Oven Fajitas

This is a dinner that we have pretty often. We all love it, but what makes it one of my favorites is that I can put it together ahead of time so I'm not standing over a stove during Crazy Hour. It would probably make a great crock-pot recipe, although I've never tried it. You can use store bought fajita seasoning or make a big batch of this seasoning and keep it in the cupboard.

In a greased 9x13 pan, toss 1-2 lbs chicken breasts, a sliced onion and a couple of peppers, seeded and sliced. Drizzle a bit of olive oil and 2 T of the fajita seasoning below. Bake at 350 until the chicken is done. Serve with tortillas, sour cream and limes

Here's the fajita seasoning. This makes enough for several batches.

1/4 cup cornstarch
2 T chili powder
4 tsp salt
4 tsp paprika
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin

Simplicity in Meal Planning

I do not like meal planning.  It takes FOREVER!  I know it shouldn’t be that hard.  I should just put recipes I like into a recipe box and when I go to meal plan, pull out 7 recipes and… Done!  Some people are really bad at math.  I am really bad at meal planning.  It is so hard!  Many people make a recipe out of a cook book or online and if they like it, they write it down, print it out or just remember where it is for future reference.  I don’t do that.  Why?  If it takes too much time to make, I don’t bother keeping it.  If it doesn’t taste REALLY good, I don’t bother keeping it.  If a recipe requires too many ingredients, if it is good, but the leftovers are not, if it doesn’t fit in my budget, I don’t keep it.  Unless a recipe is healthy, easy, delicious, inexpensive, heavenly, makes a great leftover, quick… I don’t bother keeping it.  Even if it meets all these criteria, sometimes I don’t have ink in my printer so I don’t print it and then I forget about it.  Can we say PICKY?  So, without a compilation of recipes, when it comes time to meal plan, it takes 10 hours of pouring through cook books and online cooking sites.  I could go on for hours about why meal planning is so complicated for me.   Whatever the cause of this mental block/pickiness/whatever you want to call it, the point is, I do not like meal planning.

In Thomas S. Monson’s biography “To the Rescue,” Heidi S. Swinton says “Sunday dinner was a big event in the Monson home, featuring roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes.  On Monday the family ate leftovers from Sunday dinner.  On Tuesday they had stew from the end of the roast.  Wednesday they had pork chops, and on Thursday a sirloin steak that fed everyone at the table.  Friday was lamb chops or fish, and Saturday link-sausage sandwiches.  Variations included lima beans and ham one night, homemade meat pies another.”  Oh my word!!!  When I read this I seriously think I heard angels singing!  Can you imagine repeating the same menu every week?  It could be a bit boring, but you'd be done meal planning for life!!!  Imagine only having to stock ingredients for seven meals.  In our culture, it's Mexican food one day, Italian the next, American the next, Chinese the next, and some sort of mix of all of them the next.  We probably only repeat the same dinner twice a year.  How wonderful and tasty, but how complicated!  I'm all for variety, but something about the simplicity of Sister Monson's menu is so refreshing. 

Any thoughts?  Could you eat the same things week after week?  If you had to eat a repeating menu every week for the rest of your life, what would you cook?  I would LOVE to do this.  This isn’t to say I would never eat anything different.  I could switch out a meal anytime I wanted to try a new recipe or make something out of my non-existent recipe collection.  It would just be a base that I would not have to modify, but could if I wanted.  I really want your input.  What is a meal  you could eat once a week for dinner? 

Beef and Cheese Manicotti

Beef and Cheese Manicotti

This recipe was great. It comes from a recipe by Giada de Laurentis on FoodNetwork.com. I find myself getting most of my online recipes from Food Network. There are many great recipe sites, but this is just the site I am comfortable with. 

4 t Olive Oil

1 medium Onion, coarsely chopped

1 lb Ground Beef

Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper

14 (8oz package) Manicotti

1 (15 oz) container Whole-Milk Ricotta

3 cups shredded Mozzarella

1 cup grated Parmesan

2 T chopped fresh Italian Parsley Leaves

2 Garlic Cloves, minced

3 cups Marinara Sauce

2 T Butter, cut into pieces

Heat a heavy medium skillet over medium heat. Add 1 t of the olive oil, onion, and ground beef. Season with salt and pepper. Saute until the meat browns and the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, and cool.

Brush 1 t of oil over a large baking sheet. Cook the manicotti in a large pot of boiling salted water until slightly softened, but still very firm to the bite, about 4 to 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to the manicotti from the pot to the oiled baking sheet and cool. 

Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, 1 1/2 to 2 cups mozzarella cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan, and parsley. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper to taste, and mix. Stir the cooled meat mixture into the cheese mixture.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Brush the remaining 2 t oil over a 13 by 9 2-in glass baking dish. Spoon 1 1/2 cups of the marinara sauce over the bottom of the prepared dish. Fill the manicotti with the cheese-meat mixture. Arrange the stuffed pasta in a single layer int he prepared baking dish and spoon the remaining sauce over.

Sprinkle the remaining 1 1/2 cups of mozzarella cheese, then the remaining 1/2 cup of Parmesan over the stuffed pasta. Dot entire dish with the butter pieces. Bake the manicotti uncovered until heated through and the sauce bubbles on the sides of the dish, about 30 to 35 minutes. Let the manicotti stand 5 minutes and serve.

Lion House Rolls

Lion House Dinner Rolls with Honey Butter

To set the record straight, I did not bake these with whole wheat to be healthy. It was the only flour I had on hand. They still turned out soft and light with whole wheat, but I was definitely craving the white.

I know these aren't very pretty, but I go through the reason why at the bottom of this post. They still tasted great, though.

ROLLS

2 T Yeast
2 cups Warm Water
1/3 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Shortening, Margarine, or Butter
2 t Salt
2/3 cup Nonfat Dry Milk (get this in the baking section of a store)
1 Egg
5 to 6 cups All-Purpose Flour
Butter or Margarine, Melted

In a large bowl, mix yeast and water and let stand 5 minutes. Add sugar, shortening, salt, dry milk, egg, and 2 cups of flour. Beat together until smooth. Gradually add remaining flour until soft dough is formed.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Place into a greased bowl; cover and let rise until dough doubles in bulk. Punch down; divide into thirds.

Roll out one third of dough into a circle; cut into 12 pie-shaped pieces. Starting at the wide end, roll up each piece into a crescent. Place on greased baking sheet with point on bottom. Repeat with remainder of dough.

Brush tops with melted butter or margarine. Let rise until double in size. Bake at 400 F for 15 minutes. Serve warm with honey butter, if desired. Make 3 dozen rolls.

HONEY BUTTER 

1/2 cup Softened Butter
1/4 t Vanilla
1 Egg Yolk
1 cup Honey

Whip butter. Add in vanilla and egg yolk. Gradually whip in honey until light and fluffy. Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Learn from my mistakes:

1. I didn't read the instructions before I made the honey butter and I ended up mixing all the ingredients before whipping the butter. It didn't work. The butter still tasted good, but it was more of a thick sauce than a fluffy butter. 
2. I must have had my brain working backwards when I read about how to roll up the dough. I started with the small end instead of the wide end. My rolls aren't very pretty, and I think this is the main reason why. 

Chocolate and Caramel Dipped Apples

Chocolate and Caramel Dipped Apples

Fall is a very quick season in Utah, so in an efforts to recognize the couple weeks of it we do have, I decided to make caramel apples. I used to make caramel apples at Zwahlens, but I was never involved in actually making the caramel or prepping the apples; I only dipped the apples. My co-worker made some recently but the caramel did not stick to the apples because of the wax that comes on apples to make them shiny and appealing. I was worried I would suffer the same fate, but they actually turned out great.

At few notes:

• Non-Stick Pan It is very important that you place the apples on a truly non-stick surface once they are coated. This could be a silpat (silicon baking sheet), parchment paper, or buttered wax paper or pan. I got two silpats for Christmas last year and I never bake without them. I never have to scrub a baking sheet, unless something goes over the edge.
• Refrigeration I don't like to refrigerate chocolate-dipped items because the chocolate gets dew on the outside and then when you put it at room temperature, the chocolate is discolored where the dew was. This may not happen for you, but it is what I've experienced.
• Wax on Apples This may not be good for you, but I washed my apples with dish soap, hoping it would remove some of the wax. If I had been at Sprouts I would have purchased organic apples because they are not much more expensive and  they will not have wax on them. I have also heard the suggestion to rub the outside of the apples with sand paper to remove the wax and create more surface area for the caramel to stick to (like scoring both ends of clay before attaching them together...).
• Type of Apple I don't know about different types of apples, but I'd advise using a crispy apple. I used fuji, which was nearly at the point of being too soft, but were okay. Stay away from red delicious apples. There is nothing worse than a mushy caramel apple. Well, maybe a few things are worse.
• Variety Have fun with these: use different types of chocolate on the outside, dip them in candy corn or M&Ms or nuts, dip the caramel apples in white chocolate and then in cinnamon sugar

Chocolate and Caramel Dipped Apples

Makes 5

5 Apples, washed, well dried

1 pkgs (13oz) Caramels

2 T Water

1/2 cup Chocolate (I recommend Ghirardelli Melting Wafers; these are sold in white and dark at most grocery stores)

1. Insert wooden skewer or Popsicle stick into the stem end of each apple. Prepare a surface to place the caramel apples on (silpat, parchment paper, or buttered wax paper).

2. Cook unwrapped caramels and water in a small or medium saucepan on medium-low heat until caramels are completely melted, stirring constantly.

3. Dip apples in caramel. You can tip the pan to the side so the caramel gathers in one spot. Then spin the apple in the caramel, about 1/2" from the stem. Set the pan flat and hold the apple till it stops dripping. Scrape the caramel from the bottom of the apple, then place on the non-stick surface.

4. Refrigerate for 1 hour. This will help cool the apple after being placed in hot caramel and will help cool and solidify the caramel.

5. Melt chocolate according to directions. Dip the same way as the caramel, except dip a little further away from the stem to give it the nice layered look. 

6. If you can wait, let the chocolate cool before eating. 

Best Brownies in Great Valley 2.0 aka One-Bowl Brownies

I'm in the process of making a brownie mosaic cheesecake and I wanted to let you all in on a stream-lining tip I discovered. The cheesecake involves making a batch of brownies, cutting them into cubes and folding them into the cheesecake batter. I really wanted to use BB in GV, but balked at the idea of using three mixing bowls to make just one component of the cake. The one-bowl brownie suggested in the recipe I was using (smitten kitchen) used baking chocolate, which I don't have. So, I used her one-bowl method with the BB in GV ingredients and...it totally worked! I'm never using three mixing bowls again.

Here's what you do:

350F

greased 9x13

In large mixing bowl, heat 2.5 sticks of butter until just melted. Mix in 3/4 cup cocoa. Add 2 cups sugar. Add 4 eggs and 1tsp vanilla, mixing until smooth. Add 1 1/3 cups flour and sprinkle in 1 tsp each salt and baking powder. Mix until smooth (I recommend using a wooden spoon) then add chocolate chips or nuts. Bake 30 min.