recipes – Page 8 – branching out… on a limb

New Menu Monday- Potato Tacos!

I disagree with The Mom-in-Law, I think shredded beef tacos are the ultimate taco goodness. She prefers ground beef. Gotta admit, her ground beef tacos are the best I’ve ever had. Her secret? Simmer the ground beef for a while in a little water after browning with onions and garlic. This turns the beef into a tender, flavorful taco stuffing that is far from any fast food ground beef taco.

But, I like my shredded beef tacos better, and they are quicker. My trick is using leftover roast beef- my roast is more of a tender, falling apart braise than a rare, prime rib style roast beef. It is pretty much shredded when done… that’s how to tell it is done. Does it shred into tender pieces? Yes? Then take it out. A 3lb. chuck roast takes about 3 hours in the oven at 275-300 degrees (here’s a beautiful tip- a frozen roast at 275 degrees and 4.5 hours later it’s happy dinner time).

But, I gave up meat for Lent. So. How about copying our favorite Mexican joint’s potato tacos? We LOVE the So. Cal restaurant El Ranchito… I’ve never had better refried beans. We discovered the potato tacos last year and I loved them, too. Tonight I made a big batch of what we call Camp Potatoes (sliced potatoes fried in butter and oil with sliced onions, garlic, salt and pepper), and fried up a mess of corn tortillas. Cast iron pans are the best, aren’t they? The Husband stuffed them, we cheesed them and after about 15 minutes in the oven, we had a great dinner. We are soooooo making these again.

Onions up, potatoes in the line up... — Onions up, potatoes on deck…

Onions and potatoes frying... Yum. — Onions and potatoes frying… Yum.

Time to stuff the torts. — Time to stuff the torts- potatoes and shredded cheddar.

Tortillas in the oil, onions and potatoes almost finished. — Tortillas in the oil, potatoes almost finished.

Mmmmmm… Lemon Drop Cocktail

Yea! Talked The Husband into picking a couple of lemons off of my little Meyer lemon bush… it was after dark, and that is when the black widow spiders come out. Ick.

It was worth his trouble, since I let him make cocktails for us. I’m nice like that.

Lemon Drop Cocktail-

Per drink you will need:
1 1/2 oz vodka
3/4 oz lemon juice
1 teaspoon simple syrup
1/4 oz Cointreau

optional- lemon flavored sugar to put on the rim of the glass

Anchor Hocking 5 oz. Measuring Glass (Amazon has them, click the photo to go to Amazon)

And as far as kitchen tools are concerned, this little bugger (pictured left) is great. For this drink tonight, we wanted to measure out these fussy, small amounts correctly to decide if we really liked this recipe. We use it whenever we need to take the pains to accurately measure small amounts of liquids. Like tonight.

Small, easy to clean and inexpensive and store citrus juicer.

I’d also recommend a small, easy to clean and store citrus juicer, like the one pictured on the right. Unless you have all the space in your kitchen for cute, green for limes, larger yellow for lemons and largest for oranges citrus squeezers, go right ahead. I don’t. (Click that link to see…)

This was really tasty, by the way! The Husband recommends having well chilled vodka for this, or shaking the concoction with ice before pouring into your glass.

Cheers!

New Menu Monday- Chayote Squash = Steak Gets a New Side

Chayote squash. I’ve seen it in stores my whole life but never knew what to do with it. A couple of weeks ago The Mom-in-law decided that we should pick up some when we hit Pancho Villa Market, mentioning that she hadn’t made it in a long time, but wanted to give it a try again.

Really, for the amusement factor alone, this was easily worth it- pick up a new vegetable and give it a go. Even if everyone hates it, you get the fun of watching the people you lovingly serve it to make all sorts of faces, either politely trying to hide their distaste or the outright look of disgust at the thought of trying something new.

Chayote squash, sliced, ready to sauté with onions.

It’s good to be the cook!

I finally gave mine a go tonight (it is a harder squash and kept well in the fridge for two weeks), preparing the squash the way she served hers-
simply sautéed until tender with onions in butter and olive oil.

The family’s comments and observations included the following:

Chayote and onions in the cast iron skillet... the only way to cook. — Chayote and onions in the cast iron skillet… the only way to cook.

-Chayote’s texture is different from other squash, like zucchini, yellow or crookneck… it is more firm, like that of a sautéed apple, maybe?

-If you don’t care for the softer texture of summer squash varieties, chayote is a good squash to try as it is much firmer and not seeded.

-Its flavor is very much like zucchini, only more strong. And a bit sweeter.

-This would pair well with a squeeze of lemon and maybe some chopped, fresh dill.

Steak and mushrooms with baked potato and chayote. Good stuff!

One chayote was enough for the four of us to enjoy a taste testing, but I would need two for a proper side dish, for sure. The chayote was an overall hit, and we will definitely be cooking it up again.

Recreating the Best Garlic Cheese Bread Ever!

Oh, MAN! I am so excited that I figured out this recipe!!
(See? Food and recipes and out come the exclamation points.)

One of the restaurant jobs I had in college was working at a pizza parlor with The World’s Best Garlic Cheese Bread. Everyone should work in the food industry at some point in their life, I swear, you learn how to serve others and work your butt off for patrons who rarely notice your effort, unless you make an error. Over tip your servers, people, especially lunch and breakfast.

End of P.S.A.

Back to the garlic bread and the New Thing O’ The Day-

I used to help opening the restaurant and prep all the ingredients and food for the day, and one of the menu items was the chain’s garlic cheese bread. I forgot all about how easy this recipe is, and over the years would order something like it from pizza joints across the country as we moved about. All along I was looking for something as good as the bread that I used to help make every day. I finally remembered all of the simple ingredients to make my favorite spaghetti side!

This is all there is to it, adjust your quantities as needed, the recipe is as delicious as it is easy-

In a microwave safe bowl, place equal quantities of the following ingredients: butter, sour cream, cream cheese, and shredded cheddar. For every two tablespoons of each ingredient, add 1-2 cloves of crushed garlic. If you want to serve four slices of bread to serve four, the recipe would look like this:

2T. butter
2T. sour cream
2T. cream cheese
2T. shredded cheddar cheese
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

Let all the ingredients come to room temperature, or microwave for 5-10 seconds a couple times, stirring well and until everything is mixed together with the consistency of soft butter. The cheese won’t be melted entirely, but that is just fine.

Spread the cheesy mixture onto thick sub sandwich style rolls, split in half. Sandwich bread will be way too thin, as would any other sliced bread. Skip them all and go for the thick hoagie, sub, or Mexican bolillo rolls.

Just see the photos, yeah?

Heat wrapped in foil in a 350 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until the cheesy spread has melted and the bread is a bit crispy. I opened the foil for five more minutes and cranked the temp up to 400 to get the right crispy bread but soft cheesy top.
It. Was. GREAT!!!

Cookie Quest for Marianne

You would think that a nice Christmas tip would make the World’s Best Stylist happy, but nnoooooo. She wants cookies. Not the Chocolate Chip Cookies that I have sold upwards of dozens upon dozens and bake by the gross in under two hours (when The Husband eats cookies for breakfast, you can go through 144 cookies really fast). Nope, she wants really light, delicate snowball-angel-Mexican/Italian wedding style cookies, which I’ve never made. So, today I crammed in two new things. I was able to try a new recipe and finally get around to doing something nice for Marianne, who takes great care of me- she makes me feel purty and for that the lady deserves a key to the reserves of Fort Knox, honestly.

Fortunately for me, I have eaten what has to be THE BEST version of these cookies every year when I raid the gift cookies received by my in-laws. Thanks to their neighbor, Linda, I know what a great angel cookie tastes like. Like my mom, Linda is one of the few people (in my opinion) who really knows cookies. After a little on-line searching and ingredient tinkering, I think I have a recipe that comes really close! And nobody gets to knock my excessive use of exclamation points, I love baking and developing a great new recipes make my day!!

The cookies I promised Marianne for my January haircut are a couple of weeks late but I think she will still love them. I’ll let The Mom-in-law at the cookies this weekend- she will be the best judge of how close I came to Linda’s recipe. Can’t wait to hear her verdict, but I am so happy with the way these turned out!

Here’s the original recipe that I tweaked a bit (changes included the following- 3/4 c. powdered sugar, 3/4 t. baking soda, 1/2 t. salt, almond meal from Trader Joe’s instead of finely chopped)–
http://www.food.com/recipe/angel-almond-balls-182410

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