Tri Tip Roast, black beans & rice, and corn on the cob

No recipes needed for last night. It was all me. I've been realizing that using all these new ingredients is leaving me with half used bottles of stuff in my frig. Soo.. when I've been deciding what to cook I end up analyzing whats in the frig and needs to be used up.

With that said, I needed to cook up a Tri tip roast I had and some corn that I had recently bought at a local farm. I slow cooked the roast in the oven. Sooo yumm and juicy this way.

I preheated my oven to 300 and began to spice up my roast. In a baking dish, I layed in my roast. I put salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and dried rosemary on top. I'm really bad about measuring out what I used but I basically used enough of each to completely cover the top of the meat. Then I added a couple tablespoons of EVOO on top and with my fingers rubbed it all in good!!I covered it with foil and popped it in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. After it cooked for that time, I took off the foil and turned up the heat to 375 for another 30 minutes. This browns the top of the roast really well.

browning the top

Now for my side dishes. I totally used a boxed rice. It was really good. I used Zataran's brand Black Beans & Rice. I just followed the instructions on the box but just when it was almost done I added in a can of organic diced garlicky tomatoes.

Next, I shucked and clean my ears of corn. I got a pot of water heated to a roaring boil and dropped the corn in for about 3-4 minutes. I like my corn to be hot and still crunchy. Don't over cook your corn. When I ate it I gave it a little salt and butter of course. Farm fresh corn on the cob can't be beat. My honey and I had a glass of Fish Eye Merlot with dinner.

I also made dessert. I got the idea off Dr. Oz of all places. I got graham crackers, spread a little cool whip in the middle, a dash of chocolate syrup, and put em in the freezer for an hour. They were insanely good!!

my sweet girl excited to eat dessert

Southern Fried Chicken

I have had so much food left over!!! So, Tuesday was a leftover day. Nothing to post for ya. But Wednesday night I made fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy(made from the fried chicken drippings).YUUUUMMM. Here is the fried chicken recipe from my favorite: Paula Deen!! LOVE HER.


Southern Fried Chicken
Ingredients

3 eggs

1/3 cup water

About 1 cup hot red pepper sauce (recommended: Texas Pete) (I DIDNT USE THIS, TOO HOT FOR THE KIDS)

2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon pepper

House seasoning, recipe follows

1 (1 to 2 1/2-pound) chicken, cut into pieces

Oil, for frying, preferably peanut oil

Directions:

In a medium size bowl, beat the eggs with the water. Add enough hot sauce so the egg mixture is bright orange. In another bowl, combine the flour and pepper. Season the chicken with the house seasoning. Dip the seasoned chicken in the egg, and then coat well in the flour mixture.

Heat the oil to 350 degrees F in a deep pot. Do not fill the pot more than 1/2 full with oil.

Fry the chicken in the oil until brown and crisp. Dark meat takes longer then white meat. It should take dark meat about 13 to 14 minutes, white meat around 8 to 10 minutes.

House Seasoning:

1 cup salt

1/4 cup black pepper

1/4 cup garlic powder

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
 
I also made mashed potatoes. I diced up some red potatos and boiled them until soft. Drained them, added some milk and butter(just add enough of both to make the potatos the consistancy you like) and mixed them up with my elecrtic mixer. I then used 2 tablespoons of my fried chicken drippings to make gravy. Starting with the drippings, I added 1-2 tablespoons of flour and some milk..dunno how much I eye balled it. Not too much though b/c you want the gravy to thicken up...I also salt and peppered it. Keep stirring your gravy b/c you don't want it to burn, and chances are you'll need to add more milk to make enough gravy for everyone. Keep stirring and cooking the gravy on medium heat until you have enough and the thickness you like.
 
This dinner was so stinkin good. I love me some fried chicken. Now only if I had cooked up some collard greens. YUM.

my dredging station

 
 

frying the chicken

Ready to eat

mashed potato face

Sushi time

I got cooked for last night!!! It was quite the treat. My husband and his buddy decided to chef up for the ladies. His buddy Josiah is a great cook. They rolled up four different kinds of sushi rolls and Josiah cooked up some honey walnut prawns...sooo stinkin' good!! I wish I had a picture of it. One of the rolls had tempura prawns, avocado, and cream cheese. Another roll had lobster meat, cucumber, and avocado. And I don't remember the rest. :-) The Saki was good too.
Sooo really there isn't much for me to write about. Here are some pictures of the guys in action and the ingredients they used.

cooking up some tempura shrimp

rolling sushi

a better look

finished product

Enchilada Night

I had some hamburger meat that needed cooking so I based dinner last night around that. I decided on ground beef enchiladas with green sauce. I got this recipe from my good friend Amanda but, I have altered it a little bit. Its actually a bit more of a casserole b/c I don't fill and roll the enchiladas, I layer my ingredients.

Ingredients: 1/2 a block of Monterrey jack cheese, grated
                  1 large can of green enchilada sauce
                  1 can of cream of mushroom soup
                   1 can of diced tomatoes with green chiles
                  1 can of sliced olives
                  1 can of diced green chiles(mild)
                  1/2 an onion chopped
                   2 tablespoon of ground cumin- or more if you love it like I do
                   approx. 6 burrito size flour tortillas

Cooking directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
                                
I started by browning my ground beef, seasoned with salt and pepper, drained the grease, and set it aside. Next, in a large sauce pan I combined by onion, olives, can of tomatoes, can of green chiles, and cumin (this is key to the flavor of the enchiladas). I cooked all these things together on medium heat for about 10 minutes, or long enough to mix all the flavors well. Then I added the ground beef to the mix. The last thing I added to my meat filling was the cream of mushroom soup. This makes the filling a little creamy and cuts the spiciness of the chiles. I let this cook on medium-low heat for another couple minutes.

My ground beef browning and my tomato/olive/chile mix cooking on the back burner

Now I put my enchiladas together. I got my biggest casserole dish and began to layer. I started by putting a layer of flour tortillas on the bottom, then spread a layer of my meat filling topped with a layer of Monterrey jack cheese. I repeated this pattern one more time and on the very top poured my green sauce.

I covered the dish with foil and put it in my 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. After I took it out of the oven I let it set for about 5-10 minutes. I served with with some black beans and a dollop of sour cream. YUMM-O

black beans

ready to eat