First Friday: Oh Crap, What's in the Freezer?

Alrighty then....so, it's Thursday night, payday isn't till Monday, you have an out of state weekend coming up, so you can't have hubby pick anything up as he comes home, and you got in a wreck last night, so you can't stand comfortably? What's a gal to do? Set the kid free on the kitchen, of course. Oh, and this is probably enough for at least 1 dinner and 1 lunch, if not a 2nd dinner for our family of four (but hubby counts as about 3).

Basically, I got the meat out, and told her to use the tots. She scoured the spices and the fridge, and came up with the meal. Home-school exercise...of course. And a lesson in thinking on the fly...

Krystal's Tater Tots and Ground Beef

3 lbs of home raised ground beef (ok, if you don't have that, I guess you can buy some or use something else, like turkey)
kosher salt
1/2 large can of Ranch Style Beans (because SOMEONE had eaten 1/2 a can and I was cleaning out the fridge)
4 ounces of shredded cheddar (is what we had left)
"some" Old Bay Seasoning
"some" Worcestershire Sauce

1/2 bag of tater tots (this was a LARGE bag)

Brown beef. Drain if necessary. Add spices, and beans. Let simmer for about 15 minutes to meld flavors.

Meanwhile utilize the really cool deep fryer mom got. And fry the tots. (Mom: ok, you can bake the tots. Really. You can. But I wasn't cooking...back hurting, remember?)

To serve, put tots on plate, put beef mixture on tots, put cheese on it all.

Mom and Dad both wanted seconds. Mom did not have seconds. Dad finished off the cooked tots. See, I have will power.

As you can see, she's learning to cook from me. When asked how much of what she put in, she answered "a little of this, a little of that."

Tortillas, How I Love Thee

I know, I know, I promised Spring Rolls. And I promised Friday...but life got in the way, and these tie in so nicely to last weeks bonus recipes, that I don't feel bad. Much.

We love Tex-Mex. I have my own quesadilla recipe, the base of which serves as the base for much of my cooking. Chili, fajitas, quesadillas, you name it. Anything Tex-Mex-y is fair game. But you know, tortillas form the base for much of what we use that recipe on, in and around. We love flour tortillas, but frankly, buying by the 8 pack is cost prohibitive. Honestly, these things are just flour and a bit of other stuff, so why do I have to pay so much for them? I decided to stop making the tortilla company rich, and make my own.

So, I did what I always do. Scoured the net for recipes to adapt to my way of thinking. Unfortunately, there are 2 camps for tortilla making. One camp uses a decent amount of lard or Crisco, the other uses almost no fat what-so-ever. Ever being the scientist, I decided to perform the experiment. I hypothesized that the low-fat tortillas would be blah, and not what we wanted, and the ones made with Crisco would be yummy.

Next step, design the experiment. Simple enough, make two sets of tortillas. Eat them. Decide which are better. This is subjective, and perhaps not quite scientific, but hey, it's about food, right? Pure science this is not.

Here are the two recipes, adapted for our use, with their notes. Don't let the "F" word scare you. Fat, in moderation, is no more a problem in one's diet than anything else.

Low-fat or Texas-style Tortillas

2 cups all-purpose flour (I routinely use unbleached, personal principle)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (I use Kosher, again personal principle)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (cheap stuff here)
3/4 cup warm milk (whole milk, I'd use raw if I had it)

1. Mix the dry ingredients together. Add vegetable oil. Slowly add milk. Stir until a loose, sticky ball forms.
2. Knead for 2 minutes on a floured surface. The resulting ball will be firm and soft.
3. Place dough in a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap or damp cloth. Let rest for 20 minutes.
4. Divide dough into 8 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball. Cover once more with plastic wrap or damp cloth, rest for 10 minutes.
5. Heat griddle. You want this thing hot, but don't burn down your house.
6. While griddle is heating, roll out first ball of dough. In my experiments (I made this recipe twice), six to seven inches is about as big as I can get it and keep it round. I have a lousy rolling pin. Flour the pin and rolling surface lightly to prevent sticking.
7. Place tortilla on hot griddle.
8. Roll out next tortilla. Flip the tortilla on the griddle as it browns on the underside and starts bubbling as the air inside expands. Cook on second side for about 30 or so seconds until desired brownness is achieved. Remove from griddle and set aside to cool on a rack.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you are finished.
10. Serve as desired.

Oh, my goodness, these were so good. Chewy, delicious. Filled with refried beans and the aforementioned Tex-Mex base, grated cheese and sour cream....Yummy!

Fat Version

2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Crisco or lard (I used Crisco. The local grocery doesn't carry lard.)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup warm water.

1. Mix flour, salt and baking powder.
2. Cut in Crisco
3. Follow the directions as above. Really, it's simple.

These roll out to 8 inches fairly easily, and 10 inches is do-able. They were not as nice a texture as the Texas version was, and needed some more salt. Adjust to your taste. I will have home-rendered lard this fall, so that may make a bit of a difference.

Rest assured, I will be conducting more experiments to determine the best ratios for our tastes. Use the base, adjust according to your tastes, really. It's not rocket science. And 99.99% of the time you can eat your mistakes! They may not be perfect, and honestly, I very, very rarely have anything come out so bad as to not be repeated. Ever. Twice in 10 years of marriage. Not a bad thing, really. There have been many things I've told my husband he is not to make again. Ever.

Experiments, and Why They Should Be Performed in the Kitchen

If you are anything like me, you can pull together a meal using about a handful of recipes in your head. There's a slight amount of variation depending on what happens to be in the kitchen at the time, but mostly, dinner consists of the same old same old. Gets old quick, doesn't it. Then, you lose your desire to cook, and when the helpful souls in the household won't give you any ideas of what they want, your motivation just goes right out the window.

So, the kids are gone for 10 days. I could just make tuna pasta salad. Again. Or roast chicken quarters. Again. Or, I could start playing around in the kitchen. Again! I like to play, just don't have the time for it, usually.

We like Tex-Mex. But honestly, tortillas and refried beans and all the fixin's are expensive. So, I reasoned out to myself that there had to be a cheaper alternative. I have a crockpot. I can make beans, right? So, with a goal in mind, I set out on a research trip in front of my trusty search engine and came up with several recipes that looked tasty enough, and easy. I thought this was hard stuff! Boy, was I wrong. Now, it does take some time, but very little of it is hands on.

Here's what I ended up doing for refried beans, sans the refried part.

1 pound pinto beans
1 vidalia onion
1 red onion
6 cloves of garlic
some cumin
some salt

1. Pick through the beans, toss the bad ones and any rocks you may find.
2. Put beans in crockpot and cover with about 3 inches if water, let soak overnight.
3. Drain beans.
4. Cover them once more with about 3 inches of water. Peel onions, chop in quarters, toss in pot. Peel garlic, toss in pot. Add cumin. Set crock pot on low for 10 hours, walk away.
5. When beans are done, pick out the onion. Send onion to compost pile. (You do have one, right?)
6. Drain beans, reserving at least some of the bean juice.
7. Mash the beans up to desired consistency, adding salt to taste. Add bean juice as needed.
8. Place in airtight container covered w/ some juice if you aren't gonna use it up right away.

NOTES: I'd guess I added about 2 tsp of cumin. I never measure these things. It required a fair amount of salt to get the taste right, but that's a personal thing.

NOW, you can fry these up in bacon grease, olive oil, or whatever, but frankly, I don't wanna. They taste far better already than any refried beans I ever tried, and they have very little fat. I left the garlic in for taste. You can leave it in or take it out, as you wish.

What am I gonna do with this stuff? Well, today I'm making tortillas, I'll let you know how that turns out. The plan is to make burritos for my crew's lunches.

This turned out really good. I had about 2/3 cup with a wedge of the cornbread...YUMMY!