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I met her in the sixth grade. I don’t know how long it took us to become the crazy duo but we did. Then, on her birthday, she invited me and another friend to her house for her birthday. Her mother made tacos.
Tacos. Let’s just say you’ve never had tacos that tasted quite like this or quite so good. They were delicious. No, that’s an insulting understatement. They were the most incredibly marvelous things I’d ever eaten and my mom is an amazing cook… takes a lot to get me to even hint that anyone can beat mom at anything. These tacos did it. I craved those tacos. I dream of those tacos. There is nothing on this earth that is even remotely as impressive as those tacos.
I spent a lot of time there… and we ate tacos. The church had a dinner… and we had tacos. I went to her wedding… and we had tacos. She had a birthday party for her eldest child… and we had tacos. Oh those yummy tacos.
Then she started making them for a private school. I convinced her to come to a craft fair we have here every year. She came. She served frijoles, arroz, and yep… tacos. (Ok, she also sold nachos, apples with caramel over them, churros, and fruit smoothies.) The town went wild. She was the hit of Ridgecrest.
She moved. I haven’t had her tacos in ages. And then… she decided to share them with the world. So, without further ado, I give you the best tacos on the planet that you can now make in your own home (it’ll be an awfully close second to the original!!!)
I usually call this dish “Triscuit Chicken” but honestly, the point of the Triscuits is to mask the veggies for a certain male in my life who loves Triscuits and doesn’t care much for stir-fry vegetables.
Main Ingredients:
2 cooked chicken chests, chopped to bite sizes. (Hint: technically it’s one full chest instead of 2 parts)
1 bag frozen stir fry veggies. (no sauce or glop… just the veggies ma’am.
Mix in buttered dish. Add a sprinkling of garlic power, diced onions (either fresh or dried) and Lawrey’s Seasoned Salt.
In a sauce pan:
Melt half a stick of butter. Add the juice from the cooked chicken and/or chicken broth/bullion added to water. You need somewhere around 3 cups. Add 3-4TBS of cornstarch to 1/8-1/4 cup of very cold water and stir fast. When mixed, add to sauce pan (it should be close to boiling or at least very hot. Stir until thickened. Put a bunch of pepper in. Like this
Pour over the chicken veggie mix and stir. Layer with Triscuits.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350° for about 30-45 minutes. Remove aluminum foil and top with crumbled ones (if you want a crunchy top) Sprinkle heavily with parmesean cheese (If you use the kind from the CAN like some of us do… snort) Otherwise, wait’ll you add it to plates before you use any parmesean.
Put back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Remove. Let sit for 10 minutes. Serve.
MMMM
This is a real treat around here because I’m too cheap to spend the money on Triscuits. But, occasionally I do it as a way to suck up to the male who would rather never see another snow pea or water chestnut again.
Oh, and while it’s baking, if you’re a gal like me who likes WOOD *gasp* cutting boards and refuses to get into the plastic/corian craze, then maybe it’d be a good time to bleach and season your board! Just thought I’d remind you. They last a lot longer if you keep them seasoned!
It’s quite simple to make. I don’t know why I don’t do it more often. Well, I lied. I do know. I always assume it’s more work than it really is. So, here is Fried Okra in all it’s simple glory.
Ingredients:
1 Bag (or 2 or 3) of Frozen Cut Okra now defrosted. (It helps to use defrosted okra rather than fresh so you can help the coating stick well.)
Pour into a gallon sized zip lock bag…
1/2 cup of cornmeal
1/4 cup of flour (to be honest, I just pour some of each and try to get twice the cornmeal to flour)
A few shakes of salt
A few shakes of pepper.
Zip and shake.
Add the okra. Zip and shake again. Lay aside.
In a large skillet with a lid, heat a small layer of oil (fully covered bottom plus a smidge). When the oil is hot, scoop the okra out of the ziplock bag with a slotted spoon. Cook until one side is browned and crispy, turn over. Keep the pan covered except for the last 5 minutes or so.
KRINGLER NORWEGIAN STYLE
Pastry base:
1 c. all-purpose or unbleached flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 c. butter
1 tbsp. water
TOPPING:
1 c. water
1/2 c. butter
1 c. all-purpose flour or unbleached flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. almond extract
3 eggs
GLAZE:
1 c. powdered sugar
1 tbsp. half and half
1 tbsp. butter
2 to 3 tsp. almond extract
Heat oven to 375 degrees. In medium bowl, combine 1 cup flour and 1 tablespoon sugar. Using pastry blender or fork, cut in 1/2 cup butter until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle flour mixture with 1 tablespoon water while tossing and mixing lightly with fork.
On ungreased cookie sheet, form dough into 2 (14 x 3-inch) rectangles. (or spread out on a pizza stone.)
In medium saucepan, heat 1 cup water and 1/2 cup butter to boiling; remove from heat. Add 1 cup flour; stir until smooth. Beat in 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Spread topping mixture over base. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned.
In small bowl, combine glaze ingredients. Drizzle glaze over slightly cooled Kringler. (also is really good with sliced or slivered almonds on top)
Yield: 20 servings. (Tiny ones anyway)
Ingredients
2 Zucchini
1/2 onion
2 cans stewed or diced tomatoes (I prefer “Italian style”)
Sprinkle of salt, pepper, and garlic.
Chop the Zucchini into bite sized pieces
Like This
Place in medium sauce pan
Add chopped onions...
Add the tomatoes
Let stew for a while and then Voila! Yummy!
So I’m working on dinner right now. Chicken Pot Pie.
Ingredients:
3 cooked and chopped chicken chests
3 medium sized potatoes (5 of the smaller red potato kind if you prefer) chopped into bite sized pieces.
2 stalks celery chopped into bite sized pieces.
2 carrots chopped into bite sized pieces.
1/2 onion chopped finely
1 cup frozen peas
Liberal sprinkling of dill weed
(small can/jar of mushrooms if you like em!!!)
Grease a 13×9″ glass baking pan (or your favorite casserole pan approximately the same size) and pour the above ingredients in. Mix together.
Gravy
3/4 stick of butter- melted
3/4 cup of flour
Liberal sprinkling of Lawrey’s Seasoned Salt
Liberal sprinkling of pepper
Liberal sprinkling of garlic powder or a few cloves minced garlic (2 TBS or so if you buy it minced)
2-3 cups of chicken broth
Melt butter in pan, stir in flour until pasty, slowly pour in broth, and then add spices as it thickens.
Pour over pan of chicken mixture. Stir.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour.
Then, cover with pie crust, cut off excess, and bake at 400 for 25 minutes.
I’m serving with salad and our favorite zucchini dish.
Oh. And Lemon pie. Yum.
So I was talking to Cecelia and mentioned I needed to go make egg salad for lunch. She asked how I make it and then asked me to take pictures as I did it. Now, I’m not exactly sure why or if I’m crazy for doing it but I thought, “why not?” and went to town.
Now one thing you must know is that I don’t really use recipes. I’m more of a “dump some here and plop some there kind of cook so I’m guesstimating. I’m no Ree and wouldn’t try to be. But for Cecelia, I offer you, Egg Salad.
Egg Salad
10 Eggs (or 8 or 12 or even an odd number like 9!)
2 large cooking spoons full of mayo (or three or one…)
1 large eating spoon full of dijon mustard (or a healthy swirl over the eggs)
1 large eating spoon heaped with relish
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Parmasean Cheese (a bunch… like maybe oh… four or five shakes)
2 TBS (or a couple of big pinches) of Dill
1/4 Onion (finely chopped. I love green onion best but rarely have it. Purple is GOOD. White works.)
2 full stalks of celery. Or three. Or maybe 1… depends on the eggs.
PS… sunflower seeds are good in there too. I rarely have them.
1. Peel the eggs. Put in bowl.
2. Squirt the mustard. You’ll cut it later. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
3. Parmesean. I usually like more but it was clumpy and I didn’t feel like getting a knife and chopping it up.
4. Add the mayo, relish, dill, salt, and pepper.
5. Chop the celery and onion. I didn’t need this picture but I thought it was pretty so I took it. I get to do that. Cook’s perogative.
5. Add celery and onion
6 Mash well with potato masher.
Eat on whole wheat, sourdough, dill, or rye breads. Also excellent on pitas and wrapped in tortillas. For low carbers, wrap in a cabbage leaf. It’s yummified.
Those who are familiar with he Confessions of a Pioneer Woman blog should be familiar with Marlboro Man’s Sandwich. She’s kind of famous for it and rightfully so. It is a huge favorite of all of us here in the barren blistered end of creation and with my geek computer scientist of a husband as well.
No, Kevin doesn’t wear chaps although the ladies at our old church used to oggle his legs at softball games. Instead of chaps, he dons cycling shorts and rides 20 miles at 20 mph in hundred degree weather, sometimes up a VERY steep hill all in the name of fun. I think that sounds an awful lot like guys who ride crazed calves for fun or at least it does in a geek-cowboy comparison way.
As for Mayhem, well, that was Kevin’s High School and College nickname. No, he’s not a total crazed lunatic of a geek. He’s the typical quiet shy one… but with a name like Havig… and considering the first time I met him I went home and said, “Mom, guess what, there’s a guy at church whose last name is Havoc!!!”, it isn’t surprising that they took a spin off of the mispronunciation to give him as a nickname. Well, that and guys like to do silly things like call big huge giant of guys “Tiny” and skinny guys “Chubbers.”
Anyway, we love this sandwich. It’s good stuff. Very good stuff. There is only one tiny flaw in it. The cubed steak. You see, cubed steak is expensive. It’s 4.00 a pound. We need 5-6 lbs. of meat for our crew. That’s 24.00 just in meat. Then there are the three packages of rolls (Two is usually great but if we’re sharing at all, we really need 3.)
So, our family, in an effort to be frugal, would buy 1.77 lb. London Broil, or 1.99 lb chuck steaks and pound them to death for two hours before time to eat. We’ve all developed biceps in our right arms and nothing in our left (Kind of like that guy in Lady in the Water. But, considering it cuts the cost in half, we figured it was P.E. and gave the kids credit if they helped, not many thought it was worth it though. They kept volunteering to ride with daddy on his next bike trek. Whatever.
Today, I was wanting these. I stood at the meat counter and drooled over raw beef. London Broil stared back at me mocking. I could hear it. “Neener, neener, neener… You’ll have to beat me… lit-er-all-y.” Then it turned blood red when it realized what it was saying but a thought occurred to me. It grew. It blossomed. I jumped for joy. Ok, actually I just put 12 lbs of that stuff in my cart but when you consider my lack of affection for shopping as is evidenced by today’s earlier blog, it’s the same.
This is the new and revised lazy mom’s way of making the mahvelous sandwich.
Ingredients: (Which Ree charmingly calls “cast of characters”… maybe because she’s such a character herself.)
Beef. However much you usually use pound-wise for Ree’s Authentic Marlboro Man’s Favorite Sandwich.
Crockpot: Put half a stick of butter in the crockpot. Put the meat on top. Sprinkle liberally with Lawrey’s Seasoned Salt and Worchestershire Sauce. Cook on high for like 5 hours.
When meat is done, do what she does… chop the onions etc..
I tried using less butter… and only one onion…
But it didn’t work…
So I added more. (I thought about takign my own step by step thingies… but I changed my mind)
So you take the beef out and shred it. But upon reflection, next time I’ll do it in the pan. Add to pan just like she did the raw beef but be prepared… dinner is almost done.. you don’t have to cook it so it’s time to work fast. Add more and more Worchestershire sauce until it tastes “right” and voila!
OOPS! Should have shown the big cooked piece to show how it flaked. Oh well…
Pour that over it too… cause it’s good that way.
My apologies Ree… I know it’s not authentic… but it’s REEal good! Thank- you for making both my family AND my budget happy… even if by proxy on the budget portion.
Seriously. It isn’t!
See. Toldja!
It’s the easiest thing in the world and is SO GOOD.
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Bake a white cake
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Mix a large box of vanilla pudding
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Wash and drain 6 packages of your favorite berry. (We used blackberries)
Then it’s just a matter of slicing cake layers, swiping with pudding layer, positioning berries. Sprinking with a smidge of sugar. And then……….
WAIT! Let it all soak together in excellent yumminess.
fills one trifle dish or two straight sided glass dishes (like I used)
Gotta get me a regular trifle dish when my kitchen’s done.
After Scotch Broth, we’re having TRIFLE!
Otherwise known as, “The Desperate Housewife’s Meal Salvation.” Desperate as in, otherwise we don’t eat, not as in Hollywood’s vile version. Thought you ought to know.
Cooked chicken chests. Say… 2?
Bag of bow tie noodles.
Bag of stir fry veggies
Stick o’ butter
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Lawrey’s Seasoned Salt
Rice Wine Vinegar (or something like that)
Sesame Oil
Chicken broth (from can, bullion, base…. you name it)
Half & Half if you have it. Totally not necessary as is half the stuff up there.
Boil water and cook noodles like you’re supposed to. This isn’t rocket science.
Chop chicken if you haven’t yet.
Melt butter in frying pan
Stir in chicken, broth, half and half, stirfry veggies… oh phooey, just stick it all in there. Shake the onion and garlic powders to taste. If it’s not a “Throw it together” dinner, use fresh. It’s better but the other stuff works.
Cook until veggies are how you like them or the noodles are done or both.
Drain noodles, top with veggie/chicken mixture, and serve.
YUM. Particularly yummy with croissant rolls. Thought you oughtta know.
