Friday, December 04, 2009

I'm all out of sorts


Pollo Guisado
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives Copyright 2008

2 pounds boneless chicken thighs
3 tomatoes, diced I used canned tomatoes
2 ounces canned chipotle sauce I used chipotle powder
1/4 tablespoon garlic powder
1/4 tablespoon ground cumin
1/4 tablespoon ground black pepper
1/4 tablespoon salt
1 cup water water
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, diced

Boil the chicken for 25 minutes or until cooked. Set aside.

In a blender combine the tomatoes, chipotle sauce, garlic, cumin, pepper, salt and add water and blend for a few seconds.

In a saucepan add the vegetable oil and onions and cook for 3 minutes or until the onions turn golden.

Add the chipotle mixture and the chicken to the saucepan with the onions and cook over medium heat 15 minutes.
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I was pretty loosey-goosey with this recipe. I only had about a pound of chicken so I eyeballed everything else. It was good, not a showstopper but maybe it would have been if I followed the recipe to the letter. I'm sure these tacos would have been better if I had better, fresher taco shells.

So I decided to make pizza dough last night for the first time in I don't know how long. We've been getting take-out or I've been cheating using Pillsbury pizza crust (hey, I like it) but I thought it was time to tighten our purse strings and go back to making the dough from scratch.

I followed a recipe I had written down, that I used to use almost every week but I ended up adding a lot of flour and it still wasn't enough - I ended up with a sticky mess. I have no idea what went wrong. Maybe my scale was off. Hopefully it will be edible. I can't believe that I lost my touch.

The wheels are in motion for my son's 6th birthday, 2 weeks after Christmas. That is a crappy time to have to plan a birthday party. Not only am I juggling Christmas planning with birthday planning, I have the added stress of worrying about the weather since it's January and it snows a lot in January AND I have no idea how many kids will come. In preschool, I had a general idea but this is an entire different group of kids. I can't wait until the second week of January when I can relax!

Question of the Day: Do prefer soft tacos or hard tacos?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bless your heart....all that's going on. We have two Dec. birthdays, but thank goodness, they're not for a child. So, we don't have to do that much.

I'm all about crispy!

Jan

Christina said...

I love hard tacos if I am out in a restaurant. I tend to keep them around too long so they don't taste that great. At home, I prefer soft tacos though.

Stephanie said...

My birthday is right before Christmas, and I know how busy that has always made the season for me (and double or triple for my mom when I was a kid!). You are a trooper to be able to juggle all you do and then come here and blog about it! :)

I love crispy tacos! I tried to convert to soft, because everyone else in my family likes them but I missed that crunch. I've never had pollo guisado in a taco. My Puerto Rican mother-in-law makes a version this dish. It has potatoes, as well as homemade sofrito as the main seasoning (no chipotle). It ends up with a lot of sauce and is served over rice. Yum!

Annie Jones said...

To me, it must be crispy to be a taco. If it's in a soft shell, it's a burrito. :)

I love both, though.

Chef Aimee said...

I prefer hard shell tacos.
As for pizza dough...I am too lazy and just run to an Italian market place by me where its two for $4 and freezable.

Blog Cookbook said...

I prefer the soft because I do not like tilting my head to eat it.

Anonymous said...

I feel for you and planning the birthday party! This weekend, we just had back-to-back birthday parties for my daughter's first birthday and I am worn out! I made the pink lady cake from Smitten Kitchen and it was fantastic [hubby said it was the best cake I ever made]
Smart that you are planning it now! All the best!
Jody

Mrs. L said...

Sigh. My favorite tacos are Jack in the Box greasy mess which have a hard shell and are fried. So I guess my answer has to be hard shell though I hate the ones you bite into and they break into a million pieces.