Daring Cooks: A lesson in epic fail

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Foodhave chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

My second daring cooks challenge did not come out like it was supposed to. Unfortunately, it was all my fault. I thought I was better than I am. I thought I had developed magical dough handling skills over night. Alas, it was not so. The recipe had plenty of things I'd never done before: roasting chile's (I used jalapenos. Why? Cuz they were both green and I didn't see anaheim chile's when I was shopping) and working with tomatillo's. But that wasn't enough for me, I decided I needed to make my own corn tortillas. And that's where it all went wrong. My tortilla's came out horribly! They were hard, too thick, and it took me almost 20 minutes to do each one. I ended up only making six tortilla's and then I fried them and made green chile and grilled chicken tostadas.

We ended up using the rest of the chicken and sauce in other recipes throughout the week. I can't wait for next months challenge because I need to redeem myself. Look at that pitiful picture, I'm ashamed.

Daring Cooks

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

This is my first time participating in The Daring Kitchen and I had doubts that I would like the recipe. I'm glad I was wrong! She posted two recipes and we could choose which one we wanted to do. I chose the easiest recipe and ran into a problem I frequently encounter when cooking: I'm lazy, forgetful, and I don't read thoroughly. I'm going to post her recipe, and (what I used in place of the real ingredients).

2 ½ lb TOTAL diced stewed chicken, turkey, and ham, with broth - yes, all three meats (I cut up 2 chicken thighs and a turkey wing. I don't know how to buy ham, so I left it out)

3 medium diced potatoes (I used 3 red potatoes)

2 medium ripe crushed tomatoes (1 large can of crushed tomatoes)

2 medium diced onions (I only used one)

3 cups/ 689.76 grams / 24.228oz frozen corn (1 cup of frozen corn)

1 ½ cups / 344.88 grams / 12.114oz frozen lima beans (Lima beans are the devils candy, so I omitted them)

4-5 strips crumbled bacon (2 strips because I burnt the third one)

½ stick / 4 tablespoons / ¼ cup / 56.94 grams / 2oz of butter (wait, I think I used the full amount of butter)

1 Tablespoon / 14.235 grams / .5 oz sugar (1 teaspoon)

1 Tablespoon / 14.235 grams / .5 oz ‘Poultry Seasoning’ (Didn't have any, probably added something random)

Dash of red pepper (yep)

2 diced carrots (optional) (yep)

Tomato juice (chicken broth)

I cut up the chicken thigh and chicken wing and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I cooked it in the pot.

Once it was cooked I added the can of crushed tomatoes and all the other ingredients. I let it cook until the carrots and potatoes were tender. I guess about 20-30 minutes. I added in some chicken broth because it looked a little thick.

I served it with some drop biscuits, but it would probably taste excellent with corn bread.

That's the end of my first month as a member of The Daring Kitchen :)

{I have a post scheduled for tomorrow too. Goo me!}