Ugly Cooking - Enchiladas

I love food. This is a newsflash to no one. Yesterday my mom asked if I could put together a main dish to take to the funeral of a family friend. In order to find some inspiration I found myself scrolling through 383 pins on my Feed Me Seymour pin board. Alas to no avail there was not a single thing that called out to me. The pictures were gorgeous, the complex mix of flavors tantalizing, but all I needed was some good comfort food to whip together and drop off. I tried my hand at chicken enchiladas for the first time just a few months ago and they turned out pretty delicious so I decided I'd make up a new version to stretch the meat farther (Because who really wants to buy a gagillion pounds of meat when you're not even going to eat it? Tell me I'm stingy...but just sayin').

As I was slicing open the package of ground beef (meaning getting it all over my hands and not minding that it felt like cold playdoh) I was reminiscing on those picture perfect recipes I'd been ogling over. Making the food takes enough effort, and then taking perfectly professional pictures of it?

&

Amiright? Thank you Sweet Brown. Ain't nobody got time for that. So to share this uberdelicious recipe that I made up I took some crappy cell phone pics because that's what I DO have time for. And besides, I never claimed to be a photographer, just a decent cook!

Mighty Meaty Enchiladas

I made this recipe to feed 2 families so it makes about 20 enchiladas. It would be very easy to half the recipe for a smaller batch

Filling

*3 lbs ground beef

*20 8" tortillas

*1/2 an onion (diced)

*1 small can sliced olives

*8 oz can green chilies

*2 15 oz cans black beans

*1 15oz can corn

*1 cup grated cheese 

*as much cheese at you want for on top

Sauce

*3 packets enchilada sauce mix

*18 oz tomato paste

*6 cups water

1. Saute onions in a large non stick pot. Add meat and brown. This is a smell that will draw any man into your house. Except for vegetarian men. But those aren't real men anyway.

2. While meat is cooking drain beans and corn in a colander in the sink and rinse away all that gooey bean junk. Drain meat and return to pot. Add in beans, corn, chilies and olives. 

3. You have to be a woman to make these because multitasking is required. While the meat is cooking and while you're draining cans and putting on a bandaid because you cut yourself on all of those wicked sharp lids, make the sauce. Basically mix the 3 ingredients in a medium sauce pan and stir it every now and then. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until you're done with everything else.

4. Add about 2 cups of sauce to the filling and a cup of cheese. Stir that goodness together. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

5. This is where it gets tricky. Putting it all together. I was an idiot and burned my thumb on boiling sauce. You can dip the whole tortilla  in sauce using tongs (obviously I was a blonde at that point) or you can do it like this picture, holding onto the sides of the tortilla and dipping the middle in the sauce. I would maybe in hindsight pour some sauce in the bottom of the pan first. So anyway, back to the dipping. Do that and then put some filling in and roll it up! Repeat 20 times. Like a robot.

6. Now that you've squished all of this mess into pans and hopefully kept your fingers alive and made a mess across your stove, pour the rest of the sauce over these rolled up puppies. Top them with liberal amounts of cheese. We're talking tree hugger liberal here. COVER them. It's so delicious. Pop these suckers into the oven uncovered and bake for 20 minutes. Let them cool a bit before you let your minions devour them. 

You can serve these with mexican rice but I won't share a recipe for that because mine flopped. Oh well. It tasted alright at leftovers! Let me know if you make these and anything you did different so I can try it out too!

Chocolate + Nutella = Heaven

These photos made me do it!

tartelette

Art of Two Tarts

I was asked to bring either a salad or a dessert to break the fast tomorrow and my first thought was "Nutella frostinggggggggg!!!" I didn't really like the recipes from either of those links and both cake recipes had coffee in them so I set off to create my own! The last attempt I made at cake from scratch turned out as red velvet playdough so I turned to the always reliable Pioneer Woman. At least I assume she's always reliable since she's so popular. I've never tried any of her recipes before. 

Her chocolate sheet cake just came out of the oven in two 9'' cake pans (they took about 40 minutes, she says 20 min when its on a baking sheet). They look divine and probably edible! It's out of the oven and cooled and I will now add that instead of 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder I'd make it an even 6. And a half. Plus a little. But the heaping 4 is really good too!

I'm also using a frosting recipe from her website called That's The Best Frosting I've Ever Had. And it's going to be even better because I added about 3/4 of a cup of Nutella during the first step! It's a little odd because it starts like you're mixing a white sauce, milk and flour. Who ever thinks flour when they're making frosting? Not I! Well we'll see if it is just as divine as she claims it is! And hopefully the added hazelnuty chocolate goodness doesn't ruin it!

Might as well have gotten one of these

Some changes when making the frosting:

I used 1 1/2 cups of milk and 7 TBS of flour. I then mixed in 3/4 of a cup of Nutella.  I didn't remember to double the butter and sugar but I figured that some of that would be evened out from the Nutella added in. It is a  very very very soft frosting! I refrigerated the frosted cake over night before serving it. When it is cold it holds up really well. Oh yeah, and using more milk meant that there was about 2 cups of frosting leftover, so now I'll have to make something else for it to go on! (or use my finger?)

Taste The Rainbow

I have finally joined the obsession of rainbow cake!  The other night I was babysitting my little sisters and they suggested that we play Wii. I honestly love throwing imaginary frisbees at computer animated dogs but I didn't feel like doing that on our special night together.  I raided the front hallway and found one white cake mix and we set off on our food coloring adventure!  

These are our finished cupcakes which we dubbed "playdough cake" because of how vivid the colors turned out!  We used gel coloring by Wilton and lets just say I wanted to make sure that there was plenty of color...

The cupcake shaped oven mitts were a project that we did together a few weeks ago. Very cute and easy. You can get the pattern from the designer here. 

This is our batter after we added the coloring.  I opted for pyrex measuring cups rather than bowls because the pour spout made it easier for little fingers to pour the colors into the cups.  One point for genius?

There was no rhyme or reason to the order of colors poured and by the end we were mixing the batters together to make purple and orange.  What smart little sisters I have that only wanted to use primary colors so they could play with their food.  The heart shaped cups are silicone and peel away easily to show of the layers of color.

And here we have it! A multi layered colorific confection! 

Bravery

I've been an avid follower and poster on Pinterest for the past few months and this quote is one of the most popular posts today

source

Now I can say that I am mildly put into this situation daily as my mom has found a new favorite food, green smoothies.  I'm a die hard believer that smoothies should be delicious blends of fruits and dairy with a yummy little bit of whipped cream on the top, with maybe a serving or two on fruit included.  My mother on the other hand has a new cookbook of health friendly blends and she's having a kick out of feeding us all her concoctions.  She claims that if it follows the recipe it has to be delicious. 

source

Excuse me? Grapefruit + dates + spinach + cinnamon + pears+ bananas + lime + berries +cilantro does NOT equal a scrumptious blend of breakfast to me.  Cilantro? Really?  The good part is that if I throw it all back in about 3 long pulls it doesn't really taste all that bad.  And I'm getting bona fide nutrition in one glass! 

The most memorable one so far? It was pretty good, with grapes and berries, but then she said, "Oh look! Parsley!" and threw a little sprig in. Don't ever. Just trust me.  

you are what you eat. pineapple pants!

The best part of this obsession is that it gets my little sisters to each more vegetables.  What mom hasn't struggled with getting her kids to get greens in their bellies? Her other trick is when they are playing Wii she'll slice up a pineapple or some bell pepper and just stick it into their free hand. One game level later and the goodies are gone! Sneaky mom of mine :)

A Fact of Life

Honey is not a replacement for brown sugar.

I learned this in a sticky not quite delicious way yesterday at dinner. I love me some acorn squash and although my cupboards are extremely low right now (read: I've been too lazy to grocery shop and cook) there was a little green squash buddy hanging out in the pantry.  They take forever to cook in the oven (Over and hour. Not worth it) so my Grandma told me to take a fork to it and throw it in the microwave for a few minutes. Hooray for Grandma! It was ready in under 10 and boy was I hungry.  Then the terror struck. I ran out of brown sugar forever ago, hence the reason I'd stopped eating yummy warm breakfast cereals and hadn't baked delicious cookies in forever. I raided all of the cupboards desperately hoping that Rosette or Shanda had some stashed in a secret hiding place, but alas, there was none.  The next best things that popped into my head were maple syrup or honey.  They're both sweet and brown right? One should be able to substitute.  WRONGO! A little drizzle of honey over my microwaved to perfection acorn squash was not what the doctor ordered.  It didn't have a terrible flavor, it just was not something I'd ever like to experience again. 

So take this as a little lesson from me. If you are ever in a bind and need something to top your gourd of choice, find a savory flavor like butter with rosemary or some other spice because honey just won't cut it.

The End.

I'm A Bottomless Pit

Oh thank you thank you thank you Alisa Burke for writing a post about spring rolls! I was just missing my dear friend Christine (She and her hubby ran away to Alabama for the summer) and her delicious Vietnamese food.  She's one tiny force of nature that girl.  Anyway, these spring rolls are to die for and I'm so glad that I stumbled upon a post with excellent pictures and a great looking peanut sauce recipe. Looks like I've got dinner planned! Now go make some yourself!

Get her tutorial/recipe here

Craving Cadbury Eggs

I'm going to share a deep dark secret of mine. Promise you won't laugh, or tell my Grandma.

I suck at boiling eggs. I think that this Easter was the first time I'd ever tried to do so many! When I want to eat something with hardboiled eggs in it I just wait until I go home and have mommy dearest do it for me! Embarrassing, I know. But hard boiled or soft boiled, nothing holds me back from dying a bunch for the Holiday of Spring! Colorful eggs remind us all of the true reason behind the holiday, the Easter Bunny's birthday of course.

Erika and I hosted a party for all those of us who didn't have family to run away to for the weekend. Here are some of the happy faces of relived childhood! Preston insisted on wearing an apron to protect his clothes from the dye, and I don't know...I think this discredited his manhood a little in the process.

Little Mike always gives me lovin' and my Grandma-ly JC Penny dress just makes us look like Man and Woman of the house.

And this is what I am most proud of!!! This Greek Easter Bread is traditional in my family and it is the worst thing to me to not have our traditional foods. This is my second year making it and it turned out much better than the previous attempt. The exact recipe is a strict family secret and my Grandma (how many times can I use the word grandma in this post) made me swear that I would share it with no one outside of the family when she gave it to me. Since I'd prefer to not be ostracized from my kin, I'll just give you links to a few recipes that are similar.
Enjoy!

Bread, Bread, Bread!

jumbled

the world's most unofficial thought train post:
i'll probably think about reorganizing and or restating some of these things, but for now i just want them out there.

free patterns from burda style. join today because you know you'll use them.
some cost a few dollars, but only get them if you know what you're doing.

i'm working on state patterns

christmukkuh-my favorite episode of season one.
i'm trying to incorporate the word "minty" into my everyday language.
i can't see the movie goonies sitting up there on my shelf without thinking "seth cohen starter pack?"

add my goals in life to this blog, be official.
mark off the ones that are done? are any done?

working on a bag
but i'm stuck in a rut.
i hate it when good ideas go badly.

dance battle. start watching at 50 seconds. fall in love. wish you were a sick break dancer.


completion of that prairie skirt


need to make chocolate chip banana bread but there is kaluha pork in the oven.

i had a case of the midnight munchies because i've been pretty terrible at eating when i should. work schedules and busy lifestyles tend to mix things up, and life only gets more hectic! so here's the deal, for some reason the pita chips i ate were beyond wonderful. they made me feel warm and delicious inside.