Spicy Mexican Lasagna

This recipe is from my dear friend, Wendy A.K.A. @RightGirl on Twitter. She’s a saucy gal, filled with spice and intrigue. Of course her recipe is a reflection of her and I’m very pleased with the new addition. Thanks, my Fleur, and don’t worry, I’ve taken the freezer advice under serious consideration.

Mexican Lasagna

Mexican Lasagna

Brown 1.5lbs lean ground beef
Add a f***-ton of cayenne pepper
Add another heaping f***-ton of chili powder
Beef should have a reddish tinge to it after seasoning.

Layer a lasagna pan with thick corn chips (I like Old El Paso for a commercial brand)
Place a layer of ground beef mixture on top
Add a layer of ass burning hot salsa
Add a layer of mixed grated cheese (I like marble cheddar & Jack)
Add a layer of sliced jalapeno peppers

Repeat layers till you run out of stuff

Place pan in an oven preheated to approx 350°
Cheese throughout dish should be melted in 25-35 minutes. Turn off over and leave pan to stand within for another 10-15.

Serve with sour cream, and you may want to put a roll of toilet paper in the freezer for later.

As a side note from Delectable Jen, you can also mix the cheese with a can of cream of mushroom or chicken soup and a splash of milk for a different kind of flavor.

Mozzarella Chicken

• 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 – 3 bouillon cubes or 1 can of chicken broth
• 4-6 slices of mozzarella cheese
• 1 – 2 eggs
• 1- 2 cups of bread crumbs

Rinse the chicken breasts, and dip in eggs mixture and then the bread crumbs. Be sure to dip them in twice, for a thicker crust.  Lightly brown in a frying pan and layer in a 9 X 13 casserole dish. Cover with boullion juice and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 35 – 45 minutes.

Cover the chicken with cheese and return to the oven, just to melt the cheese. Serve over rice or buttered noodle. To make it healthier, serve over brown rice or wheat pasta and use low sodium broth.

This is also delicious with a marinara type sauce spread over the top, especially if you’re going with the buttered noodles, similar to chicken Parmesan.

Frosted Pecans

I just discovered this recipe this Christmas. Far and away, my favorite treat this past holiday. It isn’t the easiest recipe I’ve listed (we know how much I like that <eye roll>) but I think the results make up for the work involved.

• 1 egg white
• 2 TBS cold water
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/4 tsp All Spice
• 1/2 c sugar
• 2 c pecans

Combine egg white and water, salt and spices. Beat until foamy. Add sugar, 1 TBS at a time, beat until stiff peaks form. Dip pecan in milk, one at a time. Layer in baking tray 1 ” apart.

Bake 275 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Store in a tight container. Voila!

Sinfully Good Breakfast Tacos

These breakfast tacos are a special recipe from the director of Sin City, Robert Rodriguez. If you haven’t seen the movie, you should.  You’ve got Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen,  Rosario Dawson and many others. Can’t go wrong. But this is not my movie/book review blog so I will move right along to the deliciousness.

The Flour Tortillas

• 2 c flour
• ½ t salt
• ½ t baking powder
• ¼ c butter or lard
• 3/4 c hot water

Crumble the fat inside flour with hands or fork, looking for a cornmeal texture. Mix hot/warm water with flour, as it gets moists set it aside and add water to the remaining dry dough as needed.

Knead dough in hand or mixer, looking for a smooth elastic texture and roll into 8 – 10 golfball size balls. Dampen a cloth w/ warm water, cover, and let sit for 20 mins

Meanwhile…

The Eggs

• Potato, peeled and chopped
• Corn oil
• Corn tortillas, diced
• Tomatoes, diced
• Onion, diced
• Jalapeno, diced

Add corn oil to pan, heat on medium heat. Once pot tender all the way thru, add sea salt and pepper right away, to taste. Using the oil that cooked your potatoes, toss in diced corn tortillas, let them fry.While they are cooking…

Get a teflon pan heated to medium high, let it warm while you prepare the corn tortillas. Flatten balls of dough into discs and roll them out .

Check your corn tortillas. Pull them out when finished, salt and pepper to taste.

Drain the remaining oil in the pan, throw in diced onion, tomatoes, jalapeños. Start cooking down for a few mins.

Pan for tortillas should be hot, roll disc once more, throw on tortilla, flip after 8 sec, check color, will have color if the pan is hot enough, should cook for 1 to 1 ½ mins on each side. Should bubble. Have tortilla holder and towel ready to toss finished flour tortilla in.

Meanwhile..

Over medium heat, add eggs to heated pan, put in potatoes, let set for a sec.

Slowly move the eggs around to cook, do not over cook, be sure to turn off heat to ensure not over cooked!

Next pan or same one, make eggs w/ tomatoes, onions, corn tortillas and jalapenos the same way.

Heap two plates with different sets of eggs and go to town!

Have to give the credit to my Twitter buddy, @frankjm, for this glorious recipe.

Mom’s Zucchini Bread

Here it is, everyone! I’ve mentioned it quite a few times in here already and made all the people I know jealous by talking about it all holiday season.

My mother pulls out all the baking stops during the holidays, baking cookies galore and homemade Peppermint Bark…but her best recipe has been in the family for awhile. *drum roll*

My mom’s zucchini bread!

It is my favorite bread, period. It is always moist but fluffy, filled with sweet cinnamony flavor and absolutely wonderful warm or cool. Perfect for any event, my mom’s zucchini bread also makes a great gift. Wrap it in foil and a pretty red paper and you have a welcome gift no matter where you go. Better yet, just slap it in someone’s hand and watch as they devour the whole loaf in seconds flat!

The best part is that is a relatively simple recipe to make.

First, preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Then, pull out 2 large loaf pans or three small loaf pans and a large mixing bowl.

You will need:

• 2 eggs
• 2 c sugar
• 1 c oil
• 2 c grated unpeeled zucchini
• 3 tsp vanilla
• (optional) 1/4 cup raisins or nuts

We leave out the nuts/raisins, but if you like them, they will be a nice addition. Take this first group of ingredients and mix well in a large bowl. Then, add the next (dry) ingredients and again, mix well. It is not necessary to mix after each addition.

• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 3 c flour

Ensure you have a well-mixed batter, then pour into greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Insure an inserted toothpick comes out clean before removing them from the oven. Let them cool for several minutes before removing from loaf pans. They should slide out easily from the pans and set them on a cooling rack….

You can dig in as soon as you’d like!!

You can double and triple this recipe if you would like. My mom makes 8 loaves at a time…and it is still never enough!

Hint: This will also freeze very well and keep much longer if refrigerated.

Easiest Peanut Butter Cookies

Four ingredients, folks. Yep, these are the easiest peanut butter cookies ever and pretty tasty to boot! This is also a great one to include the kiddies on. Simple ingredients, very little clean up and FUN! Kids love to crack eggs and get their hands dirty.

You will need:

Yum!

• 1 cup of peanut butter
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

If you are like me in the kitchen, you don’t like to get your hands icky. I can’t stand handling raw meat, eggs or oily products barehanded, so I keep a box of thin, disposable gloves in the kitchen. If you are doing this with kiddos, then I recommend you pull some out and all don a pair. Set out all your ingredients and then add to medium sized bowl. Get your hands in there and start squeezing. Mix batter together until you can create one large ball of dough. Roll balls of dough to the size of a ping pong ball or smaller.

Once they are all rolled, pull off your gloves and throw away. Pull out a cookie sheet and line it with foil. Put each ball on ungreased sheet and push down in the center with a fork. Then – to create that familiar criss-cross pattern – push once more diagonally over last mark.

Continue on until you run out of dough. Put the first sheet in the oven and check after 8 mins. I like mine to be more moist instead of crumbly, so I pull them out early. But they should be completely done by 12 mins. Continue to check for softness and pull out as soon as the edges brown.

Serve!

Quick and Easy Pizza

(This is a good recipe from an old friend.  I’ve copied his recipe here. I’ve tried it, with good results. – delectablejen)

Recipe: Quick and Easy Pizza Crust

A cousin passed on this simple pizza crust recipe which I just cooked last night. It was easy and made a really nice, light crust. Click on the title above to get to the original allrecipes.com recipe page.

1 (.25 oz) package active dry yeast
1 tsp white sugar
1 c. warm water (110 degrees F)
2.5 c. bread flour (all purpose works fine too)
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 450. In a medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. Stir in flour, salt and olive oil. Beat until smooth. Let rest for 5 minutes.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pizza pan or cookie sheet dusted with cornmeal. Spread with desired toppings and bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let baked pizza cool for 5 minutes before serving.

My cousins comments:

Those are the real instructions… some things I’ve learned: Roll the dough out on the surface that you want to cook it on (don’t try to transfer it). I use a pizza stone, usually (if you use a pizza stone, flour or cornmeal it – the dough will stick). But when I don’t want to use the big oven, I just pat it out on a piece of parchment paper and lay that directly on the rack of the toaster/ convection oven. Which brings me to – you can use this to make one big pizza or two little pizzas. We like the little ones because they fit in the smaller oven. The dough is super sticky, so I roll it around on the floured surface so that you don’t get it all over your hands, and then once you are ready to shape it – put a little olive oil on your hands – it makes it a lot easier. Also, I have let it rise longer than 5 minutes. I think up to about 30 minutes or so is OK.

Holiday Potatoes

This was a big, BIG hit at work and I picked up the recipe knowing I could post it in here. As always with my favorites, it is easy and yummy delicious at the same time.

Now, these mashed potatoes are not for the faint at heart, or those that want to keep their hearts…

But very yummy delicious!

• 10 servings of Mashed Potatoes (instant) or you can use the equivalent with homemade mashed pot.
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 medium sized Cream Cheese
• 1 medium container Sour Cream
• 1 to 1 1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 Tbs of chives

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take out a baking dish and set it aside.

Make the potatoes as directed on the box, then return to low heat. Add the butter and cream cheese until it is melted. Remove from heat, then mix in the sour cream and cheese, be sure to mix well. Add chives.

Spray baking dish with Pam or coat with cooking oil. Place mixture into baking dish and sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 and they are ready!

Creamy, thick and deliciously bad for you … Holiday Potatoes! Serve them in a holiday martini/decorative glass for extra holiday flare.

If you have any of your own recipes you would like to contribute or see featured on here, feel free to email me with them and I will post them with your name and whatever story you have with them. The best part about sharing recipes are the stories that often go with them!

Mulled Wine

One of my favorite cooking shows is Scandinavian New Cooking. The show has three different chefs and they take an amazing portable kitchen with them everywhere, preparing the local cuisine in a vineyard or in the middle of cobblestone streets!

This episode where chef Andreas Viestad makes Mulled Wine in Trondheim, Norway had me riveted to the screen. I can not wait to make this and I already know it will be wonderful. This is perfect for warming our tummies in this cold winter weather. Try it out and let me know what you think! I will be updating soon with my own results…

by Chef Andreas Viestad

This is my take on the traditional Norwegian Christmas drink that we warm ourselves on. The vodka is optional. I leave it out most of the time – otherwise this drink can go right to your head. Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients

1 cup (2 1/2 dl) water
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom seeds
2 cloves
1 heaped tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons homemade vanilla sugar, or 2 tablespoons vanilla and 1/4 vanilla bean
1 bottle of red wine
1/2 (1 dl) vodka
1/2 cup (1 dl) almonds
1/4 cup (1/2 dl) raisins
1 orange, sliced
This is how you do it

In a small pot, bring the water to boil. Add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, honey and vanilla sugar to and mix it well. Let this sweet spice mixture boil for about 15 minutes to release the flavor of the spices.

Mulled Wine...yum

Meanwhile, heat the red wine gently in a medium pot. Make sure it does not reach more than 170F (78C), otherwise the alcohol will evaporate. Add 1/3 of the sweet spice mixture. Add almonds and raisins. Add more spice mixture to taste, until the mulled wine has the sweetness of your liking. Add the vodka.

Add a slice of orange to each cup add mulled wine and serve.

Jen’s Potato and Sausage Delight

This is my favorite dinner entree to cook because it is easy, delicious, and all the ingredients go in the same pan. It is also easy to adapt to individual tastes. Great for the cold fronts we are all experiencing lately!

Ingredients:

• I pkg of Smoked Eckridge Sausage
• 3-5 russet potatoes (or 5-6 new potatoes)
• 1/2 a bag of baby carrots
• 1 large onion (white or yellow)
• 1/2 cup or more of shredded cheddar cheese (optional)
• 3-4 Tbs of butter
• 1-2 Tbs water
• 1/2 Tbs olive oil or Pam
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Lawry’s Seasoning Salt

Preheat your oven to 350. Then, take out a 9 x 13 Pyrex baking pan and grease it with the olive oil or with Pam. Set aside. Take out a chopping block and put it next to all your ingredients.

Chop the carrots, onion, and sausage to the same thickness, about half an inch, and put aside. Then, peel your potatoes, rinsing them under cool water after. Slice them along their width to the thickness of a quarter (the coin), like you would for making potato chips.

Start layering your ingredients in the pan, one after the other in any order. I usually start with the potatoes, then carrots, onions and sausage, then continue on like this until I run out of ingredients. You should have about an equal amount of everything, except maybe the carrots. Then add your water. Just a little, enough to wet the bottom and create some steam. You can add cabbage to this, but then add less water. Add butter, being sure to spread it evenly. Add salt and pepper, with your favorite seasoning salt and sprinkle with cheddar cheese.

Cover with foil and put it in the oven for 45 mins. After 45 mins, pull it out and test the potatoes and carrots for softness. You want them to be soft and juicy, but not mushy. If they are too firm, put it back in the oven, checking them every 10 mins.

Pull it out, let it cool for 2 mins and SERVE!

I promise this will be a hit with your entire family and warm up any cold night. This is also wonderful served with side salad and french bread.