Wednesday, 5/4/2011

Ben helped me get the house back in order after last night's PEPS group.  I can't believe how far the toys were scattered in our house.  Crayons were everywhere.  We had left over chicken fajitas for dinner tonight.  Ben added shredded cheese to his and I added a bit of hot sauce.  I was pleased with how well the chicken reheated.  It was still moist and retained some of the smoky grill flavor.  Since I didn't include the recipe for the chicken last night, here it is.

CHICKEN FAJITAS
from The Weber Gas Grill Cookbook

Ingredients for the marinade:
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin


Additional ingredients:
6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, about 6 ounces each
1 red onion, cut into 1/2" slices
4 plum tomatoes, cut into 1/2" slices
1 red or yellow bell pepper, stem and seeds removed and cut into quarters
6 large flour tortillas
1 avocado, sliced
Salsa

Directions:
1. In a shallow, non-metal container combine the marinade ingredients.  Rinse chicken and pat dry with paper towels.  Add chicken to the marinade, turning to coat each side.  Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, turning occasionally.
2. Remove chicken breasts from the marinade and discard the marinade.  Grill the chicken breasts, onion slices, tomato slices, and bell pepper quarters over Direct Medium heat until the meat is no longer pink and the vegetables are tender, turning once halfway through grilling time.  The chicken and onion will take 8 to 12 minutes and the tomato and bell pepper will take 6 to 8 minutes.  Wrap tortillas in foil and place on cooking grate.  Heat for about 1 minutes.  Cut the bell pepper into strip and slice the chicken.  Place chicken, onion, tomatoes, bell pepper and avocado in warm tortillas and roll up to eat.  Serve with salsa.

Tuesday, 5/3/2011

It was our turn to host our PEPS group tonight. I decided to make chicken fajitas before I knew Ben wasn't going to be home for the evening.  He had a business dinner he had to attend.  I knew I could postpone, but I thought I could handle it on my own.  Yikes, I was wrong.  At about 4:30, I realized that I still had a lot of preparations to do to make the house friendly for five kids to be running around.  The group was scheduled to arrive at 6:30 and the table of craft materials had to go upstairs, the folding chairs had to come downstairs, the bathroom needed cleaned, the diaper pail emptied and moved into Katie's room, the counter cleared and cleaned, the dining table uncovered, toys gathered and arranged for play, etc.  And, I still need to cut up the peppers for the meal.  I barely got everything done before the first family arrived.  Well, I got everything done except for turning on the grill.  That definitely should have been done before they arrived.  I answered the door looking quite frazzled and immediately left Katie with Mike and Naomi while I ran out to turn on the grill.

I placed the marinated chicken directly on the grill and the veggies, tomatoes, red onion, and bell peppers, on a tray on the grill.  The propane tank ran out while I was cooking the food.  I'm not sure when it ran out, but my guess was that it stopped right after I flipped the chicken.  I wasn't confident that I knew how to safely remove and replace the tank, so I asked Andy for help.  Turns out, I would have done it correctly, but I am very glad to have had help.  Anyway, it took me an hour to get all of the food grilled, ready for everyone to eat, and finally sit down myself.  I learned that preparing fajitas on a grill takes a lot of coordination and that timing is crucial.  The flavors were good, but the veggies were cold by the time I ate.  I need to thank the other parents for watching Katie while I managed the food prep and Naomi for cutting the peppers for me.  

This was a meal that just took way too long to prepare, and it was next to impossible to have everything finish cooking at the same time.  Also, I barely had enough peppers and tomatoes to go around. I have tons of chicken left over, but the veggies are all gone.  Oh, and I totally underestimated how much salsa our group would consume.  I thought that one container of salsa would be enough for the chips and fajitas.  Nope.  That was a bad estimate.  By the time I was ready to eat, I was able to scrape maybe one teaspoon of salsa out of the container.   So, never again will I host the group by myself.  I definitely needed my other half tonight. 

At the very end of the night, I did my best to take a group shot of the kids.  Talk about impossible! They wouldn't stop moving, and I chose the wrong lens.  With all of the dinner prep, I forgot to prepare for the photo.  Here's the best of the photos I took.  Again, I definitely needed my other half tonight.