Yikes!

I know I haven't blogged in an ENTIRE WEEK! I'm crazy. Err, maybe lazy is more accurate.
I actually have a confession to make. I am slightly obsessed with the Monopoly Game and McDonald's. I know, "McDonald's?! Gross!" Go ahead, throw your pitchforks, I don't care. We have been eating Mickey D's like crazy the last week in order to collect those precious little game pieces! I can't help it! I have a problem!
As a result, I haven't cooked very often and couldn't post. Sorry!
(I also have been out of eggs since last Wednesday and everything I seem to want to make requires eggs!)
I did make some Cider Glazed Chicken and Roasted Root Veggies, and took pictures and planned to post the recipes, but the chicken wasn't nearly as good as I was hoping, the pictures made it look like vomit, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, the potatoes in my roasted veggies were still a little too hard. :(
Oh well. I DO have some YUMMY recipes in store for this week though, so don't fret!
No pictures, but here's a tasty treat of words to peak your interest of what's to come:

Copy cat recipe! Winger's Sauce and Sticky Fingers. SO GOOD!
Cinnamon Honey Butter
Artisan Bread
Easy Shredded Chicken and Homemade Stock
Something with pumpkin in it. I haven't decided yet.
Cookie Cup Sundaes


Stay tuned!

Homemade Lemonade

I know summer is over, but I have to share! This is my FAVORITE lemonade. In High School (and let’s face it, college) I was obsessed with Minute Maid Light Lemonade. I’ve never been a fan of really sweet lemonade and the light version was great. However, it still always had that slight “diet” taste. You know what I’m talking about.  Luckily, I discovered this recipe in this cookbook at Ross! Don’t you just LOVE Ross?!?!
Anyway, it is not way too sweet, perfectly lemony and not at all diet. Plus, it makes me feel like a fancy pants. 

Homemade Lemonade
As with all the best lemonades, all you need is:
2/3 Cup of Water
½ Cup FRESH Lemon Juice (Don’t use that stuff you get in the little plastic lemon containers). This equals about 4-6 lemons, or 2-3 if you have awesomely huge lemons like the tree in my backyard grew when I was a kid.
6 Tbps Sugar
1 tsp Grated Lemon Rind, or about the zest of one lemon

 First, zest your lemon. A microplane works beautifully for this!

Grab a small saucepan and pour the water into it

Then pour in your sugar. Look at all those sweet sugar crystals! Mm!

 Add your Lemon Zest and stir it all up! You’ll want to heat this to boiling, and then let it boil for 5 minutes, stirring the whole time. You might want to turn on some music and dance while you stir for a full-body workout, rather than just strength training in your one stirring arm.

After the 5 minutes of boiling, your sugar should be all dissolved, the lemon zest should be annihilated and there should be a wonderful lemon-infused simple syrup going on. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp. While it’s cooling, cut up your lemons! (I only ended up using 4 lemons, or 8 halves, but I cut 2 extra because I like to have fresh lemon juice in my fridge to use for something else later.)

Grab one of the lemon halves and cut off a couple slices. Set those aside in the fridge for now.

Now, using your awesome electric juicer (or an ancient manual one like mine) juice up those puppies until you have ½ Cup.  Side note- Please don’t juice actual puppies. Just the lemons.

 Once your simple syrup has cooled and you've juiced the lemons, pour the lemon juice into the syrup and stir it up.

 Grab a pitcher and a fine mesh strainer. Pour your lemon juice mixture through the strainer into the pitcher (to remove any chunks of pulp or sneaky seeds.) Here's where patience comes into play. Place the pitcher in the fridge for TWO HOURS! You want it nice and chilled.

 Once you've waited those loooong two hours (I did the dishes. What did you do?), set up your drink assembly station. You will need:
A drinking glass (this recipe only makes enough for 2 good size drinks, so double or triple if necessary)
Small plate or bowl
Sugar
Ice cubes
Lemon Slices

 Pour some sugar onto your plate. Run the lemon slices around the rim of your glass and then dunk the glass into the sugar. Move it around to make sure it's nice and coated with sugar around the rim.

Doesn't this look so professional?!

Next, toss in some ice cubes. This is where it get's tricky. You need 1 part lemon juice to 3 parts water. I used 1/3 Cup lemon juice and 1 Cup of water. The original recipe actually calls for sparkling water but i've yet to try that. Sounds good though! Garnish with a lemon slice, grab your glass, put your pinky up like a real fancy pants, and drink up!

Extra Notes: If this isn't sweet enough for you, go ahead and add more sugar at the beginning. And then call your dentist. If you want, you can also just add water to your pitcher and keep in the fridge. I don't know how long it lasts, though, because I always drink it immediately. I can't help myself. :)

Chicken Tacos

Ok, we actually call these TacOdasso's, a play off of our last name Odasso. They are pretty popular in our house, and with some of our married friends from Idaho. The idea for these tacos came when I was working as a nanny in Idaho. The family was somewhat low-income, so figuring out what to make the kids for lunch was sometimes a challenge. On a whim, I made some taco shells, filled them with black beans and topped with shredded cheddar cheese, chopped fresh spinach, and a squirt of lime juice. The kids weren't big fans (taco's without meat?!?!) but I thought they were SUPER yummy! I just had to make them again when I got home, but since my husband hates beans (and spinach), I decided to use chicken, iceberg lettuce, and I added some cilantro because, let's face it, cilantro makes everything better. I originally added black beans to mine as well as the chicken, but have since nixed the beans because I'm the only one who eats them!

Chicken Tacos, or TacOdassos
You will need:
1-2 Chicken Breasts, roughly chopped* (1 chicken breast makes about 4-5 Tacos)
Small Corn Tortillas, white or yellow, it doesn't matter
Vegetable Oil
Iceberg Lettuce
Cilantro
1 Lime
Shredded Cheese, whatever you like
Garlic Powder
Mexican Chili Powder
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Cumin
Salt and Pepper (not pictured) I also prefer to use Sea Salt
(I know it looks like it in the picture, but that Cilantro is NOT touching that raw chicken! I swear!)

*You can also use Shredded Chicken

 First you need to cook up your chicken. I have a few different ways of doing this. Normally, I have a huge bag of shredded chicken that i've already cooked up using a crockpot, but for this time, I just chopped up a chicken breast and added them to a pot with about 1 Tbsp of hot veggie oil. I used a pot rather than a skillet because I hate oil splattering everywhere. Add your seasonings, however much you like. I've never measured because I just add them until it smells awesome.

 Stir it all up and cook over medium-high heat until cooked through, about 6-8 minutes depending on how big or small you cut up your chicken.

 While your chicken is cooking, start on your taco shells. Heat about 4 Tbsps of oil for every 4 Taco shells. Have a plate and a few paper towels ready. Put your tortilla in the oil and let it cook for 30-60 seconds. Flip, cook, and then transfer to a plate covered with a paper towel.

 Once it's on the paper towel (to soak up extra oil), fold the tortilla over to make the shell. Fold the paper towel over on top of the taco so you can put your next one on top. Repeat until you have all the tacos you want. You can also let them cook for longer for a harder shell. These are soft with a little crunch.

 I do a lot of multi-tasking here. The next few steps CAN be done ahead of time. Cut off a chunk or your iceberg lettuce.

 Rinse it off and then cut it in half. Then, slice the lettuce into cute little lettuce strips.

 Lettuce! I always end up cutting too much lettuce, but oh well.

 Now grab some cilantro. I LOVE cilantro, so I use quite a bit. Pull the leaves off of the stems.

 Gather all the leaves into a pile and then just roughly chop the cilantro.

 You'll also want to cut your lime in half, but I didn't think that warranted a picture. Once you've got all of that done, you can shred your chicken. I grabbed a couple of forks and just pulled all the chicken apart. Stir it all up so that everything is coated in spices.

 Now, set up your taco assembly station! You can make your tacos however you want, but I have a certain order to my taco that, I think, makes it taste perfect. First, grab a shell, fill the bottom with chicken, cover with cheese, then lettuce, a huge helping of cilantro (or barely any like my hubby) and then squirt a lime across the top.

 Open your mouth, take a bite, and enjoy. :)

 Extra notes: You CAN add beans to your tacos and it IS really yummy that way! Black beans are my favorite, but pinto or refried beans are delicious too. One thing we have done with some of our friends is to also have regular flour tortillas, rice, beans, sour cream, and a few different salsas. This way, we can all have tacos, burritos, mix and match what goes in which and it all tastes so good!

Crepes with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

Ah, Crepes. Delicious, yet frustrating. Crepes happen to be one of my husband’s favorite desserts, but I just can’t seem to cook them right! I always have to enlist the help of my hubby, because he is WAY better at it than I am. However, when we get together to make these, they come out tasty and warm and sweet and yummy.  I’ll tell you now, this recipe takes about an hour and 20 minutes, so get them started before you make dinner, or lunch, or about an hour before you anticipate wanting a sweet snack. You can also make the crepe batter up to 48 hours in advance and keep it in the fridge, just so you know.

Crepes with Strawberries and Whipped Cream
Recipe from Alton Brown

Ingredients:
2 Large Eggs
¾ Cup Milk
½ Cup Water
1 Cup Flour
3 Tbps melted Butter

Ready for how easy this is in the beginning? Pour everything into a blender

Pulse it for about 10 seconds

Stick the batter, in the blender, in the fridge for about an hour (or up to 48 hours). See, EASY!

 

In the meantime, grab a carton of strawberries, rinse them off, and then chop the tops off and quarter them.

Dump all your cut-up strawberries into a small bowl and then throw in 1-2 Tbps of regular white sugar

Mix it up, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and stick the bowl in the fridge. We’re going to let them macerate in there and get all sweet and juicy. You can also follow those same steps, but just leave the strawberries on the counter for at least 15 minutes.

  

Next, we're going to make whipped cream! Get rid of that tub or spray stuff that you have in your fridge. This tastes WAY better! All you need is:

1 Cup of whipping cream ( a half pint=1 cup, so get the half pint and save yourself a measuring cup to wash)
2 Tbps Sugar
1/2 tsp PURE Vanilla
Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl.
Now, if you're like me and you don't want to feel guilty about eating this whipped cream, grab a whisk and whip this up by hand. Warning, your arm might be burning when you are done. If you aren't crazy, then use an electric beater.

 

 You should be able to tell when it's done and ready to go. This is too liquidy.

 This is just perfect. Mmmmmm. Taste it. Seriously. It's SO GOOD

Now you're ready to make the Crepes. This is the part I fail at every time. I even watch my husband doing it, and I still fail. They always break on me. Oh well. If Brad can do it, you can too! Heat up a skillet on about medium heat and coat it with either butter or non-stick cooking spray. Pour about 1/4 Cup of the batter into your pan and swirl it around into a big circle.

 

After about 30 seconds, flip it over and cook the other side for 10-15 seconds.

 When you're all done making the crepes, top them with strawberries and whipped cream

We like to just fold them in half and eat them, but you can roll them up or do whatever. It will still taste the same. Sometimes, if i'm feeling extra crazy, i'll fold over my crepe and top it with even more whipped cream and some of the juice from the macerated strawberries. Yes! 

 One thing about crepes is that they are VERY versatile. You can make them with chocolate, Nutella, peanut butter, bananas, raspberries, ice cream, or whatever else your mind can come up with! Enjoy!