Lazyass Tortilla Soup

Lazyass slow-cooker “recipe” for chicken tortilla soup:

• 4 cups organic chicken stock
• 8 oz green enchilada sauce (Frontera green is particularly good)
• 1 lb frozen chicken (boneless thighs, breasts, etc.)
• 1 can black beans, drained
• 4 oz. frozen fire-roasted onions & peppers
• Tortilla chip crumbs… because we all have them, but if not, use crushed chips or fresh corn tortilla strips or corn flour (masa) mixed with water to thicken the soup (plus extra salt)
• Cheese, cilantro, scallions, sour cream, whatever for garnish

In the morning, put the stock, sauce, and frozen chicken in the slow cooker and set it to low (6-9 hours, but longer is probably ok). One hour before serving, shred the chicken with tongs or two forks and then add the rest of the ingredients. Top with whatever you like for garnish.

Grilled Marinated Chicken and Stuff

This chicken was SOO good. I apologize for not having pictures of the meal once completed (though you do get bonus leftovers pics), but it actually wasn't terribly pretty. I was craving fajitas, but didn't want to cut up a bunch of chicken or cook indoors, so I decided to leave the chicken breasts intact, marinate them, and make my husband grill them!

Marinade:
orange juice
soy sauce
white vinegar
sunflower oil (just a touch)
garlic powder
ground cumin
ground coriander seed
cayenne pepper
black pepper

Place all ingredients in whatever proportion you want into a large zipper bag and mix it around a bit. Add in some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and refrigerate for at least 6 hours. You could use lime juice instead of orange, but I needed to use up some orange juice that I bought for my dad since we don't drink it.

Accompaniments:
bell pepper, cut into strips
jalapeño pepper, seeded and cut into strips
yellow onion, sliced
olive oil spray
salt & pepper
can of black beans
shredded Mexican cheese blend (I bought a light blend and can't tell any difference)
sliced avocado
tortillas

Place the veggies on a large sheet of aluminum foil that has been sprayed with olive oil, then spray the veggies. Sprinkle salt and pepper over them and toss. Seal up the foil to make a pouch for grillin'.

Grill the chicken and veggie pouch over high flame. We like our meat kind of charred and our veggies caramelized. Make sure you flip everything at some point. Cook the chicken until an instant-read thermometer registers at least 160° F, then let it rest for 5 minutes while you heat up the beans and tortillas. Note: I heat tortillas directly over the flame on my gas stove. Slice up the chicken and plate it with the grilled veggies, beans topped with shredded cheese, avocado, and tortilla.

Nutrition info:

Bonus: Leftovers!

Poor little (big, actually) blurry chicken breast

In a very large bowl, I have:
2 C butter lettuce
2 C baby spinach
1/4 C light shredded Mexican cheese blend
1/2 C shredded carrot
1/2 a red bell pepper, sliced
6 oz leftover chicken breast, cubed

Avocado ranch dressing:
1/2 an avocado, mashed
1 T Greek yogurt
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 t red wine vinegar
1/2 t Buttermilk Ranch Seasoning from Penzey's Spices.

Pizza Redux... This Time with Bacon!

OMG I love pizza so much. A couple of days ago, I made some dough following these instructions, but using this recipe (I don't have sourdough starter... yet... and maybe next time I'll try it with a poolish). I split the dough in three, refrigerated one ball and froze the other two.

One of our favorite pizza topping combinations is pepperoni, bacon, and jalapeno. Since I found some amazing-looking bacon at Whole Foods the other day, I thought I'd do something similar - bacon and pickled Fresno peppers. I made the pickled peppers by slicing fresh peppers from my mother-in-law's neighbors' garden and simmering them in white vinegar, sugar, and salt for about 5 minutes, then letting them sit in the brine in the fridge for several hours.

Peppers after simmering in brine

Black Forest bacon, whole milk mozzarella, pickled peppers, tomato paste, dough

Cut bacon into pieces and cook

The sauce will be tomato paste with dried basil & oregano, S&P, olive oil

But then I remembered some roasted grape tomatoes I had puréed

Sauce 

Cut the cheese after a stint in the freezer

To shred fast, use the processor with the shredder attachment

Components assembled

Press out the dough with your hands

We like it saucy

Ready for the oven

After about 6 minutes on broil

Nice bottom!

Next time we may try baking on the grill, since we can get it past 550°F. I'd really like to get that crispy, charred crust. It was very delicious pizza, even so.

My Best Batch of Chili Yet

No, I will not tell you my secret ingredient! It's a SECRET!

The main difference between this batch of chili and previous ones is that I roasted fresh Roma tomatoes rather than using canned tomatoes. I think it made a huge difference.

Halved tomatoes with stem ends removed

Coat with olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper

Post-roast

Prevent juice escape!

White and green onion, red and green bell pepper, and garlic 

Sauté the onions and peppers until soft, then add minced garlic

Brown ground beef with chili powder, cayenne pepper, ground coriander, smoked paprika, and S&P

Remove beef to crock-pot

Purée the roasted tomatoes and grab a big can of beans (because beans are good, dammit!)

Mix everything up in the crock-pot, then before adding a bunch of spicy stuff, set aside a few cups for your mother-in-law (unless you don't like her)

Make a slit in a habanero pepper

Chop up some roasted mystery peppers

Stir it all up and set the crock on low for several hours

Roast tomatoes
Get a bunch of tomatoes. Like, I don't know, 5 pounds or something - enough to fill a sheet pan with halves. Choose whatever variety looks reddest or is organic or whatever. I chose organic Roma tomatoes. Cut them in half and remove the stem ends. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lay the halves cut-side up. Lightly coat the tomato halves with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 375°F for about 30 minutes or until the 'maters are soft with dark brown juices seeping out. Be sure to collect all the juices by bringing up the side of the foil. Dump it all into a food processor and purée the shit out of it.

Chili
Dice about 1/2 cup of scallions, 1/2 a medium yellow onion, 1/2 each of a red and green bell pepper. Sauté the onions and peppers in some kind of fat (I happened to use bacon grease since I had just made bacon, and because of that, I didn't add salt). Once those are soft, add a few cloves of minced garlic. Cook that all for another minute, but don't let the garlic brown, much less burn. Remove the vegetables.

In the same skillet, brown 2 pounds of ground beef with a couple of tablespoons of chili powder, a good sprinkling of ground coriander, some cayenne pepper, and a dash of smoked paprika. Salt and pepper it, of course. I used grass-fed beef, part ground chuck and part ground sirloin, and there was very little fat. If there is more than a tablespoon of beef fat, I recommend removing the cooked beef with a slotted spoon so as not to have super-greasy chili.

Mix the vegetables, beef, tomato purée, beans, and more spices if required (I required more chili powder and salt) in a crock-pot or large stew pot and cook on low for several hours. If you want more spice, add a whole habanero with a slit in the side, or some chopped jalapeno or Serrano. If you want deadly chili, chop up a habanero or two. Since I had left over roasted peppers from the pizza I made a few days ago, I chopped up some of them and threw them in. Please be careful with the chili peppers - either wear rubber gloves, coat your hands in oil, or wash your hands really well immediately after handling the peppers, and do not touch your eyes or other sensitive parts!

Serve
When you're about ready to eat the chili, stir in the secret ingredient. I'll give you a hint: it's fresh, green, tart, fragrant, and sweet. Serve with chopped scallion, cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, and/or whatever you want.

I swear there's chili under there

Mystery Peppers Pizza

My husband came home from work with a bag full of peppers. Apparently, they came from his mother's neighbors' garden. After roasting and tasting them, I decided I had better figure out what type of peppers these were as they were very hot. A little research returned that these were mostly Hungarian Wax peppers, with a few Fresno and a pimiento.

Still trying to use up the Guinness my dad bought, I decided to make a beer pizza dough. Then I remembered one of my favorite CPK pizzas - roasted peppers, caramelized onion, and fresh chèvre. Theirs also has roasted eggplant, but since I'm not crazy about eggplant, I left it off. Bacon would have been nice, too, but I found that mine had gone off.

Mystery peppers

Fire roasting peppers

Roasted peppers

Guinness dough with sauce - on parchment for easy moving

Top with whole-milk mozzarella, roasted peppers, caramelized red onion, and chèvre

Baked for about 6 minutes on the highest oven setting using pizza stone

To roast peppers
Turn a gas burner to high and lay the peppers on the grate. Turn them periodically until they are charred all over. Pull them off with tongs and throw into a clean paper bag, rolling it closed after each addition; that steams them so the skin comes off easily. If you have a culinary blowtorch, you can touch up any missed spots before putting the peppers into the bag. After about 20 minutes, pull the peppers out of the bag and scrape off the skins.

To caramelize onions
Cut an onion in half longitudinally and then into thin slices. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the onions on the lowest heat until they are dark brown and sweet - this can take up to 45 minutes.

Guinness pizza dough
I made the dough in my bread machine combining the "Pizza Dough" and "Pizza Dough with Beer" recipes:

• 1 cup flat Guinness
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2-1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast

In the future, I'd like to make soft pretzels with this dough.

Pizza sauce
Mix together about 3 Tablespoons of tomato paste, some olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano to desired taste and consistency.

Assemble on parchment, so the whole thing can be easily slid onto a (preheated) pizza stone. Bake in a preheated oven on the hottest setting (mine is broil) until the cheese is bubbly and turning golden brown. If you don't have a pizza stone, bake the pizza on a cookie sheet.

The crust was rather thick, but it baked really well. The Guinness flavor was awesome, but the peppers were a little hotter than I would have preferred. I think I also would have preferred more onion, but I only caramelized one (fairly large) red onion... I just love caramelized onions!