Chicken fajitas with Sautéed plantains, a quick & easy meal

Chicken fajitas with Sautéed plantains

A quick & easy meal

Ranch hands near the Mexican border in the 1940s were partially paid with meat from butchered steers, typically receiving the least desirable cuts. When they received the tough skirt steak, they pounded, marinated, grilled, and then sliced it and served it in tortillas. This was the beginning of the Tex-Mex dish fajitas. Today, fajitas are basically any cooked and sliced meat served with tortillas.

iwannabeacook’s chicken fajita recipe is flavorful but quick and easy enough for a weeknight dinner. The main ingredients are chicken, onions, and bell peppers. The marinade takes only a few minutes to make. If you have time, marinate the meat 1 – 4 hours. The flavor is both spicy and tangy. This recipe takes 20 minutes, start to finish. Serve it with corn or flour tortillas, guacamole, sour cream, cilantro, and cheese.

This recipe is also flexible. Instead of the spice mixture, use taco seasoning or chili powder. Instead of chicken, use beef or shrimp. For shrimp, limit the marinating time to 1 hour. Add or change the vegetables. Use zucchini or summer squash. Add jalapeño slices or chipotle powder.

Plantains, also called cooking bananas, are not known to most households in the US, but they are a wonderful side dish to grilled and roasted meats. They have less sugar than a regular banana and are more suitable as a side dish. Cutting the plantain on the bias provides more surface area to brown.

Plantains are used in two forms, unripe and ripe, but they are almost always cooked. Ripe ones can be eaten raw, but it is rare. The blacker it is, the sweeter it is. 

This recipe is quick and easy and provides something slightly unusual. If you want to learn about a new food, try this one.  

What does my empty plate say about me?

What does my empty plate say about me? 

Eating habits at the end of the meal 

After clearing the lunch plates on Friday, I had an epiphany. Typically, my husband and I each clear our plates and put them in the dishwasher, but on this particular day, we both left the table to complete some task. I returned to the table a few minutes later to remove the dishes.

When I reached down to pick up the plates, I noticed that my plate was completely clean, barely used. My husband’s plate had food left on it, and the plate was obviously dirty.

At that moment, I realized how these dishes represented our personalities. My plate, like my life or how I want it to be (!), was neat and orderly. Everything in its place, nice and tidy. The plate was also efficient, no need to scrape the plate. It could go straight into the dishwasher.

My husband’s plate was a different story. He had food left, so the food had to be scraped into the trash. The fork and knife weren’t in a convenient spot to pick up, so I had to adjust those before moving the plate. What does his plate say about his personality? At the time, I was only thinking about how his plate affected my current schedule. How much more work it required before I could put his dish in the dishwasher.

But, thinking about it, I came to realize how much it represented his personality. When he eats, he clearly focuses on his food, not thinking about wasting food or cleaning it up later.

During most lunch meals, we work on the Wall Street Journal’s crossword puzzle, so we don’t merely eat and leave the table. We continue working after our food is eaten, so our plates sit in front of us. For me, it’s hard to see a dirty plate sitting there.

In the grand scheme of things, why does this really matter? It doesn’t, except that I eat more in an effort to make my plate orderly.

What should I do? Serve myself less, knowing that I will eat whatever is on my plate? Be conscious of what is going on and actively leave food on my plate? Clear my plate as soon as I’m finished eating?

The point is that I have choices. For the upcoming week, I’m going to leave food on my plate and try not to worry about how it looks. By the way, my husband doesn’t believe I can do it. Now, I know I will do it! Another insight into my personality.

What does your plate say about you? And your partner’s or children’s plates? The next time you go have dinner with friends, take a look at their plates and see what you can glean about their personalities.

What do I serve with grilled meats?

What do I serve with grilled meats? 

A quick and easy vegetable medley 

Here in Wisconsin, we are pushing the season for grilling, but after a long winter, it’s time to start. Of course, one must choose the correct weather conditions. Grilling in the dark is not bad, but pouring rain or thunderstorms are unacceptable. If the weather is great, I usually change my dinner menu to include grilling.

Grilling adds a distinctive flavor to food, and honestly, it is good to be outside after being inside for so many months.

With gas grills, grilling is fast because it doesn't take long to heat the grill. With modern technology, even charcoal grills are fast, especially if you use an electric starter. 

But, the best part of grilling is the easy cleanup. There are no roasting or broiler pans to wash. This is a timesaver in itself.

Grilling is perfect for a busy weeknight, but the question is what to serve with the grilled food. If possible, marinate the meat the night before or morning of. Use a recipe from iwannabeacook, such as an Asian marinade or Cuban marinade or simply use a spice mixture. Bring the meat to room temperature and turn the grill on.

While the grill is heating, it’s time to prepare a side dish. If you’ve done a little planning, you will have raw vegetables in your refrigerator—celery, bell peppers, zucchini. If you have an onion, then you are well on your way to creating a delicious vegetable medley. Be creative with the vegetables and spices you add.

Simply sliver the vegetables into 3 x 1/2 x 1/4" pieces. At this point, the grill should be ready. Add the meat to the grill and return to the kitchen to cook the vegetables, which will cook in less than 15 minutes. Finish cooking the meat, and dinner is served. Of course, you could add pasta, rice, or beans as a side dish.

When dinner is finished, there are only a few dishes and most will go into the dishwasher. So, cleanup is fast.

Many people think grilling is a lengthy and time-consuming process, but it doesn’t have to be. With practice, you will become comfortable with timing the food and not have to hover over the grill constantly.

The Sautéed vegetables with feta cheese recipe is a great side dish for any meal—grilled or roasted meats or as a side for Enchiladas. It’s quick, easy, and flexible.

Tired of cooking the same recipes?

Tired of cooking the same recipes? 

New season, New spices

April 8, 2017

It isn’t often that I recommend products to buy because everyday cooking should be fun and easy. When I find a product that does both, I want to pass the advice along. Spice Trekkers is one answer to adding variety to weeknight meals.

iwannabeacook has featured three recipes from the Spice Trekkers already: Coconut orange sauce, Spanish-style sautéed potatoes, and Sweet and sour vinaigrette.

This week’s Satay chicken wings recipe is also inspired by the Spice Trekkers cookbook and uses the included spices. After extensive use of their spice kit and cookbook, it is time to highlight their product.

Ethné and Philippe de Vienne travel around the world looking for spices to use in their unique spice blends. After traveling around the world for more than 30 years, they’ve built relationships with people to provide high-quality spices to use in their blends.

This package comes as a spice kit and cookbook. The spice kit contains 20 spice blends in small containers. There are six additional tiny containers, which are used to teach you the difference between taste and flavor of spices. A mystery spice is included as well.

The cookbook starts with an introduction of spice categories—Bitter, Sour, Hot, Sweet, and Aromatic—and then continues with tips on purchasing and storing spices. The next section is dedicated to the spice blends.

For each of the 20 spice blends, the cookbook includes a recipe for the actual blend, which means you can make it yourself after using the initial container. While this sounds like a great idea, the expense of buying the necessary spices may not be practical because some unusual spices are included. For example, my spice pantry is well stocked, but it does not include cassia buds, voatsiperifery peppercorns, cubeb, galanga, or kentjur, just to name a few of the more unusual spices.

After the spice blend recipe, three recipes are given that use the highlighted spice blend. The range of recipes in the book is vast, including soups, salads, vegetables, pasta, potatoes, chicken, beef, fish, and desserts. Each recipe includes a photo and takes only one page. The cooking time is less than one hour for most recipes, not including marinating time.

After the recipes, a two-page spread highlights a person or group of people and how they relate to that particular spice blend. These are stories about people from everywhere. The stories are worth reading. It’s a reminder that cooking is important to people everywhere.

A few details about the spices. The spices are whole, meaning they must be ground first. A spice grinder or dedicated coffee bean grinder is essential. Why are the spices whole? Freshly ground spices are more intense and have more flavor.

The spices are gluten free. They do not mention whether blends are processed in a nut-free facility.

Are all of the blends hot and spicy? I did not find the blends overly spicy, but they are full of flavor. The recipes using the blends include spicy ingredients, but those can be adjusted to suit your taste. 

What if you run out of a spice blend and cannot make it due to the lack of unusual spices? Actually, I’ve used some of the recipes without the spice blend and instead added the spices I did have. The recipes are forgiving and should be used as a guide. Experiment with spices and adjust them to your palette.

Where can you buy this spice kit? Spicetrekkers.com sells more than just this product and includes additional recipes and a blog. Zingerman’s also sells this product.

These are the twenty spice blends included:

Singapore Curry
Madras Curry
8 Pepper Blend
Aleppo Seven Spices
Colombo
Koftes Spices
1001 Nights
Tex-Mex Spices
East Coast Spices
Classic Fines Herbs
Chinese Five Spices
Cajun Blackening Spices
Panch Phoran
Berbere
Silk Road
Creton Spices
Vegetable Spices
Yunan Blend
Mediterranean Herbs
Satay Spices