Baked Chimichangas with Spanish Rice

One of hubby’s favorite meals.

I think the cinnamon and cloves really give these a great flavor so I hope if trying you won’t skip it.

Baked Chimichangas

1 pound lean ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup stewed tomato with green chilies, home canned or can use Rotel
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
pinch dried oregano
pinch cumin
7 or 8 homemade tortillas according to how full you fill them

Brown your ground beef and drain any excess grease. Add all ingredients but tortillas and simmer about 10 minutes.

Place a couple heaping spoonfuls of this filling in the middle of each tortillas and roll burrito style. Place on a well sprayed cookie sheet about a half inch apart and then spray the tops of each. Bake in a 375 degree oven about 25 to 30 minutes.

Spanish Rice

1 cup stewed tomatoes with green chilies,  home canned or can use Rotel
1 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons chili powder
3/4 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon cumin
3/4 cup white rice

Place all ingredients but rice in a covered pot and bring to a boil.  Add rice and cover tightly.  Lower heat to simmer and don’t uncover for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from heat and fluff with a fork.

Shared with Tell Em Tuesday Link Up

Tortillas and Disillusionment

My mind pictures this wonderful, plyable, bendable, fillable tortilla made with cauliflower.

I see them all over the internet, rolled, bendable, perfect, and cauliflower based, but this is how mine end up.

I have come to a conclusion that I will never be able to substitute cauliflower for flour. I’m not saying others don’t have success. I simply don’t.

With Cinco De Mayo coming up next week I need usable tortillas. While mine never come out perfectly round, I can fill and bend them without looking like an earthquake struck.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil of your choice
Water to form a stiff dough

Mix all with a fork until a stiff dough forms. Divide into golf ball size pieces and flatten. Roll each piece individual with a rolling pin to a tortillas shape. Fry on a hot griddle flipping once.

Bend, fill, and eat, as desired.
Make 8 tortillas at 120 calories each

Sabotage Again

All the times I try to eat healthy is for naught.  It always occurs.

One of the big saboteur is this little voice in my head that forces me to use up leftovers.

Have I said we always use leftovers?  Like 100 times maybe?

Anyway, I had leftover cauliflower mash that needed to be utilized. Since hubby wanted breakfast for supper, he does that often, I decided to use the leftover mash in some Tator Tots to accompany “breakfast”.

This uses about a cup of cauliflower to 3 peeled and shredded potatoes.

Nothing healthy about it. Sabotage.

3 peeled and shredded potatoes
1 cup leftover cauliflower mashed
1 teaspoon Italian herbs
2 tablespoons flour
Salt and pepper

Preheat a fryer.

Put potatoes in a covered microwave container and microwave on high 3 minutes.

Remove lid and stir to cool a bit. Press down on the potato with a paper towel to remove excess water. Stir in remaining ingredients well using plenty of salt and pepper.

Form into little tot sized balls. If you keep your hands a little damp with cool water they are easier to work with.

Deep fry in a preheated Fry Daddy, or other fryer, until golden. They may not come out perfect “tot” shapes but different is good sometimes.

Remove and drain on paper towels. Serve warm.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Is nothing sacred?  I can’t believe I want to mess around with pizza, of all things.

I love pizza crust but I want to eat a little healthier and this cauliflower crust seemed healthy.

The good news is it tasted awesome. The bad news is it fell apart in the middle. We ate it with a fork.

I topped it with sauce, salami, hamburger, mushrooms, green peppers,  onion and of course mozzarella.

I’m not sure if it fell apart because I didn’t bake it long enough before topping, or if I just piled on too much topping.

Anyway it was good enough that I will try again. Maybe baking it 30 minutes before topping instead of 20.  Also holding back a little of the sauce.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

2 1/2 cups ground cauliflower (use a food processor
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese
salt
1 egg, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 425. Place processed cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl with cover. Microwave covered for 4 minutes.  Stir to cool it off a little. Place cauliflower in a fine mesh strainer and use a spatula to press cauliflower against strainer, pushing out liquid. Use several paper towels and press down to absorb more liquid. Place cauliflower in a bowl and fluff with a fork. Add Italian season,  Parmesan, and mozzarella. Mix well and taste. Add salt to taste. Add egg and stir to blend completely.

Press mixture out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper that’s been sprayed.
Press out to about 1/4 inch or slightly thicker. Keep mixture tight together and in an even layer.

Place pan in oven and bake  golden brown. Generally 15-20 minutes, it should be starting to brown on top. Remove from oven, top with desired toppings, and return to oven long enough to melt cheese. Let rest for a couple of minutes. Slice and serve.

Or if yours falls apart like mine did just dip it out and eat with a fork. It still tastes wonderful.

Lemon Mint Ice Tea- WHB

Since mint is in abundance this is a reblog from 2007.

Coffee & Cornbread

A patch of mint and thirsty summer house guests
are a winning combination.

Susan at Food Blogga is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging this week.
WHB is the hot brainchild of Kalyn at Kalyn’s Kitchen.

I hope some of the WHB-ers and readers out there will enjoy this tea as much
as we do here in Virginia, USA.

There are many varieties of mint, most (that I know of) will work well in this.
I have used Peppermint here.

Lemon Mint Ice Tea

Make a simple syrup using 2 cups of sugar
and 2/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Remove from the heat when sugar dissolves
add one cup of fresh chopped mint, then add 4 cups
of fresh brewed tea.

Allow to cool and then strain.

Serve with a lemon slice and sprig of mint over ice.

What a great way to cool off. Most hot house guests will…

View original post 13 more words

Wordless Wednesday

Sriracha and Bacon Potato Salad

Oh my goodness! I had been wanting to try this potato salad ever since I saw it on Peas and Crayons .

I wish I hadn’t waited so long. Sriracha and bacon on a spud? Really?

I did substitute chives and a few chopped white onion for the spring onions, since ours are not harvest ready yet.  I will have a ball once our onions are ready.

You will have to click the link for the recipe and their inspirational pictures that forced me to go back and do a search to try it.

Lemon Balm Meringue Bars

If you are trying to watch your sugar intake you might want to turn your head. You have been warned.

Lemon Balm is a pretty invasive herb. Like mint, it will crowd a herb patch in every way possible.

I have problems keeping it at bay but I never want to be without it.

After harvesting, washing and spinning lemon balm dry in my salad spinner, I keep it in a Tupperware container upside down in the refrigerator.

Place paper towels on top before you snap on the lid and then turn it over. Any wetness that might be left after a good spin should absorb into the towels. If you spin well there may not be a lot of residue.

You can make wonderful vinaigrette, cakes, breads and these bars.

Lemon Balm Meringue Bars

Preheat to 350 degrees.

Crust
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup butter

Stir flour and sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press evenly into an 8 inch square baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Meanwhile put together the topping.

Topping
1 1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup whole lemon balm leaves
2 T all purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
3 T lemon juice
4 eggs (one separated
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

In a food processor process sugar and lemon balm leaves until leaves are ground fine. The sugar will be pretty green colored. Hold back 1/8 of this sugar for the meringue.  Transfer the remaining cup of sugar to a bowl and whisk in flour and baking powder. Add lemon juice and 3 eggs and one yolk, reserving the one white for the meringue in a separate bowl, blend well.

As soon as the crust is baked, pour this topping over the crust and return to the oven. Bake an additional 20 minutes until the top feels barely firm.

Meanwhile with an electric mixer whip the reserved egg white with 1/8 teaspoon of cream of tarter.
Gradually add the reserved lemon balm sugar as you whip into stiff peaks.

Pull the bars from the oven and ice with the meringue. At this time turn the oven to broil. Broil the meringue to light brown, watching closely as it only takes a few minutes.

Cool on a wire rack and then cut into bars. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator.

I am sharing this with Home Matters Linky Party # 33
and Mix it up Monday

Yum

Fettucini Carbonara

Q: What do Italians eat on halloween?
A: Fetuccini A-fraid-o
source: Jokes 4 Us

Ha, that is sooo corny and I love it.

There is nothing easier than spaghetti carbonara. Carbonara is normally 4 great ingredients with black pepper. Pasta, pancetta, egg and parmesan cheese.

I kicked this  one up a bit with some garlic, basil, white wine and chives to garnish.

Bacon has also come to be “the ingredient” since it is usually what I have on hand. I also love fettucini. I think originally this dish used penne pasta, but I’m not Italian so what do I know.

SERVINGS 4

1 garlic clove, minced
10 slices bacon chopped
3/4 cup white wine
1 tablespoon fresh chopped basil
3 eggs
1⁄2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
Salt and pepper to taste
10 ounces fettuccine pasta cooked al dente

Chives to garnish

In a large pot fry chopped bacon to crisp. Drain the grease and then add the wine to deglaze the pan. Add your garlic and basil, salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl beat your eggs and add your parmesan cheese.

Combine your cooked pasta in the pan with the bacon and while still hot begin pouring the egg and cheese over the pasta and bacon, stirring well as you pour. The egg mixture will thicken into a sauce as you stir the hot mixture.

Garnish with chives.
Serve immediately.

Jalapeno Lime Bean Dip with Fat Free Potato Chips

Did you know you can make fat free potato chips?
They are very good also.

I didn’t know until I ran across one of my favorite little gadgets from Pampered Chef a couple years back.  It is a microwave potato chip maker and it looks like this.

It comes with a stack of two disks where you lay your very thin sliced potato seasoned to preferences. ….but no oil. No spray…..nothing.

Potatoes, salt, and microwaved air.

I can zap one tray in 5 minutes on high. Two trays, stacked, takes 10 minutes rotating the trays after 5.
Of course it depends on your microwave wattage, so if you look onto one you have to experiment.

After I bought mine my sis liked it and found another brand somewhere. Paid like half price of what I did mine, wouldn’t you know.

Anyway on with the dip.

Jalapeno Lime White Bean Dip

2 1/2 cups white beans, drained and rinsed
Juice of one lime
2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
3 cloves fresh garlic
2 tablespoons jarred jalapeños, drained
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Pinch of sea salt

Process in a food processor until smooth. Serve with chips or vegetables for dipping. Keep refrigerated.

I am sharing this with Let’s get Real Friday