Home.

They say home is where the heart is, sometimes when I come home for longer than a few days and my Dad and I are at each others throats I question this statement.* There is also a nice concept of the "home cooked meal". I wonder about this statement too with the advent of the canned good, hamburger helper and even my seemingly innocent boca burger (not that I would ever eat hamburger helper, it's just an example). However there is something nice about sitting down to the table as a family. Growing up I remember we always did this, until of course my mother passed away. Then Dad was busy and family meals were sporadic at best and sometimes replaced with my favorite: TV dinners!! (I've come a long way since then.) Now the family has expanded burgeoning with a teeming tidal wave of small children most of which convert an impossible amount of energy from nutritionally inert foods like noodles and crackers, though cheese does factor in somewhere. In other words, the family meal is done in shifts, the children squirming in seats first with the adults distractedly following. You can't make the same thing for kids in our family as you make for the adults, allergies aside, their pallets are much too sensitive (as opposed to distinguished).

When I return home it is my duty as a daughter to bring my father some green chile. I forgot over Christmas and almost forgot this time rounding some up from the Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque in bulk at 5:30 AM in a moment of brilliance infrequent at dawn. Worried about the air traffic control regulations for frozen chilies but too cheap to pay to check my luggage, I decided to risk it. Unbeknownst to me you CAN take frozen food items onto the plane! (Just not floating in ice.) My Dad LOVES green chile. A rare varietal of pepper seldom found fresh outside of the southwest, and to some extent, outside of the New Mexico border. This rarity is only spicy when roasted, don't eat them raw, they taste as bland as a bell pepper but with less meat. High in vitamin C and capsaicin (releasing those happy hormones in the brain some of which contain the prefix "dope") these peppers can increase your immunity and decrease stress, excellent combo.

The following recipe is the one I like to make as my "Returning Home Cooked Meal" using a healthy dose of green and red chile it's a winner for most spice loving adults but don't ever try to foist it upon the children. For that matter don't ever foist any food item on the children, not even strawberry pancakes.

Spinach and Black Bean Enchiladas

Green Chile:

3 cloves garlic

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup flour

1 cup chopped and roasted green chile

black pepper

salt

3 cups water

Crush garlic into a saucepan with the butter on medium, saute until you smell it, then add the flour. Stir until flour is coated by butter. Add water and chile, boil, lower to simmer, add salt and pepper to taste.

Red Chile:

3 cloves garlic

1/2 stick butter or oil

1/2 cup flour

1/4-1/2 cup red chile (ground and dried)

black pepper

salt

3 cups water

Follow recipe above adding the red chile when you add the flour. Simmer both chiles for at least 20 minutes.

Enchiladas:

blue corn tortillas (preferred, but white will do)

butter for the pan

baby spinach

black beans (I use a can but of course you may cook them)

tomato (diced)

mushrooms (sliced)

black olives (sliced)

cheese (shredded, any type will do but the more Mexican style the better, like Monterrey jack)

Rub the pan with butter (use a deeper pan to eliminate overflow, size of pan depends on how many people you plan to feed), cover the bottom with tortillas, layer with spinach, mushrooms, black beans, olives, and cheese. Pour on the chile, don't hesitate: smother it. Create another layer same as above and smother with chile. Cover with tortillas layer with a bit of cheese and any remaining items to garnish (no spinach, it will burn and become crispy) cover the tortillas with chile and cook in the oven on 350 until the chile starts to bubble. (30 minutes to an hour).

*My Dad and I love to argue. It's really how we express our fondness toward each other. At times it is intellectual banter but at other less enjoyable times it is his incorrigible nature trying to rouse me and then telling me that I'm difficult--exasperating fun for all.