Tortilla Soup - Tasty Tuesday!

So yes, I've posted a tortilla soup recipe before.  And it's good.  But I gotta say, this one is way easier. And just as yummy.  And the wee ones liked it better, possibly because I put fewer "spicy" ingredients in it.

This is one of those "recipes" that I made in desperation.  I knew I was going to be running around all yesterday afternoon and was going to walk in the door long enough to drop the wee ones off for dinner before heading out again.  Welcome to my life.  If I didn't want them eating fast food (and I didn't), I'd have to have dinner ready for my husband.  That meant something in the crock pot, and that's where I drew a blank.

I literally tossed four frozen chicken breasts into the crock pot while I debated what to make.  I had tomatoes, so I added two cans of that.  And some chicken broth.  Before I knew it, I'd made tortilla soup with less than five minutes' prep time.  No joke.

Of course, neither of the wee ones would want to try it if they knew what was in there.  My secret?  I had them close their eyes and then smell the deliciousness wafting from the crock pot.  Both agreed it smelled awesome.  And voila, they tried, ate, and loved the soup.  Yay!

Yes, I have a photo of the soup in a bowl.  I don't have any photos of me making it because, honestly, they aren't pretty.  And this is so easy that it doesn't even need photos.  Seriously.

Crock Pot Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:
4 chicken good size chicken breasts - yes, I used frozen because it's what I had; use fresh or frozen
2 cans diced tomatoes, the 14.5 ounce size
3 c chicken broth
1 can enchilada sauce - I used mild because it was for the wee ones, but use your favorite
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 c frozen corn
2 t salt
1 1/2 t cumin
2 tortillas
oil
Optional: chilis, 1 t chili powder, juice of a lemon

Directions:
Seriously.  This is the easiest ever.  Put your chicken in the crock pot.  Add the tomatoes.  Add the chicken broth.  Chop your onion and add it.  Dice  your garlic and add it.  Add the enchilada sauce.  Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or me version: on high for four hours (because I had the frozen chicken, remember?) then on low for 2 hours after that.

Pull the chicken from the soup, and gently shred it.  The meat will literally fall apart, it's so tender and yummy.  I just used the back of a spatula to shred it.  Add the chicken to the crock pot again, and add the cumin, then stir.  Add your corn and salt, and stir again and you're done.

If you're using the optional ingredients, go ahead and add the chilis and/or chili powder at the beginning.  The lime juice gets added just before serving.  What else would you include?

To add the tortilla strips to make it truly a tortilla soup, brush them lightly with oil.  Place one atop the other and cut into thin strips, then cut the strips into the length you like.  Place them on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper or a sil pat.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes until they're browning and crispy.  Place them atop your soup as you serve it (if you like sour cream, I've heard that's good, too, but it's never in my house because I don't like it personally).  You can store the extras on the counter in a sealed container for 3 days or so.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.  Rachel from A Southern Fairytale has an awesome Mouthwatering Monday linkup that I participate in, too.

Tomato Tart - Tasty Tuesday!

I am not a pie lover.  Shh, don't tell anyone.  Most pies are ok, but it's rare that I'll voluntarily choose to eat pie.  That said, I love making and eating my apple pie (which is really a crisp).  And peach pie is one of my favorites, but I'd rather go savory.  I'm much more of a quiche girl, which really is just pie as a meal instead of pie as a dessert.  So does it surprise you to learn that I made a tomato tart last week and ate almost all of it by myself over the course of three days?

I didn't think so.  But hey, tomato tart.  That's healthy.  Ish.  Kind of.  Ok, more so than French silk pie, right?  Help me justify.  I need to, because it was that good.  And I'll probably do the same again.

Is it the prettiest pie you've ever seen?  No, but if you'll recall, this was the pie dough I made last week when I had my migraine.  And that food processor pie dough is pretty darn tasty.  Even if it wasn't so pretty this time around.

Tomato Tart

Ingredients:
1 pie crust, my recipe, your recipe, or another method
6 large ripe tomatoes with lots of flavor, preferably something heirloom
3 cloves garlic
2 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 c bread crumbs (again, I've used Panko for 15 years, and it's still my favorite - and no one's paying me to say that... yet!)
1 T herbes de Provence
1 1/4 c Parmesan cheese, shredded (shred your own, it melts better and tastes better) - and I just might have not even measured this and just put on enough until I liked it.

Directions:
Start by preparing your tomatoes.  You can go ahead and put  your crust into the pie pan or tart pan, but then stick it back in the fridge so it stays nice and cold.  You want to peel, seed, and dice your tomatoes.  It's not nearly as hard as it sounds.

To peel your  tomatoes, you need to quickly blanch them.  Get a pot of water simmering on the stove.  Then cut a shallow X on the bottom of each tomato.

Have an ice bath ready for the tomatoes for when they are done blanching.  Easiest way?  Get a decent size bowl, fill it with a bunch of ice from your freezer.  Add water, swishing the bowl as you do so to ensure that the ice doesn't freeze into a giant block and instead stays separate cubes.

Now your're ready to blanch the tomatoes.  Using a slotted spoon, carefully place a couple tomatoes into the water.  Let them sit for less than a minute before you fish them out.  Immediately place them in the ice bath.  I get into a rhythm with this where I will have two tomatoes in the ice bath, two tomatoes in the water, and two tomatoes being peeled and the timing of it works for me.  Figure out what works for you.

Once the tomatoes have cooled for a couple minutes, pull one from the ice bath.  You'll notice that the skin around where you had made your shallow X is peeling back by itself.

Simply take the skin, and pull it back. You'll be amazed by how easy it is to peel.  This also works for other fruits like peaches and the like, when you need to peel those.

Now the tomatoes are ready to seed and dice.  You want as much liquid out of the tomatoes as possible.  To do this, the first step is seeding.  Cut the tomato into pieces.  For a medium size tomato, six is usually enough.  For a larger tomato, I may need 8 or even 10 to ensure that each seed membrane is accessible to me.  Pick up a slice, run your thumb on the edge of the seeds, and they all pop out.  Do this for each tomato.

Go ahead and dice them.  You want them about a quarter inch square, but exactness isn't important.  Once they're diced, I like to wait a little to get the more water out.  I'll put them in a colander and let the juices seep out for another twenty minutes or so.  Although the breadcrumbs help keep the tart from being soggy, the more juice you remove up front, the better.  While you're waiting is a good time to go ahead and mince your garlic cloves.

Now you're ready to put it all together.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Mix the breadcrumbs with the herbes de Provence and 1/4 cup of your Parmesan cheese.  Place this in the bottom of your pie crust, evenly covering the surface.

Now that your tomatoes have released their juices, go ahead and place them into a small bowl.  Add the olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper to your tomatoes.  Stir it up and taste to make sure the salt and pepper is at a good level for you, remembering that you're still going to be adding a ton of Parmesan, so the salt can be a little light.

Place the tomatoes gently onto the bread crumbs, ensuring it is in an even layer.  Place the rest of your shredded Parmesan atop the tomatoes.  Place the tart into your 400 degree oven, and bake it until slightly browned, around 45 minutes or so.

This is great while still hot, or you can serve it room temperature.  Trust me, it's awesome either way.  This works wonderfully as an appetizer, or you can be like me and eat it for your meals.  Yes, it makes an awesome breakfast.  Just sayin'.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.  Rachel from A Southern Fairytale has an awesome Mouthwatering Monday linkup that I participate in, too.

Sweet Tomato Chicken - Tasty Tuesday!

So it's back to school.  That means that I now have to be even better about having meals planned out and started while the wee ones are at school - not because we're so much more busy now, after all, the wee ones' activities didn't stop during the summer, but because I need something to put in lunches the next day.

This summer I somehow discovered that Mister Man really loves plain baked chicken (he'll even eat it with some pepper,  yay!) with marinara sauce over it.  Go figure - this from my sauce hating child who thinks tomatoes were put on this earth as a form of cruel torture for him.  And no, I'm not joking.  This is called progress, people.

So last week?  I pushed my luck a little with a chicken crock pot dish on the first day of school because I was going to have to leave the house by one and not get home until after tae kwon do with not one but two starving children.  Whee.

Fortunately?  It turned out awesome.  And yes, it went in the lunchbox the next day, devoured by both the wee ones.  Phew!  And yes, I know the ingredients are a little unusual.  I accept that.  Just trust me that they turn out awesome.

Sweet Tomato Chicken

Ingredients:
4-5 decent size pieces of chicken, bone in or not is your choice
1/2 c soy sauce
1/3 c brown sugar
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
1/2 t pepper
1 T tomato paste

Directions:
Place the diced tomatoes in a crock pot.  Mince the garlic and add it, along with the pepper, soy sauce, brown sugar, and tomato paste.  If you're Mister Man and do truly believe that tomatoes are a cruel trick Mother Nature is playing on you, go ahead and puree them at this point.  If not, leave them in chunks to add some more texture to the sauce later and instead just stir the mixture until fully combined.

Add the chicken and cook on low 4-6 hours.  Go ahead and cook up some rice so it's ready to serve with your chicken.  After it's fully cooked, it will be falling apart, which is just what you want.  Use tongs to break it up, then use a slotted spoon to scoop it out to serve over that rice.  Add as much or as little sauce atop this as you like.

Serve it with a green salad, and this is a perfect weeknight meal.  Yum.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

Sweet Potato Turkey Meatballs - Tasty Tuesday!

When I was at Type A a little over a week ago (wow, has it really been that long already?), the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission. I was excited because I love sweet potatoes. I'm not a fan of the overly sweet marshmallow topped confection that people try to pass off as a side dish at Thanksgiving, but sweet potatoes in a more subtle form are one of my favorite things. I make sweet potato fries and chips all the time, and the wee ones love them.

 The NC Sweet Potato Commission brought two items for us to try, and I fell in love with the sweet potato turkey meatballs (their original recipe). I know it sounds a bit odd, but they were beyond good. They were by far the best food I had onsite, and I couldn't wait to make them at home... and doctor them a little, of course.

Sweet Potato Turkey Meatballs


Ingredients:
1 lb sweet potato, baked
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
1/2 c red onion, diced
1 t salt
1/2 t cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 T dried parsley or 1/4 c fresh
2 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil

Directions:
Roast your sweet potato, and this is something you can do a couple days ahead of time if you like.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and pierce your sweet potato a few times with a fork.  Bake it at 400 for 45 minutes, then let cool.

While this is baking, toast your cumin seeds in a small pan over medium heat, shaking the pan every few minutes.  Once they've toasted, use a spice grinder or mortal and pestle to grind them into cumin powder.  The toasting makes them taste so much better.  You can also use this time to dice the onion and mince the garlic so they're ready, too.  If you're using fresh parsley, roll the leaves then cut along the roll to easily chiffonade them.

Cut the sweet potato in half and scoop out the baked insides with a spoon.  Mash them well in a separate bowl with a large fork.  Once they've lost all their chunks, add the turkey, onion, salt, cumin, parsley, and garlic.  Gently mix together the mixture with your hands until the ingredients are fully incorporated.

Preheat your oven (again) to 400 degrees.  Prepare a jelly roll pan lined with a sil pat or parchment paper.  Roll the meat mixture into golf ball size meatballs and place them on the jelly roll pan.  Brush them lightly with olive oil, then bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until the tops are golden and the insides are fully cooked.

These are awesome just on their own, served with some greens or corn or whatever other summer accouterments you have on hand.  They would also be great in a pasta with marinara, but I'm not cooking pasta in summer.  In fact, shhhh I actually roasted my sweet potato and cooked the meatballs on my grill so that I wouldn't have to turn on my oven in the heat.  It totally works.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

Bacon Egg Salad - Tasty Tuesday!

So here's the deal.  I don't like mayonnaise.  It's my dirty little secret... well, that and the fact that I also don't like peanut butter.  Have you ever noticed that there is not a single recipe I've ever posted that includes peanut butter?  Sometimes, though, there's a recipe out there that has mayonnaise in it that I sorta like.  Or that I want to like.  It's just that mayonnaise is given the starring role when it should really just have a bit part.  And so I'll remake that recipe to my liking, which generally doesn't even have a mild family resemblance to its gloppy ancestor.

This week, I took on egg salad.  Because I sort of really like egg salad, just not the kind that's falling all over the place with may and is more dressing than sandwich filler, not that I normally even put egg salad on sandwiches.  I actually like this by itself of wrapped in a couple Bibb lettuce leaves or on crackers or even wrapped in a tortilla.  If it's  going on bread, the bread has to be toasted; I really don't want anything even pretending like it might be or get soggy.

Bacon Egg Salad


Ingredients:
5 eggs
2 slices bacon, cooked
2 T mayonnaise
1 t lemon juice
1/4 c parsley chopped
1 T whole grain mustard
salt and pepper, to taste
Optional: red pepper or celery - I just happened to not have any on hand, but chop to match the size of the bacon and add about a quarter cup or either or both

Directions:
This is all about the egg.  Go ahead and cut your bacon into matchsticks and then half the match sticks and start cooking them, but your focus is really on getting a well boiled egg if you want good egg salad.  I know that many recipes call for you to place your eggs into already simmering water and blah blah blah, but I have a few too many burns doing it that way, so I go the lazy man's route.

I put my eggs in a pot with cold water, covering the eggs by about an inch.  I cover the pot and turn on the heat to medium high.  And then I listen.  The second I hear water boiling (which usually means the splash of water on the burner as it bubbles out of my pot), I run into the kitchen and turn off the heat.  I set the timer for fourteen minutes for my large eggs and then prepare an ice bath.  When the timer goes off, I put the eggs straight into the ice bath (a bowl I fill with ice cubes and then water so it stays cold) and let them sit there for about five minutes.  Only then do I attempt to peel my eggs.  Lesson on boiling eggs?  Don't use your fresh eggs.  This works so much better when your eggs are a little older.  They're less likely to stick to the shells, but hey, we aren't going to be pretty with these eggs anyway, are we?

Once you have your eggs peeled, you want to slice them.  Since I don't want a gloppy, mushy mess, I literally only slice them one way and that's it.  I want to retain as much of the original texture of the egg as possible because we are celebrating the egg in the egg sandwich, right?

By now your bacon should be long done and well cooled, right?  If not, the eggs aren't in a rush, so go ahead and cook your bacon until it's crispy.  The halved matchsticks should turn into a great size for the salad by now.  Drain them on a paper towel, as we don't want all that grease going into our salad.

Add all ingredients to a bowl.  Yes, I cheated with this one and used dried parsley because I thought I'd bought parsley but didn't check the fridge, and my memory failed me.  It was cilantro.  The dried works well, just remember to use 1/3 the quantity of the fresh herb you'd use when you're substituting a dried herb.

Use a large fork to mix gently until it's all combined.  Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.  Serve on toasted bread, crackers, in a roll up, by itself, wrapped in lettuce leaves, however you want.  Just be grateful that this isn't the goopy, gloppy mess you used to get in the cafeteria.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

Tasty Tuesday - Homemade BBQ Sauce AND What To Do With It

I love barbecue in (almost) all its forms.  For some reason, I don't like brisket at all.  I could eat pulled pork all day long.  Or mmmm barbecue chicken.  Even Sloppy Joe's.  The only problem is the ingredients.  I've talked a lot before about how I care about what I put into my body. Have you ever taken a look at the ingredients on a bottle of barbecue sauce? Yikes, it’s a mile long, and I can’t pronounce most of them. And the healthy or organic barbecue sauces get expensive, so I got the easy route instead.

Yes, the easy route. I make my own barbecue sauce. I love it because it’s super quick to put together, and I’ll alter up the proportions or put in some extra ingredients or just change things around depending on my mood. This is the way I like my barbecue sauce, and you may like yours a little different, so play with it.

And yes, the base ingredients for this include ketchup, which frequently has more ingredients that I just don’t like to eat. Actually, I’m not a big ketchup fan to begin with. That said, I use the organic ketchup from Trader Joe’s (a very reasonable $1.99 by me), and this is a ketchup where I actually like the taste. Go fig. Once again, organic tastes better than conventional to me – and I did a blind taste test, in case you think I’m biased. I also use organic whole grain mustard (and sometimes yellow when I want to finish off the jar) simply because to me it tastes better and has fewer ingredients, which was the whole point of making my barbecue sauce anyway, right?

Oh yeah. And because it tastes awesome. And when you’re cooking, you always have to do taste tests, right?

So what do I do with my barbecue sauce after I’ve made it? Obviously, I store it in the fridge, but that wasn’t the question, was it? Little Miss asked for Sloppy Joe’s the other night, so I whipped up the barbecue sauce then browned ground beef with diced onion and some salt and pepper before finishing it by cooking it with the barbecue sauce. Yum. Or I’ll poach chicken and shred it, then reheating it in a saucepan with the barbecue sauce and serve it either by itself or in a flour tortilla as a barbecue taco. I’ll cook pork in a crock pot for hours on end, then pull it out and shred it and put it back in with the barbecue sauce for a half hour or so. It’s also a perfect topping for a fresh burger, especially with a good cheddar cheese and some caramelized onion.

The uses for barbecue sauce are endless. How do you use your barbecue sauce?

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups ketchup (trust me, the organic stuff makes a big difference and isn’t too expensive)
1/4 c whole grain mustard (or yellow if you need, but the whole grain or stone ground is awesome in this)
1/4 c Worcestershire sauce
1/4 t pepper
1/4 c lemon juice
1/4 c brown sugar
1 t chili powder

Directions:
Place all ingredients into a heavy saucepan. Turn on the heat and stir. Bring to a slow boil, and boil the sauce for two or three minutes. Either add to your meat immediately, or cool and refrigerate for up to a week. Uhhhh, yeah it's that easy.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

Tasty Tuesday - Tortilla Soup

Yesterday was one of those days.  I didn't have much of a craving for anything I usually cook, but I also didn't have a ton of time to make dinner.  I took a spin through recipes I hadn't made in awhile, hoping I would be inspired by something in there - especially knowing that one of my errands involved stop at multiple grocery stores (because yes, I do shop at different stores for different things, yay me).  Eventually, my perusals paid off.  I finally had inspiration.

The final verdict of my homemade tortilla soup?  My husband had two giant bowls and proclaimed it a keeper.  Little Miss, who had eaten dinner at a friend's house, ate half my bowl and asked if she could have it for lunch today.  And Mister Man announced that it was too spicy - but he really liked the idea behind it.  (So yes, next time I'll adjust it in hopes of making it less spicy so that he can eat it but still flavorful enough that the rest of us will enjoy it.)

Homemade Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes (the San Marzano tomatoes are my favorites)
1 4 oz can sliced green chile peppers
1 10 oz can enchilada sauce (I use the medium green sauce, but feel free to go hot or mild, depending on your preferences)
1 t cumin
1 t chili powder
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 bay leaf
32 oz chicken stock
10 oz frozen corn
1 lb chicken, shredded*
2 limes
1 T cilantro, chopped
8 corn tortilla
vegetable oil

*Choice A: poach your chicken the way you normally would, then shred it and add it to the soup.  Choice B: Have plenty of time to cook your soup and add the raw chicken to the soup, letting it poach as the soup cooks, then pulling it out at the end and shredding it.

Directions:
Add all ingredients up to the chicken to a crock pot.  Cook on low 6-8 hours or on high 3-4 hours (don't do the raw chicken if you're cooking it on high).

When the soup is near done, use a spoon or spatula to squish the tomatoes against the sides of the crock pot so that they fall apart.  This is easier to do at the end of cooking than right away when you're starting the soup.

Also near the end, prepare your tortilla strips.  Brush the tortillas lightly with oil, then cut them into strips.  Bake them in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until lightly crispy.

Just before you're ready to serve, add the juice from your limes to the soup and stir briefly.  Serve the soup with chopped cilantro as garnish, along with the awesome tortilla strips you just made.  You can also add avocado or cheese or sour cream or whatever else strikes your fancy.  According to my husband, this is as good as any tortilla soup you'd find in a restaurant anywhere.

On a side note, I had less time to make this than I thought I would due to an unexpected appointment.  With the exception of the chicken, I had this entire thing in the crock pot in under 15 minutes.  When I got home, I poached the chicken and shredded it, adding it to the soup a half hour before I served it.  That worked well, and the chicken still absorbed good flavor from the soup.  I love recipes that give me flexibility like this!

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

Tasty Tuesday - Asparagus Goat Cheese Pizza

I tweeted last week about what I was making for dinner, and I got some interested responses. Then I posted a picture of what I made, and people wanted the recipe. Who am I to deny anyone? And yes, I've made this again since that time. It's so good and light and fresh and just flat out yummy.

Goat Cheese Asparagus Pizza

Ingredients:
Dough for 1-2 pizzas (or more)
10 stalks asparagus
2 T olive oil
2 oz goat cheese
1 oz mozzarella
salt and pepper to taste
Cornmeal for dusting

Directions:
Prepare your pizza dough. I actually am making not my normal pizza dough anymore but the pizza dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day - my favorite bread bible now. Any pizza dough will work, but I like making mine with a bit of olive oil in place of some of the water to give it a bit of extra spring and chewiness for this pizza.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees (cooler than my usual 500 degrees, by the way).

Get your asparagus ready by breaking off the ends and washing them. Heat a saute pan with a little olive oil, and break the asparagus stalks into the pan. Lightly salt and pepper the asparagus in the pan, and saute on medium heat until the asparagus is just starting to turn a brighter green. You do not want to overcook it, as it will cook more in the oven, but cooking it just a touch before it goes into the pizza means it isn't crunchy and undercooked in your pizza.

Do you see how the color changed to a brighter green? That's all you want. No mushy asparagus for our pizzas!

Roll out your pizza dough to a nice circle, about a quarter inch thick or so. Place it on your pizza peel (or onto a pan if you aren't sliding it onto a stone) coated in cornmeal to keep it from sticking. Lightly brush it with olive oil to the edges of the crust.

Sprinkle the mozzarella over the olive oil, just a little bit. Add the asparagus and arrange so that it's evenly distributed over the dough. Crumble the goat cheese atop the pizza, and you're ready for the oven. (Do you see truly how little cheese is on this pizza?)

Bake at 450 degrees for 8 minutes, until the goat cheese is a beautiful golden brown. Cut and serve immediately. I don't know how long it lasts after this, as we haven't had leftovers yet. Go fig.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

Tasty Tuesday - Perfect Pot Roast

It's cold. Have I mentioned this lately? And it's cloudy and damp and ... I so live in the wrong climate. Unfortunately, I live here, which means that I need to cook with the seasons, and right now... it's comfort food season. I'm doing a lot of soups and stews and other hearty dishes. The best ones come in the crock pot where I can put everything in first thing in the morning and come home to a comforting and warm meal.

This week? We did pot roast. It's one of my favorites because I can quite easily grab what I have on hand and toss it in without measuring too much. If I'm a little short on something, that's fine. If I want some more of another flavor, that works, too. So the measurements here? Totally an estimate. Do what works for you.

Pot Roast

Ingredients:
2-3 lb roast
4 carrots
2 ribs of celery
5-6 medium red potatoes
1 parsnip
1 onion
1/2 c chicken or beef stock
2 T parsley
salt and pepper, to taste
2 T oil

Directions:
Heat up a heavy pan. I use my cast iron skillet because I know it will heat evenly and retain its heat. Once the pan is hot - medium high heat - add the oil. You want to wait until this point to add the oil. When the metal gets hot, it opens its pores, so the oil goes into them and helps to make essentially a nonstick surface. Trust me.

Salt and pepper all sides of the roast, then add it to the pan. You want to sear it on each side. Don't move it until it has a nice crust on it or it will stick to the pan. And yes, I do actually sear all six sides.

While the roast is searing, cut up your veggies (except your potatoes, which are a starch and not a veggie - those come later!). You want everything to be bite size - nothing so big that you have to cut it once it's cooked and nothing so small that it won't stay on your fork with the rest of your meal. I'll also wash my organic carrots really well and not peel those - but that's me. I slice my onions and leave them that big. They are then easy to fish out for the wee one who won't eat them but manageable for me to put on my fork. I don't want it diced. Layer all your veggies into the bottom of your crock post.

Once your pot roast is seared, add it to the crock pot atop the veggies. Sprinkle the parsley atop this mixture, and add the stock for a cooking liquid. You truly need just a little bit because the meat and veggies will release a lot of juices.

Cook on low for 2-3 hours. At that point, cut up your red potatoes. I leave the skin on my red potatoes because I like it - and there's lots of good vitamins and minerals there. Add those around the meat at this point. If you add them earlier, I find they get too cooked and mushy for my taste, so I hold off on adding them until this point. If you'll be gone all day, go ahead and add them at the beginning.

Cook on low for another 2-3 hours or longer. When it's ready, the meat will literally fall apart as you pick it up with a fork. That's perfection in my eyes. You can also pull out the juice after you remove your veggies and meat and potatoes and make a thicker gravy, but my family doesn't like that. To do this, put the juices into a small pan and heat it until it's boiling. Slowly add gravy flour, a tablespoon at a time (it will vary depending on how much juice you have, but usually it's about a quarter cup for me) and reduce it for about five minutes. Check to see if it needs and more salt and pepper, then serve it atop your pot roast. Or be like us and skip this step and just serve it as is with the juice as more of a soup/stew kind of thing.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

Tasty Tuesday - Honey Glazed Chicken

I know a meal is a success when my husband asks me to make it again ... the next night. I made something this week that fit into this category, and the wee ones loved it, too. Not only did they eat it at dinner, but they ate all of it that I sent for lunch the next day, as well. Best of all? This was a dish I made in desperation because I had nothing ready for dinner and raided my pantry. Best of all? It's a very forgiving recipe and works with different measurements depending on your personal preferences.

Honey Glazed Chicken

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces (or other chicken - just change your cooking time and method to fit, but this is what I had on hand)
1/3 c soy sauce
1/2 c honey
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T peanut butter
1 T lemon juice (optional - I put it in the second time, but not the first and it was good either way, although I liked the lemon to counteract some of the honey)
1 T corn starch
sesame seeds for garnish

Directions:
Heat a pan. Once it's completely heated, add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken breast after the oil has had a chance to heat. Saute the chicken on medium high heat until it has a nice crust on all sides. And yes, you can do this with frozen chicken. It's possible that I thawed my chicken just enough to be able to cut it into bite sized pieces with a very sharp knife, then sauteed it. Just sayin'.

Remove the chicken from the pan, and set it aside for later. Add the soy sauce, honey, peanut butter, lemon juice, and garlic into the pan and bring it to a boil. It will look ... icky at the start. Once it's heated enough for the peanut butter to fully melt, it will look better, I promise. Keep it at a low boil for five to ten minutes until it starts to thicken. Add a little cold water to a bowl, and place the corn starch in it. Use a fork to stir it until it's combined. Add a bit of the corn starch mix to the glaze, which will help it thicken further. Keep adding a little more until it gets to a good consistency for you. I want it to be thick enough that I can scrape the spatula through the glaze and it doesn't immediately flow back together.

Once the glaze has reached this point, add the chicken to the pan again and stir until the chicken is nicely coated in the glaze. Serve over brown rice or cous cous (I did one the first night and the other the second), sprinkling the chicken with sesame seeds just before serving.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

Tasty Tuesday - Miso Glazed Chicken

Last night, I made one of my favorite dinners. In fact, it's one of the wee ones' favorite dinners, too. Unfortunately, I haven't made if for a couple months, so when the wee ones saw it, they refused to eat it.

But Moooooooooom, it has sauce on it.

Mommy, I don't like it.

Mommy, I don't like this dinner.

I want something else, Mommy.

And no, they hadn't tried it yet. This wasn't shaping up well. But it's a favorite. So I give you my Miso Glazed Chicken.

Miso Glazed Chicken

Ingredients:
1/2 cup white or yellow miso paste (or a mix of the two)
1/4 cup sugar (scant)
1 T soy sauce
1/4 c chicken stock
3 T oil
1 T ginger, grated
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts.



This is a super easy one. Put all the marinade ingredients into a bag, and squish the bag until it's all nicely combined. Then add chicken!



I prefer to let it marinate overnight in the fridge and cook it for dinner the next day. This time I marinated it only for three or so hours, and the flavors hadn't quite penetrated the way I wanted, but it was still yummy!

After you've marinated it, pray that it's warm outside and you can grill!

Or if you live in Chicago, pull out that grill pan and heat it up to medium/medium high. Once it's fully heated, plop that chicken on down.



Cook until it has nice grill marks on one side, then flip to the other. Cook until it's done all the way through. Let it rest for about five minutes before you serve it.

I like to slice it against the grain and serve it with some quinoa. Yum!



For more yummy stuff, check out this week's Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

Oh, and twenty minutes into the meal, the wee ones finally tried their food. Below is Mister Man's review. Little Miss helped out in the background, which also explains the shaking camera at the end, since she was hanging off my arm.



Enjoy!