Southwest chicken salad

Like most of my recipes, this is a mutt of a recipe that I ate at someone else's home, but had to adapt the ingredients for what happened to be in my fridge. Feel free to do the same to this recipe!  I've got to add that this is one of my first recipes of the year that uses my new herb/veggie garden.  The lettuce and cilantro that you see here have been grown in my own potted patio garden!

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast
3/4 cups salsa
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/2 head romaine lettuce
1/2 cup grated cheese
cilantro as desired
olives as desired
ranch as desired

Directions:
1. Thaw and drain excess fluid from chicken. 
2. Place in crock pot with salsa, cumin, and chili powder on high for 45 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through).
3. Shred chicken in crock pot, allowing chicken to absorb salsa marinade.
4. Chop lettuce and cilantro, spread on two plates.
5. Add cheese, crock pot chicken, olives and ranch.

Serves:
Assemble large salad on two plates: 2 servings.

Time to table:
(Not including crock pot cook time) 15 minutes.  (Including crock pot time) 1 hour.

New York Style Reubens

My Dad is a New Yorker by birth and youth, and still yearns for a hard roll sandwich or a slice of pizza off of a road side cart every now and then.  He made this meal for me on my last visit and said I could use it for the blog if I paid appropriate homage to the heritage of the piece.

Ingredients:
1/4 pound sliced pastrami
1 16 oz can/jar sour kraut
Swiss Cheese, sliced
Brown Deli mustard (as desired)
Rye Bread

Directions:
1. Layer 6 slices pastrami, 1/2-3/4 cup sour kraut and swiss cheese as desired on top of eachother on a baking sheet.  Heat in broiler or toaster oven until cheeze is melted and pastrami is warmed.
2. Toast 1 slice rye bread.  Add mustard.
3. Place heated pastrami/kraut/cheese layers on rye bread.

The directions yield one sandwich.  Repeat/multiply for as many sandwiches as people served (these are filling).  Serve with greens on side.

Time to table:
10-15 minutes.

Hamburgers

When I usually google "what to make for dinner tonight" and go anywhere other than my own blog, I always end up being told to make this one.  Easy, and we usually have all of the ingredients on hand.  We usually have all ingredients on hand because I will use some non-traditional ingredients.  I make the patties out of ground beef rather than buying pre-formed patties and I use home made bread for buns (potato bread so it's more starchy and holds together better).

Ingredients:
Ground beef
   Steak Seasoning/Barbeque sauce
Cheese
Bread for buns (or lettuce wraps if you don't have the right bread)
Tomato
Lettuce
Pickles
Katsup
Mustard
Mayonase

Directions:
1.  Form patties, add steak seasoning or BBQ sauce, fry/barbeque patties to desired color.  Add cheese
2.  Assemble condements on bread.

Time to table:
20 minutes.

Fancy Tacos

Not to be confused with Easy Soft Tacos, this recipe involves frying your own tortillas into a hard shell and frying spiced ground beef.  Food for thought: people who buy taco seasoning packets are spending way too much for delicious flavor.  I only ever use generous amounts of chili pepper and cumin.  Maybe throw in some garlic if you like.  Those are the main ingredients in those packets, but for about 25 cents worth of spice from a bottle.

Ingredients:
Corn or Flour tortillas
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 16 oz can refried beans
1/2 lb ground beef
Cumin and Chili Pepper to taste
Cheddar or mexican blend cheese
Salsa
Lettuce

Directions:
1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan at medium heat (I know it's ready when it pops if I put a small drip of water on it.)
2. Using tongs, place tortillas flat on hot oil.  This should lightly brown one side of the tortilla (it will be the inside of the taco shell). Remove that side from the heat and bend in half to brown one half of the opposite side (the first side of the taco shell should be removed while it is still soft enough to be folded without cracking).  The crease should be a soft curve, not a hard fold if possible.  Once the first outter side of the shell is golden brown and crispened, turn the taco shell over to do the same to the second outter side.  Remove from oil with tongs and place on a paper towel covered surface, allowing the excess oil to drip off the taco shell.  Repeat for as many servings as desired.
3. Brown ground beef on frying pan, generously seasoning with cumin and chili pepper.  Remove from pan and cover to keep warm.
4. In the same frying pan as the ground beef, heat can of refried beans, seasoning similarly to taste.  Add 2 tbs of vegetable oil if more spreadable beans are desired.
5. Add servings of refried beans and ground beef to cooled taco shells.  Top with salsa, cheese, lettuce, and other topings as desired (onions, cilantro, sour cream, guacamole, etc).

Serves:
5-7 adults if you use all ground beef and refried beans in an appropriate number of taco shells.

Time to table:
30-45 minutes

Parmesan pasta with sausage

I think I first started doing this when trying to make an easy substitute for alfredo sauce.  It's one of our favorites and great for left over lunches for the rest of the week.  The make or break for this recipe is a really good steak seasoning.  The one I have has whole grains of pepper kernals, whole seeds, and actual red pepper flakes that hydrate really well in the butter/cheese mixture.  My mom gives it to me as a stocking stuffer every year.  She gets it from the dollar store.

Ingredients:
16 oz bag of pasta
2 tbs margarine
3/4 cup parmesan cheese (or any shaker cheese)
2 links italian sausage
Steak seasoning, garlic to taste (I use a lot)

Direction:
1. In a large pot of boiling water, cook pasta until soft to the bite.
2. In another pot of boiling water, cook sausage links for 10 minutes, then transfer to frying pan to brown the exterior.  Cube sausage once cooked.

3. Immediately once pasta is cooked, strain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.  Add margarine and mix until melted margarine coats pasta evenly.  Fold in parmesan cheese, steak seasoning and garlic.  The cheese will melt into the butter with the heat of the pasta and become stringy.

4. Once sauce evenly coats all pasta, add cubed sausage, mixing evenly.
5. Serve with vegatable. Possibly this one.

Serves:
6-8 people, or 2 people and lunch left overs for a week.

Time to table:
20-25 mintues

Have a picnic

Sometimes the best family dinners come with a theme.  The great thing about picnic food is that they can be packed up easily and eaten outside.  It's a perfect way to usher in the first really beautiful spring day of the year.

Simple directions: Chicken salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, and fruit of season.

Ingredients:
Bread Slices
Tomato Slices
Cheddar Cheese Slices
1 Cooked chicken breast
2-3 Tbs mayonase
Salt, Pepper, Garlic, mustard to taste.

6 hard boiled eggs
1 tsp mustard
2.5 Tbs mayonase
3 drops tobasco sauce
Salt and pepper

Directions:
1. Shred chicken breast.  Mix in mayonase, salt, pepper, and garlic to make chicken salad.  Assemble sandwiches with remaining ingredients.
2. Peel boiled eggs and slice in half long ways, keeping egg whites in tact.
3. Remove egg yolks into small mixing bowl.  Add mustard, mayonase, tobasco sauce, salt, and pepper and mix with hand mixer until smoothe.
4. Re-fill egg white divet with egg yolk mixture.

Serves:
3-4 adults

Time to table:
20 mintues

Beans, rice, and then some

This was created when I had a avocado, but no tortillas or chips.  This may look too simple for a good dinner, but the corn is an almost cowboy caviar, and the rice includes citrus zest and honey.  It ended up working suprizingly well and was an easy to make, light meal for an evening. 

Simplified version: Beans, rice, and corn, all gussied up.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup uncooked white rice
1 tsp orange zest
1 Tbs honey

1 12.5 ounce can of corn
1 medium avocado
1/2 roma tomato
dill and parsley to taste

1/2 can refried beans
1 1/2 Tbs vegetable oil
Cumin and Chili Powder to taste

Directions:
1. Boil 1 1/2 cups water with honey and orange zest.  Once in a rolling boil, add 3/4 cup uncooked white rice, reduce heat to low, cover and sit for 20-25 minutes until rice grains are fully cooked.
2. Cube avocado and tomato.  Mix corn, avocado, and tomato in a medium bown.  Add dill and parsley to mix, adding olive oil or butter to taste if extra liquid is needed.
3.  Heat vegatable oil in frying pan on medium heat.  Add refried beans, mixing oil into beans.  Add cumin and chili powder and mix.

Serves:
2 large, adult portions.

Time to table:
25 minutes