Using what you got or, Annalena goes "Mexican"

Well, sort of. This is a tale of having to use up stuff in the fridge, getting a bit creative, and winding up with something that is greater than the sum of its parts. It really is. I promise.

This past weekend was a stock making weekend. Since Annalena has taken up the challenge from Liliputia (you know who you are...), and makes her own stock every couple of weeks, there is left over chicken from that stock making. This weekend, I used a different vendor than I usually do, and I will be back. The birds from the purveyor (who actually specializes in pork), were so much meatier, and so much more flavorful than the ones I had been buying, that there is no question in Annalena's mind. So, there I was, at the end of the soup making process "confronted" with tons of boiled chicken. We also had left over roasted chicken from our fest with Adam earlier that week (the "fest" that sent Annalena the message that she's drinking too much. OI, did that hurt). Another bowl of chicken salad? Oh GOD NO. Not that my chicken salad is not good. It's just that, well... after awhile, when you're saying "homemade chicken salad AGAIN????" Not that we were, of course (or at least I wasn't. If Guy was saying it under his breath, well, who knows?). In any event, I had run out of celery, which is essential in chicken salad to my point of view, so I had an excuse.



So, what to do? Well, if you are of a creative (some would say, sick) mind as is Annalena, you turn to what you have around, including the things that make you wonder "why did I buy that?" In fact, I had a couple of jars of the Italian vegetable relish, giardeniera, which I think I had ambitions of turning into something on crostini. THAT never happened, because there was too little of it, and it was too wet. Mixed with shredded chicken, however? Hmmmm. There was also a jar of my tomato sauce in the fridge, beginning to give me ugly looks (this weekend is a sauce making weekend), and there were the two bags of corn tortillas I had bought "to make something," and God only knows what that was. (maybe it left my head when the bottle of wine from the Adam fest took place). And, finally, a small bag of medium hot chili peppers, which were also beginning to give me dirty looks.



This all sounded like pseudo Mexican to me, and away we went. The chicken was already cooked, and all I did was shred it off of the bird carcass (actually quite a bit of fun, and easy, if the stock has been cooking for a million hours, as this was), and add the left over shredded roast chicken. I put the two jars of the vegetable relish in with this and put it to the side.



I took about 2 cups of tomato sauce, and heated it, with 4 chopped, medium spicy green chilis, for about five minutes. That's all. Now we were just about ready. I got a big baking dish - 9x13 - and covered the bottom of it with a bit of the tomato sauce, as if I were making a classic lasagna, if there is such a thing. I covered this with one bag of the corn tortillas, overlapping them so that there was a solid layer . Before I put them down, I heated each tortilla in a small, ungreased frying pan, just to take the stiffness off of them.



On top of that layer of tortillas went the chicken/vegetable mixture, and that was covered with the rest of the tortillas, and then the tomato sauce.



FINALLY, there were the bags of left over cheese from the ghosts of dinner party pasts. I am almost ashamed to admit this. But I'll tell you: I took the left over Spanish cheeses and grated up those. I know, I know, I know. Shame on me. But it worked. It was good. I covered the tomato sauce with those cheeses, and then put the whole pan - which weighed about a ton - into the oven and baked for 30 minutes or so, until the cheese was melting and bubbly and looking full of pseudo Mexican goodness.



This is feeding a whole lot of people. I think we gave out portions to five people, and took some for ourselves. So that's seven. And I would say these are hearty portions.



Now, what if you're not a soup maker, and you want to do something like this? Well, Annalena has some answers: MAKE SOME SOUP FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE. It is not hard, and why would you buy a cooked chicken to make a casserole if you can make soup and get some for free?



WEll????



Ah, but here's another idea for you. One of the things that always stuns me about Mexican cooking is that there is so much turkey in it. Yes, there are turkey mole recipes all over the place, and lots of other ones. And isn't thanksgiving coming up? And won't you have a lot of leftover turkey?



Well? Get into the kitchen. Think about it. After the excesses of the standard (or unstandard) thanksgiving meal, doesn't something spicy and "faintly ethnic" (sort of like Annalena herself), sound good?



Get to it...