Category: Recipes

Try This Orange Chicken Recipe

Can you believe I grew up never, ever eating Chinese food? In my twenties, a friend took me to a Chinese restaurant and I order sweet and sour chicken. It was delicious, unlike anything I had ever eaten. Paired with egg fried rice? Hello, yummy, I was sold. Over the following years I acquired a taste for Szechuan Beef, Sesame Chicken, Egg rolls, Dumplings, you name it, I loved it.

After my husband and I got married we ordered it maybe 2 or 3 times not much but sometimes. Recently, my husband started going with his co-workers to a Chinese restaurant by his work for lunch. He brought home some Orange Chicken and WOW! I couldn’t stop eating it!

On a side note we don’t eat out as a family very often. We think it is way more cost effective and healthy to make homemade meals. So my challenge was to come up with a good Orange Chicken recipe. Of course I went right to my go-to recipe site, The Pioneer Woman. I go to her site first when I am looking up recipes. SCORE, she has an Orange Chicken recipe! So I figured that would be a good one to start with.

I used chicken thighs just like she recommended. The only I will change next time is I will use about 1/2 the amount of fresh ginger. My husband loved it and so did I! Thanks Ree Drummond for ANOTHER amazing recipe.

You soak it, fry it, dry it, fry it again and then toss it in the most amazing Orange Sauce ever! Top with green onions.

Highly recommend, this is so delicious. We served over rice but will be using lo mein noodles next time!

November 15, 2014
Chili Cheese Eggs

Share

YUM. I must start this post off by telling you how totally in love I am with green chiles, you know the kind, especially if you are from Colorado or New Mexico. These are special green chiles and come from New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

They come in varieties like Pueblo, Dynamite, Hatch, Pueblo Mosco – those are the best ones. Usually in late Summer through the Fall you will see stands all over Denver, all equipped with these huge roasters. As soon you step out of your car the aroma is heavenly.

All this to say, I want to share one of my favorite recipes. I make this recipe for Bible Study, our Moms Group, a ministry meal and as a family favorite.

2 (16 ounce) packages shredded Cheddar
cheese **I used Mexican combo – monterey, colby, etc***
2 (4 ounce) cans chopped green chile
peppers, juice reserved
12 eggs *** I used 17 and would recommend more than 12**

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a 9×13 inch baking dish, place 1/2 of the shredded Cheddar cheese. Top with green chile peppers. Top the chiles with the remaining cheese.
3. In a blender, mix eggs with the juice from the chile peppers. Pour the egg mixture over the cheese mixture.
4. Bake in the preheated oven 30 to 40 minutes. Cool before cutting into squares.

November 1, 2014
Kids Quick and Easy Homemade Pizzas
Ever in a pinch for dinner, had a busy day and not sure what to make in hurry? My husband stopped at the store on his way home from work after he knew I had a very busy day. I told him to decide what we would have that night.

He came up with an idea that would please us all, that even catered it to each one of our likes… Homemade Pizzas! But do you want to know the thing that made this delicious dinner so quick and easy? Pita bread for crust! Which does not require anytime to prepare or bake like homemade dough would.

Quick and Easy Homemade Pizzas:
- Pita bread
- Pizza sauce
- Cheese of your choice
- Toppings, meat, veggies etc.
We spooned on about 1 tbsp pizza sauce per pita, then added toppings such as pepperoni, Colby cheese, mozzarella, mushrooms, Canadian bacon, and olives. We each made our own, and wow did the kids ever love doing this! Daddy was our hero!

We cooked the pizzas on a cookie sheet for 7 minutes, then on the rack for 5 more. Cook times may vary depending on your oven and temperature. For a crispier crust cook longer directly on the rack. Be sure to check on your pizzas so as not to overcook. Delicious!
January 21, 2013
Green Chili Chicken Burritos

Ooooooooo do I have say anything more? Yes? Well ok. These are to-die-for Smothered Chicken Burritos made with Green Chili from fresh roasted Hatch green chili’s. We usually eat bean burritos, the tradition passed down from my Mom. Recently, my Husband asked me to make chicken ones. No problem, sounded good to me, I used my usual recipe but switched out beans for chicken . Inside I slathered sour cream, pan fried chicken breast, and shredded cheese. Top with pork green chili and cheese, pop in the microwave for 1 minute.

Of course we just got bushels of fresh roasted chili, we are gung-ho with smothering everything in it. I made our family recipe for pork green chili with them.

If you pick some up – be sure to let them steam in the bag they come in for a couple of hours, the skin comes off like a glove. I peel, rinse, and store in freezer bags. I freeze about 4-5 in a bag, perfect amount for most recipes.

Green chili can add the extra flavor you crave on just about any of your favorite foods like cheeseburgers, burritos, chicken burritos, enchiladas, breakfast foods, eggs, potatoes… you name it!

September 8, 2012
Fresh Roasted Hatch Green Chili, a Family Staple

Our favorite Hatch green chili and Pueblo green chili stand.

It is that time of year again! Every August we buy bushels of fresh roasted Hatch Green Chili’s and Pueblo Green Chili’s. Oh, and you can have fresh garlic added to your green chili batch when they roast it too! We freeze the chili’s for year around family favorites. We have countless family recipes that call for this wonderfully, delicious green chili. Anything from egg relish to my Grandma’s Chili, to my Mom’s famous Smothered Burritos and my green chili chicken burritos, we use it for possibly any meal of the day. It is amazing chopped, with garlic salt and slapped on your favorite sandwich.

The tradition of waiting for the perfect Fall Saturday afternoon and then finding our favorite Hatch Green Chili stand setting up their familiar yellow and white tent – the anticipation is palatable. Not only does it conjure up thoughts of delicious meals but I can’t help but think of the seasons and activities to come. Cooler weather with brisk air and blue skies, changing leaves, football Sundays, Fall Festivals, apple pies… then Christmas! We make sure and buy enough Hatch Green Chili to last us through next August… which it never does. The more we buy, the more we eat!

Check out my recipe page for recipes using roasted green chili’s.

Don’t miss out! Get Hatch green chili or your favorite type of green chili while it’s in season.

Want to know what to do when you bushels of roasted chilis?

1. The bushels are usually already assemble, let the roaster which kinds you want (Med, Mild, Hot, Mixed). You usually get a discount for buying more.

2. After they roast them, they tie them up in a plastic bags. Let those sit in the closed bag for at least 4 hours.

3. Have plenty of freezer bags on hand, I buy the sandwich sized ones. I put 6-8 chilis in each bag.

4. When you are ready peel the chilis, rinse and put them in the freezer bags. Do NOT put the skins down your drain, make sure you throw away in the trash. I used a strainer, under the faucet to peel and rinse the chilis.

5. When closing the bags make sure you get all the air out. Label your bags and throw them in the freezer.

September 4, 2012

Homemade Chocolate Sauce

We love to use chocolate sauce in house, whether it is for chocolate milk or ice cream sundaes, we go through it way too quickly. Pinterest is the source of my latest inspiration, of course. The thought of making my own was appealing because there are like 4 ingredients that go into it. No extra “junk”. While looking for a list of ingredients in Hershey’s Chocolate Sauce (they do not list it on their website) I found this very informative post: Ingredients in Hershey’s.

Why buy chocolate syrup when you can easily make your own with just:
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (your favorite brand)
1 cup water
dash of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk the sugar, cocoa and salt together, place in a sauce pan with the water and bring it to a boil while stirring consistently. Reduce heat and cook for about 1 minute. When it’s cooled enough to add to your container stir in the vanilla then store in the refrigerator!

Delicious and Healthier than Store Bought

Which would you rather have:

Cocoa Powder
Water
Real Vanilla Extract
Real Sugar
Salt

High Fructose Corn Syrup
Corn Syrup
Potassium Sorbate (preservative)
Imitation Vanilla
Mono-diglycerides
Polysorbate 60
xanthan gum (corn)

It is healthier and more economical to make your own chocolate sauce.

My husband has been making his morning mochas with it and the kids are using in their milk.

It is delicious.

May 5, 2012

Green Chile “Smothered” Burritos

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

This is the Green Chile looks like when done

Smothered Burritos

Recipe:

Lobato Family Green Chile, modified by Mrs. O

1.5 lbs Pork Tenderloin, diced

4 cups Chicken Broth

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.

February 20, 2012
Fun with Kitchen Science
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)
```
February 18, 2012
Cheesy Lasagna

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

Sauce, blended

Making layers: noodles, sauce, mozzarella, cheddar, Parmesan

Covered tight

Baked and delicious!

February 13, 2012
Easy Cheesy Pepperoni Rolls

Have I told you how much I love to read blogs of other Moms? There is one that I have learned so much from and had lots of inspiration from… It’s called Sam’s Noggin. She has homeschool tips, organization ideas and recipes, yum!

Recently she had a post titled “Cheater Pepperoni Rolls” it intrigued me and when I saw the pictures, I had a mission. She describes them as a delicious go-to snack out in her neck of the woods. Dough, Pepperonis and Cheese? Sounds good to me!

Rolled out the canned Croissants, added pepperoni’s and spicy Italian sausage

Next comes ooey, gooey mozzarella cheese

Roll em up, seal the sides of the dough

All done! Hot, greasy and delicious pepperoni and sausage rolls! These are the Combo Rolls.

Pepperoni Rolls all ready to eat!

Thank you Samantha!! As always, you are an inspiration. Keep up the excellent blogging!

February 6, 2012

Category: Recipes

Quick and Easy Homemade Pizzas:

Delicious and Healthier than Store Bought

Recipe:

Lobato Family Green Chile, modified by Mrs. O