I have an herb garden!

I planted it all by myself. I am not a super gardener (in fact I am a super amateur gardener), but I spent a good hour cleaning out a 3ft. x 1ft. area to plant these:

In order there is basil, oregano and rosemary (my favorite!). Since I bought them grown, I assume that I can use them right away, but I've been too proud of them to eat them yet. I'll let you know how t goes, and how much more fancy my food tastes with home grown herbs!

Cinco De Mayo!

I love Cinco De Mayo. I am not really sure why it exists - something about beating up the French - BUT it means yummy Mexican food, margaritas, and for some reason Mardi Gras beads (that may only be in Austin). Sadly, they don't really understand the fantasma that is Cinco De Mayo here, so I took it upon myself to make the Mexican food. I went with what I call the "Yummy Enchiladas".

Filling:
1 cup chopped onion
1 lb. ground turkey
1 can diced green chilies
1 can creamed corn
10 oz frozen spinach
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 cup shredded Monterey jack cheese
salt
chili powder (2-4 tsp depending on taste, I, obviously, go with 4)
10 large tortillas

Heat some oil in a large pan and then cook the onions for 4 minutes. Then add in the ground turkey, green chilies and chili powder. Keep over heat until the turkey is cooked - for me this is always about 10 minutes, but I'm new at cooking ground turkey (it's way to healthy to be a Dullum staple) so I might be a bit paranoid about making sure it's done all the way through.

cooked?

Once off the heat, add in the corn, spinach (defrosted), sour cream, cheese and salt to taste. Mush it all up. At this point it looks a bit like something lurking in the smaller intestine, but keep going it is worth it I promise!

Next step is to put this mush into the tortillas. I have an almost elaborate system for doing this that hopefully I can lay out here. First off it has to be in a good sized baking dish - I normally go with our lasagna pan (with about a TBS of oil coating it so the undersides don't get stiff). The first one is always tough because there isn't any structural integrity, so you just have to dump 2 heaping spoonfuls into the tortilla and roll up as best you can, leaving the final product seam side down. The next one you can lean up against the first before filling and it'll roll up nicely. Then just keep going until the last one where you have to roll it in place just to make it fit in the pan.

Then cover the pan and pop it into the oven for 30 minutes at 350. Meanwhile start on the sauce:

1 cup green salsa (I do medium)
3/4 cup light sour cream
3 TBS cilantro
1/2 cup Monterey jack cheese

Combine the first 2 ingredients. This does not take 30 minutes, so generally this is when I begin sipping on Margaritas. Of late I've been drinking the "Skinny Girl" margaritas made by one of the "Real Housewives of Some Random City". When my friend Blair first introduced me to the concept of margaritas with only 100 calories I was skeptical to say the least. They taste pretty good though, and you don't feel like you've just taken down an entire sugar cane field when you are finished.

Once you've had made the sauce and had a Skinny Girl or two, take out the enchiladas, uncover, then pour the sauce on top. It isn't a huge amount because the filling is already so creamy, so make sure you distribute evenly. Then sprinkle the cheese on top and put it back in the oven, uncovered, for another 10 minutes to melt the cheese.

They are really good and SUPER filling. I generally serve them with saffron rice and black beans cooked up with whatever I have in the fridge at the time (tomatoes, onions, salsa, etc.). Perhaps it was the 2 Skinny Girls talking, but it tasted pretty dang yummy, and brought some Cinco De Mayo to Denver. Next year I'll have to break out the Mardi Gras beads as well.

Re-Circling Back to Easter

Alright, this will be the last Easter post. While I do love this holiday, I want to post about my Cinco de Mayo meal some time in Mayo. What we have left are the cucumber sandwiches and the turkey roll ups. Both of these are great finger foods that please most everyone.

Cucumber sandwiches are pretty much just that, cucumber + sandwich. First off cut off the crusts and butter one side of the bread. This was a very important step when we were growing up since we (or maybe just I) refused any bread that was crusted. I guess I could leave the bread in its crusted state now, but too late, I've already cut them off - ha!

Then spread cream cheese on both slices (yes, on top of the one slice that has already been buttered, if it's a Dullum food, its a caloric food). Then sprinkle some salt and black pepper onto the cheese'd bread.

Then add thinly sliced cucumbers on top and cut into triangles. It looks nice and dainty and is easy to make tons of.

To finish off the finger-foods trifecta there is turkey roll-ups. Now these I make in like 7 varieties, but it is really just a combo of these few ingredients:

1 giant tortilla (10-12 in)
thinly sliced turkey
fresh spinach
bacon crumbled into bits
ranch
avocado thinly sliced
mustard
cream cheese
tomato
chili powder
cucumber
sprouts
salt/pepper

I use the first 3 ingredients in every roll up, then alternate what other flavors I put in. A lot of times whatever I have in my fridge ends up as one of the rotating ingredients. From here it's pretty obvious - lay out the tortilla, put whatever spread you want, then add your mix of ingredients (my favorite is turkey, ranch, bacon, spinach, sprouts and avocado with some chili power). Being the huge nerd I am, I labeled all the different kinds I made:

Its best to refrigerate them for a little while and before you slice them into bite size/finger-width rolls. Really, it's just like making lunch for a kid, but everyone always gets excited about finding out which kind they grab. Sadly, no final pic of them all sliced up, but I can promise they were yummy!

And that wraps up Easter, a fun day even without the normal Easter-trappings. Next up? Cicno de Mayo!

Circling Back to Easter Dinner

Alright, I promised Easter at some point and I will follow through before we hit the next holiday. For the sacred bunny-egg holiday we went over to our friends' house to create a family-type celebration with Easter-y finger foods (and shockingly no chocolate!) I decided to make my favorite trio of finger food - golden cheesy, cucumber sandwiches and turkey roll ups.

Golden cheesy is another amazing family recipe with a silly name. Golden because you know its done baking when the crust is golden and cheesy because it is, well, cheesy. First up up you have to make the dough. I is super simple and one of my favorite doughs.

1/4 lb butter
1 and 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sour cream

Mix the butter and flour until it is crumbly - I obviously opt to use my fingers. Then add in the sour cream and blend until smooth. Chill for at least 2 hours in the fridge and divide in half. I guess I should have mentioned that this recipe makes 2 golden cheesies, but really you are not going to eat only one.

Next set up for rolling out the dough - flour both the table/giant cutting board and the rolling pin. Then roll out the dough in a rectangle-ish shape.

Of course mine did not come out in a rectangle shape, but its more of a goal than a must when I'm doing it. Really if I don't end up injuring myself with the rolling pin, I consider it a success. My next step is to brush off the excess flour that inevitably ends up somewhere on my clothes, despite an apron.

Then grate up about 3/4-1 cup cheddar cheese.  Sprinkle it over the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch edge. The shake out some seasoning salt over the entire "rectangle" - no idea how much, just a light dusting.

Next roll up the dough on itself , "hot-dog" style  and fold in the edges like a burrito.

Then sprinkle paprika on top - I'm not sure for flavor or for look, but Mattsy requires it so you'd better do it. Then make diagonal cuts along the top. Pop it into the oven until golden (20-30 minutes at 400) and slice into finger-food sized pieces once it is not burning hot. It's a really great tea-time/party food that people always like.

Unfortunately I didn't get to snap a pic of it finished before people swooped in to eat it, but I'm sure
I'll be making this again sometime soon. I've run out of time/you attention spans at this point so I'll finish off the trifecta of finger food next time!

I'm Already Falling Off the Bandwaggon

And when I typed that title in I initially wrote "bankwaggon" - one of the strangest freudian typos I have made since my venture into finance and restructuring. I won't do a full post now, but just give a teaser for what's to come:

There will be rolling pin adventures, there will be flour mishaps, and of course there will be lots of cheese.

Also, to keep you entertained in the meantime, here's some pictures from New Years were Ian and I (and Christine) have mustaches: