Mini-Taco Salad Appetizer

Every Friday night is "Taco Friday" here at my house. A friend of mine has "Taco Tuesday" at her house and I thought the idea was so good that I decided to steal it for my family. Knowing what your family is going to eat one night out of every week means I only have to attempt to be creative six other nights of the week. And, who wouldn't want to eat their favorite meal once a week? It's one of my favorites, and since I cook 99% of the meals, the husband and son must eat it every week too. (Well, realistically, my son doesn't eat it. But maybe that will change one day).

We're not a very exciting family so the chances of us heading out on a Friday night are slim to none and tacos are a super fast dinner. We always have shredded cheddar on hand. I manage a restaurant for the closing shift on Wed. and Thurs. and our diced tomatoes are only supposed to be used for that day's business. So...if I remember, I snag a soup cup full of diced tomatoes to use for Friday dinner. Seems like a waste to toss them and using them the next day to make a $7+ salad doesn't seem fair to the customer - so they are mine! Wa-ha-ha!

So last Friday night I was preparing vegetarian tacos for dinner. If I've got organic ground beef on hand I'll make it for my meat-eater husband. Last Friday he was out of luck. So as I was preparing the meal (which I can do in as little as 12 minutes), I pulled chips out of the pantry. I love tacos, my husband prefers taco salad. So anyways...I was pulling chips out of the pantry and found I had two open bags. Mission rounds are my favorite. We also had those kind that look like little chip cups. Light bulb moment...and there we have it. The creation of the mini-taco salad appetizer. I secretly made three and presented it to my husband. He looked so excited as I place the plate in front of him. Honestly, I know the presentation is wasted on him and I know he was hungry, hence the excitement of seeing food placed before him. But...after hearing how good they were, even though they were vegetarian, I decided to delay dinner while I made myself a couple. OMG! So good. A little bit of this and a little bit of that sitting on a tortilla chip was the perfect amount of every ingredient.

After preparing a few more to photograph, we finally had dinner. And, we both went back for seconds. Yum. Every "Taco Friday" is going to begin with Mini-Taco Salad Apps from now on!

Oh, and as a side note, I'm getting a new camera in February! I am so excited that I've been literally dreaming about it. Hopefully my photographs will look more appealing after I learn how to use the camera, since it'll be sooooo much better than the one I currently use.

Chili Cook-Off: Meat vs. Vegetarian

The weather forecast is calling for snow tomorrow. It's been cool and windy a lot lately and it seems like the right time to make chili. Being a vegetarian married to a meat-eater can be exhausting in the kitchen, but today I was feeling energetic (probably because I remembered to take my vitamins).

I often use Kraft's A-1 Chili recipe but today I decided to wing it. Sauteed onions, green chiles, diced tomatoes, ground beef, kidney beans, chili seasoning and a dash of A-1. After browning the meat, I tossed everything into the crock pot. Dinner done...done for tomorrow night's dinner too!

I didn't feel like making two dinners, but even though I planned on serving chili to the whole family, making a vegetarian chili was a necessity. But chili is so easy to make and using Morningstar Crumbles is even easier than browning meat. The veggie chili is the same as the other one, just substituted the Crumbles.


I don't have two crock pots so I let my veggie chili simmer on the stove on low. I got distracted the didn't stir it for a while and some kidney beans burnt a bit. Oh well. Now I know what to ask for next Christmas!

Because the meaty chili looked and smelled better, I give it first place in the chili cook-off. I don't even have to taste it to know it's better. Maura, Brooke, Mary - you missed out on some yummy chili!

Homemade Pizza Crust

It's a new year and another opportunity to use my bread maker. Today I made my own pizza crust. I love knowing exactly what we're eating and I love using kitchen equipment.

After working backwards from what time that I wanted the family to eat dinner to figure out when I needed to prepare my pizza crust, I put all of my ingredients together in the bread maker. I punched in the correct code and my crust was in the making!

Fast-forward to the dough being ready. I took it out of the bread maker and plopped in onto a floured countertop and rolled it out to fit my sheet pan. I prepped the toppings, popped it into the oven and 19 minutes later dinner was ready. Preparing you own pizza dough using a bread maker is sooooo much easier that rolls (see posting from 12.24).

Next time I'll be sure to leave more crust. I loved that the pizza crust was chewy yet firm enough to pick up without all of the ingredients sliding off. And, the crunchy edges were the best!

Butterscotch Bread Pudding

It's no secret that I am a fan of Allrecipes.com. I love that you can type in any number of ingredients and it will suggest recipes to try. I love that it has ratings and comments. I love to try 4-5 star recipes and I always read a bunch of comments before starting. It's good to know that a bunch of people thought the recipe was too sweet and recommend cutting back on the sugar, etc.

Allrecipes.com emails me daily and weekly recipes. Two days ago I stumbled upon one for Butterscotch Bread Pudding. It sounded awesome so I decided to run out to the store and get some butterscotch chips. And, because my bread maker was given a second chance at life, I decided to bake my own bread for the pudding.

This bread pudding was so good that it didn't even need sauce and it was even better the next day. The butterscotch chips almost completely melted into an awesome reward for a dessert well done.

Here's the recipe.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Butterscotch-Bread-Pudding/Detail.aspx

I followed recommendations and cut the sugar by half. Next time I would add at least another 1/2 cup of chips. Yummy!