Sunday Supper

Sunday Supper has degraded over the past year, from me spending a good portion of the afternoon, to a I am going to throw something together.  There are several drivers for the change, one is that the kids were not always big fans of what I cooked.  I cannot wait until their tastes expand past the basics.  I am very excited that Mr C actually ate tacos a while back.  I think their was some cousin peer pressure involved, they must be good of my cousin is eating them.  They are contet to have Cheerios (multi-grain of course) for dinner.  

Tonight it was hot dogs, a few weeks ago it was natchos.  They (the children) turned down nachos for dinner and elected to eat oatmeal.  I love hot dogs, always have and probably always will.  They have to have chili, mustard, ketsup, cheese, and relish, to be good.  Tonight's had those ingredients, laid on a whole wheat bun.  It was might tasty, and I only used a sauce pan for the chili, so there is not much clean up.  The kids grinned when I informed them we would be having hot dogs for dinner.

The chili out of a can and into the sauce pan, being heated by natural gas.

I have also always enjoyed cooking shows, and have made the switch to public broadcasting for my cooking show fix.  PBS here has a channel called Create which has the best cooking shows.  Shows with a wide variety of topics and techniques, without the recent reality TV slant which the Cooking Channel and the Food Network consist of.  Most of my knife techniques I learned from watching the tele...  So, here to PBS and create for providing a platform to learn about cooking while being entertained.

Quesadilla

Having grow up in Texas Mexican food has always been part of my diet.  The home town I grew up in had two good Mexican restaurants.  Therefore it is a regular part of my diet.  Tonight I was trying to decide what to eat when I got home and settled on cheese quesadilla, with a cast iron griddle it make cooking these simple.  Two flour tortillas shredded cheese and a little natural gas...  Bam there is dinner.  Throw in a Tecate (3.2 strength of course) some a all natural mango agave fire roasted salsa and you have yourself a meal.  While it may not be Abeluoes, Don Pablo's, or even El Chico, it is nourishment which hit the spot.  I raise my bottle of Tecate to the wild and crazy individual who though melting cheese between two flour tortillas would be a good idea.

 

Fun Kitchen Inventions

Yesterday I was listening to a new podcast on my way to work, it was from America's Trst Kitcehn.  They had reviewed some kitchen gadgets and highly rated a Chicago Mettalic Pie Drip Protector.  It sounds like a great idea, and to top it off, it has a silicon non-slip disk in the middle so the pie dish does not move around when entering and exiting the oven.  

Ok do not cook many pies, this year I think the total was two.  One Jeff David and on Pumpkin Pie.  Based on the frequency of baking, I will probably pass on getting one, if you bake a lot of pies it is worth looking into.

The other gadget that was reviewed (thrashed would be a better description) was a liquid dry material measuring cup/ scale.  Unfortunately I do not have the name of the manufacture.  The reviewed said that t had a whole list of things it could not do: no dishwasher (would not work at Natty's), no microwave, now soap and water... and she went on to say the her measuring cups were real work horses in the kitchen.  I would have to agree with her on that point, which is why I have 5 Pyrex measuring cups (2 - 1 cup, 2 - 2 cups, 1 - 8 cup). The big one does not get used all that much.  There are times when they are all dirty, and while they are not fancy with a scale, I can wash them in the sink, or the dish washer, heat them in the microwave.  

One of my favorite gadgets for Mexican food is the taco holder.  It keeps your tacos from falling over on their side and spilling thier contents, or even worst landing in the beans.  Refried beans are not to bad on the taco, Taco Bell has the double taco with a soft tortilla, Refried beans and then a crunchy shell.  Who knows, perhaps the inspiration came from a taco the fell over.