Working Myself Out of A Job

And Soul-Hugging Recipe to Come Home to Afterwards

My oldest daughter at her first art exhibit this past summer.

Nineteen years ago this week I laid upon our white platform IKEA bed in our little townhouse in Wendover, England in the dark of night moaning in utter misery. Under my breath I cursed the hoard of Christmas cookies I had iced and then proceeded to eat the night before. (Previously here in The Kitchen I’ve shared about my complicated relationship with sugar, but what you don’t know is that the relationship gets vastly more convoluted when cookies are involved. More about that next week…) But for now, imagine me nine months pregnant wearing unflattering pajamas hissing over and over to myself under the covers, “Damn those cookies,” while my husband offers his words of comfort.

Turns out, it wasn’t the cookies at all.

It was in fact our second baby getting ready to make her entrance into the world. Two years earlier her older brother showed up nine days late so I never imagined she would come along one day after her due date. Sure enough, by noon the next day we rolled into the maternity wing of the Stoke Mandeville Hospital with me panting like an overworked Labrador Retriever, and 45 minutes later, my bright-eyed baby girl laid blinking in my arms.

Yes, our little lady came into the world with such urgency that the shock of her rocket-like determination to get out of my womb and on with her life took me out of the Baby Race for a couple of years. I learned first hand why my wise midwives would say a quick labor didn’t necessarily mean an easy one. Yowzers!

The thing is, all those years ago I didn’t realize exactly who I was birthing. I look at the young woman that tiny baby has become and I think, “Well, of course she had to enter life like that. She had so much she wanted to do, that even a minute longer in my birth canal might have lessened her time to draw more or paint more or sing more or play guitar more or travel more or laugh with her friends more or snuggle her sisters more or dote on her brothers more. There was just so much more for her to be doing than hanging around inside of me.” And now she’s been here for 19 glorious years, doing all the things.

This past Sunday night, the day before her birthday, we drove down to watch her perform in her university’s Christmas choir concert. As we walked up to the auditorium before the show, she was standing at one of the doors handing out brochures. Dressed all in black with the sides of her hair pulled back she looked so much like a young woman that I stopped for a moment, stunned.

I’m not sure what I had expected. Perhaps nervous tears or mismatched shoes or a disheveled dress. Up until this moment, I had been a part of the preparation of every single choir performance she’d ever done through the years. Whether it was buying her dresses or letting her borrow my shoes or scouring the house for her black music binder, I was needed. But here she stood now, a radiant, prepared young woman, and I had no hand in it whatsoever.  

Later on after the performance was over and we were on our way out for dinner, she filed into the back seat of our car along with her other siblings and for the briefest moment, tucked up in her seat belt and smiling, she seemed just like my little girl again. But then she told us about the surprise birthday party her friends had thrown her the night before, about the secret text thread they’d made between all her friends and the decorations they’d covertly put up in her dorm room and the schemes they’d created to keep her out of the way till everything was ready. Sitting in the back seat of our car, her face glowed like the moon as she told us the story. “It was pretty much the best thing ever,” she sighed at the end.

And once again I found myself stunned.

This would be the first year that I would not spend her birthday with her. The next day we would be back at home and she wouldn’t awaken to a singing parade of our family marching into her bedroom with breakfast on a tray and presents in our arms like we do every birthday.

And yet, here she was, basking in the glow of such glorious celebrations that her friends had created and showered upon her, and again, I had no hand in it. There was no text to me to see when she might be home or what her work schedule was or if I could keep her occupied while they prepared. I wasn’t asked to help with decorations or food or gift ideas. This beautiful community that she is now a part of already knew how to love her and honor her in the ways she would most appreciate.

After dinner that night, we dropped her back at the university for her evening performance, and as we drove away one phrase immediately came to mind: “Maile, you’ve worked yourself out of a job.” But don’t envision me blubbering into my open hands as I said it. I wasn’t trying to be dramatic. I know I am her mother and always will be, and I know that will always be an important role in her life.

But what I did recognize at that moment is that I am no longer the necessary cog that makes her life hum along. She’s figuring out how to do that for herself and with other people that know how to love and support her.

And yet, the thought still brings tears to my eyes. I think they are happy tears. Okay, okay, a few of them are sad. But sad in the best way possible. Because as she steps further away from home, she continues to embody this wonderous life she was meant to live. It couldn’t all be experienced here within our four walls. And I’m grateful—soul-bursting grateful—that she is finally finding the way of life she loves...and in the wise words of John Irving, she’s finding “the courage to live it.”

When life throws these moments of sad joy at us, the ones that feel right but feel a little bluesy at the same time, there’s nothing like a little comfort food to soothe your soul. Today in The Kitchen, I bring you my Soul Hugging Enchiladas. A forkful of these snuggling down into your belly will feel like a warm embrace right around your complicated little heart, without any of the artery clogging goo to take the goodness out of it. Get cooking, dear friends, because you’re in for a generous helping of self-love at its finest!

Heart Hugging Enchiladas

Okay, first things first. The picture above just doesn’t do this little gem the justice it deserves. We currently have six different mouths eating at our table every evening, and finding a dish that delights every single one of them is two angels shy of a Christmas miracle. But lo and behold, here we are in that very season and the miracle has happened. When I slide this dish onto the dinner table, every belly leaves full and no leftovers remain. They’re honestly that good.

You could shorten the prep time here by going with canned vegetarian refried beans if you prefer. I personally like the bright flavor that homemade ones bring to the dish, and they really aren’t that difficult to make. Or you may actually go through all the effort of making them only to have your dog devour the entire batch while you zip out to the grocery to pick up nutritional yeast. In that case, you absolutely have permission to call your dog “a wretched beast” right into her lovely little face and then pull two cans of refried beans out of the back of your cupboard in surrender.

Now, let’s get to the goods.

Refried Beans Ingredients:

2 tbsp. water or vegetable broth for sautéing (or you can use oil if you have no qualms with it)

½ c. onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tsp. cumin

½ tsp. salt

2 cans pinto or black beans, rinsed and drained

½ c. vegetable broth

1 tbsp. fresh lime juice

Instructions:

Heat the water (or broth or oil) in a pan over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté for 5 or so minutes, or until the onions start to brown. Toss is the garlic and sauté for 2 more minutes. Then sprinkle in the cumin and salt and stir around for 30 seconds or so, just to toast the spices. Turn the heat down to low and pour in your beans. Grab your potato masher and smash everything together, adding the broth and lime juice to loosen things up, mixing and mashing till it has that refried bean consistency that we all know and love. Remove from heat and set aside.

Queso Ingredients: (This recipe was tweaked from Isa Moskowitz’s Queso Sauce in case you’d like to check out her version)

¾ c. raw cashews, soaked for 2 hours if not using a high-powered blender

1 ½ c. vegetable broth

1 tbsp. white miso paste (you might need to hunt a bit for this ingredient—there are shelf-stable versions and refrigerated ones, either will work but this one is my favorite.)

3 tbsp. nutritional yeast

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 tsp. cumin

½ tsp. salt

2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

2 tbsp. vegetable broth

¼ c. chopped onion

1 tbsp. fresh or jarred jalapeño, minced

Put the first 8 ingredients (through lemon juice) into your blender and rev it all the way up to the highest speed. Let it blitz for a good couple of minutes till the sauce is silky smooth. Meanwhile, heat your vegetable broth in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and jalapeños and sauté for 4-5 minutes, or until the onions start to brown. Now pour your cheese mixture into the saucepan with the onions and jalapeños. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the sauce starts to thicken, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Enchilada Ingredients:

1 recipe refried beans (see above)

3 c. cooked brown or white rice

2 c. steamed spinach, optional (I throw this in when I think my kids aren’t getting enough greens and I know they won’t notice the addition because they’re so mesmerized with the rest of the dish—a little nod to Jessica Seinfeld, I suppose)

3 c. enchilada sauce (Okay, this is where I draw the line on making things from scratch. If you have an enchilada sauce recipe that you love, go for it. But if you want to skip it, I’ve found the Frontera Red Chile Enchilada Sauce to be an excellent substitute without any red flags on the ingredient list)

6 whole wheat soft tortilla shells

1, 10oz. can Original Rotel Tomatoes (you could totally skip this step and just grease the bottom of your pan so the enchiladas don’t stick, but I like the extra touch of heat and chunkiness the Rotel bring. It’s totally up to you.)

1 recipe homemade queso (see above)

chopped cilantro for garnish, optional

Once you’ve done the hard (but not actually hard) work of making the beans and the queso, this part is simply an assembly line (and a quick one at that.) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and there is a good chance that by the time your oven squawks at you to tell you it’s ready, your pan of enchiladas will be ready, too. Pour the Rotel into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish or grease it if you’re bypassing the tomatoes. Now the fun begins.

Take one tortilla, spread ½ c. of beans down the middle, add ½ c. of rice, 1/3 c. of spinach (if hiding), roll it up, and put it in the prepared pan. Repeat till all the tortillas are used up, pour the enchilada sauce over top spreading it around to be sure all the tortilla tops are completely covered, put a piece of foil over the pan, and pop it into your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the sauce gets bubbly around the edges. Pull the foil off, bake for 5 more minutes, and then pull the whole kaboodle out of the oven. Pour the silky cheese sauce over top, sprinkle with chopped cilantro if desired, and serve!

Serves 6.