Chicken Wraps

These are yummy and easy to make. It's nice light meal that can be used for lunch or dinner as well as makes for a good summer dish, since you don't have to turn on the oven =D I made these for dinner for Tim and I tonight and thought I should share the recipe!

CHICKEN WRAPS
Serves 3-4
12 oz Shredded Chicken, or 2 chicken breast
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tblsp pesto
1 tsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 shallot
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp thyme
2 Tblsp white wine
salt and pepper to taste

1 cup shredded Romaine
4-5 tortillas
Place your chicken breast in a sauce pan and fill with water to cover the chicken. Bring the chicken to a simmer and simmer until the chicken breast is cooked all the way through. Once chicken is cooked pull out of water and pat dry. Using a fork shred the chicken by running the fork along the grain of the chicken, put the shredded chicken into a bowl and set aside.

Blend all the other ingredients (except lettuce and tortillas) in a blender or food processor until nice and smooth. Pour the dressing over the shredded chicken and mix well.

Warm you tortillas and place some of the shredded chicken in the tortilla, top with shredded romaine lettuce and roll up. Voila!

Note; If I am making this for just Tim and I usually half the recipe and use one chicken breast. It should make enough to fill 3 tortillas

Variations
Sundried Tomato pesto. Substitute sundried tomatoes in place of pesto or add along with the pesto, both are good.
If you don't have either pesto or sundried tomatoes add 2 tsp balsamic vinegar. I usually add the balsamic vinegar to the recipe anyways since I like the way it taste.
Have fun with the recipe! I never follow it exactly so play around with ingredients you like!

dinner a few nights ago

So a few nights ago when I had work. I made dinner early so Taber could eat when he was hungry. I made two baked potatoes, as well as carrots with garlic. i think i cooked the carrots to long. but they still had a nice flavor. I then made a beef and gravy thing. It was pre-packaged, but went very nice with the potatoes and carrots.

Grandpa Greg's biscuts

Grandpa's Biscuts

Easy way:
Get a Biscut mix, follow the recipe on the back of the box.
Brown some sausage, drain off the fat the put it in your biscuts
Put shredded chedder cheese in with the mix (as much or as little as you like)
Put on backing sheet and follow cooking time on the box.

Other way:
Make your own Biscut mix then follow the above with the sausage and cheese.

No Peep Dinner

No Peep Dinner

2 lbs. lean, boneless stew meat
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 - 4oz. can of mushroom stems and piece (you can use fresh or you can leave it out)
1 package dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup red wine
3/4 to 1 cup water

Place stew meat in the bottom of a roasting pan. Season with pepper, but NO salt. Pour all other ingredients on top of meat. No need to stir. Cover and cook in 325 degree oven for three hours. Do not peep while cooking. Meat shuld be very tender, and you will have a rich brown gravy. Serve with rice or noodles.

Tater Tot Casserole from "Feeding the Flock FUMC Marshall, TX"

This is easy and it is good.

1lb. ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 bag tater tots
1 tsp minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 to 2 cups shredded chedder cheese

Brown the meat with the onion and garlic, add salt and pepper then drain the fat off the beef. Mix the drained meat with the Cream of Mushroom soup. Place in a baking dish. Top the meat with the tater tots. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. Sprinkle the cheddar cheese on top. Cook an additional 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

I served this with Aunt C's Asparagus. Have a pot of boiling water. Cut a little off the bottom of the asparagus. Remove the spikes.O you can make them like Julia Child's and peel the tough skin off with a potato peeler, be careful not to peel too much off. Once the asparagus is preped, put it into the boiling water until it is just barly soft. Take the asparagus out of the boiling water and put it into cold water with ice, this will make it stop cooking and make it crisp. Take the asparagus out of the cold water, sprinkle with lemon juice and kosher salt to taste.

gonna try it

So i finally found a recipe out of Julia Child;s cook book that i think is near my cooking level. I foget the name but it is basicaly chicken, and bacon with potatoes, onions, and mushrooms. I am also excited because spring is near by i can cook again.

My Recipe for the Week

On Monday my Mom and Paula came and spent the day with me perusing LA and Beverly Hills. After filling up on chocolate truffles from K. Chocolatiers, which were melt in your mouth, amazingly delicious and kind of expensive; we then invaded the Beverly Hills Cheese Store! The Beverly Hills Cheese Store has every kind of cheese you can think of and you get to sample as many as you want. Carie you would have thought you had died and gone to cheese Heaven! For dinner I wanted to do something special to go with our cheese and chocolate(oh and bottle of sake, why sake...because Paula liked the bottled) so I decided to make Steak au Poivre, also known as Steak Diane. It's peppered steak served with a Cognac/ Brandy sauce. Interesting fact I learned while shopping for the brandy. Brandy and Cognac are essentially the same thing, only Cognac comes from the Cognac region of France and anything outside of that has to be called Brandy. I went with the $10 bottle of Brandy rather than the $30 bottle of Cognac. The recipe I used comes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, with the little changes I did. Sorry the instructions are long, Julia is very detailed.

Steak au Poivre
Serves 4-6 people depending on your menu

 2 Tblsp of a mixture of several kinds of peppercorns. (I used black peppercorns and my pepper grinder)
4 - 6 steaks 3/4 to 1 inch thick. ( A porterhouse is a nice cut to use, but any steak cut about 1-inch thick)
1 1/2 Tblsp Butter
1 1/2 Tblsp vegetable oil
Dry the steaks on a paper towel. Rub and pres the crushed peppercorns into both sides of the meat with your fingers and the palms of your hands. Cover with waxed paper. Let stand for at least half an hour; 2-3 hours are even better, so the flavor of the pepper will penetrate the meat.

Put the butter and oil in the skillet and place over moderately high heat until you see the butter foam begin to subside; this indicates the oil is hot enough to sear the steaks. Saute the steak on one side for 3-4 minutes and regulate the heat so the oil is very hot but not burning. Turn the Steak and Saute the other side for 3-4 minutes. It will be about medium rare at this point. (I had really thick steaks so once they were seared I took them out of the saute pan and put them on a baking sheet in the oven preheated to 350 degrees F. I let them cook for about another 10 minutes while I made the sauce in the pan, you can do this if you like your steak more medium to well done).

Brandy Sauce
1 Tblsp Butter
2 Tblsp minced shallots
1/2 cup beef stock
1/3 cup Cognac
3-4 Tblsp Room temperature butter.
Using the skillet you used to sear the steaks, pour the fat out of the skillet from the steaks. Add the new butter and add the shallots and cook slowly for a minute. Pour in the stock and boil down rapidly over high heat. Then add the Cognac and boil rapidly for a minute or two more to evaporate the alcohol. Off heat swirl in the butter a half tablespoon at a time. Taste sauce and Season with salt and pepper.
Pour the sauce over the steak and Serve! =D yum!