After the Tortilla Soup...

I like having some really good fruit for dessert like cantelope or watermelon, but sometimes you need a little treat. Maybe if your in the mood you can try the following recipe. My sister made them and said they were good, a little sweet, but good!

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Beat peanut butter, sugar, and egg by hand just until egg is incorporated (so don't mix it too long). Add baking soda and salt and mix.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, till golden. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes then remove and enjoy with a big glass of COLD milk.

Tortilla Soup

This is a really great soup for all year round - even in the summer. We make this soup every week in our house and even the kids will eat it up. I don't have an actually recipe cause I make it from my own recipe in my head, but it's so easy and I will give you the directions to what I do to make this easy, delicious, healthy dinner.

1. Boil either a whole chicken (boil 1 hour) or 3 chicken breasts (boil for 30 minutes) in a medium-sized stock pot filled with water half way.
2. After you cook the chicken, turn down the heat to low, and take out and debone the chicken under cold water or cut/shred the chicken breats into bit size peices.
3. Cut any kind of vegetables you love to eat into bite size peices: carrots, celery, fresh green beans, onion, tomato, peas, red potatoes, peices of corn on the cob and place in the pot where you cooked your chicken. Turn the heat back up to medium/high heat (not yet boiling but almost) and put back in your chicken with your vegtables and cook for another 30 minutes with seasonings (see next step).
4. Add 3 tablespons salt (salt will cook out) and 2 tablespoons cumin. Sounds like alot but with the amount of water, and the heat you need alot of seasonings. After the 30 minutes of cooking - taste the broth to see if you need any more salt, or cumin, or mexican seasoning you need. I like adding more cumin.
5. Turn off the heat and add 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (use the flowery part) and the juice of 2 whole lemons.
6. Serve and top with broken/crushed tortilla chips and cueso fresco or shredded cheddar cheese. Give another squeeze of lemon into your bowl if you like.
7. Enjoy!

Frijoles Charros

Next post: Quick and yummy lunch/dinner ideas. My sister suggested we all submit easy, off the top of your head lunch and dinner ideas, maybe with ingredients you don't have to go anywhere fancy for. If you have any you would like to submit, please do so!
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You know when you go into Mexican restaurant and they serve you those beans that are kind of soupy, and have bacon and cilantro in them....and they are soooo delicious! Those are called frijoles charros, or frijoles a la charra. So if you don't want refired beans next time your eating, which are delicious, too, then ask for frijoles a la charra for a change. These are great as a Saturday afternoon meal with freshly made flour tortillas. One meal we grew up on.

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Frijoles Charros

4 slices bacon, minced
1/2 chopped onion
1/2 fresh jalapeno, chopped
2 garlic gloves, minced
6 cups Frijoles and bean broth (recipe to follow)
1 tablesppon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
chopped fresh cilantro

Fry bacon and onion together in a skillet over medium high heat until the onion is golden. Add the chiles and garlic and continue coking for a minute more, until the chiles are softened. Stir the coked mixture into a soup pot or crockpot containing the frijoles. Include bacon grease. Add the salt and cumin and simmer for 10 minutes or more to combine the flavors. Serve in a bowl garnished with cilantro.

Frijoles

2 cups dried pinto beans, make 6 cups cooked beans and 4 cups bean broth

Place the beans in a pot with 8 cups water, bring to a boil, and cook on low heat for 6 hours or until tender. Stir a few times so that the beans cook evenly and don't burn. Add water if necessary. Cooked beans will keep in refrigerator for up to a week.

It may take time, initially to make the beans. But once you have the frijoles you have a week of really great, cheap, easy, fresh, delicious, healthy meals like:

chili beans
beans as a side-dish with baked chicken
taco salad
refried beans for your enchiladas
refried beans for breakfast with eggs (we use to have this sometimes, delicous!)

Enjoy one of my favorites!

Chealsea's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Update: We made these cookies and they were great! I love good recipes. The cookies were chewy and moist and totally delicious, definately only use butter! Using Crisco with chocolate chip cookies is a sin. We will definately make them again. The family loved them. It's a keeper!

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My favorite books to read are design books and cook books. I could read them all day.

I checked out this great book from the library today.

The book is called White House Chef. It was written by Walter Scheib who was the White House Executive Chef from 1994 to 2005. It has really interesting journaling about his days as the head chef at the White House and some really interesting recipies.

He said his mother introduced him to food and cooking. Walter said his mom would clip recipes from magazines, experiment with ingredients most Americans couldn't pronounce, and encouraged him to try new foods. When Walter thought about cooking school as a young man, his father dismissed the idea. It was his mother who paid his tuition to the Culinary Institute of America from her personal savings. She was his hero and inspiration.

Food is so personal and wonderful. And yes, I love to make it, and eat it, and talk about it, too. And I won't be ashamed anymore to state the fact that I love to talk and read about food!

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The first recipe I would like to share with you is a fun one.

I am the biggest chocolate-chip cookie freak! So I thought this one to be a good story. I may not be a fan of the Clinton's but the man had to cook for them.

Mr. Scheib got word from Chelsea Clinton's butler that she and her friends were in a cookie-making mood at her sleep-over. Walter assembled the ingredients and hand-wrote the basic method, and send everything upstairs with the butler. This recipe is one Chelsea and her friends would make during their White House get-togethers.

The recipe is adapted from the legendary Fannie Farmer Cookbook. The cookies are soft and chewy right out of the oven, then firm up a bit, but don't turn brittle.

This should be an easy recipe to start with. My kids and I will be making these on Friday, so we will rate them after we have tried them. I will post things we have eaten and loved, or are going to be making within the next day or so and we rate it after we have tried it. Have fun with a good recipe to start the week-end. We are having a "camp-out" on Friday (i.e. kids can sleep on the sofas...), that's why we are making them on Friday.

You may need to double this recipe from the looks of it.

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Chelsea's Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets. Cream butter, sugars for 2-3 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together, add to the mixture, and blend well, then stir in the chips. Place the dough in 2-tablespoon portions onto the cookie sheets, leaving 2" between the cookies. Bake until golden brown 8-10 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool briefly in the pans, and serve warm or at room temperatures.

Next post...Tex-Mex cooking!