Nopalitos Salad

From Nepalitos Salad

Ok, guys, it's been a couple weeks, but I'm back with a new quick and easy recipe to try. It's another chop 'n' mix type of side dish. I made fajitas again tonight, but wanted something exciting to put on top.

Nopales is the name of a cactus and when you chop them up into tiny pieces, you call them by their cuter name, nopalitos. It has a slimy texture that some might find off-putting, but a quick rinse in a strainer takes care of that. Check the Mexican food aisle at your grocer and I bet you'll find nopalitos in a jar or can.

Here are the ingredients:

From Nepalitos Salad

1 jar of RINSED nopalitos (2.99), 2-3 avocados (1.50), 3 tomatoes , 1 small red onion (0.25), 2 cloves of garlic(0.04), 1 jalapeño (0.05), a cup of cilantro (0.50), and the juice of 1-2 limes (0.16). That's $5.49 for enough salad to put on a few pounds of steak fajitas. Play with the proportions to your taste.

There isn't really much to tell you other than to rinse the nopalitos before you chop all of the ingredients and mix them together. It's like a chunky guacamole with pickled cactus.

From Nepalitos Salad

Cucumber Citrus Cubes

It went from 30 and rainy to 90 and sunny in about 48 hours in Chicago. The drastic change finds me far from acclimated and I wanted something cool and refreshing to drink.

Quick "recipe" today:

Grab one cucumber and one lime. Dice the cucumber (removing the skin) and add it to a container with enough water to cover the cucumber. Blend the cucumber and water with the zest and juice of one lime. Strain it and you're done. Now all you have to do is dilute your concentrated juice into some water. It's a really refreshing flavor to add to tap, mineral, or soda water. You'll have to do this to your own personal taste. I decided to freeze some of my juice into ice cubes for a really hot day in the future.

From Cucumber Lime Water

From Cucumber Lime Water

From Cucumber Lime Water

From Cucumber Lime Water

From Cucumber Lime Water

Thai Soup: Tom Yung Goong

My fiance and I were fortunate enough to get to travel all around the world teaching English for a year. One of the countries we went to was Thailand and while there, I fell in love with a soup called "tom yung goong."

From Tom Yung Goon

It's a hearty coconut based curry soup. Don't leave yet! I don't usually care for coconut. I don't like pina coladas and I hate Mounds, but I love this soup. After a few weeks on a paleo plan, I realized that this soup was completely paleo from beginning to end, so I taught myself how to make it. This is a more involved recipe and takes a little time, making it a perfect weekend project.

Here is what I used:

From Tom Yung Goon

Let's start at 6:00: Cocounut milk (1.09), 1 chicken bouillon cube (0.10), 1 lb of chicken breast (2.99), 10 sprigs of cilantro (0.10), 3 limes, 1 yellow onion (0.60), 1/8 cup of tumeric (0.05), 2 tbs fish sauce (0.10), 1 tbs sesame oil (0.05), lemon grass (0.99), 1/2 a package of button mushrooms(1.15), cauliflower (1.39), and 2 jalapenos (0.17). not pictured: 1 tbs of coconut oil (0.15)

That's a total of 8.93 and I got 4 servings from this batch, so that's a total of about 2.23 per bowl.

This recipe seems really complicated, but it's really just a matter of getting everything in the picture above mixed in a pot and letting it boil for about an hour, so don't be intimidated!

The first thing you'll need to do is chop up the onions. Start simmering those with 1 tbs of coconut oil in a large pot.

From Tom Yung Goon

From Tom Yung Goon

While those sweat, deseed one jalapeno and half of the other. Leave the seeds in half of a jalapeno for some heat. If you don't like spicy food, get rid of all the seeds. Chop those and add them to the pot. Next, chop and add the mushrooms. Finally, throw a tbs of sesame oil on all of that and stir it up. As these release their water, they'll create a little stock for our soup.

From Tom Yung Goon

Next, roughly chop up the cauliflower and add that to the pot. Mix up your pot to make sure there is a little oil on most of the veggies so they don't burn. Make sure the heat is on low.

From Tom Yung Goon

Mix 1 cup of hot water with the chicken bouillon and add that to the pot.

From Tom Yung Goon

(You probably didn't need a picture of that....oh well)

As that comes to a boil, fry up your chicken breast and set it aside to rest.

From Tom Yung Goon

Next, we need to get some flavor from the lemon grass. If you can find fresh lemon grass, just cut it, bruise it (crush it), and add it to the pot. It isn't edible, so make sure you pull it out before serving. If, like me, you have a hard time finding fresh lemon grass, you'll need to buy it dried. I like to boil it in water for a couple minutes to release the flavor. I use an emptied tea bag so I don't have to look for 100 pieces of dried lemon grass in the soup. I used the same pan as the chicken, hence the chicken bits in the water.

From Tom Yung Goon

From Tom Yung Goon

From Tom Yung Goon

Once the water turns yellow, dump all of it into your pot.

Now, stir in a can of cocounut milk and 2 tbs of fish sauce (yes I know it stinks, but it adds necessary flavor). Next, add 1/8 of a cup of tumeric in small amounts, stirring it in as you go so it doesn't clump up. Tumeric will stain anything it touches, so be careful. If you aren't careful, you'll look like you washed your hands with French's mustard.

From Tom Yung Goon

Finally, zest the 3 limes into the soup and mix in the cilantro.

From Tom Yung Goon

It will be about an hour before it's ready. It needs to boil on low heat until the cauliflower is tender. While this batch was boiling, I found a tomato that was about to go bad, so I added that to the mix. I like to make soups towards the end of the week to help use up ingredients that may go bad.

It's been an hour. Here is what your finished product will look like.

From Tom Yung Goon

**When serving, stir in the juice of half of a lime and some fresh cilantro. This last step is the most important as it makes the soup taste fresh and cuts through all of that coconut fat.

This recipe is also made with seafood, so feel free to experiment and get back to me with the results!

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Lime Steak Fajita Wraps, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole

Here is tonight's dinner:

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Hungry? Thought so. Here's what you need:

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Starting at 9 o'clock: 1/2 a red onion (0.30), 8 sprigs of cilantro (0.08), 3 tomatoes (1.81), 1 jalapeño (0.09), 2 limes (0.50), 2 cloves of garlic (0.05), an avocado (0.79), a head of Boston lettuce (0.79), and 2 lbs of skirt steak (7.70) - Total costs and per serving costs are at the end

There is some logic to the order of doing things here, so follow me on this. We'll start with the pico de gallo since it gains flavor as it sits. Pico is a really basic chop and mix recipe. First, slice the tomatoes and squeeze out the seeds and juicy center. Once the juice is gone, chop them up.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Now chop the jalapeño (seed it - check the chili post for how to do this), onions, and cilantro. Use all of the cilantro. The stems have a ton of flavor that most people miss out on. You just need to chop it up well.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Don't mix them yet, just let them sit in a container layered. Next, grate the garlic on top and add a pinch of salt. Here's what you should have:

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Throw your steak on the grill at this point. We had our butcher tenderize the meat twice. It can be tough if you don't. Marinating is also an option - try Mexican beer, squeezed lime juice, squeezed orange juice, chili powder, and cumin. We did that a long time ago and got good results. This time we were in too much of a rush. Make sure your grill is nice and hot so that you can get a nice sear on the meat.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Sprinkle on salt, pepper, and some garlic powder if you like those flavors. While the meat cooks, take your head of Boston lettuce and peel back each layer. Each head of lettuce should yield about a dozen usable wraps. I use Boston lettuce instead of iceberg because it works so much better for wraps. Iceberg tends to tear and retain too much water. Rinse those off and set them aside.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

At this point the steak should be ready to flip and then pull off the grill. Set the steak aside and let it rest for a few minutes. It's important to not cut the meat right away. Cutting too soon lets out all the moisture and the meat will be dry and tough.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Grab your limes and start grating/zesting them.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Only remove the green layer of skin. The white part is too bitter. The two limes should give you a nice line of shavings that would make Tony Montana proud.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Slice the meat and sprinkle the zest on top.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Roll the limes around on the counter applying firm pressure until they're soft then cut them in half. Rolling them around bursts all of the juice pockets in the lime and helps get more juice out of each piece of fruit. Squeeze the juice into your pico de gallo mix and stir.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

The beauty of making pico de gallo is that you're only an avocado away from having guacamole. Take a little less than half of the pico and mash it in with an avocado.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

I looks ugly but tastes so good. All that's left to do is plate it all up. Start with a leaf of boston lettuce, add some meat, and top it off with the pico.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

The total cost of this meal was 12.11. My fiancé and I ate half of it for dinner, meaning we could get 4 meals out of it. My MENSA level math skills tell me that averages out to 3.03 per meal.