California dreaming...

It never fails, about this time of year I start jonesing for California and I begin my meticulous trip itenerary novel.  I'll spend weeks perfecting that thing.  I'm not OCD about it, but I just want it perfect.  I want to do things I've never done there and not miss anything I've planned.  I plan it out by the hour and try not to deviate from my schedule too much but occasionally things come up that are too great to drive past.  I've been to California several times and have never had a trip I didn't adore. Last year, I took my son and we did the trip from LA to Yosemite via interminable hours in Death Valley.  We went by Scotty's Castle out in the big middle of it and saw massive craters and some freaky stuff you can only find in the desert.  He loves California as much as I do, ever since I took him in 2009 and drove the PCH and then last year in the desert.
    My first was my honeymoon with ex-hubby Gary in 2000.  We had originally planned to go to Vegas and stay at the Bellagio, but we rented a car and drove to San Diego just planning to stay a couple of days to check it out.  We ended up staying at the Town & Country hotel for the next few days.  If you have never been to San Diego - go, it's beautiful and the hotel was awesome too.  We walked down to the Geen Flash restaurant and had dinner and it was perfect. The next morning he brought me coffee on the balcony and we sat there wrapped in a comforter, steaming coffe in white mugs, looking at the ocean.  That was a perfect moment in my memories.   
   Another time we went to LA (not Louisiana and not Lower Arkansas Marc!) and he got us tickets to the Dr Phil Show and we were actually on TV! Even better on that trip was when I discovered The Alley in downtown LA.  People, I'm here to tell you, if you love shopping and you LOVE purses and jewelry...that's paradise for you.  I have bought some killer purses there - they may have been knockoffs but they were uber cute! I got a Gucci backpack purse for $10 and I carried that thing till it fell apart and had tons of compliments on it.  I also got a Louis Vuitton bag for $35 and I came home with it and ended up selling it for $75!  Ladies, make a girls' weekend out of it and go there.  It's off of Orange street in the fashion district of downtown LA and I'm not kidding, it's like 5 miles of shopping.  So incredible.
   Traveling with Gary was always an adventure.  Yet another time, we flew into Vegas (it's usually cheaper than flying into LAX) and rented a red Goldwing motorcycle and rode to LA on it.  Nice huh?  No.  He hd 6 mos motorcycle experience and it was July and we had to cross Death Valley on the route to LA.  It was freakin' 125 degrees out there and I thought I was going to have a heatstroke.  We stopped in a little town off the interstate and had lunch and he ordered a Veggie Sandwich.  I don't know if it was that delicious or if we were just worn out, but that was a good sandwich.  After I opened my cake shop, we served lunch and occasionally I'd put that sandwich on the menu and called it "Gary's Veggie Sandwich" alongside a cup of my signature Poblano Corn Chowder.  Yeah, it was good. 
   I avoided giving my recipes (at least complete ones) when I was operating the shop, but since I sold it, I'm giving freely!  Today I'm giving ya'll the Veggie Sandwich and the Poblano Corn Chowder.  While the Veggie Sandwich doesn't really count as a recipe - it's more of an instructional format - it's still good fodder.  It counts in with that low calorie theme from last post too.  Enjoy it!

Gary's Veggie Sandwich
Fresh White Bread (trust me, it's the best)
Mayo, fat free is ok
Havarti or Monterrey Jack cheese slices
Leaf Lettuce  
Tomato sliced thinly
Avocado slices
Radish or Alfalfa sprouts
Spread mayo on bread - both sides -and assemble sandwich using ingredients. Serve with olives and pickles.

Poblano Corn Chowder
1 large poblano pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 md onion, chopped
1/2 t black pepper
2T butter
2T bacon fat
2T flour
2 C milk, heated
2 C low sodium chicken broth, heated
15 oz can cream corn
1 C fresh, frozen or canned whole kernel corn
Salt to taste
Heat butter and bacon fat, add chopped pepper and onion, saute till tender. Add black pepper to mixture and saute a few seconds.  Add flour and cook and stir for 2 mins.  Whisk in milk, stir till thickened.  Add broth and combine well, bring to simmer, add cream corn and whole kernel corn, salt to taste.  Simmer on very low heat for 10 mins.  Top with a dollop of sour cream, sprinkling of grated cheddar, some thinly sliced green onions and even a little crumbled bacon if you like.  Amazing.

The Weight of The Matter...

Ya'll know I'm a southern girl.  Unless you live under a rock, you know some famous southern chefs/cooks and I'll bet almost everyone knows Paula Deen.  Have you ever seen Paula cook diet? Why in the world would she? Low calorie, low fat, light, sugar free, fat free....those are fightin' words for a southerner.  Almost as bad as saying we lost the civil war, which, if you're a good southerner, you know ain't true..the damn Yankee's made that up.  We adore butter, cream, ranch dressing, lard, sugar, liquor and bacon grease. Especially bacon grease.  I'd eat a car bumper if I could dip it in ranch dressing and drizzle it with bacon grease.  Pinto beans are a waste of time if you don't put bacon grease in them.  Why in the name of all things holy would you even bother making cabbage if you don't put bacon grease in it???  So, now you get the picture? I love it.  Apparently I love it too much as of late because a couple friends of mine think I'm fat.  One of them told me "...you are a little hippy" - and she didn't mean the free-loving-tye-dyed-headband-wearing variety, she meant my rear end was bigger than the rest of me.  Then, 3 days later, the other friend told me my "ass was big".  Yes, that was so nice of them.  I spent a full day fussing about it with myself and decided I can either stay mad or I can address the weight issue and deal with that.  I'm all about compromise so I decided to do both.  I'll stay mad WHILE am doing something about it. I'm not staying mad because that gives me fuel to achieve my 25 lb weight loss goal, I'm staying mad because I want to, so there.  I already run 5 miles a week and walk a couple days in between so it's not like I am a couch potato, but maybe I can add another activity to help with the calorie burn.  I talked to a friend of mine this morning about a bicycle and he gave me some pointers about shopping at a pawn shop and I took his advice and went out and bought myself a bike.  It's a Schwinn Breeze (circa 1968) and it's beautiful.  I'm 48, it's 44 and I figure we can huff and puff around together like 2 old ladies.  She'll haul my hippy ass around and I bet she won't complain at all.  In the meantime, I'm re-inventing some old favorite dishes of mine to see if I can help her out by losing weight along the way.  I tested one of my stand by recipes, Smothered Steak and Gravy, and it was just as good as the original and had 1/3 the calories.  I make it with ground beef, not cubed steak because it's better. I made some light mashed potatoes as well and I'll share that next blog.  Enjoy this, but don't get too used to it, I have to have my fat or I act ugly.

Smothered Steak and Gravy

1 pound extra lean ground beef or turkey
1/2 C fresh bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 C finely minced onion (or to your taste)
1/2 t salt
1 t black pepper
1 can fat free cream of mushroom condensed soup
Whisk together condensed soup with 2 cans water, set aside.  Combine beef or turkey, bread crumbs, egg, onion, salt and pepper. Shape into 6 equal sized patties.  Spray large non stick skillet with cooking spray and lightly brown patties on medium high heat on each side, then pour soup over patties. Turn heat down to medium low and simmer 30 mins. Makes 6 servings.  Per Serving:   Calories: 161, Fat:  6 gm

It's all about the Passion...

I am truly inspired by very few foods. Most are pretty common and, while they are wonderful, they don't get me going.  Take onions for example, they are delicious and essential but not awe-inspiring.  Come to think of it, maybe they are cause I have a recipe for a creamy onion soup that is pretty great.  But, back to inspiring...I never know what I'm going to write about until something inspires me.  I woke up yesterday with Passion Fruit on my mind.  I don't know why, maybe it's this early-spring-feeling weather that made me think about it.  All I know is I woke up with the luscious, seductive fragrance of it in my mind.  If you've never tasted Passion Fruit (experienced it is more appropriate) you are sorely lacking in the pleasure arena.  It's a fruit unlike any other you will ever know, an intoxicating melange of aromas, so perfume-y and sweet it's no mystery how it got it's name. 
If you're saying "I don't even know what a Passion Fruit is!" let me put on my professor cap and have Passion Fruit 101 right now: Passion fruit are native to South America but are also grown in California and can be grown in much more northern regions too.  The fruit is egg-shaped with a smaller hollow cavity inside that contains seeds.  The entire fruit is edible once you peel it.  There are basically two types: yellow and purple.  They are similar in structure and flavor (tart..really tart) but the purple is more fragrant and has more juice.  Generally, you would peel the fruit and juice the entire thing or just juice the pulp and save the seeds for garnish.  The seeds are a pretty addition, but the most intense flavors are in the seeds, so just save a few and juice the rest.  You can't find them at Albertsons and most certainly not at Walmart, but Sprouts or Central Market (an absolute mecca for a foodie) will most assuredly have them.  You can buy Passion fruit nectar, but don't, just find the fruit and process it yourself.  I like to make Passion Fruit Curd and use it to flavor cakes, icebox pies, parfaits or ice creams.  It smells exactly like it tastes.  It smells like a combination of grapefruit, strawberry, mango, banana...basically every fruit you can think of rolled into one.  It smells like the most beautiful beach in the world on a sunny day in an adirondack chair with condensating, icy drinks in tall glasses served by tan, smiling, muscular pool boys in tight T shirts and smiles...ooh, am I digressing.  If I could dab it behind my ears I would.
I have 4 recipes I want to share.  Ya'll know if you follow me, I am a pastrychef and occasionally I'll share my secret recipes and you're getting 3 today plus a bitchin' little cocktail recipe.  Who wouldn't love some Passion Fruit Cupcakes and a Passion Fruit Cocktail.  Sugar AND alcohol?  Count me in?!                                                                                   White Chocolate Cupcakes w/ Passion Fruit Curd & Passion Fruit Buttercream
1 white cake mix, any brand
1 sm pkg white chocolate pudding mix
1/2 C sour cream                                                                                       
4 eggs
1/2 C oil
1/2 C milk
Mix all ingredients on medium mixer speed for 2 minutes. Scoop into muffin pans lined with baking cups and bake at 350 for 12-18 mins or till toothpick comes out clean.  Cool completely.  Using a piping bag or squeeze bottle, insert tip of bag/bottle into top of cupcake and squeeze approximately 1 teaspoon of Passion Fruit Curd (recipe below) into each cupcake. Frost with Passion Fruit Buttercream (also below), garnish with a few of the reserved seeds.
Passion Fruit Curd
1 C Passion Fruit puree/juice, unsweetened
1 C sugar
3 eggs
2 T cornstarch
1/2 C unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" pcs
In a large microwave safe bowl, combine all ingredients and cook on high power for 2 minutes, stir. Continue cooking stirring after each minute, until mixture is thickened, about 4 minutes.  Cool completely.  This cans beautifully, by the way or refrigerate till needed.  Keeps 1 month in fridge.
Passion Fruit Buttercream
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 C shortening
2 T Passion Fruit Curd
4 C confectioners sugar
1/2 +/- milk
Cream butter and shortening till fluffy, add Passion Fruit curd and mix well.  Scrape sides of bowl and add 1 C of the sugar.  Continue adding sugar and milk alternately, with mixer on low speed until all is added, then beat on medium speed till fluffy, 3 mins.  Makes enough to frost 1 dozen cupcakes or a small cake.

Passion Fruit Cocktail (makes 1-4, depends on who's drinking)
1 C Passion Fruit juice, sweetened
2 C dry champagne
2 oz Triple Sec or 4 oz orange flavored vodka
Mix all ingredients over ice in a pitcher and serve. Garnish with a lemon peel or raspberry.

A Tribute To All The Loves In My Life...

I usually give ya'll a nice recipe in my ramblings, but today I just want to pay tribute to all the loves in my life.  The people I surround myself with nowadays are the people who, more than ever in my life, mean the most to me.  They are the ones who love me for me.  Even when I don't think I'm lovable, they love me.
We all start out in life, if we're lucky, loving and being loved.  Our parents loved us and sacrificed for us and we (eventually) loved them for all they did for us.  We then go on to form relationships with others and if you're like me, you leave a string of love-casualties in your wake.  You don't mean to, but you inevitably break hearts and leave a trail of pain in the stream of your life's legacy.  I always accepted that I am pitifully deficient in forming relationships and even worse at maintaining them.  I have finally decided at 48 that maybe it wasn't all me and that I can forgive myself for some of my past and learn to enjoy the present.  I have two absolutely wonderful sons, Jeremy and Josh, who love me unconditionally as I do them. They are intelligent, funny and have good hearts - maybe I'm not so bad after all.   My mother, Helen, who has to have thought in all my life that I was FUBAR (look it up) with all the stuff I have done.  My father and grandmother have been long passed away, but they both colored my life in equally important ways.  My grandmother taught me so many things in the kitchen, in the garden and in every other area of my life with her gentle, caring ways.  I have a few close friends that I treasure and love with all I have - they know who they are - and there's my partner.  You have to know that God puts people in your life when you need them most.  If you don't know that, you just need to step back and look around you.  I have dated alot, loved alot and done some things I am hated for, haven't we all?  Love all the people in your life and make sure they know it...every day.
Happy Valentine's Day Ya'll!!!!!

Chocolate...Better Than Sex?

I've had friends say chocolate is better than sex and I always wonder "who have you been having sex with???" (probably my Danish ex-boyfriend).  I enjoy chocolate, I don't know if I would say it's better than a good romp with someone special, but I enjoy it very much.  I've been an accomplished professional baker for years and this is the chocolate cake I made for my customers.  It was my most popular cake.  It's simple and not overly sweet and is so good you don't need ice cream with it.  My two sons, now ages 29 & 22, grew up having this perfect chocolate cake and even as adults they still ask for it.
Texas Chocolate Cake
Oven 350, grease and flour two 8" or 9" round cake pans

• 1 stick butter
• 1 3/4 c sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 t vanilla
• 1 1/2 c milk
• 1 sm pkg instant chocolate pudding mix
• 2 t instant coffee powder
• 1/4 t cinnamon
• 2 1/2 c cake flour
• 6 T  unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t salt
• 8 oz sour cream

Combine dry ingredients, set aside.  Cream butter and sugar till fluffy, add eggs, one at a time, beating well.  Add vanilla, mix well.  Add dry ingredients and milk, alternating until both are incorporated. Mix in sour cream just until streaks no longer appear. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake till toothpick just barely comes clean. Cool completely.
Chocolate Cream Buttercream

• 1 stick butter, room temp
• 1/2 C vegetable shortening (keeps frosting stable)
• 4 C powdered sugar, divided
• 2 t vanilla
• 6-8oz heavy cream
• 6 oz semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled slightly

Cream butter, shortening and 1 C sugar till fluffy, beat in vanilla.  Beat in melted chocolate,  Add another cup sugar slowly and start adding cream alternately with remaining sugar until frosting is stiff enough to spread but not so thick it tears the cake.  Frost cooled cake. Makes enough for two 8 or 9 inch layers and decorations.

Please Kiss Me With That Garlic Breath!

My final, considered judgment is that the hardy bulb [garlic] blesses and ennobles everything it touches - with the possible exception of ice cream and pie.”
Angelo Pellegrini, 'The Unprejudiced Palate' (1948)
I cannot for the life of me imagine a diet devoid of garlic.  How bland and shallow would that be?  I dated a Danish man a couple of years ago and he didn't like anything remotely spicy. That included liking EVERYTHING plain and bland, but again, that's another story.  Anyway, he liked onions but not garlic or hot peppers. I love garlic.  It adds depth and body to food and if it's added in the appropriate vehicle to the dish - it's hard to get too much.  By that I mean roasting or sauteing to mellow the garlic so it's all sweetness and flavor, none of the harshness that may put the lightweights off. 
I've given you my easy, easy Fettucine Alfredo and my fab Italian Chopped Salad recipes and today it's an italian dinners' best friend ----Garlic Bread!!!  It's dripping with butter, garlic and cheese. Stop counting calories and make this dang garlic bread!!
Best Dang Garlic Bread Ever
1 loaf french bread
1 stick salted butter, room temp
2 cloves garlic
2 T grated parmesan cheese
Oven at 375.  Stir butter, garlic and parmesan together till well incorporated.  Slice the french bread into 15 slices with a serrated knife, being careful not to slice all the way through.  Using a small spatula or butter knife, spread the garlic butter equally between the pieces, using all of the butter.  Wrap the bread in foil and bake for 15-20 minutes. 
Tomorrow is the best part....my favorite chocolate cake!!!

Italian Chopped Salad per favore...

I wear and have worn many hats in my life.  In my late teens I was a shallow Doogie Howser and got my degree in commercial art because I wanted to be in the high fashion business then it hit me that that would be next to impossible in Texas.  It might surprise you to know that Texas is not the mecca of fashion.  Oh well, on to a different career.  I never knew that from my art background in art would come an exacting eye for design of a different flavor.  Skip 30 years forward and to the opening of my own Bakery/Cake Studio in Rockwall, Texas.  I opened it as a cakes-only business but it quickly grew to much more.  Pretty soon I was working about 15-20 hours a day catering dinners and doing cooking and decorating classes.  I sold it in 2010 to pursue other interests and to save my poor feet from committing mutiny on me.
As well as being a pastry chef, I'm a southern girl and, admittedly, we aren't known for our affection of overly healthy foods.  Namely salads.  Sure, we eat them, but only because they are the only thing on the table as we're waiting on the fried catfish.  If I make a salad for my customers or for a meal at home, you better know it's gonna be fabulous and fattening.  Why bother if it's not??  I like my salads bite-sized and interesting with lots of mouth-happy textures and ingredients.  Try the salad below and you will no longer endure salad, you'll absolutely CRAVE it!  Enjoy:
Italian Chopped Salad (serves 6-8 as a side)
3 heads romaine, cleaned and chopped into quite small bite-sized pieces
3 scallions, sliced
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped smallish
1 avocado, chopped smallish
6 Slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
Sweet Champagne Viniagrette (1/2 cup each Girards' Champagne  Viniagrette and White Karo, trust me on this)
Combine all ingredients in large bowl.  Be careful not to overdress, serve immediately)

Roses are red...

The poem is said to have been penned by Sir Edmund Spenser in his book The Faerie Queene, published in 1590.  Then in a 1784 book entitled Gammer Gurton's Garland it was changed up and reworded into a cousin of poem we know today:

The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The honey's sweet, and so are you.

Thou are my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

I love Valentine's Day.  I know all the "Love Hum Buggers" think it's just a day for greeting card companies and florists to make money and that's true, they do.  But it's so much more.  It's not necessary to buy a card nor is it necessary to buy/send flowers.  I'd rather have a beautiful hand written note and a dinner made for me than all the flowers and Hallmark you can buy.  I want my partner to make me a dinner that is created and planned and executed from the heart with me in mind.  I like it when I'm fawned over like I'm special and treasured....because I am.
I want a big, buttery, creamy plate of Fettucine Alfredo, thick slabs of dangerously garlicky bread, and my favorite Italian Chopped Salad, some talk-back-to-ya Merlot and a moist chocolate cake with chocolate swiss meringue.  That's what my dream Valentine's dinner would be.  If someone wanted to follow that up with a Heart Tag Toggle Link Necklace from Tiffany & Company, well, I wouldn't object.
Make your someone special this stupidly easy Fettucine Alfredo and they might forget about cards and flowers too:
Easy Fettucine Alfredo
8 oz fettucine noodles, cooked and well-drained
1 pkg cream cheese (8 oz)
1 cup milk
1 stick butter
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 C grated parmesan
To a microwave safe bowl, add cream cheese, milk, butter and garlic powder.  Cook on high power, stirring every 3 mins until cream cheese is melted.  Stir in parmesan and heat again for 1 minute.  Place pasta in large bowl and top with alfredo sauce, serve with extra parmesan on the side.
Tomorrow:  The Italian Chopped Salad recipe ...it's amazing!

It only FEELS like International Falls, MN...

"It snowed 8 feet a day for 6 months a year and in the winter I walked to school barefoot uphill both ways in the snow."  Who hasn't heard that from some centenarian in their family?  It started sleeting early Wednesday morning and it rained ice down for 7 hours and we ended up with 2" of accumulation.  I mean, this is Texas after all, it only feels like Yankee country!  I have to admit when I was very young, I remember having snow yearly.  I remember sitting nest to the window at our old, round oak table early in the mornings before school, looking out the fogged and frosted window to the back yard at the snow covered ground.  I wanted to be in the snow playing, not having oatmeal and going to school.  It was with much trepidation I marched off to school with my main concern being "what if the snow melted before I got home to play in it?!!"
I remember Saturdays playing in the snow until I couldn't feel my fingers and I remember my grandmother sending me out to the picnic table in the back yard to collect snow in a bowl to make Snow Ice Cream.  It was always in that plastic aqua green bowl and when I go back to see my mother I see it in the kitchen and I always taste the snow ice cream it held as well as the popcorn my father made on Sunday afternoons.   I remember the smell of the vanilla she added as she made the ice cream and the sound of the salt granules scratching the sides of the bowl as you scooped up the popcorn with gistening, buttery fingers. It's funny how you objects like that bowl can make you remember your life through food.  My grandmother and father are long passed away but their legacies live on.  I tweaked the snow ice cream recipe a little but it's still very true to my Meme's.
Winter is in full swing and it will be gone all too soon...let's make some Snow Ice Cream!
Meme's Snow Ice Cream
10-12 C fresh. clean loose snow in a large bowl
1 C sugar
1 1/2 C heavy cream or half & half
2 T vanilla
Combine all ingredients with the snow and stir quickly until smooth. Serve immediately.

Peanut Butter in Paradise...

I recently bought some beachfront property in - no, not Arizona - in Belize. Actually on a tiny island off the coast of Belize called Caye Caulker.  I had been a time or two previously and fell in love with it.  Over and over people ask me why I want to live there and how did I find such a tiny spot in the first place.  I really can't tell you how I found it, it's more like it found me.  I wanted to experience living in another culture and be free from the materialistic chains in America, so I did some homework and decided Costa Rica was my #1 choice.  When I shared this information with a close friend of mine he decided he wanted that too.  He's an avid diver and, with less-than-great diving in Costa Rica, he thought Belize would be better. I agreed to give it some thought and did a little homework on the country, looked at real estate ads, looked up some Facebook pages on Belize and kept running across Caye Caulker.  No matter where I looked for information, I kept seeing it and couldn't help being drawn to it.  Sandy streets without pavement, everyone barefoot, no cars.....so I booked a flight and hotel and went for a visit.  I met a man on the plane ride over and ended up spending the day with his wonderful family (that's a great story for another blog) and felt like I may have found my home.  Caye Caulker -pronounced Key) is a small island  3 miles long and 1/2 mile wide with maybe 1100 people and about 25 miles east of Belize City across the ocean, about a 45 minute water taxi ride (Caye Caulker Water Taxi).  It was dusk when I got off the jam packed boat and stepped  on the pier. I had made arrangements with a CC real estate agent (Sara Warner, Remax - Caye Caulker Properties) to take me on a property tour in 3 days but there she was, waiting for me on the dock with her husband and son (Tommy and Egan, respectively).  How nice was that? I took a taxi - a golf cart for $2.50 US to my hotel.  I was paying $40 a night for a beachfront hotel - crazy right??  It wasn't the Hilton (and I don't mean the crappy Rockwall, Tx Hilton either).  It was small, and dark with concrete floors and camp flashback beds (I'm going to tell you where in a sec).  I thought, what have I gotten myself into?  I settled in and went to sit on the front porch.  The local cat came and welcomed me by napping in my lap until I decided to go to bed.  I was hoping tomorrow would be a better surprise than the hotel had been.
When I woke up the next morning and went outside, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was home.  The hotel was perfect after all and I loved it (De Real Macaw - Rob and Jessie).  I walked to breakfast (Amore Y Cafe -Mika) and had the first of many breakfasts there of peanut butter and banana toast with fresh watermelon juice with a cup of the most divine black coffee I have ever had.  Every morning I sat with my chin on the palm of my hand and just melted into a pool of complete happiness and peace.   Some mornings I'd eat at the Espresso Cafe and have Chilaquiles - heavenly scrambled eggs, tomato sauce, onions and fried corn tortillas, and yes, of course, here's the recipe:
Chilaquiles

2 cups oil for frying

1/4 cup chopped onion

30 (6 inch) corn tortillas, torn into strips

6 eggs, lightly beaten

2 teaspoons salt

1 (7.75 ounce) can Mexican style hot tomato sauce

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the oil to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Carefully stir in the onion and tortilla strips. Fry until tortilla strips are crisp and golden brown. Remove from heat, and drain on paper towels. Drain the skillet, leaving only a thin residue of oil.

1. Over medium heat, return tortillas to the skillet, and stir in the eggs. Season with salt. Cook and stir until eggs are firm.
2. Mix Mexican style hot tomato sauce and water into the skillet. Reduce heat, and simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Top with cheese. Continue cooking until cheese has melted.

A Little About Me...

Cake, pie, cookies, pastries, cupcakes, cake balls, creme brulee, flan....the list goes on and on and on and on.....
I love sweet, meltingly decadent treats and desserts.  I love them with the passion I should have dedicated to my past loves - they might not be pasts if I had.  Sweets are like the perfect soul mate. Sure they can pad your hips if you enjoys them a little too much, but they won't complain if your derrierre is a bit on the padded side.  There is nothing about a dessert I don't love.  I grew up in east Texas and learned how to cook and bake from my grandmother.  Many a Saturday afternoon was spent in the kitchen with her as she made Caramel Pie, tacos, gravy, fried chicken, purple hull peas, poke salit and lots of other things.  I most vividly remember the smells as she made the roux for the gravy or caramelized the sugar for the pie.  By the time I was eight I was baking.  The first thing I ever attempted was a recipe I found in the Weekly Reader called Barefoot Sanders Cookies.  Sanders  was a Texas lawyer, legislator and judge in the 60's & 70's and for some reason they published a cookies recipes bearing his name. I didn't know if they were a favorite cookie of his or if someone just did it because of the name but I saw it and thought they'd be good.  They weren't.  Turned out, his mother had made thousands of them, in lieu of campaign buttons I suppose, for his bid for presidency.   As I made them, I didn't know any better and I worked that flour until it was a tough, rubbery mess and the cookies were like shortbread hockey pucks.  My sweet grandmother ate them anyway.  She'd put a slice of bread in the tupperware container to try and soften them then she'd dip them in her coffee and eat them.  It took her a month but she ate them all...all by herself.  No one else even touched them!  I made them years later and decided it was me, not the recipe, that messed up.  Here's the recipe, make them and remember a truly great man.  Bio:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/28/AR2008092802671.html
Barefoot Sanders Cookies
3 eggs                                                                                                                                    
3 sticks butter
1 C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
5 C flour
Mix all ingredients in order, drop by spoonful onto greased cookie sheet.  Use a sugared glass bottom to flatten slightly.  Bake at 350 till lightly browned, about 10 mins.