Glow Stick Baby
3 days ago
Showing posts with label recipe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipe. Show all posts
I wish I could say that I've had all these really important things going on, since you last heard from me, but it's just not so.
News from El Paso:
-Halloween is a HUGE deal here. I mean, it's fun, exciting, but I have never experienced Halloween like I have here. It just seems like the Hispanic culture gets way more in to it than it is back home. I could be wrong, but so far, that's my experience. The decorations were ridiculously awesome.. For example: 5 vintage porsches in the front yard with zombies driving them for the "death race", in house DJ's in the front yards, plane crash scene with actual small plane crashed in the yard?... i mean decked out. I'm already brainstorming for next year...
-It's cold here all of the sudden, which means it's FREEZING in my house because I have a swamp cooler. What's that you ask? The worst invention ANYONE has ever come up with. I remember when we were looking at houses to rent, I kept noticing signs on houses advertising "refrigerated air". Didn't really know what it meant, so didn't worry about it. Now I know that there's a reason why they advertise it, because you WANT THAT, not a swamp cooler. Let me explain... I'm not real sure what it is or completely understand it, but somehow it PUTS HUMIDITY/MOISTURE into my air.... WHAT?????? Literally it's a dial and a switch. Switch is "high-off-low" Dial is "9 8 7 6 5" 5 being the coolest. It just runs unless you have it on off.
There are 2 kickers with a swamp cooler...
1) If it's raining, it simply doesn't work because there is too much humidity in the air.2)You have to vent the air. If I am in the kitchen (the hottest room in our house), i have to either open a window or the back door, so that it will pull all the cold air to that window. You have to give the air an escape! CRAZY! Of course, we were all sealed up for the first month, sweating our asses off, trying to keep all the "cool air" in. Then we learned.
Well, now that it's cold, apparently you can't just flip the switch to turn the heat on. There's a whole process to shutting down your swamp cooler for the season. You have to seal it up and do some kinda switcheroo. Sure, we could go ahead and do it, since the low is in the 30's, but it will randomly get up to 90 again and we will need the wonderful swamp cooler again. So, me, keith, hairless ellie, and olcase will just freeze until the desert decides it's done getting hot.
-Recipes to Share
Soooo good, and even better left over the next day.
Word of advice: don't pour boiling water down your leg. I was finishing the noodles, when I got ready to drain them, I looked to make sure I had the lid turned to the smaller holes, tilting it back just a wee bit, when the boiling water went down my thigh. I have a really nice burn strip that is now purple, a week later. Lovely.
Tonight is the preview night of El Paso's Junior League's version of Mistletoe called A Christmas Fair. I'm very excited to go, but expecting it to be very interesting. I'm crossing my fingers that I can get a tiny bit of Christmas shopping done.
Have you started your shopping yet??
I'll be honest, I'm not a big meat eater. I'm not a vegetarian, and it's not that I don't care for it, I just don't really have to have it in my life. I can't tell the difference between a steak from Shapley's to Ruth's Chris to Outback to Western Sizzlin. All I can tell is if it is tough or not.
Chicken, I love. I can tell if a piece of chicken is fried good or not.. :) Kind of my weakness..
Now, turkey... I don't really care for much at all. Turkey on Thanksgiving? Eh, could definitely do without for sure. Ground Turkey? I hate how pale it is raw... and the texture is kinda weird to me.
So, when I saw this recipe....Asian Turkey Meatballs with Lime Sesame Dipping Sauce from Skinny Taste a few things jumped out at me. good and bad things.
Good:
*Asian-I have a major love affair with Asian food. I could live off of Panda Express and be fine. Seriously, it's up there with Chick-Fil-A (which we only have in a mall food court on my side of town, do you realize how inconvenient that is??)
*Lime-Here comes my other love... Mexican. Anything with the word lime or cilantro and I am all over it. (this recipe has BOTH)
*Dipping Sauce- This girl loves to dip. I don't care what it is. I'm a condiment whore.
Bad:
*TURKEY- see previous comments... just no good.
*MEATBALLS- sick. I can't think of many words worse than meatballs. How can you eloquently say the word? I feel like you have to say it with a raspy growl. sick. Try it... can't do it, can you?
Well, let me tell you, this recipe made me a believer in turkey meatballs. It is SO easy and SO delicious. My whole house almost melted with my rickety oven being on 500 degrees for so long (plus the afternoon desert sun beating through window didn't help), while I prepped everything, but Keith, Ellie, and I pulled through.
The Dipping Sauce was everything I could have ever imagined. It is perfect. I did add some Sriracha Garlic Chili Sauce to eat along with the rice.
I made the Brown Fried Rice to go along with it, and it was great, as well.
It also got the Ol' Case approval. (He's extremely hard to please.)
Try it out!
This is my cute little kitchen. I really love it, minus the old, outdated appliances. When we first moved in this summer, our dishwasher wasn't working. It was straight from the 80's. I hope to never hand wash another dish for the rest of my life. Absolutely. terrible.
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| Cute Flea Market table that I repainted. Love it. |
Some things that I can't live without in my kitchen:
Handheld Garlic Chopper
It is a LIFE-SAVER for mincing garlic.
I got mine at Target.
Caldrea Kitchen Cleaning Products
You can't go wrong with any of the scents. They are all wonderful. They have cleaning products for the whole house.
I got mine at Target. You can get yours here.
Shun Knives
Cooking became a whole new experience, when I got new, nice knives. They are expensive, but totally worth it. I hope to get a new one for each occasion, they make me that happy. Now I feel old, wanting knives for presents....
What are some things you can't live without in your kitchen?
Last night I cooked one of Cayce's favorite meals. I thought that I would share the recipes.
Oven "Fried" Chicken Tenders
Garlic Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Spinach Salad with Poppyseed Dressing
Oven "Fried" Chicken Tenders
(Cayce actually prefers these to the real deal fried chicken strips)
This recipe was adapted from a Weight Watchers Recipe. I do everything by sight, so there aren't any measurements, and of course it depends on how many chicken tenders you want to make. I usually make these on a Monday, because they are great to eat for lunch throughout the week.
*Ingredients*
-Total Whole Grain Flakes cereal
-Whole Wheat Flour
-Tony Chachere's Seasoning (careful-salty and spicy)
-Fresh Ground Black Pepper
-A little garlic salt
-Hot Sauce (I prefer Louisiana)
-Lowfat or Fat Free Buttermilk
-2 packages of chicken tenders
-vegetable oil
*Directions*
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees
-Spray nonstick cooking spray on a baking sheet (DO NOT USE PYREX, it will stick, and you will lose all the crust)
-In a large bowl, soak chicken tenders with buttermilk and hot sauce mixture. Just eyeball how much hot sauce, until it turns pink. Soak the chicken for however long you'd like. The longer you do, the more flavor, obviously.
-I use an electric chopper to grind the cereal. I use about 3/4 of the bag (you won't use it all, plus it gets kinda clumpy from battering the chicken, so you want a little extra).
-Transfer ground cereal to a ziploc and add whole wheat flour to the cereal. It should be almost half and half. You want more cereal than flour though.
-Season flour and cereal mixture.
-Place chicken tenders a few at a time in the bag and toss to coat with mixture.
-Drizzle with vegetable oil before putting them in the oven
-Cook for 30 minutes then flip each chicken tender, and cook for another 15 or 20 minutes.
Garlic Roasted Sweet Potatoes
You will never want to eat sweet potatoes another way after having them like this. SO good!
*Ingredients*
-3 sweet potatoes
-1/2-1 stick of butter (depends on how big your potatoes are
-minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
-salt and pepper to taste
*Directions*
-Preheat oven to 350 (I cooked both at the same time at 400)
-Grease baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray
-Peel and chop sweet potatoes
-Salt and pepper potatoes
-Pour melted butter and garlic mixture on potatoes and toss them to evenly coat. I use my hands. Get in there and get dirty :)
-Cook for 1- 1/2 hours, stirring periodically
(Yes, my oven is so old, it doesn't even have a preheat, digital thermometer. The knob is also 125 degrees off...)
Poppyseed Dressing
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of cider vinegar
1/4 cup of white wine vinegar
1/4 cup of salad oil
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 tbsp of sesame seeds
1 tbsp of poppyseeds
1 1/2 tsp minced onion
1/4 tsp of paprika
Enjoy!
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