Carnitas Tacos and Mexican Rice...

We had a potluck at work yesterday so I thought I'd bring my new go-to taco and rice dish.  I had to split it with 3 others so I wouldn't have to spend too much, but for the amount this makes it really isn't that expensive.  I'm a sucker for street tacos.  We always gotta stop when we're in the mainlad whenever we run into a taco truck.  This recipe was soooo easy and soooo delicious.  The meat comes out really tender and I just can't stop eating it.  Note:  I omitted the salt, the first time I made it it came out way too salty.  Skip the last step about throwing it into the oven after shredding.  It seemed to dry it out too much.  Plus it saves you time. Also I use the smallest corn tortillas you can find.  Microwave it for about 20 secs in damp paper towels so they're nice and soft.  It tastes horrible if you eat it dry.  Add chopped cilantro, onion, sliced radishes and a squeeze of lime juice and viola!!  Heaven.  Sorry, this is an old picture, I forgot to add the radishes before taking the pic

For the Mexican rice,  be sure you use oven mitts when lifting the stoopid cover when coming out of the oven...You can't really tell by this pic so I had to point it out for you.

Yah.  I didn't only do it once...but TWICE.  It was so freakin sore, I had to call Jalna so she could bring me her miracle cream when she got to work.

Overall I think everyone enjoyed it.  At least I hoped they did.  I was stuffed!

Brazilian Cheese Bread

I've wanted to try this recipe for a long time but never got around to it.  Jalna happened to give me a bag of tapioca flour because Wendell tried something similar a few months ago.  Perfect!  I was bored at home because Randy was working the night shift again so I decided to bake.  Wow, that's twice in one week!  I got the recipe on Pinterest but here's the link to the webpage.

It actually turned out pretty good!  It was like I was eating a cheesy mochi.  I used pepper jack cheese instead of cheddar but I think I will try cheddar next time just to compare.  Has anyone ever tried this before?  I'm not even sure what it's supposed to taste like.

Randy's gonna be working a lot of evenings/graves in the next few weeks, maybe I'll do more experimenting!

I Made Ensemadas!!

I was bored on Sunday, Randy was working the night shift and I promised my co-worker Dara that I would attempt to make ensemadas one day, for they are her favorite.  I got the recipe from the Star Bulletin (yah, this recipe was from 2004 so it's not Star Advertiser yet).

I was kinda scared to try this, I haven't really tried any "bready" kind of stuff before.  I wish I took a picture of my prepared yeast in a bowl.  The bowl that I used was almost too small, I thought it was gonna overflow by the time it activated!  I shoulda took more pictures too, I wasn't planning on posting this but Jalna talked me into it.  I only took the pics to tease Dara during the baking process...

This recipe is fairly easy but it takes a lot of patience.  Here's part one...you have to wait 45 minutes for the dough to rise

Here's the fun part.  After the dough rises you have to separate your dough into two pieces and then slam it onto your surface ten times to firm it up.  Just think of all the people you want to slap in the head, then slam away!  After you're done slamming then you cut them up into 12 pieces.   You then roll them into a rope about a foot long and then swirl it into the ensemada shape.  

Now it's time to wait again. 40 more minutes until you can put them in the oven.  But the great thing is is that it only takes about 15 minutes to bake!  As you can see, these came out HUGE.  But I guess the bakery ones are big too.  I think I'll half the size next time so I can share more.

Here's the best part....smother it with softened butter and cover it with sugar....YUMMMM....it was delicious when it first came out of the oven.  It was fluffy and warm.  But there's a problem.  You gotta wait till it totally cools or else your butter is just gonna melt away.  

I'm bummed that Jalna decided to play hooky on Monday since we only worked half day.  I think she woulda enjoyed it.