Weekend Warrior

As many of you know, I think food is addicted to me. It's okay though, cause I love him right back. I always say, "I want something delicious", when I speak of food. Not all of the time can we afford to splurge and go out. But that doesn't mean we have to suffer at home. And since I was quarantined to my house (due to strep throat), I just had to cook up a storm. P.S. I was no longer contagious or else I wouldn't be touching other people's food. Germs are gross!

Saturday I wanted something refreshing and light. Okay, so I was naughty and went to the market to buy my goodies. We had shrimp and lemons already so we just needed the bell peppers, red onions, avocado, cilantro, etc. Normally I use limes but I wasn't going to fork out more cash than necessary. When making ceviche I find that it is best to buy the mini bell peppers instead of the whole bell peppers. One, they're cheaper, and two, I don't always use the whole bell pepper and it will go to waste. Hey, I was making ceviche on a budget.

I found some really nice steaks on sale so we divided them up and made two separate marinades. One was a tame soy and brown sugar for the kiddies, and we decided to kick it up a notch Emeril style for the adults. I used smoked paprika, red pepper flakes, Worcestershire, onion powder, freshly crushed garlic, a dash of cumin, freshly ground black pepper, and Lawry's meat tenderizer. It came out really nice.

My daughter helped me mix and taste the ceviche while the steaks were marinating. Oh to be seven again. I also got my Food & Wine magazine that day in the mail. On the cover Nina and I saw a simple tomato and bell pepper salsa. You can find the recipe here: fresh-tomato-and-pepper-salsa We figured since we had the ingredients, might as well! I roasted some corn to go along with dinner and threw a little bit in the salsa to blend everything together.

These were our finished products:

Sunday I knew I had to get out of the house. I was stir crazy already after one day. Out of the house for me normally entails visiting familia. This time my mama was the lucky victim. I called to make sure she was going to be home and told her I was bringing dinner. On our trip to the market Saturday we found some inexpensive marinated chicken thighs. I normally like to use chicken breast but this time decided to branch out and try something different. It really worked out well because my enchiladas came out moist and delicious!