Salsa Bar for Dinner

Sometimes it's nice to have options. We had a lot of these ingredients sitting around, and I decided to make them all at once. Why not? One nice thing is that they share a lot of the same ingredients, so you only have to chop once. Love that!

Clockwise from the top we have pintos and cheese, salsa cruda, mango salsa, and guacamole.

(all completely from scratch)

These are all so easy to make, delicious, and healthy to boot. We ate them on tortillas and dipped with corn chips. (The not-so-healthy part.) But I can't complain when the kids are gobbling down this many good things.

[By the way, you may notice that the traditional peppers are missing from my recipes. I have a hard time digesting bell peppers, so we rarely use them, but if you love peppers, feel free to throw them in the mix. We find that omitting the peppers also makes it more "kid-friendly".]

Here are my recipes:

Pintos and cheese

Soak about 1 1/2 pounds of dry pinto beans overnight. Wash and rinse them well. Place them in the crockpot covered with plenty of water. Turn the crockpot on HIGH for about 4 hours. Sometimes I add a can of green chili's here for some extra flavor.

[*Sidenote* This particular batch of beans was getting old and had what we call RHB (Really Hard Beans). They were cooking for about 18 hours, but that is another story. They did eventually soften and worked great for the refried beans. Usually it works much faster.]

After your beans are pretty soft, drain off most of the water and use a stick blender (immersion blender) and blend those little darlin's to bits. A regular blender would probably work well too, but you might have to leave a little more water. After the beans are thoroughly mushed I season with cumin, garlic salt, salt, and pepper. Then top with cheese and leave your crockpot on warm until everything is ready to go. Easy as can be.

Guacamole

2 mashed avocados

juice from 1 lime

1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro

1/4 cup finely chopped white onion

2 cloves minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon cumin

black and red pepper to taste

Combine and enjoy! Cover tightly and refrigerate if there are any leftovers, but there won't be.

Salsa Cruda

4 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 white onion, chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

3-4 cloves minced garlic

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

juice from 1 lime

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 jalapeno, finely diced (We left it out this time.)

Stir, mix, and enjoy.

Mango Salsa

2 fresh mangoes, diced

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/2 cup white onion, finely diced (or red onion is beautiful! But we used white this time.)

1-2 cloves minced garlic

2 Tb fresh parsley, finely chopped

1/2 avocado, diced

juice from 1 lime

1/2 Tb sugar

dash of salt

Sweet and Sassy!

Favorite Marinade

This favorite marinade came from my favorite aunt! And it's fabulous on chicken and beef...

Give it a try...you won't be sorry!

½ c soy sauce
¼ c red wine vinegar
¼ c olive oil
1 tsp oregano
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp Basil
¼ tsp Pepper

Marinade for 2-4 hours.

Tea time, anyone??

My sisters and I have always dreamed of traveling to the British Isles together and doing the castles, history, and literary tours there. Since we haven't been able to do that yet, we dream of doing it by watching Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown. Boy, does she have the life or what? Anyway, in one of the episodes she was in England and they are famous for their multiple time outs for tea. They eat cucumber sandwiches, shortbread, and scones with clotted cream, lemond curd and jams. We had to try them out. It's all as wonderful as it looked on Samantha Brown. It might not be the healthiest habit, but it sure brightens my day when I can sink my teeth into it's creamy goodness.

Clotted Cream:
1/2 cup heavy cream OR 8 oz. cream cheese or neufchatel (do not use light or fat-free)
2-4 T. powdered sugar (or to taste)
1/2 cup sour cream (do not use light or fat-free)
1 tsp. vanilla

If using heavy cream, beat until stiff. If using cream cheese, beat until smooth. Fold in sugar until dissolved. Fold in sour cream and vanilla. Chill. Keep refrigerated.

Lemon Curd:
Juice of 4 lemons OR 1 cup lemon juice
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup butter (do not use margarine), cut into cubes
2 cups sugar

Combine ingredients in a double boiler and cook, stirring constantly, until thick and smooth and translucent. If you do not have a double boiler, use a heavy-duty saucepan and stir constantly with a wooden spoon. This mixture can burn easily. Microwave is not recommended. For a stronger lemon flavor, add the grated zest of the 4 lemons. Pour mixture into a Mason jar with a tight lid and keep refrigerated. Use within two weeks.

Sorry, the picture didn't turn out very well.

English Scones:
2 cups flour
1 T. baking powder
2-4 T. sugar (depending on add-ins)
1/2 tsp. salt
6 T. butter (do not use margarine), cut into cubes
1/2 cup buttermilk

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter using a pastry blender. Blend in buttermilk. Knead lightly a few times. Do not over-knead. Roll dough into a circle (not too thin). Cut into wedges, as if cutting a pizza. Place wedges on greased baking sheet and bake at 350 for 10-20 minutes, depending on oven variations. Scones are done when golden brown on the outside, but fluffy on the inside.
Add-ins: apples, currants, ginger, orange or almond flavorings, vanilla, cinnamon, dried apricots, fresh blueberries, cranberries, chocolate chips, candied ginger, walnuts. Experiment with the add-ins, adjusting the sugar as necessary. If a bold ginger flavor is desired, add finely-chopped fresh ginger. If a mild ginger flavor is desired, use candied ginger. You can also try sauteing the chopped fresh ginger lightly in a little butter and sprinkling with sugar before adding to dough. If a bold nutty flavor is desired, try using toasted walnuts. Toast in a warm oven, stirring occasionally, until the nuts have softened slightly and have a strong scent. If using fresh blueberries, drain VERY WELL before adding to dough.

This picture happens to be some ginger scones. The smell of fresh ginger is absolute bliss. I could sniff it all day...but that wouldn't be very productive now would it :)
The clotted cream and lemon curd are also good on toasted English Muffins. Oh, and you don't have to serve them together. They stand on their own as well.

Sticky Rice with Mango

This is my sister's recipe. I haven't actually tried it yet but she sent it to me and it sounded delicious and she said it was, so I'm posting it in hopes she is correct :)

Sticky Rice with Mango

1 c. rice
1-13.5 oz can coconut milk
2/3 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
2 ripe mangoes

Combine coconut milk, sugar and salt. Boil 3 minutes- stirring frequently.
Remove from heat. Add coconut milk to rice. Stir until mixed.
Press plastic wrap onto mixture in saucepan to cover. Let rest 30 minutes at room temperature. Garnish with peeled and sliced mangoes.
Top with Coconut Syrup. DELICIOUS!

Coconut Syrup
1-13.5 oz can coconut milk
1/2 c. confectioners sugar, firmly packed

Stir together. Bring to boil stirring constantly. Reduce heat. Simmer about 10 minutes. Cool to lukewarm and serve. May keep in fridge up to one week.

Molten Chocolate Cookies

Molten Chocolate Cookies
These rich cookies are best eaten warm, while the crust is crispy and the centers are gooey. They can be reheated in the microwave to soften the centers. Yield: 16 3-inch cookies

2 c. Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Chips
3 T. Butter
2 large eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking powder

Melt chips and butter in top of double broiler over low heat, stirring until smooth but thick. (Or in microwave for 1 minute and 30 seconds at a time after that.) Remove from heat; set aside to cool.

In large bowl of mixer beat eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla on high speed about 2-3 minutes until pale yellow and slightly thickened. Mix in chocolate on low speed. Stop and scrape bowl. Add flour and baking powder on low speed just until incorporated, stopping once to scrape bowl. Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees F.

Scoop 8-2 inch mounds onto parchment lined cookie sheet leaving 2 inches between cookies. Bake one sheet at a time for 12 minutes or until crusty on the outside but soft in center. Cool on cookie sheet 3-5 minutes. Best eaten warm. To reheat cookies, microwave on high power for about 10 seconds per cookie. Enjoy!

Shrimp alfredo with Angel hair pasta

I only have the recipe for the alfredo posted here.  You can use any kind of pasta Im sure.. but we love the angel hair.  We love garlic and onions so I mix it in with my Shrimp or chicken.  We had chicken lastnight, so it was Shrimp tonight..

(go here for original post)

This goes really good with homemade bread.. =)  yum.   

I boil my pasta according to directions.

Put some garlic and onions in a pan to sautee'
Add my cooked shrimp to the pan.. and simmer with a slight touch of lemon.

Making my sauce.

1 1/4 c. chicken broth (i use the organic and sodium free)

4 tsp. flour

4oz. cream cheese, cubed

3 Tbls parmesan cheese (i use more then this.. but whichever is fine)

some pepper.

mix broth and flour in skillet. Sirt in Cream cheese, and parmesan. Add pepper, cook for 2 min, stirring constantly until mixture boils and thickens. Stir in Shrimp-onions-garlic.

Its Nummy!

Cheesecake Cookies

We're not big dessert people, but once in a while, on Sundays, we make treats. My son wanted to choose a dessert after dinner today.

His all time favorite is cheesecake, but I didn't have anything to make a crust. I told him to look up cheesecake cookies on the internet, and he found this recipe. It's really simple, and surprisingly delicious.

Not healthy, but delicious.

We will definitely make them again though.

Here's what we used:

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 cube butter, softened

1 package cream cheese, softened (we only had a half a thing of regular cream cheese, so we used that and half a container of the whipped kind. It worked just fine.)

and we also added 1 teaspoon almond extract, because that just makes everything taste better. They smelled as yummy as they tasted. They would also be amazing with chopped almonds.

Cream all the ingredients together, and that's it! We rolled them into 1 inch balls, slightly squished and baked at 375 for 14-15 minutes.

An instant hit