Mexican dinner

Prepared previously and frozen. Unmarked container looked like some kind of chili. (Chili for the soup-like mixture, chile for the plant or for the fruit of the plant. Nobody ever gets this right including myself sometimes and they're actually interchangable. So chili con carne, and habanero chile. If anybody tells you differently then punch them in the face, I mean, smile knowingly and turn away. ) It turns out to be the pork chili made here.

Also in the freezer in one of those convenient strip-seal freezer bags were a pile of small tamales with ice coating the corn husks. They look like they would be terrible but they're actually surprisingly delicious. I should market these things. The tamales are described here. My tamales always look a little bit Asian. 

The plate at top is using the pork chili in place of sauce. A red chile sauce intended for enchiladas but perfectly well serviceable for tamales can be reviewed here. It is a very common simple sauce that makes use of dried red chiles of the kind you see tied up in decorative chile ristras that are hung in cocinas y comedores, pórticos y patios, garajes y cenadors.  Okay, possibly not those last two. My red chiles are in little plastic bags. 

I grew that chile on my patio ↑. My friend is totally Brillo pads. Yesterday he made me understand that I didn't have to harvest my chiles all at once. I never thought of that. Now I can gauge if keeping them out there on the plant makes them less hot or what. 

I steamed white rice and made it yellow with turmeric. I have no idea what turmeric does besides turn things yellow. I used a paper kitchen towel cut to fit the lid as a gasket. The paper towel became soggy and stained yellow around the rim. When I lifted the lid, the paper towel had bulged into the curved shape of the lid as a yellow paper dome. It stayed that way. The turmeric stiffened it. The thing is, the outside of the pot and the stove would have been a boiled-over mess without it. 

I also whipped out a pile of refritos which are smashed beans that are not re-fried. It's a misnomer. I prepared these differently than anything I've ever heard of, and these refritos are as good if not better than anything I've ever had, and believe me, I've had my share of refritos in many restaurants in the E.E.U.U. and in Mexico. So there. I should patent this idea. I shall charge a sum to franchise the technique except for you cool guys here who may have it for free. The technique is a kitchen hack that shortens admirably an otherwise long and dragged out process. Plus you don't have to use any beans from a tin. Did you know that if you plant dry beans from a bag they will grow? They're like seeds or something. 

I take a measured amount of dry beans and process them to dust in an ordinary coffee bean mill. Now where will you ever see that except here? Nowhere! That's where. The powder is cooked in double the amount of liquid, any broth will do, along with seasoning and fat, in this case a teaspoon of lard. That's right, LARD. Manteca de cerdo. Muy authéntico. Nothing happens until the liquid boils and then it thickens rapidly. Today I used red beans. I would have preferred pinto beans or black beans but apparently I already ate them all, and if you think about it, that's a lot of beans para una persona normal.