Cooking

By no means do I consider myself a cook.   I have a very few, pretty good meals in my knowledge base which worked just fine living in Houston with no children and lots of restaurant options.  I could slowly cycle through my meals while throwing in some fast food and going out to eat.  But now going out takes a little more effort with having to call a driver and work around prayer times.  It is also more difficult because our choices are a little more....interesting.  Therefore I feel like I am going to have to be more creative with my cooking choices.  We will see how that goes. Also a little more interesting is my selection at the grocery store.  I will admit that I have found most everything I would need in the stores here.  A major difference is my choice in beef.  There is no USDA certified beef.  So far we have only had Brazilian beef which isn't too bad and I have also heard New Zealand beef is good.  I even find many American brands but you tend to pay way extra for them.  Here are some of the beloved American brands I have found.  

Most of these taste almost the exact same as the would in the states.  Some American brands I have found do not quite taste right but its still ok.  One thing I have not found, or at least not often, are good tortilla chips.  Last night we had some of the other guys over for dinner, Brooks and Matt.  They arrived the night before and their families won't be here until early August.  I decided to have beef tacos and some classic rotel and velveeta cheese mix but then we needed chips.  So now for the adventure of learning to make my own chips.  I got the idea from Jackie so I can't claim it as my own.  

- I started with this packet of frozen corn tortillas

- Next I cut the tortillas into chip size pieces and heated up a skillet of oil. 

- Once the oil was heated, I threw in a few pieces and watched them fry

- It was a learning process. Some burnt, some weren't cooked enough, others were just right

I guess they were all pretty good since every single one that I cooked were gone by the end of dinner!