Food Porn

On my days off, I cook. I get four days off in a two-week period so I cook a lot. J and I made delicious veggie/hamburgers with fries this weekend and spaghetti, followed by a scrumptious strawberry shortcake. All this cooking has got me thinking, especially since J and I both agree we’ve both experienced a change in our cooking since we met each other. J’s presence has made me slow down and appreciate the food experience more than I ever have. He’s sold me on fresh garlic, the smell and texture, and adding little touches that take, say, a regular tuna sandwich with miracle whip and relish, into a taste experience with veggies, capers, a touch of Dijon mustard, quality bread; all things I never paid much attention to before. I crammed veggies and tuna together because I needed to eat more veggies, paying more attention to the food pyramid than to flavor. Such attention makes regular cooking into food porn, normally only seen on the Food channel. On the other hand, J has started cooking more, preparing real meals instead of just quick things like sandwiches, since meeting me.

Tonight I made healthy enchiladas, but didn’t use a recipe. Rather, I used several, and added my own touch besides. I cook like farm women before me. When thinking about dinner, I think, “Well I have this, this, and that. What can I do with what I have?” It’s not the mindset I encounter in many cookbooks or magazines, where they assume you keep chilies in adobe on hand. I try to run to the store as little as possible and use what I have instead of buying more. So here’s a lesson on how I cook.

It began with leftovers.

We put a lot, and I mean a lot, of food up last fall. We have carrots, spinach, peas, asparagus, all kinds of meat and veggies in the freezer that need used up before spring planting. So the goal, whatever I made, was to use up as much food as I could. I started with a gallon bag of tomato sauce. It needed cooked down. I’d processed the sauce once, but quite a bit of water remained. So I got that boiling down and browned a pound of hamburger with fresh garlic and half an onion. I added that to the tomato sauce with a vague idea of enchilada sauce, wondering all the while how much it would cook down and how in the world I’d get enchilada flavor. On that note, I went and did my workout, simmering over dinner and writing even as my pot simmered.

Unhappy with the consistency, I added a pint of frozen roasted eggplant to the mix. Anything would have worked really, carrots, celery, anything sent through the blender to add bulk. Moms with picky kids could probably disguise most or all the veggies by pureeing it and cooking it with the tomato sauce. That’s assuming the kids eat tomato sauce, but I can’t help with that. My parents basically told me “eat what we eat, or be hungry.” I ate. Seasonings for the sauce included, garlic, salt and pepper, cumin, cinnamon, and oregano. You could use chili powder too if that’s a flavor you like. Rather than use precise measure, I added a little at a time until I was happy with the flavor. You can always add spices; they’re much harder to take out.

So while the thickened sauce continued cooking, I rummaged through my fridge and pulled out my veggie arsenal. Frozen peas, asparagus, and spinach from the garden; green onion from the store; canned carrots we put up; and if my pan hadn’t been full by then, I would have added mushrooms. But my pan was so I let that cook.

I’m a lazy cook. Instead of rolling all nice and neat enchiladas, I layered it like lasagna. Putting a little sauce on the bottom of a 9x13x2 glass pan, I layered corn tortillas, then a little sauce, the veggies (I miscalculated on that layer so all the veggies went on one layer), then more tortillas, sauce to cover it all, and cheddar cheese on top. Pop it in the oven set at 350 degrees for 20 minutes and done. I cut the mess like a casserole or lasagna too and served it on top of another tortilla, just for presentation and extra something to chew on. Dad and I like ours with horseradish.

So it's not rocket science, the way I cook. Sometimes it goes good, like really good. And when it goes bad... lets just say I keep a frozen pizza around for that eventuality. J's not the only Mr. Contingency around here. It's all about creativity and having fun. Presentation and doing things by the book get played up too much. How do you think those tv chefs got to be chefs? They had a little fun, used a lot of creativity, and made up their own recipes. With a little practice, anybody can do it. And if you can rope your honey into enjoying the garlic with you, its ever so much fun. :-P Who knows? They're influence on your cooking style might just lead to some real tasty juji. 

(Jiji - pronounced JEW-gee; a name for stuff. It can be anything, fluid, vegetable, mineral, but originally it described the discharge from a cow's va-jay-jay prior to calving.)

If you’re still with me after all that, I'd like to wish Dana congratulations. Her story, "Running for Recovery," was accepted for publication by The Ultimate Runner magazine. So watch for it and good luck in the kitchen. Savor the flavor, the texture, the planning. If it’s good enough, you’ll know and cooking becomes food porn. It’s a beautiful thing.