Meatless Monday Mexican Menu

I am making black beans and yellow rice, a staple around here, the baby would literally eat nothing else if given the choice. I made a side of sauteed yellow squash and zucchini, something I jokingly call "Mexican Ratatouille" and I made fresh pico de gallo. I love pico de gallo! It is a chunky salsa made from tomatoes, onions, jalapeño pepper, and lime juice. You can zhush it up with some diced garlic if you like, or add some green peppers or cilantro to it too, but I like it very, very plain. The colors remind me of the Mexican flag, red, white, and green!

My sauteed squash dish is very versatile and it is a go-to side dish in my home. Simply slice or chop up some yellow (or summer or crook-neck) squash with or without some zucchini. Sautee it with some sliced thin onions, and some sliced tomatoes (or canned tomatoes) and season them all over with adobo until they are getting some brown spots and everything is quite soft. It pairs well with beans and rice or chicken.

I am also making a side salad, since I planned on making QUITE a bit of salad over the weekend and forgot to make it completely. We had so many vegetables for the cheese dip and on the veggie kebabs that I sort of just bungled it. On the plus side I was introduced to the most delicious variation on tzatziki dip with pistachios in it and a really awesome garlic dip that literally had me moaning in ecstasy over it while I dipped strips of bell pepper! I have to get the recipe from my friend Cami.

I was going to make some fresh tortillas, but we have some homemade biscuits leftover from Sunday, so I am going to use those instead. Hope you all have a good Meatless Monday too!

Dinner redux

I had a big weekend. Family Fun Day event at the Community Park Saturday afternoon, party on Saturday night, Sunday morning church and Sunday school, Sunday afternoon cleaning out the shed and re-organizing it (after we discovered a snake in there), then calming down and stopping screaming, then the darling girl's basketball game, then back to the shed, then going to see a friend's new baby. And now dinner!

The best thing about parties is leftover party food, am I right? I took the veggies off the kabobs and started stir-frying them in a pan with olive oil and spicy sesame seed oil. I shredded a bit of red cabbage and added that to the pot and added some salt and pepper and soy sauce. When everything got nice and soft I added the bag of boil in bag rice I'd made. At the very last I added the chicken teriyaki kebab meat and stirred everything together.

You know what? Fun makes me tired! Goodnight!

Fondue Party!

Tonight we are having a fondue and kebab party, AKA the night of Food on a Stick®. My pal Cami is bringing the cheese fondue course and some veggies and homemade bread, my pal Gina is bringing the shish kebab meat and veggies, I am providing a big salad and some chocolate fondue with fruit for dipping. I am also making a pineapple orange punch, and I have never made it before. I'm nervous. I wanted something sort of fun that the kids and grownups could drink, but more special than just sodas.

Here is the punch recipe: (My own invention!!)

Orange-Pineapple Punch

1 bag of frozen pineapple tidbits
1 (12 oz) can of frozen orange juice concentrate
(1) 2 liter of lemon lime soda
1 46 oz can of pineapple juice

A long time ago, when my husband and I were still pre-kids, we drove out into the countryside near Gainesville looking for this mythical flea market that was supposed to be amazing. We had some of our friends with us and the drive took us through gorgeous rolling green countryside, past horse farms and ranch homes. We even saw a single lonely and jet-black alpaca on the way, just grazing and gazing out at the road. We all squealed and pointed but my husband (the driver) had missed him we urged him to turn back to go and see the little, llama? I am never sure which animal is which, llamas and alpacas, I mean it could have been a "Push-Me-Pull-You" for all I knew, but still an amazing thing to see randomly on a lonely country road. But by the time we turned around and went back, whatever animal it was, it had gone! We all looked around in every direction to see where it had gotten to, but we never saw it again. My husband looked at us all as if we had pulled some sort of elaborate llama prank, but of course we all insisted we HAD seen it, right there on that patch of grass. There was not so much as a tree or a shrub for the thing to hide behind, so all I can assume is that alpaca-llama-yous are incredibly fast and it had beat feet to its house.

When we finally reached our destination there was a flea market of sorts, but really it looked more like a run-down farm with vendors in the old horse stalls of an ancient barn. Still, we HAD driven all this way, so we all piled out to look around. Almost immediately I saw it, jumbled among some chipped coffee mugs, and some battered tin ware; a glass punch bowl and about a dozen mismatched punch cups. I knew I had to have it. Still I played it cool, circling around, picking up stained and scarred ash trays, turning over ceramic plates. I finally asked the vendor how much he wanted for "that old punch bowl"? He named me a price and I wrinkled my nose and asked, "Is that with the cups too?" He affirmed. I nodded and walked away. I cornered my new husband away from the vendors. Hubby looked sad, probably still wishing he had seen the llama thing. I demanded that he give me $20 for the punchbowl and cups. He looked at me patiently and started to object, but I hastily informed him that we needed this punch bowl. He questioned me about the last time I had either prepared or consumed punch. I explained that I would OF COURSE make punch if only I had a punch bowl to serve it in. OBVIOUSLY! I mean what woman of 23 doesn't need her very own PUNCH BOWL and besides he had not heard the BEST PART! This punch bowl looked EXACTLY like my mother's punch bowl that she had received at a wedding shower a mere quarter of a century before. This punch bowl was filled with historic significance and it was OBVIOUSLY fate that had brought us here a'purpose to purchase this EXACT punchbowl. The llama-paca had surely been a sign, a portent of things to come. Punch to come.

I got the punch bowl.

I think I made punch once before we moved 4 years later. I carefully packed the punch bowl away, wrapping it in newspaper and bubble wrap and tape. I have since moved it 3 more times in as many years since we arrived here in the Keys. Today when I unwrapped it, I couldn't find a date on the paper, but Lindsay Lohan was ALL over the headlines... for her fabulous role in "Mean Girls". Poor Lilo. Anyhow, making punch tonight. Thinking about my Mom. Wondering where I will be in say, another 7 years?

Let Them Eat Cake!

So my kid has a long history of asking for crazy things for dinner when she makes good grades on her report card. One time she requested a cupcake frosted with macaroni and cheese with propellers on top. I made a meatloaf cupcake, with extra sticky mac and cheese and then crisply fried bacon propellors. Bacon propellors... it's what's for dinner. Today she requested a cake for dinner. So I decided to go with the meatloaf thing, as it had worked before. It is a sort of shepherd's pie actually, I baked a meatloaf in my 8" round cake pan, taking care to pack it firmly into the pan. What I did NOT do, but SHOULD have done was grease the pan! Whoops. It took about 40 minutes for my "cake" to bake, but pulling it out of the pan was a challenge. It stuck all around the edges and sort of fell apart. There might have been a mild swearing and spatula flinging break at this point, I can't quite remember. Anyhow I managed to peel some of the meatloaf out of the pan and plug it into the broken spots and then I frosted it all over with cheesy mashed potatoes. I added a cup (maybe a cup and half) of shredded cheese to the hot potatoes, a little bit of butter, but no milk to make it thick and sticky and spreadable. I sort of "spackled" the cake together. Then I scraped a carrot clean and made some carrot curl "rosettes" for the top. This wasn't the prettiest experiment I have ever made, but the Girl of Honor ate two helpings, so I am sure it was all fine.

I also made a box mix of chocolate cake for dessert. I baked it in two round 8 inch pans. I need to go make some vanilla buttercream frosting to finish it now that it is cool. Have a good weekend everyone!

Pressure Cooker to the Rescue!

So, I sort of didn't have a plan for dinner. It was a super busy day and I knew dinner needed cooking (not a surprise at this point), but still suddenly I looked up and it was time to go get my kid from school. And then times moves at supersonic speed until my husband gets home; plus we had 6-7 basketball practice. So you know, your basic mad dash of chaos, insanity and carpooling.

I decided my pressure cooker might be able to save my butt in this instance so I used my google-fu to look for a recipe that contained "chicken rice vegetables and pressure cooker". The first page was virtually useless and then I saw this little gem! and I knew it would be a good choice.

Here's the thing, the recipe called for 1 can of cream of mushroom, and one can of cream of cheddar soup. I had no cream of anything on hand, so I thawed the chicken cutlets, seasoned them and threw them in the pressure cooker to brown covered with chopped carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Then I measured in 1 C of brown rice and stirred it all together. I made a quick white sauce to compensate for my lack of soups. White sauce is when you take butter, melt it, add flour and whisk, and then add milk and whisk some more until it is thick and lovely. I also add salt and pepper (or in this case more House Blend® Paula Deen). Then I made a mistake, I had the stove burner on too high and my flour was not whisking in, it was just making these maddening little lumps there in the milk. Mocking me. I whisked harder and faster, and still they were not cooperating. So I threw down the whisk and got out my "stick" or immersion blender and beat the hell out of that smug flour. POOF, white sauce! I added that to the pot as well as 1 1/4 C of water for the rice. At the last minute I thought, "Oh, I have some cheese!" and I added the very last dregs of my giant bag of shredded 4 cheese blend. I gave it all some more salt and pepper, a hopeful stir, then I put on the lid and set it on high for 25 minutes. Then I was out the door for basketball practice.

When I came home I gingerly opened the lid to see what had happened in my absence. I stood over it cackling, "It's alive, It's ALIVE! BEHOLD MY CREATION!" for a few moments and then microwaved a bag of frozen broccoli to serve on the side.

The main dish was really good, it was a bit like a chicken and rice casserole but studded with veggies. The carrots made it sort of cheerful and the brown rice gave it some nice texture and flavor. The kids snorked it down, the hubby approved, all in all a good experiment. But yeah, as much as I am a "fly by the seat of my pants" girl, no amount of experimentation is a good substitute for an actual meal plan.

Kayla's ABC pasta

I got this recipe/technique from my BFF Kayla and now I am going to share it with you.

Take an onion and chop it into itty bitty pieces, then start browning it in a pan with olive oil. (Doesn't that smell good?) When it is translucent throw in some chopped fine garlic and a bit of sea salt. Then throw in 1 pound of whatever ground meat product you are using (beef, pork, chicken, turkey) Add in some fresh chopped tomatoes (canned if you don't have fresh) and let that all simmer. While it is simmering chop whatever other vegetables you have on hand. I use a "Vidalia Onion" chopper, like you've seen on the infomercial, basically a gadget that presses the veggies through a metal grid to get uniform pieces. I use the finest (smallest) grid I have to get more itty bitty pieces. Chop 1 great big carrot, 1 small zucchini, 1 big stalk of celery, half a big green pepper and when you add in the onion, tomatoes and garlic it is well over 3 C of vegetables! Take the meat mixture and pour off the excess fat. Then add the vegetable mixture to the meat and stir it up with some oregano and some House Blend and then pop a lid over it and turn the temperature down to low. Since the meat is browned at this point you can let the veggies just steam in there. This only takes 10-15 minutes on low. Then you stir together the meat and veggies with one small can of tomato sauce, let it heat up, taste and adjust the seasoning if need be. While the tomato sauce is heating up, boil some water and cook the ABC pasta (only half a box!). I know it looks small and like a tiny amount of pasta but it makes a surprising amount. The last step is to simply add some pasta to the bowls, top with sauce and then mix it together. Because the pasta, the veggies, the little pieces of ground meat are all of uniform size and cunningly covered in red sauce and maybe some cheese, this goes down a treat for veggie phobic kids. My children would eat this all day every day if we had it.

You can serve this as a one dish meal since it has protein, carbs and tons of vegetables. I think if I were to make a vegetarian version of this I'd sub in some cooked lentils for the ground beef and make a vegetarian red sauce, but what say you my full-time vegetarian friends?

My kid is amazing.-- Updated

My older kid got straight A's today. I am so tickled. Dinner will be baked fish, fresh wraps, lettuce, onion, tzatziki sauce, and falafel. And Daddy is picking something up from the store for dessert. YAY! Recipes and such later!

Okay, last night in addition to my veggie chili I also rolled some fish fillets in flour, egg and seasoned bread crumbs and baked them. Then I put them in the fridge to use tonight. Other things on the menu, making falafel from a mix (just add water!) and homemade flat bread (not unlike tortillas) and some delicious tzatziki sauce.

I took about 1 1/2 C of plain yogurt (could also be Greek yogurt) and seasoned it with chopped garlic, House Blend seasoning, fresh chopped dill and then added 1 shredded cucumber. To keep your tzatziki from getting too watery, take the shredded cucumber and place it inside many thicknesses of paper towels and squeeze it out over a bowl or over the sink. Squeeze and squeeze and squeeze! You could also use a clean dish towel (that you don't mind dyeing green) or some cheesecloth. When it is wrung out you can then add it to the yogurt mixture. Stir together and let sit for a few hours or even overnight.

Then I made the flatbread dough, (I sort of cobbled together some recipes and mixed it with my tortilla recipe) and then I made the falafel mix. Had I to do this meal over again, I would have made the flatbread earlier in the day (or just bought some!) and then made the falafel as the very last thing, while the fish warmed up in the oven. As it was the falafel got a little cold from waiting for me to finish the flatbread. I had the hubby shred some lettuce and we called it a meal. In a few minutes I am headed into the kitchen to share in the world's tiniest chocolate cake with white icing and pink buttercream roses to celebrate our kid's awesome All A achievement.