22 Cookie Challenge and Bitchen Salads

In prep for a bigger cause I am in need of local guinie pigs.  If you are a cookie lover I need you for taste testing.  Yes. This does include consuming cookies.

I have a particular set of chocolate cookies that I make that make people feel happy.  Nothing in them but love and baking ingredients :)  With that being said I am going to do a little.. well a lot.. of experimenting.  I will be testing 22 new flavors with a surprise add-ins (chocolate chips, fruit, nuts).  As part of my exploration of food this is my next mission. 

Mission:  Make 22 different cookies with different, that make sense, add-ins and or icing/topping. 

This is where you come in.  I will make cookies at least once every week/week and a half.  I will need to hand them out to you guinie pigs and request your feedback and suggestions :) 

With that being said LET ME KNOW! you know how to get a hold.

The second part to this is for every new kind of cookie combo I make I will make a salad to um, er.. counter all that amazing cookieness.  I of course will be taste testing the cookies.. AND salads of course :)

So here's to divine cookie soul searching and rolling bowls of lettuce with in season veggies and smart dressings :)

Eating Check up: Eating like shit lately.
Fix: I am dedicating myself to learning the Asanas of Ashtanga Yoga through traditional Vinyasa Count.  I feel very driven to this.  My yoga experience has pandered across the years.. college was a concentration on the asanas (poses).  No flow.  Home practice was always asanas slow paced.  Then I went to Sumit's Yoga, Vinyasa Power Flow, and had my ass handed to me.  I left that class soaking wet, bendy, tiered, but felt like I could move a friggin building.  After that I was pretty much hooked on the flow.  Sumit's is very fast paced.  If I had know the asanas I would have probably dug the fuck out of it.  SO thats what brings me to this.  My current pactice is home based.  I usually do a flow with asanas at my pace.  I try to hold each asana for 5 breaths.  I like the way my heart races when the flow is added in after each asana is added.  My friend Kim is putting a sequence together for me too and I can't wait!  Second part of the fix is transitioning back to eating better. Sounds stupid with the cookies right? Not if I am giving majority of them away for taste testing?  Finally finding a facet again :)

Ash

Enchilada Fetish

A plate: Three Red Rolled Melty Cheese Enchiladas topped with Shredded Iceberg Lettuce, Sour Cream, and a side of Frijoles, Arroz Rojo and Sopas with honey.

Being born in Albuquerque, a very large part of the culture is food. Amazing food.  Since moving to Arizona I crave a GREAT red chile or green chile sauce.  Not chili gravy (wtf?).  Due to the 464 mile difference, I have had some of the food here.  I have yet to find an amazing green chile sauce out here.  Most versions are diluted tomatillo sauces or washed chile.  I do have to say though, that I have become a rather large red chile fan over the past few years.  My nana would spread it on a piece of toast, eggs, or hashbrowns for breakfast.  Now I can't get enough of red chile.  This brings me to my love affair for the past oohh 3 years?  Pretty much since I met Dustin. Red Chile Sauce.  Phoenix is peppered with little Mexican Food joints that I swear put crack in their red enchilada sauces.  The first time I had a bean and rice burrito enchilada style I was in heaven.  The sauce.  Man. 

Most enchilada styles that I can purchase here in Arizona are super watered down.  Barely coats the corn tortilla and end up dry.  I read somewhere about doing enchiladas with small flour tortillas, I have only ever seen corn tortillas used, I think I will stick to the og.  I have been working with some red chile puree from ABQ Tortilla Company (on 15th ave and Thatcher) to make Chile Colorado Sauce.  The recipe is coming from Bueno Foods Website.  I am hoping that this will be a step closer to the red sauce that has captured my stomach.  I love me some enchiladas.  If I could I probably could have it for dinner ever evening.  It is a combo of all of my favorite things.  Tortilla, Cheese, Beans, Rice, Sour Cream, Iceburg Lettuce..I'm the extra lettuce kid.. :)

I've also gotten into doing my own taco shells.  Corn tortillas heated up in hot oil to cook a bit, take them out and hang them over an edge, I use a square bowl.  Let them cool and load.  Amazing.

Corn Tortilla Chicken Tacos

1/2 to 1 lb  (less or more) Chicken, Turkey, Fish, or Beef 

6-10 Corn Tortillas (less or more)

Oil to Cook Tortillas

Tomato Diced

Shredded Iceburg Lettuce

Onion Diced

Gaucamole

Sour Cream

Shredded Cheese

Green/Red Chile

Cilantro Diced

Seasoning for meat

Cook chicken until well done in spice or marinade of choice, Dustin and I use a chicken fajita from Fresh and Easy.  Once cooked set aside and keep warm.  Next use the oil to cook the corn tortillas.  Let cook to when they start to firm, once starting to get firm set over an edge of something.  Edge of a container, food stand, taco rack you can guy at walmart.  Let cool to form to taco shape.  Once cooled load with chicken and toppings. Enjoy :D

Critical Thinking

I did some soul searching today, well actually a lot over the past year.  The concentration of it has only been the past few weeks.  I look back at my life over the past few years and I feel happy, but indifferent.  I have been graduated for 7 years.  I have my Associates degree, I am working on my Bachelors, and after I want to pursue my Masters.  Not exactly on the time scale I had in mind, but shit everything happens for a reason.  I think I finally realized I need to stop being the fish trying to swim up stream fighting the current and really just go with the fucking flow.  I fight to be heard, to be acknowledged.. maybe all for the wrong reasons.  I have this diluted idea of who I think I am vs. who I really am.  To be honest, the person I think I am sucks.  It is a combo of all of the qualities I think I need and want, yet I am the farthest away from who I am, inside.  My husband is probably the only person that really gets a constant glimpse of who I am, the happy me, and he gets a heavy does of the fucked up one too.  Which sucks.  He's a strong man<3.  I had a long conversation with my Aunt Lynn a week ago.  She said something that stuck. (and made me feel so much better). I feel like I'm in transition. From being a young kid to being a married woman that wants to have babies, watch them grow with my husband, and experience life.  "Those are the signs of a transition. Go with it. Don't fight it."  I'm very good at fighting things like that.  Learning to let go is easier said than done, but why fight it anymore.  I could choose to live my life wound tight as a fuck as the next person that is on the verge of breaking, or I could just let go. I could spend a lot of time evaluating who is this and who that is... but in the end I know I have an amazing husband, a strong as hell family, and some tight friendships.

Time to take a deep breath and jump :)



PS:  I made two crockpots of posole today... pix to follow