BakeAwayGirl

Red Enchilada Sauce 3 tbsp olive oil 3 tbsp flour 1 tbsp chili powder 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp garlic 1/4 tsp oregano 1/2 tsp salt 2 tbsp tomato paste 2 cups chicken broth 1 tsp apple cider vinegar Black pepper to taste Mix your spices and flour together in a small bowl. Make sure you have the tomato paste, chicken broth, and vinegar ready as well. In a medium size pot, heat the oil. You'll know it's ready if it sizzles when you sprinkle a tiny bit of the spice mixture. When the oil is hot, pour in the spice mixture, whisking constantly until it darkens just a bit (about 1 minute).  Whisk in tomato paste, then slowly add the chicken broth. Raise the heat to medium high and bring mixture to a simmer, whisking frequently. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Remove from heat, pour in vinegar and add pepper as preferred. 

Jeff's work has an awesome tradition of taking turns to provide Friday lunches.  Everybody who wants to participate signs up with a small group for a couple of Fridays during the year so that every Friday, one small group is providing lunch for everyone.  He really enjoys it and frequently comes home to brag about the delicious food he had that week.  Our recipe this week comes directly from his Friday food. Last June, Jeff came home raving about a fantastic soup he had at work that Friday, and he wanted me to make it.  I have a thing about "winter food" and "summer food," so I didn't make it over the summer.  But with the nice cool weather lately, I suggested we try it this week.  We had the ground beef, but we were low on all the canned veggies this recipe calls for, so I hit the grocery store. Now, I like mine very savory, so I went a little heavy on the spices.  The original recipe called for one packet of taco seasoning, but I used an equivile...

So it's been a long time!  My Pinterest-ing this year has mostly been wedding related and staring at all the delicious food on Pinterest certainly doesn't mesh with that.  But today, Jeff suggested I browse for dinner options, and the one I stumbled on required ingredients we always keep on hand, such as chicken, rice, black beans, and chicken broth.  However, the original author states (and I agree) that you can make this with whatever veggies you have on hand.  So feel free to take a little creative license with this! The burrito bowl originally requires chicken, but we both said it would be easy to make it with ground beef.  If you do, brown the ground beef in a separate pan, drain it, then add it to the sauteed onions.  It was quite delicious with chicken, and probably would be good without any meat, though you'd need to add many more veggies.  I also added some seasoning to the raw chicken, then a little more to the uncooked rice, and then abo...

There's two go-tos for me when cooking, Mexican and Italian.  Both are easy to do meatless, and, while we're not vegetarians, I like to try to do some meatless meals.  With Mexican, we use a lot of black beans, and in Italian, we load up on carbs.  Screw Atkins, I'm a carbaholic. Anyway, what could be better than mixing my two favorite types of food together?  The answer is nothing, nothing is better. I've never made enchiladas, but Jeff wanted me to try, so months ago, he bought me some enchilada sauce, "just to have on hand, in case."  Uh huh.  But then I stumbled on this recipe on pinterest, which included taco meat, beans, cheese, and enchilada sauce.  Can't go wrong!  I filed it away for another day. Well as we hit the stores before the Polar Vortex Round 2, I found jumbo shells on sale, and immediately knew what we would have for dinner.  It was a little time consuming, just because it's cooking a few different things and then put...

Mine was a mess this time... but amazingly delicious! You'll never eat tacos the same way again!  At least we haven't.  With this cheesy, delicious pie, we no longer eat traditional tacos around here.  This is consumed (eagerly) with a knife and fork, and uses less tortillas than tacos. Now, the best thing about this recipe is it leaves a lot of room for customization.  Jeff and I have very different ideas of what goes in a taco.  I think the spicier the better, but he wouldn't enjoy that much, so we keep our taco pie very basic.  Remember that you can add whatever you'd like to yours! Taco Pie Adapted from here 1-2lb ground beef (or turkey if you're so inclined) Taco seasoning (and as much water as your seasoning packet calls for) 1/3 cup salsa 1/2 cup shredded cheese 2 large tortillas Enough cheese to cover the top (roughly 2 cups) Suggested Toppings: Shredded lettuce Jalapenos Diced onions Diced tomatoes Sour Cream Guacamole In...

You may have sensed a theme around here... we like Mexican food.  For Jeff, this is a relatively recent discovery and for me, it is a life long love affair.  Every Wednesday night of my childhood, we had chicken fajitas and it was my favorite night of the week.  So when I find a good Mexican recipe, I am automatically drawn to it. I just stumbled across this little beauty the other day and have had it on my mind ever since.  So today, after Rolled up, brushed with oil, and unbaked hitting the gym, I dragged Jeff to the store for the few ingredients we would need for it.  Mixing was easy and so was rolling, but I was nervous about baking them and having them hold their shape after.  Don't worry about that; it takes care of itself as long as you roll them tightly and place them seam-side down. As soon as we took a bite, we agreed that this will definitely feature itself in our kitchen again!  It can easily be doubled for parties, as well.  ...

Jeff and I were starving on Saturday, so I loaded up my Pinterest food board and went to work.  I've had things on there since I signed up about a year ago that I've just never tried, but I went for a new recipe anyway.  Most of those have ingredients that we don't leave around, so they are more of a special occasion.  Maybe I should just give up on those others... Anyway, these were deeeeelicious!  We usually have the ingredients laying around, so it was an quick, easy meal for us!  Even if it takes a trip to the grocery store, this is worth it.  There are no amounts because you make as much as you want to use.  Be aware, though, that if you use an entire can of black beans, you will have enough for about 10 tacos from the 6-inch tortillas.  They do keep fine in the fridge for a while if you cover them. Crunchy Black Bean Tacos Adapted from Endless Simmer Canned black beans or cooked black beans Diced onion Taco seasoning Corn tortilla...

I hope you all enjoyed your Superbowl, whether it was alone or a party.  I don't know how anyone would enjoy football alone, but then, I don't care about the football.  I tune in for the commercials, and I only like to watch it with other people. And let's be real... I love Beyonce. I was rootin' for the Ravens, so I was thrilled with the final score, but the game itself was nerve wrecking.  I don't like close games, and that blackout killed me.  I like to go to bed about 10, but our apartment wasn't even cleared out until then!  We were all pretty ready for the end of the game at that point. Well, it's a week later and I think I'm finally hungry again.  We had so many snacks for our superbowl party that I thought I was going to explode.  Jeff did make his delicious carne asada, I made some guacamole to go with it.  We bought the phenomenal salsa verde from our local carniceria, but it was too spicy for most. The snacks I made were all fav...

I've had a little internal debate going on over the past two weeks.  I've tried a couple recipes only to discover that we didn't like them.  I wondered if I should post about the failed ones as well.  Well... they weren't failures, we just didn't care for them.  I didn't want this blog to be "Molly & Jeff's amazing cooking lives" because we make "eh" dishes plenty of times, but I also don't want to bore you with recipes that we didn't much like and who wants to try something with that kind of recommendation. So here's my disclaimer:  Sometimes we make lousy food, blah food, or boring food.  I'm not going to post about them because I want this to be a record of recipes I like so I can go back and find delicious things any time I want.  Ta daaaa... problem solved. Now, onto our delicious experiment last weekend... We're hosting the Superbowl party here next weekend, and Jeff didn't want chili or pizza or wi...