Mexican beef - meltingly tender & perfect for tacos

I first tasted perfectly tender taco filling at Toledo's oldest Mexican restaurant El Tipico many years ago. I got my first inkling on how to make it from reading Ricky Bayless' "Rick & Lanie's Excellent Adventures." His recipe called for cooking stew meat for about an hour. I took it a step further and used pot roast, since the meat is already so wonderfully tender. You can use leftover pot roast, make a pot roast just for the occasion or use my pot roast recipe. I sometimes make a double batch and use half for a pot roast dinner and half for the Mexican meat. You can make any size batch you want here. I've made it with two big roasts or with half a small one depending on how much you want. This freezes wonderfully and stays moist cause there is a bit of fat in there, you are basically confiting beef with this. You can cook this in a Dutch oven in the oven set at 325 or in a slow cooker if it's more convenient. Either way, you start out by browing the boneless chuck roast that you have salted & peppered in a little olive oil. Use a skillet if it's going into the slow cooker, use the Dutch oven you plan to cook it in, if cooking in the oven.

Get a nice sear going on all sides and then, using tongs, set the beef aside on a plate while you do a little browning of aromatics. Drop some butter in the pan and let it melt.

The butter will blend nicely with the brown bits from the meat. Now you can add some carrots, onions & celery that you have finely diced or do what I do:

and use this frozen mirepoix mix from Kroger, which owns a bunch of grocery stores under names like Wegman's. I'm sure other stores have their versions and it's pretty darn handy to keep on hand for making sauces.

I like to sprinkle a little sugar on top to help it brown. If I were making a plain pot roast, I'd add a clove of minced garlic at the end, but since you'll get plenty of that later in the Mexican version, we'll skip it. Just let the veggies get a little brown and then add:

Half chicken stock, half beef stock and a generous glug of red wine. You want enough liquid to come at least half way up the beef for this braise, so the amount of liquid depends on the amount of beef you're cooking.  Toss in a sprig of thympe as well and just let it all get warm.

Now, you can either put your meat in the slow cooker and pour the contents of the pan over it or put your meat in the Dutch oven with the bubbling juices. I suggest putting foil between your pot and your lid for an extra tight seal. Now you can cook the meat in a 325 degree over for about three hours or in your slow cooker for however long it takes your particular model to get a pot roast nice and tender (it'll be a long darn time.)

Once that meat is tender, you'll pull it out and shred it. Then put it in a cast iron or some other kind of heavy duty metal pot that can take a bit of beating with a spoon without damaging the finish. Put the cooking liquid on top of it. (make sure you fish out that sprig of Thyme.)

Now we make the sauce, which is simply tomatoes, chilis and garlic.

You can use canned Mexican tomatoes with jalapenos or Ro-Tel tomatoes with chili or plain tomatoes or these delicious fire-roasted tomatoes. The proportion depends on how much heat you like. I like to mix half mexican tomatoes with jalapenos with half fire-roasted tomatoes. I use two 16 ounce cans for a three pound chuck roast. By the way, if you're making a small portion with leftover potroast, left over canned tomatoes freeze perfectly well in a quart freezer bag. Too those tomatoes, we will add a whole lot of garlic. About six cloves per three pound roast. We'll put the tomatoes and the garlic in a blender or food processor together. You will need to peel the garlic, but not dice it. The blades will do all of your work.

Now give it a whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Then pour it into the pot with the beef and cooking liquid

Give it a stir and it's time to start cooking. We are going to cook away most of the liquid, concentrating the flavor. Do not salt this until you get near the end.

This will take awhile, you are getting rid of a lot of liquid, but it's worth the wait. You don't have to do much but the occasional stir. It's a good time to wash dishes. Just don't have the heat so high that the bottom of the pan burns. There's a lot of sugar in tomatoes and you don't want scorched meat.

Once you have most, but not all of the liquid out, it's time to salt to taste and serve. Just eyeball it until it has the consistency that you think would be nice in a taco.

I like to serve in a corn tortilla with a little tomato avocado salad & cheese. If you have a Mexican grocery where you can get fresh corn tortillas, please do. I get them at San Marcos in Toledo and freeze them wrapped in foil. Then I just heat them in a Zip Loc bag for about a minute in the microwave. Speaking of freezing, this meat freezes beautifully. I portion it out and put it in a freezer bag. It's great for chili, mexican pizzas, taco salad, burritos, nachos, tostadas and so many other delicious applications.

It is also a great dish for a large crowd. Set up a slow cooker full of this delicous meat, put out tortillas or taco shells and toppings and you have a taco or nacho bar that people will love.

Five life lessons I've learned so far.

1.  The only sure way to get invited to cool parties is to be the person throwing them.

2. It is never too much trouble to bake someone a birthday cake. It is also never too much trouble to pull an elaborate prank on those you love.

3. If you cook, plant an herb garden. You can fit one anywhere, even if a few pots. There's no satisfaction like picking your own basil. It'll save you a fortune.

4. Bacon - that is all.

5. Those things they sell in supermarkets are not tomatoes. They are tomato-shaped objects. Get

them from your own vine or buy homegrown. But do not eat the tomato shaped objects at the supermarket. The only exception are grape tomatoes, sometimes they are okay, but not always.

Honey Fried Chicken - twice fried with hot sauce and honey on top

Twice-fried chicken with a honey and hot sauce glaze. It's super-crispy and delicious and the reason I pay a lot of money to subscripe to Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines. They do their research on how to make food great. This is super-crispy and amazingly delicious. And the secret ingredient is cornstarch. Okay, peeps, let's fry some chicken. First of all, we're going to brine. Put 1/2 cup of salt and 1/2 cup of sugar into 2 quarts of water.

Then add your chicken parts. I used all drumsticks here.

Let the chicken brine for about thirty minutes. This is the secret to absolutely juicy fried chicken. Do not skip this step! I'll know and I'll find you. Now mix up the batter.  No flour needed. Just a cup of cornstarch, 3/4 of a cup of water, two teaspoons of pepper and a tablespoon of salt.

Stir it all together. This is going to be a thick batter

Now get the oil to boiling. About two inched of oil in a Dutch oven should take care of it. But you will most likely have to fry your chicken in batches.

You'll need to get the oil to 350 degrees. Once your chicken is drained, you cat pat it dry and then you need dredge it in about 1/2 a cup of corn starch. Make sure to completely coat it.

Let the chicken sit for  minute while you check the oil temp and move your batter over near the pan.

Once the oil is hot enough (and use a thermometer darn it!) Dip the chicken in the batter and shake it over the bowl to get rid of the extra.

Then the chicken goes into the hot oil. Stand back, baby cause it's splattering time!

Cook the chicken for about seven minutes. Then you're going to take it out and let it rest for seven minutes or more. The chicken is NOT done. This is only the first fry.

Let the oil get back to 350 and then give the first fry to your next batch of chicken. Let it rest while you give the second fry to your first batch. Make sure the oil gets back to 350. Remember, cook once for seven minutes, let rest for at least seven minutes and then fry for a second time for seven minutes.

While the chicken is frying, you can make the glaze. Combine 3/4 cup of honey and two tablespoons of hot sauce. I like Frank's.

Heat the mixture for a minute in the microwave. Then pour the hot mixture in a bowl.

After seven minutes of frying, your chicken should be at least 160 degrees. It never hurts to check the temp.

By the way, I cleaned the rack over the sheet pan in hot water and soap before I put the cooked chicken on it. No cross-contamination kiddos. Now gently toss the cooked chicken in the glaze.

Once it is thoroughly coated, put the chicken pieces on the rack over a sheet pan to drip a bit. You can put the left over glaze in a bowl or gravy boat to serve on the side if you like.

Super cripsy thin coating and absolutely delicious.

I served it with corn, smashed potatoes, fresh baked bread and sweet tea.

Tasty and worth the effort. Enjoy.

Perfect Sweet Tea

Being a Southern gal at heart, there's nothing I like better than a good glass of sweet tea, especially with some maters, taters, greens and fried chicken. And there's nothing I dislike more than a bad glass of tea. So many things can go wrong: Too sweet, not sweet enough, full of grainy sugar. Here's how to make it.

Step 1: Do not boil water. Just put some in a pitcher

Then add some tea bags. I used five family-sized bags here, but 12 regular tea bags would work just as well.

It's the same principle as sun tea - but it turns out you don't need the sun or any heat at all. In fact, the tea tastes better without heat. And you just let it steep for about thirty minutes to an hour until you get a good color. In the meantime, we're going to make a sugar syrup, because it makes all the difference. Put one cup of water and one cup of sugar into a sauce pan.

And bring it to a boil.

Don't boil it too long, we aren't making caramel.  Turn off the heat and as soon as the tea looks dark enough, take out the bags. Resist the urge to give the bags a squeeze. Just throw them out.

Then add the sugar syrup. If you happen to have some flavored raspberry or peach syrup or whatever flavor you like, you can use it instead.

You can put this in the fridge to cool down. What you've made here is a concentrate. So when you're read to serve, you need to fill a glass to the brim with ice.

Then add the tea

And you have the perfect glass of sweet tea.

Creepy Cool Print

For some reason this garage sale find has captured my heart. I found this mid-century modern marvel garage saling among the beautiful Victorian homes in Toledo's Old West End during the annual festival.

It was propped up in a driveway and caught my eye immediately. Wonder of wonders, it fit my price point exactly.

Under ten dollars and I didn't even have to negotiate!

It reminds me of a painting from the old show Night Gallery.


And also a little of Side Cut Metropark where I love to walk. After all, this is the Black Swamp.

A bit of research has revealed it to be a California Mid-Century Modern James Bunnell silkscreen. Which means it hung proudly over someone's sofa in their beautiful new ranch home in the 1950s.  Now it hangs eye level over my writing space at home. My window to the world of my thoughts.

Sure, odds are some supernatural being is going to come crawling out of the print and get me. But I dig it. And I think it makes a great addition to the Stately Mackley Manor Art Collection.

Is it me or does that sun/moon appear to be glowing?

Uh, what's that sound? Do you hear that? Hmmm....