Just Call Me the Pita Master!

Not only do I have the recipe fully memorized (3 cups + a scant 1/4 cup flour, 2 tsp. yeast, 2tsp. salt, 2 Tbs. olive oil, and 1 1/4 cup water, kneed for 10 min, let rise in the fridge for 3-4 hours...), but I have also developed amazing pita forming technique, and have pulled together an awesome pita assembly line!  I also apparently have no shortage of hungry tummies to find my pitas a home.  Rudy would eat these all day if he could (darn those 5 a day rules!!!), Natalie finds them sooooo soft, and my new, 7-year-old friend Haley couldn't say anything at all because her mouth was always full!  So even though I may be a one trick pony right now, I am damn good at that one trick!!!

So from here on out, please do not call me Lauren.  Simply address me as Pita Master.

The Golden Spatula

Every semester, Nimitz teachers get together to develop units during their time off.  This little get together lasts a solid week.  This does a few things:  gets me prepared for the upcoming semester, lets me make all of my first day of school copies, and I get to gain about 10 pounds from eating all the tasty homemade treats my colleagues bring in to share.  In addition to sharing our treats, there is a competition for the best of the best treats.  This coveted award is known as the Golden Spatula Award.  I want it.  Bad.

This time around, I am not going to hold back.  None of this healthy crap that never gets me anywhere.  I am going to bust out my secret weapon:  malasadas.  Oh those poor unsuspecting teachers!  They will never know what hit them after tomorrow morning!!!  I plan on showing the other competitors no mercy.  I'm not even waiting for the official sign up before I spring these on them.  My devious plan must work!  It must! 

Unfortunately, I must also wait until Thursday to find out if I win.  I can be patient...

A pile of 72 delectable delights!

It's All Greek To Me!

Tonight, we're having Greek food!  Well, what I consider Greek food.  From what I can remember Greek food tasting like.  On the menu:  marinated chicken, a quick salad, minted bulger, and, or course, pita and hummus.  Oh!  All this with a side of wine!

Greek Chicken

1 lb. chicken breast
1 lemon
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Pepper

1. Slice the chicken into 1/2 inch strips across the breast.  Place the pieces in a large plastic bag.
2. Into the same bag as the chicken, add the juice from the lemon, olive oil, minced garlic, oregano, the salt and pepper. Seal up the bag, squeezing out all the air, and squish the chicken and marinade around to mix it.
3. Let the chicken marinade in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, place the chicken and all of the marinade in a skillet heated over medium-high.  
5. Cook the chicken until in starts to brown a bit on the sides and the marinade is reduced by at least half.

Quick Greek Salad

1 cucumber
1/2 large red onion
12 cherry tomatoes
2 oz. feta cheese
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt
Pepper

1. Peel and chop the the cucumber into 1/4 inch cubes and place into a bowl.  Cut the red onion into similar sized pieces and add them to the cucumbers.
2. Cut the tomatoes in half and add them to the cucumbers and onion.
3. Crumble the feta cheese over the veggies.  Add the oil and stir the mixture together.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

2 cups canned garbanzo beans (also knows as chickpeas)
6 strips of roasted red bell pepper stored in oil
1/4 cup oil from the red bell peppers
2 cloves of garlic
Juice from a lemon
1 tsp. cumin 
Salt
Pepper

1. Drain the garbanzo beans, saving the liquor from the can.  Add the drained garbanzo beans to the food processor.
2. Add the bell pepper strips, oil, garlic cloves, and lemon juice to the food processor.  Blend all these ingredients together.  Add some of the garbanzo bean liquor to the mixture to make it smoother in consistancy.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Rebel With A Pita

I was flipping through my Bread Bible a few days ago and found a recipe for pita bread.  The recipe even promised that my pitas would come with a convenient pocket!  I decided I needed to try this out and see if I could successfully make not just a pita, but a pita with a pocket.  I was excited, and a bit scared.

The final products.

I was a bit confused at first about how much rise time was needed to make these pita-pockets.  I found several options listed, ranging from 1 hour to 3 FREAKING DAYS!!!  Every time I found the words "letting the dough rise" there was a different set of numbers.  So me, being the patient person I am, decided that after 4 hours of letting the dough rise in the fridge I couldn't take it any more!  I was not going to wait 3 days to have my perfect pitas.  The idea of those yummy pita pockets consumed be and I succumbed to my impatience and plowed on ahead with the recipe.

The pita rounds before I roll them out flat as a pancake.

If that doesn't sound impatient enough, I even said, "Screw it!" when the recipe told me to preheat my oven for at least an hour before baking.  I fortunately read ALL of the directions (not something I can say for most of my students, unfortunately...) and found an alternative method of cooking up the pitas that was much quicker:  cooking them in a frying pan on the stove.

Again, the directions were a bit confusing when it came to cooking these babies up.  I was instructed to oil the pan, place the pita round in the pan for 20 seconds (What can I say?  It's very precise.), then flip the pita and let it cook for a minute.  Then I was to flip the pita again, letting it puff up.  The "puffing" process should take about a minute.  But the confusing part was when the directions stated this whole process should take close to THREE minutes.  Um, no.  According to my calculations, it takes closer to TWO minutes.  What was I supposed to do with those extra 40 seconds???  I decided to let them brown a little bit, even though the directions told me not to.  I'm such a rebel.

The last 40 seconds...

All in all, the pitas turned out great!  They really did have a pocket (it's so cute!), and I'm really looking forward to all the tuna sandwiches I'm going to be making this week!  To go along with my rebellious/impatient mood, I whipped together some hummus with my last can of garbanzo beans (I like the name garbanzo beans better than chickpeas.  They aren't peas anyway.  They're beans!) because I didn't feel like throwing on some sandals and driving the whole whopping 5 minutes to the store to buy some.

I know.  I'm really living on the edge.

You Know You Are a SoCal-er When...

You bake all day in a bikini because it's too Goddamn hot both

inside AND outside.

Happy Birthday Pops!

Apparently in my family, we like to spread out the birthdays pretty evenly throughout the year.  Rudy's family, however, likes to have a marathon of birthdays.  The Taracena Birthday season starts in May and ends in September with Natalie's official birthday (although we pretty much celebrate her birthday year-round...).  This month, it was Mr. Taracena, Rudy, Pops' birthday, and he was turning the BIG 5-0.  So Rudy, Alejandro, Kid, decided that we needed to make a cake for this momentous occasion.  That, and we just really like making cake now and have a reason (other than we are crazy over anything sweet) to make one!

Originally, we were going to make Pineapple Upside-down Cake, but decided we didn't have the proper hardware or money to buy the proper hardware to make it.  That, and it's not really a "birthday cake" cake.  So Rudy decided to do a little research and found an AMAZING Carrot and Pineapple Cake he found on the Food Network website.  When he told me it was created by Ina Garten, Ms. Barefoot herself, he need not say more!  You seriously need to try this cake, it was that good, so go here to print off a copy of the recipe yourself! 

Now go! 

Well, finish reading this, then go!

So here is our Carrot and Pineapple Cake...

And the side view...

I feel that this is a true work of art since it is perilously leaning to one side, much like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  I say this only because we couldn't get it to stand up straight to save our lives, so I am going with the story that we meant for it to lean and I am sticking to it!  In reality, we have a hot apartment to thank for this leaning beauty.  We tried putting the cake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes after each time we applied frosting.  We tried working really quickly and only working on the cake for 5 minutes at a time then putting in back in the cooler.  We were going to try toothpicks to keep this sucker up, but thought that might be a bit dangerous for the unsuspecting eaters.  We just couldn't get the damn cake to stand up straight! 

To make matters worse, we tried to decorate the top of the cake with pineapple slices too.  That was a huge disaster!!!  Those slices kept sliding off, ruining our frosting job.  The plate kept turning green as more and more frosting was slopping all over it.  Rudy tried to do some repair work by adding more frosting to the top of the cake that I had stored in a piping bag.  But Rudy did not know he needed to grab the end of the piping bag and not the middle.  So aaaaallllllll this frosting came out the backside of the bag and ended up covering the plate, the counter, as well as covering Rudy up and down.  He almost had to take another shower there was sooooo much green goop everywhere.  And I was completely useless because I was alternating between cursing him and laughing at him.

In an homage to Kyle from Southpark, I have this to say.  You know, I learned something today:  hot apartments make leaning cakes, pineapple wedges slide really fast, and Rudy should not handle a piping bag.  But most of all, I learned today that it doesn't matter what the outside of the cake looks like as long as it tastes AMAZING!!!

Not So Fishy Packets

Rudy really only eats fish one way:  raw and on top of a bed of sushi rice.  So it's a challenge for me sometimes to come up with fish dinners that do not taste "fishy".  I really like the idea of cooking food in packets.  It's better than a one-pot wonder because the pot you have to wash; the packets you just through away. 

Tonight's dinner was spot on, not fishy at all, and left you wanting more even though you are stuffed to the gills.

Yes, those are staples.  Gotta keep those packets closed!

Not So Fishy Packets

2 4oz. Red Cod fillets
1 large red potato thinly sliced
1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 cup arugula
12 Kalamata olives, pitted and sliced in half
Pepper
Garlic Salt
2 large pieces of parchment paper
Stapler

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  
2. Take one of the parchment papers and lay out half of the potato slices in the center.  Top the potato slices with half of the onion, then half of the arugula.  Lay one of the cod fillets on top of the arugula, then sprinkle half of the Kalamata olives on top of the packets.
3. Season with the garlic salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pull the two longer sides of the parchment paper to the center, then roll the paper down until it loosely touches the fillet.  Then fold over each side and secure with 3 staples for each side.
5. Place the parchment packets on a cookie sheet, then place in the oven for 30 minutes.  Once 30 minutes are over, take the cookie sheet out and transfer each packet to a serving plate.  Open the packets carefully because they will be steamy!