Friday, finally.

So, due to illness (kids and hubby's and mine) as well as various volunteering commitments, I did not get a lot of blogging done, but MAN did I cook a lot!

Monday's menu is already on here, Tuesday I made a pot roast with veggies in the pressure cooker, Wednesday I turned that into beef stew, and Thursday Cinco de Mayo I made a Mexican fiesta of epic proportion.

Cinco de Mayo Menu:
Shredded beef
Crockpot Mexican Chicken
Rice
Tortillas
Baby Spinach
Shredded cheese
Salsa
Guacamole
Sour Cream
Tres leches cake
Margaritas

We made all of that stuff, except the salsa and the tres leches cake. The recipe for shredded beef AKA Mexican Beef Brisket is already on this blog, but I did something a little different this time, I added some seeded and chopped jalapeño and some mojo marinade to the beef and the flavor was GREAT. Serve the brisket wrapped in warm tortillas, with favorite taco fillings. Baby spinach subbed in for lettuce is a tasty way of adding some wonderful flavor and nutrition.

Crockpot Mexican Chicken
Take 4 chicken breasts and season with Adobo, sautee them till they are brown on all sides, place browned breasts in crockpot. Over chicken pour favorite salsa or 1 can of diced Rotel style tomatoes and 1 chopped jalapeño pepper. Stir in 1 tsp cumin and cook all for 6-8 hours on low. When removing the chicken shred with forks and mix with sauce, serve in tortillas or spoon onto hot cooked rice.

Marvelous Margaritas
Tequila (Jose Cuervo, save the Patron for shots)
Triple Sec (or Gran Marnier)
Key lime juice
Simple syrup

Into a pitcher with ice mix 2 C simple syrup, 2 C triple sec, 1 1/2 C tequila, 2 cups fresh lime juice, stir and serve. Delish!

EASIEST Guacamole

Take and mash 2 Haas avocados, mix with a dash of cumin, salt, and several tablespoons of best quality tomato salsa, plus juice of half a lime. Stir and let flavors meld for 20 minutes, serve with chips.

Today was Friday, and after a long night with the baby who had spiked yet another fever and a trip to the doctor's office to discover she has an ear infection I realized I hadn't ordered any fish for today. Hubby came home from work and made a chicken pot pie from scratch with only minimal assistance from me.

Our recipe for chicken pot pie is adapted from Alton Brown's pot pie recipe.

2 chicken breasts
2 cups of frozen mixed veggies
1 small onion diced
2 cloves garlic diced
2 stalks celery
8 oz sliced mushrooms (optional)
3 tb flour
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 C milk (or half and half)
1 1/2 C chicken broth
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 tsp Italian seasoning
leftover biscuits

Place frozen veggies on a rimmed baking pan and put it in the oven to roast at 350 degrees. Chop onion, garlic, and celery small. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper all over. Cook chicken breasts in olive oil in a stock pot over medium high heat. Take chicken breasts out of pot and set aside. Add 1 tb more oil to the pan and saute aromatics and mushrooms together. Heat milk and chicken broth in a 2 C glass measuring cup in microwave. Add flour and curry powder to aromatics and cook together for 1 minute, then stir in the milk mixture, Italian seasoning, the browned veggies, and the chicken. Cook all till nice and thick. We line a deep dish 9" pie pan with heavy duty foil and add in the mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes and then pop it out of the oven and top with leftover biscuits.

This is a great tasting dish, very easy and versatile. Tonight's frozen veggies were a blend of squashes, peppers, carrots. To that we added some frozen corn niblets and frozen green beans. You can use whatever you like, even a simple frozen peas and carrot blend. If you are making fresh biscuits you can top the pot pie with raw biscuits, dollops of Bisquick batter, sheets of phyllo dough (buttered well between sheets) or the puff pastry Alton Brown suggests. Leftover biscuits sliced in half go great over the top as it comes out of the oven. Let them sit there and get steamy soft as the pie cools a bit before serving.