The theme of this weekend was "shit not turning out quite like it should".

First, I wanted to make enchilada sauce. I've got that New Mexico Red Chile powder, and enchilada sauce is a very traditional use of New Mexico red chiles. So I did some poking around, and settled on this Emeril Lagasse recipe for "easy enchilada sauce".

Now, maybe the perception I have from bad Mexican restaurants is wrong, but my vision of enchilada sauce is something fairly bight red and pourable. What I ended up with, thanks to both a light roux to start and a shitload of tomato paste, was instead a dark red spicy ketchup. It tasted good, but was completely impractical for making traditional enchiladas, even after thinning it out with juice from a can of tomatoes and some honey.

So instead, I smeared it on the inside of some toasted corn tortillas, and took the various fillings, and just ate them as tacos. Salvaged. Good. Not what I planned.

Sunday, I decided to make the pound of Rancho Gordo beans I got along with the chile powder. But given when I decided to do it, I resorted to the 90 minute dried bean cooking technique I'd read about online, which involves bringing the beans to a boil on the stove in a heavy pan with a tight lid, and then putting it all into a 250 degree oven for 75 minutes.

Others have had success with this method, so the fact that the beans needed another 20 minutes to be even edible? I blame my oven for that. Still, it's faster than other bean methods, and only requires you to remember "hey, I'd like to have some dried beans" two hours before you need them.

The beans, by the way, went into a sort of "riceless jambalaya" of shrimp, andouille, onisons, garlic, celery, red bell pepper, tomato, and broth. And that, at least, came out like it should.