Fall Birthday #2: DrummerDude's Chicken Fajitas

Yesterday was DrummerDude's birthday. He and his older brother, GuitarGeek, are six years and one day apart in age.

We celebrated by making fajitas for supper, using a recipe from Taste of Home, and I tell you that just to say this: Those fajitas were every bit as good as the ones we ate at an expensive restaurant in Mexico on a missions trip a few years ago. Every bit as good, if not better.

Here's the recipe:

1/4 cup lime juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips (I used pork loin of some sort-- it was cheaper)
1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges (strips)
1/2 medium sweet red pepper, cut into strips
1/2 medium yellow pepper, cut into strips
1/2 medium green pepper, cut into strips
1/2 cup salsa
12 flour tortillas (8 inches), warmed)
1-1/2 cups shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese (I used both together)

In a bowl, combine lime juice, garlic, chili powder and cumin. Add chicken; stir. Regrigerate for 15 minutes. In a nonstick skillet ( a cast iron skillet with a tablespoon or so of peanut oil) saute onion and chicken with marinade for three minutes or till chicken is no longer pink. Add peppers; saute for 3-5 minutes or till crisp-tender.

It actually took a little longer than that for everything to cook, I think because I doubled the recipe. There was just more food in my big skillet to get done. Plus, we like our peppers a little done-er (is that a word?) than crisp-tender.

Then I put it on all the table and let everyone make their own fajitas with the meat, the salsa, and the cheese. It was VERY good.

And for dessert? Pumpkin Pie! And DrummerDude and GuitarGeek each got their own personal can of Reddi-Whip. It doesn't get any more decadent than that....

Versatile BBQ Sauce

This recipe for barbecue sauce makes the best sloppy joes or baked beans.

Versatile BBQ Sauce

1 cup ketchup
1/3 cup worcestershire sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
2 dashes Tabasco sauce
1 TB lemon juice
1 TB brown sugar

To make sloppy joes:
Brown hamburger with chopped onion; also garlic if desired. Drain; add pepper to taste. Add one recipe of Versatile BBQ sauce.

To make baked beans:
Fry several slices of bacon; break into bits. Saute half an onion (chopped) in the bacon drippings. Drain off fat. Add to the bacon and onion one can each of three different kinds of beans, drained: pinto, navy and butterbeans are good. You could also use red beans or black beans. Just be sure to use three different kinds. Dump in one recipe of Versatile BBQ sauce (add a little water if too sticky) and heat till bubbly.

Fruity Yogurt and Minty Lime Fizzler

I have two recipes today, both of which are wonderful for these hot, humid days. According to the online weather maps I've been perusing, our weather in Nebraska this year is pretty close to the weather in Louisiana. I've always wondered what it was like to live in the swamplands. Now I know: HOT and HUMID with clouds of mosquitoes and biting flies. I'm praying for Fall.

But until then, we refresh ourselves as best we can.

FRUITY YOGURT

32 oz. plain yogurt (whole milk yogurt is the best, if you can get it)
3/4 cup sugar
Fresh fruit: 1 lb fresh strawberries, cut up. Or 2 small cans of mandarin oranges, drained. Or 3 bananas, sliced. Or 3 or 4 fresh peaches, sliced. Or any combination of the above.
Optional: 1 tsp. vanilla (especially good with bananas)

Stir the sugar and yogurt till the yogurt is creamy and the sugar is no longer gritty. Then add the fruit. Serve immediately, or refrigerate until ready to eat. Serves 6.

This next recipe is SO refreshing. Even the aroma of it is enough to send me on a mini-vacation. It all depends on getting fresh mint leaves, which is no problem for us-- we have a mint plant next to the porch...!

MINTY LIME FIZZLER

1 12-oz can ginger ale
6-8 mint leaves
3 lime slices
1 tsp. sugar
Crushed ice

Put the mint leaves in two pretty glasses. Squeeze one slice of lime, dividing it between the two glasses. Fill glasses with ice. Put one whole lime slice into each glass. Pour ginger ale over the ice. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp. of sugar over each glass. Serve immediately. Makes 2.

You can refill your ginger ale once or twice, using the same mint and lime, and it's still good.

Happy Summer!

Corn Soup

You may have seen on my menu plan that we had corn-on-the-cob for supper last night. Well, it happened that we had leftovers, so I decided to make corn soup for dinner today. It's a wonderful way to use up leftover corn-on-the-cob, and it's a great comfort food.

Thinking about corn soup reminded me of going to visit my great-grandma years ago. I was nine years old, and my parents put me on a bus (probably Continental Trailways) in Kansas City and I ended up in Osceola, Missouri. I can't imagine doing that to my own kids, but at the time I guess I just took it in stride. My "Grandma Millie" would meet me and take me to her house up on the hill overlooking the town and the railroad tracks. She had a big garden and we usually ate things out of it: peas, beans, corn. I can remember her snapping beans on the porch.

When I grew up and began canning vegetables I learned to cut my beans with a knife on a cutting board-- it was more efficient because you could cut many more beans at a time. Sitting in a rocker or porch swing and breaking individual beans into bite-size pieces by hand seems to embody a much more relaxed world view. Sittin' on the porch, fixin' beans for supper....

Of course, we didn't just have beans.

"What flavor of ice cream do you like?" she asked me on my first day.

"Chocolate!" I said.

And after supper she presented me with a half gallon of chocolate ice cream, all mine, to eat over the course of the week. She didn't care for it herself, she said, so it was mine. I still remember the awe I felt. She bought chocolate ice cream for me, just because I liked it!

This is the same grandma who, one year for Christmas, gave me a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies-- all for me. I know I ate more cookies than I should have that day (how do you play with a box of cookies?), but after that I portioned them out for myself to last as long as possible. I think I remember the last ones being kind of stale, unlike my memories of that unusual gift.

One dish Grandma Millie introduced me to was Corn Soup. It was totally new to me, and I loved it, and still do, and now my family loves it too. And it doesn't hardly sound like a recipe. Here it is:

CORN SOUP

Take several cooked ears of corn and cut off the kernels.
Put them in a sauce pan and generously cover with milk.
Add a large lump of butter, too much pepper, and plenty of salt.
Heat to boiling and then turn off the burner.
Serve.

There's just something about this combination of flavors-- the sweetness of the corn, the butter, the salt and pepper, the warm milk-- that is wholesome, filling, and comforting.

Grandma Millie has been gone for several years now-- she lived till well over ninety-- but her corn soup is still alive, and so are my wonderful memories of "chocolate after supper."

Menu Plan Monday and Chocolate Sauce

I am happy to have found this "game" online, where bloggers share their menus. You know, I used to plan menus and shopping lists, but over the last year I have become slack, and cooking meals has been pretty chaotic in consequence. However, with the encouragement of knowing that there are many others doing the same thing I think I can become organized again. So here is my tentative menu plan for this week. (Since we homeschool and therefore have the family home all day, I am cooking two meals a day.)

Monday dinner has already happened at this writing and it was good. The peanut mole' was a new thing for me, and though I had my doubts about the peanut butter, it was actually good, and our guests asked for the recipe!

Monday
Dinner-- (birthday celebration meal) Grilled Pork Loin with Peanut Mole', marinated potato chunks, salad, coffee cake and ice cream
Supper-- Salsa Pizza, oranges & grapefruit, leftover cake

Tuesday
Dinner-- Sunburst Potatoes, Vegetables & Cheese; sauteed ham slices, sliced peaches
Supper-- grilled hamburgers with mushroom sauce, corn-on-the-cob, tomato mozzarella salad

Wednesday
Dinner-- Cheesy Ham Frittata, Veggie Slaw
Supper-- Sloppy Joes, Kidney Bean-Macaroni Salad, Mud-From-The-Crik

Thursday
Dinner-- Mom's Macaroni & Cheese, sauteed broccoli w/onions
Supper-- Grilled Ginger Pork, Cheesy Cauliflower, salad

Friday
Dinner-- Leftovers
Supper-- Salsa Peach Chicken with rice, yellow squash & zucchini, fruit yogurt

Saturday
Dinner-- taco salad, fresh strawberries with Reddi-Whip
Supper-- spaghetti, salad, bread sticks

Sunday
Dinner-- sandwiches, chips, fruit
Supper-- fast food


And here's the recipe for today. It's not original with me-- it comes from an old Mennonite cookbook-- but I would have invented it if I hadn't found it! This is a family favorite.

CHOCOLATE SAUCE

Stir together:
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 TB cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt

Add:
1 1/2 cups water

Cook till thick, stirring.

Stir in:
1 1/2 TB butter
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Use to make chocolate milk, or to top ice cream; or pour it over unfrosted cake or brownies. It's good any time, but especially when it's warm.

Sweet Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Thighs

This recipe was a hit with the boys, so I'm going to share it here. I learned afterwards that sugar in a sauce for grilling makes meat burn, but I didn't see a problem at all here, perhaps because the grilling time was pretty short.

Sweet Bacon-wrapped Chicken Thighs

8 chicken thighs
8 slices bacon (about 10 oz)
1/2 cup brown sugar
Marinade ingredients, below

Coat chicken thighs with the following mixture:

2 TB Worcestershire sauce
2 TB white wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Let stand for at least five minutes.
Roll the chicken pieces in brown sugar, covering well. Wrap one bacon slice around each thigh.
Grill, covered, for 15 minutes on high. Turn pieces over, turn temperature to low, and grill for another 10-15 minutes, for a total of 20-30 minutes, or till done.

The Best Dishwasher Detergent

**UPDATE**
An update to this post is here. Scroll to the bottom of that post to read about my new dishwasher miracle.
*****

Two years ago, my life in the kitchen took a dramatic turn: we bought a dishwasher. Except for a brief respite of a year or so (when I was sick and we had been given a used dishwasher which we used till it died) I have done dishes the old-fashioned way: make the kids do'em.

Of course, many times it ended up to be my turn as well, and with four growing children, and homeschooling, and cooking from scratch, our whole kitchen seemed to be dishes. Dirty dishes on the counter waiting to be washed. More dirty dishes in the sink being washed. Clean dishes in the drainer waiting to be dried. More clean dishes on a towel waiting to be put away.

With the advent of the dishwasher that all changed. It became a fun game for me to load up the dishwasher and then clean up the rest of the kitchen while my happy Bosch maid washed the dishes for me. As time went on, it degenerated to dirty dishes on the counter waiting to be loaded, and clean dishes in the dishwasher waiting to be put away, but it was still much better than B.D. (before dishwasher)

And then I tried a new detergent. I had been using a gel, even though the people at the appliance store- and even the sticker on the dishwasher- recommended powder, because it made more sense to me. It was already wet, so it didn't need to dissolve; it should work great-- and it did. But then my conscience began squirming and said maybe I needed to use what the experts said to use. I bought a big box of powdered detergent and it was a disaster! The powder got into every cranny of my dishwasher and hardened there into a cross between cement and putty.

My dishwasher was no longer a happy little maid, but a surly slave. "You want clean dishes, I'll give you clean dishes....NOT!" It seemed to delight in spraying most of the soil from the dishes up inside the glasses and drying it there. Oh joy. There's nothing more frustrating than putting a relatively clean glass into the dishwasher (it just had iced tea in it) and taking it out completely coated with unidentifiable gook that must be scrubbed off.

I also was having trouble with a white coating on all the glassware, and the troubleshooting guide that came with my dishwasher was not exactly helpful. If my glassware has white streaks, it means I used too much rinse-aid. If my glassware has white deposits, it means I used too little rinse-aid. The problem was, I couldn't tell the difference between a deposit and a streak. In fact, it looked like I had both. So that meant I was using too much and too little rinse-aid?

We spent nearly a year fighting with this mess, but I won't bore you with the myriad of possible causes and solutions, or recount to you how many times I ran the dishwasher empty of dishes with some new something that might-- this time-- clear everything up. I'll jump straight to the happy ending.

We decided the problem was twofold: hard water, and soap scum. And the solution entails two parts as well. The first is a product called LemiShine, which I found at our local grocery store. I followed the instructions on their website and then ran the dishwasher empty one more time, and Wa-La! that took took care of all the residual soap scum and hard water deposits.

Next, we needed something to keep it that way while getting the dishes clean. And that something is a recipe I found for homemade powdered dishwasher detergent that works wonderfully. No scum, no hard water deposits, and no concrete buildup-- in short, clean dishwasher and clean dishes.

So here's the recipe, as I made it:

Dishwasher Powder

1 cup Borax
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup LemiShine

Use a tablespoon per load, a little more, a little less, depending on how dirty the dishes are and how hard your water is.

I am just thrilled. I have my dishwasher back. And my dishwasher is a happy little maid again.

Check out this blog: crazy-mumma.blogspot.com and search under Labels for "homemade" to find interesting homemade stuff, like liquid detergent and toothpaste and shaving gel and cat food.]

Cheesy Veggie Slaw

This is the only coleslaw I like. I'll eat other kinds if that's what I'm served, but this kind is really good. It's a mix-n-match salad that's pretty and tasty, and has the unexpected twist of having cheese in it.

So, start with 1 small head of cabbage, chopped fine or shredded
Then choose two or three of the following raw vegetables and chop them up: zucchini, cucumber, green pepper, red pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper, stalk of broccoli, carrot.
Dice or shred 1-2 cups of cheese: cheddar, mozzarella, monterey jack, or swiss.
It's nice to choose contrasting colors of veggies and cheese, if you can. It makes the slaw look like edible confetti.
(optional: green or black olives.)

Mix up the dressing :

1 cup Miracle Whip
2 TB sugar
2 TB vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp mustard (dry, yellow, dijon, spicy-- whatever suits your fancy)

Stir the veggies and the dressing together and serve.

Strawberry Brownie Pizza

This is a dessert I came up that turned out so yummy I made sure to write it down. It has three parts, starting with:

THE BROWNIE CRUST
Combine-
1/2 cup cocoa
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 TB vegetable oil

Stir in-
1/4 cup boiling water

Beat in-
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 TB oil
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt

Spread brownie batter in a pizza pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes (or till done). Allow to cool.

THE FILLING
Beat until fluffy-
8 oz. cream cheese
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. almond flavoring

Spread filling on cooled crust. (if the crust is still warm, the filling will melt, which would probably still taste good, but it's messy and not very pretty.)

Top with-
1 pound cut-up fresh strawberries

Drizzle with glaze.

THE GLAZE
Melt-
1 TB butter
1 cup chocolate chips
milk to make drizzling consistency.