Baked Chicken and Cheese Taquitos
If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I’m crazy about food that’s Southwestern, Tex-Mex, or Mexican. As long as there’s a flour or corn tortilla, fresh ingredients and those happy spices involved, I’m eating it. However, one thing I don’t usually like are fried Mexican things. Chimichangas come to mind…flour tortilla that’s been filled with everything wonderful and then deep fat fried, then smothered in melted cheese and green chili. Most of the time they end up, well…can you spell g-r-e-a-s-y? Taquitos are not so bad as it seems that corn tortillas don’t sop us the grease like flour, and if either flour or corn tortillas are used, I think they’re mostly skillet fried as opposed to deep fried. Not quite as g-r-e-a-s-y.
Classic Chicken Soup
Under the weather? Feeling puny? Chicken soup…a cure for the common cold? Probably not, but it sure defines a comforting meal for any Winter evening. The aromas alone are enough to soothe the soul and the hot broth make any scratchy throat feel better.
Spicy Paella With Chile, Lime and Cilantro
Paella. I’ve never ordered it in a restaurant and I’ve only prepared it twice…and used the same recipe both times. In other words, I’m far from an expert. Actually I know hardly anything about the dish except that it’s Spanish and that you’re supposed to have a paella pan…which I don’t. About ten years ago, I saw this recipe in Cooking Light and made it and we loved it. It’s been sitting around in my recipe database all this time. I just served it for the second time last night and we still love it.
Mahi Mahi in Mustard Tarragon Sauce
Sear two Mahi Mahi Filets over medium high heat about four minutes per side.
In the meantime, combine 1/2 cup honey mustard, a good dollop of Dijon and add some drained capers and a generouos sprinkle of dried tarragon. Heat on low.
Drizzle tarragon honey mustard over fish and serve with your favorite sides.
Pictured is a tossed salad with vinaigrette and Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill pita wedges and hummus.
Beef Carbonnade
It seems our refrigerator, freezer and pantry have banded together over the past couple of months and become an unruly o-u-t of control trio . To combat them, I’ve declared “eat the freezer” week. I banned myself from visiting any store that sold any type of groceries and vowed to prepare meals morning, noon and night, using only items on hand. I thought it went very well except for a tri-tip steak stir-fry combination. I realized I didn’t have any rice, so served it alongside warmed up mashed potatoes. Totally ODD! But at least I used up that orange bell pepper, onion and celery.
Easy Cream Cheese Cherry Dessert
I hope this post finds everyone basking in the wonderful Holiday Season. I picture all of you enjoying the postmortem of the season; browsing through new cookbooks, playing with gifted electronics, fiddling with new kitchen gadgets, grazing on leftovers and most importantly, enjoying family. I know one thing for sure, I don’t remember feeling one single hunger pang since before Thanksgiving.
Homemade Hash Brown Potatoes…Take 4…Bingo
After last weeks monumental failure where my plate of hash browns ended up in the trash, I did what every normal mature adult would do under the duress of failure and started finger pointing. Blaming everything in sight:
- Denver’s high altitude somehow affecting potato chemistry
- My elderly box grater
- My cat who sat on the window sill staring at me during the whole process
- Even though newly purchased, getting a bad batch of Crisco
- And of course any blaming session wouldn’t be complete without including the husband
Then it dawned on me. I headed for the bookshelf to pull out my most trusted source, my first cookbook ever, Better Homes and Gardens. Naturally I found instructions for hash brown potatoes. Use cooked potatoes. Did I mention that in the meantime Larry emailed me with hash brown plans that followed this same procedure? And did I mention that a month ago Vickie suggested that I cook the potatoes?
With that said, I heated up my cast iron skillet, added some butter and sprinkled in grated potatoes from one peeled russet that I had boiled in it’s jacket the night before and refrigerated. I grated in some onion, just like BH&G instructed, and browned up some really nice hash brown potatoes. No starchy goo in sight. You can read the instructions in the photo from the cookbook above.
So there you have it, I guess raw potatoes just don’t work … at least not in my kitchen. Were they as good as Waffle House? No. Will I stop buying frozen hash brown from the grocery store? Probably not, just won’t buy them as often.
Homemade Hash Brown Potatoes … They’re What’s for Breakfast.
- One Year Ago: Sunday Pot Roast
- Two Years Ago: Buffalo Dick’s White Bean Chili … may he RIP
Easy Dip for Roasted Vegetables
This is so incredibly easy. I’ve served this dip and roasted vegetables as an appetizer dish at a wine tasting party…
…and also as a side dish for dinner. This photo is with Oprah’s Baked Chicken recipe.
Homemade Hash Brown Potatoes
I had a brief email exchange a few days ago with Larry over at Big Dude’s Eclectic Ramblings about making homemade hash brown potatoes. I blame his sense of disinterest and the inconclusive outcome on the fact that I caught him on a morning he was distracted by the task of tearing his house apart to find horseradish for a Cajun Bloody Mary. Larry, I’d have to admit, I agree with your priorities in this case.
Anyway, it all started with a reference in one of his posts about Waffle House hash browns, which in my humble opinion are are about the best on earth. Then it led to a mutual agreement that it would be great to learn how to make them as good as Waffle House turns out. Wouldn’t it be fun to have hash browns “all the way” (aka scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, topped, peppered and capped) at home?















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