Food Reflection!

Sorry no food post this week! I have decided that for my last blog I am going to reflect on the blogs I have written over the past semester. Had I not been required to do this blog for class there is no way I would have experienced the delicious food that I cooked/baked. I have to say the most delicious thing I made was probably my chicken lime soft tacos, in fact, I may make them tonight yummmmm.

The churros were by far the biggest pain in the ass. Though they were delicious I will never take on the task of churros again. I had to use so much oil, I burned myself and my house reeked of carnival for a couple days after, but they were delicious when all was said and done and my friends loved them.

My dearest Amanda gave me some great ideas for recipes and even provided me with the extra challenge of guessing how much to use when compiling these tastey treats. The calabacitas were amazing and I even had some a few weeks later somewhere else and I must say that Amandas recipe and my guessing turned out way better! The Amanda chunky salsa was also amazing and for what I have eaten this semester I should weigh a lot more.

For anyone who read my blog(border beaters and Jay), thanks for putting up with it and I hope you enjoyed my hodgepodge, Paula Deen, Amanda Portillo, find-ingredients-in-your-pantry recipes. I had fun while it lasted!

Chunky Salsa

I feel that although my last couple posts have involved me making some basic lazy recipes, they are definitely some of my favorite! This week I again have to thank miss Amanda Portillo for sending me a salsa recipe with you guessed it, no measurements. And not only was it measurementless but it was sent to me in a series of three text messages with the final one saying that she had decided that she was to eat this very salsa for dinner that night. A salsa so delicious that its mere mention in a text message is crave inducing.

Since it’s the end of the school year and for once in a very long time I am working only one job I’m fairly broke. Beautifully enough I had all the ingredients in my house except the avocados so my trip to the grocery store was more or less painless in cost.

Once I am back at my house the I begin my task of making delicious, chunky salsa that I again have no idea how it should look. Fortunately it’s salsa so I have a pretty good idea of what I’m getting in to. I bought two avocados when I was at the store because I love avocado and however this salsa gets made, it is going to have a lot of avocado. Cut the two avocados in half and then use a knife and dice it then use a spoon to scoop the diced bits out and into a bowl.

Once all your avocado is in the bowl take a can of black beans and a can of corn and pour half of each in with your avocado. I suggest that before you pour the beans in you rinse them because there is always a thick juice that they sit in and unless you want that I recommend just rinsing them off so that they are clean. Once your beans and corn have joined your avocado you can just give it all a quick mix together. Next you will pour in about a half a cup to a full cup of regular salsa to kind of hold all your other ingredients together. Seems redundant to use pre-made salsa to make salsa but think of it as more of a glue to hold everything together on a chip.

Finally just season your yummy chunky salsa with salt, pepper and tobasco if you so choose. Again, I am super white and therefore extremely pathetic when it comes to spicy so I steer clear. But if your into that face-on-fire feel you just go ahead and spice it up. After all, if I can tailor my Amanda recipes to my liking you can certainly tailor my interpretation to suit you!

Quick Guac Recipe

As usual I sit trying to decide what to blog about and then it suddenly pops into my head: guacamole! Why have I not yet made guacamole? I love chips and guac and it’s soooooooo easy to make. So it’s decided, guacamole it will be. This is another recipe where there is a very good chance you will already have all your ingredients in the house. I, of course, do not because I’m too lazy to go grocery shopping and with graduation and a move out of my house right around the corner I just can’t bring myself to buy too many groceries that may end up not getting eaten in time so I wait it out as long as possible until I have absolutely no food and then I go to the store and buy as little as possible. So I go to the store and amongst my measly basket of Apple Jacks cereal and juice are two avocados, chips and sour cream. It took me probably 10 minutes to pick out my avocados because you want to make sure that you get fairly ripe ones. They should be soft but not too mushy, but definitely steer clear of ones that are too hard. Always go with softer ones, they will have better flavor. Anywho, I take my odd assortment of groceries to the check-out counter and then quickly scamper off to my car excited to get home to make my delicious guac.

I get home and gather all my necessary items: avocado, sour cream, salsa, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper if you want a little kick. I went with two avocados this time because it is a perfect amount if you plan on going to town on the guacamole alone (which I did). If you want to make it to share I’d say go with 3 to 4 avocados. Anyway, start by slicing your avocado in half and dicing it into a bowl. Throw out the outer peel but hang on to the pits. Once you have diced all your avocado into your dish give it a quick mash but not too much. You want it to stay pretty lumpy since you still have things to mix in and don’t want it to end too smooth (unless you like that). Next throw in a hefty spoonful (maybe about 2 tbs) of sour cream. Mix them together until it is at the consistency you like. Next throw in some salsa. You can use however much you want, I use about 1 tbs or so. Stir salsa in. Next season with salt pepper and cayenne if you want a little bit of a kick. I know that I’m notoriously wimpy when it comes to spicy but it gives the guacamole a nice flavor and I don’t mind a little bit of spiciness. Voila! You have a delicious small serving of guacamole that took less than 10 minutes to make and has hardly any clean up! Grab your tortilla chips and head to the couch.

Calabacitas

In the search for the next recipe I skipped my go-to googling and instead approached the age old technique of asking around. Enter Amanda Portillo. My dear friend whom I waste away with throughout the week in our final semester of school shared with me a recipe that seems more like a hodge podge collection of food all held together with cheese. I’m immediately delighted. Amanda sends me the recipe and in the first paragraph she forewarns me of what’s ahead, “I don’t have any measurements and also this is just the way I always like to eat it, so it might not adhere to any cookbook rules, haha.” Haha indeed Amanda. She did not lie and at no point in her instructions was I given any form of measurement or serving size comparison.

Welp, time to improv.

I dice two tomatoes and half an onion and throw it in a pan with some olive oil to saute. I have committed to this recipe and there is no turning back now. I saute and then move on to my 3 zucchini squashes, 1 yellow and 2 green. I cut them all in to coins. I notice that my tomatoes have turned to mush but I cook on, undeterred by their dissolved state of being and toss in my squashcoins. The saute-fest continues. The vegetable trio cooks for about 5 minutes (mostly because I’m engrossed in Desperate Housewives, but I digress). The 5 minutes feels adequate. I feel that I have successfully portioned all the vegetables so that they are not over nor underwhelming. I pat myself on the back. But there is not time for celebration. It’s time for the corn. I have a whole can and seeing as Amanda chose not to provide any measurements I decide that the whole can will suffice since I am a big fan of corn.

And now for the piece de resistance: cheese. Delicious mozzarella cheese. At this point I divert myself back to Amanda’s email to refer to what she may suggest in the way of cheese. I learn that Amanda is a big fan of cheese. She chooses to add a “ridiculous” amount. So I follow suit thinking all the while as I add my cheese if Amanda would be pleased and approve of my calabacitas. I stir in the cheese with the rest of my yummy vegetable medley and voila! It’s done. I stand over the pan smelling the delicious calabacitas and whatever else is burning on my stove and fish a fork out of the silverware drawer. I do not use a bowl, bowl’s are for rookies. Amanda was right, “ridiculous” cheese was a good call. The calabacitas is awesome! The corn was nice and sweet, he zucchini’s were still a little crisp, which I like, and even my dissolved tomatoes showed up on my taste buds refusing to be forgotten. And then of course the gooey cheese held it all together.

This recipe was quick and easy taking no more than 20 minutes including prep time for vegetables. Thanks to Amanda whoprovided me with probably the only detailed, followable recipe with no measurements I have ever seen. Whether or not this is what it was supposed to turn out like I am really happy at how it came out. Everyone loves cheesy vegetables.

Strawberry Margarita

When I went looking for a delightful margarita recipe to make as a little pre game drink sesh for me and my roomies before going out I knew I found the right one when it measured the tequila not by a shot or a splash but by a cup. Bingo. Winner. Anything measuring a solid liquor like tequila in cups has to be amazing right? I thought so too.

Anyway, the search for the perfect recipe started where all great ideas should be searched and no it’s not in Granny’s recipe book (she’s more of a gin and tonic kinda gal)… google. Where else? When the search results appeared one of the first one came from a channel on the food network’s Web site, which I’m a huge sucker for because I love Paula Deen and hoped that she would show me how to incorporate a stick of butter (y’all) into my recipe. Wishful thinking and no such luck 😦 As disappointed as I was to not find a butter infused Paula Deen margarita recipe I found one that almost topped it when it said it was measuring tequila by the cup. Should have known good old Guy Fieri would be doing that. His hair drives me crazy but his units of measurement for liquor sold me.

It would of course have been too much to hope that I would have all the necessary ingredients so I made a little trip to Safeway to collect my poisons. Two fifths of liquor later and some frozen strawberry concentrate later I was back at home standing in front of the blender and my various tools of measurement. First things first, in goes the 2 cups of ice. The ice was quickly followed by 1/2 cup of the strawberry concentrate, a couple of sqeezed limes, splash of Triple Sec and then the moment I had been anticipating that glorious cup of tequila.

There’s something exciting and simultaneously nauseating about a cup of tequila. The smell always makes me remember the morning hurt of a long night spent enjoying its company. Always seems like a good idea at the time. You always reason your way back to it though, too many good memories attached to that golden liquor.

Anyway, back on track. All ingredients are now peacefully sitting in the blender topped off with that lovely cup of tequila. Hit the blend button and bam all flavors combine angrily into a lovely pink drink. Voila! Sweet success. I have probably failed to mention that while the margarita’s were part of pre going out drinks with my roommates, my mom gave me a fabulous set of margarita glasses that I have been dying to break in. With the drinks blended and the glasses sitting and waiting, one more thing remains to be done… the taste test.

The verdict? Delicious! The only thing I ended up deciding I would have changed about the recipe is I think I added a bit too much Triple Sec and would use less and also the strawberry concentrate I chose was actually meant for daiquiri’s and that might have added a strange flavor as well but in all honesty could have been the Triple Sec.

Pictures to come!

The “Challenging” Four Layer Bean Dip

As with most of the recipe’s I have tried on here I like having ones that don’t require me to have to make a big expensive trip to the grocery store. Fortunately this recipe turned out to be a craving around 11 p.m. for me and my roommate so our bean dip was going to be made from whatever we had available to us. It turns out all the crucial items were living somewhere in our fridge and pantry. While I would have liked to make some guacamole to put in the dip I sadly did not have any avocados but the beans, salsa, sour cream and cheese was still just as good as we hoped. The first thing we did was put a layer of beans on the bottom of our chosen tupperware.

While this can of beans may look questionable I promise that it was not too old and crusty just slightly, but none of you should worry you can eat out of your own non-crusty bean can. Just scoop out however much you want (I’m a big fan of beans so I used a good amount) and smear them in the bottom of your container.

Once your desired amount of beans is layered in your container you follow it up with some sour cream. I recommend the beans going down first since they are the most solid and you do not want to try smoothing them over the top of anything like sour cream or salsa, but thats just me. Anyway, once the you dollop in a desired amount of sour cream smooth it out over the top of the beans.

As you might have guessed you follow up the beans and sour cream with the salsa. Again one of those things that you can put in as much or as little as you want. We used a lot because as you can tell with the size of the bottle of salsa that my roommate likes salsa so we used a pretty good amount. Once you have these three ingredients in I recommend microwaving them so that it gets nice and warm before you add the cheese so that it doesn’t turn into a crusty pile of lactose on top of your marvelous and stupidly simple bean dip.

Once your bean dip is warm sprinkle your cheese on top and pop it back in the microwave for about 20 seconds until it is melted and gooey. Remove from the microwave and find that stale bag of chips sitting in your pantry and dig in! All in all literally took 3 minutes to make. Can’t beat that!

The warm and gooey bean dip turned out great and was gone within an hour of being made. My lovely Claire Bear and myself quite enjoyed the spoils of our hard work!

Caution: Churros, though delicious, will make your house smell like a deep fryer

Before I opt to make a recipe I always do research and compare the recipe I want to try with others. This past Sunday I made churros and after looking through a few different recipes and reading their reviews I settled on a Paula Deen churro recipe. Now I know that Paula Deen isn’t exactly an on the border gal and as much as she knows about butter she is knows equally nothing about the border but her recipe looked good and her southern accent sells me every time.

Churros Recipe: Paula Deen: Food Network

But let’s get back on track. For this recipe I had all the ingredients right in my kitchen. It calls for everything basic like flour, sugar, water, eggs, cinnamon and vegetable oil. The only things that people may not have is nutmeg or an orange (which you end up grating the peel off to add to your batter but I didn’t because I didn’t have one). Cookware wise, you need something to fry the churros in, a pan to mix in and a pan to sugar in. The only thing I was required to buy was a piping tube with a large star tip so that I could make my churros look like the ones from the fair. I got it at Safeway for $5.

Before you start you should pour about and inch to an inch and a half of vegetable oil into a deep enough pan on the stove and start heating it. Paula says warm it to about 350 degrees. I do whatever Paula says. From there just follow the recipe by cooking your water, sugar and butter together on the stove and then removing from heat and adding the flour, which should thicken into a dough and will roll into a ball in your mixing bowl. You let it cool a little bit and then start adding eggs. The recipe called for 4 eggs but I only added 3 because I buy the freakishly huge eggs and it would just be too much. I actually had to add some flour after failing on my first churro but I’ll get to that in a second. Beat in your eggs until the batter is a little bit thicker than pancake mix. If your confused about thickness and your pancakes are always runny then you can test to see if your batter is too runny as well by pouring it into your piping tube with star tip. If it all comes running out the tip then it needs to be thicker. All you do is add a little bit of flour slowly to fix it. Put back in the piping tube.

Now on to the fun and dangerous part. Check to make sure your oil is hot enough, using one of those meat thermometer should suffice (I just burned a couple churros before cooling it down enough). Using your piping tube squeeze out about 4 inches of batter into the oil. I apologize for the odd shape they will take but I promise they taste awesome. Fry them until they are golden brown and make sure that you rotate them so that they cook evenly and once they are done remove them with tongs or something and set on a paper towel. Let the oil drain off for a minute then drop in your cinnamon and sugar and coat. I found that the churros turned out looking better later on in the batch and I think it is because the batter had time to set and thicken up in the piping tube a little bit more.

I wanted to have pictures of people enjoying the churros but by the time I got to the Super Bowl party and set them out and realized that people were really enjoying them, they were gone.

This recipe was super easy and once you get into the flow it will go a lot faster. The only major drawback to the whole thing was that my house smells like the deep fryer at a carnival. Open a window, light some candles and you’ll be good to go!

Lime chicken soft tacos. That’s what’s up

Well folks I have officially found and cooked my first recipe for this delightful blog! The challenge? Lime chicken soft tacos.

The recipe was really simple and most of you probably have a good portion of the ingredients in your home. I unfortunately live on the college student food plan (consisting mainly of diet coke and cereal) and did not have a few of the necessary items in the house. After a trip to the store I got back to the house expecting to put in an hour worth of work for food prep and cooking but I was wrong. After cubing the chicken, dicing the garlic and green onion I realized the bulk of the wait to eat would be in waiting for my friend to show up and my roommate to be ready to eat. When the time came to get to work all it took was cooking the chicken and then throwing the rest of the ingredients in and simmering them all together.

The chicken turned out so good. I was worried that it would dry out in the pan while it cooked since it was on the stove for probably 20 minutes but it managed to stay really moist and the hint of lime was perfect. The recipe also calls for 1/8 cup of red wine vinegar, which weirded me out a little but if you try this recipe don’t nix this (like I thought about doing) because it works really well.

While the chicken simmers you can set up a little taco bar if you’re feeling really ambitious (which I was). I put out shredded lettuce, tomato, avocado and there was also the homemade guacamole, which I threw together before I started cooking, for the chips. Everything turned out so delicious and I will definitely cook this super easy recipe again!

Welcome to my blog!

Thank you to whoever has stumbled upon my blog and is deciding to take the time to read it! I will be keeping this blog for school and it is going to be about food, which I am a big fan of. However, I will not just be talking about a food and how good it is, my plan is to cook the food and report back about how easy or hard it was to make, if it turned out like it should and is it actually good by the time I’m done with it. I’ll post pictures of the final products and maybe some important steps in between. I have a couple ideas in mind for what my first recipe will be but you will just have to come back to find out what it is!