Cooking, family, and one busy blogger

My family began to descend this week for my sister's wedding. My favorite uncle in the whole world currently resides in Australia and hasn't been home in over two years. He's a blast, and has pampered my sister and I since we were teeny (he never had any kids himself). The last time he saw the Boy he was barely walking so I'm very happy Jack and I get to spend so much time with him. He also has a homemade smoker (and by homemade, I mean rigged from a 50-gallon drum) that has been languishing at my dad's place and he intends to clean up and show me how to use so I can take it to my house.

I haven't done much cooking since the fourth to be honest. I knew I was going to be busy, so I've made several large batches of things that store and re-heat well. Yesterday we had a sort of family pow-wow and I made a large pot of my Taco Soup. All you require is beans (I used canned chili, pinto, black and kidney in equal portions, liquid included) corn, ground beef and taco seasoning. You cook the meat according to the spice directions, throw all the beans (and corn) and juices on top and simmer for a while. I let it stew at least on hour, but it's fine to let it go most the day and people can dip out of it when they want.

I also finally got around to making tortilla chips. I used flour tortillas because I had them around, but boy do they whip up quick and tasty! I did plain salted and cinnamon and sugar, both. I did have an unfortunate incident where I dropped my very very expensive cell phone into the frying oil, but by some fluke accident it seems to be none the worse for wear.

Tomorrow I've roped a couple of cousins into helping me make and can pie filling (muwahahaha) so hopefully I will have some pictures and fun things to update tomorrow.

Food Storage Cooking: Part 1

Wednesday night, I didn't feel well and was in no mood to cook. Or do anything other then lay on my couch and watch sappy romantic comedies under the thickest quilt I could find. Alas, we have to eat. I really was craving French Dip Sandwiches, but that had several roadblocks. The Boy had lost his shoes somewhere so I couldn't really take him to the butcher (I mean, I could have but it was about 45 degrees out and he kept taking his socks off and I refuse to be that mom). I have a roast in the freezer, but it's BIG and there was no way it would de-thaw even part way before the weekend. I had plenty of onions, and I've been dying to try out french onion soup, but as I said before I had no motivation.

So with my first choice out the window I finally decided on making Taco Soup. I usually make this soup with at least a pound of ground beef, but seeing as I had none and the butcher was a no-fly zone I was pretty much SOL on that part. Luckily during Lent I had fooled about with this as veggie recipe so I had a decent idea of what I wanted to do.

I didn't have time to mess around with any of my dried beans, so I wandered out to the food storage and stole a mess of things I had canned. This recipe is great because you can leave out what you don't like/don't want/don't have and it generally doesn't muss things up too much. I grabbed black beans, chili beans, red beans, whole kernel corn, kidney beans, and pinto beans. I grabbed my 5 qt dutch oven and popped open the cans and dumped them (liquid included!) into the pot**. I realized at this point I was out of taco seasoning (wth?) because I've been meaning to make my own dry taco seasoning so I hadn't purchased any pre-made packs (lack of supplies is my best motivator). I did however have a pack of fajita seasoning, so I went ahead and added that. (**If you are adding ground beef to this recipe, cook the meat in the pot and add seasoning as directed before adding beans and simmering)

I let this simmer for about 30 mins, then mixed up some Krustez Honey Corn Bread Mix (my favorite) and put that in the oven according to directions (30 mins at 400). When that had about 5 mins left I checked on the soup and found that it didn't have quite the 'stew' consistency I like. This was easily solved by adding a dab of corn starch to the mix, and I pulled the corn bread out of the oven to cool.

To serve I simply cut a good chunk of the corn bread and placed it in a bowl and topped with the Taco (or I guess Fajita) Soup and a pinch of shredded cheese. This is my personal preference way to serve it, but because it makes it a bit more hearty with the cornbread. The way I originally had this was with crushed up corn chips and a bit of cheese and sour cream. Both ways are excellent, easy and cheap. And the leftovers refrigerate or freeze great, and even taste better then next time around.