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:

http://www.blissfullydelicious.com/?p=1943

Vegetable loaded sloppy joe's

Site:

http://simply-delicious.co.za/2011/07/21/vegetable-loaded-sloppy-joes/

*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:

http://tast-e.blogspot.com/2011/07/strawberry-banana-ice-pops.html

*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!

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

First Meal!!

Our first time cooking together (not counting cookies from last semester) was a HUGE success!

Our meal consisted of:
Two-bean vegetarian chili
Cornbread
Vegetable stir fry

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

First of all, Sarah would like to say she is VERY PROUD of herself because she baked that cornbread ALL BY HERSELF. And we have to tell you, it was not an easy task.

We realized after we started cooking that we had no measuring cups. Oops. Looks like a trip to the dollar store is in our near future. But that didn't stop us!

Sarah used her handy little measuring spoons to scoop 32 tablespoons of corn meal into the bowl...

What was this, scoop #12?

And then used her handy nalgene bottle to measure out the milk...

Got milk? Yup - in a nalgene.

When it was done, it was beautiful and tasted so good, especially with the chili. It was nice and crispy, just the way Rebecca likes it.

Sarah's pride and joy.

While Sarah was preparing that, Rebecca was busy with the chili. It was a goofy process, this chili. Another important utensil we were missing was a proper knife. The recipe called for 1 cup onion, chopped fine. We chopped that onion real fine... with Rebecca's pocket knife.

You've never seen a finer onion chopper.

We consolidated our ingredients by buying canned tomatoes with spices in it, which meant we couldn't follow the order of the recipe precisely... At one point, Rebecca said to Sarah, "Do the tomatoes go in next?" And as Sarah went to consult the recipe, Rebecca said, "Tomatoes are in!" To which Sarah replied, "But we were supposed to add water and boil it first..." Oh well. At least the beans went in at the right time!

In they go...

And it still turned out wicked yummy!

So hearty, even without the meat.

Finally, we made some stir fry vegetables. We were originally going to make ratatouille, but the eggplants at Safeway were really icky and expensive. So we got frozen veggies and grabbed a bottle of soy sauce instead. Good choice! Stir fry is one of Sarah's favorite dishes.

Colorful!

Altogether, the three foods went together really well. It was a delicious and balanced meal, and we both enjoyed it very much - and we both went back for seconds. Also, Rebecca COULD NOT STOP going back for more cornbread. "It's the Southern Belle in me!"

SUCCESS!

Next weekend we're thinking stir fry again - it was that good - but this time with tuna and rice. Also, Sarah's got the urge to make some pie... We'll see! Until next week...

Ciao!
Sarah and Rebecca

"Where'd the beans go??"
"We ate 'em, silly!"

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

Cornbread
(from the back of the Washington Self-Rising Corn Meal package)

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 cups (or 32 tablespoons!) enriched Washington Self-Rising Corn Meal
1 tablespoon sugar (optional) --- we did not use sugar
1 1/3 cups milk
1 egg, slightly beaten --- we did not have an egg, so we used an extra dollop of milk, but an egg is probably better

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Put cooking oil into cast iron skillet or 8" or 9" square pan, place in oven until hot.
Combine corn meal and sugar.
Combine milk and egg; add to dry ingredients; stir until smooth.
Pour batter into hot skillet or pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.


Vegetarian Chili

Site:
http://www.thecurvycarrot.com/2010/10/08/vegetarian-chili/

Notes:
We referred to this site for the cooking process, but we didn't have most of the ingredients, and we, erm, personalized the instructions a bit. The garlic cloves, basil, and oregano were all in our can of tomatoes. We had the oil and the onion and then added the chili powder. Then we accidentally put the tomatoes in next, and immediately added the water. After bringing it to a simmer, we added two cans or beans, red kidney and northern white. Then we realized there was too much water, so we boiled some of it off until we were satisfied.


Stir Fry

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 bag "Ultimate Stir Fry" frozen vegetables from Safeway
Soy sauce, a few shakes

We just heated the veggies on the stove in the oil until they were tender. Then we shook some soy sauce in and stirred to coat the vegetables. Done.