I am fortunate to have Travel Man in my life to keep me informed on the latest and greatest technology, it’s easy for me to learn about new apps, or new technology available. I’m glad we are both able to have lots of ways to communicate with one another. It’s how we stay sane. But you know nothing beats just an old-fashioned phone call to hear the voice of your loved one. What’s your favorite form of communication in this technological era?

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Travel Man, Travels

A Parent’s Admiration

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Over this past weekend, my sister and her husband were visiting from Montana. The Party House was completely a buzz because Dooney (my sister Laura) and Stevo (Laura’s husband, Steve) were in the house. Also, my nephew, Jim was here from San Luis Obispo. Saying the Party House was a little packed was an understatement. Although, we were without Travel Man, and our youngest son, Zach. They were both working for a living.

We had great times, great conversation, and great food from Wednesday at lunchtime until the last meal yesterday at lunchtime.

But there was a moment that not everyone would have seen or heard, that was filled with such love I could not help but share it with you all. My parents were sitting in our family room, kind of off to the side of the room, in these two comfy chairs I have there for reading. The girls (myself, my sister, and Elaine) and I were getting the enchiladas rolled and put together for baking. And I could hear my parents in the corner talking about all of their kids and grandkids, and now Evan, the great-grandchild all in the same place at the same time. I just caught bits and pieces of what they were saying, but their conversation was filled with such love and pride, it’s one of those “moments” for me that I will always be able to recall. It was one of those “moments” that is so filled with love and family that you feel as though “your cup runneth over”. Sometimes when we are fortunate to get everyone together like this my Mom will say to my Dad, “Yo Rocky (even though his name is Jim), I can’t believe we done dis!”

Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner together, filled with wonderful, loving toasts all around the table. We are so incredibly fortunate to have such a loving, soulful family. I am just feeling thankful today. Blessed and thankful. My hope will always be that everyone gets to have this kind of family experience, at least once in their lives.

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Have You Ever Seen a Birdie Condo?

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Renee Spindle

We have a nice patio cover off of our kitchen and family room. It has great shade cloth and it’s where Travel Man does all of his grilling. We also have birds, and its springtime so we have lots of birds flitting around the house. There is a cute couple of finches, or maybe swallows that come back to this particular spot on our patio cover every year. This year I was on a mission to make them move their nest location away from our patio cover. Mainly to relocate the mess that dribbles onto the patio.

In the little nooks where the birds normally build their nest we stacked a couple of rocks. I thought surely this will stop them from building. But lo and behold here’s what they did.

View from the ground View up at birdie level

There is a nest build right on top of the rocks squished up to the screen cloth on the patio cover. The birds diligently built this little nest because they are claiming their space. I was amazed at how hard they worked to build this nest. One bird would fly in and then the other, but there was so little space they could not squeeze in there at the same time. We briefly, and I do mean nano-second briefly, discussed knocking the nest down to avoid all of the mess. But when I cast my vote for the nest, I wanted to save it because the birds had worked so hard. There was some eye rolling over this decision by some of my family members.

The nest stayed, but oddly enough the birds did not. They “flew the coop” last week sometime. I guess they decided their tight quarters were not going to work. So, Travel Man said to tell you all, so you can tell your birdie friends, that we have a birdie condo for rent. Great location, warm weather, and a cat perched below watching your every move. This springtime story will go down in the family history books.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Travel Man

Another Installment of When Travel Man’s Away…..

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Renee Spindle

This has been kind of a funky morning. My theory is with a Road Warrior for a husband (aka Travel Man) nothing goes wrong around the house until he is away. Travel Man is in Alabama working this weekend, and there’s a few household glitches I thought I would share with you all.

The patio screen door would not go back on the track. After a new an improved latte in my coffee mug this one is fixed. Just needed some caffeine to get past my frustration on this one.
The washer has a quirky problem. We have a fancy new fangled front loading washer. If certain someone’s do not clean out their pockets properly sometimes things get stuck in this little filter/trap on the front of the washer. This was happening quite often so I got a lesson in how to fix it myself. So of course today, I had to clean out the trap- yuck, smelly water, and now we’re back in business. Who needs a washer warranty anyway.
And my last quirk was that the first latte I made myself this morning had no espresso dripped into it. The filter folded over on itself, and the coffee never dribbled into the milk. This one happened before the previous two.

At this moment, I am happy to report that I got my latte, got everything fixed and in shape, and now on with my family weekend. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, and even if you are not, a Road Warrior is someone who makes their living while traveling from place to place or customer to customer, or job to job. On the road, in the air, not usually by bus or train unless they are in some remote location. My Travel Man is a Field Service Technician, and travels to plants all over the USA for his work. But the details there are a story for another day. Hope you all enjoy your Friday. Mine is much better now. Toodles!