What's For Supper????

It is Monday..and for some reason I have been sleepy all day. Not enough sleep last night. They say the first thing to go when you are sleep deprived is your imagination. .
So True.
I do not any idea what I might want for supper tonight...4 hours from now!

I usually never have this problem! So I called daughter Megan to ask her what she
was having for super tonight. She is the kind of gal who writes up her menus a week or 2 in advance. So for tonight, she said she is having Taco Salad.
Hmm...John often does not like big salads...he find it takes too long to chew all that lettuce. It is cold out today, and it is a Monday...some hot comfort food..??? Hey, maybe burritos!
Ok..burritoes...with guacamole and sour cream, chicken, rice and beans and green chilis! All Right! Burritos it is!

99 Cents Store Deals

This week I purchased quite a nice bundle of asparagus for 99.99 cents at the 99 Cents Only Store. Looks like I can get at least 6 servings out of that! I would have paid 3 dollars at any other store in town for that bundle. Coincidentally this week also, while at Barnes and Noble I saw the cookbook I have pictured here...

Here is review from amazon.com:

Tired of forking over hundreds of dollars for entertaining her friends and family, Christiane Jory made a decision. She challenged herself to create more than 100 gourmet recipes for appetizers, side dishes, main courses, and desserts-solely with items she found at 99¢ Only Stores! In this delightful, practical cookbook, Jory serves up delectable dishes, including:

* Artichoke Spinach Bake on Homemade Pizza Bread
* Green Beans Au Gratin
* Chicken Tetrazinni
* Pinot Noir Poached Pear Tart

This handy guide is filled with sample menus, a glossary of cooking terms, and space for creating recipes of your very own. Each recipe includes an estimated cost and helpful kitchen hints, such as uses for recycled milk cartons and how to freeze egg whites. Never again will finances be an excuse for not entertaining with pizzazz. With The 99¢ Only Stores Cookbook, feeding a family, playing host to five or six, or even simply cooking for one at home needn't cost a small fortune ever again!

About the Author
Christiane Jory graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and, after thirteen years in New York, returned to her native Los Angeles. Out of necessity and desire, she was determined to find a creative way to survive as a starving artist. Two years of compiling and testing has lead to this astounding buffet of treats created with ingredients purchased solely from 99¢ Only Stores. This is her first book.


Tonight we had Megan's recipe for Enchilada Casserole (I used wheat flour tortillas instead of white) and then I served the vegetable side dishes. We always sprinkle lots of black pepper on our vegetables. Anyway, thanks to the 99 Cents Only Store for the yummy asparagus!

Organic Romaine Lettuce

I made 2 decisions last week: to always buy organic romaine lettuce and organic apples. Both are for sale at BJ's Health Foods here in Victorville (by Walmart.)
I paid $1.19 for the bunch (head?) of romaine lettuce and separated the leaves and took a picture of them here.) It is just a nice bunch...felt good to take the leaves off the base and lay them out. I washed just what I neede for 2 salads the first night. I Soak the leaves in a big bowl of water for about 30 seconds, then swish them around in the water with my hand, then put them in my salad spinner and spin off all the water.
I made 6 salads out of that one bunch of romaine:
The first had ingredients John especially loves in his salad: pickled beets. I buy them sliced in a can and then stack them and slice them into "matchsticks". He also likes raisins in his salad. I put walnuts in this salad. I was out of avocados, which he always prefers (me, too) but I did have a small tomato.

The rest of the Romaine leaves I left unwashed and just put them in a clear bag in the fridge.

The second set of salads were just 2 Caesar salads. Wish I would have had the shredded Parmesan from the refrigerated cheese section of the grocery store. Just had the grated in the shaker can. And the croutons. I had the classic Caesar salad dressing (T Marzetti's from the refrigerated salad dressing section.

The third was a Western Salad with corn, black beans, a tiny bit of red pepper and chopped onion and cilantro, and a small amount of crushed tortilla chips. Made my own dressing with Mayo, Pace picante sauce and some Tapatio (bottle of hot sauce). John really liked it.

I love using the new wooden salad bowls Larissa gave us for Christmas. These bowls are never to be put in the dishwasher..I just rinse them out well, with a tiny am't of dish soap sometimes, not every time, and wipe them clean.

So..in summary: you can get 6 salads from one medium bunch of romaine lettuce. I am happy to say I used the entire bunch within a 5 day period and not a single leaf went bad or was wasted. Good feeling!

The Secret Ingredient of the Best Meals...

...is your own loving energy. !

What is on my comal lately...

Funny thing..you cannot see my nice big comal..it is black and so is my stove!


This product(raw, uncooked tortillas) is found in some markets and you can go to www.tortillaland.com to find out more. I paid $2.98 for 12. The ingredients
are simply water, oil, flour, salt. Whereas, if I look on the labels of the regular white semi-cooked tortillas (Mission brand, etc.) I see a lot more presevatives and sometimes transfats. If a labal says partially hydrogentated vegetable oil or shortening, that is a transfat and it is not good for you.

These tortillas are so so yummy! You cook them on a comal -pronounced koh MAL -(a rounded grill)you place over medium to low heat on your stove. Then when tortilla bubbles, you flip it and continue cooking on the other side. I made some burritoes here for my lunch (I had made John 4 of these for his lunch earlier to take to school)...filled with chicken, mashed pinto beans, brown rice, Tapatio and black pepper.John does not eat cheese.
You can finish heating up the burritoes on the coma/ after you fill them.
MMMmm.... g o o d....

Beans and Rice

I am experimenting lately with cooking up dry beans and with using brown rice.
I bought some pinto beans from the bins at Winco...see picture. About 2 cups for less than 50 cents...which cooked up to be 5 cups. So that is less than 10 cents a cup! I only seasoned it with black pepper this time..and it was fabulous. It did give me gas because I did not have any Beano with it.
Next time I will sprout the beans and then cook them. This should remove those enzymes that cause the gas.

Plain Pinto Beans From Scratch

2 cups dry pinto beans

6 cups water

Sort the beans and take out any little stones, or any broken beans. Rinse well in strainer. Add beans and water to your cooking pot. Bring to boil over high heat, then lower to a simmer and cook 2 hours. I did not pre-soak these overnight.
After 2 hours, they were soft as can be..and very yummy.

I did not add any salt, but lots of fresh ground black pepper to my first hot bowl of beans. The rest of the benas I saved for upcoming burritoes. Refrigerate leftovers.
Use up within 3-4 days.

The rice was a Christmas gift from sister-in-law Shhelah: Trader Joe's Brown Basmati Rice.

Plain Brown Basmati Rice from Scratch

1 cup rice

2 cups water.

Combine in cooking pot. Bring to boil. Lower heat to as low as you can go. Cover pot with lid. Cook 40 minutes. Do not stir...if you do, you will destroy the pockets of steam that develop and your rice will never cook well or get soft. Yield 3 cups.
Then you can use this in your fried rice recipes, in your soups in your burritos, etc. Use up in 3-4 days.

Bluberry Season Come and Gone

I know about blueberries. Blueberry season is July...well, at least it is July in the United States. In Chile, it is January (exactly 1/2 year from July). This is the first year that we have had tons of blueberries available in our stores
in January! Well, at least at the WinCo...where I shop)for really cheap prices. I have not done the research, but I surmise that...

#1. In Chile, they have planted tons more blueberry bushes!
#2. In Chile this year,they had an EXCELLENT crop of blueberries. I guess conditions were perfect.

For about 2 weeks in mid January, the largest display of produce was the blueberry display! Stacks and stack of these Driscoll boxes. First they came out at $2.48 per 18 oz. box. (Blueberries can always be had from Costco, but you have to pay 8 or 9 bucks for 24 oz. The second week at WinCo, the display was higher...it was a small mountain of blueberry boxes...and the price was lowered to $1.99 per 18 oz. box. I was in blueberry heaven. We ate blueberries like popcorn in this household! We love blueberries in our tossed salad. I rinsed and froze about 6 pounds of them in nice heavy freezer bags. We use them in our blender shakes. Sometimes I am tempted to make a pie with them. We shall see.

Well...now February is here...no more blueberries at Winco. Oh, there are about a half dozen boxes in the corner...by the salad dressings. $3.99 for an 8 oz. box Season is over in Chile.
Let's hope the USA (and Canada) have as good a harvest!