Cooking … Miscellany in the Pantry Style

A comment on a Flickr picture reminded me I hadn’t quite gotten around to posting about my latest culinary adventures, which are also titled …

“When I Haven’t Been Grocery Shopping…”

I love grocery shopping, but January has been a loss. No time. Since Christmas I’ve mostly gone to the store for the week’s lunchtime Lean Cuisine, pre-wrapped salads and microwave soup. Pathetic. Finally, I’ve begun to feel more like myself. And there appears to be nothing in the kitchen to make.

I almost like the “nothing” state more than actually having stuff in my refrigerator drawers because I like trying to make stuff up with what I have. Despite my apartment-crappy kitchen, I’m comfortable there, I don’t need a recipe, I just wander about throwing stuff I find into pots without too much fear of the result. I have East Texas culinary influences that usually allow me to make stuff up pretty handily: some southern, some Tex-Mex, some Creole. Gourmet, not much. Spicy, I am.

You know what the hardest thing is? I like eating healthy foods, but when Creole is your healthiest influence you tend to be in difficulties with the idea of “low fat” or “low sodium.”

Mexican cornbread. Did I taste that corner?

I also lie: when I say I have nothing in the kitchen, that’s completely relative. I’m the sort of person who always has something. I have lots of inspiring spices and lots of hot sauce on hand – at least a dozen types on hand, plus 5 types of Tabasco. I also make periodic trips to Costco for quantities of “basics,” although it’s a bit depressing to make these sorts of suburban trips for bulk purchases. I always seem to end up in line behind 4 mothers with 2-3 kids each and a truckload of stuff. I stand there watching these poor, haggard women with their dozens of boxes of American processed food, wondering where their husbands are and why they aren’t helping.

Anyway, so I found I could make white chili, Mexican cornbread, a caribbean-flavor chicken, and tasty black beans. Below are the recipes for white chili & Mexican cornbread.

White Chili in the Crock Pot

White chili is a stew – it differs from regular in that it’s made with chicken or turkey and involves white beans of some type. However, many of the same spices apply.

• 3 chicken breasts, seasoned and cooked and cubed
• olive oil
• medium onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• chicken broth, 2 cans
• 4-oz can chopped green chilis
• 2 cans (16 oz I think) white kidney beans, Great Northern beans or cannelloni
• 8-oz can sweet corn kernels
• chili or cayenne powder to taste

Also tasty: This being a kind of stew, other additions or substitutions are perfectly acceptable, should they be on hand. Red and orange peppers, ground turkey instead of chicken, fresh or dried minced jalapenos or chilis instead of canned, green onions, and I’ve even considered of the addition of tortilla strips toward the end.

First step is to cook the chicken in a pan with a bit of olive oil. Please spice your chicken. Bland chicken is boring. After it’s cooked, let it cool and cube it. Second step is to put the onion in the pan with a little olive oil and saute until clear. Add garlic and saute 30 seconds more. If using fresh chilis or jalapenos, saute them with the onion.

Next, put chicken, onion and garlic in the crock pot and add the chilis, beans, corn chicken broth and cayenne/chili powder. Stir it up and cook on high for 4 hours. You’re done. Tastes nice garnished with a bit of shredded monterey jack cheese & some green onions, and if you’re feelin’ dangerous, a bit of sour cream.

Mexican Cornbread is Tasty with Chili

Although you can make this from scratch, I am a workin’ woman and make it with Jiffy mix. Sue me.

• 1 box Jiffy cornbread mix
• milk & egg (from directions on box)
• 1/2 can of canned green chilis
• 8-oz of canned sweet corn
• 1/2 cup of Monterey Jack

You can also make this more meal-ish if you’d like to add some chopped chorizo sausage. It’s tasty too, but at this point you’re going to want to use 2 boxes of Jiffy and double the rest of the ingredients.

The recipe essentially involves following the instructions on the back of the Jiffy box and adding the extra ingredients. That would be (a) mix all of it together, batter will be lumpy, (b) pour into a greased 9×9 pan, (c) bake. Really. That’s all. It just makes a heartier, more tasty version of the original.