Teeeemsy Tee and I had a bit of excitement yesterday. We has a super gorgeous snowstorm hit yesterday, complete with huge flakes of sopping wet snow. Well, all the trees here in Iowa still have their leaves, and the trees are already stressed from a very dry summer. The branches of our neighbor’s soft maple could no longer sustain the weight of the snow, and down they came on top of our breakfast nook, ripping out our power on their way down. Fortunately, the branches didn’t break any windows, and we don’t think they damaged the roof (still need to check that out today). And our neighbor, who felt SUPER bad about the whole thing, stayed outside all night in the cold, wet snow and chopped down the branches that had fallen against our house. We think we’ll just need to pay to get a gutter fixed. It could have been much, much worse.
However, this all went down yesterday around lunch time, and I was planning on putting this in the Nesco roaster for supper: Primal Beef Enchiladas. I had all the ingredients chopped, the meat was already seasoned, my tastebuds were already watering. But – no dice! No power, no Nesco. This particular roast was a 4 pounder I picked up at the Farmers Market for $25. All afternoon at work I was worried about the state of the food in our fridge and freezer – we are primarily invested in the stock market and meat. If it looked as if the power was going to be off for an extended period, I was prepared to co-opt the fridge at work to save my food.
Fortunately, when I got home at 5 the utility company was already working on our line. We went out for supper, and by the time we got home at 7, the power was back on. The fridge seemed…coldish, so we deemed its contents safe. The only disturbing thing we noticed was that the whole fridge smelled like the baggie of garlic & onions that I had chopped up the night before. Nothing some baking soda can’t rectify.
Well, work is insane this week, so I figured I better seize opportunity where I can, so I cooked up the enchilada sauce and seared the meat this morning and then tossed the works in the Nesco (which you can set at exactly 325). Tim is going to check it around 10AM today. Hopefully it turns out tasty. Hopefully it won’t kill us with some weird warm-fridge food-born bacteria. Wish us luck!
And if you feel like being annoyed at humanity, read the comments posted on the recipe I linked to above. Mark provided this super tasty-sounding recipe, but many of the commentors choose to ignore that piece of kindness and focus on the fact that these are not true “enchiladas.” Who cares??? Jesus, people! Show some appreciation. I, for one, don’t care what the recipe is called. I just care that it’s delicious. 🙂
BTW, can you tell Tim and I have been re-watching Firefly?
UPDATE:
So. I burned the roast. By the time Tim got home, the roast was already burnt all along the edges. 🙁 Super big bummer. Fortunately he was able to salvage quite a bit of the meat. But the sauce was a goner. We had some of the meat for supper, and the flavor was great. I think that this recipe is worth making again, but I will have to cook it in the oven next time. Lesson learned. 🙂