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Posts Tagged ‘recipe’

Southwest chicken wraps

Posted in Easy meals, Recipes, tagged , , , on June 18, 2012 | 1 Comment »

southwest chicken wrap

I made these wraps sometime last winter and just never got around to writing the blog post until I stumbled across the pictures again today.

I think there’s probably an easy-but-still-yummy way and a complicated-but-extra-special-touch way. Of course I made things more complicated by doing extra things to the chicken and letting the bowl of wrap filling sit on the counter for an hour to let the flavors mingle. (The flavors mingling thing was entirely on accident, since I forgot cheese and had to run to the store, then had to defrost the chicken in the microwave before cooking it.)

The recipe is from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, but I’ll include my slightly tweaked version of the recipe here.

Ingredients

This is a really flexible recipe, but here’s what I used.

  • 1 cup cooked rice
  • 1 cup shredded cooked chicken (I sautéed chicken breast using the Cholula chili-lime seasoning and then shredded it.)
  • 1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 2 green onions, sliced
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped (Fresh cilantro makes my heart sing.)
  • lime juice (1 lime’s worth, or a few squirts from a bottle of lime juice since I never have limes)
  • 1/2 Tbs chili powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar (or less if you’re trying to be healthy… I wasn’t.)
  • 6 large flour tortillas (burrito size)
  • sour cream (optional)
  • salsa (optional)
  • homemade guacamole (optional)

You will also need a small amount of butter (or cooking spray, but butter tastes better) for lightly smearing on the seam of the burrito roll before cooking.

Directions

It’s especially quick and easy if you have the rice and chicken cooked ahead of time, but I didn’t. It’s even quicker if you don’t have to run to the store in the middle of assembling it to pick up the cheese you forgot…

  1. Mix the chili powder, cumin, garlic and salt into the rice.
  2. Add the chicken, beans, green onions, cilantro and lime juice and stir it all together.
  3. Sprinkle the cheese onto the tortillas and smear a little sour cream over the cheese, if desired.
  4. Spoon the rice mixture into a line down the center of each tortilla.
  5. Roll up the tortillas, leaving the edges open, and smoosh each wrap just a tiny bit with your hand to create flatter sides for cooking. Smear just a little butter (or cooking spray) on each of the two flat sides (one of the flat sides should include the “seam”).
  6. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Cook the wraps 2-3 minutes on each side, starting with the seam side down first. Serve with salsa and guacamole.

beans cilantro onions

chicken wrap filling

crispy chicken wrap

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Nun’s puffs

Posted in Kids, Recipes, tagged , , , on June 3, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Nun's Puffs dessert

I really have no idea why they’re called “nun’s puffs,” but if anyone knows where this deceptively stoic name came from, I’d love to hear it. (Sorry for the dark pictures, by the way… I seem to always be cooking after the sun goes down and may also not be interested in taking the time to arrange my photos before chowing down.)

They have a unique cooking process, and they call for ingredients you probably have on hand. They end up with a pretty significant pocket of air inside, but that just means you can eat more with less guilt, right? Don’t listen to me...

Stephen loves them (I do too!) and has asked for them several times since. Though still delicious by themselves, they’re not very sweet, so they make a great dessert drizzled with some honey.

Random side note: My friend owns a “bee farm,” Desert Creek Honey, and we get our honey from him. You cannot beat local, all-natural, raw North Texas honey – so good for you, and so delicious! I highly recommend them.

Ingredients

The recipe comes from Better Homes and Gardens. They’re pretty “eggy,” so if you just can’t stand eggs for some reason, you may want to avoid nun’s puffs.

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 Tbs sugar (optional: you can also mix in about 1 tsp cinnamon with the sugar if you want a light cinnamon flavor)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

  1. Grease a muffin tin, including around the edges and top of all 12 cups.
  2. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, then add the milk. Bring to a boil.
  3. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously until it forms a ball that is somewhat solid and doesn’t run all over the place.
  4. Remove from heat and let it cool for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon for 1 minute after each addition or until smooth.
  6. Divide dough into the 12 muffin cups (they should be about 2/3 full) and sprinkle with sugar (or cinnamon-sugar mixture).
  7. Bake 30 minutes or until puffy and golden-brown. They will deflate a little after a while, so they’re best served immediately, but they’re still wonderful the next day!

I made them a few months ago, but I never got around to posting the recipe. However, now that I don’t have time to cook much, I’m glad I have an arsenal of pictures/recipes that haven’t yet been posted!

Nun Puffs recipe

And while I’m at it, may I just say that these expressions on that tiny face are enough to make me smile uncontrollably?

Baby Lightning Faces

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Cinnamon sugar biscotti

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , on March 24, 2012 | 1 Comment »

cinnamon sugar biscotti

She had never made it without trying (unsuccessfully) to substitute several healthier ingredients like applesauce (she doesn’t recommend it…). I had never even attempted it. But that afternoon, Kelsey Beth and I set out to make cinnamon sugar biscotti.

(If you think biscotti is that brittle stuff that’s hard to chew, you’ve never had good biscotti.)

I used a recipe from one of my all-time favorite food blogs, Annie’s Eats.

Ingredients

It actually uses ingredients you probably already have on hand! (I love recipes like that… the cheapo in me sings for joy a little bit.)

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 6 Tbs butter (at room temperature)
  • 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
For the topping:
  • 2 Tbs sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten (or…. and I didn’t think of this until afterward… but you can just save the unused egg white from the main recipe and just use that instead of using a whole other egg.)

The recipe actually calls for a lot more sugar and cinnamon in the topping, but it also means you’ll have way more cinnamon sugar left over than you know what to do with. Even my adapted version will probably leave you with excess, but at least it’s a little better.

Directions

As we were making them, we were a little doubtful of how they would turn out, since they started out so oddly shaped and small. We were pleasantly surprised, however, when they puffed up perfectly and sliced into neat little fingers of biscotti.

  1. Preheat the oven to 325° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
  3. Cream the butter and sugar together (in a separate bowl from the flour mixture) on medium-high speed (we used a handheld electric mixer) about 3-4 minutes or until fluffy.
  4. Blend the egg and egg yolk into the butter mixture, and then add the vanilla.
  5. Reduce mixer speed to low, and mix the dry ingredients into the butter mixture.
  6. Break the dough in half, and shape each half into a log about 9 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. It will probably fall apart while you shape it, but just be gentle and try it again. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Place each log on the baking sheet about 3-4 inches apart.
  7. Combine the sugar and cinnamon for the topping. Brush the top of each log with the egg mixture and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar topping.
  8. Bake 40-45 minutes (halfway through baking, rotate the baking sheet so the back part is moved to the front). Remove the logs from the oven and let them cool just enough to handle. Slice at an angle to achieve about 10-12 slices per log (Yes, it is possible. No, unfortunately I did not get a picture of this part.).
  9. Replace the biscotti on the baking sheet, cut side down, and generously sprinkle on more of the cinnamon sugar topping. Bake an additional 10-15 minutes. (Though I think we ended up doing it closer 20 minutes… This worked for us, but don’t overcook it! It may still seem a little soft when you check it, but once you take it out, it should harden up.)

I had only eaten biscotti a few times in my life. It just wasn’t a food I normally thought of. This recipe may have just changed all that. We dipped it in hot chocolate, but it was wonderful by itself too; it wasn’t dry or flavorless at all. Our husbands arrived just as we took the biscotti out of the oven (perfect timing, huh?), so they got to try it too.

We split the leftover biscotti and sent Kelsey Beth & co. home with a bag of it. The next day, we found out that both parties (us and them) had both ended up completely finishing the biscotti that very night.

cinnamon biscotti on a plate

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Mom’s seasoned basmati rice

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on March 13, 2012 | 2 Comments »

seasoned basmati rice

This rice actually has a pretty good flavor all by itself, but it’s perfect with the curried lentils.

Ingredients

You can make any amount you want, but if you’re making it to go with the curried lentils, this will make the right amount.

  • 2 cups basmati rice (if you don’t have basmati, you can use whatever rice you have on hand)
  • 2 Tbs butter
  • a handful of chopped onion (or a few sprinkles of onion powder if you ran out of onion after the curried lentils…)
  • some garlic (minced, garlic powder, whatever you have. I used 2 cloves and mashed them through my garlic press.)
  • 1/2 – 1 tsp Better Than Bouillon chicken base or dehydrated chicken stock base (this adds some extra flavor, but if you don’t have any, don’t worry about it)
  • 2 tsp curry powder (see my note on curry powder)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • just a little less than 4 cups water

Directions

You can start making this as soon as you turn the curried lentils down to simmer, and they will finish around the same time.

  1. Rinse and drain the rice.
  2. Melt the butter in a pan and sauté the onion and garlic on medium heat until tender.
  3. Add the rice and sauté until well mixed. Add the chicken base and seasonings and sauté for another couple of minutes.
  4. Pour in the water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for the amount of time listed on the rice package directions (typically it will be around 20 minutes).

That’s it!

curried lentils and basmati rice

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Mom’s Curried Lentils

Posted in Easy meals, Recipes, tagged , , , on March 12, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Curried lentils with rice

Most of you know my stance on leftovers. I am not a fan. I will eat leftovers once, maybe twice, before I am totally sick of them and have to move on. Even then, I almost never eat leftovers again for dinner; I usually bring them to work for lunch.

Tonight, I had leftover curried lentils. It was a wonderful experience. I would do it again.

My mom knows what to do with a bag of lentils. They’re really cheap, super healthy and much quicker to cook than regular beans. Plus, they don’t require soaking! She fed our family of 6 many batches of lentils over the years. I asked her for her “recipe” a while back, and she laughed. (You wonder where I get my “little bit of this, little bit of that” cooking tendencies… now you know.) But because she’s my mother and she loves me, she pulled together some semblance of a recipe. It’s not much to look at, but this is just one of her delicious lentil concoctions.

Ingredients

My mom makes it a little different every time based on what’s in her pantry. If she had to scramble to actually come up with a “recipe,” then it’s probably ok if you have to mix and match or even omit a few ingredients.

  • olive oil
  • 1/2 an onion, chopped
  • minced garlic (fresh, dried, whatever. I used 3 cloves of fresh garlic and mashed them through my garlic press.)
  • 2 tsp curry powder, divided (or a mixture of cumin, chili, coriander, turmeric and paprika. But it’s way easier to just keep a container of “curry powder” on hand. By the way, my mom’s recipe says “some curry powder.” I didn’t measure when I made it last night. I had to really stretch to come up with an actual number. I DID THIS FOR YOU.)
  • bag of lentils (sorted and rinsed)
  • a few potatoes chopped into chunks (red or Yukon Gold are my favorite. Or you could be like me and notice you have no potatoes and just toss in a few handfuls of frozen hash browns instead.)
  • 1 tsp Better Than Bouillon chicken base, or 1 cube of that dried chicken stock stuff
  • 1 – 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • a few shakes of pepper
  • enough water to cover everything by an inch
  • 2 handfuls of raisins (golden raisins are best, but regular raisins are fine too)

One thing I love about this recipe is that all the ingredients are items that most people typically have on hand already. Which is why I made it last night after coming home from vacation to a fridge with no milk, no eggs, no fresh veggies…

Directions

This is actually pretty quick and incredibly easy!

  1. Sauté the olive oil, onion, garlic and about 1/2 tsp of the curry seasonings in a large pot until tender and fragrant (a few minutes).
  2. Add everything else except the raisins and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer about 30-50 minutes (or until lentils and potatoes are tender). Stir occasionally and check to make sure there is enough water. Just taste the lentils every now and then after the 30-minute mark to see if they are mushy yet.
  3. Toss in the raisins once the lentils are tender and cook 5 more minutesto soften the raisins. Add more seasoning if needed.

It’s great by itself, but it’s fantastic over seasoned basmati rice. This meal has a really great, mild flavor, even if you’re not typically a fan of Indian-type food.

Pot of curried lentils

Curried lentils with basmati

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