Super Easy Chicken Fajitas

I am all about making delicious food easy.  It’s not that I don’t have a lot of time to cook, although sometimes, I don’t.  And it’s not even that  I just hate cooking — I do enjoy taking time to prepare food for myself.  It’s more that sometimes, I want to get in and out of the kitchen as quickly as I can.  Maybe there’s a show on that I want to watch, or singing I want to do, or even, work to go to.

So here’s the trick.  This is “super easy” because we’re adding cooked chicken.  Therefore, we only need to pick some spices, prep the veggies, then add the chicken.  If you don’t have pre-cooked chicken, this will not be super easy.  You’ll also have to cook the chicken.

In this picture, I used hand-torn rotisserie chicken, frozen bell peppers, and freshly sliced onions (but I don’t think you can see any of those… they seem to be caramelizing on the bottom of the pan).

For fajitas, I generally use the “that looks like enough!” method of spice-adding.  I like to add garlic powder or fresh minced garlic, tons of it… some onion powder if I don’t have fresh onions, some chili powder, some red cayenne pepper (more if it’s just for me… I LOVE that heat!), and some salt and pepper.

Basically, get your veggies ready, and throw the onions and garlic into the skillet first, along with some pre-heated oil (I use coconut oil).  That means, heat the oil, add the veggies.  Let the onions cook for about five minutes on medium heat — until they start to crisp on the edges or become translucent — before you add the peppers.  When you add the peppers, you’re looking for a nice, crispy brown look on a few of them, and they should start to become soft.  That’s maybe another 3 or 4 minutes.

When your veggies are ready or almost ready, add in your torn up chicken and all of your spices — cover and let the entire dish warm for a few minutes and get the spices nice and mixed in.  When it’s all hot and bubbly, enjoy!  I’m doing primal food right now, so I probably would not use a flour tortilla.  I would just eat it straight off of a plate.  It’s just as delicious.  I promise.

Some Evening Thoughts, Buffalo Chickenless Wing Dip

So, it’s been a few days since I last posted, and unfortunately, it’s the same excuse as always: work.  However, I am incredibly glad that I have useful work to do.  And you know, I have a job.  Anyway, that on top of struggling with a lot of things – fatigue, migraines, and the like – meant that I was sort of quiet this week.  So let’s give you an update, shall we?

Monday through Wednesday, I struggled with migraine, intense fatigue, and an incredible lack of motivation.  Thursday, I bit the bullet and went into work early and spent all day with my hands in the dirt.  I was exhausted when I got home, but I felt better.  I was also productive on Friday.  Today, also, but in a different way.

Diet / lifestyle wise, I was gluten free all week.  I had some pizza this afternoon, with gluten, and got a headache almost immediately.  I don’t know if it was the gluten, because I was dehydrated and sort of achey this morning, but the pizza definitely pushed me over the edge.

Being primal is challenging.  And it’s not because the food sucks, it’s just that it’s a different style of eating, and it can be a lot for your system to handle, to ingest all of the protein.  Your body craves easy energy, and fat and protein aren’t as easy as refined carbs and starch.

I find myself turning a lot to milk and peanut butter.  So I think my problem is that I’m not getting quite enough fat in my meals to be full.  I think that my body will adjust, though, and we’ll work through it just fine.

So, to update you, my modified plan is to focus on gluten free living for January, and consider going farther down the rabbit hole, and into strict primal, later on.

My general rule is that after at least two days of gluten free, I can have some if I want.  So, like a three day week.  That seems to be the cycle that my body is on.  Though, as I said, I went gluten free all week and only broke for some pizza today. The only reason I really struggled on Thurs and Fri was because I didn’t cook last weekend, and so, I ran out of food.

Oh, by the way, I really need to start taking pictures of the food I make!  I should’ve today, but I was running late.

I was headed out to a potluck, and they requested vegetarian dishes.  So I decided to make buffalo wing dip… without the chicken.  I modified the recipe and it turned out excellent.  Here’s what I did:

Buffalo Chickenless Wing Dip

Can be easily halved.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz (2 pckg) cream cheese, softened (microwave, 1 minute)
• 3/4 cup Frank’s Red Hot Wing Sauce
• 1 cup Blue Cheese (I used Ken’s, but I like Marie’s, too)
• 1/2 cup Blue Cheese crumbles (optional, I had some on hand)
• 1/4-1/2 cup minced celery
• 1/4-1/2 onion, chopped into 1 cm^2 pieces or so
• Coconut oil or cooking oil of your choice
• 1/2 teaspoon (~1 clove) minced garlic
• 1/2-1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Heat oil in a skillet on medium heat.  Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, microwave your cream cheese about one minute to soften.  Add both Blue Cheeses and the hot sauce.  Mix, on low, until combined and mostly smooth.  Add chopped celery.  Now, add garlic and onion to skillet and fry until edges are beginning to brown.  Remove from heat, drain excess oil, and add the garlic/onion mix to the sauce.  Beat, on low, again, until combined.  Pour into a glass bowl or casserole dish and place in oven for 15 minutes.

While it is heating, grate your cheese.  Don’t grate your thumb, like I did.  That hurts.  A lot.  After the 15 minutes, take it out, and scatter the cheese on top.  Put back in oven for another 8-10 minutes.  Remove — careful! It’ll be hot.  Serve with delicious corn chips or even more delicious sweet potato chips.

Pagan Pages: The Primal Challenge

Hey guys –

So I’ve been reading a lot into the primal lifestyle (see the last post, and probably posts all the way back to September, for hints and what not).  It’s been a pretty logical progression for me.  First, I started off this year learning how to cook a little better.  More specifically, I’ve been trying new recipes and perfecting techniques since August and/or September.  Some of my experiments have been delicious, others, lacking.

During that, I stumbled onto the Mason Jar madness… making little gift jars and stuff.  During that period, I found some really cool “meals in jars” ideas that led me to preparing and packaging food a little better to prevent waste.

That brought me to buying a small vacuum sealer, to help me seal my jars and keep my food fresh, longer.

Which led me to wondering what sort of meals I could put in these jars.

Which led me to “primal” and “paleo,” both lifestyles I’ve browsed extensively on the internet, but have never tried.  The basic idea is to focus on consuming meat and veggies over grains and processed foods.

The difference between “paleo” and “primal” is that paleo denies dairy products, whereas primal does not.

The reasons I want to try the Primal lifestyle are simple.  One, I want to learn how to cook delicious, delicious meat.  Every time.  Part of the problem when I cook is that I screw up the meat, and then the entire meal is kinda… blah.  I want to eat meals that are easy and reliably delicious.

Two, I want to spend less on processed foods at the grocery store.  I bought a SodaStream on clearance, and that helped, some, but only for soda cans.  Most often, I end up tossing out sandwich meat, leftover pizza, or leftover mediocre meat.

Three, I’ve heard that in some people, the primal and/or paleo lifestyles help them figure out their migraine triggers and alleviate stress.  I don’t think that primal and/or paleo will cure my migraines, but it might help me get them under control if whatever I put in my mouth, I cook.  Obviously there will be times where I want to / have to go out or eat during social functions, and that’s fine.  But I want to guarantee that by the end of 2013, most of what I make, in my kitchen, is hands down delicious.

Four, I’ve unfortunately gained some weight in the past two years, with my breakup and some other life changes.  Whereas before, I was teetering on the “not THAT fat” range, I feel like I’ve exceeded it and I could be performing better, physically, in other areas of my life, like in my field work and in my soccer playing.  I want to emphasize that I am not focused on the weight loss aspect of this: it just may be an added benefit.  It may also be that I maintain my weight, but my body composition changes.

So this is my primary blogging place.  I am not turning this into a food blog!  But you may see me posting more recipes and primal oriented ideas.

To recap, I am trying to eat “Primal” food because I want to better my cooking skills, I want to save money on groceries, I want to see how it will affect my migraines, and I want to improve my physical condition.

I’ll be putting a “page” up (one of the links in the header) to connect all of my food articles together.  Stay tuned!

Pizza and Peanut Butter: Themes On Today

I’ve been baking and cooking almost religiously, lately, I think in part because I finally have someone to throw all of these new recipes at… and because I use it as a way to de-stress from both being poor and going to work wayyyyy too much.

I actually look forward to the weekends now, so I can spend a day just fucking around in my kitchen.  Yeah, how domestic is that?  For a soccer-playing, black belt field scientist, that’s pretty wife-y.  Ah, well.

So today, I made five different things.  In order, I made mini-flatbreads, calzones with two different fillings, stuffed cupcakes, and then low-carb peanut butter cookies.

Have I told you how I made the flatbreads?  It’s just like the pizza, except I roll out the ABin5 bread dough and then cut it into halves or quarters.  I roll it out a bit more, then I spritz it with water or olive oil and sprinkle some garlic/salt/oregano seasoning mix on it.

I throw these into a 450 degree F. oven for about 8 minutes.

Anyway, so I’ve been making these all week because they’re easy, quick, and delicious.  I had to finish off my double batch of dough, and I did it with those.

With my dough container clean, I made up some “Olive Oil dough,” also from the ABin5 cookbook, and let it rise for 2 hours, then put it in the fridge.

Meanwhile, my sweet tooth was getting hungry, so I decided to finally use up a package of vanilla cupcakes that included a little packet of chocolate filling.  Can’t think of what they’re called at this moment.  But they were good, too.

I took a break for a while, then resumed my baking frenzy by trying some calzones with the now-chilled pizza dough.  To do these, I started just like the flatbreads – rolled out the dough and cut it in half, then, for each half, I spread the two fillings on and folded them over and sealed them shut with a fork.

What were my fillings?  The first two I made were stupid simple: I wanted something for breakfast this week, so I just spread some peanut butter in there.

The second set of fillings was the classic sauce-cheese-pepperoni combination.

The calzones went onto the baking stone, 2 at a time, for about 18 minutes at the same 450 deg. F. temperature.  We actually haven’t tried any of those (I made six) yet.

And then, craving something sweet, I opted for sugarless PB cookies, which are ridiculously easy to make: 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup Splenda, a teaspoon of vanilla and an egg.  350 deg. F. for about 10-12 minutes.

I normally abhor artificial sweeteners, but with these cookies, I’m trying these to see if I have a migraine reaction to the splenda.  I know that the other one, aspartame, usually makes me feel funny – hungry all the time, etc.  So, we’ll see.  This being typed, I have a slight headache, but it could be due to my poor posture.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my baking adventures with you guys.  I’m trying to balance living clean and cheap, and it’s going to take a lot of experimentation to figure out what I like, what I don’t, and what works best.

I lean towards low-carb lifestyles, but I want to do it in a way that is sort of… undetectable.  I don’t want to be the person that goes, “eww, that has 4 grams of sugar!” at the office party.  Given my current choice of picky boyfriend, too, its important that what I make is appealing to both of us.  For me, that means cooking veggies separately if I want them.

In any case, I figure… I’ll learn how to cook, first, and then I’ll focus on how to make it healthier, if I even need to.  The way I see it, if you’re healthy, and active, and happy, you’re truly honoring the gods.

 

..Fun da middles.  That’s what those stuffed cupcakes are called.

 

Good night!

Pizza, Part Two

Just an update on the whole pizza thing.  Remember the whole ” Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” thing?

Yeah… their dough is freaking delicious.  I made up a single batch of it a few days ago (when the first pizza failure happened), and used the first bit to make some bread, then the second and third bits to make pizza.

It took 2 parts of the dough to make pizza because the first time, my pizza fell off the pizza peel and into my wet, wet sink.  It was unsaveable, because it landed on some raw-meat dirtied dishes.  So I cut my losses, threw that out, and gathered the rest of the dough for round two.

Rolled it out, put my toppings on, and tossed it into 450 degrees for 15 min or so (I just watched it, didn’t really time it).  And it came out perfect.

5 stars to you,  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day… 5 stars.

Homemade Pizza! (And how to use it to live frugally)

So I spent some time last night preparing some excellent things, but the only thing that finally came to fruition was a homemade pizza that I prepared when I got home from work.

Ask me why, please.  Why, on a Monday night, did I decide to cook a homemade pizza?

I recently bought Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from Amazon for my Kindle, and I really wanted to try it out.  The problem was, that I didn’t have a lot of the supplies I needed – like a baking stone, or a pizza peel.  So I went to the store after work to buy these things, and ended up buying ingredients for pizza too (pepperoni and cheese… I knew I could fanangle up some sort of sauce when I got home).  After all, you can’t buy a “pizza stone” without making pizza on it, can you?

So in my searches on the web, I discovered a few things: one, that I could use this in my attempt to live cheaply/frugally/sustainably, and two, that pizzas are incredibly hard to perfect.

Unfortunately, I discovered these things after the fact.  Let me tell you my recipes, and I’ll show you my end result, and we’ll go from there.

The crust was a wheat and cheese crust from “Bread Machine Bounty” – a book from 1994 which, as you guessed it, has a collection of recipes for the breadmaker.  Unfortunately, I can’t find this particular recipe online (I’m away from home right now).  But don’t worry.  The dough sucked.  I’ll share a better dough when I find one.  But I added those ingredients to the breadmaker and let it do its thing.

The pizza sauce, well, I did the following:

• I dumped a 15 oz. can of tomato sauce into a pot.
• I turned the stovetop onto medium ish and put the pot on it.
• I added a teaspoon of refrigerated minced garlic (clear 4 oz. can, blue top)
• I added “Italian Seasoning” spices to it – premade spice mix that does the job adequately.
• I added lots of crushed black pepper.
• I added a tiny bit of crushed red pepper.
• I let it boil for 5 minutes.
• I took it off the heat, let it cool, and put it in a jar to use later.

Having assembled all of this, I finally rolled the pizza dough out, let it rise (which it didn’t do, really, much at all, I think that was part of the problem), and baked it for 20 min at 375, added toppings, and went an additional 15 minutes.

Here’s what it looked like:

The dough was awful, which means that it was, generally, awful, although the cheese and pepperoni and sauce were delicious.

Anyway, the reason making your own pizza is so cool, is that even though I fucked it up, it cost me probably a whole $3 to make.  Which means that I don’t feel too bad about it being a disaster.

Also, after you get the dough recipe down (which I haven’t, yet), you can do something called parbaking, which means that you sort of… prebake the crusts, just enough to get them hard, and then you add  your toppings and freeze.  Boom.  Frozen pizza that is not $6 a box!  Buying your cheese and toppings on sale could make it even cheaper!

Or, it can free up your money so you can buy organic or locally grown ingredients.

I’d highly recommend making your own sauce, though, as I’ve never found a pizza sauce, in the store, that I’ve enjoyed.  Any suggestions?

So, to sum up, making your own pizza is a great idea, and with a little bit of time, you can even make your own frozen pizzas for later.

Living sustainably: Make your own bread (buns)

Step 1.  Obtain a breadmaker.

I found my breadmaker at our local goodwill for six dollars, over two years ago.  I’ve probably made about 10 things with it, which means that all in all, my breadmaker was well worth it.  I found the guide for the breadmaker online, which means, I have all of the recipes that come with it, too.

Step 2.  Obtain a recipe (provided) and ingredients (not). 

My boyfriend really likes using buns as bread, and so, I generally do that instead of try to make loaves of bread.  Although it takes a little longer, it saves us the effort of having to cut up bread to use whenever we need it.  With these, we can just grab and go.

I got this recipe from Man Tested Recipes, and I love it, because its small, and easy to do.

After you taste test this recipe, once, you may want to consider preparing it several times over in mason jars or plastic bags to keep as a “ready made” version.  To do this, combine all ingredients except WET ingredients and YEAST.  Store in an airtight container.  You’ll need about 2 cups of space.

DRY INGREDIENTS

• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast

WET INGREDIENTS

• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 stick butter

INSTRUCTIONS

• Follow your breadmaker instructions, but mine says, add wet, then dry, then yeast.
• So I add the egg, milk, and butter to the bottom of the breadmaker bowl, then add the flour, sugar, and salt on top.
• On top of that, I add the yeast.
• I set my breadmaker to the “dough” setting and let it run through.  Mine takes 2 hours, but you can stop it after the initial mixing to check.  If it looks powdery, add some milk.  If it looks runny, add some flour.
• After the dough is done, I divide it into four roughly equal sections, pound it down, and let it rise under a towel for 30 minutes.
• I then bake it in an unpreheated oven at 375 deg. F. for 15-20 minutes.
• I often double this recipe because we tend to eat all of the buns when I make them.

Sustainability, paganism, and living within your means

Pagans come from all walks of life.  Although many of us enter the faith as young or dependent worshippers, as we grow and change, we find that we enter “adulthood,” adorned with all of its responsibilities.  I entered “adulthood,” by voting standards, six years ago; but I really began living on my own about two years ago, when I emerged from my undergraduate institution and took a research fellowship.  To give you some stats, I make about 23,000 a year, which is plenty to support myself.  In my first year here, I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with myself, 2 rats, a cat, and a bearded dragon.  Since then, I have moved to renting a house, and for a time, lived here, alone, with a dog, 2 cats, and a bearded dragon.

Unfortunately, life moves on, and after my break up, I found myself an excellent boyfriend.  Well, perhaps not unfortunately.  But the unfortunate part of the situation is that he had a job, moved in, then lost it.  And was jobless until very recently.

Along with himself, he brought me two very hungry dogs.  And so, I am suddenly supporting 5 free-range animals (3 dogs, 2 cats), the bearded dragon, myself, and my boyfriend.  On the same salary.

Money’s a little tight.  Not so tight that I’ve cancelled monthly services like internet, but tight enough where I’ve considered making lifestyle changes in order to accommodate the new family members I have.

And, so, I present to you, a new section of this blog: Living sustainably as a pagan.  I’ll try to tag these posts with the sustainability tag.

Here’s my tip of the week for living sustainably: What you won’t eat, feed to your animals.

Now, obviously, don’t feed them things that could kill them – like chocolate, or chicken bones.

But I had some ground beef that had a storied past.  It was purchased in the beginning of September, and we went to make burgers with it, using a burger press, freshly purchased from Kitchen Collection Outlet (Thanks, mom!).  The problem was, it was late, we were tired, and the burgers kept sticking to the press.  So we gave up, and I told my mom that we could just put it in the fridge and I’d deal with it later.

About a week later, I still hadn’t done anything with the meat, so I put it in the freezer to deal with later.

And a few days ago, I ran into the same problem: I really, really, REALLY didn’t want to hand-make burgers.  And so it sat in my refrigerator, defrosted, for another three or four days.

Finally, I gave up, and so I googled how to cook hamburger in a crockpot.  Add some water, turn it on high.

I went to play some soccer, and by the time I got back (I SCORED, by the way!), it was late, I was tired.  So I shut off the crockpot, and put the meat in the fridge without draining it.  Bad move, on my part.  The animal fat solidified (which I should’ve known would happen) and it looked gross.  I decided to heat it up today to see if it looked better.

No, no it does not.  And so, I have designated it “dog food” and will mete it out to the puppies this evening for dinner.

A quick and simple bread for Lughnasadh

Borrowed from “Autumn Earth Song”:

Sweet Corn Bread

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2/3 cup white sugar

1 tsp salt

3 1/2 tsps baking powder

1 egg 1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray or lightly grease a 9 inch round cake pan. In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir in egg, milk and vegetable oil until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Healthy Living: The Fake Sugar Challenge

So, with diet soda and artificial sweeteners rampant, I wonder if they have an effect on us.

I mean, if you think about it, these substances are tricking us into thinking that we’re receiving nutrition that we’re actually not receiving at all.  So we feel full, but we’re actually hungry.

And when we eat REAL sugar, we feel like it’s not enough, because, well, we’re used to the fake stuff, which is often much sweeter.  So your real sugar intake goes up.

I challenge you to cut out sucralose, aspartame, and other artificial sweeteners for a day.  You’ll find them everywhere.

Why trick your body?  Eat what’s good, what’s natural, and what’s right.