Wednesday, April 02, 2008

"homemade" fajitas

i love to cook, but i hate what happens to my house and my life when i try to take on a big cooking project. everything seems to get impossibly messy and disorganized and at least two people are screaming before the project is completed. sometimes the 2 screamers are my kids and sometimes it is just me screaming loud enough for two people. i digress.
fajitas have become one of my favorite dishes to prepare, not only are they mostly healthy, they taste fantastic. they do seem to require a lot of planning and thinking. and that can be a luxury around here. while the fam was living in fun-gomery, i discovered this little fajita helper. it's like hamburger helper, but it actually tastes good and isn't completely chocked full of sodium. just some sodium. and you have to have some sodium or you will have an electrolyte imbalance. at least that is my excuse to pour salt all over my food. this product is called john soules foods chicken breast for fajitas. it comes in a big plastic bag in your meat section of wal-mart. some wal-marts don't carry it. they are crazy. our currect wal-mart doesn't carry the beef version, only the chicken version. they are both fantastic. and chicken is lower fat. so you can eat more. i always buy the uncooked version, but they do have a pre-cooked version that only requires you to reheat and serve. i am sure it is good too.

dinner is in the bag(HA)!
the finished product:
i used to buy fresh peppers, but they have gotten so darn expensive i have started buying the frozen pre-chopped version. it still tastes good. my secret is to cook the peppers in their own skillet. once they are mostly cooked through, i strain them in a collander. do not rinse with water while they are in the collander. then i put them back in their skillet for a few more minutes. this reduces excess water in the peppers and keeps them crisp. no one wants a mushy fajita. finally, add the peppers to the fajita meat skillet. delicious!
thomas likes to add avocados. he scrapes the innards out of the skin and spreads the innards on his tortilla. place meat and peppers mixture inside, wrap and enjoy! delicious!

2 comments:

Will and Natalie Giddens said...

Yummy! We just had Julia's fajitas on Sunday and they were delish.

Also, if you ever want to try what we do, feel free: We marinate the beef or chicken in Dale's seasoning for about 10 minutes before we cook it. It give the meat such a good flavor! (Plus it comes in a low sodium variety.)

amanda said...

Oh man- I do love a good fajita! mmmmm...
{What was Julie's last name- who we worked with at the bookstore?}