January 27, 2013 Dinner – Green Chili Chicken Enchilada Casserole with Guacamole

As I said in last Thursday’s blog, PPI corn tortillas from Christmas prompted me to buy, chicken, asadero cheese, Mexican squash, and roasted green chili at Pro’s Ranch market on Thursday. I had a stomach ache on Friday and Saturday from the rancid peanuts and 18 mile fast ride with Barry on Thursday, so I ate no dinner on Friday.  Suzette ate PPI curry with coconut flakes.  On Saturday I made Miso soup for lunch and we ate the last of the curry for dinner with pickle, chutney and pickle, and my stomach survived. 

By Sunday my legs were better and so was my appetite, but I still ate yogurt and fruit for breakfast while I watched Suzette make and eat a smoked pork chop and fried egg over easy.  

I ate a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and rode 10 miles, so by dinner my body seemed to be back to normal. 

Suzette came home dead tired around 3:00 p.m. after a day of training a new cleaning person at her Spa and facility and rested for a while watching “Love it or List it” on the HGTV cable channel; then she took a shower to clean up and, like the super trooper she is, was ready started dinner.

We had invited the Palmers to dinner at 6:30 p.m., so at 4:45 p.m. we started dinner.

Dinner’s menu was exceedingly simple in concept:  Green chili Chicken Enchilada Casserole with Guacamole, but required time consuming and elaborate preparation.  I started by making Guacamole with one chopped onion, 12 small avocados, garlic, ½ tomato, juice of one lemon, 1/3 cup of cilantro, 1 tsp. of salt, and about ten drops of Original Cholulu red sauce.

Shortly after I started the guacamole, Suzette started the casserole, so I thinly sliced a small onion, ¼ cup of fresh cilantro and five or six Mexican squashes for Suzette for the casserole.  She peeled and chopped about 1¼ lb. of green chili and cooked the chili with cilantro and some garlic and then added ½ cup of heavy cream and about 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock and a handful of cheese to the pot and then made that into a thin sauce by pureeing it in the Cuisinart.  She then sautéed the squash slices with the thin slices of onion in a skillet.  I went to the kitchen after I finished my prep and assisted in spirit as Suzette heated a small skillet with chicken stock and dipped and sautéed the tortillas in the chicken stock to soften and parboil them and then constructed the casserole in the layers, as described below.

Casserole – Layers from the top down:

Cheese
Tortillas
Sautéed squash and onions and cheese
Tortillas
Cheese
Fresh Spinach
Chicken
Tortillas on bottom  

When the large 15 by 8 inch by two or three inch deep Pyrex baking dish was filled, Suzette then poured the two cups of green chili cream sauce over the entire surface and pressed the sides in to allow the sauce to sink to the bottom.  By 5:15 we had put the casserole into a preheated 375˚oven/  We baked it for an hour turning down the heat in the oven to 325 after ½ hour because the top had started to brown and the casserole was bubbling.  We turned off the oven after an hour.  Suzette went to the cellar for beers and Willy arrived from Angel Fire and went to bed and we turned on the TV and started watching the Pro Bowl and then 60 Minutes.

I transferred the Guacamole from the large prep bowl to a lotus shaped ceramic bowl and put it in the middle of the table in the T.V. room.  Susan and then Charlie arrived a little after 6:30 with a bag of Tostidos and salad while we were watching an interview of President Obama and Hilary Clinton on 60 Minutes.  I served white wine to Charlie and Susan and we finished watching the 60 Minute interview and then a segment on the history of the anti-doping investigation of Lance Armstrong and nibbled chips and guacamole.  Then, after Charlie assisted Suzette to download a photograph from the State Archives website, we turned off the TV and were ready for dinner.  I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Spanish La Montanana Viura and poured it for Charlie and Susan. Suzette and I drank beer and Willy woke up and joined us for dinner.

Dinner was simply a wedge of casserole and a scoop of guacamole.  The casserole was cheesy, creamy, tangibly picante and delicious.  The spinach had collapsed and become unidentifiable as a leaf, which was sad, but the squash and onions and tortillas had collapsed into a mush, which was good.  The consistency was that of a layered yet gelatinous whole, which I liked, sort of like a layered French meat and vegetable layered terrine.

After dinner Susan went back to their house and fetched a gallon of Blue Bell Vanilla Ice cream and a box of Florentines from Whole Foods, a DVD of a Robin Williams’ show in New York and two cookbooks, the Time-Life series recipe book for Viennese Cuisine and the Thomas Keller Bouchon Bakery Cookbook for  Suzette to look through for ideas for "hors d'oeuvres" for the Palmers’ harpsichord recital.

Charlie gained a love for woodworking at a young age working with his Dad in their shop and has developed a high degree of skill in woodworking and will take on any project, no matter how challenging.  He also learned to sight read music and play the piano as a youngster.  Charlie became interested in making harpsichords many years ago and has made three or four of them.  He just finished his latest one, a reproduction of French 18^th century harpsichord, and is planning a recital by Kathleen McIntosh?, who is Santa Fe Pro Musica’s principal harpsichordist, to celebrate its completion. 

After we watched a bit of Robin Williams and Season Three Episode Three of “Downton Abbey” Charlie and Susan left and Suzette went to bed, skimmed through the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook and immediately fell madly in love with baking and the cookbook.  I think we are going to need to finally remodel our kitchen, so we can have a baking area.  Suzette loves to bake and I would love to try to learn.  Maybe it will be like Charlie’s woodworking and turn into a really wonderful skill.

Charlie retired from active practice of medicine 6 ½ years ago and has devoted himself to his hobbies, mainly photography and woodworking ever since. 

Thinking about Lance Armstrong for a minute, a few years ago a fellow Texan and I were discussing the success of Lance Armstrong and he said, “You know, he was just trailer trash.”  

At that moment it was meant as honorific to show the determination of will that Lance demonstrated in overcoming the limitations of his background and cancer to become the best cyclist in the world, but now that phrase reminds me how hard it really is to overcome one’s historic limitations and circumstances, just like Doug Vaughn’s rise and fall in real estate that Barry and I discussed riding on the bike trail on Thursday.

Discerning the balance in life between learning to accept living within one's means and working to better one's circumstances can be confusing and challenging.  Perhaps my cousins, the Daram Damama's say it best, "Let life come to you," which I interpret to mean, "Work hard but don't exert that effort with an expectation of seeking any goal".
 
Bon Appétit