Anna Jeffrey| Never Trust a Skinny Cook...

That’s an old saying I’ve heard my entire life. I don’t know it’s origin.

I grew up in a family of good ol’ country cooks. My grandmothers and mother could throw together delicious meals while gathering the eggs, doing the laundry and any number of other chores and never look at a recipe. Every morning, one of them made biscuits from scratch on a cutting board and never used a bowl. One made a larruping recipe she called pudding cake. Only after I was grown and had left home did I realize that what she had made all those years was Tres Leche Cake.

Those women are all gone now, but one thing I regret is that I never captured and saved all of their recipes.

I’m a decent cook myself. I love to bake and I love making delicious dishes. I have a recipe collection that boggles my mind, most of which I’ll never get around to making.

And that brings me to food and cooking, which have been a part of some of my books. In THE LOVE OF A COWBOY, the heroine’s father owns a grocery store and she is a butcher. She eventually takes over the grocery store and boosts business by selling excellent cuts of meat.

In “The Love of a Stranger,” the hero is a lover of good food and an amateur cook. In THE LOVE OF A LAWMAN the heroine’s mother is a café cook. In SWEET WATER the heroine has attended culinary school and runs a small café in which she prepares the food. In SWEET RETURN the heroine raises free-range chickens and sells organic eggs.

Do you see a pattern here? With food being a necessity of life, it follows that it might be a part of a character-driven story, which all of my books happen to be. My latest release, DESIRED, has no cooks, but it does have a delicious meal from a great restaurant.

So, with all of that being said, following is one of my favorites. Chili Verde is one of those “cult” things. People who love it are passionate about it and that includes me. I’ve tried it fifty different ways and come up with the following that seems to work most of the time. The recipe from scratch is time-consuming, but it’s well worth the effort. You’d want to start early and have it for supper.

CHILI VERDE

12 tomatillos
5 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 jalapenos, seeds & ribs removed, chopped
2 Anaheim or poblano chilis
1 green pepper, diced*
1 bunch cilantro leaves, cleaned & chopped
3-1/2 lbs. pork loin cut into 1”-2” pieces
Salt
Flour
Olive oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled & finely chopped
2 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano or 1 tbsp. dried oregano
2-1/2 cups chicken stock
1 19-oz. can green enchilada sauce (optional)
8 oz. hot salsa verde (I like LaSabrozita Verde)
2 tsp. lime juice
1 tbsp. ground cumin
3 tbsp. green chili powder
Pinch of ground cloves

Phase 1:
1. Remove papery husks from tomatillos and rinse well. Cut in half and place cut side down, along with the jalapeno peppers and 5 garlic cloves, on a foil- lined baking sheet. Place under broiler for 5-7 minutes to lightly blacken the skins. Let cool enough to handle. ….. If you want the flavor of roasted chiles other than jalapeno, add the Anaheim or poblano peppers and roast them too.

2. Place tomatillos, skins included, in a blender. Remove the roasted garlic cloves from their skins and add to blender. Add jalapenos and other chiles and blend into a chunky sauce.

3. Generously season pork cubes with salt and pepper. Dust with flour and brown in oil over high heat. Cook in batches so that pork evenly browns. Set aside in large stewing pot or slow cooker.

Phase 2:
1. Cook chopped onions in oil where pork has been browned until limp (3-5 minutes); add chopped garlic and cook 1-2 minutes more. Dump into pot with meat.

2. To meat, add oregano and blended chili mixture. Add chicken stock. Add pinch of ground cloves, salt and pepper.

If cooking in slow cooker, cook on low 6-8 hours; cook on high 4-6 hours. If cooking in a stew pot, simmer for 3-hours. Meat should be fork-tender.

*Wait until last hour to add diced green pepper

To serve: Serve over cornbread or crisp tortillas. Top with grated cheese or sour cream (or both).

This is a forgiving recipe. You can add or take away ingredients to make it the way you like it. I usually cook it in my crockpot because it’s the only vessel I have that will hold the whole recipe. Since it makes so much, sometimes I leave out the can of green enchilada sauce. Great to freeze and serve later.

About Anna Jeffrey

In the lower elementary grades, Anna Jeffrey competed in story telling contests, usually about animals. Later, she moved up to competition in extemporaneous story telling, which was sort of like “improv.” Still later, she competed in essay contests.

Along the way, due to growing up in a part of the country where TV reception, phone service and even water were at a premium, she became a voracious reader and developed a love of story. A few years ago, a lifelong urge to put some of her mental meanderings into print overcame her and she set out on the creative writing journey.

She has been self-employed for most of her adult life in varied entrepreneurial endeavors. She and her husband live in a small town in Texas on a bluff overlooking a lake.

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About DESIRED

Miranda March wears her extraordinary beauty like a mask to conceal her emotional vulnerability. A successful small businesswoman, she might appear to be in control of her universe, but ever in the back of her mind is the one thing that can yank the rug out from under her at any moment: Her mother who suffers from mental illness.

Enter handsome, sensual—and rich—Harvey (Tack) Tackett, a friend of a friend, in town overnight on business. The instant they meet, Miranda feels a connection that stirs her to break one of the rules she lives by—no foolish flings with men passing in the night. After a night of passionate lovemaking like she’s never known, profound emotions emerge. She believes the feeling is mutual. But Tack leaves town without so much as a call and she hears no more from him. As she struggles to overcome her disappointment, she learns her mother has sunk into a depression that calls for immediate attention. Miranda has no choice but to move Mom in to live with her. Her life will never be the same.

From out of the blue, Tack reappears. But it’s too late. Miranda is committed to her duty to her mother. Trying to have a romantic relationship with Tack or any man would be as hard as mixing oil and water. She has already tried and failed at that. Can she solve the conundrum and find a happy-ever-after with Tack?