Ms. Fix-It

This is one of those days when annoying but necessary aspects of everyday life conspire to remind us how vulnerable we are to basic infrastructure failure. To sum it up, today I have dealt with a phone outage, replaced a toilet seat, changed two furnace filters and most dauntingly, put a new dead bolt in the front door. And yes, I also helped my mother survive a catastrophic moment (so she thought), when a large container of chicken soup I made yesterday slipped from her fingers and exploded across the kitchen floor. The first hint: On awakening I dealt with the telephone company for the second day about our service, which included no dial tone yesterday but had evolved by 8 a.m. today to crackly static. Calling what used to be Sprint but is now Century Link about phone service involves a humiliating series of "press 1" and "press star," one of the most frustrating series of automated responses I have encountered in customer relations, with the possible exception of those companies that have outsourced their customer service to India, prisons, Mexico or outer reaches of the universe. After I managed to communicate through the static to learn that we were on the repair list, I replaced two furnace filters as well as disconnected a toilet seat that has been biting me on the butt for weeks now. The new toilet seat has been awaiting my resolve, which wavers when I recall the last time I tried to do this particular chore. It turned out to be as difficult as I remembered, until I reached below the bowl, which turned my insides out (I have a weird hernia) and removed the plastic screws by hand rather than making futile gestures with the screwdriver with an extra-large tip, which I had previously been attempting in total futility. All was accomplished in time for the detritus to be collected by the weekly garbage service. I had managed to communicate with them yesterday. I discovered the lack of dial tone when hoping for a pickup, but later managed to leave a message by cell phone. Making sure the old toilet seat and furnace filters were in the garbage can before the Monday pickup was my first triumph of the day. A subsequent chore was more daunting. We had ths same deadbolt and lower doorknob lock on the front door that were there when we moved in. The deadbolt in particular has been quite squirrelly lately, and while I have been able to lock the deadbolt when leaving for extended periods through experimentation, I have not been able to lock it from the inside for some time when we retire for the night. It has been nagging me as a possible problem one of these days, when I will not be able to enter no matter how hard I try my little key twists. This last Sunday, Mom came home early from church not feeling well, and was unable to unlock the front door for some time. I was on a shopping excursion to Cascade Locks, and when I arrived home, she was not happy. Monday, I checked the phone book and determined that only two companies in the entire area offer residential service, one in Hood River and the other in The Dalles. This began to sound expensive. Calling the local hardware store evoked the information that while new lock sets and rekeying are available there, installation is up to the purchaser. I do not have the lower knob lock installed yet --- deadbolt installation included removal of the previous lock, which had no screws, chiseling of wood around the sides of the front plate and two new screw holes. Suffice it to say that after tool experimentation, measuring and summoning reserves of contemplative powers I didn't know I had, the top lock is installed. It works. The pot roast is in the oven. I am signing out.

A kale call

Feeling a non-specific malaise, possibly due to looming predictions of rain and real fall weather, I decided I needed a nutritional boost and chose to get it from kale. This peasant green is at the forefront in many blogs and foodie magazines recently, but I happen to have it in my garden this year. It emerged unbidden as a volunteer, not in great profusion but doing well enough that in spite of a couple of cuttings its growth has continued. In years past I swore by Siberian kale, a non-curly type from Territorial Seeds that returned several years as a volunteer. This returning variety is curly. We haven't yet had the frosts that encourage the nutty notes that emerge or witnessed its renaissance in early spring when it rebounds with restorative fervor. An admission of neglect rather than aspirations of foodiness caused me to decide it was time for a little pruning. Using the scissors, I made a swath in the teeming undergrowth now known as my garden patch. It yielded two large stems of kale with all their leaves (more remain for another day), plus a few stray rainbow chard and beet greens, two baby zucchini, (one yellow, one green), and some herbs. Two large sprigs each of basil and lemon thyme, plus a little marjoram and some chives were brought in the house with the mess of greens. I chiffonaded the kale with scissors, putting the pile into my enamel dutch oven and adding about 3/4 of a cup of low-fat, low salt chicken broth (the pan was half full until until the kale diminished in the heat). I chopped up about 1/4 pound of low-fat ham rescued from the freezer and added the chopped summer squash and herbs, covering the dutch oven tightly after adding 1 tsp. dried garlic bits and about the same amount of dried onion, as well as a dash of Worchestershire sauce and 1/4 cup of dry white wine. Letting it simmer, I put three cups of water in a heavy saucepan with a 1/2 tsp. of salt and brought it to a boil, adding a half pound of whole grain penne. When it was still al dente (about 6 minutes in), I drained it, leaving a spoonful or two of water. I added most of the cooked kale mixture to the dutch oven, greatly shriveled, plus a sprinkle of smoked paprika, 1/4 pound of low-fat cream cheese and a small chunk (one or two ounces) of colby jack, which I stirred into the penne on the burner after the heat was off, adding at the last second a bit of grated parmesan. After a minute of melding on the plate, it was pretty awesome. I gave it about 45 seconds in the microwave when a third of the way into my lunch I was distracted by a phone call. That only seemed to improve it. I don't know yet about the effects of the vitamin boost, but it was what I needed.

Green, green, it's green they say...

Craving something spicy, I made a batch of chicken enchiladas. There are certain things I cannot do without, and food with a kick is at the top of that short list. Our local store is now occasionally carrying unexpected produce including tomatillos and jalapenos, and at reasonable prices, too. Here's my usual enchilada assemblage: Roast a pound of tomatillos in their husks with one or two jalapeno peppers under the broiler in the toaster oven, turning them as they get a little brown and crispy on each side. Don't completely char them. An outdoor grill is great for this, if you have it fired up. Alternatively, I have roasted them on a long-handled fork directly over the burner, especially peppers, but put on the exhaust fan to avoid fumes and the resulting smoke alarm racket. I close them in paper lunch sack and let them steam and cool a bit. Briefly saute one chopped yellow onion and three diced cloves of garlic in a little oil in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Crush 1 teaspoon of whole cumin seed in your hand and add to the pot with 1/2 tsp. dried oregano. Peel and chop the tomatillos and peppers. Do not wash them after peeling --- you want that charred taste. If you don't like as much heat, remove the pepper seeds and internal membranes and discard. Add 1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable broth to the pan with the chopped tomatillos and peppers and simmer. After the tomatillos become more translucent, take the pan off the burner and use an immersion blender or place the mixture in a kitchen blender and turn it into sauce. Add 2 T. chopped fresh cilantro and set aside. (By the way, you now have a green salsa that can also grace tortilla chips or tacos.) Cut 3 partially thawed skinless, boneless frozen chicken breasts into smallish chunks, season, and saute briefly until some browning occurs, but don't cook them through. Set aside. Open a can of black beans and drain. Do not rinse. Chop 3 scallions, saving the green tops for later. Grate 1/2 pound pepper jack cheese and 1/2 pound mild cheddar (if you have cotijo-type Mexican farmers cheese, you can crumble it and use it in place of the cheddar.) Sometimes, I use long thin slices of cheese rather than grated. If you have deli sliced cheese, cut it into strips. Open a small can of sliced or chopped olives and drain. Meanwhile, spray a large rectangular baking dish --- I prefer glass or enameled cast iron --- and begin your assembly. I like handmade-style corn tortillas from La Tortilla Factory, which have some wheat in them and are more flexible than machine-made corn tortillas, which tend to break up. Rather than dipping them in the sauce or heating them in a little oil before rolling them up, I heat them briefly in the microwave about 30 seconds, one at a time on a plate. When I lived in San Francisco, I went to a "Mexicatessen" in the Mission District that made tortillas de mano, purchased while warm and pliable. Place a row of chicken pieces in the center of the warmed tortilla. Spoon some sauce over the chicken, add a sprinkle of scallion rounds, a spoon or two of black beans, some grated cheese and a few pieces of olive. Roll and place in the baking dish with seam side down. Pack each rolled tortilla tightly next to its neighbor until the pan is full. (This usually makes enough for one more square pan of enchiladas; they often go straight into the freezer to be enjoyed another day). Spoon sauce over the top to moisten. Sprinkle on copious cheese and a few chopped green scallions. Bake at 375 for about 35-40 minutes, or until it's bubbling and the cheese has browned a little. Let the pan rest five minutes before serving. Variations: Sometimes I use cooked rice in place of beans. One year when frost hit my garden early, I used hard little green tomatoes as a tomatillo substitute. They don't have quite the right acidity, but they worked. Also, a couple of tablespoons of green mole paste can be added to the sauce while blending. If so, add another 1/4 cup of chicken broth, beer or white wine for the right consistency. Leftovers can be frozen or heated in the microwave; they are even better.