Sunday, November 29, 2009

Breakfast Burritos


My husband has been asking me for a week now to make breakfast burritos. So being the wonderful wife that I am, I went to Safeway and filled my basket with the ingredients needed for his favorite Mexican breakfast.

Breakfast Burritos:

1 tube of sausage
4 medium sized potatoes
1/2 cup salsa (recipe on previous post)
1/4 cup onion
1 tbs cilantro
8 eggs
1 tbs garlic
salt/pepper to taste
1 dozen tortillas
shredded cheese

I cook my potatoes in the microwave for baked potatoes just to speed it up. Otherwise fry your potatoes and put them aside.

Brown sausage, onions, salsa, garlic and salt & pepper in large frying pan (I use my GE electric skillet.) Add eggs & pre-cooked potatoes.

Roll ingredients in a warmed tortilla with a little shredded cheese.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Turkey Chimichangas



I made turkey chimichanga's from the left over turkey from Thanksgiving. It is WONDERFUL!!

Okay my husbands comment when he ate his turkey chimichanga was "too bad I can't fix cars as well as you can cook!" Gotta love that! (He has been working on our car for two days, hoping to save money rather than taking it in for repair.)

STEP 1:
I took all of the meat off of our turkey and put the carcass in my GE roaster filled abut half way with water. I cooked this on 325 over night.

STEP 2:
When I got up this morning, I turned the cooker off and once it was cool enough to work with, I got the colander out and put it over a large pot. I poured a little at a time into the colander. I then took out the bones and shredded the meat. I repeated this until I was done. I ended up with about 4 pounds of meat that most people just throw away!

STEP 3:
I added green chili, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper to the turkey and cooked it for about 20 minutes. I then rolled the mixture with cheddar cheese into a tortilla and fried it for about 4 minutes on each side. I only used 1/2 of the shredded turkey and put the rest away for later. This netted me 12 chimi's. NOT BAD: 24 CHIMI'S WITH MEAT THAT MOST PEOPLE THROW AWAY!

While the chimi's were frying I made my salsa (recipe on previous post), guacamole and sauce.

SAUCE:
1 can of tomato sauce
1/2 cup sour cream
1 can green chili
1/4 cup salsa
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

mix together and bring to a boil.

GUACAMOLE:
2 avocado's
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup salsa
1 tsp lime salt (or squeeze a fresh lime/lemon if you have it)

place in food processor for 1 minute on high.

The end result: delicious!!

After Thanksgiving Blues?



So we have stuffed ourselves silly! The dishes are done...Christmas shopping has started...Christmas decorating has gone amuck and what to do with all of those leftovers? I know that if you are in my house, turkey sandwiches only go so far. I would love to have everyone share their Thanksgiving leftover recipes. I will be posting mine in the next couple of days, please feel free to share yours!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Pizza Bake


I was trying to come up with something quick and easy tonight...so I made this concoction. It tasted so good!

Pizza Bake
1 bag of small shells (FREE from Basha's)
2 jars of Ragu chunky sauce (FREE from Safeway)
3 cups of Mozzarella Cheese
1 pound hamburger/ground beef
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 TBS Garlic

Boil noodles as per directions.
Brown ground beef with seasonings in large skillet.
Heat sauce in sauce pan.

Mix together in a casserole dish with 2/3rds of the cheese. Layer the top with the remaining cheese. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes.

The kids named it for me....Margaret said "mommy it tastes just like pizza." So there you have it! I think that it cost about $3.00 for the hamburger, cheese and our salad.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Chicken Tortilla Soup



I made Chicken Tortilla Soup today. I keep on mentioning that these are family favorites, so I must make a lot of favorites!


 

 
Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe:

 
  • 4 chicken breasts
  • 3 cups Salsa (I used my leftovers from a previous posted recipe)
  • 1 TBS minced garlic
  • ¼ cup diced onion
  • ¼ cup green chili
  • ½ cup cilantro (I used dried---I didn’t have any fresh on hand)
  • 3 TBS cumin
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 5 cups chicken broth (I use the water that I boil the chicken in)
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • White corn chips
  • Garnish with shredded cheese

 
I put the chicken on to boil in about 6 cups of water. Then I brown the onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, salt & pepper and green chili together. I remove the chicken, de-bone it and chop it. Then I place all of the ingredients together minus the corn chips and shredded cheese. I boil it for about ½ an hour and it’s done! I then Garnish with crumbled chips and cheese. Today I used mozzarella because that it what I had on hand….I usually use cheddar, but this tasted great as well.

 
Try it and let me know what you think!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Birthday Dinner for Michael Jr.

Well Michael is 17 officially today.  I always make the same thing for him. His favorites:  hamburgers, mashed potatoes & shrimp.  Doesn't sound like it goes well together, but he sure likes it.


When I barbeque hamburgers, I mix spices into the hamburger before creating the patties.  I use garlic powder and montreal seasoning and simply mix it in.  You can't imagine the difference by mixing it in!

Shrimp is one of my favorite dishes, but it is usually expensive!  So I buy it when it is on sale.  I happened to purchase this shrimp for $5 at WalMart, which is pretty darn cheap for shrimp.  I hate how restaurants saturate shrimp with butter.  I cook mine a little different.  I simply put olive oil and garlic salt in a skillet, then put in the shrimp.  I cook it on medium, covered for about 5 minutes.  You can't imagine how amazing it tastes.  And it doesn't feel like I'm eating a stick of butter!

A hint on making mashed pototoes:  I use my kitchenaid.  It is so easy!  Put in the potatoes, stick of butter, a little salt and milk.  Turn on the mixer and all done!  Can't beat that and it is easier than hand mashing them any day!

Top it all off with a chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting and this has been Michael's birthday dinner for years. 

I'll be honest, Michael is not a big fan of my cooking.  He is a meat and potatoes type of guy and he doesn't like his food touching.  So anything that I make mixing any ingredients he is stand offish about.  Thankfully there is something that I can make that he likes!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Chilly Chili



It was a chilly day in Payson, and I was on the go all day. It is Veteran's Day and it seems like everyone has somewhere to be and guess who is the taxi?? I knew this when the day started, so I decided to make Chili with my left over beans from yesterday. This meal was VERY reasonable. Here's the recipe:

o 3 cups pinto beans
o 2 cans stewed tomatoes
o 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
o 1/4 cup chopped red onion (double the flavor, 1/2 the onion)
o 1 tsp salt
o 1/2 tsp pepper
o 2 tbs minced garlic
o 2 tbs cilantro (I used dried)
o 2 tsp ground cumin

Brown ground beef with seasonings and onions. Once browned, put into crockpot along with beans & tomatoes. Cook on high for 2-3 hours, low for 4-6 hours. And you are done. Garnish with shredded chedder cheese if desired. Simple and best of all delicious!

Price:
Beans: FREE from leftovers from last night
Tomatoes: .29 a can at Fry's. TOTAL: .58
GroundBeef: $1.25 a pound at WalMart this week. TOTAL: $1.75
Onion: .25
Seasonings: less than .25


TOTAL DINNER: Less than $3.00 for a family of 6 and leftovers!!