Kr's (Mini) Tuna Melts

Printable Recipe

Long before Brangelina, more like back in the day when Brad and Jennifer were still together lived the infamous Krandace. Two resident assistants living in Oliver Hall at the University of Kansas on the fifth and eighth floors became one over the course of our sophomore years. Amidst fire alarms, calling the KUPD on students smoking pot, busting up keggers, avoiding Cutco knife salesman and honoring our 10:00pm curfews Kristy and Kandace became Krandace: the ultimate life long friends. As our lives intertwined throughout our college years and Kr worked her way up the Res Hall perpetual ladder by our senior year (I mean, given a few more years we would've been in that main office - that is just how awesome Krandace is - just ask Dr. Stoner!) Kr had worked her way up into having her own kitchen and multiple room apartments our last summer together and began working her way around the kitchen.

I feel it is important to divulge a bit about Kr's background. You see, she comes from a culinary-inspired family where there is cocktail hour and courses involved for every dinner! Quite a change from anything I had ever known growing up. I guess that's how you roll in the burbs of chi-town. Anyways, Kr has always amazed me in the kitchen because I believe R and B's (her parents') positive attitude about food and finding flavors that mesh well together translated into her own ambitious mixing of whatever she has in the kitchen to make delicious meals, I should know she had done this on plenty of occasions long after Krandace had to physically part (but clearly never in our heart). Check out her free spirit here as a guest blogger on Graficionada. But the point of this heartwarming story is one time, I do believe in my first apartment in Minenapolis, Kr and I cooked up some delicious tuna melts, this is a little bit of an adaptation but tuna melts are always a quick and easy lunch or dinner meal. So consider this for one of those times when you don't have much in your kitchen but you're hungry and need something filling. The amount of foods used here was enough for two people with leftovers depending on your appetite. Thank you Kr for your wonderful spirit and being the Kr to my andace.

Now, onto the meat! Two notes about my beautiful display of ingredients here:

1) I forgot a key ingredient to tuna melts - mayonnaise ugh, I try so hard to make it look pretty and this is what I do, leave out key ingredients.

2) La Kitchen Chicana is not a professional operation, I am happy about this for the most part, sure my femme sensibilities sometime push me to want prettier bowls, or dream of shopping sprees at expensive cooking, baking and dish stores but I do recognize that I have an amazing arsenal of plenty of more than adequate cookware and dishes in my kitchen. However, I am often amazed at how much money, time and effort a lot of food bloggers spend on their kitchens and their blogging. Imagine my surprise when The Lone Baker informed me that most of these bloggers have professional photography equipment to make beautifully lit photos, that alone means some serious money is involved. Then to begin to think about the amazing equipment these bloggers have in their kitchens one can become quite upset with one's own lacks in the kitchen area. I like to say what I lack in equipment I make up in love. Well, as the doctoral candidate that I am, we all know that I am not in any sort of financial situation where I can spend endless amount of money on professional photo lighting so that I can make prettier pictures, nor do I have the time to take hundreds of pictures of my food from every angle (people seriously do this - but I do scarily see the appeal) to be honest if I capture the gist of the thing I'm ok with that (for some examples of this type of blogging behavior check out the blogs that had their pics chosen on Food Gawker or one of my other favorites Pioneer Woman.)

I think these are important issues to discuss on the interwebs because blogging and the internet in general has been seen as a "liberatory" tool of the masses. In fact, I have a (albeit small) audience of people who put up with my ramblings in this published format and blogging becomes a means of communication around issues that one might not have access to in the realms of the general/mass media. Clearly, one of these issues should be global capitalism and the selling of certain "ideals" in terms of what you should be if you are a food blogger - mainly, a well-off housewife comes to mind. But what about those of us who clearly do not fit into this world? Am I destined yet again, to be in the borderlands (see Gloria Anzaldúa for more) of cyber space, trying to navigate a world that presumes class privilege while making foods that are meant for those who are clearly not in that status? It's almost too much to bear, but I keep on because I think this blog is as much about my identity as a Chicana who loves food as it is about the food I make. I'm sure I have plenty more of this to discuss but that will come, with my ruminations on future meals. I fear my audience is ready to get to the recipe already.

A perfect way to ponder these very issues is to make up these CHEAP tuna melts and share them over some lively conversation - be my guest. A and I however, enjoyed ours watching Project Runway, so maybe this is more a suggestion and definitely not lead-by-example type advice. Open and drain two cans of tuna. Add some mayonnaise I would say this is about two heaping tablespoons. Mix with a fork to combine.

Now add the secret ingredient, that when I first made these for A she was like, "hmm... what is that in there? It's good but different." That special ingredient would be (yellow) curry powder. Add in about 1/2 tablespoon and a teaspoon (to taste) of red chile powder. Mix it in thoroughly. At this stage I also add in a pinch of kosher salt and some freshly cracked black pepper.

Next comes the delicious crunch. chop up some jalapeños and put into your tuna concoction. I love jalapeños and since I have a high tolerance for spice I put in about 1/4 cup chopped pickled jalapeño peppers. I would NOT suggest putting in this much if you are using a fresh jalapeño, chop that finely in that case but do not add this much or you might die from over-spiced tuna melt syndrome. At this point I also add about 1/4 cup of shredded cheese - I'm using again the three cheese blend from Trader Joe's here, my favorite for easy melting.

Stir it all together and you should have something pretty chunky because of the cheese and the jalapeños and you're ready to go.

Since we're making mini tuna melts today, I cut up about half of a french bread loaf that I got at Cub that morning. It felt fresh at the time, to my disappointment it was really dry on the inside, meaning it was really difficult to cut, I think I lost about two pieces due to squishing them and their insides crumbling out. You may of course use whatever bread you would like.

Then give a little piece to your kitchen assistant, just to make sure it's edible. A will be happy to know that Sandie is working on her poses. Look at her smiling with her eyes, or is she contemplating how to bite my finger off for some additional protein? Alas, we may never know.

Now, I decided to use my Broil King because I wanted to make them all at once. You may of course (which might be the preferable method) use the broil setting on your oven. I had a hard time getting my tuna melt to melt with the BK unfortunately so, I will either use a lower setting (because my bread did get toasty) or put this in the oven to broil to ensure the insides get heated enough. There's almost nothing worse in your mouth than a lukewarm, soggy tuna sandwich. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I used butter to coat my Broil King and then I was able to make this many mini sandwiches from my tuna mix. I let both sides of the bread toast but flipped the top up onto the sandwich part sooner than later in an attempt to warm up my tuna to make it nice and melty.

When your bread gets toasty and your insides are melty, you're ready to eat! You can see that I've paired these with some delicious macaroni and cheese. This made me feel like I needed to add some different colors in my food but another day means another meal means another lengthy blog about it. Until the next time we break bread with one another...

Enchiladas a la 'buela

While on my dissertation research journey I was lucky enough to spend some amazing time with my abuela. She is the inspiration in a lot of ways to my own love of cooking. Her delicious enchiladas, tacos, gorditas, salsa, sopa (rice) and fried chicken are unmatched in my opinion. Whenever my abuela would make us enchiladas or tacos it was an amazing adventure. All of our mouths would water in anticipation for the hours before it was made. Abuela would wake up early in the morning to start the sopa (which by the way is not an easy recipe) and her famous chile sauce, which I have tried numerous times to replicate but never really very successful. You see, like many grandmothers mine does not use recipes, she learned how to

make things by observing others, when she worked in a Mexican restaurant as a young woman in El Paso, Texas and then when she worked in a family restaurant in Greenleaf, Kansas my

abuela has been learning how to make food through sight, smell, taste and touch since she entered the kitchen. I aspire to be able to do the same one day, for some things I can, but when it counts I really feel like I need a recipe, which of course my abuela does not have. There's something very clear to be said about the history and power of oral tradition in my familia!

I also struggle with what I should do in terms of sharing family recipes. In some ways I understand that family traditions should be shared and that food is not "owned" by anyone. It's like people who feel they thought up something new, well, no one actually has "new" ideas. I feel similarly to food, which should be somewhat evident from the fact that I have posted things on my blog related to others' recipes and not really created anything "new". What is new of course, is each of our interpretations of recipes or family foods that have been passed down from generations. I have more to say about this, but I'm not sure this is the venue for this discussion. What I will say is that this blog isn't so much about a recipe per say, but about the process, which means that I won't be divulging family secrets of how to make the Estella Navarro Falcón enchilada sauce, but there will be important techniques to illuminate the old ways and the true ways to make enchiladas. I also feel as though since I didn't make it I can't divulge the recipe but when I do make these one day dear readers you will learn the truth. Don't be afraid. Heat up some crisco or lard if you have access and your heart can handle it.

The other thing about my abuela, in addition to not using recipes, is that she cannot simply be bothered to hold still so that her nieta could take a picture of her process. So, her hands are blurry, also she is a very modest and shy woman and did not want to be featured (besides her

hands) on this blog. Respecting her wishes you'll just see her in a masked abuela kind of way, kind of like superhero behind the scenes. I of course snuck in a picture of her cooking for her daughters (three out of four of them) and her granddaughter (me) but will not post it here, maybe one day I'll post it with her permission of course. She was however, comfortable with showing her magical brown hands, thank goodness.

Gather up five or six corn tortillas and dip them (carefully!) into your hot grease. You want the temperature up high enough to fry lightly but not high enough that you're going to lose your eyebrows in case a piece of your tortilla accidently falls off. Flip them over, don't leave them in there too long, we're not making tostadas. Then they are headed for a chile bath.

Just like this! Since my abuela saw me clicking away on the pictures she decided to take this opportunity to give me a teaching lesson!

It's almost as though my abuela wants to write her own food blog! She showed me that you can use utensils to dig out your tortilla, here she's using a wooden spoon.

And here she's using her fingers to dip them, but be careful because the sauce is simmering on the stove. You can also see here that she's added the chile dipped tortillas to her general pile of fried tortillas that are waiting for their time in the enchilada bath tub.

After they go into the chile it's time to put in what they are putting inside your yummy fried, sauced tortillas. On this day abuela usually just has shredded cheese, but I guess it was special and she made her carne that she puts in her tacos too. Shredded beef cooked with onion and papas.

Now if you ever want to make tacos you need to have this concoction in there. Again, there is no recipe, but basically you brown and simmer beef in some oil, until most of the liquid is gone and then you add in some boiled potatoes that have been cooked most of the way and are diced. Then you let this simmer together and mold together as thickening agents. This tastes amazingly delicious in tacos.

My abuela rolled the cheese enchiladas first and set them aside in this dish (so we could all eat at once). And then tackled the meat ones. She ended up making half and half or so. My favorites are the cheese ones because that is what we would always have whenever we went to see abuela in Kansas. The beef ones were still tasty though. You can of course put anything you want in an enchilada as long as there is some type of chile on the outside, abuela didn't put any cheese in with the meat enchiladas that she made on this day.

By the end of this wonderful enchilada making factory, with abuela rolling like mad, we had about this many. And of course between the five of us we polished all of these off with no problems. At this point abuela also told me that if you wanted to you could put the dish in the oven and warm them all together (this will also harden the tortillas some more. She also told me that if you didn't want to make your sauce from scratch you could buy one at the store, to which she said, "you know, there are some pretty good ones out there." Me, I would never do this, as I feel I would be disgracing my abuela's hard work by using it out of the can. But if one is in a pinch you can always turn to these shortcuts.

My abuela also made some fideo (a Mexican tomato pasta dish) that was our accompaniment for our enchiladas in addition to a nice green salad. This really rounded out a delicious Mexican meal. My belly was full of warm food and I was able to do a family interview for my research and collect my Aunt Gloria's oral history. Good food helps productivity, and this definitely helped me along my path to complete my dissertation. Now if my abuela could only make me a meal every day I would be done with that pesky thing by now!!

Tasty Chicken Quesadillas

Last night I cooked up one of my quick and easy favorites - chicken quesadillas! Delish! Always a crowd favorite. A always gives my meals a 1 through 5 star rating. 1 star means it was inedible, 2 stars means A will never eat it again, 3 stars means it was ok, maybe could tweak a few things, 4 stars means she wants it again, but it could still be improved and 5 stars means it was perfect and she wants it again next week. Needless to say, this meal is a 5 star all the time! The beauty of a quesadilla is that you can use what you have at home and experiment with different ingredients. And La Kitchen Chicana is always stocked with tortillas and cheese.

Here are my ingredients for the night. Now, I am no Sham-dra Lee but I do like to take shortcuts in the kitchen when I can and when it doesn't jeopardize the overall quality of my end product. So, I usually use the left over aspects of a whole rotisserie chicken as my protein, shred it quickly and it's ready to go. The debate between corn or flour tortillas is one that often weighs heavily on me. Lucky for me, A loves flour tortilla quesadillas while I prefer corn. As a Chicana I love both - corn from the homeland and flour from Nuevo Mexico. New Mexican food rarely uses corn tortillas whereas Mexican food (authentic) rarely uses flour. You can understand my confusion then when it's time to put the tortillas on the skillet, topped with cheese. It's also incredibly important to have all of your materials ready to go as it literally takes seconds for the cheese to melt. As you can see in my photo I decided I would be adding in some avocado to make the best quesadilla I possibly could last night.

I've heard of some people who put their tortilla in the microwave, top with cheese and press the start button. As a Chicana, I cannot endorse this method. Nor, can I endorse the put in oven and bake method, although there are some tasty concoctions that do actually come out of the oven and involve tortillas - they just can't be quesadillas.

The cheese should be melted all the way - like so. You need to be able to pull your quesadilla apart and have the cheese be all gooey. Otherwise, you're just doing it wrong. Also, when using shredded cheese you're probably going to get it all over the place, outside the boundaries of your tortilla and that's ok! I just found out that A's favorite part of her quesadilla is when the cheese cooks on the griddle, hardens and attaches itself to the outside of her tortilla. Next time I'll be sure to make this happen more for her.

This is A's meal, two quesadillas with fajita size flour tortillas, chicken and cheese. Garnished with some pico and sour cream. Yes I could make my own pico but who really has time for that, I mean I'm procrastinating enough with this blog from my dissertation - if I was slicing and dicing tomatoes, onions and jalepeños all day I really wouldn't make ANY progress on my dissertation and we simply cannot have that!

Now, to witness the whole process with my quesadillas. Since corn tortillas are smaller than flour I was able to fit both on my griddle at once. This thing isn't technically a griddle, but it's not a skillet either. Should I know these things? Hmm... how does one go about finding this out? I guess I'm going to have to do some research!

Start with a thin layer of cheese then top with your chicken. I would also suggest throwing any other items in here now so that you're able to melt the cheese around your ingredients to prevent them from falling out of your quesadilla when it's time to move tortilla to your mouth.

Here I forgot I had sliced an avocado so I put it on after my additional layer of cheese. I tried to make a pretty design here but was unable to make the one on the left as nice as the one on the right. I could however, live off of avocados for my entire life. I'm thinking avocados and red chile need to meet one another and become acquainted.

Again, no matter what is inside your quesadilla, the cheese needs to get gooey and your tortillas should be crispy on the outside. This is a delicate balance, not so crispy you will lose a tooth or your tastebuds will be overwhelmed with charcoal, but crispy on the outside and still soft on in the inside.

Doesn't this just look so yummy? And it literally took me about 10 minutes after I shredded the chicken which took 10 minutes - so prep to table 20 minutes. Of course, when you become a quesadilla expert you'll be racing to the finish so you can get that bite of gooey cheese!

I just had to show off the inside, look at how delicious that looks! Cheese, chicken and avocado - heaven. In fact, I remember turning to A and saying, this is a slice of heaven, I really need to take a picture of this. As I said, quesadillas are easy, inexpensive, quick and can incorporate whatever you have in your fridge. I love corn tortillas with mozzarella cheese - I used to make them all the time for lunch when I was still taking classes, I'd make them in the morning before I left for school, wrap them up in foil and microwave them for five seconds to warm and have a delicious and nutritious lunch/snack while I read my feminist theory.

Other possible combinations for delicious quesadillas - shrimp, cilantro and lime for a "fish taco" quesadilla, cheddar, egg and bacon for "breakfast burrito" quesadilla, cesina, onion and cilantro "taco al pastor" quesadilla, olives, artichokes and feta for Greek quesadilla, you know the options are endless, I can't wait to hear all about what you create!

A note about the absence of my kitchen assistant - Sandie. The one drawback to making quesadillas is that I can't make them all at once with this method so I make A's and then I make mine. Well, with this system Sandie can't be bothered to be in the kitchen with me because she's too busy begging for a piece of chicken or cheese or tortilla morsel from A out in the living room. Sigh, maybe next time I'll get her full attention!