Enchiladas

Last monday was Joe's birthday party and I made chicken enchiladas with green sauce, and shredded beef enchiladas with red sauce. It was an all day process, but was worth it. I was nice to have my mother come over. I also made his favorite german chocolate cake, with a whole box of candles! LOL, I hope Joe had a wonderful birthday dinner.

BTW-There is no recipe for these dishes...sorry!

TRI TIP a-la-BBQ

Tonight is Tri-tip night, mostly because I got it on sale today. I love Lawry's mesquite marinade, but I have also used Jack Daniels mesquite marinade, it comes in it's own bag, ready to go. (This is a non-alcoholic product) I used both today, just because I have 2 Tri-tips and both marinades. We will see which one tastes better. True taste test today. I prefer my meat medium rare-to medium. But the nice thing is that the ends are always more done than the center so you have the right doneness for everyone.

I preheat the BBQ, then place the meat on medium for 30 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting. Cut across the grain.
I served it with Parmesan pasta (From a box) and my new favorite veggies...Birds eye Steamfresh specially seasoned, southwestern corn. Tomorrow we will have leftovers...Tritip sandwhiches with BBQ sauce. Can't wait.

The whole process took 40 miuntes, with a lot of down time waiting for the meat to finish. Joe says it should be a sin to cook dinner so fast.

Albondigas soup

This is a favorite soup of mine that my grandmother, and my mother both make. I never recieved a recipe, or any written instrutions, in fact this is the first time this recipe has been written down in 3 generations. It wasn't a cool day today, but I have missed eating soup all summer. This one didn't make the house too hot. Hope you try it and enjoy!

Soup:
1/2 medium oinion
1 clove garlic
5 medium carrots
1-2 cans beef broth (optional)
1 can of Rotel tomatoes with green chiles (optional)
1 small can tomatoe sauce
salt
1 tsp oil
Cabbage (optional)

Meatballs
2-3 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup bread crumb
1/2 cup uncooked white rice
3 eggs
2-3 tables spoons of dried oregano
2 tablespoons garlic salt

Saute garlic, oinions, and carrots in 1 tsp oil, for 2-3 minutes.
Add all soup ingrediants together and simmer on low.
Mixed all meatball ingrediants together and form meatballs no bigger than the palm of your hand. Place all meatballs into soup and boil on medium for 30-45 minutes. Add chopped cabbage 15 minutes before searveing if desired.

Remember to adjust cooking time depending on how big or small your meatballs are. You can always test a meatball by cutting it through to see if any pink meat remains. Then adjust your cooking time.

Death by Chocolate

This is one of my all time favorite desserts. I want to thank Marty Davis, a client of mine, who hand wrote this reciepe for me, after making it for a work meeting my office was having. She gave me this recipe so I could make it for Joe when he got back from his deployment from overseas. I thank her for a truley wounderful dish.

Death by Chocolate


PREP TIME 30 Min
COOK TIME 25 Min
Refrigerate overnight



INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
1 (18.25 ounce) package Chocolate brownies-cooked as per directions, then cooled.
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 2/3 cups milk
3/4 cup strong brewed coffee or espresso (which I use)
1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
6 (1.4 ounce) bars chocolate covered toffee bars, frozen and crushed


DIRECTIONS
In a 9x13 in pan, bake brownies according to package directions. Cool and crumble. Make pudding, according to package directions, with milk.
In a large trifle or other glass serving bowl, place half of the crumbled brownie. Pour half of the coffee/espresso over the brownie, and spread half of the pudding over that. Top with half of the whipped topping, sprinkled with half the crumbled candy bars. Repeat layers in the same order. Refrigerate until serving.

Fried Green Tomatoes!!!

Well this dish has a funny story behind it. I always thought, this is not really a dish but must have a funny meaning to it. Well I was wrong. The first time I went to Texas, my mother in law actually made this dish for me. Not very hard, but you really do use green tomatoes...not some special kind of tomatoes, just ordinary "Beef steak Tomatoes" or what ever you have. My husband tried really hard to find some green tomatoes this week. I even mentioned to a co-worker that we were looking for green tomatoes. He found some at work last week. So I am going to the kitchen now to make some fried green tomatoes.... Recipe follows below....



2 medium green tomatoes
1/4cup all-purpose flour
1/4cup yellow cornmeal
1/2teaspoon salt
1/2teaspoon garlic salt
1/2teaspoon ground red pepper
1/2teaspoon cracked black pepper
1cup buttermilk
1cup vegetable oil
Hot pepper sauce

You can use both flour and corn meal or just 1/2 cup of flour. I just use flour. I slice my tomatoes very thin as thin as possible. They fry up and taste like a potatoes chips, but you could cut them thicker if you like. Dip in milk, season, and fry 3-5 minutes. Serve immediately after frying, so they don't have time to get soggy. Serve with hot pepper sauce, ketchup, or homemade gravy....eater beware, this is a southern dish and not low fat!!!

Happy chowing!