Grilled Ground Beef Gyros

Recipe:

Grilled Ground Beef Gyros

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) container plain yogurt
1/3 cup chopped seeded cucumber
2 tablespoons finely chopped onions (I did omit since we don’t like onions)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
Filling
1 lb lean ground beef (or you can use ground turkey)
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
4 pita breads (store-bought or you can try my easy bread machine pita)
3 cups shredded lettuce
large tomato, chopped
1 small onion, chopped

Directions:

1 In a bowl, combine first 5 ingredients. Cover and refrigerate. In separate bowl, combine ground beef and seasonings. Mix well. Shape into 4 patties. Grill, covered, over medium to high heat for 10 to 12 minutes or until meat is no longer pink, turning once. Cut patties into thin slices. Stuff into pitas. Add lettuce, tomato, and onion. Serve with yogurt sauce.

Prep Time: 10 mins

Total Time: 22 mins

Recipe Source: Food.com

Chicken Tacos

I hate to admit it, but I didn't think tacos with anything other than hamburger would taste good.  I love chicken, but it never even occurred to me to try chicken tacos.  They just didn't sound that good to me at all.  But when my boyfriend and I were in CA visiting his family last year, his sister made us chicken tacos.  Other than the onions she put in them (yuck!) they were delish!  So we got the recipe from her and now we eat them about 2-3 times a week!

If you like onions, then dice some onions and cook them by themselves until they are caramelized, and then add the following ingredients.  If you don't like onions, then this is how we make them:

All you need is chicken breasts, garlic salt and pepper.  Yep, that's it!

Cut up your chicken breasts, I like to dice them into small pieces.  Sprinkle some garlic salt and pepper on them, and then put them in a hot pan with just a little bit of oil that is already hot.  We like canola oil, as it's healthier than vegetable oil.  Fry the chicken breasts and keep seasoning them with the garlic salt and pepper to taste. 

When the chicken is cooked it will look like this:

  

Now, while I'm cooking the chicken, my boyfriend is frying up some corn tortillas in canola oil.  I used to also think you could only eat processed shells like Ortega.  Wow, was I wrong.  These corn shells fried in oil are the BEST!!

The next and most important step - fill the taco shells, and devour!  My boyfriend likes cheese in his, I like mine just chicken and shells.  Fill with whatever you like.  You will love these!

Enjoy!

CHILI'S chips & salsa recipe!

So, my boyfriend and I are big fans of the restaurant Chili's.   We eat there maybe once or twice a month when possible.  We absolutely LOVE their tortilla chips & salsa.  So much in fact, that we even ordered some to bring home with us a couple of weeks ago.  The other night I decided to do some research and see if I could find their salsa recipe.  And bingo!  Found it.  And I can say this because we made this last night and it smelled and tasted just like we got it at Chili's!

For the chips you can buy chips already made in the stores, but Chris made these from fresh corn tortillas and they were DIVINE!  Just cut up some corn tortillas into triangles, and fry them in canola oil, and then let them drain on paper towels.  Salt if you like, but I actually prefer them unsalted.

And now for the salsa recipe!

Ingredients:

(1) 10 oz can of Ro-Tel

(1) 14.5 oz can whole peeled tomatoes (do NOT drain)

1 1/2 Tbsp finely diced raw jalapeno (include seeds only if you want the salsa hot!)

1/4 cup diced onion

3/4 tsp garlic salt

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp sugar

Directions:

1.  Place jalepenos and onions in a food processor and run for approx 5-10 seconds.  

2.  Add Ro-Tel, tomatoes, sugar and cumin.

3.  Process all ingredients until thin, but not completely pureed.  Just think of the consistency of Chili's Salsa and aim for that.

4.  Place in a covered container and shill for two hours.

5.  Serve with warm tortilla chips.

ENJOY!

2-Layer Easter Cake

I think this cake came out pretty good considering it was my first attempt at basket-weaving the frosting! This is a 2-layer chocolate cake with blue basket-weave frosting, green colored coconut and the eggs are made of fondant. I didn't have any jelly beans and was actually going to cover the whole cake in fondant but decided not to at the last minute, so just made eggs from some of the fondant.

The basket-weaves didn't come out exactly as I'd hoped, next time I'll be sure to do the vertical weaves first, place in the fridge, and when they harden I'll then do the rest. Lesson learned :)

Easter 2010 - Yellow Easter Cupcakes

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since last Easter! Have been really busy and not doing much baking. I did do some baking today though.

First, these are just yellow cupcakes with chocolate & vanilla frosting and sanding sugar on top. I should have used a bigger tip for the frosting but they still came out kinda cute.

Mother's Day cake

Well my mom had requested that I make her another coffee cake like I made her on Easter, so I did make her a double batch cake (in a 13x9x2 pan) and she actually freezes it and takes out a piece when she wants one - so that was the first cake I made her.

Then, since the rest of us won't eat coffee cake, I made her a butter cake with chocolate frosting. I got the recipe from an old McCall's cooking school book from 1986 and I'll post the recipe below. Here's how her cake turned out:

I decorated the cake with multi-colored flowers using my piping bag and food coloring.

Here's the recipe for the butter cake:

2 1/2 Cups Flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350º. Grease and flour pan(s). Recipe calls for three 9" round pans but I used a sheet cake size.

Sift flour with baking powder and salt.

In large bowl on high speed, beat butter and 2 cups sugar until light. Add 4 eggs, one at a time; beat after each addition.

Continue beating, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber scraper, until fluffy - 2 minutes.

At low speed, beat in flour mixture (in fourths) alternately with milk (in thirds), beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla. Beat until smooth, about 1 minute.

Pour into pan(s), bake 25-30 minues or until suface springs back when gently pressed with finger. (Or toothpick comes out clean)

I really like this cake, it's a light butter yellow cake and you can use pretty much any kind of frosting you like with it. Enjoy!

Quick Coffee Cake

So I was going through my cookbook and wanted to make something I haven't made in a while and came across this recipe my mom had given to me years and years ago. She doesn't do much baking anymore (she has me... Ha!) and I know she loves this coffee cake so I made this for her for Easter. It's a dense coffee cake with cinnamon streusal on top. Recipe is below!

Ingredients:

1 Cup Sugar

3 Tbsp Butter

1 Egg

1 Tsp Vanilla

2 1/2 Cups Flour

2 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Cup Milk

(Cinnamon Streusal recipe below)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream sugar, butter and egg together.
3. Add Vanilla.
4. Sift flour & baking powder together.
5. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk to batter mixture, beating well.
6. Pour in well greased & floured 10x10x2 pan.

Cinnamon Streusal Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Sugar

1/3 Cup Flour

1/4 Cup Butter

2 Teaspoons Cinnamon

-------------

Mix well, and spread on top of cake batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45-50 minutes or until knife comes out clean. My mom loves nuts on her cake so I added about 2 cups of chopped Walnuts to the streusal before placing in oven. You could also add raisins or whatever else you like!

This is what it looks like before you place it in the oven:

This is what it looks like when it's done:


Enjoy!