Monday, November 4, 2013

Soft Beef Tortillas

Ingredients
2 tbsp veg oil
1/2 small red onion, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
10 flour tortillas

Toppings
1/2 small head lettuce, shredded
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1 small red or yellow pepper, sliced
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed
salsa and guacamole
1 sliced avocado
1 tomato, chopped
1 cup sour cream
4 seeded and sliced fresh jalapenos

To make beef filling, heat oil, saute onion until soft and add ground beef and cook. Drain. Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt and tomato sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally over low heat for 10 minutes.
You know to to assemble tortillas, right? Geesh.

Lemon Squares

From Beat This! by Ann Hodgman
Crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 slices
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp grated lemon or lime zest
pinch salt

Filling
1 1/2 cups sugar stirred together with 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon or lime zest
3/4 cup fresh lemon or lime juice
3 large eggs
3/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 375. Butter an 8 inch square baking pan.

Crust: Place all ingredients in a food processor. Process until mixture begins to form a ball. Pat the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a pale golden all over. Take the crust out of the oven and turn down to 350.

Filling: Clean the food processor and place all the filling ingredients inside. Process until very smooth. Pour into partially baked crust and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the filling is set and beginning to brown around the edges.
Allow to cool, then chill well in the fridge.

Apple Crisp

From Beat This! by Ann Hodgman
4 generous cups peeled, cored, sliced apples
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon mixed with 1 tsp sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup all purpose flour
8 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375. Butter a 9 by 5 loaf pan.
In a large bowl, toss the apple slices with the lemon juice and cinnamon sugar.
In a small bowl, blend the brown sugar, flour, butter and salt together - first with a pastry blender and then with your hands.
Put the apple slices into the loaf pan. Press the topping over them. Bake for one hour.
Serve with heavy cream.
Serves 4 to 6

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Gluten-Free Graham-esque Crackers

Even if you don't like buckwheat, these are totally worth checking out - I've given out this recipe many times and everyone who has tried it has LOVED it.

I don't remember where I got this recipe from. I've made it about fifty million times, and it's always been good.

1/3 cup olive or vegetable oil
1/3 cup molasses and 1/3 cup honey, mixed together
2 1/4 cups buckwheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (sometimes I also throw caution to the wind and toss a bit of nutmeg in, too.)
1/4 tsp salt
a few tsp of water, if needed.

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine all ingredients, adding extra water if needed until the dough holds together. Take a cookie sheet and flip it over - the side your normally bake cookies on will be underneath. Grease with veg. or olive oil. Flatten dough over the greased surface of the cookie sheet, and use an oiled rolling pin to smooth it out - you'll want to make the crackers fairly thin. Use a knife to score into cracker-sized crackers ("scoring" means to mark the dough but not cut all the way through it. And Now You Know.), and poke each cracker with a fork several times.

Bake for ten minutes.

Let cool and then break the cookies into crackers. Store in an airtight container or they'll get soft and gross.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Crispy Chicken Fingers

1/2 cup plain yogurt. Low fat is fine.
1/2 tsp tarragon. Skip it if you like.
a dash of salt
a dash of pepper
1 1/2 cups finely crushed Corn Flakes. Put them in a ziplock bag and let your kid pound them to atom-sized molecules.
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts

Preheat the oven to 400. Grease a cookie sheet OR cover it with Parchment paper.

In a bowl, mix together yogurt, tarragon, salt and pepper and mix. In another bowl, mix together the cornflakes and Parmesan.

Cut the chicken breasts into fingers or nuggets. Dip each piece into the yogurt mixture and then roll it around in the cornflake mixture. Once coated, lay each piece on the cookie sheet.

Bake for ten minutes and then turn the cookie sheet around and bake for another 10 minutes.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Pasta Salad

This recipe came with my kid's lunchbox. It's nice and easy enough to set aside things like cooked pasta and chopped broccoli the night before.

You'll need:
cooked pasta. I generally use some sort of small, kid-friendly shape. (and you'll want about a cup...)
some chopped veggies: red or green peppers, sugar snap peas (those are nicer left whole), thinly chopped cabbage...
a bit of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
some grated or chopped raw carrot
a handful of bean sprouts

The dressing is:
1 clove minced garlic
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame seeds (I normally use flax seeds instead, since I am No Fun.)
and some chopped cilantro. (just a tablespoon or so.)
Mix the dressing ingredients together and then toss it with the salad ingredients. Ta da.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

This is not really a recipe. I bake sweet potatoes - and at what temperature? I dunno, I generally just throw them in the oven while I'm making something else and let them stay there until they're done - and once they're squishy AND WHILE I AM WEARING OVEN MITTS (this is important. Believe me), I cut them in half and squash them out of their skins into a heatproof bowl. Then I mash them and add some butter and nutmeg. Ta da!

Maybe your kids wouldn't love these, but my kids, God bless 'em, actually get EXCITED. I obviously am a wonderful mother or my poor kids are just really deprived. One or the other.