Mandy and Jace

I have tried several recipes for guacamole and I like this one the best. I got it from my “Family Chef” cook book. The dip is smooth but a little bit on the tangy side and is SO good.

Guacamole
makes 3-4 cups
4 large ripe avocados
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
1 serrano or jalapeno, chopped (the serrano is going to be hotter than the jalapeno)
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/2-1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Cut the avocados in half. Remove pit and scoop the flesh into a bowl.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the avocado and mash with a fork. If you like it more on the smooth side use a potato masher.

You may have noticed that I changed the recipe plan from brown rice to white rice. We made it with brown rice last night and it took 65 minutes to cook. By the time the rice was done the veggies were mushy, so I am going to give the recipe to you with white rice. White rice cooks a lot faster: It only takes about 20 minutes and it is still very, very good. This is a very versitile recipe; you can throw in any kind of meat or veggies you want. We did chicken a couple of weeks ago and it was great. But you really don’t need any meat at all. In fact, it was the only time I’ve seen Jace say he could live without chicken on his plate.

Teriyaki White Rice with Veggies
canola oil
1 Squash, chopped into cubes
1 Zucchini, chopped into cubes
1/2 eggplant, chopped into cubes
1/2 onion, diced
1 1/2 cups white rice
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce (I really didn’t measure what I put in, so just put in as much as you would like)
1/4 cup soy sauce (this serves as your salt so don’t use any salt and pepper)
Chicken broth

Coat the bottom of a large saute pan with your canola oil. Throw in your onion and sweat them until they’re just translucent (a pinch of salt here will help them sweat out a little faster). Then put in your squash, zucchini and eggplant and a little bit of teriyaki and soy sauce. Go easy on the soy sauce or it will end up too salty at the end. Cook for about 3-4 minutes. Make a little empty spot in the middle of your pan and add the rice there. If the veggies have soaked up all the oil from your pan, add another teaspoon or so to help the rice. Once you add the rice you’ll need to stir pretty regularly to keep it from sticking (and then burning), so stir it all around for a minute. Pour in a can of chicken broth (or about 2 cups) and teriyaki sauce and cover the pan. When the rice soaks in the liquid add more broth. Do this until the rice is cooked to your liking. At the end taste the rice and see if it needs more teriyaki sauce or soy sauce. Serve immediately.

If you really want to use brown rice, since it is supposed to be quite a bit better for you, you could probably start by cooking the onion, then add the rice and broth, cook for 20 minutes or so and then add the veggies. But, really, white rice is fine and it’s a lot faster.

I was a little afraid when I got this recipe. I didn’t like the sound of pumpkin brownies, but I assure you they are amazing. Contrary to what it sounds like there is no chocolate in the recipe only pumpkin. I got the recipe from www.whoorl.com.

Pumpkin brownies with cream cheese frosting

4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In your mixer beat the eggs very well. Add in the butter and sugar and continue mixing. Add the pumpkin and the vanilla and keep mixing. Last but not least at in the flour and spices and finish mixing.

Pour the batter into a 9×13 pan and put in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let the brownies cool completely. While they are cooling combine all the ingredients for the frosting and spread onto the brownies when they are ready.

Have fun cooking!

On this, our second wedding anniversary, I took it upon myself to prepare a dinner of an almost Faincy variety. And to do dishes. Most of them at least.

So, the menu for this evening is a steak au poivre with fried zucchini. The steak uses a rather interesting method of preparation and this was the first time I’ve ever tried it, to great success, thankfully. The secret: salt — lots and lots of salt.

You have to coat the steaks in salt — like a tablespoon per steak — about half an hour before you’re ready to cook them, then wash the salt off, pat dry, dust with freshly cracked pepper, and sautée on medium high heat for 4 minutes per side for a perfect mid-rare.

The zucchini is cut in a large julienne, like french fried potatoes, coated in flour, egg wash and then, muched up tortilla chips. I ran several handfulls of chips through the food processor, but I think some cornmeal would work just as well.

The final plate looked a little something like this:

The tao of steak
Step 1: Salt the steaks, use a lot of salt

Step 2: Rinse the salt from the steaks and pat them dry

Step 3: Put some pepper on the steak, freshly cracked is the way to go, and you can run some peppercorns through a coffee grinder if you like

Step 4: Sautée with a little browned butter and oil. It smelled too good and I forgot to take a picture of it. I’m only sorta sorry about that.

Step 5: And this is one of the very most important steps of cooking a steak – let it rest. Put it on a plate and don’t touch it for at least 5 minutes and 10 if you can wait.

The zucchini files

Step 1: Forget to take pictures any of the prep work.

Step 2: Cut the zucchini in a large julienne, think Wendy’s French fries rather than McDonald’s.

Step 3: Dredge in flour seasoned with salt, garlic powder and whatever else might sound good; then a little dunk in egg; lastly put some of the chip crumbs on ’em.

Step 4: Fry in oil at somewhere around 350° F for a couple of minutes and dig them out. Hot oil can hurt your hands so use a spider.

Until recently I didn’t know how stupid easy making your own chili powder was. Who knows how much money we have spent on “good” chili powder when we could have done it ourselves for a couple of bucks.

So are you ready… there is a lot to remember…

Chili Powder

Dried peppers (any kind you want. We just went to HEB and bought a bag of mixed dried peppers)
Ground white pepper (any kind of pepper will do)

Cut peppers in small pieces and leave as many seeds in as you can handle. Remember the more seeds you leave in, the hotter the powder will be. Put the pieces in a coffee bean grinder and grind into a powder. Grind some pepper into the powder and leave it out for a day to finish drying. Put it in a shaker and use it wherever you want to.

Ta da! That’s it. Enjoy!