Bits Of Dust

Archive for January, 2008

I forgot to mention that in making the chicken quesadillas yesterday we also used homemade flour tortillas.

I found the recipe for the tortillas over at My Wooden Spoon last week and wanted to make them, but I knew if I did I would be the only one eating them, until the wife mentioned she wanted to try those homemade chicken quesadillas. It was the perfect time to try the tortilla recipe, which by the way is awesome.

I made mine in varying sizes, as I like to eat flour tortillas with cheese, with refried beans, with chicken, heck with just about anything. You can find the recipe at My Wooden Spoon, along with a lot more pictures of the preparation. It’s definitely an easy recipe to make, and I ended up with almost three dozen tortillas from it.

We started a whole new “diet” yesterday. Not the losing weight type of diet, just an “eat right” type of diet.

It’s been very good so far and the wife has come up with some spectacular menus. For lunch today I made chicken quesadillas. The kids loved ‘em, we loved ‘em, I can see these in our future that’s for sure.

I’ll be posted some of the new recipes as we perfect them, and after a set amount of time, the wife is planning on putting them all together in a cookbook of some sort to help others eat right.

The nice thing about this plan, is that you balance all of your nutritional requirements throughout the whole day rather than for each meal.

Delicious.

I decided to make some deviled eggs today, so I decided to take the opportunity and make my first recipe video. Yikes! I’ll be posting it sometime tomorrow.

The family loved them. In fact, they were gone before I was able to post this entry.

Tonight, I was in the mood for Mexican food. I have been craving homemade flour tortillas, refried beans, and guacamole. So what did we do? We ordered pizza. It sucks to be outvoted 4 to 1.

Tomorrow I am definitely having Mexican food. I’m even going to make my own homemade flour tortillas.

Okay, here we go again. This time, post your answers to the comments rather than emailing me, please.

So, what is it?

I’ll post the answer in a couple days.

A couple days ago, I asked you to identify a photo I posted.

I received a few responses via email, but no one got it right. Here it is:

Yes, It’s rice.

I discovered a new blog today, titled, “Mom’s Best Recipes“. I have no idea why I haven’t discovered this one before, but I love it.

She has a ton of recipes on her site. I saw quite a few that I want to try, but since my wife is the bread baker of the house, I am posting this recipe for Homemade Soft Pretzels in the hope that my wife will read this post and make these one day for me.

Ingredients:

4 tsp. dry active yeast
1 tsp. white sugar + 1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water
4 cups hot water
5 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. table salt
1 TBSP canola oil or vegetable oil + more for oiling a bowl
1/2 cup baking soda
kosher salt for sprinkling

Preparation:

Add dry yeast, 1 tsp. white sugar and 1 1/4 cups warm water in a bowl–stir until dissolved, then let it stand for 10 minutes. In a separate bowl add the flour, 1/2 cup white sugar, and 1 1/2 tsp. table salt–add the yeast mixture and the canola/vegetable oil–mix to form the dough (if too dry add a little water). Use your hands to knead the dough until it’s smooth. Use more oil to grease a bowl lightly–place the dough in the bowl and keep turning it until the dough has been oiled. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let it rise at room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl add the 4 cups hot water and the baking soda–stir until dissolved. Place the dough on the counter and cut into 10-12 even pieces. Roll each dough piece into a “snake”, then twist into a pretzel shape. As you finish each pretzel, dip them into the baking soda water and place directly on to greased cookie sheets. Sprinkle the tops of each pretzel with the desired amount of kosher salt–at this point you can also sprinkle with any flavoring you like (such as dry ranch dressing mix). Bake at 450 degrees for 8-9 minutes or until brown.

You can find a ton of recipes over at Mom’s Best Recipes.

I was craving shrimp tonight.

I have decided to start a new category called, “What Is It?” At least once a week I will take a photo of something, but only show you a small portion of the photo. Think you can guess what it is?

Here’s the first one:

Any idea? The section of the photo I chose to crop is not the best, but leave your answer in the comments. Oh, and I will post the full picture in a couple days.