It has been a couple of weeks since my last attempt, so I pulled out my Mexican Everyday cookbook again this week to make another go at it. This time I made some green chile chicken soft tacos. Essentially, store bought corn tortillas filled with garlic lime chicken, roasted poblano chiles, and onion. We topped them with some queso fresco and some salsa as well. (Rick suggested making tomatillo salsa to top with, I wasn't that ambitious this time).
They turned out pretty tasty. The recipe made enough for like 12 small tacos which fed three people. They were a little spicy, but not too much. The chicken definitely had some nice flavor...I wasn't sure how it would be with just salt, pepper, lime juice, and garlic, but the chicken was definitely flavorful. The flavor was almost more fajita like with the chicken, onion, and chiles.
We deemed it another success. It was a nice change from the usual ground beef tacos around here. While shopping for the poblanos, I noticed that walmart does have tomatillos, which opens up several of the other recipes in this cookbook. The corn tortillas this time were way better (in my opinion) than the ones I bought another time...I tried to pick the most mexican looking packaging, and it seemed to work :) (*There's a little man with a mustache and a sombrero on the front of the package...though they're actually from Texas, but that's pretty close to Mexico, right?)
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The zones have arrived
Well the zones to use indoors for training Midas have arrived. We just bought one and essentially it's a little disk that you can set so that when he gets too close to it, it beeps his collar and/or shocks him. Brad was getting it set up so he had taken off both dogs' collars so they wouldn't get shocked. Just hearing the collars beeping, even though it wasn't hurting him, made Midas so nervous that he hopped up in my lap (not just on the footstool as is his norm, but completely on my lap) and was shaking. Poor guy. He just really does not like to hear that sound. (Lucy thought it looked like fun to all be in the chair together, so she hopped up as well and got on the top of the chair behind my head.) So we've used it for two days now, and so far it has worked...or maybe he just isn't interested in the office door anymore. We have it just inside the office door and it is set so that if he gets within about a foot and a half of the door, it will beep at him. We moved his toy box to the other side of the room, so maybe he'll just forget he wanted to get into the office.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Icy Evening
So I don't even have ANY night classes this semester, and I certainly don't have a Wednesday night class, but for some reason I was still so excited to hear that classes were canceled tonight. There just is something wonderful about snow days, or in this case "ice nights". I love that feeling of found time, time that you thought you were going to be at work, but now are at home in your sweatpants, watching the Today show, eating frosted flakes and drinking hot chocolate...but I guess none of that applies here because I don't actually have a class that is canceled and it's not the morning :) But still special none the less...and I am still wearing sweatpants...and eating chocolate...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Day One
Today was the first day of the spring semester. There is something weird about the beginning of a new semester...I'm not nervous about the new classes, I just find the whole not knowing any of the people in the room staring at me / introduction part of each new semester kind of awkward. I much prefer it when we all just know each other. They know what to expect. I know the personality of the class. All that. So day one is over. I only had one class today, precalculus, and it only has 15 kids in it. I'm looking forward to the small class and meeting everyday.
Tomorrow I meet my other three classes...all sections of college algebra. Three more introductions. Three more times talking through the syllabus...they probably remember like 1/10th of what I tell them on that first day. But it's nice to be back to a regular schedule. I didn't swim today, but hopefully on Thursday I'll start that part of the new schedule.
Tomorrow I meet my other three classes...all sections of college algebra. Three more introductions. Three more times talking through the syllabus...they probably remember like 1/10th of what I tell them on that first day. But it's nice to be back to a regular schedule. I didn't swim today, but hopefully on Thursday I'll start that part of the new schedule.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
My Five Year Old Puppy
Having adopted both of my dogs from shelters, I've never actually had to deal with the puppy stage. Both of my dogs came house trained, both were able to be left alone inside...well, mostly. I mean, Midas has never exactly done "well" when left home alone, definitely seems to have some separation anxiety issues as he is only destructive when we are gone. He has done a lot better with this since we got Lucy, and he has us well "trained" to not leave anything that can be shredded out in the family room with him. A new issue has come up this week - scratching. Apparently Midas thinks that he would like to spend some of his day in the office...the one room on the main floor of the house that he can't go in during the day. The office also contains one of the nicest architectural features of our house - arched french doors with 15 little windows in each. In Midas' quest to get into the office, he has really scratched up one of the doors. The doors have always been there, but this week apparently the office quest began.
I considered several options of what to do about this. 1) Get a large crate and lock both dogs in their crates during the day...we have one for Lucy, but we don't have one large enough for Midas; 2) Make Midas wear little booties on his front paws so he can't scratch things...he would look just ridiculous and I can't imagine he would just let you put these on without a fight; 3) Put up a gate to keep the dogs in the kitchen during the day...this, however, would require a way to put their beds in the kitchen which I'm not really sure where I could put them; 4) Put up some kind of plexiglass shield on the office door to prevent any further damage...they sell these, but they are not very attractive and it really doesn't do anything to teach him not to scratch; or 5) use indoor zones that work with the shock collars they already wear all day. This is the option I think we are going to pursue first. We never bought any of these for indoor training previously, as we wanted the dogs to feel safe in the house, and not cause Midas any anxiety (he's somewhat fragile). They both are fully trained on the outdoor fence and also respond well when we use the remote control when people are over. So the zones are essentially a round disk that is battery powered that you can put anywhere and set the boundary from 2 to 12 feet. Essentially we would put one in the office and when he got too close to the office it would beep and/or shock him. When we were home and the door was open, we could just turn off the zone and he could come and go as he pleased. So we'll see...I was pretty mad at him yesterday, so if this doesn't work I think I'll continue to work my way through the possibility list.
I considered several options of what to do about this. 1) Get a large crate and lock both dogs in their crates during the day...we have one for Lucy, but we don't have one large enough for Midas; 2) Make Midas wear little booties on his front paws so he can't scratch things...he would look just ridiculous and I can't imagine he would just let you put these on without a fight; 3) Put up a gate to keep the dogs in the kitchen during the day...this, however, would require a way to put their beds in the kitchen which I'm not really sure where I could put them; 4) Put up some kind of plexiglass shield on the office door to prevent any further damage...they sell these, but they are not very attractive and it really doesn't do anything to teach him not to scratch; or 5) use indoor zones that work with the shock collars they already wear all day. This is the option I think we are going to pursue first. We never bought any of these for indoor training previously, as we wanted the dogs to feel safe in the house, and not cause Midas any anxiety (he's somewhat fragile). They both are fully trained on the outdoor fence and also respond well when we use the remote control when people are over. So the zones are essentially a round disk that is battery powered that you can put anywhere and set the boundary from 2 to 12 feet. Essentially we would put one in the office and when he got too close to the office it would beep and/or shock him. When we were home and the door was open, we could just turn off the zone and he could come and go as he pleased. So we'll see...I was pretty mad at him yesterday, so if this doesn't work I think I'll continue to work my way through the possibility list.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Well let's see...
From the looks of things, you would think that my new year's resolution was to not write any more things in this blog. That wasn't actually the case. And I haven't really been all that busy, I think it just turns out that my life has been in a bit of a boring patch. We haven't had any No-Beef-Wednesdays yet this year, I haven't tried any more recipes out of my Rick Bayless cookbook, the students aren't back so I can't make fun of them yet...
Classes do start up on Tuesday. My schedule got changed up a little this week and now I'm only teaching 14 hours...three sections of college algebra and one of precalc. Perhaps that means I will do a little better on doing the non-school things that I would like to be doing everyday like devotions and exercising. I have these grand illusions of swimming on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before I have to go to school, so we'll see if that happens.
Well it's 7:45 and I haven't taken a shower yet, so I should probably go clean up if I'm going to make it to work by 9:00. I think the early I've made it to work in these past two weeks is 8:30, so it's going to take a major effort next Wednesday when I need to teach at 8:00.
Classes do start up on Tuesday. My schedule got changed up a little this week and now I'm only teaching 14 hours...three sections of college algebra and one of precalc. Perhaps that means I will do a little better on doing the non-school things that I would like to be doing everyday like devotions and exercising. I have these grand illusions of swimming on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before I have to go to school, so we'll see if that happens.
Well it's 7:45 and I haven't taken a shower yet, so I should probably go clean up if I'm going to make it to work by 9:00. I think the early I've made it to work in these past two weeks is 8:30, so it's going to take a major effort next Wednesday when I need to teach at 8:00.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Mexican Everyday Attempt #2
Well, I had leftover fresh cilantro, garlic, and onion from my adventure yesterday as well as salad and creamy queso dressing, so I decided to try another recipe tonight. Tonight's experiment: red chile chicken and rice with black beans. This one tasted very traditional and is a great one pot recipe that made a lot of good food from pretty simple ingredients. This is a pretty cheap meal as the base of the meal is a can of black beans, a cup of white rice, and a couple of chicken breasts. The flavor comes from ancho chile powder, garlic, onion, and cilantro. It's a little spicy, but not overpowering. Brad and I both voted that we liked this one better than last nights, and it certainly seemed to turn my kitchen into less of a disaster :) It seems like an easy go-to meal as I usually have these things in the cupboard, minus the cilantro.
Mexican Everyday Attempt #1
My friends at work got me hooked on the show Top Chef, which led to me seeing Rick Bayless on Top Chef Masters. Brad and I really enjoyed watching him cook and went to his restaurant up in Chicago this fall. A lot of nights we watch his show on PBS during dinner: Mexico One Plate at a Time. So for Christmas, Brad got me his "easier" cookbook...Mexican Everyday.
I thought New Year's Eve seemed like a fun time to try out some fun, new food. So I poured through the cookbook looking for things I thought I might be able to create (with ingredients I could find in Pekin in the winter). I settled on:
-Creamy Queso Anejo Dressing, with some nice green leaf lettuce
-Gulf Coast-Style White Rice Pilaf, and
-Pork Tenderloin a la Mexicana
Making the dressing led to me using my blender for the first time in almost five years of having it (it's very nice, I should be using it more often). It was a creamy oil and vinegar dressing that had a pretty intense tang. Pretty easy to make, and pretty tasty, though not amazing.
The rice was probably my favorite part. Apparently traditional mexican rice is white rice, not the red rice we american's always call spanish rice. This was white rice with garlic and onion and chicken broth, and then baked. Very flavorful, and pretty easy. I would definitely make this one again, though use some of my shortcuts like the frozen onion and garlic powder instead of mincing garlic and chopping onions.
And then the pork tenderloin. This was diced pork tenderloin with poblano chiles, onion, garlic, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, and cilantro. I was glad I had seen Rick roast poblanos on his tv show so I knew what to expect with those. You stick them under the broiler until they get all blistered and blackened, put in a bowl and cover until cooled, and then all that black skin just peels right off to leave this nice roasted chile. I was a little unsure about this one while I was cooking it, I think the smell of garlic in the kitchen was overpowering everything else for me. But it really turned out quite tasty. It had a lot of flavor, but was not really that spicy.
All in all, it seemed to be pretty tasty. Now that I've made one attempt at these things using all fresh ingredients, I feel I can play around with a few things to make them easier for "everyday". So I guess instead of "Julie & Julia", this is "Megan & Rick" :)
I thought New Year's Eve seemed like a fun time to try out some fun, new food. So I poured through the cookbook looking for things I thought I might be able to create (with ingredients I could find in Pekin in the winter). I settled on:
-Creamy Queso Anejo Dressing, with some nice green leaf lettuce
-Gulf Coast-Style White Rice Pilaf, and
-Pork Tenderloin a la Mexicana
Making the dressing led to me using my blender for the first time in almost five years of having it (it's very nice, I should be using it more often). It was a creamy oil and vinegar dressing that had a pretty intense tang. Pretty easy to make, and pretty tasty, though not amazing.
The rice was probably my favorite part. Apparently traditional mexican rice is white rice, not the red rice we american's always call spanish rice. This was white rice with garlic and onion and chicken broth, and then baked. Very flavorful, and pretty easy. I would definitely make this one again, though use some of my shortcuts like the frozen onion and garlic powder instead of mincing garlic and chopping onions.
And then the pork tenderloin. This was diced pork tenderloin with poblano chiles, onion, garlic, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, and cilantro. I was glad I had seen Rick roast poblanos on his tv show so I knew what to expect with those. You stick them under the broiler until they get all blistered and blackened, put in a bowl and cover until cooled, and then all that black skin just peels right off to leave this nice roasted chile. I was a little unsure about this one while I was cooking it, I think the smell of garlic in the kitchen was overpowering everything else for me. But it really turned out quite tasty. It had a lot of flavor, but was not really that spicy.
All in all, it seemed to be pretty tasty. Now that I've made one attempt at these things using all fresh ingredients, I feel I can play around with a few things to make them easier for "everyday". So I guess instead of "Julie & Julia", this is "Megan & Rick" :)
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