Fools' Day Eve Dinner - 3/31/2017

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tenspeed

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Chicken fajitas.

Anyone have any great pranks planned for tomorrow? The weatherman is predicting a snowstorm here, but I'm afraid it's not a prank.
 
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I made some bbq sauce and pulled pork yesterday, and coleslaw. So I piled up a little pulled pork in a bowl, put some bbq sauce on it, then put coleslaw on top. That combination is noteworthy! Yum.
 
SO, GD and I met SIL an BIL at a local restaurant to celebrate her birthday over lunch. I came away over fed and with little interest in dinner. No doubt we'll eat a little something later. It'll be more snack-like.
 
Shrimp stuffed with corn, crab, red bell, with sides of asparagus and a wild rice blend.

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Eating my fully loaded tossed salad now. Himself is busy with something and is stalling while I'm starving! I'll be starting the grits shortly so that they're ready when the New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp get cooked. We've had this recipe before and it WILL warm us up!

Finding Abita Anything-Besides-Purple Haze is tough, so I'm going with Belgium Brewing's Fat Tire Amber.
 
I'm making chicken fajitas, too!

I don't do pranks. Hoping this thunderstorm going through doesn't play a prank on us.

Here is a bit of useless trivia, there technically is no such thing as chicken fajitas. That is basically like saying chicken skirt steak, since the original meaning of fajita was the cut of meat we gringos call skirt steak.

But, nowadays, fajita applies to all kind of meat, and even vegetable tacos cooked fajita style. What we call fajitas also originated in Texas, not Mexico... it is Tex-Mex.

That knowledge and four bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

CD
 
Eating my fully loaded tossed salad now. Himself is busy with something and is stalling while I'm starving! I'll be starting the grits shortly so that they're ready when the New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp get cooked. We've had this recipe before and it WILL warm us up!

Finding Abita Anything-Besides-Purple Haze is tough, so I'm going with Belgium Brewing's Fat Tire Amber.

Abita is all over the place, here, but I can't say I'm crazy about it. The Amber is okay, and I do occasionally enjoy a Purple Haze. Emeril popularized the Turbo Dog, which I do not like one bit.

Can you get Zapp's chips up there?

CD
 
Purple Haze is our daughter's beer of the moment, so I enjoy it most when we're together. This is the third time I've made this particular recipe and while the Fat Tire Amber was good enough today, it didn't give the finished dish the je ne sais quos that the Abita Amber does.

Never heard of "Zapp's Chips" so I guess they aren't here. I'm not much of a chip eater, especially the kettle cooked, but when we're back in OH I always have a bag of Snyder of Berlin chips - and a tub of Lawson's French Onion Chip Dip. Mmmm.....
 
Zapp's chips are great! When I would drive to see my dad, I'd always load up on Zapp's for us, as well as for DD's family.
 
Here is a bit of useless trivia, there technically is no such thing as chicken fajitas. That is basically like saying chicken skirt steak, since the original meaning of fajita was the cut of meat we gringos call skirt steak.

But, nowadays, fajita applies to all kind of meat, and even vegetable tacos cooked fajita style. What we call fajitas also originated in Texas, not Mexico... it is Tex-Mex.

The meanings of words often change over time. According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of fajita

: a marinated strip usually of beef or chicken grilled or broiled and served usually with a flour tortilla and various savory fillings —usually used in plural

Origin and Etymology of fajita

American Spanish, diminutive of Spanish "faja" - sash, belt, probably from Catalan faixa, from Latin fascia band

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fajita

But my favorite food history page says this: "Fajita. A Tex-Mex dish made from marinated, grilled skirt steak...served in a wheat tortilla. The word derives from the Spanish faja, for "girdle" or "strip" and describes the cut of meat itself. There has been much conjecture as to the fajita's origins, though none has been documented. Grilling skirt steak over mesquite coals would be characteristic of Texas cooking since the days when beef became a dominant meat in the American diet. But the word "fajita" did not appear in print until 1975."

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodmexican.html#fajitas

So that used to be true ;)
 
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The meanings of words often change over time. According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of fajita

: a marinated strip usually of beef or chicken grilled or broiled and served usually with a flour tortilla and various savory fillings —usually used in plural

Origin and Etymology of fajita

American Spanish, diminutive of Spanish "faja" - sash, belt, probably from Catalan faixa, from Latin fascia band

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fajita

But my favorite food history page says this: "Fajita. A Tex-Mex dish made from marinated, grilled skirt steak...served in a wheat tortilla. The word derives from the Spanish faja, for "girdle" or "strip" and describes the cut of meat itself. There has been much conjecture as to the fajita's origins, though none has been documented. Grilling skirt steak over mesquite coals would be characteristic of Texas cooking since the days when beef became a dominant meat in the American diet. But the word "fajita" did not appear in print until 1975."

Food Timeline--Mexican and TexMex food history

So that used to be true ;)
According to What's Cooking America:

"Texans would probably like to lay claim to the fajita, but history gives credit to Mexican ranch workers living in West Texas (along the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border) in the late 1930s or early 1940s. When a steer was butchered, the workers were given the least desirable parts to eat for partial payment of their wages. Because of this, the workers learned to make good use of a tough cut of beef known as skirt steak. In Spanish, fajita is a form of the word “faja” which translates to “belt” or “girdle” in English.The fajita is truly a Tex-Mex food (a blending of Texas cowboy and Mexican panchero foods). The Mexican term for grilled skirt steak is arracheras, and its American counterpart is fajitas. Today, the term fajita has completely lost its original meaning and has come to describe just about anything that is cooked and served rolled up in a soft flour tortilla. The only true fajitas, however, are made from skirt steak."

https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/FajitaHistory.htm
 
So, it started out meaning one thing and now it means something else. Our language is a living thing changing constantly.
 
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