Clean out the fridge and pantry week

So this week was "clean out the fridge and pantry" week. One day was Shephard's Pie and another day was Steak Enchiladas. Both of these meals were made 100% from items from the fridge/freezer or using leftovers! And they were both so delicious!! I threw both of them together and they were both very good. Here's what I did...

Shepherd's Pie

1 - 1.5 lbs ground beef
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
Butter for saute...a couple T. (I used a spoonful of yogurt butter)
1 onion, diced
A big handful of baby carrots, diced
1-2 C. frozen peas (or corn or both...)
1/2 - 1 C. of beef broth (or more if necessary)
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Mashed potatoes (however you make them...we just had some leftover in the fridge)

Saute the onion and carrots over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until soft. Add meat and beans and cook until meat is no longer pink. Drain fat if necessary, then add peas, salt and pepper, Worcestershire and beef broth. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Add more beef broth if you need to to keep it moist.

Place mixture in baking dish and top with mashed potatoes. If you're really fancy you can make marks/peaks in it with a fork so they will brown pretty. I didn't do that....I guess I'm not fancy. ;)

Cook at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes until bubbly and brown. If you're really, REALLY fancy you can broil for the last 5 minutes so your peaks will be nice and brown. DELISH!!



Although this looks like something Sixer may have thrown up, I assure you it doesn't taste like it. I really do love this. It is comfort food to the max. My kids seriously gobbled it up and Jacob said it was his "new favorite dinner". ENJOY!!


The very next night, I decided I needed to do something with all the steak that was left over from Mikes birthday dinner. I also had a bunch of cilantro left from when I made the teachers at P&E's school Deer Valley Turkey Chili that was about to go bad. And I had several packs of corn tortillas, because if you've ever looked in my meat drawer you know that on any given day I have 287534 packs of cheese, and even more packs of tortillas.

So, Steak "Enchiladas" it was! (Put in quotes because I made it in casserole form. I didn't feel like rolling enchiladas! But you could if you wanted.) Here's how I put them together....

Steak Enchiladas

About 2 lbs steak (I used sirloin, but you can use flank steak or any steak for that matter), cut into a 1/2 inch dice
1 small onion, diced
about 1/2 C. chopped cilantro
2 C. Monterrey jack cheese, shredded & divided
1/2 C. green salsa
16 corn tortillas
1 C. light sour cream
splash of milk
1 bunch cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded..(I roasted mine in the oven before seeding)
1 T. cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Saute steak in a small amount of oil until just heated. Add onion and cilantro and cook until onions begin to soften (about 5-10 mins). Remove from heat and add salsa and 1 C. cheese. Stir well and set aside.

Make cilantro sour cream sauce by adding the roasted, seeded jalapeno and the entire bunch of cilantro to a food processor. Pulse until combined and shredded. Add sour cream and splash of milk (to thin it) to a saucepan over medium low heat. Heat until it stars to smoke and then add cilantro/jalapeno mixture and cumin. Season with salt and pepper if necessary.

Spray a 9X13 pan with no stick cooking spray and then line with 8 tortillas. Pour steak mixture over the tortillas and top with remaining 8 tortillas. Pour sour cream sauce over the top and the top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and the edges have started to bubble.

Seriously yummy! Mike said "I cant wait for you to make this again!" And the children devoured it as well.

Deer Valley Turkey Chili

So, over 10 years ago (OMWow....cant believe its been that long...), Mike and I and a bunch of friends went to Utah to ski. One day we went to Deer Valley to ski and when we ate lunch, we got the pleasure of having their famous Turkey Chili. Man was it good!

I have thought about that chili for a long time, so I found a copy cat recipe online and made it for our Halloween get-together. Yummo!

Deer Valley Turkey Chili

Ingredients:
2 cups dried black beans, rinsed or 2 cans black beans (rinsed and drained)(I used canned)
10 cups water
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 medium Anaheim chilies, seeded, chopped
2/3 cup chopped red onion
2/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
2/3 cup chopped celery
1 large leek (white part only), chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp oregano
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 tbsp chili powder
2 1/2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp coriander
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
5 cups chicken stock or canned broth
2 1/4 cups frozen corn, thawed
4 cups diced cooked turkey (I used a rotisserie turkey breast)

grated cheese
chopped red onion
sour cream
chopped fresh cilantro
Fritos

Directions:
If using dried beans - Place black beans in large pot with enough cold water to cover by three inches. Let soak overnight. Drain beans. Return to pot. Add 10 cups water and pepper and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender, stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours. Drain beans and set aside. If using canned beans, start with the following paragraph (the veggies) and add beans later.

Melt butter in same pot over medium heat. Add Anaheim chilies, chopped onion, celery, bell pepper, leek, garlic and oregano. Cook until vegetables often, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add flour, chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt and sugar and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add 4 cups stock and bring to simmer, stirring frequently. Puree 1 1/4 cups corn with remaining 1/2 cup stock in processor. Add puree to chili. Mix in black beans, turkey and remaining 1 cup corn. Simmer chili 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Ladle chili into bowls. Serve; passing toppings separately.

Crawfish Chowder

A fall staple in our house is this Crawfish Chowder. It is SOOO easy and so very good!

Potato, Corn and Crawfish Chowder
Serves 20

1 stick butter (I used yogurt butter)
1 onion, diced
1 T. garlic, chopped
1 T. cumin
2 lbs. crawfish tails
1 C. flour
1 quart chicken stock
1 C. tomato paste
1 quart heavy cream (I used no fat half & half)
2 C. potatoes, diced and blanched
3 C. fresh corn
1 C. green onions, chopped
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Cayenne to taste
¼ C. sherry
The juice of ½ lemon
**add 1 T. or more of Tony’s Seasoning

Melt butter in a heavy bottom soup pot. Sauté the onions and garlic until they are a little bit soft and then add cumin and crawfish tails briefly. Stir in the flour completely and stir constantly for a few minutes(to eliminate the flour-y taste). Then add the tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly for a few minutes more. Add the stock slowly, stirring continuously. The add the heavy cream (or half in half in my case). Bring to a boil and immediately reduce to a simmer. You need to watch carefully while bringing it to a boil because if it boils too fast and rapidly it will curdle. It will still taste great, but it will look grainy and separated. Add the potatoes and corn and cook for 30 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and season to taste.

This is a Tim Creehan recipe and it is DELICIOUS!!! And not too bad for you either (as long as you use the no fat half & half). I did 3/4 of the recipe so we could eat on it for a few days. You don't need to do the whole thing unless you are having a houseful....because it makes so much! But it definitely warms the soul. Add a little hot sauce at cooking time and you are good to go. Yum!!

Red Potato and Tomato Salad

I made this potato salad for a get together last weekend and it was DELISH! Much better (in my opinion) than a mayonnaise based potato salad. I served it with burgers and Tri Colo Orzo. YUMM-O!!

Red Potato and Tomato Salad

3 pounds baby red potatoes, halved (or quartered depending on the size)
2 pint (4 cups) cherry tomatoes, halved
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup pitted black olives, halved
1 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
6 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained
3 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 large lemons, zested
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Add the potatoes to a medium saucepan with enough cold water to cover by at least 2 inches. Set the saucepan over medium heat. Bring the water to a boil and continue boiling until the potatoes are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Drain the potatoes in a colander and allow them to dry for 5 minutes.

In a serving bowl, add the potatoes, tomatoes, scallions, olives, parsley, capers, thyme, olive oil, and lemon zest. Toss gently until all the ingredients are coated and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate for 1 hour and gently toss again before serving.

Banana Barbie!

Yesterday my baby turned 2. *sobs*

Let's not dwell on the fact that I will never have a baby nuzzled up in my neck again, or the fact that my 2-going-on-5 year old is already super divalicious, or the fact that the doctor yesterday at her check up suggested I get her into her own bed and take away her paci.

No, let's not dwell on those depressing things. Instead let's talk about how fun it is to play Barbies, shall we?

Girlfriend is OBSESSED with Barbies! Which is different for me because I never played with Barbies. I played with baby dolls and other things of the sort, but not Barbies. And at 2?? Aren't Barbie accessories too small for 2 year olds? But she insists and when I take her to the toy aisle, that's where she goes. So I have to face it, my life is Barbie right now.

So naturally I asked the baby Diva what kind of cake she wanted...thinking I was just talking to hear myself talk since no way at 2 she would have an idea of what kind of cake she wanted (I must have forgotten which 2 year old I was talking about). Her reply? "BARBIE!!"

So I used the banana cake recipe which is super simple and I knew she liked. I doubled the recipe. Made the regular 2 layer cake on bottom with 8 inch pans. Then baked 2 6 inch layers. The 6 inch layers, I iced the middle, shaved it to look like a skirt and then crumb coated it. The stacked it on top of the 8 inch layers and iced the whole thing. At the end....stuck a Barbie in the middle! It wasn't the best, but Eden was OH SO EXCITED! And wow was it ever easy.....

So....ta-da! Barbie cake. :) Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Anyone who knows me (which I am sure is everyone here reading....since I am only a famous food blogger in the land of nobody. And I am not calling you nobody....just pointing out that I am no Pioneer Woman and to my knowledge, no one really cares what I am cooking), knows I LOVE Chocolate Chip Cookies.

They are like, my favorite food in the entire world. Like if I was on a desert island and could only choose one food to bring, Chocolate Chip Cookies would be it. If I was on death row I would choose them for my last meal. Additionally, I absolutely CANNOT go to the mall without getting a Chocolate Chip Cookie. I mean, why else do you go to the mall? Also I hide them from my children in the house so they won't eat them. After all, the cookies are not for them, they are for me.

I have most certainly inherited this trait from my mother, and my brother shares the gene also. We have successfully passed the cookie love to our spouses, who now love them also. Mike used to say he hates sweets, and Laura used to claim she hated cookies. Now? Notsomuch. They are all as obsessed as we are.

Annnnnnd now I am starting to sound a little deranged. I don't want to make babies with cookies, but I love them an almost equivalent amount and they are most definitely my vice. If I did not eat cookies, I would very well look like this:



which is one of the very few pictures I have of myself when I was very ill and weighed 25 pounds less than I weigh now. You can't really tell but I looked so bad. My arm? Skinny. GROSS.

Anywho, cookies keep me sane, healthy and happy. And that's all that matters in this life right?

So here's a very yummy cookie recipe from my cousin's friend Annie. Thanks Annie for the cookies....YUM! And Happy Birthday!

Annie's Chocolate Chip Cookies

12 T. butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 bag semi sweet chocolate chip cookies

Preheat oven to 350. Cream the butter and the sugars until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and add them to egg mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll into balls (this is important) and place on cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown. (Set the timer for 10 minutes and check them little by little after that if they need more time. Take them out juuuuuust when they are getting a teeny bit brown on top.



Enjoy!

Watermelon Margaritas

It's summertime. Wine gets hot quickly and beer makes you feel like a bloated cow. Super sweet fruity drinks give me a tummy ache and I don't want a 'stiff' drink either. Usually a go-to drink for me is vodka/soda/lime or a vodka tonic (who doesn't like this in the summer!??). But recently, my aunt Ebby told me she made some Watermelon margaritas and that sounded just fabulous. I had some leftover watermelon so I mixed up a batch and WOW were they ever good. Plus, they were pretty "skinny" since I didn't have to use any sour mix, nor sugar. Score! I also like this because the frozen watermelon is the only chilling agent; there is not any ice to dilute it and water it down. YUM!

Watermelon Margaritas

1 watermelon cubed, (about 5 cups)
1 C. tequila
1/2 C. triple sec
5-6 limes, juiced
1 squeeze Agave nectar (you could use 1/4-1/3 C. sugar if you don't have this or can't find any. Agave is just a lot better for you!)

Cube watermelon and freeze overnight. Add frozen watermelon and all other ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Can be made ahead of time and kept in a Ziploc until ready to use. If it is too thick when it is time to serve, add a little bit of Perrier and you should be good to go.

DELISH!!


(not my pic, these went way too fast to get a good picture :))