I cut up too many potatoes for the gratin last night, so I threw them in a bowl of water so they would not oxidize and this morning Gretchen made them in to hash brown potatoes. I also had half of a white grapefruit, a glass of orange juice, three strips of bacon, and several cups of coffee.
Lunch was a plate full of herb roasted winter vegetables — potatoes, onions, carrots, and butternut squash with rosemary, thyme, and savory and balsamic vinegar.
Gretchen and I like to watch Rachael Ray on 30 Minute Meals, but it’s usually just for entertainment. The other day though we both perked our ears up when she made Smoked Turkey Baked Chimichangas. We both love chimichangas, but don’t like the idea of deep fat frying. Actually I love deep fat frying, it’s a long, time-honored tradition with me, but I try not to do it any more often than absolutely necessary, for health reasons. So this recipe seemed to be the perfect compromise. Now it would seem to me that a baked chimichanga is about as accurate as a baked burrito, but I didn’t name it, so I’ll have to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Now I have never follow a recipe completely, so I’ll just say what we did differently.
First of all, despite mounting evidence that it is imprecise, I am one of those ignorant Americans who measures everything by volume, rather than weight. So we used 2 cups of roast turkey, chopped — that we made ourselves — rather than “1 pound thickly sliced smoked turkey from deli counter, chopped.” Also, we couldn’t find any chipotles in adobo sauce. We are living in the middle of Pennsylvania, after all. However, we did find some chipotle marinade that also had some other spices that were consistent with adobo sauce. We also only had two-thirds of a cup of tomato sauce. Gretchen is not fond of scallions, so we left them out. We shorted the cheese a little — only a cup, rather than 1½ cups. We also left off the toppings. We did, however, turn on the broiler for the last few minutes to get a really brown brown on the chimis, and we started out with a layer of frijoles refritos before the cheese. Mmmmm… Good!
Dinner was two baked chimichangas, two glasses of Stone Cellars by Beringer Sauvignon Blanc, and a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry to finish.