Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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araceli’s enchiladas verdes

February 12, 2021

If you are interested in a casual, authentic Mexican home cook’s version of enchiladas verdes, this is it. It happens to be our new son in law’s favorite dinner, too, so having it in our repertoire is great.

Araceli (Alex’s sweet Mom, the same lovely woman who taught me tamales one year ago and who is now family!!) taught Jessica to make it for our kids’ wedding dinnner; and a week later Jessica taught me. We had so much fun, and of course the finished product was fragrant and delicious, much better than anything you can get from even a very good restaurant.

What follows is more method than a precise recipe, though, so read through it for yourself then dive in! Araceli’s most pressing advice was to taste as you go.

Basic Ingredients:
* chicken meat, poached with onions, salt, and garlic
* several poblano peppers, charred
* chicken boullion cube, more onion & garlic, fresh cilantro
* can of “green chile” enchilada sauce
* lots of fresh tomatillos, removed from husk
* sour cream (about 1/2 cup)
* stack of fresh corn tortillas
* vegetable oil for frying
* good melting white cheese, like “oaxaca” or Monterrey Jack
* additional onions & cilantro for garnish

Prepare the Chicken First:
Poach several pieces of boneless chicken (we used breasts) with garlic cloves, salt, and large pieces of onion. Once the meat is cooked through and cool enought to handle, shred it, reserving the broth for making rice later.

Meanwhile, Prepare Sauce Ingredients:
The bright green sauce flavor comes from cilantro, sure, but mostly from charred poblano peppers (slice and hull them first then cook aggressively in a hot skillet with scant oil or use an open flame or broiler to char the skins and soften the plump parts) and cooked tomatillos (remove husks then boil until they change color and begin to burst). Do the charring and the boiling while your chicken cooks, and gather your other sauce ingredients.

This recipe excited me so much I ordered tomatillo seeds for the summer garden.

Make the Sauce in a High Speed Blender:
(Also make sure your blender is heat proof. If it’s not, consider using an immersion blender or different method.)
Working in 2 or 3 batches, blend together the sliced and charred peppers, the cooked tomatillos (these will be more yellow than green once cooked), chopped onion, bunches of fresh cilantro (stems partially removed), a can of verde sauce, and around 1/2 cup sour cream. Taste as you go. Add garlic, salt, etc. The sauce should emulsify and become a smooth, bright green color. The photo that follows is of the sauce before Jess added sour cream:

Green enchilada sauce: You will want to drink it from a straw, but resist. This is for dinner.

Prepare Assembly Line: Fry, Dip, Fill, Roll, Top, Bake.
* Consider assembling enchiladas with at least one other person. The process goes more smoothly, and it’s lots of fun! We worked from right to left, starting with a stack of corn tortillas, followed by the stovetop hot oil, then the green sauce for dipping, the bowls of chicken, cheese, and onion, and finally the prepared baking dishes for receiving the rolled up enchiladas. I believe Jess added more onions and cheese at the end!
* The enchiladas will ultimately be rolled and placed snugly into a deep baking dish, which will go into a hot oven for melting. Prepare that baking dish (or a few, if you are making lots) and preheat the oven to about 350* F.
* Have green sauce ready in a bowl, along with seperate bowls of shredded chicken, lots of white cheese, and chopped onion.
* Heat a skillet or saucepan with vegetable oil, for soft-frying the corn tortillas.
* Play some fun music and make some memories!

Make Soft, Pliable Enchiladas:
* The secret to tender enchiladas turns out to be individually dipping the corn tortillas first in very hot oil (not long enough to make them very crispy, but long enough to get them bendy and hydrated with oil) then in the warm green sauce, all before filling. Filling cold tortillas would make for dry, cracked tortillas in the finished prodcut, which is no fun.
* Once each tortilla is dipped in hot oil then green sauce, it gets filled with scoops of moist chicken, some melt-worthy white cheese, and chopped onion. Tuck them seam side down, snugly in the baking dish.
* Pour remaining warm green sauce all over the uncooked enchiladas and top it all with remaining white cheese, more onions if you like.
* Bake until the cheese melts and is lightly touched with gold.
* Top with more cilantro, or tomatoes. Enjoy!!

We will be making these at the farm regularly, especially when fresh tomatillos and peppers are growing. If you know my husband, you might be curious how he likes green enchiladas. He loves them! Because he is allergic to onions, Araceli made a large batch of enchiladas sin cebolla just for him, for the wedding feast. So thoughtful! And of course when I make them here that’s what I’ll do, too.

Heartfelt thanks to my daughter for sharing her Mother in Law’s family recipe, and to Araceli for continuing to feed us all so well, with food and love.

Happy cooking, friends! And happy memory making and happy garden daydreaming!

“Give up the illusion that you can
throw Mexican food together.
Just understand that you are going to
have to make and take the time.”
~Denise Chavez
XOXOXOXO


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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: araceli, cooking, enchiladas, family, Jessica, recipes

lots of random updates including a wedding photo & a recipe

February 6, 2021

My sweet parents joined us at the farm on Wednesday night for dinner and just catching up. I made my version of all-day Indian food, which amounts to Tikka Masala made with boneless chicken thighs (soaked for hours in spiced, full fat Greek yogurt), several large discs of garlic naan bread (I definitely overcooked a few of them), some steamy jasmine rice, and heaps of garlic-roasted broccoli. We ate well, enjoyed much needed conversation, and laughed so much. During dessert (simple brownies) we watched the kids’ wedding video and photo slideshow, and Handsome and I told them lots more stories from their third grandchild’s wedding. They laughed and wept and smiled the whole time. It was hard and strange for none of the bride and groom’s grandparents to attend (due to covid restrictions), but as always my parents just rolled with it. They were happy to see everything in photos and hear about all the details and special moments. They celebrated with us as if they had been there. Nothing but love and support.

How wonderful to have my parents here, near me, alive and healthy and engaged in life. I look around and see so many friends who don’t have their parents or who don’t have this kind of warmth with their parents, and it only deepens my gratitude. Mom and Dad have walked us through so many chapters in life, many of them easy breezy, many of them terrifying and uncertain. They just don’t shy away from anything. And they’re lots of fun.

Here is a photo of Jess and me at her wedding. I cried thousands of happy tears that weekend, just overwhelmed by and speechless from the deepest joy, very much like when she was born. Around the moment this photo was taken, she said, “Mom I think you’re gonna dehydrate.”

Okay.

I finally ordered most of my garden seeds, whew! They will begin to trickle into my turqouise mailbox over the next few weeks, and I will use the broad tables and bright windows in the upstairs Apartment to give them the best possible start in life. I have also begun the annual Clearing of the Oak Leaf Ocean outdoors, which is easily the most laborious precursor to the growing season. Also one of the most exciting jobs, because it means winter is literally being swept away. Our compost bins are all full and cooking away nicely. Very ready to feed the soil.

I want to relocate our two ducks to the front coop to try out some companionship living with Johhny Cash, the lone gander. He is peaceful enough with the chickens and roosters but does seem a bit lonely since Mama Goose passed. Plus, Rick Astlee and Mike Meyers Lemon are occassionally agressive to the small hens in the south coop. I think the big girls up front have a better chance of putting them in their place. I am sure this is riveting to you. I promise to keep you updated whether you like it or not.

They used to be so small and harmless.

Also in poultry news, the girls are laying like crazy! One new hen up front is laying mint blue eggs, which is thrilling to me. Maybe I should name her Tiffany.

Handsome and I both needed a little sweet indulgence today, so I made a small pan of “Chocolate Peanutbutter Oatmeal Bars.” Here’s the easy recipe:
BASE: Blend together the butters and sugars, add the egg, incorporate flour, baking soda, salt, and vanilla, and oats. Spread dough in a prepared small, deep dish baking pan (I used mine that is just smaller than 9×13), bake at 350* for 20 minutes.
1/2 cup butter, melted to brown then cooled.
1/3 cup peanutbutter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 plain white sugar
1 large egg
tsp baking soda
pinch salt
tsp vanilla
1 c flour
1 c oats
FROSTING: Making frosting while bars bake. Just blend together 1 c powdered sugar with 1/2 c peanutbutter, add milk or cream until you get a spreadable consistency.
FINISH: When baked bars come out of the oven and are still warm, sprinkle with 1 c of chocolate chips (more if you are a happy person). As they melt, spread and smooth the chocolate gently over the top of the bars. Eventually, dollop the peanutbutter frosting on top and spread that too, then allow to set up a bit. Very good with ice cold milk.

Chocolate Peanutbutter Oatmeal Bars

A quick word about running: Over the past several months I have been rebuilding gradually and carefully, leaving extra energy on the table and being really careful about soft tissue happiness and joint mobility, also trying my best to be patient about pandemic time management, life balance stuff. And it is paying off. Yesterday I ran 12 miles for the first time in months, and it felt amazing and actually easy. I had loads of extra energy to spare, and nothing hurt. The feeling of being in tune with myself and at ease with life is just irreplaceable.

I have recently finished reading two few books that were straggling on my shelf of good intentions, and for very different reasons I am so glad to have read them:

Fear Itself: the Causes and Consequences of Fear in America (bu Ann Gordon, L Edward Day, and more, it’s a heavy research book)
The Pull of the Moon (by Elizabeth Berg)

With a little luck I will post reviews on each book this month. Have you read either one?

As I close up today, I am happy to see emails notifying me that two of my three giant seed orders have shipped. I might celebrate by eating another cookie bar and doing a few yoga stretches, because no running today.

Have you every been in a cult?

Over and out!

Don’t join a cult.
Just grow a garden
and bake something.
Maybe go running.
XOXOXOXO

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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: choose joy, covid19, daily life, dessert recipe, ducks, family, gardening, gratitude, Jessica, parents, running, wedding

an army of love & we will survive

December 31, 2020

A quick word of encouragement before we all pursue our own strange and unusual Pandemic style New year’s Eve celebrations.

This week on the treadmill I rewatched Searching For Bobby Fischer, and a scene near the end of the movie reminded me of something Jessica said this summer.

The scene was when the little boy was nearing this climactic championship chess game and nervousness had overtaken him. He was no longer playing for the love of the game (a whole other excellent topic), and he was terrified of losing to the new prodigy on the block, a very real possibility. Slowly, the camera showed us that not only had his Mom and Dad found their common ground and rallied to support him together; but also his speed chess friend from Central Park (presumably a bad iunfluence) and his more disciplined, traditional teacher (highly competitive and previously sworn off of attending touranemnts) had come together. All of them were there cheering for him, supporting him, hanging on every move, and fascinated by his magic. But the best part was that they all clearly, finally, loved him regardless of both the outcome and his methods; and all of their personalities assembled and combined to become this formidable wall of Love.

An Army of Love, is what Jessica called it back in June.

Two or three days after her Dad died, observing the constant and drenching tidal wave of support she and Jocelyn were receiving from loved ones from whom they had previously been alienated for so many long years, she said that she suddenly saw everyone as an Army of Love surrounding her and her sister. I soaked that up and told her gently that we have always been here, all along.

I believe firmly that we are, each of us, buffered and strengthened by an Army of Love; maybe we just need to look around and see it. I believe in supernatural forces that protect us, inspire us, make us better. We can survive anything. We can draw on the various strengths and gifts of the Army of Love dedicated to our well being. We can also live in ways that make us worthy of being in someone else’s Army of Love, for their survival and well being. We are made for community, and we all thrive in it.

Okay, that’s it for today. Thank you from deep in my heart for reading here all year long, friends. Thank you for sharing your stories and listening to mine, for being such strong, shimmering conduits for Love. I wish you all the very best of the coming new year. You will survive anything.

“Infect em with love”
XOXOXO

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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: bobby fischer., community, Jessica, love, new years eve, ubuntu

23 blessings on Jessica’s 23rd birthday

August 8, 2020

Jessica Michelle… on your twenty-third birthday, I send you all possible wishes for deep, abiding joy, for a long dose of something similar to the joy you take with you everywhere you go. I wish you the best life has to offer, now and always. Here are some specific blessings I am asking for, prayers I am saying over your beautiful life:

  1. May you always have enough water tanks and terrariums to shelter all the orphaned turtles that cross your path. And may Bean never get nipped on his perfect snoot.
  2. May you always find time to cook good food, slowly, sensually, applying your great talents and affections to meals meant for people you love. May you also cultivate the joy of cooking for yourself.
  3. I hope that you soon replace the houseplants that were recently upended and devoured by your neighbor’s pigs, two amazing animals who you loved instantly.
  4. I am confident that your path is already anointed, that you will find your way through college and medical school and beyond, that your dreams and purposes are fulfilled in ways that are unique to you. Remember we are here to help you.
  5. How wonderful that you are well on your way to being truly bilingual with Spanish! May you contunue finding joy in that pursuit then learn every single language that sparks your imagination and your cultural appetite.
  6. I wish you a well used passport in life, the moment covid-19 releases us all. I wish you one fine adventure after another, to all corners of the globe, both with friends and loved ones and alone. Both kinds of travel are important.
  7. I am praying for deeper healing than you have ever experience in your life, and you have experienced plenty already. I am praying for a dazzling, transcendant expeience.
  8. May all the things you crave, all the things you cannot stop daydreaming about, take shape right before your eyes. May the best versions of every desire manifest for you.
  9. I also hope and pray for you to know unexpected joys! Surprises that you could never imagine. Those are thrilling, and you deserve them.
  10. You are the kind of woman everyone wants as a friend. May you find the kind of friends you want, too, lots of them, of various depths and flavors and walks of life. Friendships of every duration, for each season. May you cultivate exactly the kind of village that your soul needs. May you always feel safe and like you belong. Because you are. And you do.
  11. Please let Bean come swimming again before summer ends. I am expecting that to happen. We miss him. (Oh we miss you too, you can come.)
  12. I pray that you discover the harmony between building your self sufficiency as a woman and living in healthy relationships, in community, with other people, because they are both crucial. The world needs well nourished, happy women, and the world needs tightly knitted communities.
  13. I pray that you know your worth, that you have a deep and unshakable sense of identity that noone (including me) can touch.
  14. You have such a green thumb! May your life always have space to grow things.
  15. May you and Jocelyn make time for each other this year, more than ever before. I pray for your sisterly bond to be galvanized so you can mourn your Dad together, however you need to, and so you can build new memories and share your adulthood as much as possible.
  16. May you continue to see with your wide open heart how loved you are by our big, unweildy family, how loved you have always been. How much a part of us you are, and always will be.
  17. May you learn to appreciate movies with subtitles but sitck to your guns about avoiding heat styling tools for your gorgeous mane of hair.
  18. I hope that on days you feel particularly drained or stressed or just plain grief stricken, you are surrounded by peace and affection. I hope that you get the quiet time you need, regularly, as well as the activity you need. You are such a good, intuitive caretaker; I hope and pray that you always receive the caretaking you need, too. Remember I am always here.
  19. Sprinkles! Fruit! Salads! Ice cream and shortbread cookies! Eggplant Parmesean! Homemade marinara sauce! Chicken noodle soup! Pot pies! Really good, authentic street tacos, pasole! May you always fill your belly with your favorite foods. It is one of life’s best pleasures.
  20. I hope you accept exactly the perfect amount of overtime at the hospital, no more than you need or can do in a healthy way, and just enough to enjoy your earnings.
  21. Keep painting and drawing. Keep creating. Write when it strikes you. Express every shade and nuance of your soul. I pray that you never put your pens or paintbrushes down for very long. It will keep your blood flowing.
  22. Stick with hope. Stick with forgiveness and peace and Love. These are choices only the strongest women can make, over and over again. I pray that in the deepest parts of your being, you find rest and trust in the overall goodness of life.
  23. May you always know God’s voice, the sounds that He makes just for you and you alone.
Jessica & Chole assembling egg rolls, Dante in the background.
My baby, also picking me some wildflowers, also Mother’s Day 2007.
sunflowers on Jessica’s 20th birthday

I love you more than words can say. Happy birthday my beautiful baby girl, now truly a woman. I am so delighted watching you live your life. My heart breaks for you in your giref, and it soars with you in your joy. Life is all of this and much more, every detail in between. It is all worth living to the fullest.

Just Keep Swimming
XOXOXOXO

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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: birthday, choose joy, daughters, gratitude, jess, Jessica, love

a restful, healing week

July 29, 2020

“It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.” -Rebecca West

This past week was the first time in many years, outside of a few occassions of convalescence, that we have enjoyed so much quiet, uninterrupted time with Jessica. (Although my husband might passionately argue that very much of our time was quiet, ha!)

It was luscious in every way. She and Bean went home today, and the farm is so quiet. We already miss them very much.

Image may contain: Jessica Hartley

Of our many exceptionally deep and fascinating conversations, one that has been echoing in my heart was about how humans are designed to crave beauty, how it is a natural appetite and a healthy inclination. We measured it against passion-gifts, too, like art and science, cooking and gardening and nesting, against caring for ourselves as women, and travel and the craving to explore this big world, and much more. We agreed that a hunger for beauty and a drive to pursue our unique passions can lead us down the best paths, if we watch our motivations.

My daily devotional entry from July 20th says, “Seek my face and you will find all that you have longed for. The deepest yearnings of your heart are for intimacy with me. Do not be afraid to be different from other people. The path I have called you to travel is exquisitely right for you.” (Jesus Calling)

This past week I was able to see the farm, and our home, through Jessica’s eyes a bit more deeply. A bare bones routine became soothing, not boring. I watched her slowly unwind and shed a landslide of stress from her body and spirit. She soaked up every day, morning till night, and every meal and activity we laid hold of, with a joyful kind of mindfulness that really inspired me. She allowed beauty and pleasure to overtake her, and more than ever she reflected and magnified all kinds of beauty, just by being herself, natural and free and untethered for a while. It was like watching overstressed plant rehydrate, turn emerald green, and bloom before your eyes.

Her health and happiness, and Jocelyn’s, is everything to us. This well timed investment of time and rest was so wise on Jess’ part, and I know that she was engaged enough in the retreat process to retain the feelings, to translate the efforts to her daily life and normal routine, in ways that only she can do.

I would like to chat more extensively about the pursuit of beauty in life, in the world at large. About how the deepest purpose in our various callings, is maybe to reflect Love? Soon, I hope. I am sleepy now and can feel my thoughts unraveling a bit. Thank you, friends, for the love you send our girls.

XOXOXOXO

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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: beauty, choose jopy, gratitude, grief, Jessica, love, purpose, retreat, summertime

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Hi! I'm Marie. Welcome to the Lazy W. xoxo

Hi! I’m Marie. This is the Lazy W.

A hobby farming, book reading, coffee drinking, romance having, miles running girl in Oklahoma. Soaking up the particular beauty of every day. Blogging on the side. Welcome to the Lazy W!

I Believe Strongly in the Power of Gratitude & Joy Seeking

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