Looooo-cy! I’m home! You got some ‘splainin’ to do!

You know, I love my job. I love to travel. I just don’t like to do a whole lot of it in one big clump, as I’m in the process of right now. Two trips down, one to go, and I will have been away from home for 15 of the first 20 days of October.

OH, BUT BEFORE I GET INTO THAT: I AM ONCE AGAIN A FINALIST IN A FOOD 52 COMPETITION. PLEASE GO TO WWW.FOOD52.COM, CLICK ON CONTESTS, AND VOTE FOR MY MARINATED CAULIFLOWER! I would just be insufferably proud of myself if I could win twice, and get in two successive cookbooks.

Assorted travel notes:

Good, yes. How the West was won? Eh.

In ‘n Out Burger. Good fast food burger. Possibly the best fast food burger I’ve had since Back Yard Burgers was a fairly new concept and still did decent beef. It’s a thin patty; get a double if you want lots o’ beef. Comes standard with tomato, lettuce, pickle, a sauce that’s remniscent of good homemade Thousand Island. Can get it with a slab of grilled onion. Bun is flat enough to be manageable.

It was good. I wouldn’t throw it out. Meat was decidedly of the highest quality I’ve ever had at a fast food restaurant. Veggie were fresh. Sauce was spicy. Onion could’ve been grilled longer. But at the end of the day, it’s a fast food burger.

Albeit the No. 2 combo (single cheeseburger, medium drink, fries) will run you $5.15 including tax. That ain’t bad.

Elsewhere on the culinary landscape in Arizona….after that absolutely To Die For steak on Saturday night, my host-with-the-most, John, made enchiladas for us on Sunday night. John can make enchiladas for me any day, I might add. Thusly:

Shrimp, green chiles, cheese.

Shrimp with green sauce, left; chicken with red sauce, right.

 The shrimp got an hour-long soak in a marinade of tomatillos, jalapenos, onion and cilantro, all whirred up in the FoPro. Then they and their marinade, which was left somewhat chunky, got a quick sear in a hot skillet. And when they got cooled down, they got lined up in corn tortillas (softened for a few seconds on a side in a hot skillet with oil), topped with a strip of jalapeno, a sprinkle of green chiles, a few onions,  a sprinkle of cheese, and rolled.

Chicken got the grocery rotissere chicken, boned, plus the jalapeno-chiles-onion-cheese trimmings. Shrimp got canned green sauce, chicken got canned red sauce. They got about 45 minutes in the oven, and they were some fine enchiladas, I am here to testify. They were near-bout in Sweet Baby Jesus territory, and likely would have been had I not had a touch more tequila than I ought to have had the night before (because John makes SUCH a stinkin’ good maragarita), and my stomach was not as happy as it might have been.

Oh. The margaritas? Herradura tequila. Margarita mix. Triple Sec. Chambord. And a wedge o’ lime. They’ll hurt you, they’re so good.

Here would be Chef John with the finished product. His wife, Nancy, is a fortunate woman. But then, he didn’t do so bad, either.

He cooks, he writes, he mixes great drinks. And he’s married, dammit.

Other than that, it was a relatively uninteresting week, culinarily. Beef medallions at the banquet Wednesday night. Junk food on the plane Thursday. Heavy hors d’oueves at the receptions Monday and Tuesday. And I took NS out to eat at the Purple Cow tonight.

He liked the Cow.

I’ll cook, or at least think about cooking, tomorrow. I guess. Can’t be bothered with even thinking about it at present. I’m tired, and I’m fixin’ to go stretch out and read. You and y’mama keep an eye on the home front for me for One More Trip, and then we’ll get back in the kitchen.

Dinner I didn’t eat

Rice. With stuff in it.

But NS did, and pronounced it good. Me, now that the stress levels have ratcheted back up (damn Geometry! damn parenting responsibilities!), I’m rarely hungry in the evenings, and if I am, it’s one of those where I want to eat the house and everything in it.

So I cooked, and he ate.

Enchiladas. Except they were kinda like burritos. And kinda like chimichangas.

Earlier in the day, when I thought I might have an appetite, I had settled on enchiladas. I had the makings. I had even bought some queso fresco the other night at the grocery.

So I sauteed an onion and some garlic, threw in some chile paste, added and browned the ground beef with some smoked paprika, some chili powder and some cumin and little salt, added some water and let it cook down, and wrapped up my enchiladas. Burritos. Chimichangas. Whatever.