Food tonite

After reading about Steven's great use of leftovers, I decided it was time to get a little creative myself. Let's see - we had some leftover marinated and grilled chicken breasts and thighs (all skinless/boneless), and some leftover parslied potatoes from earlier in the week. Some close to stale tortillas hiding in the back of the fridge. And a new block of sharp chedder. Cubed the chicken, cubed the taters, shredded some cheese, layered it all on the tortillas (lightly buttered on the bottom (which became the outside), and threw 'em on the grill. Once the cheese melted I folded them close - only to find I'd REALLY overstuffed 'em - heh heh. Some of the goodies will hopefully cook off in the grill... Turned out pretty good - but could've used something for a little more kick/flavor - maybe some basil when they came off the grill, or a splash of salsa inside? Oh well - very filling dinner.

(sorry, didn't take any pics of them - but they looked cool!)

Was going to have some of the homegrown lettuce for salads, but I didn't plan far enough ahead and it really needed to be chilled after being washed - just something to help it crisp up. And in addition to the lettuce that I picked from the pots out back, here's a sneak peek of something else I hope to be enjoying soon (this one needed to be thinned out).

Dessert was the best part! Sure - I cheated - I made cupcakes from boxed white cake mix that we had in the cupboard (been trying to clean things out a bit lately - use more from the cupboards and freezers). Added just a splash of orange extract to the batter - nice subtle improvement. And then once they cooled we topped the ones we were going to eat with Crisco frosting - surprisingly good! Will definitely have to make that again. And two top of my two cupcakes...well...voila!

Well it seems Blogger's being a pain about uploading pics again. I had two pics of the cupcakes I really liked, but even after shrinking the image, reducing the file size, etc, Blogger still doesn't want me to post the close up picture. Oh well.

ANNNNYhow - did you notice the black raspberries on the cupcakes? Those are what I thought would be RED raspberries and had posted a pic of them recently, saying they were ALMOST ripe. ALMOST, yes, but not as almost as I thought. Unripe BLACK raspberries don't taste good when they're a pretty red! ;-) Here they are, freshly picked. Not much, but I don't need too many, and there are definitely more to come!

I'm not sure what the best way is to save the remaining frosting. I'm thinking since it's just Crisco, powdered sugar, water and flavorings, it can stay on the countertop overnite. I'm tempted to actually pipe on the frosting next time, using a fancy star tip. I don't have much experience with doing that, but since it's just for the two of us it could be fun.

DAMN that stuff's sweet! Here's the recipe in case anyone's interested:

CRISCO WHITE FROSTING

• 1 lb. powdered sugar (4 c.)
• 1 c. Crisco
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract

Beat Crisco until fluffy, add sugar, water and flavorings. Beat this for 5
minutes. (Enough frosting for one cake)