Fajitas and Mexican Pasta Salad

It's summertime, hot and humid. Guests were coming over for a bbq, there would be a camp fire, marshmallows, and some fun and games with the kids. Who's not tired of hot dogs and hamburgers. Chicken is getting old, pork chops are for week nights, and ribs are a bit of a production and not for a large group.  Our family idea person a.k.a. SO, thought we should do a Mexican theme with fajitas and a cold salad. Perfect!

Mexican Pasta Salad with Pico de Gallo

I had also made a batch of fresh Pico de Gallo. It sounds strange, but it was a good addition to the salad. The salad was quite tasty, but just a tad dry. It wasn't really dry, but it was missing some texture. In any case, a dollop of the fresh condiment on top was a surprisingly good match. I didn't think of it at the time, but it might benefit from a bit of crunch as well, maybe crumbled tortilla chips.

The fajitas turned out particularly good. Unfortunately I didn't think to snap a picture of the fajitas, but everyone knows what they look like. The most interesting part of this whole endeavour was trying to find skirt steak. The history is quite interesting. The name is a Spanish nickname dating back to the 1930's in West Texas where the throwaway meat trimmings (including skirt steak) was given as payment to the Mexican vaqueros. In any case, skirt steak isn't all that common anymore - and there's quite a back story to the whole thing.  I went to two grocery stores and neither carry it at all. So I used flank instead. In the end, I think the two most important key points are the marinade, and slicing across the grain. Well a good sear helps as well.

Next Time:  will try to find skirt steak, and will try to crumble some tortilla chips on the salad

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 6/10

Epicure granola bars with home made Apple Pie spice

Most granola bars from the store are really sweet, often covered in chocolate, just not appropriate for breakfast - or so says SO. To fix this, I'll make some bars using an Epicure recipe and this Epicure "Perfect Petites" silicon baking mold. By the way, I don't sell or necessarily endorse Epicure or their products. We have a friend who likes to sell us this stuff, so we occasionally buy. Some of their spice blends are decent, and there are no preservatives and all that. Free range and grain fed. Anyhoo.

Epicure granola bars with home made apple pie spice

First, the bad.  These molds are really small. They are probably better suited to fancy little hors d'oeuvres than to granola bars - they hold around 2 Tb of volume. Then again, you could just eat two or three. OK that's not that bad.   The good - the silicon mold is really easy to scrape the filling into, easy to pop the cooked bars out, and easy to clean.

The recipe I'm copying here so I don't lose it - it turns out to be a pretty basic recipe which not only is the perfect balance of dry/moist, but is infinitely adaptable. You could add pretty much any kind of nut or seed, different cereals, and different sweeteners.

Next Time: try different combos of seeds and nuts

Me: 8/10
SO: 8/10
SSO: n/a

Skillet fried chicken with green beans and leeks with potatoes and gravy

This is a Sunday dinner type thing, but we ended up eating it on Saturday. SO was really jonesing for fried chicken, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm really enjoying the cast iron skillet these days. Some swear by it as their only pan. I won't quite go that far, but still it is good for many things: rib eye steak, corn bread, and yes, fried chicken.

Fried chicken, beans and leeks, and potatoes with gravy

Essentially I dredged the chicken in some seasoned flour, and threw it in a hot skillet. Not much more to it than that. I found some local green beans and was going to do it with parsnips but our grocery didn't have any so I substituted leeks and some red onion. Finally, some good old roughly smashed potatoes with the best gravy ever. I'm not a gravy expert, but you cannot make bad gravy in a skillet after frying chicken - there's just too much goodness in there. Just get the right amount of fat and flour, the rest is stirring and time.

The best gravy ever, from the gubbins' left in the skillet

In the end was a really nice meal. And the best part of all, SO got her fried chicken.

Next Time: maybe asparagus with the beans, and a little less cayenne in the gravy

Me: 8/10
SO: 8/10
SSO: 4/10