The Fanciest Ramen I've Ever Had

If you don't like ramen, please don't let this title scare you off. You don't even have to use ramen. Personally, I love ramen soup. Not all the time, but it's one of the staples I like to keep in the kitchen for when it's cold out, or if I don't feel like eating (or making) much for dinner. Since (news flash!) it's been pretty cold outside recently, I had a few packets of soup on standby in the house and decided to use them as a short-cut in Sunday's recipe, an easy and oh-so-good alternative to take-out.

Back to that in a minute.
As I mentioned, it's been pretty chilly lately, with it being December and all. This

I'm so glad we won't have to live like this in the summer!

weekend turned out to be a busy one because the weather called for an ice storm to hit town on Sunday, forcing us to push most of our weekend plans to Saturday. This turned out not to be a problem though because we needed to be out of the house - we finally got central air installed!! I know, it's December, we won't be able to use it for months. Growing up, my dad had a rule that the AC wasn't turned on until it was over 90 degrees outside, but I'm aiming to use it the first random, unseasonably warm day that appears, likely to be around the first weekend of March Madness. I can't wait until the day we* don't have to lug out the window units from the garage and can just press a button to turn it on!

      *And by "we", I mean Bart.

Bring it on, Richmond, I'm ready for spring, summer and fall.

So the intimidating ice storm turned out to be not much more than icy rain, but the dreary, cold, wet weather was enough to make me want to stay inside almost all day on Sunday, especially after having a busy Saturday. I did venture out in the morning to go to the Bizarre Bazaar Christmas show, a Richmond tradition, with my mom to get some Christmas gifts, house decorations, and of course, cookies. Thank goodness it was only rain and we were still able to go!

The view from my kitchen window on
a rainy December Sunday

When I got back to the house, I started the quick and easy preparation for dinner, which I adapted from this recipe. It's one I had pinned awhile back and have been wanting to try ever since.

A number of the comments I read on this recipe suggested doubling the sauce, which is what I ended up doing, with the exception of the garlic, and I was glad I did. The ingredient list below reflects that:

Ingredients:

• 2 1-lb pork tenderloins (the two tenderloins we bought were each just a little over a pound)
• 1/4c low sodium soy sauce, divided
• 2 tbsp tomato sauce
• 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 4 small (or 2 large) garlic cloves, minced
• 4 3oz packages of ramen noodle soup
• 5 small carrots, cut into matchsticks
• 1/3c unsalted peanuts, chopped
• 3 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/4c fresh cilantro leaves
• Sriracha (optional)

Directions:

Place the pork in the crock-pot. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tbsp of soy sauce, the tomato sauce, hoisin sauce, sugar, ginger and minced garlic. Pour the mixture over the pork. I used a basting brush to make sure everything was covered. Cover and cook on low for 3 1/2 hours. You can cook it longer if you'd like, it will only make it easier to shred.

Once cooked, pull the pork out of the crock-pot and place on a cutting board to rest (for about 10 minutes). In the meantime, strain the sauce from the crock-pot into a small bowl. 

Cook the ramen noodles according to the package directions (excluding the seasoning packets), then drain. This is also a good time to chop up the carrots and peanuts if you haven't already done so.

Put the sauce from the bowl back in the crock-pot and combine with remaining 3 tbsp soy sauce, seasoned rice vinegar and sesame oil. Cover and cook on high for 10 minutes. While the sauce is heating up, shred the pork with two forks.

Once the sauce is done, turn the crock-pot off and stir in the shredded pork and noodles. Add in the carrots, peanuts and cilantro and serve. Of course you can add Sriracha if you desire, as Bart did.

I couldn't get enough of this meal and am already looking forward to making it again; it's definitely going to be high up on my list of quick and yummy meals as a take-out alternative.

Mac & Cheese Please

Mac and cheese is far and away one of my most favorite foods. I will admit, I have eaten an entire box of Kraft mac & cheese by myself for dinner, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that. I actually don't eat it very much though because it's mac & cheese, and well, it's just not really that healthy. I had been wanting to make this crock-pot mac & cheese for a couple of months now, but kept putting it off in favor of other (possibly more healthy) meals. I now realize the time to make mac & cheese for dinner was probably while I was training for the marathon, not the weekend after Thanksgiving while on an exercise hiatus, but oh well. Healthy eating starts tomorrow, right?

I'll eat pretty much any kind of mac & cheese, but I prefer when it's made with cheddar cheese and shells. Something about the shells just seems to hold the cheesy goodness in. No matter what kind of mac & cheese I'm eating, it always makes me nostalgic for the blue box Kraft Mac & Cheese that I often enjoyed as a kid...and frequently enjoyed as a 22 year old. Our first year out of college, my friend (and roommate) Maggie & I would cook weeknight dinners that often involved good ol' Kraft in the blue box (but the 3 cheese shells version, because that's the fancier kind, and we were adults after all). I laugh a bit now thinking that those dinners quite typically consisted of a chicken breast, seasoned with salt and pepper (maybe Montreal Chicken seasoning if we were feeling crazy) cooked in a skillet, and mac & cheese. Feeling it wasn't cheesy enough as is, we liked to add shredded cheese for that extra ooey-gooeyness, and Maggie liked to sprinkle Old Bay on it for a little extra flavor. Thus, the inspiration for my Sunday crock-pot version, which I tried to make slightly healthier and adapted from this Trisha Yearwood recipe.

Ingredients:

• 16oz medium shell pasta
• 2 cups skim milk
• 1 12oz can evaporated 2% milk
• 1/4c butter, melted
• 2 eggs, whisked
• Salt & pepper
• 16oz block sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2c Panko bread crumbs (optional)
• 1 tbsp Old Bay seasoning (optional)

Directions:

Cook pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, grate the cheese. I bought one 16oz block of cheese, rather than buying two separate ones because I thought buying two was silly. Trisha Yearwood suggests using 2 blocks of cheese, and while I don't know for sure, I discovered one possible reason as soon as I started grating. As I tried to grate my giant block of cheese I realized it's pretty difficult just because of the size, so I'd recommend cutting it in half or just buying two (I've always been the kind of person who just has to learn these things for myself).

So much cheeeeeese.

In the crock-pot, combine the milk, evaporated milk, melted butter, whisked eggs and pasta. Add a dash each of salt & pepper, then stir in the grated cheese. Cover and cook on low for about 3 hours.

Before cooking

While I typically consider myself a mac & cheese purist, I decided to make a little spiced breadcrumb topping. About 30 minutes before the mac & cheese was finished in the crock-pot, I combined the panko bread crumbs and Old Bay in a small skillet and toasted over medium heat just until the bread crumbs were starting to brown. Sprinkle the crumbs over the mac& cheese and let cook for the remaining time.

After cooking

I'll be honest, the finished product wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but it was still delicious. The cheese sauce just wasn't sticking to the pasta to make it ooey-gooey, which I think was the result of one or both of these reasons:

1. The skim milk and evaporated 2% milk. Try as I might, mac & cheese just wasn't meant to be low fat. I'd recommend trying the same recipe above, my with fuller-fat varieties of milk.
2. Adding the grated cheese to the cold milk and egg mixture. It might be worth a try to heat that mixture in the crock-pot while the pasta is cooking, then add the pasta & cheese for a more even consistency.

In any case, stay tuned; I think I'll be trying Trisha Yearwood's actual version of this sometime in the near future!

Wingin' It

I'm baaaaack! It's been a long time since I've last posted, and much longer than I initially realized. The past month has been a busy one, and crock-pot cooking took a backseat to travel, visits from friends, marathon running, marathon recovery and other fun weekend activities. I'd be lying if I said I didn't anticipate getting distracted and falling off the Sunday crock-pot dinner wagon, especially because we seemed to have had a rather busy October and November. Aside from the holidays, we don't have any travel plans for the foreseeable future, so I feel like I've finally caught up with the wagon and am trying to get back on for the long haul.

A few weeks ago we made wings in the crock-pot, more as an afternoon snack than an actual dinner, but they turned out so well I've been wanting to share the recipe. As you may recall, I don't really like spice, and as may be able to guess, Bart doesn't like food that's too sweet. I only made wings once before (and that didn't go so well...more to come on that), so as I searched for different recipes for guidance I realized that almost all wings fell into one of those two categories - spicy or sweet. What I really wanted was a combination of both, so here's what we put together:

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of frozen chicken wings (about 2.5 - 3 pounds; Kroger calls them "Party Wings")
• 1 1/2 c barbecue sauce (I used Cattlemen's Kansas City Classic sauce, but would also love to try this with Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Barbecue sauce)
• 1/4 c honey
• 2 tsp honey mustard
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2-3 tsp Sriracha 
• Salt & pepper

Directions:

Place the frozen wings in the crock-pot (no need to thaw them) and sprinkle with salt and pepper, as desired. I prefer the bag of frozen wings to the refrigerated package of wings because in Kroger's case, the wings in the frozen bag were already separated into wing tip and drumstick. When we bought the refrigerated package previously, we had to separate the wings at the joint which was both tricky (unless you really know what you're doing) and gross.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Feel free to adjust the sweetness or spiciness depending on your preference. I gave the sauce a taste a few times as I was mixing it and loved how it tasted - a little sweet at first, followed by a little spice at the end.

Pour the sauce mixture over the wings in the crock-pot. Cover and cook on high for about 2 - 2.5 hours. I'd recommend checking on the wings after about an hour and rotating them to make sure all sides get covered in the sauce (this was necessary for me as the number of wings was a bit of a tight fit).

Serve and enjoy! 

I was really happy with how these wings turned out, especially after our first attempt at crock-pot wings that I mentioned earlier. We followed a different recipe (more of an Asian-inspired sauce), but the primary difference was how we cooked them. The first go-round, we actually made the wings on a weekday, so I put them in the crock-pot at lunch time and cooked them on low until we ate them, about 6 hours in total and way too long. After finishing the wings under a broiler for a few minutes, the meat was literally falling off the bone. While they tasted good, they weren't easy to eat.

Like that recipe, I've seen a lot of recipes that call for putting the wings in the oven under a broiler either before or after they cook in the crock-pot, but I wanted to try this attempt at wings without doing that, mostly because I was feeling lazy and thought they'd turn out just fine (which they did!).