Chicken fajitas

When I left the office yesterday, I was kind of hungry so I stopped off at Jewel and picked up some chicken. I was in the mood for something spicy and all of a sudden I had fajitas on the brain. I picked up some peppers and checked out.

Have everything cut up before you begin. Once you do, this cooks up fast.

1-1/2 lb. chicken breasts, cut into strips

Olive oil

1 tsp. cajun seasoning

1 tsp. paprika

1/2 tsp. cayenne

1 tsp. white pepper

1/2 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. oregano 

2 large onions, cut into wedges

2 red bell peppers, cut into strips

4 jalapeño peppers, cut into strips

4 limes

Soy sauce

Large burrito sized tortillas

Preparation

Heat a very large cast iron skillet until it is very hot. Add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. In batches, sear the chicken strips until they are cooked through and starting to brown. Remove them to a plate.

Add the peppers and onions to the pan and stir. Let them cook until they are hot and sizzling. Add the chicken back to the pan and stir. Stir in the seasonings. When everything is mixed together and sizzling, squeeze the limes over the pan and then sprinkle on a little soy sauce. 

Let that cook, stirring, for another couple of minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Heat another cast iron skillet so your dinner guests can heat their tortillas.

Serving

Heat a tortilla on the hot cast iron and put it on your plate. Spoon on a bunch of the chicken and peppers. Cover with some hot salsa or hot sauce. Fold or roll up the burrito wrap.

Along with your fajitas, you want a cool crisp salad, chips and homemade salsa, and set a bowl of olives on the table. Open an ice cold bottle of Riesling to wash everything down.

Steak fajitas after deliberations

Well, I finished serving on a jury for the first time in my life. It was a lot better experience than I expected. The wonderful people who served on the jury with me, really made it great. They ranged everywhere from as young as 19, all the way up to old grouches like me. It was close to half male and half female, and all were a pleasure to work with. The 3 day trial was interesting, and deliberations needed only a couple hours. All in all, it was a great experience.

During the time I was serving on the jury, I had to do all the paperwork from my day job, at night, which then had to be emailed. That didn’t leave me much time to cook and enjoy dinner. I had to concentrate on quick, easy meals. One of the nights, I opted for fajitas.

I love fajitas. I always have. Here is how I like to make beef fajitas, using nice little ribeye steaks. I like to use large burrito wrap tortillas, but you could use regular corn or flour tortillas for this. This recipe is for four. I know that most people don’t eat as much as I do, so you may have leftovers.

Seasoning mix

1 tsp. cajun seasoning

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. cayenne

1 tsp. smoked paprika

1 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. garlic salt

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. thyme

Everything else

4 ribeye steaks

Olive oil

1 large onion, cut into wedges

1 bell pepper, cut into strips

5 jalapeño peppers, cut into halves

1 zucchini, sliced

2 medium tomatoes, cut into wedges

4 limes

Lots of burrito wraps (heated in the oven or on cast iron, and covered with a towel)

Preparation

Mix the seasoning mix well in a bowl. Season all steaks generously on both sides with some of the seasoning mix. Keep the remaining seasoning mix nearby for later in this recipe and for future use.

Heat a large cast iron skillet (big enough to hold all four steaks in a single layer) until it is very hot. I used olive oil because that’s what I had, but peanut oil would be better. Add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the steaks and sear them approximately four minutes per side so the steaks are medium rare. Remove the steaks to a platter in a warm place.

Heat the skillet again so it is hot. Dump all the vegetables into the pan and let them cook, stirring occasionally so they are charred in spots and sizzling hot. Sprinkle on a teaspoon of the seasoning mix and stir it in. Squeeze on the lime juice and stir until it is sizzling again.

Serving

Place the vegetables in a serving bowl and set them on the table. Place the tortillas on the table along with some lime wedges, soy sauce and hot sauce. Place one steak on each plate and let your dinner guests do the rest.

Sprinkle a little soy sauce over the steak. Take a burrito wrap and add some sliced steak. Now add in lots of vegetables. Squeeze on some lime wedges, and a little hot sauce, and roll it up to eat. A spicy Zinfandel, or an ice cold Riesling, are good choices for wine, or simple serve lots of ice cold beer. 

Smokey bone-in pork - roasted long and slow

Usually I am pretty lazy on Sunday. On Saturday, I do a lot of chores, but Sunday, I don't do much but relax. Recently, I bought a nice bone-in pork butt roast, which I wanted to roast over wood and charcoal. I seasoned it up and let it rest for a few hours. 

When it was time to cook, I lit two fires in the grill. I put the roast in a cast iron pan on the grate and centered it between the two piles of coals and closed the lid on the grill. Next I found a nice shady spot to sit and read ... for the next five hours. As I said, I am kind of lazy on Sundays.

Every once in a while, I’d get up to add a small chunk of wood to the coals and turned the roast over in the pan. After five hours, it was beginning to fall apart and was smokey good. Here's how I prepared everything.

Rub

1 tsp. cajun seasoning

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. cayenne

1 tsp. smoked paprika

1 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. garlic salt

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. thyme

Roast

4 lb. bone-in pork roast

Olive oil

3 limes, quartered

6 potatoes, washed

Flour

Cajun seasoning 

Water

Preparation

Mix the rub together and stir well. You won’t need all of it for this, just save the rest. Rub the roast on all sides with lots of the rub and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours, or better yet, overnight.

Make two piles of charcoal on opposite ends in your grill. Place a hardwood branch, about 2” thick and five inches long, as a border for each pile of charcoal. Light the charcoal by placing dry sticks on top of each pile of charcoal and lighting them with a torch.

When the sticks have burned down and the coals are glowing, place the roast on a cast iron pan and drizzle a little olive oil over the roast. Place the pan on the grill centered between the two piles of hot coals. Add the potatoes to the grill, but not over the coals. Squeeze half of a lime over the roast and cover the grill. Sit down and read.

After an hour or so, the coals will start to dwindle. Add a chunk or two of hardwood to the coals to produce smoke. Also, add a few pieces of charcoal to each pile. Not enough to raise the heat a lot, just enough to keep the coals alive and smokey.

Every hour, turn the roast over, add a few pieces of charcoal, and squeeze some lime juice over it. After about an hour or so, you will notice the potatoes are done. Remove them from the grill. 

After five hours, the roast will want to fall apart when you try to turn it over. That’s a good thing. It’s a sign that your roast is ready to serve. Put the potatoes back on for a few minutes to heat them back up and then bring everything in.

Place the roast on a cutting board and pour off some of the fat out of the cast iron pan, but leave enough for gravy (about half a cup, depending on how much gravy you want). Heat the remaining fat on the stove and add enough flour to absorb most of the fat. Season the flour and fat with cajun seasoning. Start adding water, a little at a time to make a gravy. When it is the right consistency, taste it and adjust it for salt and pepper.

You won’t have to slice the pork as much as pull it apart. I was able to pull the bone out of the meat and it came out clean. It should pull apart easily. Place the meat on a platter.

Serving

To serve this, take a potato and break it open. Pile a big pile of the roast pork next to the potato and then smother both in gravy. Add some sautéed broccoli next to that. Slice the fresh baked bread, pour the wine and dinner is served!

Chicken on the grill, long and slow

On weekends during the summer, I like to cook on the grill, whenever I can. Sometimes, it is fast, like when I grill a steak. Other times I grill long and slow, like when I'm making barbecue ribs. A while back I decided to do a couple chickens, long and slow on the grill.

I had a couple of cut up chickens which I marinated for about four hours. I cooked those in my grill with charcoal and wood, not over the coals, but off to the side. It took a couple of hours, but it was worth the effort. Here’s what I did.

2 chickens, cut up

Olive oil

8 cloves of garlic

Red pepper flakes

Cajun seasoning

Adobo seasoning

Oregano

Thyme

8 limes

2 cans of beer

Louisiana Hot Sauce

Soy sauce

Preparation

Place each cut up chicken in a zipper bag. To each bag add 4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin, 1/2 teaspoon each of red pepper flakes, oregano and thyme, as well as a generous sprinkle of adobo and cajun seasoning. Squeeze three limes into each bag. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to each bag and finally add a can of beer to each bag. Seal the bags and let them rest in the refrigerator for at least four hours. Turn the bag over once an hour.

Light the grill with a big pile of charcoal on one side, bordered by a 2” diameter hardwood chunk. When the coals are ready, line the chicken up off to the side, not directly over the coals. You’ll have to stack the chicken two or three pieces high, to fit it in a single line. That’s ok, you want that. The juices from upper pieces will baste the bottom pieces of chicken.

Close the lid of the grill and let the chicken slowly cook. Every twenty minutes, shuffle and re-stack the chicken so it cooks evenly. Add more charcoal to the pile as needed.

This should take at least two hours, so don’t get impatient and move the chicken over the coals. We’re just using indirect heat. During the first hour, baste the chicken with some of the leftover marinade. Stop after the first hour and discard the remaining marinade. 

After a couple hours, the chicken should be uniformly golden and ready to serve. Place the chicken in a bowl and sprinkle it with a little Louisiana Hot Sauce and a little soy sauce. Squeeze on the last two limes and bring it to the table. Toss or stir the chicken to distribute the sauces and lime juice.

Serving

Serve several pieces of chicken next two a big pile of brown rice. Now add a big pile of grilled broccoli, homemade bread and butter. Open a bottle of ice cold white wine from France (the one I served was from France. I don’t really care where you get your wine from). We all went back for seconds, so don’t feel guilty if you do too.

A quick pork roast cooked on a smokey grill

The other day I was going to the store for something to cook. I really had no idea what I wanted, but I had the grill in mind. Well, I saw this boneless pork roast with a decent layer of fat on it, and I was sold. It was long and fairly thin in shape, so it will cook up fairly quick.

To do this on the grill, I make two piles of charcoal and place them on the outer edges of the grill. I then place a two inch diameter hardwood stick on the edge of each pile as a border. The stick will add an extra amount of smokey flavor to the roast. Two piles of charcoal will allow the roast to cook evenly in about an hour or so. Here’s how I did it.

1-1/2 lb. boneless pork roast 

Olive oil

Onion powder

Cajun seasoning

Garlic salt 

Wondra flour

1/2 cup white wine 

Chicken stock

Salt and pepper

Preparation

Prepare your grill as I described above and light it with some sticks and a torch. While the coals are getting hot, rub the roast with olive oil and place it in a large cast iron pan. Season the roast with generous sprinkles of onion powder, cajun seasoning and garlic salt.

Place the cast iron pan with the roast on the grill, centered between the two piles of hot coals. Cover the grill and let that cook in the smoky heat for about an hour, but turn the roast every fifteen minutes or so.

Use an instant read thermometer to determine when to remove it. I shoot for around 145º in the center of the roast. Remove the roast to a platter, and set it in a warm place, while you make gravy.

Place the cast iron pan on the stove over medium high heat. Cook off some of the juices so you have mostly fat left in the pan. Sprinkle on enough Wondra flour (I like that for gravy best) to absorb most of the fat. You want it to be a little wet. Add the white wine and then add chicken stock, a little at a time. 

Let the gravy come to a simmer between each addition of the stock. Stir and scrape until the gravy has the right consistency. Pour the gravy into a gravy bowl. Slice the roast and pour any additional juices into the gravy.

Serving

Serve several slices of the roast pork on a plate. Add a big pile of wild rice next to that. Cover both with the smokey gravy. Now add some sautéed broccoli next to that. Slice the fresh baked bread and open the bottle of Zinfandel. Ring the bell, dinner is ready.