Baja Fish Tacos
CDKitchen http://www.cdkitchen.com

Serves/Makes: 4 | Difficulty Level: 4 | Ready In: 30-60 minutes

Ingredients:

1 lime Juiced
1 pound fresh fresh fillets, cut into 3 X 1 inch strips (I used tilapia)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon chile powder
1 1/2 teaspoon crushed dried oregano leaves
1 teaspoon dried cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Canola oil for frying
8 7″ corn or flour tortillas, wrapped in foil and kept warm in a 250 degree oven
2 cups green cabbage, shredded
Quartered limes
Purchased or homemade salsa
Sliced avocado
***Chipotle Cream***
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream (I used fat free yogurt)
2 chipotle chilies in adobo, minced (I used 2 teaspoons dried chipotle. Any dried red pepper would work, I believe)
1/2 lime Juiced
Dash of sugar
Salt to taste

Directions:
Toss the fish pieces in the fresh lime juice and marinate for ten minutes. Meanwhile, combine the flour, cornmeal, chile powder, oregano, cumin and salt in a large, shallow bowl. Heat the canola oil to a depth of 1/2-inch in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until a small amount of flour sizzles when flicked into the pan. Dredge the fish in the flour mixture and fry in batches until golden and cooked through, about 7 to 10 minutes per batch. Drain on paper towels and keep warm in the oven until ready to serve.

To serve, place two tortillas on each plate and divide the fish evenly down the middle of each. Top with cabbage and drizzle with Chipotle Cream. Pass limes, salsa and avocado at the table.

Chipotle Cream Stir all ingredients together in a bowl and add salt to taste. Let stand at least 10 minutes to let flavors blend. (May be made up to 1 day ahead. Refrigerate until ready to serve.)

Cuz it’s cold, and I didn’t have any taters.

1-1/2 lb lean stew meat (y’know, I buy roast on sale and cut my own stew meat, it’s way cheaper that way)
1 2inch cube of salt cured side meat or bacon if that’s what you have
2 medium onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 ccarrots, cut up
4 celery stalks, sliced
2 cartons (6 cans) of good quality beef broth
2 pkg of brown gravy mix
alot of thyme
alot of black pepper

Brown the stew meat in a big pot, then put it and it’s juices in a bowl and set aside. Wipe out the pot.
Fry the side meat in the pot, and remove the meat when it’s crispy. Put the meat in the bowl with the beef.
In the side meat drippings, gently brown the onions and garlic.
Sir together about 2 cups of the beef broth with the brown gravy mix, and set aside.
Put the rest of the broth in with the onions and garlic, add the meats and accumulated juices.
Add the thyme and black pepper, and stir in the brown gravy mix.
Put a lid on it, turn it down low, and let cook for a good long time. Hours, even.

Before you serve it make:
Dumplings!
3 cups biscuit mix
1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
anough milk to make a slightly sticky dough

Drop the dough by generous spoonfuls onto the bubbling stew. Put the lid on and let them cook a bit. They’re done when light and fluffy anf dry inside.
enough milk

I made these today and…Yum, y’all! With a glass of white wine and some jazz on the ipod, a great way to relax for an evening.
Rather than grinding the pepper in a coffee mill, I just set the pepper mill on coarse. Duh, right? Also, Parmegiano-Reggiano is not to be found in the humble burg of Statesbuurrr, so I just used the stuff in the plastic container that’s already grated up. Maybe if someone leaves me title to their oil well and I have an income, I’ll buy the Good Stuff, but for now, my tastebuds don’t know the difference. The wine came from the grocery store, too.
They are extremely tasty, I highly recommend. Oh, I had a couple with a bowl of tomato soup for lunch. The soup didn’t know how to act, but it all tasted good together.

Black Pepper Parmesan Biscotti
Ingredients
1 1/2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 oz Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (2 1/4 cups)
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk

Special equipment: an electric coffee/spice grinder
Preparation
Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F.

Pulse peppercorns in grinder until coarsely ground.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, 2 cups cheese, and 1 tablespoon ground black pepper in a large bowl. Blend in butter with a pastry blender or your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk 3 eggs with milk and add to flour mixture, stirring with a fork until a soft dough forms.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and quarter dough. Using well-floured hands, form each piece into a slightly flattened 12-inch-long log (about 2 inches wide and 3/4 inch high). Transfer logs to 2 ungreased large baking sheets, arranging logs about 3 inches apart.

Whisk remaining egg and brush some over logs, then sprinkle tops of logs evenly with remaining 1/4 cup cheese and 1/2 tablespoon ground pepper. Bake, rotating sheets 180 degrees and switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until logs are pale golden and firm, about 30 minutes total. Cool logs to warm on sheets on a rack, about 10 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.

Carefully transfer 1 warm log to a cutting board and cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices with a serrated knife. Arrange slices, cut sides down, in 1 layer on a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining logs, transferring slices to sheets. Bake, turning over once, until golden and crisp, 35 to 45 minutes total. Cool biscotti on baking sheets on racks, about 15 minutes.

Cooks’ note: Biscotti keep in an airtight container at room temperature 2 weeks.

I tried this recipe out today, and it’s like crunchy banana bread. It didn’t call for nuts, so I think next batch I’m going to add a cup or so of walnuts, to make it more like banana-nut bread.

I didn’t have any Banana Nut Crunch cereal, so I used Honey Bunches of Oats, and crunched up about 1/2 cup of dried banana chips. I’m thinking any sort of flakes n clusters cereal would work. Walmart’s Great Value Nature’s Grains cereal is kind of cinnamon-y, It would be good here, maybe even better than the one I used. The banana bits need to be pretty small, I just kind of broke them up, and they made it a little difficult to slice the loaf.
I used real butter instead of margarine, because I’m funny that way. I don’t think it affected the recipe adversely. I think it calls for margarine because Kraft Foods makes margarine.

I found the dough to be a bit on the sticky side, so I added about 1/2 cup of flour in addition to what it called for, and that made it easier to work.
with. It’s a pretty sticky dough even with that, so use a generous amount of flour on your hands and the countertop when you shape the loaf.

For the second baking, I lowered the oven temp to 250 degrees and baked them for an hour. I like my biscotti to be very dry and crisp.

I recommend this recipe, it’s easy, and tasty. I’m making some for Christmas!

Banana Biscotti from Kraft Food and Family magazine
2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp. CALUMET Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 cups POST SELECTS BANANA NUT CRUNCH Cereal, crushed
1 square BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate

PREHEAT oven to 325ºF. Mix flour, baking powder and salt until well blended; set aside. Beat sugar and margarine in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, bananas and vanilla; beat until well blended. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until well blended after each addition. Stir in crushed cereal.
DIVIDE dough in half with floured hands; place on lightly floured surface. Roll each half into 14×2-inch log. Place, 2 inches apart, on nonstick baking sheet.
BAKE 25 to 30 min. or until lightly browned. Remove from baking sheet to wire rack; cool 5 min. Transfer to cutting board. Use serrated knife to diagonally cut each log into 12 slices. Place, cut-sides up and 1/2 inch apart, on same baking sheet. Bake an additional 12 to 15 min. or until slightly dry. Remove to wire racks; cool completely. Melt chocolate as directed on package; drizzle over biscotti. Let stand until chocolate is firm. Store in tightly covered container at room temperature.

Wow- it’s been forever since I posted here! Sorry ’bout that!
Anyway, todays topic is the most politically incorrect genre of cookery: Deep Frying

We bought a deep fryer recently, and the older boys have been playing around with it, frying this and that to see what happens. #3 remembered a tasty appetizer at the catfish place in Auburn- what was the name of it? Cock and something. Or Red Feather or Rooster…I don’t remember. The catfish was good but the deep fried pickles were wonderful! Sounds strange, no? Oh so good. Crispy hot pickle slices, battered and deep fried. They are the kind of thing you eat on Sunday afternoon while watching football and drinking beer. Definitely Man-food.

So this is how he made them:
a jar of hamburger chips dill pickle slices, drained well
1/2 cup milk mixed with 1 egg
1-1/2 cups bisquick or other biscuit mix like Pioneer or jiffy, in a large ziploc bag

Heat the deep fryer up to 375 degrees, OR, if you don’t have one, melt shortening into a deep skillet (at least 2 inches worth) until bubbles come out of the handle of a wooden spoon you stick into the melted shortening (how’s that for a cool trick! It works, too!)

Mix the pickles with the milk-and-egg mixture, then toss them into the bag, roughly a handful at a time, and shake well to cover them with the biscuit mix. Shake off the extra mix and carefully lower them into the skillet or fryer. Fry until golden brown- 6 or 8 minutes, flipping them over if you’re using a skillet. Drain on a paper towel and serve with ranch dressing.

Simple, eh? And really good, If you like pickles at all, you’ll probably like these. I remember the first time someone told me about deep fried pickles. I thought they sounded like something randomly generated by a computer, and spent a couple of years acting really cagy, until we went to dinner at (OH! I remember the name! Cock o’ th’ Walk!) Cock O’ Th’ Walk and he ordered some. “Try them!” he said, so I did and wow. I was hooked.

It has been opined that we should try making fried candy bars. I’m thinking you could use those Hersheys Chunks, and put a batter similar to what goes on Captain D’s fish- something light and puffy. Or maybe even cake batter. We’ll see. Maybe. I am TRYING to keep this family at a stable and healthy weight. I am hoping the novelty of frying everything will wear off, and everyone will develope a sudden interest in spinach.

I love a big salad for lunch, especially in the summertime. It makes me feel Virtuous in several different ways. One is that it’s good for me. I almost always use straight up spinach instead of lettuce, for the greens, unless it’s spring and I have greens in the garden. It’s also cheap, because I can use whatever’s on hand to make it. I also make my own dressing, which makes me feel all snooty and stuff, and I like that.

Here’s my basic dressing. Sometimes I doll it up with herbs, sometimes I don’t.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced not terribly fine
a few grindings of black pepper
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar.
Heat up the olive oil in a teeny pan, and fry the garlic in it. Add the pepper toward the end. Then add the sugar and vinegar and stir well. That’s it. This makes enough for 1 big bowful of salad.

Here’s stuff I like to put in my salad:
toasted almonds or walnuts
crumbled bacon (right, like we ever have leftover bacon…)
boiled egg
tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden
leftover grilled chicken or beef
cheese- any kind
sesame seeds (I’ll put a splosh of sesame oil in the dressing if I’m doing this)
Mandarin oranges are good, especially with almonds and chicken, you might add a bit of soy sauce to the dressing.

If you have nuts and an egg, there’s no need really for meat. If you’re taking it to work, don’t peel the egg until it’s time to eat. If you don’t like spinach, use what you like. I like it particularly because it is a Super Food, slam full of all sorts of good things. It lacks the crunch of some types of lettuces, tho, so use what you like.

Today’s version (I’m on this diet that has me eating a big salad every single day for lunch, soI’m trying to shake things up a bit) involves:
Spinach
toasted almonds
bacon crumbles
boiled egg
cucumber from the garden (I don’t get tired of saying that! I love my teeny garden!)
and the dressing mentioned above. With a big glass of iced tea with mint (from the garden!)I will be set until suppertime. Chicken on the menu, don’t know how I’m going to fix it, but I do know how I’m not going to fix it: fried or Thai with coconut milk. Which I’m fresh out of.

So, last week, the meat, all heckabuncha pounds of it, in the freezer thawed out, so I had to cook it. That means, this week I am using it up. Today’s culinary expression is a tasty summer chicken salad called Laab Gai,or… Salad, Chicken. Thai style. I started making this several years ago, after eating it at a wonderful hole-in-the-wall Thai place in Atlanta called Zab-E-Lee. Here’s the recipe.

Laab Gai
1 lb boneless chicken breasts, cooked
6 cloves of garlic
2 stalks lemongrass
3 green onions
1/2 cup fresh cilantro or mint (or 1/4 cup both)
1 inch knob of ginger, peeled and sliced (or a tablespoon of dried ground ginger)
3 or 4 tablespoons fish sauce
juice of 2-3 limes
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tablespoons ground toasted rice
2 dried Thai chilis, toasted and ground
Mix everything except the rice and chilis together in a food processor. Add lime juice and fish sauce until it makes a slightly wet coarse paste. Toast the rice and chili peppers (I use cayennes, because Thai chilis aren’t easy to find) in a skillet, and grind fine in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.. Stir in the ground rice and pepper. Mix everything up really well.

Serve with cooked white rice (sticky rice is amazing, if you can find it. Directions below on making it)raw cabbage, and a jad (recipe follows)

A jad is an all purpose Thai condiment/salad sort of thing. It’s delicious with any kind of gai (salad), or satay, or anything else.
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 small cucumber, coarsely chopped of sliced very thin
2 shallots or purple onion, chopped coarse
2-3 Thai chilis (or cayennes)
Mix everything together, and let stand for a few hours before serving.

Sticky Rice (also called sweet rice-look for it in the Asian food section, or at an Asian market)
1 cup rice makes 3 servings
Put the rice in a pot, and add enough cold water to submerge the rice by an inch or more.
Soak for at least 3 hours. Longer is fine.
Drain the rice into a metal colander that will fit down into a pot. Put a couple of inches of water in the pot, put the lid on it, and steam the rice for about 45 minutes, checking after 30 mins to see if it’s done. It will be translucent and the grains will stick to each other without being mushy.

To eat the chicken salad, I like to take a little ball of rice, a wad of chicken salad, a few chunks of a jad, and wrap it in a cabbage leaf. Yum.

Next time you have a watermelon, take the leftover bits and freeze them. Then, next time you make up a pitcher of lemonade (your favorite kind), whiz it up in a blender with some of the frozen watermelon. The more melon you use, the slushier the drink. So tasty!

Today, I bought a brisket. Nothing says Barbeque to me louder than a beef brisket, wearing a thick coat of spices and occasionally mopped with a beer based sauce. Add some fried okra, cole slaw and pickles and yum, y’all. It helps to have a smoker, but it can be done on a grill or even in the oven. A smoker’s best, tho, in my opinion.

Smoked Beef Brisket (for a 2-3 pound brisket piece)
Light a charcoal fire in your smoker or grill. While the charcoal is lighting, soak some smokers chip in water. Mesquite, any kind of fruitwood or hickory make a tasty and fragrant smoke.
While the fire is getting started, make the rub and the mop:

For the rub:
1/4 cup paprika
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons toasted cumin, ground coarse
2 tablespoons toasted coriander, ground coarse
2 tablespoons cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chili pepper (or ground chipoltle)
Mix all this together and set aside 1 tablespoon of the mix to use in the mop
Rub the brisket all over with the dry mix. Really pack in on good, completely covering the meat on all sides. Set this aside.

For the mop:
1-12oz bottle beer
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon of the dry rub
Mix in a small pot and set on low heat on the stove.
If you’re making your brisket in an oven, add a splash of liquid smoke to the mop. Otherwise, leave it out, for it would be painfully redundant.

Set up your smoker accordnig to the directions, OR for a grill, set the fire up on one side on the grill. Wrap a few wet wood chunks in aluminum foil, very loosely, and set over the fire. Set the meat on the grill away from the fire, or in the smoker box, or in a dutch oven with 1/2 cup of beef broth. Bake in the oven, basting with the mop sauce every half hour or so, at 275 degrees.
Whether in the smoker, grill, or oven, baste the meat with the sauce every 30-45 minutes, until the meat is done and very tender (3-4 hours for a 2-3 pound piece of meat). Cut into the meat and you will see a smoke ring- a red ring in the meat just under the surface. The wider the ring, the better it’s smoked.

For a sauce to serve with it, take a 1/2 cup or whatever you have left of the mop, mix in a bottle of your favorite bbq sauce, and serve with the meat.

Slice the meat across the grain, in thin slices, and dribble with the sauce. If you want. Really it’s pretty good without a sauce.
Make sure there’s plenty of wood for the fire. I usually start the fire with charcoal, and then keep adding both wet and dry wood to keep the fire going. It takes about 15 pounds of wood to smoke for 8 hours. You can use charcoal to keep the heat up, just make sure it’s already lit and ashy before you dump it on the fire. Putting ‘raw’ charcoal will give your meat an unpleasant aftertaste, sort of a chemical flavor. If at all possible, stick with wood or hardwood lump charcoal. Under no circumstances should you EVER use lighter fluid. That stuff is a travesty. Invest in a charcoal chimney instead- they run about $10 at Walmart or your local hardware, and you can actually light your charcoal faster using a chimney than you can with lighter fluid. The only other thing you need with a chimney is some newspaper, paper sacks, or (this is what I use because I never have the other things) pinecones and dry leaves.

I got the recipe for this from the Peppy Stepford Wife Herself, Sanda Lee of Semi-Homemade Cooking. Cheesy tablescape is purely optional. I have altered it a tiny bit, because I’m just that way. It throws together in no time, and you can keep the ingredients around to have it for an emergency meal. My people like it, but they’ll eat anything so I’m not so sure that’s a great endorsement.

1 bag shredded cole-slaw cabbage
1 big can chop-suey or chow mein vegetables
1 big can chicken (or 2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded)
1 small can rice noodles, or chow mein noodles
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar (or 2 tablespoon regular vinegar and 2 tablespoons water)
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Mix together the vegetables and chicken. In a small bowl, combine the mayo, soy sauce, vinegar, and oil. Toss everything together and top with the noodles.

You can also add those baby corn things, or water chestnuts, or whatever you like. You could use a can of bean spouts, a can of baby corn, and a can of water chestnuts, if you don’t want the peppers and celery that’s in the chop suey vegetable mix. Or, use frozen stir-fry vegetables, just give them a quick zap in the microwave.

Another summer salad recipe:
Asian style broccoli slaw

2 whole stalks of broccoli and shred in a food processor (OR! Use a bag of broccoli slaw)
2 green onions, sliced very thin
1 package of beef ramen noodles, crushed, and keep the little package of seasoning
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds (or chopped, or sliced, whatever)

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
seasoning packet from the ramen noodles
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Mix the broccoli and onions together.
Mix the mayo, vinegar, soy sauce, ramen seasoning, and sesame oil, to make the dressing.
Stir the dressing into the vegetables.
Immediately before serving, stir in the ramen noodles and top with the toasted almonds.

If you mix the noodles in too soon, they’ll get mushy and weird.
You can also top this with toasted sesame seeds instead of almonds.

So, what’s you’re favorite summer salad recipe?