Suburban Kvetch

Suburban, spicy, spinach enchiladas

In honor of having a fabulous day with my friend Melanie who lives in Mexico, I thought I’d share my recipe for Spinach Enchiladas.  The actual post about my day with Melanie comes later.

To give credit where it’s due, the first time I had Spinach Enchiladas was with my friend Pamela — they were part of a Mexican feast she created for her birthday (and graciously shared with some friends). I knew my son would love the enchiladas, so before I even asked Pam for the recipe, I whipped up some on my own, and then did it again recently with even a better result.

According to Melanie, there are no spinach enchiladas where she lives…so consider this your warning that while they are delicious, chances are they are not authentic, hence the ’suburban’ disclaimer!

And we’re big into healthy foods around here, so feel free to swap out ingredients if you’re not.

Spicy Suburban Spinach Enchiladas

6 Corn tortillas (we stay away from white flour whenever possible)

Bag of frozen chopped spinach (I used Trader Joe’s, but any will do)

Fat free sour cream (I stick to Breakstone, the others taste funny to me)

Green salsa (again, from TJ’s)

1/2 cup Shredded Mexican style cheese (I use the kind made from 2% milk)

Green or Red Enchilada Sauce

I nuke the spinach and then squeeze out all the water.  Otherwise you will have Soggy, Spicy, Suburban Spinach Enchiladas.

In a medium bowl I mix the spinach with a few tablespoons of the fat free sour cream and the green salsa to taste.  It should look like old-fashioned creamed spinach at this point.

Use a small baking pan, spray with cooking spray.

Divide spinach eventually between six tortillas, in a “stripe” down the center of the tortilla. Fold over the ends, leaving other ends open (unlike a burrito, where you close the ends).

Did I forget to tell you to warm the tortillas?  OK then, warm the tortillas by wrapping them in a damp paper towel and popping them in to the microwave for 20 seconds.  If you don’t, it will still work, but the tortillas will crack.  It will still taste really good though if this happens.  Trust me on this one.

Put the tortillas with spinach into the baking pan fold down.  Line them up cozy next to one another.  Cover with sauce of choice and cheese.  We measure the cheese for the lower-cal effect, but you don’t have to if you’re a rebel with low cholesterol.

Bake at 350 until until the cheese bubbles.

I can eat 2 or 3 as a meal.  My son adds sour cream on top, sometimes I add a little extra heat with peppers.

Adios mi amigos, enjoy!

Brisket and the Art of Long-Term Friendship

I landed a job in the admissions department of a small Lutheran college in New Jersey.  The fact that I knew nothing about college admissions wasn’t nearly as strange as the fact that I was the only Jewish staff member, and most likely, the only Jewish person on campus.

I picked up on the way things were done and grew comfortable in my role handling computer issues, desktop publishing and learning the admissions business.  One day, waiting for a staff meeting to begin, we talked about our weekends, and subsequently our meals. And although the details before this elude me, I must have mentioned brisket.  A somewhat tanned, dark haired woman turned to me.  I’d seen her in the office before.  She was new, but we hadn’t met.

“Did you say brisket,” she asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Are you Jewish?”

I wasn’t sure if this was a trick question.

“I am.”

“I’m Catholic,” she said, “I love brisket.”  She moved from her seat next to me, and leaned in.  “And lox and bagels.  I’m the only non-Jewish person in line for bagels on Christmas morning.”

I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to make me, the lone Jew, feel at home or if she truly felt a kinship and wanted to bond over brisket and bagels.

“How do you make it,” she asked. “You know, the brisket.”

And so I told her.

That was over 18 years ago.

I was pregnant with my son and my new friend, Renee, was thinking about getting divorced.  She was 32 - practically ancient to my 27 - but we were close friends from that moment on.  She was a seasoned (as seasoned as one can be at 32) admissions counselor and showed me the ropes.  Renee introduced me to Martha Stewart, country clubs and Eggs Benedict.  I taught her the Russian-Jewish custom of tying a red ribbon to something to ward off any ne’er-do-well (i.e. her mother-in-law) wishing her harm.  That next Christmas - the last with her ex - she decorated her house with big red velveteen bows.  That was right around the time I started coordinating table cloths and napkins for dinner parties.

Renee was there the day my son was born and took a hearty dose of allergy medicine to attend his Bris (she was allergic to our dog).  She reveled in my new parenthood and I listened as she mourned the loss of her single home, her Laura Ashley adorned bedroom and at times, even her ex-husband.

Our friendship, the way I remember it, just happened.  There were no mommy cards, no texting, no cell phones.  There was no email.  At least there wasn’t for me.  Our campus and local diner lunches took us away from campus and enabled us to find our similarities and revel in our differences.  The pot luck dinners brought varied friends together.  Maybe it had something to do with being young.  I think it really just had to do with it being a much simpler time - or maybe back then, I just new simpler people.  And I mean that in a good way.

But then I stopped working to be a stay-at-home mom.  The college closed and Renee got a new job.  I moved several times.  We lost touch somewhere between Renee getting her master’s degree and me and my family moving to Cleveland.  I couldn’t find her even though I was online, because I didn’t know where she was.  This was before the days when you could find almost anyone on Google.  Her parents were unlisted.  Can you imagine?  As creepy as internet access can be, it lends an element of permanence to relationships.  It is really hard to lose track of someone these days.  But not back then.

Renee and I lost track of one another, found one another and then lost track again.  And then one day - about ten years ago — I got a phone call.  It was Renee! She was packing her apartment for another move to another city and came across my parents’ phone number.  She called them and they gave her my number.

Sometimes, after a long time, we hear from someone we haven’t thought of in ages.  It wasn’t that way with Renee.  I’d thought about her often.  And even if I hadn’t, I think the key to these long-term, heavy-duty friendships is the willingness to remember the past and embrace the possibilities for the future.  Would it have been easy for me to shun someone who called, after years, who lived thousands of miles away and with whom technically I had nothing in common?  I had new friends in a new city and I believed I was on the cusp of an amazing life.  But when someone reaches out through the years and over miles, it behooves us to slow down enough to listen and to remember those technology free years when we met and became friends because of brisket.

And anyway, it was Renee.

That night we talked and talked like we were sitting across the table in her kitchen, her dad playing with my son, sticking ten dollar bills into his one-year-old pockets.  She and I filled in all the blanks - or so I thought — until I mentioned my four-year-old daughter and Renee said, “Who?”

She didn’t know I’d had a daughter.

We remedied the situation and saw Renee on a planned trip to Florida, where she lived.  Another time she flew from to meet us on a different vacation.  She and I spent a girlfriend weekend in Chicago.  Ten years since our reunion we have not lost touch again - on the contrary.  Through more moves, job loss, my divorce and both families’ tragedies, we’re more connected than ever. And as always, she can lift my spirits with three small words…Amy, it’s Renee.

Long ago and far away we giggled innocently about a handsome professor (we were married, not blind), shared recipes (so much more than brisket), talked about our families (the good, bad and ugly) and planned our futures (boy, were we wrong).

Now we talk about being single, and not naively.  We reminisce about the past and look forward to times unknown.  Today, the intensity of our combined experiences is way beyond that of a chuckle. We belly laugh until we cry - or until someone has to pee.

Come to think of it, that’s the same as when I was pregnant — and Renee was on the divorce diet.

That’s what you call coming full circle.

* * *

Brisket Recipes or Essential Ingredients for a Friendship

Unlike Texans, Jews don’t barbeque their brisket, we braise it like a pot roast.  I started making ’sweet brisket’ when I got married.  It’s a traditional holiday meal, but was unlike the brisket I grew up taste-testing in my grandmother’s kitchen. Shortly after I divorced, my grandmother passed away.  I’ve only made her brisket since. Both recipes are below.

Sweet Brisket

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:
Salt
Onion salt (optional)
Garlic salt (optional)

Liquid:
1 12-oz bottle chili sauce
20 oz Manischewitz or other very sweet wine
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Vegetables:
1 sliced sweet onion
6 chopped carrots
3 lbs potatoes, quartered

Sprinkle seasonings over meat and rub in lightly. Sear the meat in 500 degree oven for 10 minutes on each side. Combine liquids and vegetables, pour over meat, cover and cook at 350 degrees for 3 hours. It freezes well if you invite light eaters and have leftovers.

Brisket with Gravy

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:

Onion Soup Mix 1 or 2 packets

Liquid:

Water

Sprinkle onion soup mix over meat and rub in lightly.  Wrap meat tightly in several layers of aluminum foil and place in a roasting pan.  Cook it at 300 degrees for as many hours as you can stand not eating it, at least 3.  Slice against the grain, place back in roasting pan, cover with au jus and keep warm on 250.  The more it cooks the better it tastes, it tastes even better the next day.  Serve it with au jus or the brown gravy of your choice.  Make it or buy it, I don’t think it matters.  I’d say it freezes well too, but there’s never enough left  to find out.

Cross-Posted at Imperfect Parent

Don’t put an artichoke in the microwave

I fancy myself a decent cook and purveyor of above-average meals that have gotten two children to - and almost through -  the adolescent stage of life.  Healthy foods fill the cabinets, fridge and freezer — Omega 3’s and whole grains, organic beef and free range chicken.  Even quinoa.  Of course  occasionally I make a grave error in judgment - like the time I attempted to pass off turkey as beef, the misplaced attempt to hide pulverized vegetables in burgers and today, when in an effort to expand the 5-a-day repertoire, I decided that steaming an artichoke could be done in the microwave.

It cannot.

Houses that smell like burnt artichokes for upwards of four hours, send teenagers running for the proverbial hills and dogs under the beds.  Come to think of it, burning artichokes might be something to consider depending on the day.

That being said, I consistently and successfully broil, braise and grill.  I slow cook and stir fry.  I follow recipes and I wing it.  I can make different meals with the same ingredients and the same meals with different ingredients.

But I’ve never entertained the idea of a cooking blog.  I’ve written posts about food and nutrition, of my whatever philosophy that has led my kids to make a lot of good choices.  But cook online?  On display?

No.

I don’t have pretty, matching mixing bowls or vintage measuring spoons.  My mix-master is white and dusty, and my hand-held mixer has one blade.  I have cabinets with stacked  pots, pans and nary a pull out drawer that gives me easy access.  I have lids that almost fit most of my casseroles dishes and my Tupperware collection has no real Tupperware.

I don’t clean up as I go, which means that every bag, box, package and bowl is on the counter when the cooking is done.  It lends itself to little more than an overwhelming clean-up - which often means that I leave it until morning especially if I need to watch The Bachelorette or The Next Food Network Star.

While none of those things have effected my enthusiasm for creating a meal that meshes — it has tempered my ability to cook in a group - and to share my passion on a blog.

I will offer you a word of advice though - without the benefit of step-by-step instructions or a litany of  colorful photographs showcasing antique stoneware bowls with bright yellow neatly whisked, bubbly egg yolks.

When you want artichokes,  just open a can.