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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Summer treat update!

Hello and happy Sunday! I hope you all have enjoyed your weekend.

*Clicking on advertisements will add pennies (not yours) to my college loans fund. Thanks!* /plea for help

Here is the update, as promised, on the strawberry-banana freeze pops.

OH MY GOODNESS SO GOOD.

Pix!

One of the bowls I enjoyed making.
Unfortunately, the glass bowl broke.
DON'T FREEZE IN GLASS.

Mah spoon is not too big.

Frozen goodness.

Bite!

Freeze pops are like onions...
The layers came out really well, and the slices of fruit inside were really nice little surprises. My mom said should would have liked more of the strawberry puree, and I personally liked the yogurt/puree mix more, so next time I'll layer them to our preferences. Also, I will put in way more slices. I thought there wouldn't be enough room for more than a few, but I could definitely fit more in there. In fact, I could just dump a bunch in and put the yogurt and puree over top, and it would probably be fine.

Let me know if you try it with other fruits!

Chica love,
Sarah

Friday, July 29, 2011

3-in-1

That's what today's post is. Three recipes, one mega-post. I've got a bit of a backlog from the past two weeks, and I'm about to fill you in on all the yummy goodness!

This post's meals consisted of:
Baked chicken taquitos
Vegetable loaded sloppy joe's (/chili)
Strawberry-banana freeze pops! (or ice pops, or popsicles, or whatever you call them)

*Recipes and/or sites used will be at the end of the post.*
*Clicking on advertisements will add pennies (not yours) to my college loans fund. Thanks!* /plea for help

Talk about some good meals.

Link: This is from a t-shirt.
MEAL NUMBER ONE!

So let's start with the taquitos. We wanted something simple, and my mama loves Mexican food, so this was a great pick. We prepared it early, then while I was at Zumba (if you don't know what that is, go check it out - it may change your life) my mom put it in the oven, so it would be ready when I came home with the guacamole. Which I forgot. Oops.

The recipe called for a couple of things we did not have. We were out of cumin, for example, so in order to avoid the bland taste everyone dreads, we added a little extra chili powder and an extra dash of crushed peppers. We also had no cilantro or scallions, but that was no big deal. We had no Pepperjack cheese, so we doubled our cheddar. We had no lime, so we put in a squeeze of lemon (not enough to ruin the flavor) and a little extra salsa juice to make sure it wasn't too dry.

While I was mixing all this up, my mom was shredding the chicken. Then we put it all together and it was time to roll 'em up! In soft taco shells, that is.

All dressed up from my interview earlier. Yay job hunting.

Close up on the action!
They went in the oven like this:

Chickens in a blanket. Pigs aren't kosher. :)
And came out of the oven like this:

Perfectly browned.
These were our toppings:

My hand is holding the invisible guacamole that
I wished I had remembered.
The finished masterpiece:

Delight!
Mom also made brown rice to go with it - she remembered I like brown rice! My mom's the best. It took forever to cook, but was totally worth it.

MEAL NUMBER TWO!

Moving right along, next we have vegetable loaded sloppy joe's. See, my brother's away at camp being a boy scout, so it's just my parents and me in the house. This means we can try new things that are full of vegetables and my brother probably wouldn't eat. My sister might try things, but she's off being a counselor at a different camp.

The awesome thing about this recipe is that it is actually designed for picky eaters who don't want vegetables. My brother would probably have enjoyed this meal had he been here and not watched us put the veggies in it. THEY ARE TOTALLY UNNOTICEABLE. Seriously. We put carrots, mushrooms, onion, and garlic in our mix, and my dad had to guess wildly for several minutes before getting all four. You couldn't see them and you couldn't tell by taste that they were there (unless you're a super-duper-taster, of course). And it was so delicious.

We chopped 'em up real good.
Again, we were missing a few things from the ingredients list, but we decided to wing it and see how it came out. Still no cumin, and no coriander or cloves either. So we added some extra chili powder and crushed peppers (sound familiar?). Apparently an extra teaspoon was a little much! My mom took a taste and went "Whoa!!" So I took a taste... And waited a moment... And then said, "There it is!" Boy, it took its sweet (spicy) time to kick, but what a kick. I pretty much felt the back of my mouth and throat go WHOOSH. We decided it would be chili instead of sloppy joe's.

Meat left, more veggies right.
And we discovered halfway through that we had no tomato paste, but only one tablespoon was called for, so we just skipped it.

Also, we weren't quite sure was a "tin" measured out to be, so we guessed a little. It came out a little liquidy, but we let it boil away, and by the next day it had thickened considerably. Enough to put it on a bun and eat it as a sloppy joe!

Anyway, you can put cheese on top, or you can skip the cheese. I skipped it because I keep kosher style and don't mix my dairy and meat products.* (See note below for clarification about chicken.)

Dad's on left, mine on right.
And we whipped up a peas and corn mix for a side, as well as some cornbread.

Daddy graciously let me use his bowl because
it was more colorful than mine. :)
And that was a fantastic meal. The next day I had leftovers on a bun. Wicked good. No pictures of that though, sorry.

*I keep kosher style, which means I don't eat non-kosher foods such as shellfish or pork, and I don't mix dairy with meat products. As you might have noticed, I do eat chicken with dairy. This is because after studying different texts, I feel that fowl is parve (neither meat nor dairy) just like fish. By my kosher diet, "meat" is an animal that produces milk. Have you ever seen a nipple on a chicken?


TL-DR: In short, a chicken does not produce milk, therefore it is impossible to boil a chick in its mother's milk.

MEAL NUMBER THREE!

Okay, this isn't really a meal. This is a dessert! Even better, right? And what's more, it's really good for you. Today I made strawberry-banana freeze pops. They are in the freezer as I type.

I showed my mom two dessert recipes that needed bananas, so she went out and bought a few. I had the day off from work, and I had the house to myself, so I decided to make a Shabbas (Sabbath) treat before anyone came home.

I <3 teh froot.
Since we had only about a cup of yogurt left and it was going to go bad very soon, I decided to double the recipe. Except for the honey. I only used one tablespoon of honey total. I'm not a huge honey fan, but I do like to put it in smoothies (and freeze pops) so that I can eat it without tasting it.

Doubling the strawberries meant a LOT of extra puree, which is not really a bad thing. There was simply more of it than the yogurt. Also, mixing two tablespoons of the puree with the yogurt made swirls until it blended completely. This made me very happy.

Happy swirls.
I found six popsicle molds hiding in one of our cabinets. I was pretty excited when I saw them. Layering the yogurt, puree, and sliced fruit into them was pretty fun. And a little messy.

Made with Real Froot!
And on a whim, I stuck a slice of banana onto the popsicle stick part before putting it on top. I hope that doesn't make it impossible to get them out of the molds.

Creativity at its best.
Since there were only six molds, and I had enough for 8+, I grabbed two little glass bowls and got to work.

Ready for the freezer.
They are freezing right now, and I can't wait to try them! I will put an update after Shabbas to let you know how they turned out. :)

Phew. That's it!
Happy weekend, everyone!
Sarah

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Recipes and Sites
Thank you to FoodGawker for helping us find recipes!


Baked chicken taquitos

Site:

Vegetable loaded sloppy joe's

Site:

*Notes:
We used extra chili powder and crushed peppers in place of some of our missing spices. Also, with a little extra beef stock, it turned out more like a very tasty chili than sloppy joe's. I enjoyed it as a sloppy joe the next day when it thickened.

Strawberry-banana ice pops

Site:


*Notes:
I doubled this recipe except for the honey (agave) - only put a single tablespoon in the puree, and did not add any more anywhere else in the recipe. I also used a few extra strawberries. Very easy and very fun to make!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Long time, no post

Goodness, it has been too long since I last posted. I'm here to fix that. Sorry I got too busy to update for a while. Summer jobs and applying for real jobs have limited free time considerably. Also, I went to Niagara Falls on Saturday! It was my first time in Canada.

Proof that I was there.
Okay. First order of business: You may have noticed some icky ads on my blog now. Why? Because every time YOU click on one, it contributes to my Pay-Back-College-Loans Fund. :) So... yeah.

In other news, There's a Chica in My Chili! has been welcomed to the FoodBlogs.com community!

And now - on to the foodstuffs.

Tonight's meal consisted of:
Roasted garlic chicken pizza
Half-veggie, half-cheese pizza

*Recipes and/or sites that we used will be at the end of the meal's post.*

The tricky thing about cooking for my family is that I need to satisfy everyone's tastebuds. Not everyone enjoys curry, eggplant, or fish, just to name a few. And believe me, when my brother says something I made tastes good, that is an accomplishment.

So I wanted pizza with lots of veggies. He said no. So we're compromising by making a cheese pizza too, loading the veggies on my side. :) We'll have salads anyway.

The first thing I had to do was shred the chicken. I think I got a little carried away...

Shred-happy.
While I was doing that, my mom was experimenting with roasting the garlic. We had never done it before, so I Googled a site to tell us how it's done. A different site told us we could microwave for one minute on high, and since it's getting late, we did that. Our microwave is pretty weak, so we put the head in for an extra minute. That was too long, and the cloves got dried out.

The second head went in for a little less time, and they came out much better. Additionally, although the web page said to cut off 1/2 an inch, we found that as long as the cloves are exposed, it's better not to cut off that much.

See the difference?
Now it gets interesting. My mom couldn't find any frozen pizza dough at the supermarket, so she picked up two packages of "just add water" Betty Crocker pizza crust mix. I was happy that I didn't need to use a rolling pin, but I had to be careful while spreading it not to leave holes everywhere. That was probably me though, not the mix.

This cooking creme stuff the recipe calls for is kinda like pub cheese. Very spreadable. Good stuff. In this dish, it's used in place of tomato sauce.

And finally the chicken, garlic, and cheese went on top. We used both mozzarella and Colby-Jack (a Colby and Monterey Jack blend).

And here's the half-veggie pizza:

Peppas and 'shrooms!
Betty Crocker's crust wasn't bad - crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Although, I would have preferred a whole wheat dough. Next time. But whole wheat dough doesn't come in packages of 99 cents.

Roasted garlic chicken.

Half-veggie.
My brother wasn't very impressed with either of them, and said not to bother making them again. I was very happy with my veggie slice, and I would do that again for me. Love me some peppers on my pizza.

So that's it for tonight. I've bookmarked a whole bunch of new recipes though, and I hope to be trying some out soon.

Happy Thursday,
Sarah

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Recipe and Sites
Thank you to FoodGawker for helping us find recipes!

Roasted Garlic Chicken Pizza

Site:
http://gimmesomeoven.com/roasted-garlic-chicken-pizza/

How to roast garlics sites:
http://gimmesomeoven.com/how-to-roast-a-head-of-garlic/
http://whatscookingamerica.net/rstgarlic.htm