Chicken Fajitas

"Hmmm...what should we make for dinner?" I asked my children.

"Thai wraps...NO...FAJITA WRAPS!!!" my son shouted out.

Ohhhh...yes...wise boy. This we shall make. I think this might even be my favourite meal.  It certainly makes the top ten. It has spice, contains a respectable number of vegetables, and does not require my children to use cutlery (that's silverware to you yankees). It is a bit shopping heavy (ripe avocados, I am looking at you), but so worthwhile. I also love ordering it at restaurants; I get so excited to hear the sizzling plate as it travels from the kitchen to my table, causing heads to turn as it does. And there's the fun of assembly - a dose of the still hot pepper mix, a spoonful of guacamole, a dollop of sour cream, a dash of salsa, all added together in your own preferred proportions, each texture and flavour balancing out another. Heaven, I tell you.

We have been making this meal for many years, so we don't really follow a recipe as such any more, we just do a rough mix of the same things each time. Starting with this stuff. 

Above are the basic ingredients for the chicken, pepper, and onion mix.  If you want to be really clever, you prep all the spicy meat marinade the day before and let the flavours soak in. In all the 10 or so years I've been making this, I think I've done that all of one time. Occasionally I manage to do it on the morning of the day I'm making it, but usually it's just the first thing I do on the evening we're eating it. I've never noticed much of a difference. I mean, the spice packets you get at the supermarket are great, and you don't have to marinate the meat in those, do you?

So first, I put in some coriander seed for grinding up in my mortar and pestle.

Then in went cumin. Plenty of cumin.

Then just a hint of star anise. This much is usually enough - a little carries a long way.

I then add some paprika, oregano, and lots of garlic. I usually put as many as 10 cloves in, certainly no fewer than 6. I used to put in chilli peppers, but now with three little kids I just use paprika to add similar flavour without the heat of chilli, and thus avoid my children wiping their tongues on paper towels in an effort to lesson the effects of those burning oils in their mouths. We've been known to stick hot sauce on the table for the adults. If you think I'm missing a crucial spice, though, let me know.

Then in goes juice from a couple of limes - this time I used three as I had a big bag of them, but I've been known to just use one.

All that, with a bit of salt and a dash of vegetable oil, gets mixed up with the sliced chicken breast and put in the fridge to marinate. Oh, and some onion too.

I sliced it fairly thick so that it was easy for my daughter to pick it out of hers. And we had a guest coming, and I didn't know if he was an onion hater, so I thought I'd make it easy for him if he was.

But he wasn't.

Anyway, it's how they chop them in restaurants too.

And in a separate bowl, I sliced up some pepper. I always make sure to "accidentally" leave this bowl within reach of my kids, because they both love raw pepper. My daughter avoids eating cooked pepper, but she'll eat a whole raw pepper by herself quite easily. So I leave this out for a while and they "steal" slices (their giggling and crunching give them away), and this way I get my kids to eat the peppers, if not necessarily inside their wraps.

So while those slowly disappeared at the side, I made the dough for the tortilla wraps. Just like I did for Thai wraps (http://calwellcooking.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/stephs-thai-wraps.html), only this time I just used white bread flour.

And no, I don't know how to do fancy links. All this blogging is still new to me.

While those rested, I made the guacamole. Now I know a lot of people swear by specific recipes and methods for their guacamole. I can't promise mine is the best, but we like it. A lot. One of the best things about it is how easy it is generally to make. I do mine partially in the food processor, but it really isn't necessary - up until last year I just did it by hand.

So you just need onion, avocados, lime, fresh coriander/cilantro, and tomatoes. Chilli is optional, but, you know. Kids. Sheesh.

I don't particularly like the texture of raw onion, so I blitzed mine with some avocado and the coriander/cilantro in the food processor with the juice of a lime.

This gave me a nice base for the rest of it and prevented any huge clumps of leafy greens too.

Then I just mashed in the rest of the avocado with some salt. This helps keep it all a nice texture - not too smooth like a puree, and not too lumpy either.

And I stirred in some chopped tomatoes too.

Once this was all done, I put on clingfilm right on the surface to prevent browning and stuck it in the fridge.

Then I rolled out and cooked the tortillas.

Using the same frying pan, I cleaned out the flour and then dumped in my chicken marinade. Then a baby started squawking and my husband took over.

On top of the cooked chicken went the peppers.

And once that was done, we set in on the table with the tortillas, the guacamole, some sour cream, and some salsa from a shop across town that specialises in spicy Central American food. I have never made a salsa that I thought comparable to a good shop-bought jar, so I leave that condiment to the experts. I am, of course, willing to try any recipe you have for salsa if you think you have a good one. Oh, and you may just notice that bag of crisps sneaking in the shot too - my husband and my kids like the crunch they add to the wraps and put these inside, but I prefer them on the side.

Everyone assembled their own wraps and all were happy with clean plates at the end of dinner. I don't have a recipe to post, really, as it is so variable, so just go try it yourself with your own spices!

Have a good Hogmanay, everyone! If you are looking for me on New Year's Eve, hopefully I'll be sleeping my way into 2014. 

French Apple Cake

Ahhh, the holidays...that time of year when you strap your children into fast moving vehicles and hope for the best but expect the worst. 

We travelled down to Bristol, where, despite many threats to the contrary, Father Christmas visited and heaped gifts upon our little people. My husband and I didn't fare too badly, gaining two kitchen appliances: a slow cooker and an ice cream maker. I'm afraid neither of them is going to feature here today, as I have not yet opened the manuals on either of them, but I did get another gift that will appear in this post: apples!

A friend of ours gave us a bag of apples from her dad's garden and told us to put them to good use, so I thought it was time to make a recipe I had made once before: French apple cake. Last time I made it, the result was like a mix between bread pudding and cake, with lots and lots of soft apple bound by the cake mixture. So it was with quite a bit of enthusiasm that I got these things together:

There was butter too, but I forgot to put it in the shot. It was kind of scabby looking butter with remnants of toast on it, so maybe it's for the best that it missed out on this group photo. The recipe called for a greased 8 inch round, removable base cake tin. Last time I used a 9 inch springform instead, but this time I thought I'd try my 8 inch tart tin, as it was closer to the recipe's request. The paper was left over from making cookies a couple weeks ago.

Next I peeled and chopped the apples into fairly sizeable chunks. They smelled kind of funny, almost like playdough, but when I tasted a piece it was fine. Weird.

Then into one container went some flour, baking powder, and some salt. This container is meant to be a separator jug for making gravy (an insert goes in the middle), but I don't like things in the kitchen to only have one use, so I'm using it as a general jug too.

Then into another bowl went a couple of eggs. Having children has meant I have not learned to crack eggs one-handed with my left hand while I juggle a child on my right hip.

The instructions said I should whisk the eggs until foamy. I decided this was foamy enough for me.

Then in went sugar.

Which I whisked while the scissors tried to escape. So THAT'S why they are never in the drawer when I look for them...

In went rum and vanilla.  My son said the rum would make the cake rumdiddlyumptious. I think he's been reading too much Roald Dahl lately.

By this time, an expectant crowd had gathered, with cups of tea at the ready.

So in went the flour mix.

Then some melted butter.

Then flour mix...

Then melted butter...(notice a pattern here?)

Then flour mix followed by the apples.

As you can see, the mix was fairly apple heavy.

I poured it into the tin and quickly discovered that, er, there was a bit too much mix put in. Oh well...I just shoved a tray underneath to catch any overflow (I didn't think there would be a huge rise on it as it is mostly apple).

Sure enough, though there was some spillage, it wasn't a massive amount, so the cake came out of the oven looking like this:

The spillage did mean it wasn't easy to remove the cake from the tin. Well, nothing a good dose of icing sugar can't cover up!

Truth be told, I had slightly underdone it in the middle, in spite of my knife check, but no one seemed to mind. It may have been because I used a bit too much apple - the original recipe called for three "very large" apples, so I used 4 medium large apples and hoped that would be right. So if you try this recipe, do have a good dig round in the middle to make sure it's all done - it would be hard to over-cook this baby, really, as it has so much apple in it to keep it from drying out. 

And tomorrow, I might even attempt making some ice cream. My husband took out the manual and told me I need to chill the maker's bowl overnight before we do, so it is sitting in my freezer now. I have a feeling some ice cream would be very nice with a heated slice of French Apple Cake...

MARIE HELENE'S FRENCH APPLE CAKE

recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspan, stumbled upon at Kirbie's Cravings

3/4 cup + 1 tbsp all purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

3 very large apples, peeled, cored and chopped into 1-inch chunks

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp rum

1 tsp vanilla

1 stick butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and line an 8-inch round pan with removable bottom with baking or parchment paper. Wrap the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil.

Sift and whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.

Whisk the eggs in another bowl until foamy, then add the sugar. Whisk until smooth and incorporated. Add the vanilla and rum. Mix well.

Alternately add the flour and butter in two batches. Mix well and gently after each addition to have a smooth batter.

Fold in the apples with a spatula. Pour the batter into the pan and spread evenly with a spatula.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the top of the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Since the cake is really moist, it is best to keep it uncovered or lightly covered at room temperature. I have also found out that it tastes better if you heat it quickly in the microwave for a few seconds before eating.

Rich Rolled Lemon Sugar Cookies

Oooh...only a few days until Christmas, and we all know what that means...

COOKIES!!!

Vast quantities of cookies, of an insane number of variations, moment on your lips, lifetime on your hips cookies. They might be out of a tin, or removed from a posh box, or shaken out of a bag, or...

You will decide that you want to fill your house/apartment/flat/strange foreign home with the smell of sugar, butter, and eating-your-troubles-away goodness by BAKING THEM YOURSELF. And, since it's Christmas and all, you'll decide you want to use fun shapes too.

Now your first instinct may be to make gingerbread. I usually do, and to tell the truth I am usually disappointed as gingerbread is never really as good as ginger snaps, is it? It isn't spicy or chewy enough, and though the smell is good, I just never feel the cookies themselves stand well enough on their own. Lemon icing for decorating helps, but really, why not just make ginger snaps instead and save your fancy cutters for these.

These are sugar cookies, but better than just regular ones. These are rich rolled cookies, adapted from Joy of Cooking. Speaking of that book, mine is looking rather sad, don't you think?

You can just about make out the big "Joy" in the middle of the spine there. Yes, it's seen a lot of use over the years, so I decided that since I'm missing a few pages I'd get a fresh copy as a back-up. Well, turns out my version, the angicised version that first came out in 1946 (!!) is out of print. Thankfully, the internet (and with the help of the family who write it and who is very active on facebook) I was able to track down a used copy without too much trouble. It turns out quite a few recipes are different from in the American edition, so I'll be careful not to just lazily copy and paste stuff in the future.

But this recipe looks the same in both. It's the recipe I used as a child, and a recipe that I convinced a few of my friends' families to use as well, as they all had a copy of this cookbook on their shelves too but hadn't known how good this recipe is.  However, I do have one small alteration: lemon zest. Lemon zest makes lots of recipes better, and this is no exception. Most people get tired of plain vanilla cookies this time of year, so adding the lemon lifts them a little and makes everyone who tastes them feel clever, because then they get to say "oooh...this isn't just plain vanilla, is that LEMON, by any chance?" and you can say, "yes, you're right!" and they can smile and feel smug about their superior tastebuds.  

Works every time, I tell you.

The list of ingredients is relatively short: butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, salt, vanilla, flour, and lemon.

First, I took the butter and put it in a bowl and bashed it for a while. I did this because, as usual, I didn't remember to take my butter out of the fridge in advance to get it to room temperature.  Whenever I do remember, I end up having some domestic catastrophe which means I don't get to bake and I've left the butter out and let it get mushy for no reason. Or I forget I remembered to leave it out and take butter out of the fridge anyway. So yeah, I generally try to just keep it in the fridge and take my aggression out on it once it's in the bowl. 

The recipe calls for 225 grams of butter. That may seem like an odd amount until you realize that two American sticks of butter, or one cup of butter, is 225-230 grams. You figure these things out when you read a lot of converted recipes.

Once I bashed it a bit I added some sugar and bash it some more. You could use an electric mixer here, but I don't. Less noisy this way.

Here I've pretty much creamed it together. You'll understand why I say "pretty much" when you see a photo later on.

Then I added the zest of a lemon.

And a happy egg. My egg lady also raises turkeys and was a bit dazed at the market today. Apparently she didn't go to bed last night thanks to all the Christmas turkey orders.  At her age, you wouldn't think she'd be able to poulet off!

Sorry.  Ahem.   

Yes, an egg.

Then in went vanilla.

This got stirred up and looked like a curdled mess so I started checking the recipe to make sure I was doing it right.

Flour, salt, and baking powder will make it better.

So then I stirred it together, but it was difficult as I was holding a baby. He was in a grabbing mood, so I passed him to my husband and said "just take him for literally one minute while I finish stirring the dough!"  True to my word, I quickly finished mixing the dough and threw the mix into the fridge without taking a photo.

It looked like sugar cookie dough.

Then, the next day (yes, it was meant to be an hour or so later, but it was the next day instead) I took it out, put it on some parchment, and bashed it with a rolling pin to flatten it.  See those white spots here and there? That's cause I didn't cream the butter and sugar well enough. I wouldn't win a baking competition, but that just means I don't have to give any cookies to a snooty judge who thinks that's important. THEY'LL STILL TASTE FINE.

Then I roll it to about as thick as I like my cookies...I'm guessing about a 1/4 inch?  I put parchment paper on top while I'm rolling them too.

Then my daughter took a photo while I growled in my mom cardigan.

These are the shapes we selected from my collection. I should probably get some more.

My daughter avoided photographing my head. I felt like the nanny in Muppet Babies.

Then we simply pressed them out.

And put them on my recycled parchment (I think I made ginger snaps but used the other side of the paper for them).

Then I baked them until they were just getting the tiniest, teeniest, eensie-weensiest bit brown at the edges, about 7 minutes. This meant they still are a bit chewy in the middle.

Never knowingly overbaked, that's my motto.

I sometimes use a quick lemon icing for these, but on this occasion I just stacked them and gave them away to teachers and neighbours. Apart from the quality control cookies, of course. One has to maintain standards.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Lemon Rich Rolled Sugar Biscuits adapted from Joy of Cooking ISBN 0684851466

Beat until well blended

225 unsalted butter, softened 

120g caster sugar

Add and mix until well combined

zest 1 lemon

1 egg

1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Stir in until well blended and smooth

325g plain flour

Divide dough in half and place each half between large sheets of greaseproof paper.  Refrigerate until firm but not hard, ideally.  

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.  Remove dough from fridge and roll out dough until it is as thin/thick as you like your cookies. Cut with fun shapes, using tetris skills to minimize dough wastage and re-rolling dough.  Place on parchment covered baking sheets about an inch apart.  If desired, sprinkle lightly with coloured sprinkles. Bake for 6-9 minutes, rotating halfway through baking to ensure even baking, removing from oven when they start to colour at the edges. 

Cool on rack. Except for the one you "accidentally" broke on the way to the rack.  Just eat that one.