Second Friday Fiesta!

This Second Friday was a definite success! Every thing we made turned out perfectly, and we are so excited to share it with you!


First we'll show you the Salsa!

So here's Alixx - salsa making champ! She's eyeing that big can of crushed tomatoes, wondering if the can opener is going to get the job done. 

You'll want to peel and mince some garlic.  We used 4-5 cloves, but that's because we love garlic.

Garlic! Doesn't look like much, but that's because we added two cloves at the end.

Chop up half an onion, finely chop or chunk it. All depends on what you like! 
(Note the exclusion of Alixx's face, she was weeping)

Before you move on to the tomatoes, chop up the green onion and add that. 

Then open up the can crushed tomatoes - we ended up using the entire giant can. 

Some fresh tomatoes is a must to tone down the slight "can" taste the crushed tomatoes gives off. We used two!

Mix that all up. Then add salt, pepper, and lemon juice. 

Finely chop cilantro, and add to the salsa.  Cilantro is another thing we love. 

It is a darn good thing this is a tradition between two friends. Kelsey was there to taste-test every now and then. 

YUM! 

What a good start to our Fiesta!

Next up - Chicken Tortilla Soup!

We have here three chicken breasts, and the spice mix made up of 1-1/2 teaspoons of cumin, 1 teaspoon of chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. 

Oil those babies up - nothin' better than oily breasts. Chicken breasts that is. 

Mix up the four spices, and use half of it to season the chicken breasts. 

Sprinkle!

Flip to the other side and make sure both sides are well oiled and seasoned.

Let the chicken cook in an oven that's set to 375 for 20-25 minutes

Let the chicken cool for a few minutes, then use two forks to shred it all up.

Now to beginnings of the actual soup! This is about 1-1/2 cups of chopped onion, and 1/4 cups each of yellow & red bell pepper, and 3 cloves of minced garlic.  Saute on medium-high heat in a little bit of oil.  Allow the onion to sweat out a little, and get some color on all the veggies.

Cooking up the veggies

Now add in the rest of the spice mix. This is when things started to smell heavenly.

After the veggies have a chance to soak up all the spices, add in the shredded chicken.

Dump in one can of Rotel. Yum!

Now *glug* in a box (32 oz.) of chicken broth.  

Make sure to keep the heat up to allow things to come to a boil.

Add in  3 Tablespoons of tomato paste.

4 cups of water goes in...

2 cans of black beans.   Glorious black beans. 

Bring this up to a good boil, then reduce to a simmer,  and let it do just that for 45 minutes. 

45 minutes later, take 3 Tablespoons of corn meal...

And add a small amount of water to it to create a paste.

Add this to the soup.

After the corn meal is added, let the soup simmer for another 30 minutes. This is going to make it thick and glorious. 

Cut 5 corn tortillas into strips. 

Add those to the soup, and it is basically done! Garnishes are the only thing needed - we had sour cream, cheese, and fried corn tortillas strips! 

Now for - Fajitas!

Slicing up the veggies for the fajitas!  
We used the rest of the bell peppers and one onion.

Slide those suckers right into a hot pan with a little bit of oil. Go ahead and add a tad of the Ponzu sauce to them while they're cooking.
Don't let them get mushy, a nice bite is wanted.

While things are happening in the other pan, we started on our side dish - a simple Mexican rice. That cooked up for about 20 minutes, giving us time to finish everything else.

After the veggies are done, move them to a dish, and start the chicken.  The chicken was cut up and marinated for a couple of hours in the yummy Ponzu sauce.

 

Put the chicken into the dish with the veggies, then move on...

Next cook the steak that had also been marinated in the Ponzu sauce.  The original recipe from Pioneer Woman says to grill it, which is a great option.  But we decided to just cook it in our handy, all-ready-hot-pan. 

Then slice up the steak into nice, thin slices. 

Yum. 

Ahh beautifully pink steak.  

And here's the final plate! 
It was so good... Everything had a TON of flavor. Alixx was able to get some giant, authentic tortillas for us. Delicious! 

 Our table!

Us digging in! 

But that wasn't the end... Fried Ice Cream!

Start with a cookie sheet lined with wax paper... 

Then get the ice cream. It should be scoop-able, but not completely mush since the next step has to be done.   

"I feel dirty." And that is the truth.  

Form ice cream balls to any size you want, really. We did tennis ball size. They'll start to melt instantly, so work fast! 

After you get the ice cream balls into the freezer (they'll need to be in there for about an hour), prepare the crust.

5 cups corn flakes, 1 cup flaked coconut, and 1 Tablespoon cinnamon. 

Go ahead and get in there. Crush the corn flakes and mix everything up.

Whip up 2 whole eggs and 1 Tablespoon of milk. Wait to do this step till the ice cream balls are ready to be coated.

After the first hour, take the ice cream balls out one at a time. We found that taking them out one at a time worked best to avoid them all turning into liquid ice cream.  But the ice cream ball into the corn flake mixture. 

Then into the egg/milk mixture. 

Then back into the corn flake mixture, making sure it's completely coated.  

Then put them back in the freezer for at least another hour.  We had ours in there for a while since we made them before starting dinner. 

Once dinner is done, heat enough oil up to cover at least half of the ball.
Put them in the oil one at a time, but only for a couple of seconds! You don't want the ice cream to start melting a making a mess. Around 2-3 seconds per side.

Quickly garnish them with whipped topping and strawberries, then enjoy! These were out of this world.


Luckily, the awesome food didn't stop that night. Here's what we had for breakfast!
Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

 Please make these as soon as possible.

All a part of this nutritious breakfast!

So there you have it... Our Second Friday Fiesta. 
Such a fantastic night with good friends and awesome food! Click back to out older posts for links to all of our recipes. And please tell your friends about us! 


Also, please stay tuned for an announcement for November Second Friday!! It's going to be wonderful, especially for those that have Liked us on Facebook. Stay tuned!