Creamy Huevos Rancheros

Ok, so I don’t really know if “creamy” is the right word, but I need to preface this recipe with something, because it isn’t like any other huevos rancheros recipe I have been able to find online.

Why was I looking online for those recipes? Because I had these memories of my mother making this amazing dish that had eggs, cheese and a chili sauce in it. I also remembered calling it “huevos rancheros.” Every recipe I could find by that name ended up being basically a fried egg topped with Mexican-esque toppings.

I had basically given up, and decided I had imagined the whole thing when I was looking through the cookbook my mom gave Heather before our wedding: More-With-Less. It had a recipe forย huevos rancherosย  that matched my memories! Not only that, but my mom had even added a note next to their version saying that it was one of my favorites growing up!

At this point I did some adapting, because the recipe called for six eggs and cooking down two large tomatoes!

The results are every bit as good as I remember. I left the Mozzarella cheese in the recipe, and it’s what I used in the picture, but next time I make this I will probably switch to using cheddar or cheddar blend as I feel it would go better with the Mexican theme, and the remaining slices in the package are more useful ๐Ÿ™‚

Here is what I ended up with:

 

“Creamy” Huevos Rancheros:

(Adapted from the More-With-Less cookbook)

  • 1/2 can diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 can tomato sauce
  • 1/3 cup diced onions
  • 1/3 cup diced green pepper
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1T Chili powder
  • 1/4t cumin
  • 1/4t oregano
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 slices of mozzarella cheese
  1. Saute the onions, pepper, and garlic, with some olive oil until softened.
  2. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, and seasonings.
  3. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes
  4. Crack eggs into the sauce, cover with cheese slices, then return cover to pot
  5. Leg eggs poach over low heat for 4 to five minutes

 

-Jordan

 

 

 

State Fair 2012

Another year at the fair and another failure to capture a picture of noteworthy food on a stick!

The fair featured a whopping fifty-seven items on a stick!

While we didn’t get any pictures of the food on a stick, Heather and I did go to the fair. Not for a real long trip, but long enough to eat some festival type foods and to remember how overwhelming that many people wandering around can be.

They also had a moose made of chocolate:

I mean, that’s worth the price of admission right there! ๐Ÿ™‚

In other news this week:

  • I finally fixed the HeatherAndJordan.com front page.
  • Heather took baby pictures for a friend
  • Heather took two-year pictures of a friend’s child
  • I ordered a compound miter saw from Amazonย  — best “I can help you with this project if…” deal to date! ๐Ÿ™‚
  • Heather was, for the first time 100% sure she felt our baby kick.

 

It’s been a fun week!

-Jordan

It’s A Girl!

As I write this, we are just over 20 weeks into pregnancy. Apparently 20 weeks is the traditional time to do the in-depth ultrasound, including the discovery of gender.

I was really excited for ether a boy or a girl, but I have to admit that everyone assuming I wanted a boy, and then the ultrasound tech strongly implying that I must be feeling disappointed, but could cheer up soon… it all started to make me second question what I was suppose to be feeling.

After a little reflection I can say with certainty that I am 100% excited ๐Ÿ™‚

I will include an ultrasound picture here, but won’t pretend it’s amazing… seeing these in motion was considerably better than a few stills. I should also note that this will not be the last picture of our daughter to appear on this blog, although hopefully this is the only one produced via medical imaging technology.

As excited as we are by the news, and by the feeling that we have crossed yet another milestone, it seems like waiting the next 20 weeks is going to take a long long time.

Probably longer for Heather than for me, but long none the less. ๐Ÿ™‚

-Jordan

Three Gun Match

I think I mentioned a few weeks back that I was hoping to participate in a shooting competition.

This past Saturday the event finally took place!

I did not do well, but had a lot of fun all the same. The other guys there were all very helpful and prevented it from being too intimidating.

It was a “3-gun” event, meaning you shot a rifle, shotgun, and pistol. I think at the more formal events they actually combine multiple guns into a single stage, but here we just had one long rifle stage, one shotgun stage, and then several pistol stages.

Given that pistol is by far my weakest skill, there wasn’t much chance of my taking home any bragging rights.

on the other hand my so called “better” guns weren’t real hot. I managed to talk someone into running a camera for me during the shotgun, and you can see that I kind of fell apart on the back half of the stage.

(The guy following me holding a box is the range officer, keeping time and making sure that nobody does anything unsafe during their turn)

The event wasn’t super competitive, so even with my less than optimal performance, I was able to make the top third in shotgun. I think it mostly gauges long neglected muscle memory in a few dozen guys who said “oh, they have a shotgun event?” and dug a gun out of the back of the safe. Had a few more people been drilling for this and I don’t think my fumbling with shells the entire time could have looked anything but sad.

The pistol stages were a lot of fun, but really drove home the fact that I don’t have great accuracy, nor do I transition between targets with anything that resembles speed or grace.

At the very least though, I had a lot of fun, and have a reason to practice now!

-Jordan

A Tour, And Some News

First up, here is the video as promised:

And, for those who haven’t heard via other channels… We are expecting a child!

We just have to wait until December 26 ๐Ÿ™‚

You have no idea how hard it has been to come up with posts that didn’t involve tails of coping with first trimester woe etc.

Now that the news embargo is over, I suppose the prospect of parenthood and everything that goes with it will be a frequent topic around here ๐Ÿ˜€

-Jordan

Heather’s Birthday

We celebrated Heather’s birthday over the weekend.

I may not have converted Heather completely over to my views on the outdoors, but I am starting to worry that I have ruined her.

She not only cheerfully got up at 6am on a Saturday, but she requested we get a canoe!

It was a beautiful morning, and we really enjoyed the time outside, as it has been far too hot to enjoy being outside evenings as of late.

We were on the water shortly after 8, and were able to stick to shady little coves the entire time we were out.

I wasn’t able to go with my Scout troop up to the boundary waters this year, and I really hope to go someday. As much as we enjoyed our time on the lake, I don’t think Heather and I are quite ready to do a family trip on that scale yet ๐Ÿ™‚

 

The rest of the day was spent inside, and I shot some video of the highlights… so I won’t summarize it here until I can get the video up ๐Ÿ™‚

-Jordan

Weekend Plus One

What did we do over this past weekend?

Well, I moved furniture! Remember all that craigslisting I mentioned? It has paid off!

The down side to paying off is that it means I had to haul the things that sold out, and the things we bought back up.

On the bright side, we aren’t repainting this stuff, so it still isn’t taking up as much time as last years campaign ๐Ÿ™‚

And then there was Independence day; a Wednesday this year so it wasn’t an obvious choice to extend into ether weekend. So what did we do?

Painting!

That is the before picture, and what you can’t really see is the places where the vinyl wall decals lifted the paint off the wall. Given the size of the damaged areas, it made sense to paint the entire wall.

This meant I got to buy a paint tray and full-sized roller! (ahh the simple joys in life)

The end result was perfect in the sense that you cannot tell that it was ever done. ๐Ÿ™‚

Sorry, the photography isn’t the best, and I have been trying to include Heather or myself in the blog pictures more… maybe the next iteration of the room will lend itself to an action shot!

 

-Jordan

 

Anticipation

What did we do this week?

Well… not everything we wanted to.

Heather has gotten back into Craigslist with a vengeance, and I would like to say she has gotten great deals on everything she liked, but it has been more negotiations that fall through than transactions so far. On the bright side, at least from my prospective, at least half the attempted transactions are us selling things instead of purchases.

I finally got around to signing up for a shooting competition that was scheduled to take place over the weekend. Unfortunately there was a major thunderstorm blowing in that morning and they called the event off on account of lightning risk. Maybe next month I guess.

So, the short version is we haven’t done a whole lot yet, but boy do we have plans. ๐Ÿ™‚

-Jordan

 

 

A Few Thoughts

Ok, so remember that website I was going to have up by June 1?

Work has consumed a lot more of my energy than I was expecting, as well as other things just eating more time than I would have liked.

I will leave you with a few thoughts…

 

Point one: our kitchen currently has fresh: Bananas, peaches, 2 kinds of apple, kiwi, strawberries, raspberries and an orange. It’s an amazing assortment of things to choose from.

Point two: Heather and I went to the hospital Sunday to visit and pray with some friends who just had twins. Twins who arrived at 29 weeks! I wont begin to try to sort out what to attribute to the grace of God and what to attribute to medial technology, but it’s amazing all around. More details here by the way.

So, those may be disjointed thoughts, but I find myself being pretty glad I live in the 21st century… we have it pretty good!

-Jordan

Toasted Asparagus And Pesto

(Technically this is a repost, as it went up a week ago and then got lost during some configuration changes)

 

Toasted Asparagus And Pesto
by Jordan

Sorry I failed to think of a remotely creative name for these, but we were looking for new ways to enjoy the great asparagus we have been seeing at the store as of late.


The batch pictured above was the second time I made these, and in my attempt to get nicely browned cheese on top, I ended up over-cooking the bread on that back row. All the same, the sandwiches or whatever you want to call them were pretty good.


Ingredients:

  • ย ย ย  Steamed asparagus
  • ย ย ย  Sandwich thins
  • ย ย ย  Pesto
  • ย ย ย  Provolone cheese

As the asparagus is steaming, toast the sandwich things, and then spread about a half-tablespoon of pesto on each one. When the asparagus is softened a little,ย  place a few stalks on each sandwich thin and top with a slice of cheese.

Place them under a broiler, and watch them closely

Enjoy!

If you are going to use a stone like I did, I recommend that you preheat the stone in the oven for a minute or two before loading on the sandwiches.

-Jordan