Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos

Every time I've started a post recently, my first thought is, "I found this on Pinterest." Really, once I'm not potty training/selling a house/building a house/feeling better, I will do a sappy love letter post to tell those of you who aren't yet addicted to the site all about it.

So, I found this recipe on Pinterest :-) We aren't big fans of Mexican food, so we don't do tacos pretty ever, but I was intrigued. This was fantastic. I LOVED the cilantro lime pesto, so I'm sure we'll make it again, but maybe serve with rice or something.

Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos

Ingredients:

• cooking spray for sauteeing
• 2-3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in bite sized pieces
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 cup cilantro lime pesto (recipe follows)
• flour or corn tortillas
• preferred taco garnishes (salsa, sour cream, cheese, etc)

Cilantro Lime Pesto
recipe adapted from Food Network

• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves--do not include stems. (I used 1/2 cup dried cilantro, because that's what I had on hand)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sliced, toasted almonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped, fresh garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoon lime juice (I used 1 lime)
• 1/2 cup shredded asiago (I used Parmesan, but Romano can be substituted too)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 cup chicken broth (I used Better Than Bullion)

Instructions:
1. Season chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

We buy all our meat locally. We buy about 40# of chicken at a time, then spend an afternoon packaging it up. Recently, I started cubing several pounds before freezing it. It makes my life so much easier.

2. In a skillet sprayed with cooking spray, saute chicken over medium high heat and cooked through.

3. While chicken is cooking, make the awesome pesto, by mix together the cilantro, olive oil, almonds, garlic, lime juice, cheese, salt and chicken broth in a blender or food processor on low speed for 2 minutes.

I used the large bowl of my food processor, which is why my pesto is chunkier, which I like. If I would have used the small bowl, I'm sure it would have been smoother, especially if I let it go the full two minutes.

4. Toss cooked, seasoned chicken with the pesto.

 5. Fill tortillas with chicken and top with preferred garnishes.

Eet smakelijk!

Joelen, who created this recipe, offer this advice for making this recipe ahead as a freezer meal:
Cook chicken as directed as above and cool. Place chicken in freezer bag. Prepare cilantro lime pesto as directed below. Place a 1/2 cup of pesto in a small storage bag then place inside the freezer bag with the chicken. Freeze. When ready to prepare, defrost and heat chicken. Toss chicken with defrosted pesto. If desired, heat chicken and pesto together before filling tacos.

Jello Fishbowl

This weekend we attended a friend's open house party. Our friend bought a mid-century ranch, and did a fabulous job updating it. As I was trying to figure out what I could do for a practical housewarming gift, I found this cute jello fish bowl recipe on Pinterest:

Source: marthastewart.com via Jen on Pinterest

I found a cute glass jar with cover at Target, and since you can never have too many glass jars, I decided to make the jello fishbowl in the jar for housewarming centerpiece.

Montana Anchor Mini Glass Jar with Lid from Target

One word of warning about this recipe. It's not something you can throw together. Between the need for flat soda and the fact that the gelatin needs to set, you'll need at least two days to assemble this.

Ingredients

• 1 two-liter bottle lemon-lime soda, flat (I left the cap loose over night)
• 4 1/4-ounce packages unflavored gelatin (or 1 box blue jello, if you can find it)
• 2 drops blue food coloring (if you don't use blue jello)
• 2 ounces gummy fish

Instructions:

1. Unscrew cap of soda and leave it overnight so that it becomes flat. Unless, of course, you have some flat soda laying around, in which case, you are good to go!

2.  Place 1 cup soda in a large bowl. Sprinkle gelatin evenly over soda, and let stand to soften, about 5 minutes. I thought it made a crazy face, what do you think?

3. Place 2 cups soda in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat until just before a boil.

4. Add the softened gelatin, stirring to dissolve the gelatin completely over the heat, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

5. Pour the liquid into the fish bowl. Add the remaining soda and food coloring, and stir to combine. Martha suggests adding the food coloring and soda to the sauce pan, but I put it in the glass bowl first so I could see the coloring.

I used 3 drops of blue food coloring.

6. Using a damp paper towel, carefully remove any bubbles that have formed on the surface. If you give it a minute, most of the bubbles will disappear on their own, then use the paper towel to get the last stragglers.

7. Transfer to the refrigerator to chill overnight.

8. When ready to serve, use a sharp knife to make vertical slits in the gelatin; insert the fish in a random pattern to make it look as though they are swimming in the bowl. Keep refrigerated until serving. Serve within 6 hours.

Eet smakelijk!

Crockpot Hutspot

I am so excited! Last night, I successfully converted one of my husband's favorite (time-consuming!) recipes into a crockpot recipe. Hello, crockpot hutspot! If you don't have a crockpot, you can still make this traditional Dutch dish the old-fashioned way).

I've written about hutspot before, but I'm so happy to be able to make it without standing in the kitchen for an hour and a half.

Ingredients:

• 6 onions (3 cups)
• 6 carrots (2 cups)
• 8 potatoes (5 cups)
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• salt to taste (I actually like to use garlic salt)
• pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Dice onions, carrots and potatoes and place in crockpot. This is still the most time-consuming part. If you really like this recipe, you could chop twice the amount and freeze the extra in a bag for the future.

2. Add butter, condensed milk, salt and pepper.

3. Cook on low for 3.5 - 4 hours.

 4. Vegetables should be very soft, and mashable with a fork when done.

 5. Use a potato masher to mash the vegetables. If you have an immersion blender, that would give your hutspot a smoother texture. 

6. Serve in bowl.

Many people like to enjoy hutspot with sausage. The Hubs doesn't care for it as much, so we often eat it plain. If you do want to include sausage, just puncture it with a fork and then place it on top of the vegetables before starting the crockpot.

Eet smakelijk!

Zucchini Chips

Meal planning has gotten to be even more fun now that Pinterest allows me to have basically a visual cookbook. This is one of the first recipes I tried: zucchini chips.

Ingredients:

• 4 small zucchini or 1-2 large zucchini
• olive oil/cooking spray
• salt (or garlic salt, or dill weed, however you want to season your chips)

Instructions:

1. Clean and trim the zucchini.

2. Use a food processor (or very steady hand) to slice zucchini in thin even slices. I'd definitely recommend the smaller zucchini so you don't have to worry about seeds or trimming the sides to fit your food processor.

 3. Brush olive oil on parchment paper (spray with cooking spray. Then place the zucchini slices very close together. They should touch, but not overlap.

 4. Spray or brush with oil again and then lightly season with the flavor of your choice. I liked dill week the best. Hubs like the garlic ones. Season lightly because the flavor will intensify as the chips dehydrate.

5. Cook at 170 degrees F (as low as my oven goes) for 3-3.5 hours. The chips should be crunchy when ready. If they are still a little soft, keep checking them every 15 minutes.

 6. Enjoy!

Garlic zucchini chips

Dill zucchini chips.

This week's menu in pictures

Life is finally settling down. We're still trying to sell our house, but we've got showing-readiness down to a science. We're still building our new house, but now that we're under roof, things have slowed down quite a bit. Best of all, I seem to be on an upswing with my health, so I'm going to attempt to start up this blog again. I'll do another post of the fabulous-ness of Pinterest, but for now, I'll use the lovely pictures from there to show what's on the menu this week.

Sunday: Broccoli Salad with Bacon, Red Onions, Cranberries and Cashews (We're getting together with our small group, so I volunteered to bring my favorite salad.

Source: meetthedubiens.blogspot.com via Sheryl on Pinterest

Monday: Hutspot, specially requested by the Hubs. Mine isn't nearly as pretty, so I'm using this picture from Kayotic Kitchen, who has taught me to make all sorts of yummy Dutch dishes.

Source: kayotic.nl via Nicole on Pinterest

Tuesday: Cilantro Limo Pesto Chicken Tacos

Source: joelens.blogspot.com via Jen on Pinterest

Wednesday: Crock Pot Orange Chicken

Source: team-t-adventures.blogspot.com via Jen on Pinterest

Thursday: In honor of my fiesty 90-years-young Gramma, who is struggling a bit after heart surgery, I'm going to attempt my first Shepherd's Pie. 

Source: marthastewart.com via JaNae on Pinterest

Friday: Chicken Avocado Pizza

Source: None via Jen on Pinterest

Saturday: Crockpot Pineapple Chicken

Source: sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com via Chelsea on Pinterest

***Just for fun, I had to add this fish bowl I made for a friend's housewarming party today.***

Greek Tacos

Still here, but testing out new recipes has taken a back seat to making decisions on our new house, which we broke ground on three weeks ago. Between that and lasting vision issues from my latest thunk o' the head, it's been pretty quiet around here.

I do want to share this new favorite, Greek Tacos. I found the recipe at one of my favorite recipe sites, Taste of Home. The only changes I made were to use soft shells, because that's what we had on hand, and sun dried tomatoes instead of diced, because my toddler loves them.

Eet Smakelijk!

Technical Difficulties...

As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging much lately. I hope it's a temporary break. Between the showings on the house (usually during dinner time), a bit of travel, and an ongoing relapse of some brain injury symptoms (extreme fatigue, vertigo, blurry vision, fogginess, and a killer headache), our meals have been pretty simple as of late.

Since my "good brain" time is pretty limited these days, I've been spending them with my family and medical team. Hopefully I'll be back in the kitchen soon!