My local stores usually have a selection of Badia brand spices in the Indian section of the International Isle and they carry many of the spices for much cheaper than the brands in the spice isle.

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Flour Tortillas. Now these are good and sooo much better than store bought. The recipe uses butter, shortening and salt so they actually have some real flavor. Fun to make and well worth it.

Flour Tortillas

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 10:33 am Flour Tortillas. Now these are good and sooo much better than store bought. The recipe uses butter, shortening and salt so they actually have some real flavor. Fun to make and well worth it.

Flour Tortillas

Someone brought me a homemade tamal that his wife from Nicaragua made with a banana leaf nixtamal and some sort of black bean filling.

It had a tremendous amount of masa way much more than a Mexican tamal.
No meat.
And not very spicy but it was good.

Bacon, eggs and grits today.

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 10:33 am Flour Tortillas. Now these are good and sooo much better than store bought. The recipe uses butter, shortening and salt so they actually have some real flavor. Fun to make and well worth it.

Flour Tortillas

I have never been crazy about flour tortillas with shortening, but I have thought about (but haven't done it let) making some with some homemade ghee, to get that browned butter flavor. Another I have considered, for the flavor, is the virgin coconut oil. I never even have shortening in my house.

I haven't had shortening in the house in decades.

You would think I would get tired of cooking but I don't.
Here is the start of today's meal.
I'll have food for a week after this weekends cooking spree.
Including lunch.
Here's the start of the onion mushroom gravy.
A pound of mushrooms and a whole large onion and about 5 cloves of fresh garlic and black pepper.
Peeled potatoes in cold water ready to turn the burner on medium to cook.
Ground chuck with an egg fried onions I bought, my homemade fermented mushroom ketchup and panko bread crumbs all mixed up for Salisbury steak.

Onion mushrooms cooked down.
Added flour and let it cook and removed.
Deglazed skillet and poured juice mushrooms.
Took patties from the reporpused mushroom container and browned in skillet.
Removed excess oil and added the mushroom onion mix and added my two cups of beef broth with fermented mushroom ketchup added.
Put patties back in.
Covered and put on low heat for the time being.

I have no idea why I had that stick of Crisco in the fridge or how old it is. It has been there forever, so long that I can't even recall why I would have bought it. I looked for a date on it but there was none. Apparently it lasts forever, lol. I would rather use all butter. I have no idea what the purpose of using the shortening is.
The recipe called for it and I have NO experience making them so I started out by following it. I have watched another You tube video where she used all shortening, but said you can also use all butter. I just know the store bought ones didn't taste much better than cardboard and these actually tasted good.

I had never had a freshly made tortillas until I started making them myself. Turns out I will stuff basically anything inside one, lol. Chicken and Salsa, Salad, left over pre made Spanish paella and Jambalaya.



Paella in flour tortilla

I have some left over bacon fat. Wonder how that would do? Might be good for breakfast Burritos. Can't think that all butter could possibly be bad. I AM a fan of butter. I would like to try adding some other flavorings to them, too. How about a black pepper tortilla, or one with some Cajun spice mixed in or finely chopped jalapenos or cheese powder? This could be fun. Let me know if you try the Ghee and how it works out. Do you make your own or buy it?

I make my own ghee - much cheaper, as with just about anything! To do it, just heat a lb of butter in a 3-4 qt saucepan, over medium heat, and it will foam up, but eventually settle down, and start browning. I cook to 280° - much hotter, and the particles will start burning - then scrape it into a metal bowl. When much cooler, I strain it into a pint mason jar, with an ultra-fine strainer I have, almost like that used for coffee.

I have actually used bacon grease for the tortillas - way back when I'd save it, from a dish I cooked bacon in the MW with. The grease was much lighter in color, but still had some of the flavor. The tortillas were good - closer to the lard flavor. Still didn't replace corn tortillas as my favorites!

That half crisco/half butter thing reminded me of a book my sister gave me many years ago (early 90s, I think) - I don't recall the title, but it was about 1,000 cookie recipes, which she got for me because I was always baking all those cookies at Christmas. However, every single recipe called for half shortening and half butter, for the fat! I figured crisco paid for someone to put the book out.

Traditional Mexican hot chocolate.
I've been drinking this type all my life.
2 tablespoons cocoa powder.
Good pinch of cinnamon.
Good pinch of chili powder.
Not the stuff that comes with all the spices but the ground chili.
This time it's Chipotle powder.
Ancho is good too.
One cup of hot water.
Sweeten to taste.
((((((No milk.))))))
If you've never had hot chocolate made this way you should at least once.

This was actually for lunch - I baked some sourdough rye, to make some braunschweiger sandwiches with it. Starting with just one, but I'll have another one, before dinner, I'm sure.
Fresh baked rye bread, ready to make sandwich for lunch. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I just scored a couple bags of frozen pre cooked tail on shrimp and I'm trying to think up some hot meal plan recipes for these. Any ideas?
I always like em with a good salad and garlicky lemony dressing. But it's coooold here and getting colder. I want dinner hot.
Scored hot peppers too. Some 'Pencil Hot' reds and a couple of green Poblano. I have never cooked with either but I'm assuming some heat. That might help the shrimp.
The trouble with pre-cooked, you can only heat them lightly or they shrink up madly. So they're not taking up much seasoning unless you marinate them cold, maybe. They go in at the last minute, for me.
I am totally out of my quick jasmine rice. Decided I would try and switch to wholegrain rice, but since it takes longer I have to plan ahead. I did find a brown basmati that only takes 25 minutes (some of them say 40 minutes on the package which is dismal).
So I should cook a decent pot of that. I could see the shrimp and pepper and frozen peas in a fried rice dish.

@Sue_CT shrimp in a wrap could be good! I don't have tortilla gear but maybe I should revisit chapatis and see if I can make that work.

Flour tortillas don't require any gear. You roll them out, not use a press. The dough is too soft to use a tortilla press.

@Bower I tend to cook shrimp separately anyway, so I can add last minute to pasta or stir fry or polenta. Then if it’s salad for dinner they go on top as is.

Pasta sounds like a good idea @PlainJane . Something with a nice garlicky sauce and some fresh wilted greens, the thawed shrimp would be just the ticket to stir in at the end.

My favorite shrimp and pasta combination is butter, a little white wine, garlic, lemon and pasta with shrimp and baby spinach or other greens added in at the end. Very quick and yummy. If using hardier greens like kale I would add it in before the pasta and saute until softened in the sauce.

Sue, I have eaten warmed up left over spaghetti in a garlicy flour tortilla and it was good !! We love the home made flours tortillas, even with just a salted butter when still warm.

I love liverworst sand wiches or on crackers, but it play heck with me, LOL. Great cure if you are , mmmm, plugged up, all that fat hits me and it's a run for the money!!

Making a lamb breast curry with carrots and onions and mushrooms, ran out of room for the potatoes. So will par cook them and use some of the curry gravy to finish or bake them and sever some of the curry over the potatoes. Love the lamb curry so much, warming dish for when it is cold out.

@Bower
Now that we have the shrimp out of the way let's discuss poblanos.
Many people insist on taking the skin off.
I don't think it's necessary.
It's not much more if any than a bell pepper.
Not much heat at all but sometimes you get one that is hot.
Especially up by the seeds.
If cooking them always make sure everything is cooked before adding the pepper.
Then cook until about half done or so.
This way you can get the full flavor of them and not be mush.
They have almost completely taken the place of the bell pepper for me.
I can't see paying the astronomical prices they want for bell peppers.
A red bell pepper is 6 dollars and change a pound at the store but they don't say the price per pound.
They are 1.52 each.
Serving per container 1.
Serving weight is 4 ounces.
4×4 = 16 = 1 pound.
4×1.52 = 6.08 a pound.
Then you remove the stem core and seeds and it probably goes up to 8 dollars a pound.
In plain speak a red bell pepper is an expensive luxury item with little in return as far as flavor and nutrition.
The poblano on the other hand has flavor and is 64 cents a pound in my area.

I spend a big majority of my time in the store doing maths and comparing prices with a calculator.
I started doing it at about 23 years old and it drove my wife nuts.

Shrimp.
Buying head on Shrimp isn't always a bargain but sometimes it is.
You never know from one trip to the next.
If you buy head on Shrimp expect to lose around 1/4 of the weight in heads.
Then you can do the math and see if it's worth it to buy head off or not.
Or if you want to bother with it.

I picked up 10 pounds of potatoes the other day for
6 dollars or so by buying two 5 pound bags.
The 8 pound bag of so called king size that wasn't king size was 6.67.

None of this matters that much until you look at the end of the year and see how much money you saved.
I managed to pay my property taxes without freaking out.

What I'm having today for food is my beef barley soup I made this weekend.
The Salisbury steak lasted 3 days.
The last of it was with cooked poblano peppers.