Happy New Year!

Once again we started out the New Year with a pot of good luck...

Before:

After:

I used the same recipe as last year. Yum!  I should make this more than once a year.

Monster Cookies

1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg and a bit of vanilla.  Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or so. Made by visiting monster Brooks.  Yum!

Grilled Peaches

Delicious!  Andrew made these beauties last night.  Here's the recipe in his words:

Agrodolce Grilled Peaches

Glaze: 1 cup Red Wine Vinegar, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup peach nectar, salt/pepper. Reduce until a syrup for glazing. Cut in half. Grill about 3-4 minutes face down (brush with Canola oil). Turn and repeat. drizzle with sauce. (Via Bobby Flay). I reduced the glaze while grilling the Tri-Tip, but you could do it ahead of time. Soo freaking good! Enjoy ;-)

Lemonade

Angelica brought 6 lemons over today with a request - "to make lemonade".

Ingredients:
6 lemons from the tree in Angelica's backyard (or about 1 3/4 cups lemon juice)
8 cups water
1 cup sugar

I washed the lemons and then each kid rolled 2 lemons on the countertop to loosen up the juice.  We took turns juicing them while 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar boiled on the stove to make simple syrup. Instead of letting the simple syrup cool we added cold water and ice, stirred it all up and enjoyed a delicious cup of semi-tart lemonade.

Better than McDonald's

All summer we've been hearing the radio commercials for McDonald's Mango Pineapple smoothies.  I promised the kids we could make a better one...

Chicken Yakitori

Andrew did his version of Bobby Flay's Yakitori Chicken tonight - AMAZING!

What to do with a head of cabbage...

This week's farm share box included a head of cabbage.  Having never prepared cabbage I was excited to try something new.  With half of it I made two recipes from AllRecipes.com:

Winter Lentil Vegetable Soup
Apple Cole Slaw

Both were really good.  I made the soup in the crock pot.  Just threw it all in and cooked on low for about 8 hours.  Here it is before cooking... I forgot to take an after picture.

The Apple Cole Slaw was a hit with all of us and Baden even had seconds.  This would be fun to bring to a summer barbeque.  It looks pretty and tastes great.

I still have half left so plan to make Five Spice Pork Tenderloin with Cabbage from my new favorite cookbook, Time for Dinner.

Salsa Chicken and Black Bean Soup

I've been wanted to make this recipe from the A Year of Slow Cooking blog for a while now.  I finally got around to it today.  It was really good and really easy.  I soaked the beans overnight and used frozen chicken breast tenderloins, then cooked it on low for about 7 hours.  When I got from work I took the chicken out and cut it into smaller pieces, put some of it back in and used an immersion blender to thicken it up a bit.  The beans still needed about an hour but the chicken was done so I left the rest of the chicken out and added it back in later.

Baden reluctantly tried it but ended up eating all of his.  Paige commented that the sour cream was sour. Hmm.. I remember having the same discussion with my sister when we were little.  "Heather, it's not really sour, it's just CALLED sour cream."  She didn't buy it either.

I'll make this soup again!

Swiss Chard Lasagna

I've been eyeing Time for Dinner for close to a year now... I finally broke down and bought it.  My first recipe was a huge success.  Baden had THIRDS.

We found this little guy on our organic swiss chard.  After two days in the fridge I wasn't sure he was alive but Paige gently removed him and put him outside.  He moved!

Paige was excited to help assemble the layers of our lasagna...

Just out of the oven...

Our plates (before)

and after!

I can't share the recipe here due to copyright laws but I can invite you to dinner... just let me know when you're coming!  Bring wine.

Kale Chips

Another reason I love Baden's new school - organic fruits and vegetables from Dragon Organics!  We picked up our first order today.  How convenient, pick up your veggies while you're picking up your kid.

Our haul this week: lettuce, carrots, strawberries, kale, swiss chard, beets, broccoli and oranges.

I was so excited that as soon as we got home I searched for kale recipes.  Immediately I came up with several for kale chips.  I had to try it right away.

It looks like salad... but it is baked kale chips. I'm glad I took a picture because we devoured them.  

I will make this again (probably this weekend).  Next time I'll be more adventurous and try some other seasonings but this time I just used olive oil and Maldon sea salt.

Here's what I did:  Wash and dry kale.  Coat with olive oil and salt.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes in a single layer.  I turned them at about 10 minutes.

(Almost) Guilt-free chips - I'm sold!

Red Lentil Soup

I love this soup from Orangette.  Easy and delicious.  The lemon juice and cilantro add a wonderful fresh flavor.

Chicken Drumstick - Rice Bake

This was easy easy easy and the kids ate ate ate it.  I'll definitely make this recipe from Cooks.com again.  I used organic chicken (on sale at Henry's) and baked for 2 1/2 hours at 325 degrees.  It was delicious.
I made 10 drumsticks - all we had left was this little bit (perfect for Andrew's lunch tomorrow):

We also had broccoli and Easter eggs.  Here's our little kitty cat all smiles.

Butternut Squash Soup

Baden requested this soup tonight. I've made it a few times - it's easy to make, delicious, and looks pretty.

Plus I get to use the immersion blender!

Before:                                                                              After:

The recipe can be found here on a blog I read regularly, Pancakes and French Fries. It's not a cooking blog but this soup is good!

Chili

Super Bowl Sunday.... chili seemed like a good idea.  And it was!

Simple Chili from 101 Things To Do With A Slow Cooker
Ground beef (browned) with onion, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, green chilies, garlic, kidney beans, a bit of water and seasonings.  Not too spicy but can easily be doctored with your favorite hot sauce.  I used Frank's Red Hot.

Pork and Mushrooms

Nothing fancy this week.  We're still trying to adjust to life after the holidays.  Life is crazy busy right now but I wanted to keep this up - trying new recipes, planning meals, etc.  So I picked a simple recipe with few ingredients to kick off the new year.  Although it called for pork chops we had a pork loin in the fridge so I used that.

Pork loin, cut into pieces
2 medium onions, sliced
1 small can sliced mushrooms
1 package dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup mushroom broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup

Place meat in greased crock pot. Top with onions and mushrooms. Combine soup mix, broth, and soup and pour mixture in crock pot.  We cooked it on low for 5 hours.  It was delicious!  We ended up with about 1/3 cup of sauce in the bottom of the crock pot.  Which means I can't take a picture since I forgot earlier. Truthfully it probably tasted better than it looked anyway.

Now if I can only find time to get the tree down!

Happy New Year!

Growing up in California, the only New Year's Day tradition we had was to watch the Rose Parade.  I still watch the Rose Parade but now I also make a pot of black eyed peas.

An ex-boyfriend's mother (a True Texan Woman) always made Black Eyed Peas on New Year's Day to bring good luck.  The boyfriend is long gone but I always make black eyed peas on Jan 1.  I usually make Mississippi Caviar from the Silver Palate cookbook but in the spirit of Crockpot Wednesdays I tried a new recipe.

So, at the stroke of midnight last night I was sipping champagne and assembling this recipe from AllRecipes.com.  I started the crock pot and went to bed.  We woke up to the most delicious pot of good luck! Not exactly breakfast food but we'll enjoy this all week.  This is my new favorite way to prepare black eyed peas.  

December craziness...

We took last week off due to extra long December to do lists.  This week... who knows what day it is, right?  Well it's Wednesday and I realized as I headed off to bed, "It's Wednesday and I'm making minestrone soup in my crock pot!"  So the good news is that by using my crock pot regularly over the last two months I now use it without planning to use it.  It's no longer an event... it's cooking!

When I wake up tomorrow morning a big batch of Herby Minestrone (from Art of the Slow Cooker) will be waiting.  I'll refrigerate it and we'll enjoy it over the next few days.  Hopefully the rain will let up but if it doesn't at least we'll have some delicious homemade soup.

Week 8: Moroccan Chicken

Liz chose this week... Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken from allrecipes.com.    I usually try to follow the directions exactly the first the time I prepare a recipe.  However I only had the time and energy to go to one grocery store on Tuesday night.  I opted for Henry's even though Liz had texted me that Ralph's had fresh peaches.  Of course Henry's didn't have fresh peaches.  No slivered almonds either.  So I was uneasy from the start.  I bought canned peaches (organic) and used less apricots since canned peaches are sweeter than fresh.

Then today on my way to a meeting I realized I hadn't asked my mom to pull the crock pot out of the fridge and turn it on.  Hmm... it was 11 am so I had two hours to either reach her or get home.  Luckily she called me back just after noon and got the crock pot started.  But I forgot to tell her to add the chicken broth!  I had layered all the ingredients the night before but decided to add the chicken broth just before cooking.  I didn't realize this until much later though, in fact I didn't realize I forgot until after dinner.

So no surprise here - I skipped the cornstarch and water step because it didn't seem to need thickening.  Hmm I wonder why?  Because I left out 2 cups of liquid?  I still didn't realize I forgot the broth.  

Andrew chopped some almonds for me to substitute for "toasted slivered almonds".  We served it into bowls... we reached for the camera to take a picture... the batteries were dead.  So I used my phone which will explain the quality of this picture.

How was Murphy's Law Moroccan Chicken?  It got mixed reviews.  The kids didn't like it - "too spicy". Andrew gave it a thumbs up.  He had seconds and will have more in his lunch tomorrow.  I thought it was ok.  Actually, I did like it but I don't know that I'll make it again.  Although Andrew wants to try it again.  If I do make it again, it will be in the summer time with fresh peaches!

Week 7: Tex-Mex Chicken and Beans

Slow-Cooked Tex-Mex Chicken and Beans

Wow! I really can't believe we've kept this up for seven weeks (with a week off for Thanksgiving). Heather's turn to pick this week.  Another good one!  This recipe was very tasty AND really easy.  It didn't make as much as I thought it would so I might double it next time for a crowd or leftovers.

Here's the link to the original recipe on Everyday Food.  Heather read the comments and suggested we soak the beans overnight. I did this and it worked perfectly.

Ingredients:
1 cup dried pinto beans, soaked overnight
most of 1 jar of Frontera Medium Salsa (Andrew loves Rick Bayless)
2 tablespoons of canned chipotle in adobo sauce, chopped
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 package (about 1.25 pounds) organic chicken breast from Costco
Maldon sea salt flakes and fresh ground pepper
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chicken broth (the original recipe calls for water)

Garnish on top: a bit of sour cream and lots of chopped cilantro

Directions:
In crock pot, layer beans, salsa, chiles, flour and 1 cup chicken broth.  Arrange chicken on top of bean mixture, season with salt and pepper.  Scatter onion and bell pepper on top of chicken.

Cook on LOW for 8 hours.  Do not open lid or stir.

With two forks shred chicken by pulling it apart.  Serve with sour cream and cilantro.

I will definitely make this again.  Let me know if you want to come for dinner!

Coming Soon: Slow-Cooked Tex-Mex Chicken and Beans

In case you want to participate this week, here is Heather's pick for the week from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food.