KA Lime and Spice Fajitas

Another KA quickie! This is quick. This is easy. You will love it. What else is there to say?

OK, I do have a few things to say. Thank you to Jaden Hair and her great Craftsy class for reminding me of the beauty of cooking wok-style. I don’t have a wok, but I do have a nice big saucepan, and the techniques work almost as well (I think!). And thank you to Park Street Pantry for having tasty spicy salts. They are pretty awesome for adding a bit of spice to any dish, be it as a finishing touch or while cooking. Do take care with the ghost pepper salt, though…

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced into long pieces

High-heat oil, such as canola

4 oz baby bella mushrooms, sliced

1 onion, sliced

1–2 red bell peppers, sliced

Granulated garlic

Granulated onion

Salt

Pepper

Lime juice

Cayenne pepper powder

Cumin

Chili pepper powder

Spicy salts (got mine from Park Street Pantry)

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Tortillas

Shredded cheese

Napkins

1. Put a dollop of oil into your saucepan or wok and heat over high heat. When hot, add the chicken chunks. Season with some of the above spices—don’t worry if you can’t get everything on the chicken. You will be adding spices in layers via the other ingredients that are coming later. Do be sure to squeeze in some lime juice, though. Turn over the chicken pieces after a few minutes to make sure both sides get nicely cooked. Push the saucepan so it is slightly off the heat—shove the chicken to that part of the pan.

2. If necessary, add a bit of oil. Add the onions to the pan. Sprinkle on some more spices. Squirt on some more lime juice. Stir fry for a couple minutes, until the onions change to a softer texture. Push them against the chicken.

3. Repeat the last step with the mushrooms. They will take 4 to 5 minutes. Push to the side.

4. Last stir-frying step! Add the peppers. Spice, etc., stir. We like our peppers to be warmed through but still have a texture, so I only do 2-3 minutes here. 

5. Mix everything together in the pan and remove from heat.

6. Serve on tortillas with a light sprinkling of cheese on top. Enjoy!

Spicy Peanut Noodles

Welcome to a KA quickie. This means that I forgot to measure anything, and only have very general guidelines for this dish—luckily, this also means that the recipe is VERY forgiving. This is one of my favorites if I am craving a noodle dish and didn’t plan ahead, since the base ingredients are always in my kitchen. The combination of creamy, rich peanut butter and spicy sriracha make a unique and tasty coating for pretty much any kind of noodle you happen to have. If you have vegetables or meat you want to mix in, go right ahead. Tofu, broccoli, and zucchini are some of my favorite mix-ins. But the bare-bones version is just fantastic on its own!

You need:

Peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)

Soy sauce

Sriracha

Onion, diced

Garlic, minced

Ginger, minced

Udon noodles (or whatever you want)

1. Boil the noodles.

2. As noodles are boiling, sauté the onion, garlic, and ginger until fragrant (aka you just don’t want raw garlic in here).

3. Get two of your biggest normal eating spoons and scrape two ridiculously large scoops of peanut butter into a bowl or a large high-sided measuring cup (I have a 4 cup measure that works very well for this—stirring is messy). Splash in some soy sauce—about a quarter of the volume of the PB. Now the messy part. Stir the peanut butter until it combines with the soy sauce. It doesn’t seem like this is possible at first, but keep going! It takes less than a minute until you can tell it’s combining. The finished texture will be creamier than the original PB, but still pretty thick.

4. Add sriracha to taste (start with less if you’re not sure…trust me) and sautéed veggies to the PB mixture.

5. Mix the sauce with hot noodles (this also takes a bit of doing, but the hotter the noodles, the quicker the sauce mixes in).

6. If you want to top with chopped peanuts, go ahead. Enjoy!

Required Holiday Season Healthy-But-Not-Healthy Hot Spinach and Cheese Dip

This is another recipe from the “so why do I have frozen spinach in the back of the freezer?” file. Maybe I should just start buying frozen spinach on PURPOSE. Anyway, this is a fantastic dip to share. With four people, you can bust through this entire recipe in about an hour. Just plan to have enough dippers…like about 1 sleeve of Ritz per person. You think I’m kidding… It's also forgiving to make. Doesn't matter what size of spinach box/bag you have (within reason)—if you want more cheese in there, add it (no reason needed)—if you want more seasoning, add it. This would be entirely healthy, if it wasn’t for all the cheese. But then—it would just be a pile of steaming spinach. That sounds like a pile of steaming…never mind. Just make it, already!

Inspired by Martha Stewart’s Hot Spinach Dip recipe.

Yields about 5 cups

2 bags of frozen spinach (10 or 12oz), thawed

1 medium or large onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1T oil or butter for sautéing

2/3c chicken broth

8oz Neufchatel or cream cheese

1t sesame oil

2t Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1c and 2c shredded cheese, divided (I used a cheddar blend)

1. Thaw and drain the frozen spinach. I recommend this new method—microwave it, then toss it in a sturdy colander in the sink and press it with a potato masher. Kind of awesome and quick.

2. Sauté the onion and garlic.

3. Turn the heat down and add the chicken broth (or you could use milk, beef broth, wine, whatever you have laying around). Warm through—you don’t want it simmering, but just steaming—especially if you use milk (it’ll get weird looking, though it will taste fine).

4. Add the Neufchatel or cream cheese to the pot and break it up with a spoon. Stir until it melts and incorporates.

5. Add the sesame oil, Worcestershire, and salt and pepper. Stir well.

6. Add the 1c of shredded cheese and stir until melted and incorporated.

7. Add the spinach and stir well.

8. Spoon the mixture into a baking dish. I used a 9 ½” L x 5” W x 3” D Pyrex dish, and it was the perfect size. You want some headroom so you can spread out the remaining 2c of shredded cheese on top. At this point, you can fridge the dip for another day, or proceed to warm it through and eat now.

9. Pop the dish into a preheated 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until bubbly and the cheese has melted.

Serve with crackers (Ritz are great), pretzels, vegetables (if you must), whatever! Enjoy!