It's Almost July, Already?

Can you believe how fast the summer is going. Unbelievable. We have been a fish eating crew this week, well, fish and chicken.

Sunday, I took some ling cod of out the freezer and grilled it. We had a baked potato with guacamole on it. Really good. And sliced tomatoes.

Monday we had salmon burgers. Costco does a really good salmon patty. It's all salmon and is really good. I grilled them and then we had sauteed onion on the top as well as avocado, dijon mustard or wasabi mayo, and tomato and lettuce. On my famous multigrain buns. The recipe for the buns is on the blog. Chips and guac were the sides.

Tuesday, I left to go pick up Lili. It was a lot of traveling, but I got her back to Elko on Wednesday evening.

Wednesday we had grilled salmon, fried yukon gold potatoes and onions and spring peas cooked in butter in the saute pan.

Last night it was Mexican.

Mexican Rice.

1 cup of rice
1 tbs. olive oil
2 tomatoes, grated
1/4 onion
1 clove garlic
2 cups of chicken stock

In a shallow pan, heat the oil and saute the rice until golden brown.
Blend the tomatoes, onion and garlic in the blender and then add to the rice along with the chicken stock. Let it cook just like you would for any other rice. You know it's done when there are dimples in the rice. Your rice will have a pretty red gold color.

Black Beans

2 15 oz. cans of black beans
1 15 oz. can of chicken stock
1 clove of garlic
juice of 1/2 lime
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
1 tsb. of olive oil
1.5 tsp of cumin

Place the olive oil in a pan, heat it, and then add the pepper, cumin, and garlic, when they are softened about one minute.

Drain the beans and add them along with the chicken stock. Add the lime and cook down until most of the liquid has been evaporated. Mash slightly with a potato masher and serve.

Chicken Enchiladas (serves 4)

1 bottle of mexican beer
1 whole onion sliced
2 tsps cumin
1 tsp chili powder
2 cloves of minced garlic
2 tbs. olive oil

Place all of the above in a shallow pan with three chicken breasts. Let this marinate for at least an hour, 4 or 5 is better.

8 flour tortillas
2 small cans of pato mexican red sauce
2 cups of mixed mexican cheeses
2 tbs of olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan, drain the marinade away from the chicken and onions and then put them in the saute pan. Cook until the chicken is done and the onions are caramelized. Slice the chicken thinly, or pull it with a fork.

Heat the red sauce and then pour into a shallow dish large enough to dunk your flour tortillas in.

Take a tortilla, dunk it in the red sauce, place about 3 tbs. of chicken and onion, and 2 tbs. of cheese in the center of the tortilla and roll it up. Place it in a greased 8 x 8 casserole dish, continue with the other seven tortillas.

Cover with remaining cheese and bake at 375 for 25 -35 minutes. When it is bubbly and the cheese is golden, take it out.

Why Am I Soooooo Busy?????

Why, if I have the summer off, am I so busy? I guess part of it is that I am making bread for a bakery here in town. Made twelve loaves of challah on Friday, and am going to make multigrain bread on Monday.

We have been eating pretty light this week, as Rob has still been sick and off his feed. Monday it was fish, Tuesday we had lamb chops. Rob says they make him feel better. I grilled them on the grill and we had left over green beans with rice.

Wednesday we went to the Star and I had halibut. Thursday we had leftovers. Friday we had stuffed chicken breasts. Here is the recipe:

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

2 chicken breasts butterflied open
1 small onion diced
5 sun dried tomatoes diced
2 garlic cloves diced
3/4 c. parmesan cheese
1 8 ounce package of frozen spinach
salt and pepper to taste
fresh thyme and oregano

Saute all the vegetables in olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste after you add the parmesan cheese. Fill the chicken breasts and then saute the breasts in olive oil.

We had broad beans mixed with the leftover filling as the side dish.

Good meal.

Saturday, I pulled leftover spaghetti sauce out of the freezer and we had spaghetti. So very easy.

Going to make bread again this next week twice for Trinity at the bakery and am picking up Lili on Wednesday.

I am Soooooo busy.

Summer, and the Living is Easy?

I've been off work a week. Well done with classroom teaching anyway. I don't feel like I've been off work though. Rob has had some kind of horrible crud this last weekend. He's at work today, but missed work yesterday. He hates to miss work so he was really sick.

Last night I did some grilling just so that I wouldn't have to clean up a lot of dishes. It was the aluminium foil meal on the grill last night.

Potatoes ala Grill Paquette

1/2 lb. of golden fingerling potatoes cut into small pieces
1 tsp of kosher salt
2 tbs of olive oil drizzled over the potatoes
1 tbs. of fresh lemon-thyme

Put all this on two squares of aluminium foil and seal it up. Put it on the grill for about 15 minutes.

Green Beans with Almonds and Garlic

Fresh Green Beans, about 3/4 of a pound, trimmed and washed
1.5 tsps of minced garlic
and 3 tbs. of slivered or sliced almonds

Again, put it into the foil and grill it about the same time as the potatoes. Please make sure you are careful, the almonds and the green beans will burn if you don't turn it frequently.

Salmon

1 nice salmon fillet. Not a steak, but a fillet.
lemon pepper
lemon thyme
1 tsp. of olive oil

I grilled the salmon on the grill. Cover the salmon with the olive oil, and then grind the lemon pepper onto both sides. Cook until done and then cover with lemon thyme.

Without the Bacon Please

What do you do when you don't eat bacon for breakfast or any other meal for that matter? I now have the best substitute. We've eaten turkey bacon, (which is okay), and we've even tried the soy kind (which is not okay).

But the best idea I've come up with is turkey pastrami. It's sliced really thin, it has a nice peppery taste to it, and when you cook it up with a little oil in the pan, it's like the crispiest bacon you could ever want.

So, try it, turkey pastrami nee bacon.

Venison Flank Steak

I've got to clean out the freezer because Rob got an Elk tag and and a deer tag, so I pulled out a venison flank steak to have for dinner. The one problem with cooking venison is that it doesn't have a lot of fat in it, so you really have to watch to make sure it doesn't dry out.

I put the flank steak in a dish and covered it with at least 1/2 to 3/4 cup of salsa, the spicier the better, tomato, onion, and pepper, with cilantro, etc. I then added 1 bottle of tecate beer and 1/2 cup of beef stock. I added a little black pepper and some salt, but not much because the stock and salsa are pretty salty.

Let it marinate for at least two hours, but five or six would be better. Heat up your grill and put the steak on. You want about 1o minutes per side. Not more, because you don't want venison leather, you want nice juicy meat.

I served this with spicy black beans, spanish rice, and guacamole. Put it all in a flour tortilla and you have a real treat.