Back by Popular Demand!

Author's Note: This was even more delayed by someone who procrastinated. We're not naming names here... :)

Note #2: And even more delays. My bad.

Alright, sorry for the hiatus. I had 12 weeks of Student Teaching in the fall to which I owed my life to teenagers and Mercer. Then I just got lazy. So, since personally, 2010 ended on a crappy note and 2011 didn’t start much better, I am making February the start of 2011 and thus the start of my New Year’s resolutions. So what are these resolutions and why on earth am I talking about them? I tell you why. Here are my resolutions:

1. Talk to my friends more often (that is a work in progress as I’m horrible with communication)
2. Do more things with my family – that includes extended family.
3. Work out again.
4. Get a job.
5. Start back on the blog – hence the reason I’m talking about all of this.

So tonight we re-start this thing, and in honor of Groundhog Day, we once again are cooking Mexican. This time, though, instead of ground beef I made chicken in the crock pot. So here’s how it started:

At 5:30 this morning (February 2), I got a call from Norcross to sub, so I saidyes. That meant I had to get up immediately so I could start the crock pot. After feeding the animals, I took the chicken out of the fridge and gathered the rest of my ingredients:

• Salsa – 1 cup
• Taco Bell taco seasoning – about ¼ of the packet
• Water – about half a cup
• Chicken (obviously)

So I put everything in the crock pot, turned it on, and went to sub. When I came back, the house smelled super yummy! But it was only 3:30 and way too early to eat. Plus, I needed to get some ingredients for the Mexican Rice. I needed to get some tomato sauce and chicken broth, so after changing I headed back out to the store to pick those up. I came home and cleaned up the kitchen some so we would have a fresh tablet for the Mexican Rice and refried beans.

Finally, it was time to start the rest of the food so we could eat. The only problem was, I FORGOT TO BUY CHEESE!!!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that I cannot eat a taco without cheese. I mean, that’s about the only thing I put on a taco! Other than meat of course. So, as I said, today is Groundhog Day and I found myself retracing some steps and experiencing déjà vu. But we were hungry! And the rice takes about 30 minutes. So Jesse stepped in like the wonderful husband he is and started on the rice while I ran back out to Ingles.

The last time I made the rice, I said that it would have been easier to have already measured out all the different spices and such, so Jesse did just this – which is way smarter. So after the rice puffed in the oil and spices were added, he added the tomato sauce and broth and brought it to a boil.

Then we let it simmer for 20-ish minutes. If you need a reminder as to where you can find this recipe, here you go:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mexican-Rice-II/Detail.aspx

While the rice simmered, Jesse played some WoW before coming out to start on the refried beans. I forgot to pick up an onion at Ingles, but I was absolutely not going out again to Ingles, so tough luck! If you forgot how the refried beans are made, check out the entry we made for tacos back in July 2010.

Oh, and in the midst of all of this, I was sitting at my computer and heard a noise. I thought itsounded like something boiling over, so I was like, “Oh noes! The rice and oil are boiling over!” So I turned and looked and everything was fine. Except I realized the pantry door was wide open. And there was a cat stretching into the second shelf to get something out of it. Catnip. In a plastic container. And it wasn’t our cat that is addicted to cat nip! So of course I had to get pictures because it was just too funny to see Mozart (who has lost a few pounds, btw) rolling around on the kitchen floor hugging the catnip. He even pawed at Yoda to get away from him once. No one was taking that catnip away from him. No one but his mama!

So anyways, Jesse heated up the refried beans in the skillet, and soon, our food was ready. We even had Mexican Cokes to round out our Mexican meal.

I piled everything onto my taco shell. I think I put a little too much on it. In fact, I ended up finishing it off with a knife and fork… Overall, a pretty decent re-start to our blog.

Oh, and to distract Yoda while we ate, we gave him a tortilla. Whenever he gets treats, he loves to take them to our bedroom and eat them...

But of course, there are the ever important ratings:

Sarah:

Preparation: 4 out of 5 – see last time we made the rice, that’s still a bit time consuming. But crock pot is easy cookin’!

Taste: I give this meal about a 4 out of 5. I always like tacos, and this was yummy. Especially since we crowned it with Mexican Coke. It was yummy, and we’d made it before so we knew what we were getting into – well, except the meat. But I really liked the chicken cooked like this. It is a really salty meal, though, so if you need to cut down on sodium in your diet, I wouldn’t recommend this. I do think we made too much rice. We’re really not going to have time for leftovers… I guess next time we should maybe experiment with cooking half the recipe.

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5 – super easy since Sarah did all the prep work!

Taste: 4 out of 5 – everything was really good…but no specific flavors that were “TO DIE FOR” – but the Chicken was a great change up to normal Mexican Ground Beef

Cost: 4 out of 5 – super cheap and inexpensive…and there are normally enough leftovers for lunch the next day!

Average Rating: 4.2!

Inaugural Post - Mexican for Dummies!

So Jesse and I are going to try to start a new blog. This blog is about all the foods we cook and enjoy, will include recipes and reviews about the food, and show pictures of our successes and failures.

We will review out meals based off of the following:

Easiness to prepare (considering I’m not really that great at cooking)

Tastiness

The Special Sarah Rating – made just for those picky eaters like me :)

We will start with last night’s meal: Taco Tuesday!!!!!!

Jesse started by making the guacamole:

Ingredients needed:

2 avocados

Guacamole seasoning (1 packet)

He used Concord Foods Authentic Guacamole Mix which conveniently had the recipe on the back in two languages – English and Spanish. After following the recipe (very easily mashing 2 avocados and mixing with the seasoning), he put it into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.

Here are the avocados:

Here is the completed guacamole:

Next, I started on the Mexican Rice:

Ingredients needed:

Rice (1 cup uncooked)

Vegetable Oil (3 tablespoons)

Onion powder (1/2 teaspoon)

Garlic powder (1/2 teaspoon)

Salt (1/2 teaspoon)

Taco Seasoning (1 teaspoon)

Tomato Sauce (1/2 cup)

Chicken Broth (2 cups)

I had never made Mexican Rice before, so this was totally new for me. I found what looked to be an easy recipe from my favorite go-to site: www.AllRecipes.com

Here is the link: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mexican-Rice-II/Detail.aspx

After reading reviews, I made some changes. I didn’t use an actual onion or cumin. We don’t have garlic salt, so I used half garlic powder and half salt. I also added in taco seasoning. Taco Bell taco seasoning is the best. After making these alterations, I pumped myself up by putting on some music.

Music choices of the kitchen:

“Caledonia” by Dougie Maclean

“I Was a Teenage Anarchist” by Against Me!

“Somebody to Love” by Justin Bieber

“You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon

Beverage of choice:

Coke

Once I was prepared and in the mood, I began to cook and follow the recipe. There were a few issues. For instance, what on earth is puffed rice? I just kept stirring the rice in the oil and hoped I would figure it out. I did. Puffed rice turns a different color of white and indeed, looks puffed out.

Another issue I encountered: when I added the tomato sauce to the pan, some of it hit the burner and created beaucoup de smoke. Our smoke alarm started beeping and warning of smoke in the kitchen and to evacuate immediately. I had to keep mixing everything in before it actually DID burn in the pan, so I had to put up with the beeping until Jesse ran out of the Star Wars room to see what was going on. Once we had that settled, the rice was left to simmer and Jesse moved on to the ground beef and refried beans.

Below is a picture of the completed Mexican Rice:

Taco Meat!

Ingredients:

Ground beef (approx 3 lbs for us, might have been too much)

Taco seasoning (1 packet)

This is pretty basic. Jesse turned the burner on and let the beef brown. He then added in the taco seasoning and drained the fat.

And a picture of the meat. Sorry to any vegetarians. :)

Refried Beans:

Ingredients:

Refried beans (1 can)

Onion (half of one)

Another easy one. Jesse cut up the onion and let it favor a skillet. He then added in the can of beans and stirred while it heat up. He did this while he browned the meat, the guacamole chilled and the rice simmered. I just kept playing music and helped stir the beef.

Refried Beans:

Finally the food was cooked and we pulled the remaining details out of the fridge:

Pace Picante Salsa (Hot and Medium)

Shredded Cheese (Ingles Mexican mix)

Queso Dip

Flour Tortillas

Chilled Guacamole

Yummy extras:

Voila! A meal to last for days. It was easy and didn’t take too much time.

Below are pictures of our tacos/burritos. Jesse made his more burrito-like with queso on top.

And now it is time for the ratings:

Sarah:

Preparation for Mexican Rice: I give this a 4 out of 5. It was pretty easy, and the only reason it didn’t get a 5 out of 5 is because at the start, I had to keep stirring the rice in the oil and I didn’t know how long that would take. One suggestion I would make to simplify this is something I still haven’t been able to get through my head: measure out the spices and such in little bowls so it takes less time to add to the mixture and you don’t have to worry about screwing anything up…

Taste for whole thing: I give my taco/burrito a 4 out of 5. It was super yummy and nice ad spicy. The only thing I didn’t like was that my tortilla fell apart, so I ate this with a fork and knife.

Pickiness Factor: I give this a 5 out of 5!!! It’s because tacos are so easy to enjoy even when being picky. I don’t like refried beans or guacamole, so I didn’t have to add it to my taco. And my taco was still super yummy! I also could add as much or as little of the other foods to my taco. Maybe that’s why the tortilla fell apart…

Jesse:

Prep: 4 out of 5 – easy

Taste: 3 out of 5 – nothing too special. Everything was good, but perhaps a bit too mushy—none of the flavors were anything to write home about. It could definitely use some crunch, be it lettuce or some other greens/onions/peppers or even just using hard-shell tacos. All in all a good dish, and good for leftovers, but it was pretty much just your typical taco/burrito. As my friend Nathan says, “it’s hard to mess up Mexican food…even so so tacos are still awesome.” – and to that I agree

Cost: 4 out of 5 – materials are cheap and expense limited only by the amount of topping you want

Other notes: This is a wonderful dish for leftovers. Little flavor/consistency is lost when stored in the fridge.

Overall score for Taco Tuesday: 4.0