Good morning everybody!

I truly hope everyone is still doing their part by staying safe, staying home and staying well. Trust me when I say it’s a hell of a lot easier to just stay at home rather than going out in this shit.

In fact, I’m going to change things up a bit before we get to today’s menu.

Spoiler alert! We’re making enchiladas and beans again!

I told you all this season of Sunday Gravy was going to be different.

Today I’m going to give you a little insight into my day-to-day existence in the middle of a fucking pandemic.

Let’s call this segment “Confessions of an ‘essential worker.'”

The first Friday when shit started to get crazy, Friday March 13th (of course) my day shift crew was wondering if we were even supposed to come in the following Monday.

Word had just gotten out that Los Angeles County was going on “Stay at home” orders immediately and everyone was getting scared. My day shift crew starts work at 7:00 AM but we do have other folks in different departments in our building who come in as early as 5:30. I told my day shift lead to call one of them on Monday and find out if we were supposed to come in and then I asked him to text me the results.

My work day starts at 11:00 AM.

As it should.

That Friday night I left work and stopped by the grocery store and first experienced the mass panic that was the start of our new world order.

I don’t have to tell you how it felt because every single one of you felt it too.

Sure enough on the following Monday the supply chain management of my customer said we provided critical government support and we were advised that we were essential workers.

Meaning report to the physical site on the job “essential.” I got up that Monday and got ready for work the same as I did the week before and the same as I’ve done every goddamn week since.

In fact I’ve cancelled all of my time off requests for the year. Fuck it man, I may never take a day off ever again.

My crew is still fully staffed but I do let the morning guys go home as needed and I stick around to close. All told there are about 12-14 people in our entire building each day. Normally there would be about 25. The other departments are on an every other day rotation with the exception of one group who all work from home.

There are hand sanitizers every few feet. Masks are worn, we have disinfecting wipes everywhere, gloves are worn coming in and exiting the building. My shop is pretty good-sized and we are about 30 feet apart while the morning crew is in.

The Safety department of my customer has been incredible. They were actually prepared for every eventuality including a pandemic and they had all of the PPE and safety stuff already on hand well before this broke out.

I am basically scared shitless every day I come in to work. If one person in our building gets the virus we’re all fucked. Everyone of us knows the stakes and everybody in the building is incredibly diligent. We’re all pretty tight since most of us have been working together for years. The majority of my crew and I started here in 2001, I came here in 2000 from another aerospace company.

You can’t help but feel the fear just leaving the house. Our workload is way down but the work we do is very critical. We are definitely needed here.

To be honest, the other right brothers were both furloughed on the same day this started and have been just staying at home.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to have a real job to go to during this insanity.

I can’t tell you how fucking scary it is going to a physical location every day.

I am honored and humbled to be able to keep working during a fucking pandemic and I feel like I’m a useful contributor as well.

About 95% of my customers’ employees are working from home. We’re talking thousands of people here. The work we’ve been producing is submitted to us from these tele-commuters. We’ve actually been called “heroes” because we are helping them with their mission while putting ourselves in harms way every day.

I don’t feel like a hero but it feels pretty incredible that my customers think so. I love my job and where I work and I plan on working here from here on out.

To be honest I had been doing some early research into retirement in the months leading up to this thing.

Now? I’m not sure I ever want to retire after this. I would lose my goddamn mind staying at home everyday and I admire the fuck out of you good folks who are working/staying at home.

Let’s keep it up though. We’re making a difference.

 

Now let’s make some goddamn enchiladas!

Beef enchiladas this time using one of my all time favorite Mexican beef recipes.

First things first though, you know how we’ve been making our own corn tortillas lately?

Like from this post?

One of the things I try to do is some kitchen experimentation. Try some shit out that may be beneficial down the road, that type of thing.

Well folks, lemme tell ya you can NOT freeze the masa dough for later use.

Nope. Can’t do it.

It may look like this at first.

But when trying to cut, press and cook it fell apart like beach sand. Even after attempting rehydration. Somehow the freezing fucked with its molecular make-up. No reason to freeze anyway since the shit’s easier than Hell to do on the day of. Just a little basic experimentation.

I wanted to use homemade dough but that resulted in massive failure, so I resorted to plan “B” and used some store-bought corn tortillas that I had in my freezer.

Remember; we share the successes as well as the failures here.

Now let’s get to the successful shit.

Carne Guisada!

Yes, we’ve done this before.

That’s one of my favorite posts there by the way.

It makes both a killer enchilada filling and there is enough sauce/gravy to use as the enchilada sauce.

Bonus!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Get a 2-3 pound slab of chuck roast

2 1/2 cups of beef stock. Store bought is fine

1 large onion chopped

4-5 celery stalks chopped

5-6 cloves of garlic minced

3-4 jalapenos, stem and seeds removed and chopped.

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

1/4 cup of flour

2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon of ground black pepper

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

2 teaspoons of chili powder

 

Since I’m getting a bit wordy let’s do this pictorial style!

Get some veggies.

Be sure to remove the seeds from the jalapenos.

Chop up them veggies.

Did I mention before that I had fresh garlic?

PROOF!

Procure your righteous ass a big slab of beef.

Take that shit out of its package dammit!

Now cut the cow into chunks like so.

Safety tip reminder: raw veggies = wooden cutting board; raw meat = nylon cutting board.

Toss the beef chunks in the flour. Get a skillet over medium/high heat, add the oil then let’s get to searing the beef chunks.

Quick digression here:

Look up at the upper right in that picture.

Some of you may have seen something like it before.

Well, it’s this.

That’s my weekly chicken. It’s organic boneless/skinless chicken breasts that are seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and a sprinkling of this stuff.

Preheat your oven to 350 and cook the seasoned chicken in a lightly oiled baking pan for 17 minutes first, then rotate the pans, and cook for an additional 16 minutes.

I use this chicken as my weekly protein and have every week for about 15 goddamn years. It’s delicious, versatile and I never get tired of it. Since I cook it every Sunday (and it lasts me until Friday) it’s sneaked into more than one episode of Sunday Gravy over the years.

Thought you needed an explanation and a bonus recipe.

Anyway back to the meat.

Get that shit browned on both sides.

You’ll probably have to work in batches. For the previous version of this dish I browned the meat, deglazed the pan with some of the beef stock then cooked the veggies in the pan then put into a casserole dish.

Remember this bad motherfucker?

Goddamn do I love that casserole dish. I’ve had the damn thing for fucking ever.

I thought today we would go for a more “rustic” enchilada sauce so I kept the veggies raw and layered them with the cooked chunks of beef in the casserole dish.

Work in layers here.

Deglaze the pan with the tomato paste.

Add the tomato paste to the beef broth.

Then pour the liquids over the meat and veggies and get ready for the oven.

.

..

…

OK that whole thing about wanting a rustic sauce that I just told you was a colossal pile of horse shit. I fucking forgot to saute the veggies alright?

I had already cracked a couple of 12 oz cold adult beverages and just fucking forgot. Shit happens and we move on.

Cover the casserole with the lid and get into the preheated 350 degree oven for about 2 1/2 hours.

It still came out fucking fantastic though and it WAS more rustic.

See?

Damn right!

Let this cool for at least 10 minutes before assembling the enchiladas

To make these into enchiladas simply take your corn tortillas, wrap with a damp paper towel and place in a microwave for about 30 seconds. This will make them pliable enough to roll up. Add some of the juices/sauce from the meat on the bottom of a baking pan, then take a tortilla, stuff some of the shredded meat chunks in there, roll ‘er up and repeat. When finished, add some more sauce all over the top and finally coat with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

Into a 350 degree oven they go, uncovered, for about 25-30 minutes, yielding thusly.

Holy schnikes!

Let cool for 10 minutes before serving

Feel like making a side dish?

Guess what I was able to finally track down?

PINTO BEANS!

Hard as fuck to find these days but let me tell you how these came about.

Back to that first weekend of the pandemic deal. Remember that weekend? How fucking fucked up everything was with the run on every goddamn thing in the store? Well, apparently sometime during that weekend, and believe me I know you will understand, I was shit hammered drunk and tried to order some pinto beans from Amazon. I have almost no recollection of doing so. Guess what showed up on my doorstep about a week ago? Over a month later? Three 1 pound bags of dried pinto beans!

Woo-hoo!

Anyway, soak the beans the day before if desired.

Add to a pot with enough water to cover by an inch or so. Chop up a medium size onion, some more garlic and add to the pot. Then some salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder and a couple of chile de arbol pods. Get her over a simmer

cover with a lid, reduce heat to very low and cook for about 2 hours or until tender.

I’ve made beans on Sunday Gravy so many goddamn times all of you can probably make these in your damn sleep by now.

You know my trick for finishing the beans, remember?

Damn right, chop up some bacon and get in the pan and cook until the bacon is crispy.

Remove the bacon from the pan and drain on a paper towel. You then add the bacon grease right into the pot of beans and finish cooking for 10-15 minutes. Next use your immersion blender to mash/mix about half of the beans.

You can either just eat that damn bacon, or hell you could garnish the beans with it too.

Now we’re ready.

Cut a wedge of the enchiladas, get a scoop of them beans. Like cheese on your beans? I do. Like hot sauce/salsa on your enchiladas AND your beans. Fucking hell yes I do.

Plate up.

Need a little closer look at one of them enchiladas?

Fucking fantastic! You know this already since we just made enchiladas a couple of weeks ago but we’re working with what we have.

The inspiration came by finding a chuck roast and it took off from there.

This really is goddamn delightful though and one of my favorite versions of enchiladas ever. It’s pretty cool that the one dish of the stewed meat provides both the filling AND the sauce.

You’re going to love this shit.

Got a little wordy here today but I felt you needed to know that being out in this shit isn’t near as fun as it sounds.

Would I trade my current arrangement to instead be working from home?

FUCK NO I wouldn’t

I admire the hell out of all of you who can do that though.

I appreciate you good folks.

Hunker down, be nice to each other, stay safe and survive.

I’ll see you soon.

PEACE!