For the inaugral foodie post, we will do not one but THREE recipes!! YAY! These are from Fajita Night on Monday.
Guacamole, aka "The Best Food Ever"
Guac is one of my most-complimeted recipes, and I do have to agree that it's fabulous. This recipe came about after many, many experimentations, and is very flexible to omissions, deletions, increases, and decreases in ingredients. It's all about how it feels. And tastes. Here's what I used Monday night:
Guacamole
3 avocados (when cooking for a crowd, I usually allow 1 avocado per person)
2 roma tomatoes
1/2 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 jalapeno peppers (actually, on Monday Fresh Market was out of jalepenos so I subbed 1 serrano pepper)
2 limes
Cilantro
Sea salt
Halve avacadoes, remove goodnessy green stuff. Mash with fork until it reaches desired consistency (Andy likes his chunky, I like mine smooth. Hehe.). Add the juice of two limes, both for flavor and to help prevent oxidation (or as you non-science people know it as, "Make it stop turning brown!"). Halve tomatoes, removing seeds. Dice tomatoes, onion, and jalepenoes, and add to avocado mixture. Finely dice garlic, then add sea salt to it. Mash into a paste. This ensures that the garlic will evenly distribute throughout the guac and you won't bite into a big piece of garlic (but would that really be so bad?). Add to avocado mixture. Chop cilatro and add. Stir, taste, and add additinal salt if needed.
Guac tip: to store leftover guac (if this is even a possibility at your place!!), place in a Ziploc bag, and squish out all the air. This will help prevent it from oxidizing.
Salsa
Salsa
2, 28 oz cans of San Marzano whole tomatoes, drained
2 cans of Rotel, drained
1 large Vidala onion
2 limes
2 jalepeno peppers
3 garlic cloves
Cilantro
Salt
Yes, you must cough up the $3/can and buy San Marzanos. It will change your life, and you will never touch a can of Hunts tomatoes again.
Using an imersion blender, chop up the whole tomatoes and place in a bowl. Add drained Rotel. Ask your fiance why we chop up the tomatoes, then add diced tomatoes....would it make more sense to not chop tomatoes as finely? Receive The Look from your fiance, and tell him never to question your cooking abilities again.
Add onion, jalepenos, cilantro, and garlic to a food prcoessor. Pulse until it reaches a fine dice. Add to tomato mixture. Add the juice of two limes. Add salt to taste. Proceed to eat salsa on everything for the rest of the week.
Spanish Rice (adapted from The Joy of Cooking, aka The Bible)
This is probably one of my favorite recipes from Joy. I hated buying those mixes of Spanish rice, and once I tried this recipe I knew I would never have to do so again.
Spanish Rice
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 slices of center cut bacon, minced
1/2 large Vidala onion
1/2 large green bell pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup minute brown rice
1 3/4 cup chicken broth
2 cans of Rotel, drained
1/2 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350 F. Add oil and bacon to an oven proof skillet with a lid. My trusty Le Creuset buffet casserole works fabulous for this! Cook, stirring as needed, until bacon begins to brown. Add onion and bell pepper, cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic, stir, and cook until onion is translucent. Add brown rice, and stir until well coated. Cook for 5 minutes. Add and bring to a boil remaining ingredients. Stir, cover, and transfer to oven. Bake until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender (25 minutes). Uncover and let stand for 5 minutes before serving (great time to throw tortillas wrapped in foil in the oven if you are serving this with fajitas).
Here's what our spread look like on Monday:
YUM!!! This was enough for two hungry diners, 4 lunches, and a few of Andy's "salsa salads"--salsa and crushed up tortilla chips. He's weird.
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