Almost Too Hot
2001-07-16 @ 10:47 a.m.
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Mondays and Wednesdays are weird days for me. Sometimes I love them and sometimes I don't. These are the days I work evenings. I go to work at 2 p.m. and work until 10 p.m. I like working at least a couple of evenings because day shifts are so stressful. Evening shift gives me time to myself at home in the early part of the day to do whatever, read and relax, do housework, make ice cream.
It's the by myself part that is either great or not. After I've spent the weekend with my girls, some Monday mornings I wake up and go "where is everybody?" Last Monday I spent most of the early part of the day lonely and then didn't want to go to work 'cause I knew everybody else would be coming home from work about the time I was getting settled in there. Today I'm happy to have the time to myself to relax. It was a busy hectic weekend.
I usually cook breakfast on Sundays, but yesterday Sara made us some wonderful French toast, so I got the morning off.
Last night I made a simple but wonderful, good old fashioned three-course meal. It is the kind of meal my grandmother made, except that her meat-and-three-sides was usually more like a meat and five or six sides. Since it's just the four of us, I usually try to keep it to two sides. I am almost obsessed with making sure there is the proper balance of vegetables and starches. There is always a voice in my head reminding me to include a green vegetable in whatever I cook.
I started in the afternoon yesterday shelling and breaking beans from the garden and shucking corn. I like doing this on Sara and Jake's front porch next door since we don't have a porch. It reminds me of sitting on the porch with my grandmother shelling and breaking beans, shucking corn, peeling apples for pies. Mamaw didn't have air conditioning, so sitting outside in the summertime was always a relief for her from the kitchen. Also, Jake usually comes out and sits with me at some point. It was a fairly cool, breezy afternoon (for July in central Georgia).
The meat was pork roast with chipotle puree. I got the idea from a cookbook called Fresh Mex (put out by Chevys and Rio Bravo restaurants). I found a recipe for Lemon-Herb-Chipote Roasted Chicken that sounded really good. But while I as in the meat department looking at chickens, the pork loins caught my eye. I decided the chipotle puree would be at least as good on pork, and we haven't had a pork roast in a while. Sara likes pork roasts.
I put the shelled pintos on to cook. Then I prepped the roasting pan and lay the pork roast into it. I sprayed the roast with olive oil (using the olive oil mister that Sara and Jake gave me) and then brushed on the chipotle puree.
In the Fresh Mex cookbook they have a recipe for chipotle puree. But they also explain that the easy way to make it is to get canned chipotles in adobo sauce and toss them in the blender and puree. So that's what I did. (So far I have only found chipotles in adobo at the local Mexican grocery. I looked at Publix, they don't have it.) I don't often take the easy way out on cooking because I love the process. But sometimes a girl has other things to do, like spend the afternoon in her brand new reading chair with a glass of wine finishing up "The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Love."
I sprayed and brushed one side of the pork roast then I flipped it over and sprayed and brushed the other side. The oven was preheated to 350 degrees, and I let it cook for about an hour. When the pinto beans were starting to get tender I added the green snap beans and cooked them all together. Also put a big pot of water with corn on the cob on to boil.
This meal combined two of my favorite food-types, Mexican and country (country meaning Southern farm country). Sara proclaimed the pork "almost too hot" after her first bite, but she went back for seconds. Jake and Badsnake complimented my cooking as always. They are so much fun to cook for because they are all so appreciative.
Wine note: Jake and Sara had a dry ros� with dinner. Badsnake and I had a slightly sweet German wine. Both were good options with spicy pork.
Dinner was at 7:30 even though Sara had just enough time to get home from work and change. Badsnake and I had a party to go to after dinner. Jake did the dishes for us so we could get going, but between Badsnake's after-dinner cigarette and the fact that she couldn't resist Sara who was resting on the couch, we were still here when Jake was finished with the dishes and we all left at the same time.
So this morning the kitchen is clean, and I got to sleep in. I get the morning to myself, and Badsnake will get the evening to herself. There is talk of dates tomorrow night, but mine may involve pulling molding off their bedroom wall in preparation for painting. (I think that was at least partly a joke.) Now seems like a good time to take my tea and go back to my new reading chair to read "Reservation Blues" by Sherman Alexie (an excellent novel).
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