One Potato, Two Potato....

Three potato... MORE!!!   Slice, rinse, rinse, rinse, dry, shallow fry... OH MY!!   I sprinkled one batch with salt & onion powder those were gone in seconds!

I'm the Only Girl In the World...

... is what my mother said. "You are the only girl in the world that can be sweetened up with jalapeno peppers!" She might be right. They do make me happy! I was grumpy this morning & don't mind admitting it, so Hubby went shopping and returned with this big beautiful bag of peppers. A rose, no thanks, just give me a stinking rose (garlic) and some peppers! ♥♥♥

I made these peppers last week and they were devoured in abouth 48 hours. Not exaggerating. (I'm not the only pepperhead around here ) I will admit I probably ate 1/2 of them. I hope you make some. They aren't as hot as you might think! After slicing I put them in a big bowl of cold water, which rinsed them and removed a lot of the seeds but I did not try to remove the seeds when packing them.

20 large Jalapenos
6 large cloves of Garlic

Thinly sliced not chopped

3 TBS sugar & 5 TBS of White Vinegar

5 Cups of boiling salty water ( 5 C water + 3 TBS salt)

And the clock starts ticking...

A Real Hottie

If you are a regular visitor, family or friend, you know how much I love hot food & salsa! I love Chipotle, a chain of gourmet burrito shops. When I was working, in the corporate cubicle, if I would to able to get out for lunch, my likely destination was usually Chipotle. I can't finish an entire burrito bowl, which is what I normally order, that's because I'm too busy scarfing up the chips & salsa. Now that I work from home, almost a recluse, I hardly ever get to go. Recently my Hubby took me there and boy was it soooo good. This time I paid attention and deconstructed the salsa best I could. I decided I'd give it a try at home. OMgosh. I think I've got it or I've got it just as good or better! I literally made a bucket of it! I'm so addicted. I'll be putting it on everything now! I started by putting a bag of dried Arbol peppers into 3 cups of water. I boiled them for about 15 minutes. I put 20 El Mexicano Tomatillos in the blender with 3 cloves of garlic & 1 C - very loosely packed of Arbol peppers , 1/2 cup of tomatillo liquid and approx 1 tsp salt. I pureed until smooth. It's so easy & so delicious! I'm pretty jazzed that it tastes almost identical to Chipotle's hot salsa. Again, the simplest recipes seem to be the best! Now if only I could figure out Panda Express Gourmet Chinese Food's recipe for eggplant & tofu! ....

Pizza On The Patio...

... Mama Mia! That's what I thought when I took a big bite of this grilled pizza I made yesterday for a summer dinner on the patio. We were all in the mood for pizza but didn't want to get take-out & didn't want to turn the oven on, so I decided I would try to grill one on the bbq. I have never tried it. I love youtube. I found this video by UrbanGriller on how to grill a pizza on a gas grill. He made it look so simple and he's right, it was!

I happened to have 3 cans too (one was from the tomatoes) so I was set. I made my own dough. I've been making bread so long that I don't need a recipe for that. I eye-ball everything so I can't give you a recipe for it, but it's a basic yeast bread recipe. I buy yeast in the bulk section of the grocery store instead of those packets. The UrbanGriller used a box of dough mix and that looks like it works out great in the food processor, less mess than my way. To make the sauce I used a can of whole tomatoes, the tomatoes only, and I added a tsp of coursely ground fennel, salt & pepper. His recipe of just tomatoes & garlic was just too plain for me & my spicy family, but I tried it before adding the fennel. My favorite pizza is a plain cheese or Margarita pizza, tomatoes, cheese & basil. Honestly I will eat most any pizza, even anchovies, but if it has more than 3 toppings I don't really enjoy it as much, I like it simple. I used a long pan and made 1/2 of it Margarita and the other 1/2 pepperoni. I took heed to what UrbanGriller said about the pineapple, so I seeded the fresh tomatoes w/o squashing them, salted a little & let them sit in a collander to lose some of their juice while I made the dough & sauce. The fresh basil from pots around my patio came in handy. I made 2 pizzas. The first one was left on the pan the entire cook time, about 13 minutes. It didn't brown as much as I wished it did on the bottom, so while cooking the 2nd pizza I gingerly slid it off of the pan & let it crisp up directly on the grill for the last few minutes.We have a big bbq with 5 burners so by the time the last pizza was ready to go on the grill temp was about 600 degrees. It didn't take long for that one to bubble & brown. So yummy. Next time I will wait until it's that hot again, but it did work well like he said at about 350-400 degrees.

You should have seen the happiness on my son's face when we opened the grill to have our first peeks at it! With a huge smile he says with excitement "Get your camera Mom!" hahaha The guys say it was so good that they don't want to order pizza anymore. Even though that means I'll be doing the cooking, I think I have to agree. I'm keeping those cans for next time and I'm going to buy me some pizza pans! I may have to have a summer patio pizza party to experiment will lots of sauces & toppings! Want to come over for a slice?! I'd love to see what your favorite toppings are! A Big Shout Out goes to ChocolateDogStudio for including my art in her Etsy Treasury! Thanks so much! Also to Be In Style Fashion for the Style Award for my Sometimes Things are Just Black & White Blog! Thanks so much!

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