Quick & Easy Taco Salad

I love this recipe. It is the kind of recipe that you can fine tune for your likes and dislikes. Plus, it is fast AND easy. Excuse the paper plate but I felt like minimal clean up tonight.Ingredients

Doritos Taco chips
lettuce (shredded)
shredded cheddar cheese
diced fresh tomatoes
diced white onion
sliced black olives
1 can dark red kidney beans washed and drained
1 bottle Russian or Catalina salad dressing
taco mix
1/2 C water
1 lb ground beef
sour cream optional

Brown ground beef in a skillet. Once the meat is fully cooked, drain as much of the fat as you can from the ground beef. Place meat back in skillet. Add 1/2 C of water, kidney beans, and taco mix to cooked ground beef. Cook until the majority of the water is gone. Remove from heat to cool slightly.

While meat cools, dice the veggies. Once the meat is barely warm add the dressing of your choice (I prefer Russian). Use 1/2 bottle for 1 pound of ground beef.

Crush a large handful of Doritos, place on a plate. Place the following items in this order on top of the Doritos, shredded lettuce, large scoop of cooked taco mixture, diced tomatoes, diced onions, sliced olives, and shredded cheddar. Finish off with a dollop of sour cream.

Some people mix all the ingredients including the Doritos together in a large bowl and then serve with a small bowl of sour cream. I don't prefer this method because once all the items are mixed together they get soggy and cannot be refrigerated as a left over. Yuk, who wants soggy Doritos?

KitchenAid Stand Mixer Sale at Target

I found this information about a KitchenAid Stand Mixer sale at Target. Looks like quite the savings and you don't even need to leave the house or get out of your jammies!!! Now that's my kind of sale.

Info found at A Thrifty Mom blog.

KitchenAid Ultra Power Stand Mixers

Target has a temporary price cut on their KitchenAid Ultra Power Stand Mixers. It looked like not all of the colors are on temporary price cut, but several of them are. The Ultra Power Mixer has a 4.5-qt. bowl and boasts 300 watts of power for mixing double batches.

The list price is is $249.99 temporarily marked down to $199.99. There is an automatic $20 taken off for spending over $100. Use egift card code: URTYJLI8 to take off another $20.

Your total will come to $160 plus tax.

Shop through Shop At Home and receive 5% ($8.00) cash back on your order! Did I mention that shipping is FREE?!

Christmas Cherry Pie with Decorative Crust

For Christmas dinner, the last two years, I have baked a cherry pie. It is not just a cherry pie but a cherry pie inspired by an apple pie recipe that I saw on the Anton Brown show.

How did an apple pie recipe inspire a cherry pie recipe? Well, not so much the recipe but the technique. Anton Brown used a deep tart pan so that the pan could be removed from the pie and the pie could stand alone.

Ingredients
2 cans of cherry pie filling (I used Comstock Country Style)
2T tapioca granules
pie dough from scratch or otherwise (I used Pillbury's frozen pie crusts)
Decorative sparkly white sugar

Utensils
Deep dish tart pan (I had to order mine off the Internet)
Decorative pie crust cutter

First I empty one can of pie filling into a bowl. Then add just the cherries from the second can of filling. Add the 2 T of tapioca granules, this will help thicken the filling so the pie can stand on it's own without a pan for support.

Spray the tart pan to make pan removal easier. Place the bottom layer into the tart pan making sure to press it into the fluted sides of the pan. Pour the filling into the pan. Sprinkle the top of the cherry filling with the decorative sparkly white sugar.

Next roll out the top layer of crust. If dough is starting to get soft place it in the fridge on a cookie sheet for 5 minutes. It is important that the crust not be too soft for the next step.

The decorative pie crust cutters have two patterns, one on each side. This is the two patterns on mine. I used the second pattern for my pie.
Lay the top crust on a flat surface. Center the decorative crust cutter on the pie crust. Press down firmly. I used a rolling pin to make sure it cut the entire pattern into the crust. Lift the cutter directly up. The crust will be very delicate so I wrapped mine around the rolling pin and place onto the pie. Press the top crust and bottom crust together. Cut off the remaining crust that is hanging over the edge of the pan.Bake according to the filling's instructions.Cool completely (overnight in the fridge is best) before removing from the tart pan.

Sorry, I don't have any photos of the entire pie. We started nibbling before I thought about taking a photo.

Chicken Salad Wrap with Cream Cheese and Raspberry Jam

If you read my other blogs you will know that my sister, my niece, and I ate at the French Laundry in Fenton, Michigan last week. We all ordered the same delicious wrap sandwich called a Freudian Slip.This weekend I attempted to recreate this wonderful delesh wrap. Enjoy!!

You will need the following items....

Chicken either fresh or in a can (I used can chicken)
Red onion diced thinly (for one wrap I used one slice of a med size red onion)
Mayo
Seedless red raspberry jam
Cream cheese (I used whipped cream cheese)
Flat bread to wrap chicken salad (I used Mission brand Garden Spinach Herb Wraps)

Make chicken salad (chicken, onion, mayo) remembering to keep salad slightly dry. I made mine too runny and it dripped out of my wrap too easily.Lay out one wrap on a flat surface. Spread with a very thin layer of cream cheese. Now spread a very thin layer of seedless red raspberry jam. Think thin. You do not want either one of these flavor to overwhelm your chicken salad. Using an offset knife makes spreading a lot easier.Place chicken salad in the center of wrap. Fold each side toward the middle.Now starting at one end, roll sandwich making sure to keep all the goodness inside the wrap.Place on a plate and cut on a angle. Add a dill pickle and chips.Well, what do you think?

Here is a close up of the wrapping instructions on the back of the package. Sometimes diagrams are easier to understand.