Mississippi Roast

This dish worked out wonderfully. I know many think of slow cooker or crock pot meals as a fall and winter thing, but it's also great on those super hot days when you don't want to turn on your oven.  This past Monday was one of those days!  I wanted something easy and no fuss and Mississippi Roast was it.  I made some mashed potatoes and string beans to go with it and, in one word, delish!  I'll definitely make this again. My only modification would be to add a few more peppers into the pot.  We like a little spice!

Rating: 4 forks
Source: The Supermom Chef

White Bean Chicken Chili

Last week I broke out the crock pot!  White bean chicken chili! It was delish.  I didn’t really like any of the recipes I found, so I worked one out myself, and it was wonderful.  The jalapenos provide a slight kick when you eat it on the day that it’s made…even more heat the next day when you reheat it.  Be careful with the heat, because it increased over time.  Here’s what I did.

Throw all of the following ingredients into the pot, stir, then cook on low for 10 hours.

1 pound of raw chicken breast, cut into bit size cubes

2, 15 oz cans Northern Beans

1, 1.7 oz an of green chilies

1, 4 oz can of jalapenos (I used half the can)

1 ½ cups of low sodium chicken broth

1-2 cloves garlic, minced (I eyeballed it)

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 cup of frozen whole kernel corn

1 Tbsp chili powder

1 Tbsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

Salt & pepper to taste

Tip: To help thicken the chili a little bit, I rinsed and mashed 1 of the cans of beans.

Source: Me!, Original Recipe

Rating: 4 forks

Easy Crockpot BBQ Pork Ribs, Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries & Coleslaw

Saturday: Easy Crockpot BBQ Pork Ribs, Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries & Coleslaw

Now this was a really tasty dinner! This is a great alternative when you want to kill that craving for ribs but can’t fire up the charcoal grill. The ribs were supper easy and not much work at all. I think the only thing I would change for next time is take them out the crock pot and try to “dry” the outside of them a little in the oven. I’ll probably try flashing them at a high temp for a short amount of time. Maybe even put them under the broiler for a few minutes. I hope doing that would make them seem more like they are off the grill and not out of the pot.

The oven fries were also good. It was welcome different take on potato wedges. The cold and crispy coleslaw was a perfect match for this meal.

My ribs are supper simple.

Sources w/ Ratings: Easy Crockpot BBQ Pork Ribs – (Me!, orignial recipe) ~ 4 forks
Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries ~ 5 forks

Easy Crockpot BBQ Ribs

Ingredients:
1, 2-3 lb rack of pork spare ribs
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
2 Tbsp Lawry’s seasoning salt
2 Tbsp of ground black pepper

Directions:
Chop the onions and evenly lay into the bottom of Crockpot.

Clean the ribs. Dry them with paper towel. Cut off excess fat. Cut the ribs into pieces of 2 bones at a time. Season with seasoning salt and pepper. Added them to the Crockpot and top with BBQ sauce. Cook on low for 9 hours.

**If you use my recipe in your blog, please cite appropriately.

Colleen's Slow Cooker Jambalaya

Sunday – Colleen's Slow Cooker Jambalaya w/ Crusty French Bread

This was pretty good! As it cooked the house smelled amazing! The Mister and I really enjoyed this meal.  I did change a few things, as you'll see below.

Gotta love spicy food!  It had a nice kick to it that we enjoyed.  We also loved the 3 meat combo.  Instead of following the recipe, I took into account the comments that were made about the recipe on the allrecipes.com website.  The most repeated thing was that the chicken breast was dry.  So, I decided to use less chicken breast and to substitute some boneless and skinless thighs to help off set the dry breasts.  The 2nd most popular comment was that it was too watery, so I decided not use any broth.  Both turned out to be a good decisions.  The store that I went to didn't have any andouille sausage, so I went with beef kielbasa instead.  The last change was that I increased the amount of cayenne pepper for our taste, including some jalapeno. 

I served this over brown rice with a chunk of crusty French bread.

Jambalaya adapted from: Colleen's Slow Cooker Jambalaya

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves boneless & skinless: 2 chicken breast and 2 chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 pound andouille sausage 14 oz package of beef polska kielbasa sausage, sliced
• 1 (28 ounce) 2, 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 large medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup 3 stalks, chopped celery
• 1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced (**addition)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound 12 ounce bag of 31-40 count frozen cooked shrimp without tails, thawed

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix the chicken, sausage, tomatoes with juice, onion, green bell pepper, celery, and broth. Season with oregano, parsley, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, and thyme.
2. Cover, and cook 7 to 8 hours on Low, or 3 to 4 hours on High. Stir in the shrimp during the last 30 minutes of cook time.

Source: Colleen's Slow Cooker Jambalaya
Rating: 4 forks

Texas Crockpot Chili

Crockpot Thursday – Texas Crockpot Chili over Ditalini Pasta (no beans)

This Chili is a very smokey dish, but not much bite. If you like heat, you may need to modify the recipe a bit. We really enjoyed this over the Ditalini pasta. It was also a welcome change to have Chili without beans.

In my opinion, this was a heavy prep meal. I always thought that Crockpot meals were supposed to be virtually, throw everything in the pot and go…but not in this case. I spent about 20 minutes prepping a little bit the night before by roasting and chopping up peppers and onions. Roasting the peppers on my gas stove turned out to be a real chore…so I stopped after I did one of them and left the other 2 raw. Apparently I didn’t read the directions fully because I ended up throwing the chopped Jalapeno pepper in the baggie with the other peppers. In the morning when I had to sauté the Jalapeno pepper in the skillet I had to try to dig out some from the baggie…so I’m sure I didn’t get it all and some other peppers were mixed in. Oh, well. I also boiled the Ditalini pasta and put in a airtight container the night before.

Even with the pre-prep that I did the night before, it still took me about 20 more minutes of prep the morning of. The sautéing of the cubed stew meat was tedious, but necessary. I cooked my Chili on low for 9 hours. My husband got home before me and by the time he got there the Chili was on the warm setting for a little less than 2 hours. He had to get the pasta out the fridge, reheat it for a minute and top it with the Chili. There was also medium Cheddar Cheese and sour cream to top the Chili with.

If I make this again in the future, I will use hotter Chili's to add more heat, then use 1/2 Fire Roasted tomatoes and 1/2 regular diced tomatoes (as is, it's a little too smokey for my taste). Also possibly use ground Sirloin instead since my husband prefers ground meat.


My changes:
~I couldn’t find packages of stew meat that equaled 3 pounds, it was either 2.5 lbs or 4.5 lbs…I went with the lesser. The meat was already cubed, it look to be a little smaller than 1 in cubes. I also used a less flour.
~I ended up not finding Poblano peppers in good condition, so I took a chance and went with some other peppers. I found Cubanelle and Serrano, which seemed to be good substitutions.
~I only roasted 1 of the 3 peppers.
~Because my hubby doesn’t like to “see” onions in his food, I used less and chopped it much smaller.
~I couldn’t find 29 oz cans of Fire Roasted Tomatoes, so I went with 4, 14.5 oz cans instead (totals to the same amount).
~At the last minute I realized I didn’t have Chili Powder, so I Googled a Chili Powder Recipe (found here) and then sprinkled (eyeballed) some of all these ingredients in…it smelled good, so at that point I just hoped the end results would be good. Which of course, is was!


Texas Crockpot Chili (modified from Jamie Cooks )

Ingredients
2.5 lbs Pre Cubed Stew Beef
3 Tbsp of flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp freshly ground pepper
¼ cup of EVOO, divided
½ large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 Jalapeno pepper, stemmed, quartered and chopped
2 tsp preminced garlic from the jar
4, 14.5 oz cans of Diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes
1 cup of Low Sodium Beef Broth
2 Cubanelle Peppers (1 roasted and peeled), roughly chopped
1 Serrano Pepper, roughly chopped
1 Tbsp Cumin
2 tsp dried Oregano
½ tsp Chipotle Powder
Dash of the following: Paprika, Garlic Powder, Red Cayenne Pepper

Instructions
1. Using a Ziploc bag, combine beef, flour, salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a skillet over medium heat until hot. Add 1/3 of beef and sear for about 2 minutes on each side, stirring once or twice. Repeat two more times with remaining beef. Transfer each batch of beef to the Crockpot as finished.

2. Using the same skillet, add remaining Tbsp of oil and sauté onions for about 5 minutes, stirring only once or twice. Let them slightly brown. Add in Jalapeño and garlic. Sauté for an additional 2 minutes until peppers start giving off their heat. Add to Crockpot.

3. Add seasonings and remaining peppers to the Crockpot, stir to combined. Add broth and tomatoes to the Crockpot, stir to combined.

4. Cook on high for 4 ½ hours or low for 9 hours.

Source: Texas Crockpot Chili
Rating: 3 forks