Recipes

Soup Time! Instant Pot* Chicken Tortilla Soup

/ TaMara

This soup is one of my favorites.  Quick, easy and full of goodness.  And using the electric pressure cooker makes an easy recipe even easier.

I was being overrun with tomatoes, and then our heatwave broke with a nice cold, rainy weekend. Perfect time to start some soup.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

  • 4 boneless chicken breasts, cubed**
  • 8 cups of water
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp orange  juice
  • 1 tbsp limejuice
  • ½ tsp ea. – Mexican oregano, basil, rosemary
  • 1 tsp crushed garlic
  • 1 large chopped green, yellow, or red pepper
  • 1 to 4 jalapenos chopped (depending on the heat you like)
  • 1/4 tsp red chili pepper flakes
  • 12 oz frozen sliced carrots
  • 8 oz frozen green beans
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped
  • 1/2 small onion
  • 16 oz frozen sweet corn
  • 14 oz canned or fresh tomatoes
  • 1 cup fresh cilantro, washed and chopped
  • ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • 4 flour small flour tortillas
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instant pot, Multi-Pot or *any electric pressure cooker

Continue reading →

Summer Harvest Continues

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

How do I manage, every year, to grow jalapenos that break the Scoville scale? 🌶️🔥

Once again, I roasted the first batch to try and bring down the heat before I canned them. It wasn’t all that successful, but they do taste good.  Simple recipe of pureed jalapenos, apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar), dash of salt. Great on burgers, in soups, or anywhere you’d use fresh or pickled jalapenos.

Again, I don’t do traditional canning. I do freezer canning.  I sterilize the freezer-safe canning jars, fill with the jalapeno relish, cover, but don’t tighten until cooled. Leave room in the jar for expansion and freeze for up to a year.

I was hoping the hail hadn’t damaged my tomatoes, but as they ripen, I’m seeing they all have bruising. Shouldn’t affect the ones I puree, but makes the sliced ones a little mushy.

I was on a kick to use up excess seeds I had lying around the pantry and decided I’d plant the corn I had stored in a plastic bag. Only about half germinated, and they grew little mini-stalks, which in turn produced mini-ears. They look edible, and I’ll cook one up and see. Otherwise, I’ll see if the ducks will eat them.

They are cute, I’ll say that.

Grilled Bourbon Chicken Skewers

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

I seem to have an abundance of Kentucky bourbon in the house these days. Unusual. I always have Canadian whiskey (I prefer cooking with whiskey over wine). So I went looking through the archives for some recipes with bourbon. I had forgotten about this one, with is always a hit at cookouts.

Because it’s a kabob style, it’s a bit labor intensive, but you can prepare all of it the day before. If you want your chicken even drunker, you can soak it in the extra bourbon overnight.

From 2014:

Drunken Chicken 1

Grilled Bourbon Chicken Appetizers

12  servings

  • 1- 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  •  1/4 cup chopped Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
  •  1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • Bourbon (how much you use and what you do with the leftover is between you and your bottle)
  • 8 oz pineapple chunks
  • 12 strips of sliced bacon (should be a pound)
  • 12 short wooden skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes before assembling and grilling*

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch x 2-inch cubes, you should have 36 pieces (you can soak in bourbon if you like) Continue reading →

Four Minute Potato Salad

/ TaMara

This recipe is a family favorite!

From 2018:

At the last minute yesterday, I decided we needed potato salad at our cookout. Luckily, electric pressure cooker to the rescue!  Four minutes cooking time, about 10 minutes prep. I left potatoes and eggs in the fridge to cool while we ran around. Added mayo, mustard, some dill pickle juice just before dinner and served with grilled hamburgers and corn. Yum.

Perfect Picnic Potato Salad

  • 6 large potatoes, peeled, cubed
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1/2 small yellow onion, finely diced
  • mayo and yellow mustard to taste – I used less than a cup of mayo and about 1/4 cup mustard – but I know some people like a lot more. I added a 1/4 cup of dill pickle juice
  • salt and pepper to taste

Add the steaming basket to the pressure cooker and add enough water to come to bottom of the basket. Add cubed potatoes (and you don’t need to be too fancy with cutting the pieces – just relatively same size for uniform cooking). Place washed eggs on top of the potatoes. Close the unit, set to steam for 4 minutes. When finished, use the rapid release method to ensure eggs don’t over cook and potatoes stay firm.

Add eggs to a cold water ice bath. Remove potatoes and drain excess water. Add to large serving bowl.  Peel eggs, wash and cube. Add to potatoes. Let cool completely before mixing so as not to turn the potatoes into mush.

Once cooled, add remaining ingredients and fold until well mixed.  Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 6 easily

Dinner Menu: Grilled Steak with Coffee Rub and Blueberry Coffeecake

/ TaMara

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Let’s start grilling season off with one of my most requested recipes. A steak coffee rub.

From August 2013

A friend of mine spent a few months one summer experimenting with coffee rubs. This was one of my favorites. If you need something fun to do with your next grilled steak, this is a recipe to try. And with my love of blueberries, can’t go wrong with a blueberry coffeecake.  Yum.

On the board tonight:

  1. Steak with Coffee Rub
  2. Green Beans w/Bacon & Onion
  3. Baked Potatoes
  4. Blueberry CoffeeCake

Steak with Coffee Rub

  • 3 tbsp chili powder (pure ancho or a blend)
  • 3 tbsp finely ground coffee (espresso works best)
  • 1 ½ tbsp paprika (use a good one)
  • 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
  • 2 tsp dry mustard
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 to 1-1/2 lb of steak (rib-eye, sirloin, NY strip, etc) in 4 thick pieces

Continue reading →

Dinner Menu: Stir Fry Orange Chicken and Broccoli

/ TaMara / 2 Comments

It’s snowing here – well, raining at the moment, but snow by the evening. Never mind my garden is planted with tomatoes, three kinds of peppers, tomatillos, and zucchini, all raised in the house nursery over the past few months. Sigh.

It’s Colorado and we are always prepared for snow, so I’ve got everything ready to be covered and protected as the weather turns. Just not how I expected to spend the latter part of my week.

Cold weather puts me in the mood for some spicy favorites. This is from 2017:


orange-chicken-dinner

I’m not big on deep frying anything, but I love orange chicken so I wanted to find a way to make it so it was still crisp without all the oil and breading. I found the perfect ingredient to produce that result: potato starch. I’ve been using it for a while now and it makes the most perfect Oven Baked Chicken – I’ve been substituting it for the bread crumbs, combining it with crushed rice chex – I’ll post an updated recipe on that technique this week.

I thought it might have the same effect on pan frying chicken pieces. It did. Crispy, light and flavorful. Of course top anything with enough orange sauce and I’m there.

On the board tonight:

  1. Pan-Fried Orange Chicken
  2. Rice or Rice Noodles
  3. Steamed Broccoli

Continue reading →

Dinner Menu: Baked Gnocchi in Fire Roasted Tomato-Basil Sauce

/ TaMara / 2 Comments

This is an elegant dinner that looks like it took you all day to prepare.  From start to finish I cooked the asparagus and gnocchi in 1/2 hour.  The strawberry bread takes an hour to cook, but it’s a breeze to put together.  So if you feel the need for something special, but still easy, this one could be for you.

On the board tonight:

  1. Baked Ricotta Gnocchi
  2. Broiled Asparagus
  3. Loaf of good crusty bread
  4. Strawberry Bread

Years ago, Christmas Eve is spent eating good food at friends’ Mark and Larissa’s house. Mark’s mom is from Italy and Larissa’s mom is from Japan, and luckily for me, the subject always turns to food from both countries. This year we talked about ravioli, gnocchi and fish in salt domes. I have to confess I’m not a fan of gnocchi. Should be good, right? – potato goodness, covered in sauce. What’s not to love? It just isn’t a favorite of mine. Maybe because I’ve never had it fresh I am missing out. But after we discussed how to make it fresh, well, I don’t think I’d be making it anytime soon. Then I saw a recipe for Ricotta Gnocchi and it sounded good and best of all, easy.  So I’d thought I’d try it. This is what I came up with and it quickly became a favorite of my guests.

Baked Ricotta Gnocchi in Fire Roasted Tomato and Basil Sauce

Sauce:

  • 28 oz fire roasted crushed tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tsp crushed garlic
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
  • 1 tsp dried oregano (or 1 tbsp fresh chopped)

Add ingredients in saucepan, bring to a low boil, reduce to low and let simmer while preparing gnocchi. Continue reading →

Chag Sameach!

/ TaMara

May Passover be  joyous for you this year

Several friends and I were discussing their Seder meals for this holiday. Well beyond the traditional lamb, but filled with all the blessings. It’s been many years since I’ve sat down for a Seder meal, but I have fond memories of a meal steeped in deep traditions and friendship.

Here’s a wonderful cooking thread cooking traditional meals in new ways, including tonight’s Seder:

It’s worth a read and I think I’ll be checking out that cookbook.