Last night was fajitas night. All summer more or less I've alternated tacos and fajitas on Tuesday nights, as we are fans of tortillas filled with delicious things. Even Sam will eat a quesadilla, or he'll just bring me the bag of tortillas and say "Dee ahh?" By which he means, give me a tortilla and I will eat it plain as though it were a large cookie.
In the past I've used store bought seasoning packets, but one time I decided to go halfway from scratch by getting one of those recipe cards with pre-measured spices that McCormick makes. By the way, I think that's a genius marketing idea. Rather than hesitating to buy a whole container of a spice you're not sure you'll ever use again, you can try the recipe once and then buy more spices if it's a hit. Or you can just keep buying the cards, but I suspect there is a significant markup.
Looks yummy!
To start, I sliced up my onion and green pepper. Here are some pictures of that.
Onion in half
Sliced thinly lengthwise and then crosswise just the once
Top chopped off the pepper, seeds removed, and membranes pinched away as much as possible
Sliced down the membranes to make them easier to remove
Cleaned up one segment
Long thin slices
Then I mixed my marinade. Here are all the spices and liquids that went into that.
Yes, it's kind of a lot of stuff.
Which means it's a good thing I can save by buying in bulk some of the time.
One thing I changed per our tastes was that I halved the amounts of citrus juices and added tap water to replace the missing liquid. (2 tbsp lime juice + 2 tbsp orange juice + 1/4 cup water, instead of 1/4 cup lime + 1/4 cup orange.) As-is it was a little too citrusy for Dan.
The prepared marinade!
Then I put everything in the fridge until it was time to cook. About half an hour before I expected Dan to come home, I defrosted three boneless skinless chicken breasts in the microwave. Just as it dinged that they were defrosted, I heard the garage door open. (He'd called, but my phone was charging upstairs, and I was downstairs at the time watching Guess With Jess with Sam, so I didn't hear it.) So he walked in to me cutting up chicken, which was preferable to not having started anything at all, I suppose. The recipe calls for a 30 minute marinade, but I set a timer for 20 minutes instead this time.
Thinly sliced chicken in a freezer bag
1/4 cup of marinade reserved, the rest in the baggy with the chicken
I do prefer to marinate in a plastic bag, especially with meat. You can really squish it around and get everything coated without making a big mess, which I always seem to do when I try to marinate meat in a bowl, using a spoon to distribute the marinade.
After 20 minutes, I pulled it out and cooked it in my big skillet.
Starting to cook
Cooked through and set aside
Once the chicken was all the way cooked through, it was time to pull it out while I cooked the onion and bell pepper in the remaining marinade. Once they in turn were finished, I put the chicken back in and cooked until it was all hot and steamy.
Onion and pepper starting to cook
Just about finished
Confession time: I just about burned it all at this point. I was trying to get a quesadilla cooked for Sam (pro-tip from Dan: use a pizza cutter to slice up a quesadilla), get the table set including toppings, and warm up cheese sauces for Dan and myself. Somewhere in here Sam politely asked for a glass of milk, so of course I had to drop everything and get it for him. :) The nice part is that the onion and pepper are a little bit tastier if they caramelize a little in the pan. So it all worked out. Dan said that this was the best batch of fajitas I've made yet, so WIN.
Finished product, drenched in dairy products the way I like it
I can't really even begin to estimate the cost of this particular meal, as I had most of the ingredients on hand already, aside from the onion and pepper. I would guess that it's more expensive than spaghetti but much less expensive than a roast, especially if you get the chicken, tortillas, and veggies on sale. It still feeds both of us for less than you'd pay for one person to order fajitas from a restaurant.
Tonight will be only slightly more homemade than hamburger helper, but it's one of our favorites and it uses some fresh ingredients, so I'll still write about it. Teriyaki pork lo mein using a Knorr noodle packet, and the recipe on the back.
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