Chicken Tacos with Green Salsa

TFC Toledo has become TFC Tokyo. It's almost the same except "led" has become "ky." Anyways, I made these tacos right before leaving Toledo. They are very limey because I love limes, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get them as easily in Tokyo. Plus Japanese tacos are hard to find, and even then they taste like they are made with extra sugary ketchup. This recipe fed 3 people.

Chicken Taco Filling

Ingredients:
2 Large chicken breasts
1 TBSP Lime Juice
1/4 Cup chicken stock
1 Lime
Jalapeno
Couple Cloves of Garlic
1 Small Onion
1 tsp Coriander
1 TBSP Cumin
A little black pepper
Cilantro
Olive Oil

What to Do:

Get out your crock pot, or prepare to use a pan on low on your stove.

Put the chicken stock and lime juice into your pot. Sometimes with slow cooking all the flavor gets cooked out of things like lime or lemon juice, but for some reason it made me feel better to put a little juice into the crock pot anyways. For long lasting lime flavor, take a whole lime, poke a few holes in it with a fork, and then put the whole thing in the pot.


Next put in the cumin, coriander, pepper, garlic, onion, and jalepeno. You can actually just leave the garlic and onion whole or in large pieces, and you can put in the spices in the seed or corn format. Once again, slow cooking can make spices lose flavors so it can be better to leave everything whole. I just strain everything out later on.

Put in the chicken and turn your crock pot on. On high it takes about an hour and a half to cook, low would probably take closer to 3 hours.

The meat should be pretty tender when it's done cooking, and you should be able to shred it a bit with forks. If you used whole spices, take the chicken out of the cooking liquid before shredding it. Then strain the cooking liquid.

Next take your shredded chicken and the strained cooking juice and put it back in your crock pot on high. Throw on some oregano and olive oil. You can taste everything, and adjust the seasonings as you wish. If you like spicy things, you might want to add some cayenne pepper or chili powder. If you do this part in a crock pot, you don't need to put the lid back on. I actually did this part on low on the stove, but that was because I still had seeds and stuff stuck in my crock pot. The main purpose of this is just kind of heating things back up again after shredding everything, and to get the tasty cooking liquid back on the chicken.



When everything is nice and hot, sprinkle in some fresh cilantro. Then serve in anyways you enjoy eating tacos. Personally, I like these on a flour tortilla with some green salsa.



Green Salsa

Ingredients:
About 10 tomatillos (or more if they are exceptionally small)
1 or 2 jalapenos
Big Handful of fresh cilantro
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
Squeeze or lime juice
salt and pepper

What to Do:

Husk the tomatillos and cut them in half. Heat up a frying pan on high, then throw in the tomatillos and let them get a little black on the outside. I'm not actually sure if this is necessary, but I feel like at some point in my life someone of the Food Network told me this was a good idea, like maybe it brought out the sweetness a little.

Put tomatillos, jalepenos, cilantro, and garlic into a food processor and process away. I make it pretty smooth, but it's up to you how chunky you like it. Then add lime juice, salt, and pepper to your liking. I'm a fan of sour things, but if you're not you could add a little bit of sugar.


Put this on your limey chicken taco and you will be very satisfied! Or stick it in a festive bowl and get out the tortilla chips.

Key Lime Pie

The first time I made key lime pie was about 8 years ago. After I finished making it I declared I would never make it again. Not because it tasted bad, but because zesting and juicing those tiny limes is super annoying.

Luckily about 3 years ago one of my roommates convinced me to try making it again, saying that she would juice the limes for me. As it turns out key lime pie is the extremely easy to make if someone else squeezes the limes for you. You can sometimes find bottles of key lime juice at the store, but fresh is best! In fact after making it with fresh key lime juice 3 years ago, I was reminded how great key lime pie can be. And since that day I always feel motivated enough to squeeze the limes myself.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Key Lime Juice
About 1 TBSP Key Lime Zest
4 Large Egg Yolks
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk (14 ounces)
1 9 inch Pie Crust

What to Do:
Preheat oven to 325



Zest a few key limes. I made this pie at my sister's house, and she did not have a zesting utensil, so I tried to take of just the yellowish green part of the peel with a knife. That's the part with the delicious oil. The white part of the peel just tastes bitter, so you try to avoid it. Anyways, you'll notice in my pictures that the peel is in kind of big pieces. It won't be like that if you use a grater or zester.



Juice the key limes, or force someone else to. I think it takes about 15 limes. Or if you don't have key limes, you can use about 3 normal limes in stead. I usually roll the lime a little on cutting board to get the juices out a little. Then I cut them in half and squeeze with my bare hands. You will become aware of any small cuts on your hands (hopefully you had no zesting accidents earlier!!). Key limes have more seeds than normal limes, so I ignore the seeds and just strain the juice later.

Separate the yolks out of the eggs, and put them into a mixing bowl. I actually used 5 egg yolks because I was using medium eggs instead of large. Some people like to put meringue on their pie, and if you are one of them, save the whites. Otherwise, eggs don't cost that much, just throw them out. Although if you are thrifty you can make yourself an egg white omelet tomorrow morning.



Whisk together egg yolks and zest. This is the only thing that's really going to give your pie color, so you might want to whisk for a minute or two to see if you can get the peel to release some color.

Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk into the eggs. Back in the day, people in Florida (home of the Florida Keys) did not have air conditioning or refrigerators, so they used the less perishable sweetened condensed milk.


Add in the lime juice. Make sure you don't have any seeds in it by pouring it through a sieve. The lime juice will react with the milk and cause the filling to thicken. If you're not afraid of raw eggs, you actually don't need to cook the pie.

Pour the filling into your precooked pie crust. I can't lie, today I was lazy and just bought a shortbread pie crust from the store.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes. A lot of times you can use your nose to tell when things are finished baking, but you can also tell it's done when the pie looks set. Take it out of the oven, and let it cool to room temperature. Then put it in the fridge for a couple hours. It will taste delicious!



You will probably notice your pie is not green. Key limes are not green! Their juice is yellow, and a lot of times the peel is also very yellowy. But if you like green, feel free to add a little food coloring.