What I Cook on Repeat

I'm often asked what I like to cook the most, and frankly I do not have an answer because I do not like repeating recipes that much. In fact it used to drive Jim crazy that I always wanted to try something new instead of recreating a successful dinner that he loved.

I think it was partly due to the fact I FELL so hard and so fast IN LOVE with cooking. Like anything obsessive, you can imagine my craving for knowledge was so great that I was ravenously consuming recipe books and food blogs for new cooking techniques and new ingredients to try.

Menu of the Week and the Terrible Peanut Shrimp Dinner

This menu of the week consist of some super easy meals. Shrimp tacos didn't happen on Sunday, instead we ate out with friends. Pot Pies and rice on Monday? I know, crazy right!? Monday was a holiday so our "Monday" was on Tuesday which is why Tuesday we had our traditional salmon meal.

Cheater Beef Stroganoff - Crockpot Cooking

I was inspired by a pinterest recipe described as, "melt in your mouth crockpot cube steak." My interest was peaked because cube steak is a cheaper cut of beef and now that I have a littel one, crockpot cooking is helpful on days that I don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen.

The original recipe, posted by The Jilly Bean claims to be a favorite among her family. Although her husband comments that it looks like dog food, she says that it is full of flavor. I took her recipe and made it my own. Here we go...

Black Forest Cake

If you think you don't have time to make a dessert for the holidays, think again! This Black Forest Cake is so decadent, and extremely simple to pull together. Baking is a thoughtful and delicious way to show others how much they mean to you. They don't have to know this warm and gooey cake was this easy...the best part? I made this in my crock pot, which frees up my oven for other things.

Simple ingredients: Chocolate Cake Mix, Cherry Pie Filling, Butter and if you like nuts you can add that too.

Lucky Leaf provided me with an assortment of their Premium Fruit fillings to sample for myself. I was able to make whatever I wanted with their products, and this entire post is my own opinion - I received no compensation for my written review. The beautiful 43 page Recipe Book they sent along with the products is filled with inspirational photos and easy to follow recipes. Next on my list is the Cherry-Chocolate Macaroon Pie. OMG, it's a recipe that only takes 30 minutes to prep, 22 minutes to bake and serves 8. Can you tell I have a thing for cherry's and chocolate? Read on to find out how you can receive some Lucky Leaf this holiday season.

Making Queso in the Crockpot

This is my favorite party tool because it looks sleek on the buffet and works non-stop to keep foods hots. I'm not sure what I would do without my Cuisinart Crockpot. Although my last post was Dip overload, I failed to include one of my favorite dips of all time: Queso! It's a staple at our football parties and this recipe is extra special because it uses ground turkey and just the right amount of heat.

The first thing to do is brown a pound of turkey with one chopped onion.

You could use any type of ground meat in this recipe, simply brown over medium-high heat until there are no signs of pink meat.

Yes, I use velveeta. It's a log of processed cheese and melts beautifully in queso and taste great in this recipe. Don't be afraid, it's how most Texans make queso - or at least my circle of Texans.

After the meat is browned with the onion, dump it into your crockpot and add a small can of hatch green chiles.

Next, add one can of rotel. I like to buy the "hot" rotel.

Cube the cheese log.

Stir the cubes into the crockpot.

With the crockpot on high, the cheese will melt in about 15 minutes. Every once in a while stir the mixture and the cheese will melt smooth. This is one of those really easy recipes, but I always get asked what I put in my queso because the green chiles and ground meat add a slow heat and hearty bite. Now you know. If your guests can take the heat, dice up a jalapeno also.  Did you also know that this freezes really well? I put leftover queso in a freezer safe zip top bag and freeze flat.

Crockpot Mexican Chicken

Ready for the big 3-day weekend ahead? Going anywhere amazing? Jim and I plan on staying home and celebrating the Fourth of July since June was such a travel intensive month for me. During a busy month, like the one Jim and I just had, I'm all about making great tasting food the easy way. When I saw this recipe for the Crockpot Chicken Tacos on the Not So Skinny Kitchen, I thought to put it in my back pocket for a day when the last thing I wanted to do was stand in the kitchen and cook.





Her recipe for six servings goes like this:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast

2 tablespoons jalapeno, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

14 ounces canned, diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons brown sugar

¼ cup cilantro, chopped

⅛ teaspoon chipotle chile powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin




Put all ingredients in Crockpot and cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or low 6 to 8 hours or until meat can be shredded easily with fork. Serve with tortillas and toppings of your choosing.





I pulled my crockpot out and threw in three frozen chicken breasts. Why 3? Because they were stuck together and I didn't feel like messing with it.

Two fresh tomatoes that came from my CSA, Yummy Farms here in the Austin area.

Gave them both a rough chop and tossed them in.

One fat garlic clove, rough chopped.

2 locally grown onions from my CSA.

2 juicy jalapenos from my CSA.

I didn't even seed these, just gave them a rough chop and threw them in the pot.

I found this hiding in the back of my pantry so I threw in an entire jar of this medium spiced cilantro salsa.

I like the cumin flavor in southwest dishes, it gives foods another depth of flavor.

1/8 teaspoon of cayenne. Or more if you can take the heat.

1 teaspoon cumin.

1 teaspoon of chicken flavored bouillon.

Just mix it up the best you can.

Turn the heat on high and then let the crock pot do it's thing. Every hour or so I would walk by and give the mixture a stir. The chicken defrosted in the liquid quickly and cooked through in about four hours.

Once the chicken was fully cooked I moved them to a plate.

Then shred with two forks

and add back to the crock pot.

I let this heat through for another 30 minutes, but it's ready when you are!

If you are serving this at a party, I would simply turn heat to low and set out all the fixings around the crockpot and let guests help themselves.

The flavor was really good. I thought it was too soupy but I simply used tongs to remove the pulled chicken I wanted to use.

For Jim, I made a big burrito. Using a flour tortilla I spooned on the pulled chicken and added some chopped up pieces of jalapeno cheddar.

I first folded in the top and bottom then rolled it like a cigar.

Heated my cast iron skillet and then "grilled" each side of the burrito enough to melt the cheese inside.

I made a quesadilla for myself. Using half a tortilla I filled it with chicken and topped with cheese.

Grilled the same way as Jim's burrito.

Quesadilla!

BBQ Pulled Pork

I’ve been cooking often in 2009, but this year has been SO busy I can’t find the time to write and post recipes. Here is one from December 08. Jim was staying in Austin to spend Christmas with his mom and I went to Houston to visit my family this holiday season. On one of my days off I decided to make a slow cooker meal that I knew Jim would enjoy eating off of while I’m out of town. I made a VERY successful Hungarian Pot Roast recently and decided to use my slow cooker again and create BBQ Pulled Pork. I’ve made pulled pork before with much success but it had a Mexican flair with caramelized onions and red wine au jus served with tomatillo salsa on flour tortillas. Man, that was a good meal and I should make that again soon, but I’m not good about repeating recipes…as you can tell by my blog. I purchased a little over a pound of pork roast and used the BBQ sauce recipe from when I made BBQ Ribs as my base but made a few slight changes.

Here is the BBQ Sauce Recipe and my changes are in parentheses:
7 oz tomato puree/sauce/ketchup
1 cup finely chopped yellow onions
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup red wine vinegar (I’m using half cup of dry sherry)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons spicy whole-grain mustard
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
4 cloves minced garlic
1 tablespoon jalapeno peppers (Instead, I’m using 3 chipotle peppers in adobe sauce)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (leaving out)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (adding 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns!)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne (leaving out)
1 tablespoon of finely chopped and peeled fresh ginger (leaving out)
2 T butter


Season pork roast with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder (SPOG as my mom calls it).

Add a little bit of olive oil to a sauté pan and sear the pork on all sides until browned all over. Then place your seared pork in the slow cooker.

In case you didn't know what hipotle peppers in adobo sauce was - here is a picture. Found on the mexican food aisle of most grocery stores.

In the same sauté pan, melt 2 T butter and throw in your chopped onion and cook until translucent about 4 minutes and then add the chopped garlic for one minute. Let the garlic become fragrant, but not browned. Add the chipotle peppers next, then all the rest of the sauce ingredients: dry sherry, tomato sauce, molasses, lemon juice, mustard, brown sugar, Worcestershire, salt and black peppercorns.

Heat through and NOW… drum roll please…

I’m using MY NEW KithchenAid Immersion Blender to easily puree the sauce on the oven.

I love this thing!!!

Next I pour the sauce into the slow cooker over the seared pork. Set to high and let it cook for the day.

Cook until the pork is fork tender and times will vary based on how big your meat is. The pork roast I purchased was just over a pound and after four hours the meat was FORK TENDER!

Move to a plate and salivate.

Use two forks and shred away.

I like BBQ pulled pork piled onto some wheat bread.

I even spoon a little more of the BBQ Sauce on toop before I close my sandwich up. Add some pickles too. Pork is not that expensive. For less than $10 you could feed 8 people!