Just in time for NYE

Ok, just in time for NYE.  A couple of recipes that just sound to good to wait until I try them so give them a whirl and let us know...we can compare notes down the line. A BIG Thank you to both medarlin99 and High mountain hiker!

medarlin99 said...
3 large cans refried beans (tall ones, not family size)
2 bricks cream cheese
1 pound medium cheddar, sliced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 small jar Pace Picante Sauce(I use mild so everyone is happy)
1/2 bottle taco bell mild sauce

In a large pot or slow cooker, layer 2 cans of beans, cream cheese, cheddar, onion, Pace, and sauce. Top with Last can of beans, spread to seal in. Cook low-medium, stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn. Done when it's all finally melted together in it's nommy goodness. Serve with tortilla chips or just tortillas.

I do this when we have a big get-together and people are drinking. Not only is it addictive, it seems to keep everyone from getting *too* drunk!

High Mountain Hiker said...

If you are planning to celebrate the New Year in the Southeast, it is most likely that you will be offered black-eyed peas in some form, either just after midnight or on New Year's Day. From grand gala gourmet dinners to small casual gatherings with friends and family, these flavorful legumes are traditionally, according to Southern folklore, the first food to be eaten on New Year's Day for luck and prosperity throughout the year ahead.

Black Eyed Pea Salad
This is also great as a dip for tortilla chips
Ingredients:
3 cans black eyed peas drained and rinsed
1 purple onion chopped
3 tomatoes chopped
3 cloves of garlic chopped
2 avocados chopped
1 can whole kernel corn drained
2 jalapenos chopped
1 green bell pepper chopped
¼ to ½ bunch of cilantro (to taste) chopped
1 bottle zesty Italian dressing

Mix ingredients in bowl, and dressing, marinate in frig for 1 hr,

New Years Menu

2010 is wrapping up.  2011 is moving in quickly.  At our house we are still eating left overs so nothing new in the way of food.

However, I’m on a quest to find NYE traditions and traditional ‘menus’ for a HAPPPY new year.

Share your traditions, your menu and your recipes!  But above all have a Safe NYE and may the year bring all your wishes, dreams and prayer to fruition.

Bob's Korean Steak

My cousin Bobby posted this recipe for me to try:

Korean Steak 2 lbs Beef Tri tip or pork loin cut 1/4" thick 2 cloves garlic minced 3 green onions sliced thin 1/2 c soy sauce 1/4 c sugar 1/3 c white wine 2 TBS seasme seed oil 2 1/2 TBS seasme seeds mix all ingredents, and marinate meat 12 to 24 hrs in the frig, turn or mix a couple time while marinating. Fry steaks 3 mins in a little oil and serve with white rice.

I mixed everything in a bowl, sliced my tri tip and then mixed it all up together and through it in the slow cooker for 8 hours.

Served it on top of white rice for an excellent dinner tonight.  Very little effort with quick prep time.  Left my day open to prepare for our family's Chirstmas Gathering.

Did I mention we had an EXCELLENT dinner tonight!

Quick Snacks for Christmas Eve Eve

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!!!!

Tonight the boys and I decided to do our gift exchange because we weren't sure if we would have another chance before the new year so...tonight was another Christmas celebration.  It's one of the many things I like about Christmas; it may be only one day on the Calendar but there are soooo many people to share it with there are many days of celebration and fellow shipping with friends and family.

Our Christmas celebration goodies was simple, quick to prepare and delicious!

First a friend at work gave me this:
package of lil' smokies
package of bacon cut into thirds
wrap bacon around lil smokie secure with toothpick and place in baking dish
sprinkle a cup of brown sugar and bake at 375 for about 45 - 60 minutes.
These are to die for!!!!  Oh soooooo good!

Now I'm sure you've heard of the cream cheese and salsa dip.  Yep that's it.  I took a brick of cream cheese and poured a half of cup of salsa over the cream cheese and served tortilla chips.  I actually have never tried this before tonight I was very pleased.  If you haven't tried this you should.

Here's another cream cheese dip recipe but I don't have the exact amounts because I actually used a package mix but...I'm thinking I could create my own.  The package was cinnamon and vanilla, I added 3/4 cup of brown sugar and 8oz cream cheese and blended all together.  I served it with sliced apples and cinnamon graham crackers.  OH good stuff!

The boys wanted pizza but I wanted to 'hand make' or Christmas celebration tasties so I had to put my brain in high gear.  Remembering a recipe I got from a pampered chef party I started getting excited, will this really work...hmmmm....ok let's give it a try.

1 can crescent rolls
package of pepperoni and salami
package of shredded pizza cheese
pizza sauce

Take the rolls out and unroll them, placing them in a circle around a round pizza pan.  The wide edge of the triangles will be on the pan slightly overlapping - pictures will be uploaded soon.  Place pepperoni and salami on the rolls, next sprinkle cheese and a light squirt of pizza sauce.  Take the points of each triangle and pull them up and to the middle.  Bake according to the package.  The last 5 minutes top with more cheese and more pizza sauce.  Bake until the cheese is melted.  Oh ya...........way good and yes I'm making it again tomorrow for lunch.  Thats how much we enjoyed our pizza ring.  :-)

A great evening with great food!  Looking forward to more great evenings, more great food and more great evenings with great family and friends.

Italian Chicken

This recipe from Six ingredients or less sounds easy enough.  It's on page 100.
8 skinless chicken legs
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 onion

Place the chicken in the slow cooker, combine the other ingredients, pour over chicken and cook for about 7 hours. 

I used boneless skinless breasts, 4 of them.  I cooked for 8 hours....7 hours is not an option on my slow cooker

The recipe is correct in the chicken is fall apart tender.  However there was no flavor.  If I try this one again I'll be playing with the spices to see if I can't acheive some kind of flavor..good or bad...it just needes FLAVOR!

Christmas is around the corner......the next few days will be busy but if I get a chance I'll try the korean steak posted by the moutain hiker.

Beef Rolls

I'm here again slaving over a hot slow cooker...lol...ok just a bit of humor today.

I've been reading a lot about how to blog about recipes and cooking and have learned; if I've learned correctly that I can give the recipe as long as the directions are in my own words.  Or if I give credit where credit is due, so I hope I do this correctly.

Page 44 of my Slow cooking book, Six ingredients or Less; Carlean Johnson, I found a recipe for Beef Roles and they sounded very yummy and easy to me.

2 lbs top round steak
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1 medium onion
3 cups of beef broth
1/3 cup flour
seasoning salt

The recipes has you cutting the meat into 4 serving sizes and pounding it until is is 1/4 inch thick.  I pounded the steak first then cut in into 4 pieces.  I spread it with mustard and sprinkled on the slivered onions.  Then it was time to roll them up and lock them up with a toothpick.

Recipes says to cook on low for 8-9 hours.

Being a very inexperienced slow cooker cook I only prepared 1lb of top round as there is just two of us and  I did not adjust the cooking time.  WOW  I'm here to tell you that you CAN BURN food in a slow cooker!  I never got to the broth step as I did not think the broth would soften the leather that was sitting in my slow cooker.

Yet another recipe that I need to retry.

The next page over, page 45 is a recipe for BBQ Beef sandwiches and this is almost exactly what I have already done.  Stick the roast of your choice in your slow cooker; I cook mine 8 - 10 hours depending on its size.  When done I pour off most of the liquid and use a fork to shred the beef adding about 1/2 to 3/4 bottle of our favorite BBQ sauce...we like it really saucy.   The recipe in the book calls for adding onion when cooking the roast.

I haven't tried this exact recipe from the book but the only difference in this recipe and what I have already done on my own is the onion so I would say this is a thumbs up recipe and I'm definetly going to try onion in mine next week.  Easy, 3 ingredients and no doubt very yummy for my tummy.

Tomorrow its Italian Chicken....

Merry Christmas

Cheesy Potatoes

On Christmas ovens are going to be on overdrive so I was trying to think of a side dish I didn't have to stick in the oven.

We are not having the traditional Christmas meal with the 'bird' instead we are doing prime rib and I'm thinking that au gratin potatoes would be good.

Today I give it a whirl.  Six potatoes washed, not peeled, sliced, dropped in slow cooker with a little salt and even less pepper.  Two cans of condensed cheddar cheese soup and I mixed it all up.  Set slow cooker to 4 hours, which is 'high' for my slow cooker.

These taters were easy and I think they are pretty darn good!!!  I will definetly being making them on Christmas day.  Give it a try and let me know how yours turned out.

Ground Beef Stroganoff

I went to the book store looking for a slow cooker cook book.  I was looking for something that used normal every day ingredients and bingo I think I’ve found it.

Now I should tell you I am NOT an experienced slow cooker ‘chef’.  I use my slow cooker for pot roast or to cook a whole chicken when I want to make chicken pot pies.  So my goal in getting this cook book is to use my slow cooker a lot more; easy, everyday ingredients and tasty meals when I get home from work.  I think this will cut down on the time I have to spend cooking and cleaning when I get home.

So this cook book is called Six Ingredients or Less and it states quick and easy recipes using just 6 ingredients or less, slow cooker.  I thumb through it and…eureka I have found it!

Why don’t I just look on the internet?  Well I work 9 hour days Monday – Thursday and can’t take my lap top to surf the net.  Plus I love reading cook books!

Well I looked at a few recipes and thought I’d start off with ground beef stroganoff, who doesn’t like stroganoff???

The recipe called for ground beef, onion, canned slice mushrooms, beef broth, sour cream and a small amount of flour.  The disappointing part of this recipe is it calls for everything to be done on the stove top and then put in the slow cooker for 4 hours.  If it’s cooked and hot why do I need to cook it for 4 more hours?  I did not notice a difference in the taste after the 4 hours.  The other issue was that it had me adding the flour to the beef broth and sour cream and so it stayed kind of lumpy.  I think I should have added it to the beef broth and then added the sour cream. 

Thumbs down on this recipe……but I will try it again and make some changes.

Do you have a slow cooker recipe for stroganoff?  Please share!

Cook Book Shopping

You’re browsing the cookbooks at the local book store and as you quickly scan the pages you say to yourself…this looks good, oh that sounds delicious, wow easy and so you purchase the book on your way out.

Once you get the book home you either don’t ever look at it again or you try a couple of the recipes to find that it’s not as easy as it looked, it does not taste as good as the picture looks or there is at least one ingredient that is not a common every day staple of your food pantry sooooo you never open the book again.

I love cook books, cooking magazines or just recipes people give me.  Sometimes I use them sometimes I don’t.  That’s about to change!

The goal of this blog is to give a thumbs up to the cook books that live up to their titles such as easy recipes with 5 or less ingredients AND you don’t have to be a long time chef to pull it off.  The ease of the recipe, the price of the ingredients and the overall taste for some one whose taste buds are not trained professionally is what I’m looking for in the recipes I use.

The first thing I would like to tackle is my slow cooker cook book so……….tomorrow we’ll take a look at cooking with slow cookers and start putting our first slow cooker cook book to the test!