101 in 1001 #3

On Saturday night, I had Must Be Thrifty, her boyfriend Cheap Geek, and our high school bestie L over for dinner. And it was a blast.

In typical fashion, I went a little bit bonkers with the amount of food I made. I have a tendency to panic that there won't be enough to eat, and make an extra dish at the last minute. This was no exception. I'm going to apologise in advance for the sucky photos. I was far too distracted to get out my SLR, but I DID remember to take photos on my phone. Still, the quality's pretty craptastic.

What did we eat? All the Mexican food ever, because I loves me some Mexican food. More specifically, we ate the following:

1. This guacamole. I apologise for the godawful photos in that post. I'd only been blogging for about three months at the time I wrote it, and didn't have my SLR at the time.

2. Elotes Callejeros. I used this recipe. It was pretty freaking spectacular.

3. and 4. Beef fajitas. I used this marinade with eye fillet, and it was AMAZING. And then I made frijoles, which you can see on the top. Except that I couldn't find dried kidney beans, so it was a lot more liquid-y than it should have been, and we had to serve them with a slotted spoon. Still, they tasted pretty awesome!

5. Aaaaaand finally, churros with chocolate dipping sauce (a block of 70% cocoa dark chocolate, mixed with enough butter to make it actually melt, a couple of teaspoons of vanilla essence, and a sprinkling of cinnamon).

Oh, and Must Be Thrifty made horchata and brought a bunch of these:

Jarritos! They're all pretty delicious, but the mango is definitely my favourite.

We ate at the posh dining room table, with candles and a tablecloth and generally pretended that we were grown ups, which we're totally not. As evidenced by the fact that we spent at least half an hour giggling like lunatics about things people say in their sleep, including but not limited to the antics of Sleep Talkin' Man.

Hosting a dinner party (101 in 1001 #3)? NAILED IT.

K xx

Challenge recipe 15: Chicken fajitas

I realised the other day that the last time I made anything for my Cookbook Challenge was waaaaaaaaaaay back in JUNE when I made Portuguese custard tarts and raspberry souffles in the one weekend. I figured it was about time I rectified my slacking and make use of my cookbooks again!

I bought this book a couple of years ago, but I think the only recipes I've ever made are some kind of salsa and guacamole. I actually cheated a little on the recipe - you're meant to make the tortillas from scratch. But I was trying to make dessert at the same time. Plus, I didn't want to buy an entire container of lard (yes, seriously. And EEEEEUW.) for the small quantity the tortilla recipe called for. So I cheated and bought pre-made ones. They were fine, not surprisingly!

Anyway, here's the book:

And here's what you'll need:

Start by zesting the limes. If you're lucky and live in somewhere that's NOT Australia, you probably won't be sobbing over the amount of money you had to spend buying 2 limes as you zest (Seriously - they're $2.50 EACH):

Once you've finished zesting, stick the limes in the microwave for 15 seconds or so, and then squeeze them. When it comes to limes, I never bother with a juicer. I just squeeze them straight into the bowl:

Then add two tablespoons of caster sugar...

...a teaspoon of dried oregano...

...a teaspoon of cinnamon...

...and half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

Mix it all together. Trim and slice up the three chicken breasts, and dump them in to marinate for at least half an hour:

While the meat is marinating, thinly slice the three capsicums and the onion:

When the meat has had its half an hour of marinating, heat a couple of spoonfuls of oil in a frying pan and dump the meat in, marinade and all:

Let it cook for about five minutes, then add in the vegetables:

Cook for another couple of minutes. While it's cooking, prepare some toppings:

I had intended to use mashed avocado, but all the avocados at the supermarket were rock hard, so we had to make do with store bought guacamole... Oh, and the cheese is not included in the list of toppings suggested by the book. But this is me we're talking about, so cheese is pretty much obligatory! Feel free to leave it out.

Dump the chicken mixture into the bowl and forget to wipe down the sides before you take a photo make it look all purdy:

Serve thusly!

The verdict? They're pretty freaking awesome. It's quite a bit different to your stereotypical fajitas. It tastes clean and fresh thanks to the lime juice, rather than having that smoky taste that fajitas tend to have. The cinnamon adds unexpected flavour over the lime. And veggies were quite moist and juicy rather than having that slightly caramelised outside crunch. I guess that's the difference when there's a marinade involved rather than a dry spice mixture! The next time I make it, I might try not including the dregs of the marinade and see what happens. I might also try cooking the veggies first, taking them out of the pan, cooking the chicken and *then* combining it at the last minute to see if it'll retain some of the crunch.

Basically? It's really quick and easy. The marinade took about five minutes to make, and you'd have to chop the veggies and the meat even if you were using the packet spice mix. Sure, you have to allow half an hour for the meat to marinate. But it's totally worth it. Oh, and don't replace the limes with lemons. Sure, they may be four times the price for something half the size. But you can really taste that gorgeous, tropical, lime flavour in the end product.

Give them a go and let me know what you think!!

K xx

The total deliciousness that is authentic guacamole

A couple of weeks ago (okay, it was more like a month. Oops...), I made my (in)famous guacamole. And I told you all that I was going to write a post about it. So here you have it: REAL guacamole, of the type they make in Mexico. Which features absolutely no sour cream or mayonnaise, which have no place in guacamole...

Start with 3 chillies. If you're like me and really really REALLY hate chopping chillies (cos I'm an idiot and always rub my eyes without thinking), make sure you have to make the guacamole from start to finish in about 10 minutes, and persuade your dad to chop it for you. Didn't he do a good job?:

Then take four tomatoes, cut crosses in the bases of them, and stick them in a bowl:

Then cover the little suckers in boiling water:

Leave the tomatoes where they are for a couple of minutes. Grab yourself four ripe avocados:
Slice them in half:

And take out the pits. This was particularly exciting for me, because I've NEVER been able to get the pits out of avocados. I'd hit the pit with the knife, pull, and the knife would come out while the pit stayed put. Rinse and repeat several times, and I'd give up and scoop the flesh out with a spoon... So anyway, this was exciting:

Then pull the tomatoes out of the boiling water (with tongs, obviously), and dump them into a sink of cold water:

While the tomatoes are doing their thing, scoop out the flesh of the avocados and dump it in the food processor. You can do it by hand with a fork if you want, but it takes foreeeeeever:

About 20 seconds in the food processor and you have this:

Then it's back to the tomatoes. Peel the skins off them:

Then chop them in half, scoop out their guts with a spoon, and dice the shells:

Then add the avocado puree:

Add the juice of one lime - you can get more juice out of it if you stick it in the microwave for 10 seconds first:

Then add the chillies and a third of a cup of chopped coriander. Unless you're me and forgot to put coriander on the shopping list and have to use the icky stuff in the squeeze tube:

Then crush two cloves of garlic and add them to the mix:

Along with half a diced onion. I got a wee bit carried away, and it was probably a bit too oniony. You could probably use a red onion if you wanted to. Or dice it reeeeeeeeeeally finely. Unlike me. Hey, I was in a rush, dammit!:

Then mix it all together, and get Paulie (or some other sucker who happens to be nearby - hi Paulie!) to do a taste test to make sure it's not poisonous:

On the advice of your taste testers, some salt, mix it through and dump it all in a bowl:

Then serve the whole lot with corn chips and eat waaaaaaaay more than is good for you - enjoy!!!

K xx :)

PS. This quantity fed a party of about 20 people, 6 people the following day, and Mum for two lunches. Feel free to halve the quantity if you're not serving a cast of thousands!

A long weekend of Awesomeness in photos

So I was in Melbourne this past weekend. And it was awesome. And considering my text is due at work on Friday, I don't have time to write about it all. So I'll give you the highlights through pictures...

It started out with the work Christmas party on Friday night, which - as predicted - featured slightly bizarre green dresses (I spent half the night hiding behind the camera):

Saturday morning, I flew home to Melbourne. Where I spent the afternoon making a complete mess of Mum's kitchen in preparation for our BBQ that night:
Course, that didn't stop me from paying attention to Domi. Who, for some reason, is bearing a striking resemblance to Rod Stewart in the hair department at the moment:

Anyway, I made delicious chocolate fudge cupcakes decorated with buttercream frosting and bits of candy cane:

Let's get a closer look at that candy cane, shall we?:
Then after making brownies (which I forgot to take a photo of), I moved on to making guacamole. Which featured a very exciting moment - I was able to get the pits out of ALL FOUR AVOCADOS, which I've never been able to do before. In all the excitement (for me at least), the photographic proof turned out slightly blurry. But meh:
Anyway, here's the finished guacamole (detailed post to follow at some point in the future):

Aaaaand here's Paulie testing the guacamole to make sure it's not poisonous:
Then Nessa brought me one of these:
And I jumped up and down with excitement and screamed a little bit. In case I didn't mention it in my Peru emails last year, Sublimes are a completely delicious Peruvian chocolate bar, consisting of milk chocolate and peanuts. They're disturbingly good, and not available outside South America. Nessa has her ways and means, and got hold of a box - yay!!!!!!!!! Thanks Nessa!!! They were delicious. Om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom...

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right. Sunday involved decorating the Christmas tree. I love decorating the Christmas tree, because it means I get to laugh at the small child on the box (who must now be well in his (at least I think it's a he!) 30s), who looks like this:
Who says there's no fun in having a plastic Christmas tree??? ;)

Monday was an action packed day, featuring my first haircut in nine months and a trip to Brewery Land. Monday night was spent at the Green Day concert, which rocked in all possible ways. Here's Nessa and I waiting for the concert to start:
Cam was there too, but obviously we're far more important than him... ;) (Hi Cam!!) Anyway, then it was on with the concert. I'm quite impressed at how well my camera did. Although I had to put my finger over the flash otherwise the pictures were filled with little sparkly bits of dust...


'King for a Day' included the usual props - last time I saw them, it was a crown and cape. This time it was a feather boa and a policeman's hat:

And then there was the usual acoustic finish of Good Riddance:
Best. Concert. Ever.
I mean, the American Idiot tour was pretty damned good, but this was a whole different level of awesomeness. The perfect end to a great weekend.
Shame about having to get up at 5.45 this morning to fly back to Canberra!!!! ;)
K xx