Qdoba Copycat Queso & Ghoulish Goodies Giveaway

Halloween being my favorite holiday, I thought I’d kick off October with a giveaway. A winner for the totally adorable and doable monster filled cookbook Ghoulish Goodies will be drawn on October 13th.

For your part, leave a comment with your favorite Halloween food or recipe.

This queso sauce/dip won’t be in there though, but it’s an idea I’ve been meaning to tackle for awhile. My family really likes Qdoba’s queso and I wanted to create a copycat. After a few variations I feel this one is pretty close to the real one, but please let me know what you think.

The spooky chips are "Frights Bites Tortilla Chips" from the local grocery store.

Qdoba Copycat Queso
You should be able to find Philadelphia Cooking Creme in the refrigerator section near the cream cheese. Print Recipe

2 poblano peppers
10-ounce container Philadelphia Cooking Creme
8-ounce package Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese
2 medium tomatoes, chopped fine
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 cup minced cilantro
1/4 cup water
Cayenne pepper, to taste

1. Place peppers on a hot grill or under a broiler. Blacken the skins on all sides. Place them in a paper bag and roll top down to seal. Set aside until cool to touch, about 30 minutes. Peel off skins and discard seeds and stems. Chop peppers very fine.

2. Add chopped peppers, cooking creme, cheese, tomatoes, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and paprika to a medium size pot and stir over low heat until cheese is melted.

3. Add the cilantro, water and cayenne pepper and stir for another minute or so until it thickens to preference.

4. Turn off heat and serve immediately as a dip or sauce.

Recipe & photograph by Laura Flowers.

Sweet and Salty Stovetop Popcorn

At very long last (at least in my mind), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows opens tonight! I’ve been waiting forever for this day and it’s finally here.

Distracted all week with anticipation, I filled the big black void by avoiding work, making my own popcorn and watching the last couple Harry Potter’s on DVD. My single consolation? The popcorn is a whole lot tastier at home.

It’s 4 a.m. Can I get in the ticket line now? No? How about now? Do you think I'll get arrested if I break into the theater and play my own movie?

This is agonizing. How am I going to get through the day like this? Breakfast popcorn anyone?

Sweet and Salty Stovetop Popcorn
Printer Version
Kettle style popcorn pops right on your stove.

3 tablespoons extra light olive oil or vegetable oil
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
3 tablespoons vanilla flavoring syrup
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

Warm oil over medium high heat in a heavy 4 quart pot with a handle for one minute. Stir in popcorn kernels and give the pan a shake to spread them out. Loosely cover the pot with a lid so some of the heat can escape.

When the first pops begin secure the lid and move the pot back and forth gently until the popping slows. Turn off the heat and move the popcorn to a bowl.

Place the vanilla syrup, butter, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Boil for two minutes stirring constantly. Drizzle mixture over popcorn and toss to combine.

Total time 10 minutes.

Recipe & photographs by Laura Flowers.

Tapenade with Grilled Scooping Devices

There are 5.43 pounds of olives in my refrigerator I can somehow correlate to an impromptu Costco trip. Why the heck I thought buying so many olives was a good idea is beyond me, but maybe I’ll live off tapenade for the next month.

If a person turns orange from eating too many carrots, can one turn purple from too many olives?

Tapenade
I could live off this stuff! Oh wait, I am.

2 to 3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 ½ cups pitted kalamata olives
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained
1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil from the kalamata olive jar or extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste

Mince garlic in a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until olives are finely chopped. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

Tapenade Scooping Devices
Oooo I love carby scooping devices.

Any good quality French type bread, sliced
Olive oil

Turn grill to high. Lightly brush sliced bread on one side with olive oil. Place oil side down and grill until toasted. Move to a serving plate and top with luscious tapenade. Shovel into mouth before someone insists you share.

Recipe & photograph by Laura Flowers.

Printer Version Here

Holy Moly Chunky Guacamole. It’s the Pits!

What to do with a Costco bag of avocados? In my case, I run to the chip isle and buy a big bag of pita chips and head home to make this incredible chunky guacamole.

My Dad taught me a few years ago if you stick the pits in the finished guacamole it turns super yummy. I have no idea how this happens, but it does. Like magic. Cooking is magic, even when you don’t touch the stove.

I skipped over my blogiversary last month, but decided to celebrate late by adding a new Friday post series called, “Clara’s Cold Lunch Corner”. I’ll be addressing the daily happenings with my daughter’s school lunches until either you, or I, get bored.

Clara’s lunch tends to change a great deal and I thought it would be fun to open up discussion. I’ll be conversing about food, ideas, products, packaging, helpful links, and super cute lunch boxes! It would be nice if we could give each other ideas and tips during these posts too.

They’ll be a little giveaway to kick things off Friday, so please check back soon.

Holy Moly Chunky Guacamole
Ingredients
5 ripe avocados (1 Costco bag)
1 lime, juiced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon Kirkland Seasoning Salt (from Costco) <-Good Stuff!

1 smallish onion, diced

2 to 3 Roma tomatoes

2 to 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro, or to taste

1 clove garlic, minced well

Lots of freshly cracked pepper to taste

Instructions
1. Halve, peel and remove pits from avocados. Save three of the pits. Place avocados in a large bowl with lime juice and mash with a potato masher or fork until creamy with lots of small chunks.

2. Dice the tomatoes, then scoop some up in your hands and squeeze juice out over the sink. Place squeezed tomatoes with the avocados; repeat with the rest of the diced tomatoes.

3. Place the rest of the ingredients in the bowl and gently stir to combine. Tuck the three pits into the guacamole covering them completely. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set at room temperature for one hour before serving.

Recipe by Laura Flowers with ideas & methods from Dad (Tim) Komberec. Picture by Laura Flowers.

Ants on a Log & Selfish Thoughts

I spent the day peacefully alone in my kitchen from the time my family left this morning until dinner was placed on the table. I baked loaves of bread, a pan of rolls, and slowly made an old fashioned strawberry cream pie from a favorite book. I prepared an inexpensive, yet fantastic split pea and bacon soup, packed Clara’s lunch for tomorrow, and quickly threw together these peanut butter celery sticks for an after school snack.

When I’m by myself in the kitchen my mind wanders all over the place. Most of my thoughts involve food and society typically. Or more selfish things, like wondering if I’m throwing away a creative paying career while I work on my full time mom and wife skills.

Finally sick of thinking to myself (or perhaps about myself), I turned on the television for some company. Sandra Lee popped on, making rolls of sorts with store bought pizza dough. I didn’t even realize I could buy pizza dough like that! I’ve always made it at home.

Sandra Lee got me thinking. Is all I do really necessary? Would it be so wrong if I added stuff together from the store to make dinner? I do think Sandra has some neat ideas. After watching her for awhile I realized that for me, using a product for fun occasionally is fine, but it doesn’t help me reach my long term goals.

I want my daughter to deeply understand that bread, pizza, rolls, pies, and meals come from a family kitchen, not just from a store or restaurant. I want her to learn that baking and cooking from scratch is fun, easy and better for her in the long run. I want her to know what food is and what it is not, and to be able to appreciate something as simple as celery with peanut butter and a few raisins.

So I guess I’ll keep plugging away, although I seem to be going at a much slower pace than the rest of the world. My job here isn’t finished and I better get my backside in gear. Maybe I’ll still have time to work on that exciting career later on.

Ants on a Log
I’ll take a couple of these over scary looking dyed "yogurt" sticks any day!

Celery
Peanut Butter
Some raisins

Clean, dry and slice the celery into 3 or 4 inch pieces. Use a tip 1A and attach to a disposable pastry bag. Fill with some peanut butter and pipe onto the celery using a figure eight motion, first push back slightly, then forward a half inch, then back again a bit, and repeat until the pattern is completed on the celery. Repeat with remaining celery sticks and top with raisins.

Recipe by every parent who’s ever had a peanut butter loving child. Picture by Laura Flowers.

Vegetarian Style Chicken Snack Wraps

I love McDonald’s Snack Wraps. They’re a guilty pleasure of mine. Not for a snack, they’re a bit much for that, but for lunch occasionally. However, I don’t like the way they make me feel when I eat them. Like a heavy, greasy, unhealthy bomb in my stomach.

So now I make a cleaned up vegetarian version at home. These probably still aren’t the healthiest things, but I love them anyway. They don’t make me feel gross and have more flavor then the McDonald’s version.

Vegetarian Style Chicken Snack Wraps
I’m not certain vegetarian chicken patties qualify as real food, but they're pretty darn tasty! I far prefer them to real chicken patties.

1 box MorningStar Farms Chik Patties Original
4 Mission Multi-Grain Flour Tortillas, Medium Soft Taco
Fresh baby Spinach
Onion, thinly sliced
Bleu Cheese, Ranch, or Honey Mustard dressing (My favorite is bleu cheese, Jesse's is ranch)
Freshly cracked pepper

1. Cook Chik Patties according to package directions. Oven method works best, and use convection if you have it for crispier breading.

2. Place the tortillas on a plate and cover with a paper towel. Microwave on high until warm. About 30 to 45 seconds.

3. Slice the chicken patties into strips. Arrange one patty's worth of strips on a tortilla and add spinach, onion, a drizzle of your preferred dressing, and some pepper. Fold the bottom upward so the stuffing doesn’t come out. Then roll into burrito shape. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

Makes 4 snack wraps.

Recipe & photograph by Laura Flowers.

Tomatillo Salsa, Tomatillo Grenades, and Dodging Kamikaze Yellow Jackets

My friend Julie and her family are coming to pizza night this evening and I was looking through the freezer for pizza ideas. I spotted her frozen container of exploding tomatillo salsa and suddenly burst out into a peal of giggles. I had almost forgotten the crazy day we made that stuff.

About a month ago Julie had the brilliant idea of making her delicious salsa with me. Our daughters were back in school and we were ready to play in the kitchen together. Expecting a fun quiet day of play and talk, we had no idea we’d be racing around town in our aprons. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

After washing the sticky film off a million tomatillos we head out to her grill to begin cooking. Well evidently, two intelligent females are not capable of getting a BBQ started. Aprons on, we walk next door to her parents house and attempt to use their grill.

Trying to be courteous, I gently move the grill away from the house to prevent the fire truck from visiting. Next time I won’t worry about a fire, because out dropped a yellow jacket nest with very angry inhabitants instead! So inside we go. Julie runs out bravely with some bug spray and shoots towards the nest. With yellow jackets dying everywhere the ones previously flying around turn and face the glass door. Yellow Jackets evidently turn into kamikaze pilots when their brothers die in the heat of battle, by furiously throwing their bodies against the glass in an angry protest to our mass killing.

With 35 minutes to spare before I needed to bike back and pick up my daughter from school, we run full speed with our aprons on and Julie’s 4-year-old-who-needs-a-nap in tow. Jumping in her car with a bowl of uncooked tomatillos we race across town to my house. Ahh finally! Grill on, tomatillos on, we can do this. Yeah right! I open the lid and the tomatillos begin to explode! These things are dangerous little grenades that spew hot liquid all over their victims. Of course this is when Julie’s 4-year-old-who-needs-a-nap wants to hang out right by the grill. We pull him out of the battle zone and I proceed to take the rest of the grenades off and somehow save my flesh at the same time.

Aprons still on, we rush back to her house and I jump on my bike and race to the school. Grabbing my 7-year-old-who-needs-a-nap we ride back to Julie’s house and finish the salsa. This time everything went well, and I have tomatillo salsa to laugh at and use in fall soup.

I would recommend that you roast or boil them according to this recipe from Simply Recipes if you don’t want little grenades, but then again that wouldn’t be nearly as exciting or dangerous.

Ingredients
1 1/2 lb tomatillos
1/2 cup chopped white onion
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon sugar
2 Jalapeño peppers OR 2 Serrano peppers, stemmed, seeded and chopped
Salt to taste

Instructions

Remove papery husks from tomatillos and rinse well.

Roasting method Cut in half and place cut side down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Place under a broiler for about 5-7 minutes to lightly blacken the skin.

Boiling method Place tomatillos in a saucepan, cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove tomatillos with a slotted spoon.

Place tomatillos, lime juice, onions, cilantro, chili peppers, and sugar in a food processor (or blender) and pulse until all ingredients are finely chopped and mixed. Season to taste with salt. Cool in refrigerator.

Makes 3 cups.

Recipe from Simply Recipes. Picture by Laura Flowers.

Smoky Cheddar Jalapeno Poppers with Enemy Cheese

A friend of ours had some extra Washington State University Smoky Cheddar so we put it to good use. Being an alma mater of an arch enemy rival school, I might be attacked by Idaho Vandals for my disloyal ways. In spite of this risk I must tell you, if you’ve never had their cheese before you should! WSU’s Cougar Gold is a favorite of mine, and they have several other award winning cheeses. You can order off their site until the warm summer months when cheese can’t be shipped. http://www.wsu.edu/creamery/

1 LB jalapenos (About 16 medium sized ones)
1 cup smoky cheddar, shredded
1 cup sharp white cheddar
1 (8oz) package Cream Cheese
1/4th teaspoon onion powder
1/4th teaspoon salt
Cracked black pepper to taste
1 egg
1 Tablespoon milk
1 cup flour salt & pepper to season
2 cups finely ground dry breadcrumbs
Oil for frying

Directions:
1. Cut the tops off the jalapenos and discard the tops. Cut in half and scrape out seeds and membranes. If you want hotter poppers leave some membrane intact. Pair jalapenos together so you don’t lose track of them.

2. In a medium sized bowl mix the cream cheese, smoky cheddar, onion powder, salt & pepper together with a fork.

3. With a butter knife fill each jalapeno half with cheese mixture. Press the halves back together and scrape off excess cheese.

4. Freeze for 15 minutes. In the meantime heat oil to 360 degrees. Prep the breading station with three bowls. One for the flour, one for the egg and milk and whisk with a fork, and one for the bread crumbs.

5. Dip stuffed jalapenos into the milk, then into the flour especially where the cheese is exposed. Then dip into the milk again and roll well in bread crumbs.

6. Gently drop each jalapeño into the hot oil by holding on end and touching the surface of the oil with the other end. Gently let go and let slide into the oil. Fry about 4 at a time and remove when deep golden brown and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt while still hot.

7. Wait a few minutes before inhaling so you don’t burn your mouth with molten cheese. Dip in ranch dressing if desired.

Recipe by Laura Flowers