Spanish Rice

I did it! I figured out how to make Spanish rice with our left over white rice! Sometimes dinners will leave us with leftover white rice, often times from haystacks, etc. I hate to see the cooked white rice go bad. Last time I tried the Spanish rice, it didn't turn out well, but this time. WOW!

I've discovered the magic of Rotel. A little goes a long way with this stuff. But this gave it the kick it needed and the flavor punch to the taste buds! Give it a try.

Ingredients:
- Rotel
- Corn
- Rice
- Tomato sauce

1. Combine cooked rice and rotel in a pan. Go easy on the Rotel, add it in slow and add more if you'd like more heat. Ours had a kick on the back end that you had to watch out for. ;)
2. Add in corn
3. Add in a can of tomato sauce. I used just an 8 ounce can. This helps tone down the Rotel. I also found that the longer it cooked the more mild it became.
4. Salt or pepper to taste, if desired.

Sorry for my crummy picture, the easiest camera I have is on my phone. 

This competes with the Rice-a-Roni Spanish rice. Quite frankly, this has more flavor, I think. Once the Rotel and corn are added in, it gains quite a bit of bulk. You don't need a lot of rice to make a nice large side dish. :) 

- SamiMae

Second time Guacamole (Rotel included!)

Update on my guacamole making skills, I found a magical secret to making tasty guac. Are you ready? Mix in some Rotel with it. Yes, that's right. Rotel. (Save most of it for Spanish rice.) This batch of guacamole was SOOOO TASTY. It had quite a bit of heat to it. Rotel includes the pepper seeds in it, so that's where the heat is.

Ingredients:
- Avacado
- Rotel
- Minced onion
- Salt
- Lemon/lime juice.

1. Mash up avocado
2. Add a tiny bit of Rotel. A little goes a long ways! Learned that the hard way.
3. Add minced onion, salt and lemon/lime juice to flavor.
4. Let sit for at least 15 minutes. The longer you let the mixture mix, the more the flavors will combine. I let it sit in the fridge 15 minutes while I finished up dinner, and it did wonders!

It's super easy to make tasty guacamole! Avocados around here are only .99 cents. That's all this cost me! Everything else I keep on hand!


- SamiMae

Homemade Bean and Chicken Burritos!

Today I had the hardest time trying to figure out what I wanted to make for dinner. I cruised Pinterest for quite a while and gathered a few ideas. Finally, I decided to make homemade bean and chicken burritos.These burritos were delicious because - the tortillas were homemade, the inside was kept simple.

Some times, things are better and tastier when kept simple. This dish was one of those. I've been perfecting my tortilla making, so they were soft and flexible and oh so flavorful, way better than store bought. Even though there is no extra seasoning involve in this stupidly simple dish, it had a LOT of flavor. You can spice it up however you like with any extra spices or keep it mellow.

You'll laugh when you hear the inside mixture. A drained can of pinto beans, and a drained can of chicken. Ya, that's it. Nothing else. I drained both cans, put them together in a pot on the stove and warmed them up. Wrapped up inside a tortilla with a little bit of cheese, sour cream and salsa if you like, these things were AMAZING. Better than any frozen bean burrito and belly filling delicious for homemade.

I also made homemade guacamole again, (which was EVEN better than before.), and Spanish rice. (Super easy, see recipe here)


Ingredients: 
- Can of chicken (or cooked chicken breasts)
- Drained pinto beans
- Tortillas
- Cheese
- Sour cream (optional)
- Salsa (optional)

1. Make/ warm tortillas
2. Drain chicken and pinto beans. Warm up on stove.
3. Load it all up and dig in. :)

Doesn't get better than that. Homemade, healthy, fast, simple, cheap. Altogether this meal cost me probably less than $5 and it'll get us both lunch tomorrow as well! :) Trevor and I ate way to much! So tasty!

It's to easy not to try it!

- SamiMae

Fast Asian Broccoli and Beef

I LOVE Asian food. So whenever I can cook something slightly Asian, I will. I've had some frozen broccoli that I've wanted to use for the last little while and so I did! This recipe is super simple, stupidly simple. You don't need any fancy Asian seasoning to make this yummy dish.

Ingredients: 

- Beef

- Broccoli

- Garlic (I minced mine, 2 cloves)

- Mr. Yoshida's marinade

Use what beef you have on hand. I had some frozen beef that I had cooked a few weeks back. I used my wok to heat it up. Meanwhile I minced 2 cloves of garlic. After the meat was warmed up, I sliced it into bite sized pieces. I put the meat back in the wok, put in the garlic, broccoli and a fair amount of Mr. Yoshida's marinade. This stuff is amazing. If you don't have some, get it! :) 

I quickly made some 5 minute rice to put my yummy meaty mixture on top of and dinner was finished. It took me maybe 30 minutes from start to finish. I love fast and simple meals, especially when I already have everything on hand. Mr. Yoshida's is made from soy sauce but has sugar added to give it a sweet and sour flavor. It's heavenly.

Hint: The best part of this dish is all the leftover seasonings that left in the pan. Be the last one to dish up and you'll have the most flavorful dish! :) 

Happy Eating! 

- SamiMae 

BBQ Chicken Tin Foil Dinner

This was another original. Not to complex by any means though. It was quite tasty, completely healthy (other than the BBQ sauce), and I had everything on hand. It's similar to my favorite BBQ pineapple quesadillas .

Ingredients:
- Chicken tenderloins
- Pineapple
- Green or red bell pepper
- Green chilis (I used a tiny bit from a can, optional)
- BBQ sauce
- Onion (Optional)

- Tin Foil.

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Put chicken on tinfoil, top with pineapple, green chilies, about 3 slices of green pepper, a few slices of onion. Top with BBQ sauce. Wrap it up.
3. Bake for 45 min to 1 hour.

Pretty customizable. Use whatever you have at home!

In the last 10-15 minutes this had to cook, I prepared an super easy and quick stir fry. I LOVE stir frys 

Stir fry: 

I cut up 1 zucchini and 1 squash. You can add in peppers or other veggies like broccoli. I cooked them in a bit of canola oil and topped with Mrs. Dash seasoning. Quick, simple. Tasty. Healthy.

This was a favorite. Quick and easy. It was perfect for a weeknight. I love meals that I can put in the oven and continue on doing my own thing. The BBQ sauce is pretty liquidy after it comes out, but the chicken was so moist! I'm making this again. 

- SamiMae

First Time Guacamole

Earlier this week, I bought an avocado. The first one in my entire 6 month marriage! I didn't know quite what to do with it, until tonight. I made guacamole! YUM! I found a recipe on Pinterest, so I could see what it called for, because I had no idea what is in guacamole. I found this recipe. I did mine quite a bit different, because I didn't have a lot of it, but it was a start!

Ingredients:

- 1 avocado

- Lemon juice

- Garlic powder

- Diced tomatoes (leftovers from last night, yes, I got creative)

- Diced onion (I actually used frozen!) 

- Salt

Pretty simple to make. Cut up avocado and mix in all the ingredients! Use a fork. Go off of taste, but remember that after it sits for a while, the flavors will absorb and it'll taste better. I can't wait to taste mine tomorrow. :) Even the 10-15 minutes that it sat while Trevor and I finished making dinner, was enough for it to start absorbing the flavors. I was quite impressed. It was pretty good. :)

I didn't have any lime, only lemon. I had cilantro, but was to lazy to see what parts of it were good to use. (It was 9 pm when we were making dinner). I even used frozen onions, just a bit though, and they were diced, so they thawed pretty quick. 

I gotta say, for my first time, it was pretty good! I think I will SO be making this again! 

- SamiMae

Leftover Success - Bean and Rice Burritos

So, dinner tonight gave me a challenge. I had leftover rice, beans, corn and diced tomatoes. I also had an avocado that I needed to use soon. After a few minutes on Pinterest, I came up with the idea to do rice and bean burritos. I made guacamole for our chips and salsa I already have. We made up some homemade tortillas and BAM! Dinner!

The rice gave me a bit of a challenge. I've never made mexican rice before, and I wanted to keep it simple. Many recipes said use tomato paste. I was thinking about using tomato sauce, but went with the paste instead. Well, I should have had about another cup of rice to even things out. It was very...pasty. But, I think we recovered.

For the beans, this was pretty good. I sauteed some diced onion, red peppers and minced garlic in some canola oil. Then I added by leftover black beans and cooked those. After it was all warm. I added it to the rice. With a bit of cumin and some taco seasonings - hey, it was edible! Hahaha, Trevor actually, really liked it. This recipe just wasn't up to my normal level of creativity and awesomeness that most of my other meals are. I had quite a few set ingredients that I had to use, and I had to make it all work. Overall, at the end, it wasn't so bad. :)

Trevor made some homemade tortillas. We are getting pretty good at those homemade tortillas, they sure are better than store bought! That's for sure. While he was making the tortillas, I whipped up some guacamole.

This was interesting, because I had never made it before. I remembered from cooking in the kitchen with my mom, that it takes a little while to absorb the flavors of the things that's in it. Because at first, I added a ton of stuff, and it still tasted like avocado! See how I made the guacamole here!

Not too bad, eh?!

Ingredients:
- Rice
- Black Beans
- Corn
- Cumin
- Taco seasoning (optional)
- Diced Onion
- Red bell pepper (diced)
- Tomato Paste


1. Warm rice up, (or cook it), put in tomato paste, cumin, and tomato seasoning.
2. Saute onions, red bell pepper and 2 gloves of garlic (minced) together. After onions are cooked, add in black beans and corn.
3. Once rice is cooked/warmed, add in bean mixture.
4. Serve on tortillas as a burrito. (Ours were more like tacos, because they were so stuffed!
5. Top with sour cream, cheese, guacamole, salsa, whatever is your favorite!


What I love about this recipe, is how simple it is. This recipe is more like an idea. You can do anything you want with it, and customize it to your crowd. There is only Trevor and I so, we generally cook and prepare less. This was all natural really. Nothing was pre-made. Only the beans and corn came from a can. Everything else was natural. How awesome huh?! AND - it was meat free and very filling. :) Way to have an awesome meal on a tight budget.

This is one I think I'll make again. :) We used all leftovers from the night before, and all the leftovers got used! Success!

- SamiMae