A number of recipes call for a bit of chipolte. Chipolte is a smoked pepper and is canned in adobe sauce. It imparts a very distinct smokey flavor to dishes–a little goes a long way. Even buying the small 7oz cans leave me with lots left over. So what I do is divide it up into individual servings. Just put a bit of a pepper and some of the sauce on some plastic wrap and roll it up (so it doesn’t leak). Throw the little packs in the freezer and you’ll always have some on hand and none wasted. I usually end up with at least 6 little packs from a 7oz can. Defrosting is unnecessary, since you can just chop up the little frozen cube of pepper/sauce.

Here’s a recipe that uses chipolte: Fry four slices of bacon. Drain fat, but reserve about 1 T. Pan fry two medium chicken breasts in fat for about 5 minutes. Turn. Add 1/2 C BBQ sauce and 2T chopped chipolte & adobe in pan, with a little water. Cover. Cook for about 8 minutes on medium. Remove chicken, slice/chop roughly. Divide chicken between 2 onion rolls with some sauce. Top with grated cheese (cheddar or pepper jack) and bacon. Put under broiler (or in hot over) for about 5 minutes (until cheese is melted). Serve with mashed potatoes and baked beans. Makes 2-4 sandwiches, depending on how much chicken you cook (1 large breast does two sandwiches).

I have always been leery of using ground turkey and chicken in place of beef. I think the colors are off (too light) and worry about the taste. Recently I tried ground turkey again and was surprised. I used turkey instead of beef for three of my ground-beef heavy recipes: tacos, sloppy joes, and chili. All three of them came out really good. (I think that part of it is because all three are pretty strongly spiced.) So from now on I’m making them with ground turkey. We can usually find the ground packs much cheaper than beef (and cheaper than ground chicken, too). Plus, it has a lot less fat, so you don’t have to feel as guilty.

I end up making a big batch of ground beef/turkey chili about twice a month. Besides just eating it “normally” (a bowl with grated cheese and oyster crackers), we quite like it as Chili 5 Way. You cook up some spaghetti, pour a little chili sauce on it (the sweet stuff-not the super hot stuff), then a couple big spoons of chili, then some cooked beans (if you didn’t add any to the chili itself), then chopped raw onions, then a big handful of grated cheddar.  Very tasty!

I use a lot of butter, and like to keep it fresh. So I keep all of my butter in the freezer. It’s a great way to take advantage of sales and doesn’t hurt the butter at all. I do the same to the big blocks of cheddar and mozarella that I buy. I cut up the big 3-4 lb blocks into 1/2 lb pieces (about how much I’d go through in a week), then carefully wrap with plastic wrap then foil. Make sure to label them! I don’t freeze good cheese, but the stuff I’m going to grate (ex. cheddar for tacos or chili).

Buttermilk is often called for in recipes, though in some places it can be hard to find. A make-do alternative is to use regular milk and add about a 1 T of lemon juice. After about 15 minutes it should be clumpy and soured–which is what you want in buttermilk. (In PR we could not find any buttermilk. In Austin our store has 4 different sizes, so I’m spoiled now. They have little pint containers for about 60 cents, so I don’t waste too much anymore.)