I’ve done a lot of cooking in the past 10 days.  Without planning for it, I embarked on a little experiment: cooking only with what we had on hand.  I resolved to buy nothing but milk for the girls (one exception – my Sunday paper…a girl needs her coupons).  I hadn’t planned ahead to do this but I had been to both the grocery store and Sam’s Club so we had plenty of proteins and veggies on hand.  I hadn’t planned out a menu so there were odds and ends that I didn’t have to make certain dishes that I might have made if I could have run to the store just to pick up one or two items.  I had to be a little inventive and Sabrina had to live without a few of her normal lunch items.  But it led to a couple of interesting creations.  This is one of them.

I don’t know if I should call this a soup or a stew but regardless of what it is called it was really yummy!  My friend, Tonya, mentioned on facebook that she making some things with tomatillos from her garden.  I said that I loved making salsa verde but that the tomatillos were insanely expensive in the grocery store here.  A few days later, I had a little box of tomatillos and some hot peppers in my mailbox!  (Thank you Tonya – it was a great surprise.)  I kept meaning to make salsa verde with them but kept forgetting to pick up cilantro at the store.  I was afraid they would go bad so I was determined to use them.

Tomatillo Stew

1 – 1.5 lb tomatillos

3/4 lb chicken breast, cooked and shredded

2 1/2 Cups chicken broth

1 or 2 hot peppers (I don’t know what variety she sent…try whatever you like) seeded

1 bag frozen corn, heated

3 cloves garlic

1/2 medium yellow onion

1 tsp sugar

corriander, cumin, salt, pepper

shredded cheese and crushed tortillas for garnish

If you’ve never used tomatillos, they come in a paper husk.  Remove the husk and rinse well.  Then slice them in half and put them on a baking sheet.  (Use one that has a lip so the juices don’t run all over the bottom of your oven.  Not that I would know anything about that.)  Put them under the broiler for 6-8 minutes…until the tops are well browned.  (Last time I talked about the broiler, someone from outside the US didn’t know what that was.  It is a high heat setting in our ovens…kind of like a grill but with the heat coming from the top instead of underneath.)

Take them out of the oven and put them into the food processor – use a blender if you don’t have a food processor.  Add, garlic, onion, 1 teaspoon sugar and hot pepper(s).  Here is where I get scientific.  Add 6 shakes of ground coriander (I didn’t have fresh cilantro and what we call coriander in the US is the ground seeds of the cilantro plant – I hoped it was an adequate substitute) and 3 shakes of cumin.  A few shakes of salt and pepper.  Whirl it up in the processor until smooth.

Throw this mixture into a pot with 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth, the cooked shredded chicken, and the corn.  Allow this to heat on med-low for 20-30 minutes.  Serve with a little bit of shredded cheese and some crushed tortilla chips on top.  You could also put a dollop of sour cream on top.

Variations: This could easily be made vegetarian by using black beans or cannellini beans instead of chicken.  Or reduce the amount of chicken and add some beans too.  Fresh cilantro would be a nice addition too.

And my friend Meredith suggested something that hadn’t occurred to me – if you have a hispanic grocery near you check out their prices on tomatillos.  It might be much more wallet friendly!

Did I mention that Tessa also started full out walking this weekend?  I was gone for 4 hours yesterday and she chose that window of time to start walking. For the grandmas and aunts in the audience, I bring you Tessa Walking:

Tessa Walking from Michelle Smiles on Vimeo.

This is a picture of my youngest child EATING actual food and not gagging.  Not baby food or pureed food – food.  Carrots, green beans, turkey bologna, and noodles.   We aren’t completely there yet but the past 24 hours has been a huge step forward.  For all of you who have babies about the age of mine (she is 14.5 months) and post photos of your babies eating apples and waffles and other non-pureed food items, I’ve been so envious.  I hope to soon have her off baby food completely.

Even the dog was excited that the sun was out today.  It has been gray so much lately – he refused to come inside and just rolled in the grass for an hour.

I went to the pre-sale of the consignment sale I am selling things in last night.  Glad I’m not claustrophobic between the number of people and the small venue.  I didn’t need to pick up much of anything because I’ve already shopped a couple of earlier sales for the girls winter clothes.  But I wanted to wander around.  I found a baby doll.  Sabrina has a few dolls but none that she really is attached to.  She is such a little mother and changes diapers for her puppy, her sheep, and an imaginary doll.  So I picked up this baby doll.  We’ve named her Penny and Sabrina carried her everywhere today.  She fed her, changed her, put her down for naps, and put her in the exersaucer so she could blog while she did a puzzle. Probably the best $2.50 I’ve spent.

Tessa was simply happy to be left alone for 5 minutes.

But with all that sunshine, we couldn’t stay inside all day.

And yet again, poor Tessa is stuck in the stroller while the rest of us have fun.

It is amazing.  The child has a load of toys but the second I got this infant gym out to price for the consignment sale, Sabrina was enchanted.  She played with it until I put it in the car.  Like a month to a flame, this child is attracted to things that aren’t hers.  It doesn’t matter how many toys she has to play with, she would rather play with anything else (usually whatever her sister has).

The grocery store had uncooked  shrimp on sale.  Lately, I’ve been buying the already cooked and peeled shrimp to save time.  But the sale was good enough to encourage me to cook and peel the shrimp myself.  Oh my!  I forgot how amazing shrimp taste when cooked correctly!   The already cooked shrimp end up rather rubbery and tasteless by the time I get them reheated in whatever dish I throw them into.  But these shrimp melted in my mouth.  I tell you this just as a PSA – buy them raw and cook them yourself.

1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 Tbl cold butter in small pieces

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 fresh lemon juice

1/2 dry white wine

1/4 fresh basil leaves, chopped

Pasta cooked

In a saute pan, heat a small amount of olive oil.  Place the shrimp in the pan.  Allow to saute for a couple of minutes – as the down side is starting to pink up, turn each over and allow to cook for another minute or two until completely pink.  Once it is completely pink, remove it from the pan immediately.

Melt 1 Tbl of butter in a sauce pan and saute garlic. Add wine and lemon juice, allow to cook on med/med-high until reduced by 1/2.  Reduce to low heat, add butter one small piece at a time – stirring until piece melts and then add the next one.  Once all of the butter is added, stir in some salt and pepper and the fresh basil leaves.  Remove from heat.  Toss with shrimp and pasta.  Top with some grated parmesan or asiago cheese.

The night I made this, I discovered that we were out of white wine so I used red.  It tasted almost as yummy – so whatever you have in the house is good.  Also, if you like tomatoes, you could chop up a tomato and toss it in.

Being married to a geek means that my husband is able to make all sorts of complex networks work (most of the time).  We have wireless networks and computer networks and I don’t know what.  And things talk to each other.  I just know that there are a lot of wires, receivers and, anytime something stops working or needs moved, a lot of cussing.

The fall TV line up means there isn’t anything on 5 nights a week but the other 2 nights have decent stuff all overlapping.  Our TiVo is old enough that we can’t record one channel while we watch another (he did voodoo once ot make it work but has since declared it “impossible”).  My old TV is upstairs so we started watching Supernatural upstairs while Grey’s Anatomy (yes I said I was done with it during the whole sex with dead Danny thing but after some drunk dialing, we are back together) records downstairs.

Our cable box upstairs started acting up last week.  My husband played around with it but it wasn’t working.  My completely un-technical solution was to suggest to Steve that he plug the cable directly into the TV so that we could watch the show and figure it out later.  You know – go old school.  No cable box, no Tivo, just cable straight into the TV.  Steve initially ignored my suggestion so I said it again because we were missing the show.  Steve’s response, in a slightly patronizing tone?  “That won’t work.  How would the TV know what channel to be on?”

Isn’t that cute?  He’s so far into the technical details he forgets that TVs possess more than 1 channel when not plugged into cable boxes and TiVos.

I love you honey.  “No I said hand me a left door.”

Yesterday, the kids almost defeated me.  I don’t know what was different but I was beaten down when Steve finally arrived home.  The morning wasn’t bad.  Sabrina declared she didn’t want to go to ballet anymore but changed her mind at the last minute so I didn’t have to decide whether or not to do battle over that issue. During naptime, I started hanging and tagging items for a consignment sale.  If you’ve never done this (this is my first time), there are specific directions.  You safety pin all items to wire hangers.  All hangers must face left.  For some reason, I can not make myself do this correctly.  I have to unpin and rehang 75% of my garments but can’t seem to learn from my mistake no matter how many times I have to re-do it. Hoping this ends up being worth the time invested.

After naps, the kids were wound up.  They wouldn’t stop hanging on me or poking at each other.  Sabrina wanted to go outside and Tessa wanted to be on my lap.  So we went out so Sabrina could ride her Dora bike and Tessa could sit with me on the porch.  Sabrina was only happy riding for 5 minutes and Tessa wasn’t even happy on my lap.  I was on the edge of losing it so I threw them both in the stroller and went for a walk.  Because – GAH – THE WHINING!  Thankfully, Steve was home when we got back.  And I slept like a rock last night so I am feeling like maybe I can handle the wee ones today.

(Sabrina is concerned that the Hello Kitty on her t-shirt doesn’t have a mouth.  It is all we are talking abotu today.

And Tessa – when does the drooling stop? Or at least decrease.)