I have not gone away!

Summers tend to be very busy for me and this summer has been no exception!

Just to recap what I have done so far: I have worked on my favorite TV show ("Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"), met a favorite author (James Rollins), gone to many parties, got a clean bill of health from the foot doc, and have done a lot of swimming and general playing.

So, as you can see, this has left very little time for cooking. But I plan to be cooking up a storm very soon. I am going to be incorporating a new element into my cooking, but that will be something for another day.

Fall Apart Chicken

Today at work we had a potluck and in honor of Cinco De Mayo we had "Mexican" food. I signed up to bring meat and so I decided to bring shredded chicken. Everyone loved the chicken and wanted the recipe, so I decided to post it here. This recipe is painfully easy and the results are fall apart, tender chicken breast. This recipe can easily be modified for any types of marinades, seasonings, or anything else you would like in the chicken. I like this shredded chicken recipe for a variety of dishes. Everything from casseroles to nachos! I think you will like this recipe too.

Shredded Chicken With Taco Seasoning

Boneless Chicken Breasts (today I used about 3.5 lbs. of chicken, but you can use more or less depending on how many people you are feeding and if you want leftovers)

Taco Seasoning of choice – 1 packet per pound, plus one extra

Water

Put the chicken in the crock pot, dump the taco seasoning on top (reserve the extra packet), add enough water until the chicken is covered.

Cook on low for 8-12 hours, until chicken is cooked through. Strain the liquid off into a bowl or another pot as you will need it.

Stab a fork in the chicken and shred it until desired consistency. The chicken will be so tender, it will take about two minutes to shred the chicken.

Add the extra taco seasoning and add some of the taco liquid back into the chicken until the chicken is well covered and is to a desired look and taste.

Serve as desired – refrigerate leftovers, if any.

Tips: If you want a little sweeter chicken flavor (like they have at Bajio or Café Rio), add a few teaspoons of honey to the crock pot before cooking. If you want it a little spicier, add some chili powder, cayenne pepper, or hot sauce before cooking as well. This chicken also refrigerates well for up to two weeks. I use it in everything – tacos, burritos, salads, quesadillas, and nachos and anything else that sounds good.

You can also omit the taco seasoning and just cook the chicken and water in the crock pot for shredded chicken for other recipes, but if you do leave out the taco seasoning, make sure you salt and pepper the chicken so the flavor of the chicken is enhanced.  

 

Little Heavenly Bites Of Goodness!

Sometimes I must say I impress myself. Yeah, I know I said I would be making some Amish recipes and all, but you know there are some days when you crave certain foods. Tonight I was craving spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti is by far one of my favorite things to eat, but I don't usually make it because I usually make too much. But I really had to have meatballs. I have a recipe for meatballs that I have developed over the years. I can still remember when I got the basic recipe and what I was doing. When I was in college, a friend and I were really craving some home cooking and so we decided we wanted spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. We knew how to cook spaghetti, but neither one of us were too sure on the meatballs. So I called my mom from my cell phone and asked her how to make them. She gave me a very basic recipe which was basically ground beef, saltine crackers, parsley, salt, and pepper. They turned out alright, but I wanted more. Since then I have played around with this recipe over the years and have come up with a recipe that I truly love. I have decided to share my recipe with the world, if you will, today! There are a lot of ingredients but they truly make a delicious meatball. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can make a lot of them and use what you want and freeze the rest for a quick and easy meal later. I have included a picture of how to prep them for the freezer. The measurements in this recipe are approximate; I never measure when I make these, you may need to adjust to your own taste. Happy meatball eating!


Heavenly Bites of Goodness
1 lb. of ground beef or turkey (tonight I used about 1/2 lb. of each cause it is what I had left)
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. tarragon
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. rubbed sage
1 Tb. parsley
1 Tb. fennel seed
1 Tb. Parmesan cheese
1 egg
4-6 Saltine Crackers
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil

In a mixing bowl combine all of ingredients except for egg and crackers. Add the egg and then add the crackers until the meat mixture is moist but not super runny or sticky. The best way to combine the ingredients is to put the meat in the bowl and make a pocket in the meat -- add the ingredients and then use your hands to mix the meat up. Once the meat mixture is complete, turn a skillet on low with a little olive oil in the bottom of the pan. Add the meatballs until nicely seared on the outside and cooked fully in the middle. Serve with pasta, on a sandwich, or just eat right out of the pan.



Meatball texture up close:



Many meatballs:



Spaghetti and meatballs:



Meatball prep for freezer:

I am back and ready to cook!

Hello, everyone! I am back and better than ever! After two months of recovery from foot surgery, I am ready and itching to cook again! The last few days I have been thinking about what to cook and I have settled on a few things. First up will be some recipes that are common among the Amish from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I am a huge admirer of the Amish and love how they cook and use everything and never waste! I recently purchased a book of Amish recipes compiled by Beverly Lewis, an author who writes fictional stories about the Amish. Needless to say, I am slightly addicted to her novels! I have read just about everything she has written.

These recipes come from her grandmother who was raised in an Old Order Mennonite home and the author herself grew up in Amish country, so she knows what she is talking about.

So, watch the blog over the course of the next week as I start cooking. The only difference between me and the Amish is I will be using modern kitchen tools. Happy cooking, everyone!

A Brief Hiatus

Hello, everyone! I want to let you all know I will be taking a brief hiatus from my blog. I just had foot surgery and as a result I have to hobble around in a pink cast for the next month or so. This cast makes it very difficult to cook, so until my cast is removed towards the end of March, I will not be blogging on new recipes. I will return, though, at the end of March with lots of new recipes and wonderful new ideas and tips! Have a great February, everyone!

Crock Pot Chicken and Veggies!

Sometimes I am surprised by what you see in the grocery store ads. A few days ago I was looking at the sales in the local ad for the grocery store here. In the ad there was a recipe for a crock pot recipe. I love cooking in the crock pot because you can throw in all of your ingredients in it and then turn it on and walk away and a few hours later you have a delicious meal and you didn't have to babysit it.

So, I decided to try the recipe that was in the ad. It was a recipe for Chicken and Vegetables. I went to the grocery store and bought the little meal pack you could get. The only thing I switched up was the Cream of Mushroom soup that was in the recipe. I substituted a can of Cream of Asparagus soup instead. I put all of the ingredients in the crockpot and turned it on and went to work. When I came home a little over eight hours later, I had a delicious meal. The chicken was so tender I could barely get it out of the crock pot without it falling apart. This was by far one of the best meals I have had in a long time. The recipe below feeds six people. I modified it a little because I am only one person. I cut the recipe in half. I still have enough for another batch. But this recipe is perfect for a family. In fact, my sister made a similar meal from this idea. I will post her idea below as well. So, if you want a healthy, easy meal this is my suggestion!

Crock Pot Chicken and Veggies
6 Boneless chicken breasts
10 Red Potatoes, cut into chunks
1 lb. bag of baby carrots
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 can Cream of Mushroom (or another Cream of Vegetable soup if you aren't a fan of fungus)
1/2 tsp. garlic powder (for another level, I used one garlic clove)
Salt and Pepper

Directions:
Add the potatoes to the crock pot. Cover with the carrots. Top with the chicken breasts. Combine the soups and add the garlic. Pour over the chicken and veggies. Turn on crock pot on low and cook for eight hours. Salt and pepper to taste upon serving. Serve with rolls if preferred.

Crock Pot Chicken Pot Pies:
Follow the recipe above, but add some additional vegetables such as frozen peas, corn, or whatever you prefer. You may also want to cut up the chicken into smaller pieces. Bake some of the pop can biscuits (such as Pillsbury). When the chicken is done, spoon some of the chicken and veggies over one half biscuit and top with the other half biscuit. Instant "pot pie." You could even make this more pie like if you have a ramekin. You could split one biscuit and put it in the bottom of the ramekin and then scoop the mixture over and then put the top on it!

Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fishy!

So I made this for dinner quite some time ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my cat had a freak accident and so I was dealing with that. He is all healed now, so now I blog.

I made Nut-Crusted Tilapia With Spinach and Carrots. This was so good! This was also a first for me in terms of cooking something I have never cooked before. I have grown up eating all kinds of fish, but I have never cooked it myself unless you count frozen fish sticks. The tilapia was quite easy to cook. I ground up some bread and cashew nuts in my food processor and then coated the fish with some horseradish infused spicy grainy mustard and the nut mixture and then baked the fish. It turned out really well and was very tender and flaky! With the leftover fish I cooked it a few days later and "fried" the pieces. That was good too! I consider this a hit because my friend ate the fish with me and she isn't a big fan of having nuts in her food, but she didn't even know until I told her. So I think if you are someone who hates nuts in food because of texture, this is the perfect recipe because the nuts are ground up into a powder almost, so it eliminates the texture that nuts tend to have.

The recipe also had spinach and roasted carrots on the side. The carrots were roasted in the oven. They turned out really well. The only I would do different is double the carrots, because there wasn't that much after I was done cooking them. And hey, they are vegetables so there is no guilt in doubling up on them! The spinach was easy to cook. The recipe suggested adding a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes to the spinach, so I did -- won't do that next time! It definitely took the spinach up another level, but it was spicy! Next time I will omit the pepper flakes.

So, all in all, this was a great recipe and I think kids would love this recipe! It would expose them to something more than frozen fish sticks but still have that fish stick appeal with the nut crust. I am thankful that my parents didn't always have money for eating out and even store bought meat. My dad always went fishing and so we always had fish in the house, and so I grew up loving fish and still do to this day! If prepared right, fish is mighty tasty!

Nut-crusted tilapia with Spinach and Carrots: