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Green Chile “Smothered” Burritos

Filed under Blogging, Inspiration, Recipes by Mrs. O on February 20, 2012 at 2:43 pm {2 comments}

Burrito Lovers Special

This is a meal that has always been a tradition in our house when I was growing up. Here in Colorado we eat a kind of green chile that you don’t find in many other parts of the country. It is a pork green chile and it comes from “New Mexican” food. My Mothers family is from Southern Colorado and before that from Northern New Mexico and Spain prior to that. This type of cuisine is a hybrid of deliciousness. The base for most of the foods are green chiles, like Hatch, Anaheim and Pueblos. I prefer Pueblos, then Hatch, then Anaheim. In Colorado you will find Chile Roasters on almost every street corner from late August to mid-October. Read here for our tradition of picking up bushels for the year!!

The list of delicious food you can make is endless. I will start sharing more recipes as I continue to go through our family cookbook. This time I made classic Smothered Burritos. We call them smothered because they are covered in Pork Green Chile, yum.

This is the recipe we use in my family, however, in this particular recipe I have modified and updated it.

Ingredients

Chile Base

Browning the flour, most important step! See the brown, carmely color starting to develop? That is perfect!

Add diced pork, brown

Brown the pork

Blend Chile base, add to pan with browned pork

Inside: homemade refried beans, sour cream, cheese

Smothered Burritos!

Recipe:

Lobato Family Green Chile, modified by Mrs. O

2 lbs Pork Tenderloin, diced

2 cups Chicken Broth

2 cups Water

2 cans Rotel (medium)

1 large can of Green Chiles

1/2 small can of Jalepenos

2 tbsp Vegetable Oil

3 tbsp Flour

1 tsp Garlic Salt

1 tsp Onion Salt

1 tsp Salt

Dice pork, heat oil in pan, add flour, stir until brown. Add diced pork, cook until brown. In blender mix: 1 can chicken broth, Rotel, Jalepenos, Green Chiles, Salt, Garlic Salt, Onion, BLEND.

When pork and flour have browned add the blended ingredients, last can of broth and the water. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for at least 1 hour. I let mine cook for around 2 hours. It is even better the next day!

For burritos, construct burritos with refried beans, sour cream and cheese. When chile is done, pour over burritos add cheese, cover and bake for 2o minutes at 350. After 20 minutes, remove cover and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until cheese bubbles.

Fun with Kitchen Science PLUS a Chance to Win $10,000!

Filed under Blogging, Homeschooling, Inspiration, Recipes by Mrs. O on February 18, 2012 at 1:06 pm {no comments}

Being a homeschooling Mom I am always on the look out for fun, hands on projects to do with my boys. They are in 2nd Grade, Kindergarten and Preschool they especially love science projects. They love to experiment. My kindergartner and 2nd Grader keep science journals. They keep track of supplies used, what they think will happen and then they record what actually happens. These are usually accompanied with pictures, it is a perfect way to track their learning adventures.

I have found some Homeschool websites that offer great suggestions on fun experiments. One website that I recently discovered is from Clorox. It is called Clorox Recipes for Fun, it is a great resource for all things fun to do with your kids. Not only is there a Wacky Science page there is also recipes for Kiddie Cooking, Arts and Crafts, and Creative Cooking. There are so many fun ideas. I can not wait to get cracking at all the fun projects we found.

You can also submit your own recipes.

They have a contest running now through March 27th, you could win $10,000. If you sign up you get entered, if you share a recipe you get an additional 10 entries!

My husband had recently told my boys about a science experiment he did when he was a little boy. He gave me the list of ingredients, we had everything we needed so I sent the boys on a treasure hunt in the kitchen to round up the ingredients on the list. They liked that part and it built up the anticipation of creating something cool.

The Superfizz Volcano Ingredients

Start with Vinegar, dishsoap and food coloring

I let the boys each pick their own colors.

Add baking soda, watch the smiles

Experimenting with more baking soda

My Pretty Yellow SuperFizz Volcano

Smiles all around!

Adam and his Green Machine SuperFizz

Sam joining the fun

This experiment was a huge hit! The boys did it 3 more times, using different colors and different amounts of the ingredients. They played with this experiment for over an hour. Will do this again, the boys were wondering if we could do it outside with an entire bottle of vinegar and box of baking soda, hmmm….

I wonder what kind of mess that might make?! We did have a bit of a mess, so be prepared with clean up materials. We use and LOVE Clorox Clean Up. I used it for clean up on this project and it cleaned up the food coloring with no problems!

Here is the recipe my husband shared:

Super Cool, Super Fizz Volcanoes

Clear Glass Cup

1 Cup Vinegar

2-3 Drops of Food Coloring

1 Tablspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon of dishsoap

(we quadrupled this recipe for all four boys)

The kids love it, do it and watch the joy bubble up as the experiment does, priceless!

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Clorox Clean-Up Recipes for Fun blogging program, for 8,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. For more information on this program, click here and see the Terms link.” (make sure you link to http://recipesforfun.socialmoms.com)

Cheesy Lasagna

Filed under Blogging, Recipes by Mrs. O on February 13, 2012 at 8:47 pm {no comments}

Lasagna, yum! Who could argue that? Now, I don’t have it very often, maybe once every few years . I had never made it. My husband has been asking me to make it since we got married, I decided it was time to try. I do love it, and making it very cheesy and delicious. It is one of those recipes I have felt intimidated to make though. I headed to Allrecipes.com and searched by ingredient. I did this because I wanted to make it with lowfat cottage cheese instead of ricotta. I came across this one, Cheese Lasagna. I modified it a bit…

Spaghetti Sauce, Green Chiles, Jalapenos, Cottage Cheese, Italian Seasoning