The Pioneer Woman: Easy Enchiladas

We tried another PW recipe last week - her beef enchiladas.  Now, I make a mean chicken enchilada and some pretty good sweet pork with green sauce enchiladas but I've never made beef.  We're not huge fans of ground beef in enchiladas and who has the time to cook and shred beef, though that would be tasty too.

No, I used the PW recipe and they were decidedly good.  Good enough that I actually ate the left overs the next night.

Of course, I modified things a bit.  I didn't have onions, but I had shallots so those went into the mix.  I didn't have time to fry and dip my corn tortillas so I just microwaved them individually so that they were hot, soft and pliable.  Also - no olives, but lots and lots of green chilies and cilantro.

Yum, yum, yum.

Photo courtesy of Pioneer Woman

The Pioneer Woman: Favorite Sandwich

The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, is my new favorite food person.  I bought her cookbook and am really in love with quite a few recipes.

Last night for dinner we had the sandwich called, Marlboro Man's Favorite.  It was delish.  One of my new favorites as well.  I mean, anything that involves a ton of butter and a three year old will willingly consume scores a gold star in my book.

Try it yourself tonight.

Photo courtesy of Pioneer Woman

Rootbeer Cupcakes

(Image courtesy of confessions of a cookbook queen)

I fixed these cupcakes (mine did not look like this, I've lost all my pictures because I deleted the card) for a party and my oh my, they were divine. Particularly the icing. Oh my heavens, the icing.

The recipe is courtesy of one of my new favorite treat blogs, Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. The stuff she whips up is absolutely divine.  Yes, its as easy as the recipe says and yes the cupcakes will end up absolutely soft and fluffy with only a cake mix and some root beer.

Note 1:  I used an entire 12 oz bottle of root beer and maybe it's because I'm at a higher altitude, but I only got about 18 cupcakes, instead of 24.

Note 2:  I double the amount of root beer extract in the icing and added some to the cake batter as well.

INGREDIENTS

1 box white cake mix
1 cup of your favorite root beer
1 recipe butter cream
1 teaspoon root beer extract

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 muffin tins with paper liners.

Mix together root beer and cake mix (yes, just those two ingredients). Pour into paper liners and fill 3/4 full. 

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and allow to completely cool.

In a separate bowl, mix the butter cream frosting and root beer flavoring. Frost cooled cupcakes.

Butter Cream
Butter, softened to room temperature
Powdered sugar
Vanilla
Milk

Put 2 sticks of butter, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Whip them all together.  Slowly add powdered sugar (4 cups) and root beer extract, a couple of cap fulls to the butter.  Add a little more milk if it's too thick, a little more powdered sugar if it's too thin.

Enjoy.

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

I made these for a family BBQ in July. They were yummy. I didn't think that the cake ended up sour enough, so I really went all out with the frosting.

This recipe is not mine, but i tweaked it. The recipe makes just barely 12 cupcakes.

Cupcakes
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/2 c. pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
1/4 c. buttermilk
red or hot pink food coloring, couple drops

preheat oven to 350 and bake for 20-25 minutes

in a small bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt

in a large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and pink lemonade. then, alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, ending with flour, whisking until smooth. add food coloring to make the batter pink.

Pink Lemonade Butter cream

3 c. + 3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 stick butter, room temp.
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 c. pink lemonade concentrate
red or pink food coloring

add butter, sugar, salt, and concentrate in a mixer and mix on low. add food coloring. taste. add more concentrate if not tart enough. More sugar if too thin.

Pipe or spread on cooled cupcakes.

Quick Marinade

It wasn't THE most tasty thing in the world, but for a quickie invention, it wasn't bad.

We had steaks for dinner, but not much else.  And, I'm sick so I needed something more flavorful than the average.  And, there is no gas in my grill so I was stuck cooking inside.

To marinade the steaks, I did this.

balsamic vinegar
olive oil
rosemary
roasted garlic - minced
dijon mustard
capers
salt and pepper

Use quantities you're comfortable with.  I love garlic and balsamic so I went heavy on those.  If you've got two small steaks like I had, you'll want about half a cup of marinade.  Because it was a last minute thing, my steaks only marinated for about 10 minutes.  They could have used at least 30 minutes, maybe a couple of hours to really soak up the flavor.

Taking care of people the only way I know how...with food.

A couple weeks ago a good friend of mine had a baby.  At home.  In her bathtub.  On purpose.

She's been a bit AWOL from life since and I finally talked to her a little yesterday via text message and she agreed to let me take her dinner and hold her sweet baby boy.

While I was fixing the meal for her and her husband tonight I realized that whenever I want to help someone, I show up with food.  I use food for everything.

I'm not the best at telling people I love them, but I can make them cookies.  I'm not really good at helping people with their lives, but I can and will make them dinner.  It just seems to be the way that I feel I can fit in and help the best.

Food is so good for so many reasons.  Love, therapy, a helping hand, a night off for someone.  I'm really learning to love cooking and being in my kitchen - even if I have some helpers with grubby hands every once in a while.

I guess food is good therapy for me, too.

Tin Foil Dinners

Last week I went camping with a youth group. Just an overnight-er. When I found out that for dinner, we'd be consuming tin foil dinners, I was ecstatic. I LOVE THIS! I thought.

Awesome.

That was, until, I saw them. The person in charge had cooked all the ingridients SEPARATELY the night before. Then they were combined, wrapped in foil, stuffed into a cooler, and had buckets of ice dumped over the top.

When they were taken out of the cooler to be "warmed up" on the hot coals they were dripping with watter and soggy.

And, the ground beef was chopped up and crumbled on top like a condiment.

ick.

ick.

double ick.

I left camp to "run an errand" and stopped at the local McDonald's for dinner instead.

Since then however, I've felt the need to consume such a feast in foil. The other day with my trusty three year old assistant chef, we set out to make the best and most seasoned (thanks to the helper) tin foil dinners on the planet.

our ingredients:
ground beef
onions
green onions
Yukon gold potatoes
red bell pepper
every single salt and seasoning we could pull out of the pantry in one armful.

We cut and sliced and molded. We sprayed the foil, gently laid out our ingredients and went out to the grill.

no gas.

in the grill.

The husband never turned the switches to "off" after our last BBQ event. He also never turns the propane off (no righty tighty in his book).

Thank heavens the house didn't burn down.

That left me with 2 beautiful packets of food and no BBQ.

We headed back indoors, my assistant and I and put our dinners in the oven at 400 degrees for nearly an hour.

They could have used another 20 minutes.

I had to zap them in the microwave for a bit but the final result?

Absolutely scrumptious.

I love tin foil dinners....even if my effort were

well

nearly......

foiled!