Fajitas

My dad, the good Norwegian that he is, does not care for Mexican food.  The one exception is fajitas, which he has adapted to venison and shared with all his deer hunting friends.  We usually make our fajitas with chicken and cook everything on the grill.  I use my homemade marinade for the chicken and simple garlic salt and olive oil on the vegetables.  We almost always serve our fajitas with guacamole, but we substitute sour cream and salsa for the guacamole if we can’t find good avocadoes.  The meal has been a hit with the kids since they were really small because of all the great colors and because all of the separate ingredients are easy to see and identify, and eat with their tiny little fingers.  Now the boys are huge and they eat a lot, so it’s hard to cook enough.  But fajitas scale easily.  I just add another pepper and a bit more chicken, and hope they’ll leave me with enough leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

You can use pre-made bottled southwestern marinade, or homemade fajita marinade. And of course, venison works fine instead of chicken.

As a side dish, I like to heat up a can of black beans and a can of corn, mixed together.  You can eat them on the side or inside your tortilla with the other fillings.

Fajitas

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Course Main Dish

Cuisine Mexican

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

  

• 1½ lbs. chicken tenders
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• ½ cup bottled chipotle flavored marinade sauce or homemade fajita marinade
• 6-8 flour tortillas

Instructions

 

• Marinate chicken tenders in a southwestern or chipotle flavored marinade.
• Preheat your grill to medium high heat, and slice the onion and peppers into long thin strips.
• In a large zip top bag, toss sliced veggies with olive oil and garlic salt. Grill the vegetables in a perforated grill pan.
• After the veggies have been cooking for about 10-15 minutes, place chicken on the grill. Reduce the grill heat to medium. Cook chicken tenders for approximately 6 minutes, turning once.
• Lightly butter one side of each tortilla, and quickly heat the tortillas on the grill.
• Slice the cooked chicken into long strips, and assemble veggies, chicken, and tortillas into fajitas, topping with either guacamole or sour cream and salsa, or all three if that makes you happy!

Alternate stovetop cooking instructions

Slice the peppers and onions into strips, and fry in large skillet.  Add a few tablespoons of olive oil and a little garlic salt to taste.  Meanwhile, cut the chicken into strips, marinate in bottled chipotle marinade, and fry in second large skillet. Steam the flour tortillas by wrapping them in a damp dish cloth and microwaving the tortillas and dish cloth together for 1 minute.  Serve the fajita mixture wrapped in a flour tortilla.