While it's cooler outside it's the best time to smoke a bunch of cheese.
 
Did mine a week ago, tested it today.  My best batch ever and I think my new favorite wood for cheddar is hickory.
 


 
This is extra sharp cheddar.  I crusted it with black pepper before vacuum sealing it.  Going to be fantastic after it rests a few months.  Last year I did extra sharp cheddar with pecan and crusted in chipotle.   Still have one of those sealed floating around.

With the wife and I on the Weight Watchers plan, I’ve been avoiding some of my favorite Mexican dishes. Now that I think about it, this really isn’t necessary if I’m carefully what I choose and how I prepare the dishes. Take fajitas for example. A protein, seasoning and some veggies. Made with boneless, skinless chicken breasts and not much oil the fajitas themselves are only 1 point per serving. I can live with a diet that includes chicken fajitas, can’t you? Well, that leads me to the sides. Made carefully many of the sides are 0 to only 2 points per serving. Follow along with me and I’ll show you how I prepared everything.
 
The night before I mixed up some blue corn masa to make up some tortillas. (This is the one item I couldn’t cheat on to lower the point value. 3 tortillas = 5 points)

 
I also got out the onion and bell peppers to cut up

 
and mixed up the fajitas seasoning.
 
 
Ingredients:
1/2 Tbsp. Chili Powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. kosher salt to taste
1/4 tsp. Chipotle pepper                                                                                                                  1/4 tsp. Oregano         
 
The next day started out by making a batch of my Mexican rice. (1 Point per serving) Started out by sautéing the veggies.

I measured out 2 cups of Brown rice, 1/2 tsp. of salt and 1 tbsp. of OO and put this in the rice maker. I now added 1 cup of Clamato Picante juice and 3 cups of chicken stock.

Next, I added the veggies to the pot.

I closed the lid and pressed start. Here are the results.

Next up was the Guacamole. (2 points per serving) Cut up 1 medium Hass avocado.

Now I added 1 tbsp. of light mayo, some granulated garlic, 5 heaping tbsp. of my Pico de Gallo, some fresh squeezed lime juice and mixed this up and covered.

Next up were some frijoles. I sautéed some diced onion, 1/2 a jalapeno, some bell pepper and corn and then added two kinds of black beans. (0 points per serving)

I now got out 3 boneless skinless breasts and coated them with the fajitas seasoning.

I took them and the cut-up veggies out to my gas grill side burner.

Now I needed to make the tortillas, so I rolled up 6 balls of masa about the size of a golf ball. I flatted them a little to make them easier to press out.

I was some issues with the masa sticking to the press so had to experiment with dusting the bottom with some of the blue core masa.

I heated them up on a C.I. griddle, very lightly sprayed with some OO.

Next I sprayed my 12” Camp Chef C.I. skillet with some OO. After it was heated it up I put the 3 breast in and cooked them for 8 minutes per side.

 

 

Once they were cooked I removed them to a cutting board and was left with the fond.

I dumped in the onions and bell peppers and let them start to cook.

While them were cooking I sliced up the chicken.

Now I dumped in the chicken

and stirred it in and continued to cook until the veggies had soften.

Now I brought it all in and plated it up with a Modelo Negra.

 

 

 

Here is a shot once I took it inside to eat.

Gratuitous side shot close ups.

 

OMG!!! This was so delicious!
 
Thanks for looking.

Hi Kamado Peeps,
Over the weekend I cooked up some pizza – cheese and veg cheese. I love the wood fire taste and the pizza is cooked just right in under 10min.
I have not tried any backing yet but have done loads of baking on the webber. 
Keep smoking 

The wife and I are doing the Weight Watchers program so I’m eating quite a bit differently that I did in the past. This was cooked inside on the stove top, but thought I’d share it anyway. (As it was delicious!)

 
Ingredients:

cooking spray (I used some Red Pepper infused OO spray)

1 medium Golden Potato, Diced into approximately ½” pieces

½ cup onion, chopped

1 medium poblano chile, seeded and diced. (Mine was small so I added some Bell Pepper I had left over)

1 cup corn

1 cup black beans, drained

1 cup zucchini, Diced into approximately ½” pieces (I used a Mexican Squash)

1 tsp cumin (I used ½ tsp of Fajita seasoning and ½ tsp of cummin)

1 pinch salt, or to taste

½ cup, green variety (I used 2 Tbsp of the Hatch Chile and 4 tbsp of Herdez salsa verde - plus extra for garnish)

4 large eggs

2 Tbsp fresh chopped cilantro (for garnish)

 
Here a pic of most of the ingredients I used.



I started out by dicing up the potato and putting it in a slightly sprayed Non-Stick skillet to start cooking.



Once it started to brown, I put the onion, poblano and bell peppers.



Once it started to sweat, I added the black beans, corn, squash and seasoning. I let this cook for approximately 6 to 7 minutes.



After that I stirred in the Hatch chilies and Salsa Verde and let that cook another minute.



I then made 4 depressions in the mixture and crack the eggs in them.



I covered the skillet to help the tops of the eggs cook.



And afterwards I plated it up with some wheat toast.


 
As I said, this was delicious and except for the toast, it was zero points for the Purple Program we’re on!

 
Thanks for looking.

Wanted to start Super Bowl Sunday out right. I decided on Huevos Rancheros.
Started out making the sauce by sautéing some onions and bell pepper.

Once they had started to wilt, I added a can of diced tomato.

After that had cooked for a few minutes, I added a small can of rojas enchilada sauce and let this simmer for 15 minutes.

After the sauce was done, I cooked up some potatoes. (While these were cooking, I cooked up some black beans inside)

Grilled up some tortillas.

And finally cooked up some eggs. (these were for the wife’s dish)

With everything ready, I plated it up. Here are these pics served up with some orange juice and coffee.

 

Thanks for looking.