Hey, everyone, I am still cooking! The other day I made Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp, and today I made Creamy Chipotle Chicken. It was delightful!
What have you made lately?
Still cooking…
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Tag Archives: Food
January Challenge Review!
I meant to write this last week but it didn’t happen! We ended up spending $221 on groceries last month and greatly reduced eating out by like half of what we normally do! I really enjoyed cooking and eating yummy meals from scratch!
In fact, my wife and I liked it so much we made a whole plan for February as well! We figured out some glitches to avoid for this month, and we need to restock some meat but are also experimenting with non,meat proteins (lentils and beans) as well!
So far for February we made chili, ribs, macaroni and cheese, banana cream pie, and lots of leftovers!
What fun things have you made lately? Any experiments gone wrong or experiments gone right? Let me know below!
Recipe for Chilaquiles
I hope you enjoy my recipe for chilaquiles, a traditional Mexican breakfast food.
It took a while for me to get this right. There are as many ways to make chilaquiles as there are people, so feel free to share your favorite chilaquiles recipe! Enjoy!
Chilaquiles
For salsa:
1 large tomato (or 2 medium ones)
1 clove garlic
1/4 onion
1+ peppers (jalapeño, ancho, serrano, or arbol), to spice preference
Salt and pepper
For chilaquiles:
2 tbsp olive oil
10 corn tortillas (ripped into quarter-sized pieces)
1 cup Mozzarella cheese (or quesadilla cheese)
1-2 large hard-crusted Italian breads, cut into 6-inch sandwich sizes
1 can refried beans
Put ingredients for salsa (minus salt and pepper) into a dry skillet and cook on medium-high heat, turning so the ingredients do not burn. When tomato begins to soften, toss everything into a blender with enough water to blend (1/2 cup or less). Add salt and pepper to taste.
In a skillet fry up ripped up corn tortillas with 2 tbsp olive oil until they are crispy. Then add salsa in with tortillas and mix. Cook for a minute. Then throw on mozzarella cheese, turn off burner, and cover. Toast good, crusty Italian bread, spread on refried beans, and put chilaquiles in the middle.
Enjoy!!!!!!!!
Recipe: Italian Sausage Pasta with Gouda
Cook and Prep Time: 20 min
Serves 8
Ingredients:
1 lb Italian sausage
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, diced
2 cups fresh spimach, chopped
1 tbsp fresh oregano
1 tbsp fresh basil
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tsp fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper
3 cups whey (or 1 cup milk and 2 cups water)
1 package pasta (bow-tie, penne, elbow)
2 cups gouda cheese, chopped
- Cook sausage, onions, and garlic in olive oil in a Dutch oven or stockpot, covered, until sausage is cooked.
- Add spinach and herbs until spinach is cooked.
- Add whey and pasta, covered, let boil for 10 minutes.
- Add gouda and cook uncovered until creamy but thick.
- Enjoy!!!!
Here’s a pic of my toddler enjoying his meal!!!
Leftover Tamales
So, I don’t have any pics because we ate all the tamales but last week I made some tamales from leftovers in my fridge. They turned out really good, and I ended up making about 20 tamales from one chicken breast, some salsa, and some other simple ingredients. That was like 7-10 servings from one chicken breast. Woot! Saving dinero and making delicious food. 🙂
Recipe: Chicken Tamales with Green Salsa (7-10 servings)
1-2 chicken breast, cooked and shredded
1 jar of green salsa (homemade or canned)
1/2 bag of Maseca (extra if dough too wet)
1 cup of Crisco or lard
3 cups chicken broth (extra if too dry), heated
Salt to taste
20 corn husks, set in warm water for 15 min to soften
1 steamer or tamale pot
Mix chicken with salsa on the stove until well cooked. You can add an onion and some olive oil for extra flavor if you like. Set aside.
Mix maseca with lard and chicken broth (or water). Add salt to taste. Mix until no lumps of lard and it is the texture of a wet, spreadable play-doh.
Get corn husks. Take a husk; hold it so the wider part is at the top. Spread a thick layer (1/2 inch) of dough in the middle of the top half. Spoon a spoonful of chicken and salsa into the middle of the dough. Fold one side in over the dough, then the other, and then fold the bottom up. Sit in the steamer with the closed part on the bottom.
Fill all the tamales. Put sufficient amount of water in the steamer or tamale pot. Cover and let water boil. Reduce temperature to medium, so the water is still bubbling. Steam for 2-3 hours, making sure to add water about every 30 min the pot doesn’t burn.
Knowing when they’re done is a bit of a guessing game. I usually cook tamales at night and let them stay in the steamer all night. Then in the morning I eat them for breakfast. But if you want to eat them for dinner, just make sure they’re not undercooked (smushy). Maybe let them sit for a bit.
Every time I make tamales, they turn out a little less horrible. I’m almost in the realm of making them really good now! Don’t despair if it takes you a few attempts to make them correctly. Bad tamales are better than no tamales at all! 🙂
These are tamales from Delgado’s Antojitos Mexicanos. Better than mine but then, that’s their speciality! 🙂
Baby vs. Black Raspberries
Another food adventure for my little one. He finished up a container of black raspberries we got at the farmers market over the weekend. He loved them!
Here are the pictures to prove it!
Wordless Wednesday
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Loca for Local: Why I Support Local Businesses…
(Shenandoah National Park)
(In the days and weeks to come, I’ll be starting a new blog series, “Loca for Local” where I will share my favorite spots in the Shenandoah Valley for good food, fun, and shopping. Today’s article is a quick glance into why supporting local business is important.)
Every day we are surrounded by choices. We choose where we eat, what we wear, who we talk with, what we buy, and thousands of other choices every moment of every day. Sometimes we make the same choices over and over again without noticing the effects our choices have on those around us and things we value most. A lot of times we never connect the dots between what we do and what that may lead to.
That was how I lived for many years. I took long showers and left lights on without thinking about the effects on the environment, I tried to find the best bargain for my dollar without wondering why things were so cheap, and I spent hundreds of dollars per month on food paying companies that were (and are) destroying my neighborhood and country.
And then I woke up.
With the help of some awesome movies: “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” (available on Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube) and “Food, Inc.” (available on Netflix) and a great book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” by Barbara Kingsolver, I realized that things in chain restaurants and fast food and big business supermarkets were cheap for a reason. They exploit their employees, they bully distributors into giving them lower prices that smaller businesses can’t compete with, they sell subpar products, they harm the land and animals they harvest, they send jobs overseas and keep workers in slave-like conditions, and they put local companies out of business.
Unfortunately, they do this while keeping a “super-American” image, tricking people into thinking they are supporting American jobs and products, when in reality they are doing the exact opposite.
Once you realize this, you might think two things:
1. I can’t afford anything different.
2. I’m too small to make a difference.
Here are my thoughts towards that…
1. If you buy at local grocery stores, farmer’s markets, farms, thrift stores, restaurants, etc., you’ll probably end up paying the same amount or less. When I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart and switched to Red Front (a locally-owned supermarket) and the Harrisonburg Farmer’s Market, I actually ended up saving money. How did that happen? Well, the thing is Red Front put coupons in the aisles so I can get deals…Wal-Mart puts more crap I don’t need in the aisles on purpose so you end up buying things you didn’t come in the store for (I have this on source from my hubby who managed one in Mexico, it’s actually their strategy to trick you into buying more). Also, buying fresh ingredients and making my own food instead of packaged food saved me a chunk of change. Also, it was waaaaaaay less stressful. I hate shopping. Yet going to the farmer’s market is fun for me (that’s a big thing, me liking shopping, you can ask family and friends!). Also a “value” meal at fast food costs about the same (or sometimes more!) than getting a better meal (healthier and more delicious) at a local restaurant/food truck. In the end, you come out even. It’s just making smarter choices.
(Charis Eco Farm) (Garcia’s Artesanias)
2. Where you put your money does matter. Just add up how much you spend on food in one month. It’s a lot. Multiply that by twelve and that’s a bundle for one year. Maybe an average couple might spent $100/week on food (just a guesstimate, people, don’t get in an uproar!), which is $400 per month, which is $4,800 per year. Almost five thousand dollars! That means five thousand (or whatever your calculation came up to) of your hard-earned dollars can either go to helping your own communities and local business, or to big business companies that don’t care enough to make sure your food is safe. Every little bit counts. Everyone matters in a community. You matter and so do those around you.
(sewing class at Ragtime Fabrics)
In the end, it is up to you what you do with your money. I make a conscious choice about where I spend mine. It’s all about choice. You can choose to put your money towards a business that exploits people and kills local economy or towards a business that is the local economy. It’s up to you and me. We vote with our feet (and our wallets).
(drinking Three Brothers Ale)
It’s not hard to make the switch from big business to local. In the days and weeks to come, I’ll give my favorite local spots in the Harrisonburg area to eat and chill locally, but here are some ideas of what you can do in your neck of the woods…
- Instead of eating out at a chain restaurant, try that restaurant in town you’ve always wanted to check out!
- Johnny Appleseed’s *Blue Mountain Brewery
- Craving fast food, visit a local diner or food truck! They’ll probably be just as fast!
- Go to a thrift store the next time you want clothes. (Make sure to wash and dry them in the dryer! No bed bugs, please!)
- Visit a local hardware store instead of a big business. You might find the prices are even better! Also, people will be much more friendly and helpful!
- Shop at a small, locally-owned supermarket or your local farmer’s market. The fresher the food, the better the taste!
- (Charis Eco-Farm) * (“The Egg Lady”)
- Ask a friend or family member about their favorite local spot. Or search online! Nowadays all the information is right at your fingertips!
Okay, that’s it for me today. Stay tuned for later this week when I let you in on my favorite taco truck in the ‘burg, Delgado’s Antojitos Mexicanos!
(eating a torta loca at Delgado’s)
Read more reasons I love eating local here.
Wordless Wednesday
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Wordless Wednesday
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Chica Creativa 