Josefina's Carne Asada

Brightening up a steak with bold flavors in an easy marinade!

We have been suffering through a really unbearable heatwave, just like the rest of the world, and it's made getting excited to go outside even for just a few minutes pretty much impossible. Fortunately, Jess and I decided to try our hand at doing some indoor grilling that had some really fabulous results, which we're excited to share with all of you! 

Carne asada translates literally to "grilled meat," and its a hugely popular staple in northern Mexico, as well as other parts of the country. Read on to see how you can make some yourself, even if you don't have an outdoor grill!

Josefina's Chicken Fajitas

The perfect easy weeknight dinner!

So as many of my readers know, I am actually a really lazy cook when it comes to non blog related culinary adventures. Cooking after a long day at the office is not something I find especially relaxing, so I'm a big believer in cooking something big on the weekend and then rationing the leftovers over the course of the rest of the week. Because of that, I'm constantly on the look out for new things to add to my repertoire of dishes that create lots of leftovers. 

Take the humble fajita for example! This Tex-Mex classic is a great option if you're looking for something that you can put your own spin on, or follow a recipe that will get you a hot and tasty dinner on the table in about half an hour. Read on to see how you can make these for yourself!

Josefina's Flan

Some good, old fashioned health food that's now better known as a tasty dessert!

Now that I've been doing this blog for over two years, I've become pretty comfortable going out on a limb and trying things I never would've thought of tackling before. Sometimes, this means I need to get creative in the kitchen, and it doesn't always work out as well as I would've hoped.

That's not exactly what happened here, but there were a couple speed bumps along the way in making this classic custardy treat. I'd never had flan before, and I didn't know much about it besides it's something that usually shows up on dessert menus at Mexican restaurants. Could be fun to try, right?

Josefina's Champurrado

Just the thing for a chilly day!

I love chocolate. I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise, if you've been around these parts for long enough. But I usually try not to just make recipe after recipe using chocolate as a central ingredient.

This month? Is kind of accidentally turning into a chocolate history lesson. Until February, we're going to be talking about different ways people have used chocolate to make food just a little more interesting and delicious.

To kick it off, we're going to talk about champurrado, a hot, thick Mexican drink that can trace its history back to the first people who discovered the joys of eating chocolate and is still enjoyed by people today! That's some serious longevity! It's basically hot chocolate, but with a secret ingredient that makes this have an incredibly unique texture and thickness. Even if it doesn't turn out to be your new go to hot chocolate recipe, you'll be glad you tried it.

Josefina's Green Chile Stew

A tasty, simple stew that's perfect for a fall evening!

Fall is officially here! A little earlier than we'd like, considering we've already started to lose a fair amount of our leaves in my neck of the woods, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love those sort of cool mornings where all you want to do is stay curled up in bed and enjoy your warm blankets for another couple minutes.

When you don't have that, at least there's simple stews like this one. Although it only has a handful of ingredients, this green chile stew is quite tasty and has enough heat to make you feel nice and warm, if not scald the inside of your mouth! I've had some hit or miss experience making recipes from American Girl cookbooks, but this one was pleasantly simple and was a success with my taste testers, so I'm considering it a success! Hopefully you will too, if you give it a shot.

Josefina's Agua de Melon

A fun, different way to cool down this summer!

So originally, I wanted to do a series of posts featuring birthday treats highlighted in each American Girl birthday book, like I did with holiday treats last December. Unfortunately, between not having a lot of free time on my hands and kind of needing to cool it on how many desserts we go through a month, that plan has... kind of gotten away from me.

Still, I wanted to do something, so happy birthday, Josefina! Very late, but I suppose it's better late than never.

Josefina posed an interesting challenge at first because her birthday treats were a special bread and a cantaloupe. I'm sort of burnt out on trying to make bread work for me, and I mean, what is there to do with a cantaloupe that's not a fruit salad?

Well, little did I know that there was a very easy solution just waiting to be discovered!

Josefina's Three Bean Tortilla Soup

Whoever invented tortilla soup was a genius.

I think a lot of people are really intimidated by the idea of making their own soup - I know I sure was! Since it's so easy to just open up a can of soup and let the factory and your stove or microwave do the rest of the work for you, I definitely get how people might think making a soup is more complicated than it actually is. While I hope I've showed you guys that making soup is actually pretty easy, it does usually end up taking a long time to taste good.

This has become more of an issue for me than it had been in the past. Now that I have a full time job, and hopefully will continue to for quite some time, I've got much less time to cook than I did when I was unemployed and sadly poking at job websites trying to find someone to hire me. This means while I still like trying out new, exciting, complicated things, an easy recipe that doesn't take too much time to make is a nice thing to be able to throw together on a day where I'm already tired from work, and it's even better when it turns out to be something very tasty, filling and good for you! This hit all those notes, and was tasty enough that I would definitely make it again, and would highly recommend giving a try yourself if you're ever in the mood for something a little different than microwavable soup.

Josefina's Chicken Enchiladas

Super tasty, but beware the corn tortillas!

Now I know I owe you guys an Ivy feature, and I promise I'm working on it. We have a (hopefully) really good recipe planned, but are hitting a snag in being able to find dumpling wrappers, since apparently our local supermarkets have severely downsized their Asian section. This means we need to head down to the big ("big") city on an expedition to an Asian market, and unfortunately, that meant we needed to reshuffle our schedule of upcoming recipes a little.

But honestly, I'm not too bothered. We would have had to head down there anyway to get an ingredient for another treat I'm hoping to feature at the end of the month. What is it? You'll just have to wait and see!

In the meantime, we're going to be doing a feature with the stowaway we picked up from our recent trip to American Girl Place New York! Her identity isn't much of a surprise - the header image and title of the post definitely give it away... - but I'm still very excited to reintroduce you guys to...