Sunday, October 20, 2013

Cheesy Chicken Taquitos

Sometimes you can have too much a good thing.  Even if that good thing started off in a small package.  After you shredded it into something much larger.
Like this big.
<http://www.brushmepretty.com/2012/02/tempting-tuesday.html>
After eating and celebrating and eating some more, there was easily over half of this dip left.  The accompanying pretzel bites however: gone.  Totally gone.  That is truly the testament of how good soft pretzels are.  And it's perfectly possible to have them whenever you want!  I'm raising a glass.

Woot!
<http://www.algonquinbooksblog.com/blog/beer-and-pretzels-and-football-and-books/>
However, the cheese dip has to be handled.  It's still staring at me and taunting a bit.  The spicyness of the cheese just begged for some other reincarnation and I was thinking Mexican.  And taquitos.  Because everyone loves taquitos.  They're the perfect for munching & for bar night part 2.  And it's great to also chew though the left overs in your fridge.


 Materials
Spicy Cheese Dip, approximately 2 cups or entire recipe from Baked Cheese Dip but Brush Me Pretty
3, 3-4oz chicken breast pieces
10-15 mini tortillas
oil for frying

Cook the chicken!  All the way through.  Might take a bit... frozen over here

Make your cheese dip.  If you've been storing your cheese dip, heat it up now.  Shred the chicken.  I found it easiest to do it with a fork and knife in the bottom of a bowl.

Mix the chicken with the cheese dip.  Spread a bit on one of your tortillas.  I used about this much.

Fold one flap and then the other in a burrito style.  Lightly fry with oil in a skillet.

Test for a light golden brown color on each side.  You want it to be crispy!

I tried using corn tortillas and they kinda fell apart.  As I'm normally into flour, I'd say to stick with them.  Or maybe there's a corn tortilla technique out there.  I'd have to find it to be 100% sure.

Serve and dip into some tasty salsa!  Corn and flour alike.  Cheese and chicken extend beyond their simple containers.

</sidebar>

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Seatbelt Car Bag

Sometimes there's something that just looks so really cool and obvious that you wish that you had thought of it first.  And when it's using unusual materials it's even cooler.  The idea was a purse, and the material was seat belt webbing.
HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THIS!?!?!  Made in the USA. :)
<http://www.seatbeltbags.com/>

My huge weakness in accessories is handbags.  Or totes, pretty much anything that can be used to carry random things.  Because you should be able to carry a full pharmacy around with you at all times.  You never know when you might need something.  Like emergency cash.  For tipping your bartender!
cash-wad
This is approximately the amount you need.
<http://preppercentral.com/?p=1629>
However, the seat belt purse DIY was always just out of reach as I I'd have to go through the process of ordering the seat belt material.  Laziness or just not wanting the mailman to think that my place is a permanent stop on their route.  The junk yard closed so early that it was hard to go out there and cut them out of cars.  Which is fun, but a bit disruptive.  After a quick trip out to the Scrap Exchange, that all changed: there were seat belts!  I decided to start small with a trash can for my car to get everything sorted out



Materials
Seat belt webbing - 226" long
Basket Protector, Longaberger Small Boardwalk - optional
Stapler w/ staples
Lighter

I made all the measurements around the protector since I wanted a bit of extra support.  The protector is about 6" high and 24" around on the top.


Cut 3 strips to 24".  Seal the edges with the lighter.  Staple, or if you're really good, fuse the edges of the seat belt material together.

There are 2 separate sides: the longer sides which are juuuuust slightly lager than 2 inches wide.  And the wider side is about 4 seat belts straps wide. Cut 2 strips 20" long, 2 strips 16" long, and 1 38" long.

The 4 strips that go along the sides are laid out: 16 - 38 folded in half to form a loop - 16.

Weave the strips into a basket pattern.  Slide 3 bands up the 4 strips.  Staple the ends of the longer bands to the top band around.  This holds the bands in place as you go about weaving the ends.  Make sure that the seams are hidden behind the upright straps when you're weaving.

After you weave in the ends, staple the edges.  You don't have to keep these staples in; after we do this next step, you can pull them out!  Cut the last strip, or take what you have left, 24" and we're going to use this as our top edging.  This will be folded in half and sewn across the top.  You can use a sewing machine or do this by hand.

Start the edge on the inside of the handle.  The overlap will be covered or not seen from the outside of the bag.  Though this is a trash can, we're not going to be going for anything too fancy.  Also, I encountered some.... issues with the sewing machine.  It was a bit thick, so I finished it out by hand.  Meet the edges by the strap.

Add the protector with trashcan.  Place in car and be ready for some happy passengers.  Now they have somewhere to place all the fruit by the foot wrappers for post-car snack happiness

</sidebar>