Good morning. And - I really mean, GOOD morning lol - my belly hurts from giggling already. The reason for this is that I walked into my kitchen this morning, still halfway destroyed, to find my very large and in charge kitty FEASTING on a pan of enchiladas on my kitchen counter. The hilarity, people. I am telling you.
Anyhow, we'll get to that. Let me give you some back ground first. My sister (We'll call her Pam) and my cousin (We'll call her Pangela) - both 18 - are visiting from out of state. Neither of them appear to have any cooking abilities, so when one of them asked for enchiladas like Boca Chica's, I thought....what a perfect teaching moment. These young ladies will soon be on their own, and I would hate for them to starve and all. So I took them to the store, bought (SSShhhh, don't tell grandma. And if grandma is reading, this is, um, a lie. I made everything homemade.) corn tortillas, and grabbed a large can of sauce, a can of chicken, some cheese, a new jar of oil and an onion.
(I know. Not much fresh stuff there, but I wasn't entirely confidant that this food would turn out or be edible so...)
I took the girls home, and explained to them what they needed to do. This is what I told them:
1. Take everything out and set it on the counter.
2. Chop the onion.
3. Pour sauce into a pot, and oil into a pan and put them both on low heat on the stove.
4. Put onion, cheese and chicken in separate dishes.
5. Get out a casserole dish to place the enchiladas in.
6. Grab a plate, and line with paper towel.
7. Arrange on and around the stove the way you've seen your mothers and fathers do it.
That seems simple enough, right? I didn't want to confused them, so I only gave them the prep instructions at first. I went so far as to get out a cutting board and knife. I DID give her a steak knife, but once you read this, you will probably agree its not safe to give her a big ole knife! But I knew we were in trouble when one looked at me and said, um. How do I chop an Onion? And the other looked at me and said....what's the difference between a pot and a pan?
So, I pulled up a stool at the counter, and sat down to half watch, half make sure they didn't do anything really terrible. It was MY kitchen, after all.
I told Pam she needed to first PEEL the onion, then chop. She peeled it most of the way, but there was still a thin layer of husk on it, when she held it up for approval. I asked her if that was how she ate onions, and she decided to keep peeling. Once she got it peeled, she began to chop it.
Slowly but surely, the onion came along. I explained to Pangela that a pan was shallow and a pot was deep. She proceeded to take out my largest pots...I wondered if she was preparing dinner for 6 people, or just frying corn tortillas! Since I have been there, and I know the frustration of using a too large pot, and trying to use up the little bit of sauce left, I suggested she find a pot that was just big enough to suit her needs.
Since we have been eating enchiladas since the begining of time, I thought this would be an easy task. She asked what she would be putting in the pot, and I asked her what she THOUGHT went in the pot. She looked at me sort of confused, and said, Chicken? REALLY? Chicken? Why would we put chicken in the pot? It's precooked. I told her we needed to put the sauce in the pot. Her response? Then the chicken, right? NO lol NO CHICKEN IN THE POT!! Put the chicken in a dish like I told you to do. You'd think Pam would have helped with this process, but...
She was still chopping onions. This was about twenty minutes in, and she has another half of onion you can't see. She was, um, thorough? LOL
At this point, Pangela was looking for a pan (and hand to God, we had the SAME conversation about what size pan to use) for the stove. She found one that she deemed worthy - by placing a corn tortilla in it and seeing if it fit. Smart, but an odd way to do it! She placed in on the burner next to the sauce pot and said, what not. Pam, in her infinite wisdom, spoke up and said we needed to put oil in. They had a minor crisis when Pam exclaimed: Pangela! Why did you put sauce in this pot? First we need to put the oil in, THEN the sauce.
^Think about that. WHAT sense does it make? And yet, she really believed that. I left the room for a bit while they bickered about this, telling them on my way out that Pangela was right about the sauce. When I came back, they had resolved the issue. Or so they thought. Pangela was dutifully oiling the 'pan' (AKA Casserole dish - and why? you ask? Beats me. I told her to put oil in the pan.)
This I find bizarre. Because the enchiladas are going in that dish, and never ever EVER have either of these girls EVER seen ANYONE do this while making enchiladas.
Pam was still...you guessed it. Chopping onions. Around 45 minutes in, she finished up, and it was time to put the onions, chicken, and cheese in a small dish.
They attempted to take the bowls I had taken down for a baking project, so I had to redirect them to get their own dang bowls. So Pam got new bowls down, and Pangela washed the oil out of the casserole dish. They lined things up at the range - and I wish I would have taken a picture. They had, left to right, the casserole dish, sauce on a burner, oil on a burner, plate with papertowels, cheese, onion, chicken and then the corn tortillas. I asked if they had taken out something to hold - and got cut off by Pam saying, I THOUGHT OF THAT ONE, triumphantly holding up a pair of tongs.
'Congrats - you got it right!' I say. What are you going to hold with those? Pangela says, um, the plate? So, of course, being the lovely person I am, I made her hold the plate with the tongs.
Pam Jo, now on a roll, took them from Pangela, and showed her how they were to be used.
They were ALMOST ready to start cooking. Pangela asked if the stove needed to be turned on...I asked her why she thought we had placed these items in pots and pans, and then placed them on the stove. She sheepishly turned on the stove, BUT did offer this jewl to make the three of us giggle again. Apparently when they arrived at my house, Pam Jo turned on my electric stovetop, and stood there. Waiting for flames. She did not attempt to light them or anything, just thought they would appear. I explained to them that not all electric ranges have ceramic tops.
I told them now how to MAKE the enchiladas. Here is what I told them:
1. Place the corn tortilla in the oil
2. Pull it from the oil, let the oil drip off a bit, and then place on paper towel on place so remove excess oil.
3. Place it in the sauce, cover completely, and put it in the dish.
4. Place chicken, cheese and onion in side and roll.
I did the first one for them, and put it in a bowl - hey, this was taking forever, and I was hungry. Apparently, they take things very literally, and were getting down another bowl to place IN the casserole dish to fill, and then carry to the other side of the stove to fill with toppings, then transfer back to the casserole dish. When I caught my breath and dried my tears from my laughter, I explained I had only done that so I could take it with me to eat, and that they should just go ahead and put them right into the casserole dish. After these instructions, they were able to line their items up near the range so the toppings were in the best place to help them make the enchiladas. They tried making their first enchilada.
It was, um. Well. Lets just say I got to eat another enchilada.
They kept trying and finally got down the right amount of time to fry the tortilla to make it just pliable enough, and got into a nice rythym. So nice, in fact, that they lost count and got too many enchiladas in one pan.
Guess who got to eat another enchilada? Yeah...cooking with these two is going to make me fat. Fatter, anyways lol
They switched dishes, and began a new one. With this, they ran out of chicken, because regardless of me showing them how much chicken to use, they stuffed those suckers with too much chicken. This momentary confusion with Pangela distracted Pam, and she took a tortilla out of the sauce, and wiped the sauce off on a paper towel.
At this point, I was worn out and exhausted from all the laughing - this was two hours into this experience. I said I was going to bed, told them to cover them, bake them for 15 minutes on 350, then stick it in the fridge and went to bed.
The next morning is when I was greeted with fat cat feasting....because they apparently completely disregarded the part about putting the food in the fridge.
I shoved fat cat down, took a pic, laughed till I cried and put them in the fridge. When the girls woke, I asked them if they always leave their food on the counter and was greeted with....oh...um. No. I guess we should have put it in the fridge?
(Yeah. That was not a typo - it was said in the form of a question. LOL)
Now, because these girls worked so damn hard on this, we ate the non cat chewed dish, and it was actually very good. A bit dry due to the amount of chicken, and not so much sauce, but very good. I'm sure next time, these ladies will nail it!
The moral of this story...TEACH YOUR KIDS TO COOK PEOPLE.
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