Quick and Easy Beef Tacos

Super easy recipe to make delicious beef tacos. Tangy and savory with just the right amount of cumin. Pretty mild but if you like it spicy, feel free to add more cayenne pepper to kick it up a notch.

Taco Seasoning:
1 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 teaspoon Onion Powder
3/4 teaspoon Cayenne
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
(borrowed heavily from Bill Echols on allrecipes.com)

Taco Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
tortillas (flour or corn, I prefer corn but you can be a gringo and use flour)

Suggested Toppings:
Shredded Lettuce
Diced tomatoes
Shredded Cheese
Salsa
Sour Cream

Directions:
1. Brown ground meat, breaking it into small chunks as it cooks. Drain off grease

2. Add spices to meat and stir carefully

3. Add taco meat and toppings to softened tortillas

4. Enjoy

Like I said before, very simple recipe that can be prepared in 15 minutes or less. Goes well with Spanish rice and beans. Next week I'll post some more of my favorite tex-mex recipes.

Cranberry Orange Scones

Hadn't made these in a while, but they are great for breakfast and freeze well!
Adapted from an allrecipes recipe, but I healthified things a bit:

Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

6 tbsp butter (cold, or frozen)

3/4 cup of craisins
1/2 tsp of orange zest

1 egg
1/2 cup of yogurt (tart, lemon, or vanilla should work) - one of those 6 oz things is about a cup

Directions:
1. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (or in my case, dump them in a bowl and stir with a fork)
2. Cut the cold butter into small cubes, and add to the flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter, whisk, or fork. It should be grainy/sandy when it's well incorporated.
3. Add the craisins and orange zest.
4. Whisk the egg and yogurt together, and then add to the flour/butter mixture.
5. Mix with a fork until you can't anymore, and then work it with your hands until you have a nice ball.
6. Lightly flour a cutting board, and then place the ball on it. Flatten into a disk about 8-9 inches across (or 3/4 inch thick). Sprinkle a bit of sugar on top, and then cut into 8 pieces with a pizza cutter (or sharp knife).
7. Place the wedges on a greased and floured cookie sheet, and then bake at 400 for 16-18 minutes (the tops should be slightly golden.

Enjoy!

Pina Colada Sorbet

This is heavily borrowed from allrecipes.com, but that was a virgin recipe.

Ingredients for virgin recipe:

1 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups of water

1 can of coconut milk (99 cents at Trader Joe's!)

2 limes

Ingredients:

1 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 1/4 cups of water

1 can of coconut milk

2 limes

2 shots of light rum

Directions (same for both recipes until the step 6)

1. Puree the drained pineapple in a blender or food processor.

2. Heat the sugar and water over medium heat, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Remove the syrup from heat immediately once the sugar dissolves.

3. Juice the limes.

4. Stir the pineapple puree, syrup, and coconut milk, and lime juice together and refrigerate until chilled (I usually leave it in the fridge for a full day to be safe).

5. Process according to your ice cream maker's manufacturer's directions.

6. For the recipe with rum, add two shots at the end of the the freezing process (after approximately 25 minutes) and let it mix in for about a minute.

7. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze until set.

Note: Alcohol messes with the freezing process a bit, so it's best to add it at the end. Too much, and the recipe might not freeze properly. That might be disappointing for some of you. Remember, a shot is approximately 1/8 of a cup!

Quinoa Chicken Thing

I've slowly been reducing the amount of red meat in my diet and it feels pretty good. I rarely buy it now, but I usually cave and order something with it when I eat out, which is rare. In other words, make me a steak if you invite me over for dinner. I found out about quinoa (pronounced 'King-Wah') in a magazine - it's actually cool because it's not really a grain even though it looks like one. It's high in protein, low in fat, and for you poor people who are allergic to wheat, it's gluten free. I significantly modified an allrecipes recipe, and it turned out pretty bomb:

Ingredients:
Set 1:
1 1/2 cups of red quinoa (Trader Joes, near the pastas and rice)
3 cups of chicken stock
2 cloves of minced garlic

Set 2:
2 Costco chicken breasts, cubed or torn, whatever (or 2 chicken breasts cooked however you want - I used a lemon pepper garlic marinade and baked them at 400 for 45 minutes, covered for the first 30 and then open for the last 15)
1 purple onion, diced
2 small bell peppers, diced
1/2 cup of chopped olives (I used the canned kind)
1/4 cup of chopped parsley (substitute with basil, if you hate parsley)
1/3 cup of chopped green onions
1 can of whole corn kernels, drained
1 can of red kidney beans, drained
3/4 tsps of salt

Set 3:
Juice of 2 limes and 1 lemon
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil

Directions:
1. Bring the chicken stock and minced garlic to a boil in a big sauce pan that has a cover.

2. Reduce heat to medium-low, add the quinoa, and cover. Let it simmer for about 20-22 minutes (this was the first time I cooked the stuff, so I opened the cover and tasted every 5 minutes or so after 15 to assess tenderness. Then I turned the heat up and boiled off excess water while stirring when the texture suited me). Or you can follow the general cooking directions on the box.

3. While the quinoa is cooking, cube the chicken, dice the veggies, open the cans, and juice the lemons and limes. Efficiency.

4. When the quinoa is cooked, remove the saucepan from the heat, and gently stir in the 'set 2' ingredients.

5. When the stuff above is well mixed, add the ingredients of 'set 3' and do one last quick stir.

This made and estimated 5 servings, about 1 cup each.

Honeydew Sorbert

Not quite a sorbet, and not quite a sherbert. This is mostly fruit, sugar, and corn syrup, but I added a little bit of milk (lactaid) because I had a little left in the carton. You could probably add more or less milk (or none at all) to turn this into whatever you want.

Ingredients:
1/2 honeydew melon, seeds removed
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of corn syrup
1 cup of water
3/4 cup of milk (or lactaid)

Directions:
1. Puree the honeydew after removing the rind (duh)
2. In a small pot heat the sugar, corn syrup, and water over medium heat, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves
3. Once the syrup comes to a boil, let it boil for a minute without stirring
4. Turn off the heat and let it cool completely.
5. Stir it into the honeydew puree, and store the slurry in the fridge until you wanna make your sorbert.
6. Right before you freeze it, add the milk to the honeydew mixture and give it a quick stir.
7. Process according to your ice cream maker's directions.

Next up: Mango ice cream

Future idea - lychee sorbet?

Green Tea Ice Cream (lactose free/low fat!)

So I caved and bought this on Amazon. I had $30 in gift cards, so it wasn't that bad. I've been wanting one for a while because of my little problem with non-meat cow products.

It came today.

Normally I'm a clean person, but this was a nice surprise after a long day at work.

I whipped up some green tea batter(?) and poured it into the machine. What does one call ice cream before it's frozen, by the way? It's not melted ice cream because it's never been frozen yet. I'm going to stick with batter or slurry until I find a better word.

It had the texture of soft serve out of the machine (20 minutes), but I tried a bit and the flavor was awesome. It's in the freezer right now. Hard ice cream is better.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups reduced fat lactaid (or milk, for you lucky people)
2 tsps matcha green tea powder
1/2-3/4 cups of sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tub of fat free cool whip

Directions:
1. Heat the milk, sugar, and green tea powder on low-medium heat until it comes to a simmer. Stir constantly.
2. Slowly add part of the milk mixture to the egg yolks in a small bowl to temper them. Then slowly add the egg mixture to the rest of the milk mixture.
3. Cook this for about a minute longer on low heat.
4. Let the mixture completely cool in the fridge.
5. Right before you want to freeze the mixture, fold in the cool whip. It doesn't have to be completely mixed. You want to get it in the freezer bowl asap.
6. Freeze according to the directions of your ice cream maker.

It made a small batch, which is why I probably need to work on quantities a bit. Next time I'll share.

Things I want to test in the future:
Honeydew ice cream
Mojito Sorbet

(yes, they are all green so far)

Strawberry Banana French Toast

I've been wanting to eat this for weeks. Now that it's spring break, I have time to cook!

Ingredients:

1/8 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup milk

1 egg

pinch salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla or banana extract

5 slices of white bread (or 3 slices of texas toast)

Butter (to grease the pan)

Toppings:

1/2 banana

strawberry syrup* or fresh strawberries and maple syrup

confectioner's sugar for dusting

Directions:

1. Put the flour in a shallow bowl (big enough for a piece of bread to lie flat in)

2. Stir in the milk (whisk or fork) gradually, until the lumps are gone

3. Stir in the egg, salt, cinnamon, sugar, and extract, until the mixture is frothy

4. Heat a frying pan to medium heat, and grease with a little butter

5. Dip each side of a bread slice in the batter, and cook in the heated pan until golden brown and delicious (stole that from you, Alton Brown)

6. Repeat 4 and 5 until there's no more batter (or bread)

7. Arrange on a plate, and top with sliced bananas, syrup, and a dust of confectioner's sugar

As always, experiment! I bet this would be awesome with some lemon curd, honey butter, and confectioner's sugar, or bananas and nutella, etc...

* They have this at Safeway and other grocery stores, but you can also just cook some strawberries over medium-low heat

Good Find

I think this site is pretty awesome!

http://www.supercook.com/

Basically, you can enter the ingredients you have in your kitchen, and then the search engine spits out the recipes you can make from allrecipes.com and other major recipe sites. Plus, it gives you suggestions for things you should get at the grocery store to widen your options. I think they need a more visible rating system, though!

I'm a fan.

Basil Tossed Pasta

Ingredients:

1 box (12 oz or 16 oz) Rotini or Bow-tie pasta

A pinch of salt

1 1/2 Tbsp Olive Oil (you can go a little over or under this)

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup chopped basil leaves

2 Roma tomatoes

2 shredded chicken breasts (I usually buy a Costco Rotisserie chicken and use the meat)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions :

1. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box (i.e., boil a pot of water, add a pinch of salt, add the pasta once the water boils, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until al dente texture). Call me a sucker for those commercials, but I really like Barilla brand pasta.

2. While the pasta is cooking, mince the garlic, chop the basil leaves, and slice the tomatoes (I like 1/4" thick half circles). Set aside

3. Once the pasta is cooked, drain the water, return the pasta to the pot, add a dash of olive oil, and shake the pot a bit so the pasta doesn't stick together.

4. In a separate deep frying pan heat the 1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil at medium heat.

5. Add the minced garlic, and saute until the garlic turns white.

6. Add the pasta, basil, and tomatoes, and chicken and toss for about 3 minutes over medium heat.

7. Add salt and pepper to taste.

8. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese if you aren't lactose intolerant (or if you are but aren't planning on going out any time soon).

Play around with this - add zucchini or bell peppers or other veggies to the mix to add color and flavor! If you have sun dried tomatoes, use them. Soooo good.

You can also add 1/3 cup grated smoked gouda cheese about 2 minutes into step 6, and omit the Parmesan cheese of step 8.