Recipes | Asparagus Fajitas

Asparagus Fajitas are something I learned from my mom. Sooo yummy. If you have a favourite way of making fajitas then do it your way, just swap the peppers out for asparagus. If you want to try my way, here's something I came up with last week. I doubt it's even remotely authentic, but it is delicious!

Serves two. If they are very hungry. I made my soft corn tortillas for them.

Marinade a medium steak for at least an hour in:
3 cloves garlic
3 tbsp lime juice
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp-1tbsp hot chili sauce

Snap the ends off about a pound of asparagus.

Fry the steak up with a dash of olive oil.. I am not at all a steak expert but I sear them first, then turn the heat down a bit and stick the lid on. Someday I will learn to cook steak properly.

While this is happening add to marinade:
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp flour or corn starch (I like my sauce to be think enough to stick to the asparagus)
1 tsp salt
whisk together

When the steak is done to your liking remove it and add the asparagus to the pan with a dash more oil if needed. Once they are a nice bright green add the marinade mixture. Continue cooking until they are as done as you like (I like a bit of firmness but some like them dead).

Slice the steak into thin slices and serve in the tortilla with asparagus, cheese and sour cream.

Eat while sighing with delight.

Gardening | Getting Started

So we are very excited to start gardening this year, especially as we didn't think we would be able to. But it seems that we will be staying here for the summer and also that our land lady is more than happy to share her garden space as she was only going to use half anyways!



Here it is, now that we've gotten all the millions of weeds off. You can see that half of it was tarped, but apparently they had given up on the other half, so it was quite a bit of work to get ready. There's a rhubarb and a chive plant in the corner that I hope we can raid.



Then today we went to Family Tree Gardening in Thrums. Because word on the street said that they were a good place to hang out. We got most of the bedding plants we were looking for and they now live on my sewing desk. So much for sewing until the weather warms up enough to plant!



Here's what we picked up:

Herbs:
4 basil plants (should I have gotten more? Eeee)
1 cilantro
1 parsley
1 rosemary

Peppers:
1 cayenne pepper. For funsies.
(these three are Bells, I hope...)
1 Gloria pepper
1 Bell Boy pepper
1 Early California pepper

Tomatoes:
1 Lemon Boy (large low acid)
1 Tumble Tom (cherry sized low acid)
1 Sub Artic (early salad sized tomatoe)



I still want to get a summer squash but they didn't have any, so I will try another green house. I am also planning on getting an oregano transplant from my parents as they have a ton of it. I will pick up some seeds and whatnot later this week hopfully.

My Kitchen | Updates

I have been neglecting you guys, and I am sorry. Here's the excitement in my foodie world lately:

- Asparagus Season is here! The local asparagus farm starting selling yumminess last Wednesday when we were down at my parents and I came home with 12 pounds. That would be both my crispers full to the brim. So expect lots of asparagusy yummy posts this month!

- We are going to garden this summer! Craig does not yet have a job (booo!) so were are staying where we are for now. Luckily where we are is very nice and our upstairs neighbours are only using half of their garden. They haven't used the other half recently so we (and more Craig than me) have been spending a lot of time pulling weeds. Well it's more like removing sod, actually. Apparently May long weekend is supposed to be planting time in these here parts so we'll be out to the greenhouse later this week. I'm very excited.

- The Aquafit class I teach was cancelled for the summer, and some of the lovely ladies in my class gave me the Whitewater At Home cookbook which I have been drooling over since it came out a couple months ago. Soooo pretty. I'll post a review when I've done more cooking from it.

What has been going on in you foodie world? Any new projects? Any gardens? Tell!

My Kitchen | Vintage Pyrex

Sorry for the lack of posting this week! My cousin and I had a girly shopping trip down south and while I was mostly after clothes, I couldn't resist these two additions to my little kitchen.




Hooray for vintage pyrex!

Contest Link!

Just wanted to let you all know about a contest over at ErinCooks. She's giving away a copy of a book that's been catching my eye around the foodblogosphere...Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It by Karen Solomon. Wander over to her blog to enter.

Kitchen Cure 2009 | Update #2

More organizing fun!


So this cupboard was a big pain before, just a lot of random stuff. To start with I actually bought a proper compost container. It's ceramic and is suposed to not smell? It was the only non plastic one I could find. I also bought a shelf and put a bunch of little things (appliance attachtments and such) in a container under it. I made a really cute bag keeper (photos to come) so the random bags are gone. Much less ucky under there now.


I decided that if I keep ending up with appliances out here I should just stop fighting it and make some room for them (except my crock pot...because as it turns out I hate it). Ditto with the teapot that kept ending up on top of the fridge instead of being put away properly on it's very high shelf. I sorted my cookbooks and put some in another room as well as the canning which is in other bookcases. This will be a problem when I start canning again, it all barely fits now that I did chicken soup recently. Where will pickled asparagus go? No one knows.

Recipe | Curried Chicken Crepes

This is a super yummy supper dish. If you are short on time you can do these up with tortillas, but they are yummier with crepes. With my seasonal cooking I couldn't use celery this time of year so I seasoned it with some celery salt.

Filling Ingredients:
2 tsp butter
1/2 medium onion
1/2 cup diced celery

1 tbsp flour
1 1/2 tsp curry powder (more if you want, taste it)
1/4 tsp salt (ditto)
1/2 cup chicken stock

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced or shredded
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 plain yogurt

Directions:
1) Cook butter, onion and celery until soft.
2) Whisk in flour, curry and salt. Stir for one minute.
3) Add chicken stock. Simmer for two minutes.
4) Remove from heat, add chicken, sour cream and yogurt (you can use all yogurt or all sour cream if that's what you have in the house).

Crepe Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups milk
2 tbsp melted butter
2 large eggs

Directions:
1) Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
2) Add wet ingredients, beat until smooth.
3) Lightly butter an 8 inch skillet
4) Pour 1/2 cup of batter in at a time and immediately rotate the skillet to coat the pan.
5) Cook until it's drying out on top, then flip. Cook until other side is lightly browned.

Final Directions:
1) Fill 6-8 (depending on their size) crepes with the filling, roll up and put in a greased pan seam side down. I use a glass 9x13 for this.
2) Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.
3) Serve with toasted almonds or peanuts on top.