Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The transmission was a '53, And the motor turned out to be a '73, And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.

So, it is 1:09 am. My sleep schedule has been insane for the last few weeks. My everything has been insane for the past few weeks.
I was just talking to Paul about the 2-weeks phenomenon. Maybe it is only me who does this, but about 2 weeks before any major change (move, graduating, new sibling, end of school year)I go completely insane. Not to say that I am not pretty insane in my normal life, but I like to take these occasions as a special time to be especially insane. I get simultaneous urges to actually appreciate everything that is SO GREAT about my life (manifested as sudden intense onset of Barnard pride, being completely enamored with every single thing my friends here do and say, spending more time walking around Riverside Park in 3 days than I have the last 2 semesters put together), and to throw everything away and take out a new lease on life (for instance, deciding--and then undeciding--to become a South Asian Studies major (whatever that means) and to quit Computer Science, amassing a huge bag of clothes I've decided I hate to take to the nearest place of donation (or trash can, if I get lazy), cleaning my wallet for the first time in months, and quite literally just throwing anything in the trash can that I feel I can get by without).
It is good, or so I have read, to take some time every once in a while to evaluate things, appreciate things, streamline things, and all that good garbage. But mostly the best part of my end-of-an-era manic episodes are the bizarre foods I end up cooking. This particular behavior is brought to you by my new-lease-on-life obsession, and has in times past spurred me to create such things as pulled pork, borscht, and cookies (I never bake). This year, the all important end-of-sophomore-year episode (mid-college crisis!) (is it painfully apparent that I have no concept whatsoever of the rules governing hyphen use in the English language?) has brought about two special dishes that I wanted to mention briefly, mostly because I felt like posting here and what else do I ever want to post (or talk, or think) about besides food?
1. Lamb curry. Any of you who live in Utah or comes to visit for the summer (which I think is pretty much everyone who reads this), be forewarned. I don't exactly know how this dish should be properly, authentically, or optimally prepared. But I'll be damned if I haven't figured it out by the end of the summer, and I'll be damned if you don't all have to try some strange (but at least marginally tasty) variations on the recipe I used tonight. This one was tomato-based (a mistake, I think, but a tasty mistake), and I used lamb chops (another tasty mistake). Next time, I think the sauce'll be yogurt-based, and I'll use whatever cut of lamb I can convince my mother to purchase for me at Buy Low.
2. Mole chicken, and further, mole chicken enchiladas. I'd been checking out this jar of mole at me and Anna's grocery store for like 3 weeks--I never took the plunge because the jar looked pretty shady and one of the first few ingredients was corn syrup. I finally bought the thing last week, and after a minor fiasco that resulted in Anna and I fishing bits of glass out of the oil floating at the top of the container (we are probably a little too cavalier about the things we are willing to ingest. I like to think of us as scrappy.), we went on to make some mole chicken quesadillas that were delicious enough to motivate us to use the remaining chicken (previously allotted half for chicken curry and half for fajitas) to make crock potted shredded mole chicken (is it better to say chicken mole since adjectives come after in Spaneesh?) (was this the longest sentence ever written? See what I mean about crazy?).
So what happened was this--I cooked the mole as directed, maybe like 3-4 cups of it, added half a can of tomato paste, a good shake of smoked paprika (I am obsessed), a little sugar, and a lot of salt. I tossed the chicken in another pan to brown it, because I am for some reason very afraid of cooking meat in a sauce, and then let the mole and the chicken hang out all night in Anna's beautiful, industrial-sized crock pot. Next morning, I layered that stuff with some crusty old tortillas we were going to throw out and a huge portion of monterey jack cheese (that we get at our grocery store for 1.70 for 8 oz.--no small feat here in NYC). I stuck it in the oven for a few minutes right before eatin time, and voila. It was ridiculous. Kind of like this post.

Rereading, I think maybe I will have to take this down come morning-time. Or maybe I will just let you all enjoy my insanity and congratulate yourselves on being more whole, rational-type human beings.

5 comments:

Bing said...

yay!! Loves!

lara said...

scrappy!

eliza.e.campbell said...

Good HEAVENS how I wish I were there for this. I would make crazy desserts to accompany, and then eat them all. Like my Thai brownies I made one time (including peanuts, coconut milk, lime, etc.)

KOME HOME 2 ME

Unknown said...

I really like the pic's you provide here on your blog thanks for sharing

Ambonisye said...

Hey hey =)
I just do NOT know how to cook lol but that does sound rather deeeelicious