Tacos!

You can do this with all turkey if you like, but I love this combination of a pound each.  Here’s what the tacos look like with just the meat but I love to load them up with lettuce, avocado, tomato and lots of cheese!

 

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground turkey

1 garlic clove mashed

Olive oil

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1 small can crushed tomatoes 14 ounce

Salt and pepper

Cayenne to taste

In a large skillet, place three tablespoons of olive oil and garlic and cook until the garlic releases its fragrance.  Add the beef and turkey, begin to brown it over medium heat and season with salt and pepper.  When it has fully browned, add the tomatoes, the chili powder and the cumin, and reseason with salt, pepper and a dash of cayenne.  Simmer for about 15 minutes until thick and serve as a filling for tacos or enchiladas!

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Chicken Noodle Soup

 

Chicken stock.  The basis for chicken noodle soup.  Easy. Preheat oven to 450F.  In a roasting pan, take several pounds (let’s say 4 pounds) of wings and thighs and drumsticks.  Coat liberally with salt and pepper and add two to three onions, cut in half, several stalks of celery, cut in half, a few carrots, cut up in a few piece and a hed of garlic, cut in half.  Drizzle with about 1/2 cup of olive oil and toss.  Roast at 450F until the pieces of chicken have browned nicely and are caramel colored, about 45 minutes to an hour. 

Remove from oven, remove all of the chicken and vegetables to a large stock pot, and cover with cold water.  Add about a teaspoon of pepper corns, a bay leaf, but NO salt as of yet. 

 To the roaster add about two to three cups of water and simmer on the stove while scraping up the bits left in the pan (aka fond).  Add to the stock pot and simmer for about 3 hours, partially covered.  When cool, remove all of the solids and refrigerate overnight. The next morning you can remove the fat easily and there you have the basis for the most delicious chicken soup.  Use the pieces of chicken as garnish for the soup.  Most of it will have fallen apart so if you like you may cook some separate pieces of chicken in the broth when you are making the soup.

For the chicken soup, decide how much soup you want, and place that amount in a large pot.  Add steamed carrots and celery (which you have steamed separately), as well as some precooked noodles that you have on the side.

Do not cook the noodles in the soup or the soup will become too thick. When preparing the chicken soup, you may now add salt and pepper to taste, simmering gently.  The carrots may be cooked in the soup as well as the celery but the noodles must be cooked separately and served from a separate bowl as well. 

If you are adding chicken (apart from the chicken that it took to make the soup), take this time to add a few fresh thighs to your soup, or breasts, and simmer until cooked through.  Then remove and cut into pieces and add to the soup, with the carrots and the celery and the noodles.  Enjoy!

Sometimes the simplest things

 

Avocado.  Firm and dense, these California grown, incredibly fattening fruits are decadent, to say the least.   I wondered how to showcase this product given that guacamole can get so tired, so fast.  How about in its simplest form I thought? Sliced and placed on top of a multi grain piece of toast, I drizzled the slices with extra virgin olive oil and then sprinkled sea salt over the top.  When I bit in, I relished in the dense, almost cloying richness of the avocado set off by the crisp toast.  Sometimes there’s nothing better than to show off an ingredient’s inherent qualities.  Use the best quality olive oil and sea salt.  Try this one at home. You will not be disappointed.

Breakfast of Champions

Full fat Greek yogurt, on top of fresh organic raspberries, and honey drizzled all over the top.  It is so delicious, so DECADENT, and well, just perfect.  My favorite fruit to use is ripe pineapple and ripe strawberries, but these raspberries were absolutely delicious as well, and what I might have done is add a tablespoon of Grand Marnier to the raspberries to marinate them, so as to have a little sauce to let dribble down my chin!  Enjoy!

Sweet and salty bacon

If you like sweet and salty, try this.  I made a pound of bacon, and just before it was done, I sprinkled brown sugar all over it.  When it came out, it looked like this and had a savory sweet flavor which I found addictive! Try it! David the ice cream man has a recipe for bacon and egg ice cream, basically a egg vanilla ice cream base, with candied bacon in it.  Now, I am not sure I would go to that extreme, but this bacon on its own is perfect.