Awesome Skirt Steak Tacos

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

We spent the day with my mom and dad last Saturday. It was a day full of projects and shopping, and by day’s end it was time for some food. There is a general indecisiveness that creeps into situations like these. The conversation goes something the scene in Jungle Book: “What do you want? I dunno. What do you want?” and on and on. So, instead of going out (which seems to be the default on days like today) I went to the grocery store. It was time to make some home made Mexican food. Namely, steak tacos.

I have been working on perfecting steak for fajitas and tacos. I have used different cuts of meat trying to find the right one…asking someone would have been too hard…and have finally landed on skirt steak. I got the idea from Marixa. Marixa’s favorite restaurant steak meal (Carne Asada) is from a wonderful Mexican food place called Mama Rojas in Oklahoma City. After having that meal with her I have been on a skirt steak crusade.

The ingredients: One pound of skirt steak. Fajita seasoning (your choice). A hot grill.

After rubbing the steak down with the seasoning, I let the steaks cook until they were just pink in the center (3-4 minutes per side, depending on how thick the steak is). I took them off the grill and let them rest for a few. As I was cutting the steak into pieces for tacos, I took a bite. Falling down in the kitchen is not recommended, but the steak was that good.

I added sauted onions and peppers with the meal as well as some Spanish rice. It was so very good. The trick to all of it was the cut of meat. The dry rub mixed with those skirt steaks blew me away. It is nice to have pleasant surprises in the kitchen. Sure beats things blowing up! I am sure there are fancier ways of making this meal, but it didn’t need it. I am actually wondering if it is too soon to have them again!

Cutting corners will cost you (or someone else) in the long run.

~ David Willis ~ 2 Comments

It has been colder in Oklahoma recently than any other time that I remember. I went to work last week and my temperature gauge in my Jeep indicated -4 degrees. For my friends up north this my not be a big deal. In Oklahoma?!! That is almost unheard of. If it gets down to 25 degrees around here people don’t like it.

After two rounds of snow finally melted off my yard (it was 81 here a couple of days ago…really….how do you have an 80 degree swing in a week?!!) things looked as if they were getting back to normal. I came home from work on Thursday and realized my driveway was still soaked. It should have been dry a couple of days before. With a little further inspection I realized that there was a small swimming pool forming in my front yard. There was a leak underground.

I took a few hours off on Friday afternoon to dig out the area and get down to the pipes. I wasn’t sure what kind of damage had happened down below, or how deep the lines were buried and the plumber indicated that he might be able to make it to my house late Friday afternoon, so I needed to get after it. Thankfully, he wans’t able to get there until Saturday. I dug for over 2 hours on Friday. I put another good hour in this morning. It took much longer than I wanted, but I finally isolated where I thought the leak was and then waited for the plumber.

Ok. What does this have to do with cutting corners? I am almost there. Hang with me.

When the plumber arrived it took him about an hour to have the line repaired and the water back on. I went out about midway through and he showed me a piece of PVC pipe that had a fitting on it. The PVC pipe joined up with a copper pipe. The leak occured where the two pipes met. The builder (or someone who last made repair on the line) used an incorrect fitting for joining the two pipes. The fitting they used caused a corrosive reaction with the copper pipe. The pipe had disintegrated. (I am sure the cold ground didn’t help the matter either.) The builder cut a corner, used an incorrect part, and years later I am affected.

This experience made me think. Where have I cut corners that might affect someone else? Has damage been done because I didn’t put forth my best effort? Was it laziness or incompetence?

The cost on this cut corner is roughly 500 dollars. The repair bill cost around 200 (much less than it would have been had I not had the hole dug out). My water bill has been almost double for 6 months. All of this could have been avoided had whoever used the right part. Thankfully, it cost much less than it could have. For that I am thankful. I will consider this a good life lesson to do things right the first time.

What? Are you kidding me? That wasn’t hard!

~ David Willis ~ 2 Comments

I remember how I felt after Marixa and I got married. Our marriage was (and still is) awesome. Life was good as a couple, but in a lot of ways I felt incomplete as a man. There were things that I was supposed to know how to do that I just didn’t or hadn’t had much practice at. Changing spark plugs. Basic home maintenance. Working with my hands. You get the general idea.

I remember telling Marixa on more than one occasion that we needed to get help to do this or that. I was 20 when we got married, so I hadn’t encountered a lot of the things that I would need to know how to do, but it still felt like I should be able to do them. I was a bit embarrassed because I had to ask for help. I didn’t realize at the time that asking for help was the first step in getting it right. Not having someone do it for me, but having someone teach me. How would I learn otherwise? (My father-in-law has been a great mentor for me over the years on how-to projects. I love that guy. Aside from my own dad, I can’t think of another man I respect more.)

I know guys who instinctively figure things out. It seems like they do anyway. What I really think they have is the courage to march right into something they may not know how to do and persist until they conquer it. One of the reasons I didn’t attempt more of the projects I would eventually learn how to do is I didn’t want to screw them up and then have a bigger mess on my hands. Basically, I was fearful. Not a good place to be.

I have since adopted this attitude: what is the worst that can happen? Ok, so I don’t get it right the first time. I pick back up and do it again. I was so afraid of trying that I had myself convinced I couldn’t do it. Most of the things I thought I couldn’t do I later found out that I could. Some of them really well. (Changing light fixtures is a breeze. Spark plugs aren’t so bad either.)

Life is about learning, making mistakes, correcting mistakes, and learning some more. If we don’t learn, we don’t grow. We sit in the same place and feel powerless. I don’t like feeling powerless. It sucks the life out of you. I choose the path of resistance. I choose to grow.

I can’t tell you how many times I have uttered the words in the subject line. I am glad that the fear of the unknown doesn’t stop me as it once did.

Have you ever said these words? What experience did you have that led you there?

Fried Chicken? Yes, please!

~ David Willis ~ 2 Comments

I love Paula Deen. I don’t get to watch her show that often, but I absolutely love it when I do. More than that, I have found several of her recipies on my Food Network: In the Kitchen app for my iPhone that are just awesome. The recipe of this evening? Southern Fried Chicken.

I had never made fried chicken before this evening. I don’t know if it was a mental block or me just being a chicken (pun intended), but I had a mental picture of breading falling off in the oil and mangled chicken pieces for dinner. It wasn’t a good image and since I like good food and not a mutilated greasy mess for dinner, I hadn’t just stepped out and tried it. (This is actually something I am working on many different fronts (trying new things), but I will save that for another time…)

I rocked this meal. I tried to think of a way to say this with humilty, but nothing came to mind. So, I will stick with my former statement. The chicken was crispy on the outside, had really good flavor, and was moist on the inside. That is my criteria for a good piece of fried chicken for sure. It was so good that our niece Rileigh (daughter of very close friends), who is 3 and a picky eater, ate all of her chicken in quick fashion. That was more than enough compliment for me!

One of the best parts of this recipe is the seasoning she puts on the chicken. It is the same seasoning that she uses in her fried okra recipe as well (1 cup of salt, 1/4 cup of pepper, and 1/4 cup of garlic powder all mixed together.  I really sound like I eat a lot of fried stuff don’t I?) It added just the right balance to the chicken. The heat of the red pepper sauce played well off of the flavor of the seasoning.

How about you? What other recipes have you perfected for fried chicken? I am very excited to get back to cooking. I have some ideas on how to play with the recipe a bit. We will see how it goes.

It has been almost 13 years…

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

It has been almost 13 years. Marixa and I haven’t spent a day apart since August 1, 1998. Some of you are thinking, holy cow! Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? For some people, it may not work out so well. For us, it has been a very good thing. It hasn’t been easy to maintain at times, but it has been very worth it.

While we were dating I read an article about Paul McCartney and his late wife Linda. I don’t remember the exact number, but the article indicated that in all their years of marriage they had only spent a week or two apart. It struck me. I shared it with Marixa and we made it a goal of our own.

I know that there are many people that would not be able to do this. I do not condemn that. Each relationship is different and you have to decide what is best. (I know of couples that would kill each other if they didn’t get a break from time to time.) Simply put, we got married to spend our lives together. We chose up front to make our marriage the priority. It is and will continue to be.

Here are a few benefits we have discovered from choosing to live life together day after day:

1. We work through problems really well. There is no escape hatch. I don’t leave the house to go blow off steam. (I have never slept on the couch either.) We work through our issues together. There have been times it has kept us up till the wee hours of the morning, but we work through the problems as they come. Because of this, there are very few problems that show up now.

2. We remain faithful. I will never cheat on my wife. I would rather eat a bowl full of broken glass than do that to her and my family. Choosing to be with my wife daily safeguards our marriage against infidelity. What I want is right here at home. There is no reason to wander.

3. We get to enjoy life together. Marixa is my best friend. She is my truest and most loyal friend. She is the one I want to come through for. She is the first one I want to tell things to. She is the one I want to hold me when life is too hard. She is it for me. Life is beautiful. We get to do it together.

4. It is very hard to grow apart when you spend time together daily. How many people have I heard of that got divorced because they just grew apart of the years? A lot. They let other things come before their marriage and it got them.

I know that many people don’t fit into the mold we do. Your relationship with your spouse is different than ours (I do hope it is the best thing in your world!). Your work may not allow for this. There may be other obligations that you have. I get that. If you are taking care of all of that and making your marriage awesome, I applaud you.

My primary point in writing this post is this: we got married because we want to be together. Why choose to be apart any more than is necessary? There are things we haven’t done over the years. Trips we haven’t taken. Things we haven’t seen. We don’t miss them. We got married because we want to spend our lives with each other. I don’t regret my choice. I know she doesn’t either.

There may come a day where our streak comes to an end. If it does, there will be a really good reason. and another streak will quickly begin. For now, I am going to enjoy each day with her and our family. It is the life I want to live. It is not the only way, but it is the best way for us.

What about you? Do you spend lots of time away from your spouse? How do you make it work?