Guacamole

Although its hard to believe based on the temperatures here in Texas. Summer is drawing to a close soon. I for one will be happy to see the cooler weather come back. Or at least as cool as it ever gets here in good ole Texas.
I have been hungry for some Tex-mex and just some summer time foods. I actually am planning a big Tex-mex meal this weekend  with cheese enchiladas smothered in chili gravy, big pot of pinto beans, and Mexican rice. I may or may not grill chicken. I have to see what I feel like. Oh, and of course margaritas. I will post a really easy and wonderful recipe for margaritas later. They aren't the frozen kind but they are delicious and easy because you can make huge batches and you don't have to use the blender.
Anyway, my family is like flies to ......well you know, when it comes to my guacamole. It is a real battle to have enough for dinner time if I make it too early. This isn't a big secret recipe. I have seen everything from guacamole with just mashed up avocados and onion, to some who add in picante sauce (I actually started out making mine that way.) Just like all recipes there is no right or wrong way in my opinion. There is just good. I'm not a food purist. If it tastes good or makes something better then do it. Now I know when to leave a recipe alone as well. I just think its about taste and your food experience. Enjoy it rather than stand on whats right or wrong. Anyway, here is what I do.

Guacamole
4 large ripe avocados.

Everything from here on out is personal choice. You choose how much of each ingredient you like in your Guacamole.
1 jalapeno (stem removed, cut in two and remove seeds and veins. The heat is really in the seed  and veins. So if you remove them you don't have so much fire.) Slice into slivers and then mince.

2 plum tomatoes,  cut in two and with a spoon scoop out all the seeds and wet stuff. After this dice into fairly small pieces.

1/2  a medium onion (use whatever you like, white, yellow, red....) and dice fine

1/2 bunch cleaned cilantro, minced

salt

juice of half a lime

Peel the avocados and place in a bowl. With a fork mash them up as much as you like for your guacamole. Add the rest of the ingredients except the salt and lime. Add the salt last a little at a time till it is salty enough for you. Lastly mix in the lime juice. Taste for salt and of course if it needs more of any ingredient or even more lime. Serve with corn chips.
If you make ahead and want to store in fridge:
I have heard and tried using the avocado seed. Can't say that really worked all that well. What you want to do is cover with Saran wrap. Place it directly on the guacamole and make sure there are no air pockets. Air is what turns it brown as it oxidizes. Place in fridge. When your ready to eat just remove the saran wrap and give it a stir. Taste for seasoning once more and then enjoy.

You Will Never Make Another "POT ROAST" Again! POT ROAST, POT ROAST!

I'm telling you that this is the best Pot Roast EVER!!!!!!!!!!! I served it over creamy mashed potatoes. I bought a new food mill and ran the potatoes through the food mill and they were so creamy and amazing. Don't know how often I will use the food mill but I have wanted it forever and it made amazing mashed potatoes.

The picture above is the food mill I purchased. They had one that was better but it was $110, so I settled for the second best one. It took a while to get the potatoes through and I will have to play with it some to understand exactly how to use it. It did do everything that they say where the potatoes were concerned. They were absolutely creamy and smooth and delish. I will list the mashed potato recipe another time.

Ok the most amazing pot roast in the world. Here's what I did:

4-5lbs of boneless chuck roast (I purchased mine as Costco and it was actually two roasts.)
2 onions, skins removed and cut into fourths (don't separate the onion layers.)
6-8 med. size carrots cleaned and cut into 2 -3 inch chunks (I cleaned them but did not peel them.)
8 ounces of mushrooms cleaned and cut in half or fourths (optional. Sometimes I use them and sometimes I don't.)
2-4 Tbl. olive oil
1 Cup red wine (I used a good Chianti that we drink often.)
Beef broth (enough to fill the pan 3/4 of the way up the side of the pot roast. I used 1 1/2 boxes of beef broth to do this. But that will change depending on what size pan you use etc..... I used a large roasting pan for this recipe. The picture is a smaller roast.)
3 Sprigs of fresh thyme
3 Sprigs  of fresh rosemary (the first time I used this I almost didn't put this much rosemary in. It ended up being perfect. So dont be afraid to use this much of the fresh herbs.)
Salt and Pepper

 Clean and cut up the veggies, salt and pepper the chuck roast well on both sides. Measure out your wine, and open your boxes of beef broth. Get your herbs ready.
In the pan you intend to put in the oven to  cook your roast in ( if you have to brown in one pan and cook the roast in the oven in another thats ok. I have a huge stainless steal roaster that I just put over the fire on my stove. I also have a few cast iron pots that I use. Use what you have and do what you need to. It will work.) Add in the olive oil to the hot pan. Place the onions in and sear them till they have a good brown color on all sides. Remove the onions form the pan and set aside. Add in the carrots and sear these as well. Get a brown sear on them the best you can. All the brown is flavor. It makes a difference in the final flavor. Remove the carrots and set them on the plate with the onions. Now place the roast in the pan and sear it a nice brown, then turn and sear the other side. Remove and set on top of the veggies on the plate. Now pour the one cup of red wine in the pan to deglaze (you could use beef broth if using wine isn't your thing but it wont be as good) scraping up all the little browned bits on the bottom of the pan. These bits are where the flavor lives. now add in the beef broth and the herbs. Place the roast in the pan and then the onions and carrots. Place the onions and carrots around the side if you can so that they are sitting in the broth.
Cover and place in the oven set (this depends on how long you have. If you have 4-5 hours cook at 300 degrees. If you have less time maybe closer to 3-4 hours set the oven to 350 degrees.)
Bake in the oven till the roast is falling apart tender.
Once its done remove roast and strain the veggies and place on the plate with the roast. I then strain the gravy into a big bowl to serve with the roast and mashed potatoes. Straining it will help remove the sticks left behind from the thyme and rosemary and also the leaves. I then poured some of the juice over the roast. You could at this point thicken the roast gravy or serve it as is. I served it as is and  did not thicken it. It was DIVINE!!!!!

Don't forget to serve with a side of good mashed potatoes. I don't cook potatoes in the gravy as I don't think it adds anything to the flavor and I don't care for the taste/texture of potatoes cooked in roast gravy. I prefer good mashed potatoes.

Fruit-n-Nut Chicken Salad on a Croissant

This is hands down my favorite sandwich in the world. It is not something I would have ever in a million years chose to make based on the ingredients had I not had it at a party many many years ago. I have tweaked it some over the years to meet our tastes. I also don't think this tastes as good on other breads as it does on Croissants. There is something about the taste of the croissant and this chicken salad that just work perfectly. Here's how you do it.

Fruit-n-Nut Chicken Salad

6 bonelss skinless chicken breasts (boiled in water till tender and cubed or shredded)
1/4-1/2 Cup raisins (I don't use them as I don't like raisins.)
2/3 Cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 apples cored and with the skin on chopped into tiny pieces
2 Cups of grapes (red or green seedless) cut into tiny pieces
20 ounce can of pineapple tidbits (in their own juice, drained) chopped

Mix all this together in a large bowl and add:
2 Cups mayonnaise
2/3 Cup sour cream
mix everything together and then add:
1/2 Tbl. cinnamon (now this is where it becomes a personal taste thing. I like the cinnamon. You might start out with a little less and add up to 1/2 Tbl. and taste it. It will mellow out some as the salad sits.)
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. onion salt
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
mix into the chicken salad thoroughly. Taste and make sure it is how you would want it . You can play with the seasonings to suit your own taste. I actually never measure the seasonings but did this time to be able to put it on the blog.
Store in fridge till it is good and cold and serve on croissants. YUM YUM YUM!!!!!

 Enjoy!

Patty Melt!!!!!!

I was on one of the food blogs I like to read and they made a patty melt. Oh my goodness. I must do this. Take the idea and make it my own. So here is my own. Enjoy!

Makes 8 Patty melts

1 stick of butter
2 large onions sliced thin
3 pounds good quality ground beef (although I usually grind my own I bought mine this time. It was Nolan Ryans 97% lean. Was pretty good quality.)
Salt
Pepper
Montreal Steak seasoning
8 dashes Worcestershire sauce
16 slices baby swiss cheese (you can use American too)
16 slices Rye bread (or a good sour dough works well)
Mezzetta tamed slice jalapenos (not traditional but oh so yummy)
bottle of thousand island dressing

Slice your onions very thin and put a couple tbl. butter in a pan and cook them on med-low heat till they are golden brown. Remove to a bowl.

In a bowl place the hamburger meat and add plenty of salt, pepper, the dashes of Worcestershire, and a good shake of the Montreal steak seasoning. Mix completely and divide into 8 burgers and shape in the shape of the bread you are using. Make them large enough to fit the bread size.
Place a few Tbl. of butter in a cast iron skiller (if you have one if not use the pan you fried the onions in. I just think cast iron gives the meat a great flavor.) Fry the burgers till they are done flipping half way through.
Butter the bread you are using for frying. Place a piece of bread butter side down in another hot skillet. Place a slice of cheese on the bread, then the patty, then onions and a few slices of the jalapeno peppers if using, then another piece of cheese and add some thousand island dressing to the last piece of bread on the side that will touch the cheese then place bread(butter side up) on top of patty and cheese. Grill till the bread is golden and toasty and turn. Grill
 the last side till golden. Remove and slice patty melt in half. Serve with extra thousand island dressing if desired.
Pretty tasty.

Lasagna Bolognese

I am almost speechless about this lasagna. It is hands down the best lasagna I have ever ever.....EVER had. It is also very different than what I'm use to.. YUM.
This recipe came from The Homesick Texan (I think. It's been a while since I found it.)
All I can tell you is that it was hands down the best lasagna I have ever had and my husband said the same thing. He just kept repeating all through our meal how wonderful it was. This is now my go to lasagna. I had intended to really be energetic and make home made lasagna sheets but I got to busy and decided to just cheat and use the store bought noodles.
So here it is. Enjoy!
Now the bolognese sauce is a long cooking sauce. I ended up only cooking mine about 1 1/2 hours. I started to late to let it go the 3 to 4 hours they say it should. It was still perfectly wonderful.
Start with the bolonese sauce first.

You will also need
 a large box of lasagna noodles

2 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese (now here is my cheat on Parmesan cheese. I buy a good huge block of parm at Costco. I then buy the Kraft Parmesan/Romano/Asiago shredded cheese. I grind up the good Parm I purchased at Costco and blend it with the store bought parm. It makes the expensive stuff go further and still gives the great flavor of the better cheese. I know its horrible. I should have my kitchen apron taken from me. But when you feed a house of Sasquatches you got to cut those corners where you can. If you can afford the good stuff exclusively then go for it and I love you.)

2 Cups or so of good Mozzarella cheese shredded



 Bolognese
In a food processor add
 one onion cut into fourths
2 carrots (if they are small thin carrots add 4) cut into chunks
2-3 ribs of celery cut into chunks
4-5 cloves of garlic minced
chop the veggues fine in the food processor.
4 Tbl. olive oil
salt and pepper (you will use a lot of this for seasoning)
2-3 pounds good quality ground beef (chuck, sirloin. I grind my own as I have ground beef issues. I used a 2.8 pound eye of round roast that I ground up in my food processor.)
2 6oz. cans good quality tomato paste
2 Cups red wine ( we used a good quality Chianti. You should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink.)
water (I will tell you how much in the instructions.)
2 bay leaves
4 fresh sprigs of thyme

Place a 5 or 6 quart pot on the stove. Let is become hot and add olive oil. Once the olive oil is hot add all the veggies you ground up in the food processor. You are going to want to get a good carmelization on these veggies as this brings out a lot of flavor. So you are going to cook them till they kinda brown and  there is a little brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. This my friends is where the flavor is. Now you will add a good amount of salt to the veggies as they are cooking. I'm sorry I didn't measure the salt. I just eyeballed it. Not helpful I know but if you under salt the dish it will not have the flavor you want. So season generously with salt and pepper.
After you have a nice browned veggie mess add in the ground meat and again season generously with salt and pepper. You want to sear this off as best you can (again the flavor is in the browned bits.) Stir and cook till the meat is cooked through and then add both cans of tomato paste. Stir this around and brown. This will take about 5 minutes. It will become a rust color. Just let it cook for a sec and then stir and let it cook for a second and then turn etc....Once it has browned for a few minutes add the red wine and stir to blend everything. Cook a couple minutes scraping up any brown bits that are on the bottom of your pan. Cook for a few minutes till it really starts to thicken and then this is where the water comes in. You are going to add enough water to raise the level two to three inches (normally what would happen is you would add the initial water and cook it down and then add two more cups of water and cook it down and so on for 3 to 4 hours. But since I didn't have time for that whole game this is what I did.) You should have a good size pot of sauce. Turn it down to a simmer add in the bay leaves and the sprigs of thyme. Cook stirring frequently for about an hour to hour and a half.
Now when the sauce is done remove the bay leaves the the thyme stems. Check for seasoning. You should not have to add anymore water. If you do you are cooking it at too high a heat. Just add a tiny amount of water if you have to if it cooks down too much during the hour of cooking.
Now onto the noodles and bechamel sauce.
Now that the meat sauce is done put a pot of water on to boil your noodles. Cook the noodles in good salty water. While the water is heating up and coming to a boil make the bachamel sauce. Here is how you do it.

Bechamel Sauce
1 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
4 cups whole milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic minced
fresh ground nutmeg (use dried if you don't have fresh. You will use a couple good pinches of nutmeg)
fresh ground pepper

Melt butter in a sauce pan. Sprinkle flour over butter and whisk together. Cook for a minute to cook off the flour taste and then pour in a little of the milk. Stir as it thickens and then add a little more milk and stir as it thickens. Repeat the process till all the milk is used up. Season with salt/pepper/nutmeg/garlic. Stir till it thickens up and is like a gravy consistency. It should coat the back of a spoon. Taste for seasoning. Again we want it flavorful so be generous with your salt/pepper. You want the nutmeg to be a back note. Kinda like when you exhale after tasting the sauce you get the nutmeg but not over powered by it when the sauce hits your tongue. Sorry kids this is the best I have for helpful directions. Now set it aside and stir often so it doesn't get a film on top while the noodles are cooking. Hopefully by now they are in the pot of hot water cooking according to package directions. Drain the pasta and run under cold water to stop the cooking process and then drain them again and lets start the assembly.

In a lasagna pan (I have a pan that is a little long than the standard cake pan that I make my lasagna in but a cake pan size will work 9x13. I also use glass pans. Use what you got.)

Place a couple ladles of meat sauce in bottom of the pan and spread out evenly. Lay a layer of noodles on top making sure to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Ladle another couple 2 or 3 ladles of meat sauce over the the noodles and spread out evenly. Then ladle a couple ladles of the bechamel sauce over the meat sauce and spread the best you can. Sprinkle with some of the parm and mozzarella and then another layer of noodles. Do this till you have your pan full ending with noodles and then topping with one last layer of meat sauce and then parm cheese. I had 4 layers (your shooting for 4 to 5 layers if you can) of noodles counting the bottom and the top layer. You may have extra sauce left over of both the sauces. Thats ok. The meat sauce can be used over spaghetti. I just got rid of the left over bechamel sauce. There wasn't much of either left.
Bake  at 400 degrees for about 40-45 minutes. I ended up covering the lasagna up with foil for the last 20 minutes or so as it had got a browned as I wanted it to be.
Take out of the oven and let sit for at least 5 minutes (longer if you can.) Then cut and enjoy. This was supremely wonderful.

Refreshing Summer Drink "Cucumber Water"

Ok, I know this is another post that is really a "no brainer".....or is it? The truth is I know I knew this but for some reason never put it to work. One night I was watching a Will Ferrell movie (we love him, even his bad movies) and in it he is a police officer and he is served a water with cucumber in it and he is consumed with how refreshing and delicious it is. He ends up wanting to return to this place of business because they have such great water. It was pretty funny. Anyhow, it was like the light bulb came on and I said to myself "I knew about this why haven't I ever done it?" So I did. Very simple and sooooo good. It is everything summer and cool. It will refresh you. It is a garden in your water. Lovely just lovely.

Here is what I did:

Filled my pitcher with filtered water

Clean an English cucumber and sliced two or three thick junks and dropped them into the pitcher of water. 

Put it in the fridge for a couple hours and then poured myself a nice cold glass of the most wonderful, fresh, amazing water. 

Give it a try. It is wonderful.

Pink Lemonade

I got a craving for pink lemonade. What do I do when I have a craving? I create!!! Here it is.

2 3/4 Cups sugar

2 3/4 Cups fresh squeezed lemon juice. Grenadine is sweet so we like a little more lemon juice than usual. (We usually use 2 1/2 cups lemon juice.)

 2 Tbl. grenadine (you can add more if you like. I think 2s tablespoon is perfect. But if you love grenadine add another. It would be easy for the grenadine to overpower the wonderful lemon flavor so don't be heavy handed. Little at a time.)

   Enjoy.

Put sugar in one gallon container and add 1 cup very hot water and stir to dissolve sugar. Add lemon juice and stir. Add enough water to make a gallon of lemonade and then the grenadine. Now if this is too strong you can add just a bit more water. Everyone is different in how strong they like their lemonade. More sugar, less sugar, more lemon, less etc..... Stir and enjoy.