Fartless Chili For A Cold Night

Trick or Treat, when I was a kid,...those were the days! We lived in a safe neighborhood in a relatively safe little town, and us girls had our buddy system for "safety in numbers". We had our bases covered. Our older brothers set off, far enough away from us that we didn't actually see them do anything. But, it was a given that we just knew who was soaping up the car windows and throwing eggs at the houses. It wasn't worth getting our asses kicked for telling. It all came out in the wash, right? No harm, no foul.
None of us were accompanied by adults and we were free to be as silly as we wanted for as long as we could endure it. Oh man. Life was good. At least it was for a few hours.
In the late 1950's, Halloween was a candy coup de tat. The tolerant adults who opened their doors, time and time again, were also generous adults who gave us full-sized Hershey Bars, and very good candy, and whole packs of chewing gum. After a visit to every compliant house within a 1/2 mile radius, we would return home with our booty and feeling rich with an entire shopping bag full of sweet treasures. Oh yeah, home with the stash! For the most part, we had very cool neighbors on Halloween, and there was always one in a witch costume with her cauldron of dry ice made dramatic by many purple and green lights all over the place. It was fun to see someone's mom roll with it like that.

Our mom allowed us to keep the booty in our rooms with us. This worked out well for me because there was as much joy in counting it as there was pleasure in eating it. This was the beginning of my learning about advertising layouts and logos.No shit. I was a serious kid with an arty appetite as to how it all worked, no matter the medium. And along with Halloween came The Sugar Buzz. Oh, FUN.
And I showed the adults a thing or two about self-discipline. Never ruined my appetite for dinner and ate every bite on the plate. Grandmother Jeanette was new to this concept coming from me. And she didn't think it was such a good idea for my mom to be permissive as to allow us kids to keep it all in our rooms. My elders were fascists.
Then something happened to Halloween as we knew it, as like everything else since the murder of JFK. Everything changed so drastically, it made me sick to my stomach a lot. There began a big media to-do about razor blades hidden in apples, and every piece of candy had to be inspected for needle holes in the wrappers,and an adult had to accompany the kids for Trick or Treat, and the candy bars became bite-sized, and the other candy tasted terrible. The street became mean and my mother did a flip flop of opinion, deciding that it was the Devil's holiday, therefore I was no longer allowed to do Trick or Treat. She wasn't religious until I was in my 40's, so, where was this coming from? Yup. Everything and everyone....changed. That era died...

One of the cool things about living in the mountains is that there are no Trick or Treaters. It isn't pretty to think what could happen to these short little freaks in the dark of evening, scaring the skunks, perplexing the bears and disturbing the natural order of things that go bump in the night. And it is hello-nippy cold on Halloween night. Top all of that with that there are no streetlights whatsoever and there are long distances between houses, you can bank on it that there won't be Trick or Treaters. Nice saving$ right there. So you are free to exhale and kick back.
A small town with a population of 1,500, a virtual drive-thru of cuteness from the Gold Rush Days, it isn't without its Halloween spirit (more of a truth than a pun). "Uptown", there are merchants open and one place all doodeed up for the little ones to get their monster boogie on and depart with a pittance of crappy candy, all in the name of good fun for all. Some of the adults enjoy the hell out of dressing up in costume and acting retarded. And yes, it can be scary! Two of our better friends love it so much, they got married Oct. 31. Mr. P and I tied the legal knot the day before, but it had nothing to do with that obvious day of orange and black.

Mr. P likes to sow cow in the kitchen, adding a little of this, and a sprinkle of that until his witch's brew begets hop toads of flavor. A bowlful of his warm chili, sprinkled on top with finely chopped onion and piled high with grated cheddar cheese is a big hug on a cold night.

MR. P's HEARTY CHILI
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe

Note: If you prefer to make your own beans:
Use 1/2 small bag of pinto beans and 1/2 small bag of pink beans. Toss into colander and rinse well, making sure to remove any little rocks, bean casings, lizard heads and dirt. Place cleaned beans in a large, non-reactive (steel or enamel) pot and cover with water up to 2" higher than the beans. Cover and let soak overnight. DO NOT SALT THE BEANS. Salting makes them tough. When ready to cook, the next day, drain beans of water in colander, put beans back in pot and fill will fresh water to 2" above the beans. Bring to the boil and stir, then lower heat to low medium and cook for 2 hours. If water boils down too much, add more water to 2" above beans only once. The beans turn the water into a yummy bean juice and it thickens, which is what you want. When done, remove from heat and set aside. Use as indicated in recipe, omitting the 1/2 can of water in the recipe.
INGREDIENTS:
1# beef chuck (stew meat), cut into 1" pieces
1 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
Brown paper bag, lunch-sized
1/4 cup cooking oil or meat lard
1 large (24 oz.) can Ranch Style Beans
1 medium can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes or 2 fresh tomatoes, diced
1/2 the empty can of water
2 Tbsp. chili powder (3 Tbsp. if using homemade beans)
2 Tbsp. cumin (3 Tbsp. if using homemade beans)
1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper ( add 1 1/2 tsp. more if using homemade beans)
1 Tbsp. onion powder (2 Tbsp. if using homemade beans)
1 Tbsp. garlic powder (2 Tbsp. if using homemade beans)
2 tsp. to 1 Tbsp. ground Mexican oregano (1 1/2 Tbsp. if using homemade beans)

1. Put beans, tomatoes and water in crock pot and stir well. Put on high heat.
2. Make a dredge of flour, salt and black pepper and shake it up in the brown bag. Toss in the meat pieces, a handful at a time, and shake to coat thoroughly. Place coated meat pieces on a plate while you heat up the oil/lard in a non-stick skillet on medium high heat. When oil/lard is hot, add coated meat pieces and fry to brown on all sides. Remove from heat
3. Add meat and all of the oil/lard with it to crock pot and stir well to mix all. When hot,add the chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and Mexican oregano. Stir well to distribute evenly. Cover and let simmer on low heat for 2 1/2 hours. Then turn off heat and salt to taste. Be careful not to salt too much if using canned beans.

note: You can find ground Mexican oregano at the supermarket in their isle of canned Mexican foods and Asian specialties. The spices are in small, clear bags on rack hooks.
This is a very nice mild chili. You can make it as hot as you like by adding thin slices of jalapenos, serranos, or Habaneros (Scotch Bonnets). But you don't want to add the pepper slices until 10 min. before end of cooking time, otherwise the pepper slices will turn into the consistency of snot without flavor. Garnish with chopped onions, pepper slices, grated cheese or crushed saltine crackers if you like.

ARTISAN CHEDDAR-JALAPENO BREAD

In the forest where I live, as I write this, the rain is passing through. We have a Japanese house with tall, cathedral wood beam ceilings and a red metal roof. The acoustics are sweet for rain and excellent for music. Being here is every bit as cozy as is fresh, hot bread out of my own oven with the house heated up with heavenly aroma, as only an oven can do.
A late childhood friend of mine (a Buddhist monk who liked to drink too much) once told me that the best thing you can do when you have guests for dinner is to chop up some garlic and roast it in oil in a pan on the stove top so that the aroma will permeate the air, and it will be the first thing your guests will notice when they come inside. And it gives the impression that the cook knows what she/he is doing with the food. Yup, he actually said that.
The Monk and his family were my next-door neighbors from the time I was born until I was 9 years old. He went on to an interesting life of fighting for causes (and winning). He nearly lost his life when a hired hit man with a mac truck ran him down and left him for dead. He was the accountant who discovered the Cliff Robertson forgeries when he worked at Columbia, in the later 1970's. After the truck incident, he went into hiding until all was said and done in court. A few years later, he went to Tibet and lived in a monastery. He became a devout monk.
He passed away in 2008, which I learned from one of his sisters, who passed away two months later. And 2 months after that, my mother passed away. And then there were 7 more. Marching ants who marched no more.
One tends to get a bit shook when they lose their support system. One fellow blogger suddenly lost her husband, recently, and it was damned unfair. Young and in love with their whole life ahead of them. Gone in a nano second. One thing I was able to do for her while unable to do it for my own grief was to cry. Some people need to be cried for. Whether they are aware of it or not, our compassion goes out to them as comfort upon atmospheric ripple. We send, they receive. Just like radio waves.
Tell me, readers, do you ever use garlic in such a manner? They should make garlic incense!

My dad loved to cook. He once concocted The Perfect Chili. Something drove him to experiment, and he finally ruined the chili with peanuts. They tasted like soap chips. I hate peanuts in my food, and I wouldn't have put it beneath my dad to use soap chips and fib that they were peanuts....Ya had to be there. He had a very strange sense of humor. Dad had every spice there is in his kitchen but he hated salt and wouldn't buy it. His salt shaker from the days when I lived there was empty, save for a funky little lump of it, 20 years old, at the bottom. And every time I visited for Thanksgiving, he would set that som'bitch in front of me at the table. Don't you think it is rude to refuse to have salt in the house when he knows that I use it, and I drive four hours, one way, to see him and share Thanksgiving? One year, he added a dead date beetle to that salt shaker with its lump of old salt. Date beetles look like cockroaches with heads. I pretended not to notice. Instead, the joke was on him because I had a packet of salt in my pocket and I emptied the salt into his cup of coffee. Yup, he had that possum thing going on.Funniest face he ever made. The following Thanksgiving, that salt shaker was gleaming clean and filled with fresh salt.
When food has to be politically correct, I will draw the line and dare you to cross it. If I wish to salt my food, that's MY business and it isn't your place to harass me for it when I'm eating. If I want a cigarette and go outside to smoke it, don't complain about it. Because if you then come to my house and complain about the smell of smoke or feign an imaginary allergy, I will put you outside in the snow and the biting cold just to show you, firsthand, what a smoker goes through just to respect your space. But would you get it? Hell no, because naggers are weak in character. If you are not a meat eater and you have been invited for dinner and the hostess doesn't know that you are so special, a Buddhist monk will tell you to shut up about it and eat the meal which has been so graciously prepared for everyone. It won't kill you to eat the meat and show some manners. Just shut the fuck up.
I used to think that bread was a food that everyone could agree on. But, noOOOooo, here come the gluten-free girls. There are plenty of foodie blogs that feature only gluten-free recipes. Mine is not one of them. However, I would highly recommend Helene at Tartelette and Maria at Scandi Foodie.

This particular bread is Mr. P's favorite. Where we live, one could only find it in the bakery at the supermarket. Our only supermarket. And it isn't cheap. So, it was one of those treats that he would only buy if the price came down a couple of dollars. And then, for unknown reason to us, they stopped carrying it for a couple of years. So, one day I decided to surprise him and, boy, was he ever. It was love at first bite when he proclaimed, "This is IT!..This is IT!" And so this went into my recipe book of IT's.
This type of artisan bread isn't really for bread loaf pans, but it does work, made beautiful with the slashes on top. If you aren't careful not to put too many pieces of jalapeno and cubes of cheese in it, the bread could turn out raw in the middle. It's a crapshoot for me because my convection oven bakes too hot, so I try to remember to put the heat 5 degrees cooler after preheating at 450F.
Because I'm a klutz with sticky stuff, I tend to use a parchment sheet sprinkled with cornmeal place underneath the loaf and on top of the pizza stone. When finished, I transfer it from the oven and onto a wire cooling rack with a big peel,(a big, fat, round spatula).You'll get much better results by preheating the pizza stone and placing the dough ball directly on it with the peel, dusted with cornmeal. It is disheartening to get the perfect, dark-golden top crust only to find the bottom not cooked as well and in need of 10 more minutes of baking, which would only burn the top crust. So, try not to be a pussy like me, omit the parchment, and put that puppy directly onto the stone baker.... if you can do this without the dough sticking to the peel and driving you into a Peter Sellers' moment in your kitchen. Remember his movie "The Party", the scene in the bathroom with the wet painting? Sometimes, that's what it's like when you hang out with me in the kitchen, or at the supermarket, reaching to the rear of the top shelf for the last jar on sale.
These photos are from three different batches, beginning with the round I'd forgotten to slash on top. It was still delicious and perfectly baked, but not as arty as it could be.

ARTISAN CHEDDAR-JALAPENO BREAD
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe
Adapted from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day" by Jeff Hertzberg,M.D. & Zoe Francois
note: I highly recommend this book. A pleasure for the experienced and a "must have" for novices.

Boule (Artisan Free Form Loaf):
3 cups lukewarm water, 100F temperature
1 Tbsp. plus 1 1/2 tsp. granulated yeast
1 Tbsp. plus 1 1/2 tsp. course sea salt
6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose flour (scoop and sweep, do not pack it)
Cornmeal for pizza peel or parchement paper cut to size on pizza stone.

Filling:
2 cups medium cheddar cheese, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 small can jalapeno peppers, sliced (and then cut into 1/2" pieces)
Discard any carrots and completely drain jalapenos of juice, dry peppers on paper towel.

note: As soon as you are finished chopping jalapenos and cubing cheese, if you use a wood cutting board, you must clean it a little deeper than the surface to prevent bacterial growth that could make you deathly ill. Wet the board and sprinkle with salt until coated. Let stand until dry, about an hour, and then rinse off under faucet thoroughly and let stand to dry. I do this about twice a month, and after any time I use it for meat.

1. Warm the water to 100F if using filtered water. If from the faucet, adjust the temperature of the flow until your digital thermometer reads 100F. The warm water will help to rise the dough to the right point for storage in 2 hours. You can use cooler water for the same result, but then the rise will take about 3 or 4 hours.
2. In large bowl, measure out the 6 1/2 cups flour. Set aside. In large bowl of electric mixer
add the yeast and salt to the water and mix with a fork. The book says not to worry about mixing it perfectly, but I do it anyway.
3. Add all the flour at once. Turn mixer speed on low for a minute, and only to a little faster speed to mix the ingredients until just combined, about 1 or 2 minutes. In a large, clean bowl,plop in the ball of dough. Again, DO NOT KNEAD.
note: The recipe book says to mix with a wooden spoon and a high-capacity food processor. I don't have a processor and my shoulder is permanently messed up and I can't hand mix the mass of dough. So, phooey, an electric mixer is fine. Just don't over mix, and be careful when clearing the dough from the hook and the bowl so that you don't squeeze/knead it or even pieces of it.
Cover the bowl with foil and let stand to rise for 4 hours.
4. You can put it in the refrigerator for this process, or leave it on the counter. The book advises less experienced bread bakers to let it rise in the fridge as it will be less sticky and easier to handle. A longer rising time, say 5 or even 6 hours, won't hurt the outcome. Don't use a damp tea towel to cover because, if you forget the time, the dough goo will ruin the towel because you won't be able to get it out. And whatever you use for covering the bowl or container, make sure it isn't airtight or else it might explode. You could say that rising dough tends to fart a lot.
5. If you are going to use parchment, measure it to cut with a 1" overhang on the baking stone.
Sprinkle with cornmeal, rubbing it into a circle. If not using the parchment, sprinkle the cornmeal onto the baking stone and evenly onto your work surface.
6. When dough is risen and ready, pull away a piece big enough for your loaf, cloak it with flour, and roll it out gently on your workspace to an oval rectangle. Toss your cheese and jalapeno slices over the entire shape and then quickly roll up and form into a loaf and place tuck side down. It will even out in the baking.

7. Let the dough rest for 40 minutes. To get the oven good and hot, preheat the oven to 450F at this time. It will take 20-35 min. to preheat. The dough will rise a little while resting, and rise some more in the oven. Place baking stone in oven to preheat, sprinkled with cornmeal.
8. When it is time to put the dough in the oven, generously sprinkle flour where the slashes are to go. With a large, very sharp, serrated knife and, AT A 45 DEGREE ANGLE, quickly and deftly slash only once per line 1" into the dough. Bread bakers use what is called a lame (laMAY) for this purpose. You can slice a tic tac toe square of crossing lines, or a cross, or across from side to side about 2" or more apart.
9. Dip your fingertips into a small bowl of water and lightly flick it at the loaf, then place in oven on the pre-heated baking stone, using a peel or parchment.
The recipe calls for using a sliding oven pan with water in it, underneath the rack the bread will bake on. I have a convection oven that utilizes such a pan, and if I don't put water in it, any food will dry out and/or burn.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes. If your oven cooks way hot, reduce the temperature to 425F and bake for only 25 min. To remove from oven, use peel and transfer the bread to a wire cooling rack. If you used parchment over the stone, remove with stone, or use peel.

Remaining dough in fridge will keep for a week, just do not use an airtight lid. One batch will yield 3 small rounds, 2 large artisan ovals, 2 loaves baked in bread pan, or 2 big rounds.

We Enter Into October........

...............................Cheese Enchilladas....................................

Fall stepped in to stay hello...yes, I mean 'stay'... with early morning showers and an orange, otherworldly light, and the acrid smell of forest fires far away. I usually sleep through September, until I am freed by the Autumnal equinox. It's been a thing since I was born. If you pay attention to the others standing in line at the supermarket, you will see lots of yawning and passive complaint about how tired they all are and how they just don't understand it.
We sort of look forward to Halloween, if only to make the leather bouquets for our spouse.Then there will be Octoberfest, and Vikings Day, and Thanksgiving and Christmas, or Festivus, or take your pick, the season will be everywhere. At this point, I dread thinking of New Year's and those painful shoes. We usually choose to stay home in our bunnies and drink hot cocoa.
Enter in: The Changing Of The Menu...."It's not all plaques and hams, you know."- The Simpson's
Those cold nights creep in after a sunny day, and no one is thinking about crispy green salads and fruit sorbet. Mr. P stops requesting light dinners and the favorite fruits and vegetables are ready for Harvest. The pumpkin gets made into cupcakes, dressed in foreign liners, wrapped in black feather boas, batting their shameless hussy eyes, marching along the counters in their finery like lesbians on parade. Lipstick sisters. Hey, we all have an inner bitch.
The shopping cart gets filled with the flour, butter, sugars and spices , and our freezers see a new neighborhood of beef, sausages, pork, bacon, and some vanilla ice cream for the pie you will be sneaking for breakfast. It's a treasure under the glass cake dome, kept full with muffins, cupcakes, sweetbreads, artisan breads, coffee cake, and "Of Course" cake.
The gallon glass jar stays filled with cookies, and biscotti deja vu. Well, cookies are food. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!
Living in the mountains, the weather does delight with four distinct seasons. But, only a flatlander would predict the weather. There are some years when the snow comes early and the tourists complain the summer turned into winter after it took them 11 hours to get here. Their plans are to fish, camp out, stay on houseboats at the lake, rent kayaks and do rafting down the river, they windsurf and they water ski and they buy up all of the beer. Then they have to leave because a serious fire breaks out, or the rains come and block the highway with avalanches. Yup. All sorts of things can take a turn around. Whaaaaa. "The fishie won't bite my line, Daddy. All it will do is float".
Say what hunters will about the pure experience of hunting, I still say that there's no good reason to take a critter's life when there is food already at the store. To kill for the sake of bagging a buck seems a bit psychopathic. Not on my land you don't.
Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to stop the mountain lions from taking down a deer in the middle of the night. A couple of weeks ago, they took down two, and one of those huge, slow, furry flies inside my windowsill was a major clue. They are wicked-looking and they only come around for one reason; the corpse. I say,"Get your kitty-cat ass outta here and go steal some kibbles from a neighbor....BAD kitty!"
The Mexicans tell me that cat is delicious meat. "The other white meat". Back in the 1980's there was a taco shack that got raided for using cat meat in their tacos, right around the same time they busted a fried chicken establishment, in Ohio or Massachusettes, for deep-frying gerbils. Somebody always gets a fresh idea and turns a profit cuz the rats are free.
In North Carolina, they sell bumper stickers that read "Eat More Possum". See, you can't blame The Mexicans for everything, ya know...."Where the peckerwoods eat possum"...Sounds like an ad for tourism. And what a restaurant review that would be! Right alongside of Sweet Sugar Belle's tutorial of how to make and decorate Roadkill Cookies. See? Blogs can be FUN. No kidding, though, Sugar Belle is a real person and she is my favorite cookie artist. She's got a website, so, check out her stuff if you like. She is amazing with cake art, too.
Boy, that's a platter of goodness to take to a snooty gallery reception. Walk right in, dressed like Jackie O. with the elegance of Grace-fucking-Kelly and graciously help dress the table with a platter of Roadkill Cookies.

So, what is this magic of Autumn? In October, you got dead skunks in the middle of the road and the bears start eating meat. That's when you DON'T want to take a bear for its meat. Cooking said bear in the house, you'll have the stinkingest bag o'shit ever just ruin your house if the walls are wood. In November, ya travel who knows how far to spend a day with family you've managed to avoid all year, to collectively gorge on food until you look and feel like a pregnant platypus. And then you get to make the journey in traffic home, trapped in a car with no toilet near. Lovely holiday. I'm sure that figures into the fictitional pilgrims feasting with natives who didn't want them there, too stupid to make their own food. I'd like to know if anyone helped with the dishes.
Every so many years, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving. Do ya think they even care about a birthday? Nope. It's all about food, football and farting off.
Tis the season to squeeze your wallet when Christmas comes around. Go away. Nobody home.
This post is with recipe for cheese enchilladas, my way. Lots of compliments on this one. If you can't handle the chili pepper slices, omit them. No big whoop.
If you want to do chicken with this dinner, I have included an easy recipe. Some may have a hard time with two entrees plus rice, with all the red sauce. I would advise to make the chicken plain. But today, somebody bought the wrong can at the store and I must do something with it. I'll just add it to my cauldron and....
I do have recipes for enchillada sauce from scratch. Today, I don't have all the ingredients.So, here is my 'secret' sauce: Las Palmas Enchillada Sauce, Medium Hot. It really is cool to have a few cans handy in your pantry. I have reached the point to where it is all I'll use anymore.

If you choose to make this chicken, better start it first. The chicken bakes for 1 hour, maybe 15 minutes more. The enchilladas bake for 20 to 25 minutes. The rice simmers for 25 minutes. And the beans, put in the oven, take about 10 min., unless they are still in the crockpot.

VERY HOT SPICY CHICKEN
Pink Elephants coffe Cafe

4 large chicken thighs
1 28-oz can Las Palmas Enchillada Sauce, Picante Hot
1 smallish yellow onion, sliced thick or thin, as you like

Spray square casserole dish with non-stick spray. Spoon in 1/3 of the sauce to cover bottom of dish. Place chicken on top (with or without skins. as you like). Pour the remaining sauce over the chicken to cover. Add onion slices, submerging using your fingers to coat the onions in sauce. Bake at 375F, uncovered, for 1 hour or up to 15 min. more.

note: It is easy to get confused by the labels on the cans, all of them the same color. Make sure you don't get Chile Colorado Sauce by accident. There really is that much of a difference.

ZATARAIN'S NEW ORLEANS STYLE SPANISH RICE
1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes, with every drop of the juice
To make an excellent, tangy Spanish rice, use only Zatarain's. Follow the instructions on the box. It is the ONLY Spanish rice I will cook.

LINDA'S CHEESE ENCHILLADAS
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe

8-14 corn tortillas, depending on the size of your casserole dish ( 7 1/2" x 11 1/2" for eight
enchilladas)
1 medium serrano chili
2 medium to large yellow wax chilies (quantity according to heat tolerance)
8 1/4" or thinner slices of mozarella, or Cacique, or Jack or cheddar cheese, or a mixture with the mozarella, sliced in half, lengthways
1 19-oz. can Las Palmas Enchillada Sauce, Medium Hot
Vegetable oil for par-frying the corn tortillas

Preheat the oven to 375F if chicken isn't already baking.
Slice cheese and peppers thinly.

1. In skillet, heat up to 1/4" vegetable oil to medium high. When very hot, partially fry the tortillas just until right before they can turn hard, on both sides each. Stack on a plate and let cool a few minutes.
2..Pour whole can enchillada sauce into a large frypan. No heat. Using hands, dip each tortilla generousy in the sauce and put on a bigger plate. Sprinkle the sliced chili peppers across the tortilla making sure to evenly space 3-4 serrano slices per enchillada, and a smattering of the yellows. Place cheese on top, running legthways with the line of pepper slices. Roll it up and place into casserole dish that has been ladled with some of the sauce on the bottom. Place them seam-side down.The enchilladas will become a tight fit and you will put the last two against the longside of the casserole at ends of the other enchilladas. Pour the remainder of the sauce over the encilladas to cover as much as possible, maybe using a spoon to baste-cover.

6. Bake , covered for 15 min. Remove cover and sprinkle garnish cheese, and put in oven for 10-15 more minutes, uncovered.

If you like, you can garnish the plated enchilladas with green onion slices and chopped, hard-boiled egg.

The "Puppet Men" by yours truly; Linda Odekirk Tewes. Sculpture/mixed media.
3rd Place - Annual Juried Show 2011, October 1st, Highland Art Center, Weaverville, CA

Skull Sconce sculpture in ceramic clay by yours truly, cooked in a fire pit.
For the "Altars" show, Lee Fong Ranch show, October 2001.