Tag: cilantro

seeding meal #2 

 

lesson learned…  when you see something on Pintrest or Facebook that looks amazing but doesn’t come with a detailed recipe… keep looking… unless you enjoy wasting your time…

the salad was fine…  basically just added what I had in the fridge to make a carrot salad and the reviews from the 12 and 14 year old were good so I think it was a success…

carrot pistachio salad

Ingredients:

  • 3 lbs carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
  • 2/3 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground coriander
  • 3/4 cup shelled pistachios
  • 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Directions:

  • grate the carrots and place in a large bowl
  • in a small mason jar, add dressing ingredients and shake until well mixed
  • add to the carrots
  • add cilantro and using tongs toss the salad
  • top with pistachios and serve cold

and the crockpot Mexican Chicken over rice is an excellent recipe to have kicking around if you have a busy day and want a nutritious supper…  I served it over Basmati Rice which is my favourite type of rice…

crockpot mexican chicken

Ingredients:

  • 1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
  • 3 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 (14.4 oz) can chicken broth
  • 1 (4 oz) can diced green chiles
  • 2 yellow onions, diced
  • 4 large cloves garlic, minced
  • 5 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped (1/2 a bunch)
  • 1 tbsp fresh lime juice (or put slices of lime beside the dish)
  • optional toppings: chopped green onion, shredded cheese, avocado, sour cream
  • serve over rice

Directions:

  • in a slow cooker, combine tomatoes, black beans, chicken broth, green chiles, onions and garlic
  • add chicken on the top and season
  • cook on high for 4-6 hours (or on high for 2 hours and then low for 6 hours)
  • when the chicken is cooked, add cilantro and lime juice
  • serve over rice with toppings or also great on tacos or in burritos

but…  if you want to waste about 5 hours of your day wasting your time… try doing this…

first of all, you view a video of someone making something in fast forward on Facebook… many of them are called ‘Tasty’ or ‘Little Things’…

then you look for the recipe only to not be able to find it…

so you pause the video and write down the recipe as it flashes up on the screen…

you go buy all the ingredients and proceed to cook it… only to figure out that it didn’t tell you how many cheesecake cupcakes it was supposed to make… or it left out details about cooking time or temperature… or exactly how to make a caramel sauce…

or you buy 4 packages of cream cheese only to find out that you didn’t need that big of a cheesecake recipe for the little muffin tins you are filling…

and 1/3 of it goes to waste…

when you finally get to the last step which only took 20 seconds on Facebook but has taken you 4 hours to get to…  you realize it might be a bit tricky to make a caramel sauce…

this is after you have burnt sugar onto two pots and ran out of pots and had watched two YouTube videos on making a caramel sauce…

you resort to melting a chocolate bar to pour over the top of the cheesecakes because your supper was running late…

they were delicious… so go for it if you so choose… just don’t expect it to go as quickly as the video you saw on Facebook!

salted pretzel cheesecake cups

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups crushed pretzels
  • 4 tbsp sugar
  • 1 1/2 sticks butter, melted (3/4 cup)
  • 4 (8 oz) pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 tbsp flour
  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 cup pretzels, slightly crushed

Directions:

  • mix the crushed pretzels, sugar and butter
  • press into 24 foil lined muffin trays, around 1 1/2 tbsp per muffin cup
  • bake at 350 for 5 minutes
  • beat cream cheese and sugar until combined
  • add flour and combine
  • add eggs, one at a time, until combined
  • add heavy cream, sour cream and vanilla
  • pour mixture into the muffin cups, filling them to the top
  • there will be left over cheese cake mixture – I greased a pan and poured the mixture into it and baked it separately
  • bake at 350 for 22 minutes
  • chill in fridge for 2 hours
  • to make the caramel sauce, put sugar and water into a pan
  • do not mix with a spoon or whisk, but give the pan a shake occasionally
  • boil until the mixture turns an amber colour
  • using a pastry brush and water, brush down the sides of the pot so the sugar does not crystallize on the sides
  • take off the heat and pour in heavy cream, while standing back as it will react
  • whisk this together and add the butter
  • pour the caramel sauce on the cooled cream cheese cupcakes
  • add some crushed pretzels and serve

meal to the field #10

I’m in Calgary watching Food Network with two of my children in a hotel room… while the farmer is combining canola… and we aren’t in Austin… yes, Austin… if you have been anywhere near me lately you have heard me complain… and then I complained on Facebook today just to really make sure I didn’t miss anyone in my complaining of missing my vacation…

the farmer and I like to do a once a year trip that makes up for the fact we have zero date nights all year long… we have visited baseball and football stadiums, hockey arenas, beaches and concerts…  this was a festival we were going to attend… Austin City Limits… and it sure looked amazing…

food, music and being in a city… doesn’t get much better than that… farmer’s like to vacation to cities… the joy of riding someone else’s subway/metro is just so exhilarating…  instead I had to drive over 5 hours in my Suburban today wreaking of hockey equipment… with a seven year old asking every 13 minutes ‘how long until we get there?’….

now I know everyone reading this would love me to go on and on about how angry I am at the weather for ruining my lovely vacation with my husband… but alas I must talk about food… because we are still combining and the food is still getting made…

black bean salad… this is one of my all time favourites… and so great to make up and take in your lunch until everyone around you is like… ‘how much salad did you make?’… and you say… ‘enough for 2 weeks of lunches… get used to it’…

again… I am a stay-at-home farmer’s wife so I have no idea how lunch conversations go…

my cats and dogs never bug me about what I’m eating…

black bean salad

Ingredients:

  • 4 cans (19 oz) black beans, strained and rinsed
  • 25 oz frozen corn
  • 4 roma tomatoes, diced
  • 2 red bell peppers, chopped
  • 1/2 red onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup green onions, diced
  • 1 can pineapple chunks, chopped
  • 1/2 bunch cilantro, leaves chopped fine
  • 2 jalapeno, seeded and minced
  • 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 2 tsp lime juice
  • 6 tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp ground cumin

Directions:

  • mix all ingredients together
  • let chill for at least 2-3 hours before serving
  • keeps very well in the fridge

my earliest memories of cooking… taco shells… growing up I swear we had tacos once a week if not more… and my mom was so great at letting me make a mess of the kitchen to make the taco shells…

in a time period where packaged food and Costco were just new… this was the one thing my mom drew the line on… we had homemade taco shells… and if you ever taste one… or make one… you will never go back…

mom's taco shells

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 3 cups water

Directions:

  • mix ingredients and let sit for 10 minutes
  • in a 12” saucepan on medium/high heat pour just under 1/2 cup of batter into the saucepan
  • turn the saucepan until the batter has covered the entire bottom of the pan and cook that side until it starts to lift
  • flip and cook the other side for another minute

and the meat that you put in them… well this is what I do… but really go ahead and fill them with whatever you so desire to…

the ground deer is from my son Brandon’s first deer he shot last year…  the bison is from my husband running one off a cliff and recovering the meat…  I made the kids winter boots out of the hide…

oh wait… that’s a lie… Bennett’s have bison and I get it from them… I’m not sure if they run them all off a cliff or not… I haven’t asked…

taco meat

  • Servings: 12-14 taco fillings
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground deer
  • 1 lb ground bison
  • 1 yellow onion, diced
  • 3 tbsp Club House Taco Seasoning (more to taste)
  • 1/2 (398 mL) tomato sauce
  • 1 cup salsa

Directions:

  • fry up meat and onion and add taco seasoning
  • if meat is fatty you will have to strain off the fat before you season it
  • add tomato sauce and salsa


beet cake is my favourite cake…  happy no vacation to me…

  

“beet

Ingredients:
For the Cake:
– 2 medium beets, cleaned and unpeeled
– 2 tsp olive oil
– 3/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed and room temperature
– 1 cup packed brown sugar
– 3/4 cup sugar
– 2 large eggs, room temperature
– 1 tsp vanilla
– 2 cups all purpose flour
– 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1 tsp baking powder
– 1 tsp kosher salt
– 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
For the Frosting:
– 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
– 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
– 4 cups powdered sugar
– 2 tbsp finely grated cooked beets
– 1 tsp vanilla
– 2 tsp milk
– 1/2 tsp lemon juice
– 1/2 tsp kosher salt
Directions:
– wash and cut beets into large chunks… place in tin foil with olive oil and bake on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 1 hour
– remove from oven and open up tin foil and let cool
– in a mixer, combine butter and sugar… add eggs one at a time and then vanilla
– combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt
– alternate flour mixture and buttermilk into the sugar mixture
– finally, add 3/4 cup grated beets
– put into two 9 inch cake pans that have been greased and parchment paper in the bottom of each
– bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until centre of cake is done
– let cool for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a rack and cool
– for the frosting, combine all ingredients and whip
– spread frosting in-between the two cake layers and all around it and on top
– put in fridge for an hour and then slice it and serve it
– to freeze, slice and put individual pieces in containers to freeze