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!).

Husband Hacker

It's halftime of the Redskins/Chargers game, and I'm going to do a quick guest post on my wife's blog.  (Don't worry, she approved.)

We did a mini chili cookoff at work this week, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I looked at a few recipes online and basically picked out what I liked from several to come up with my own concoction.  I wanted to use ground turkey instead of beef because it's healthier and we also have people in my department (IT) who don't eat beef.  Got it...?  Got it.  OK.


I have a pretty small department, so only 3 of us actually made chili, and the winning bowl was made with 2 pounds of ground beef.  Guess what?  It was better than mine.  I don't claim this chili will be better than one made with red meat.  That's impossible.  If you've ever seen the episode of Parks and Rec in which Ron and Chris do a best burger competition, that's what I'm talking about!  But it was pretty damn good chili, so I thought I'd post the recipe here in case you want to give it a try.


Ingredients:

• 1.3 lbs ground turkey (1 lb would work just fine)
• 1 green bell pepper 
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 large yellow onion
• 1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 2 cans of tri-blend beans (pinto, kidney, and black)
• 1 14.5 oz. can chicken broth
• 1 can of corn
• 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

1. Put a glug of olive oil in a skillet and brown the ground turkey.  (Is a "glug" a thing?  I feel like I've heard it before.  You get the idea...)
2. Meanwhile, dice up the onion and peppers, and mince the garlic.
3. When the turkey is getting close to done, add the garlic and onion and cook for a couple more minutes.
4. Add the peppers to the skillet to mix all of it together for a minute or so on the heat.  
5. Add the contents of the skillet along with everything else to the crock-pot.  Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
   
    

Note: I added hot sauce and red pepper flakes to my bowl, along with some shredded cheddar cheese.  But you can add whatever you like!

OK.  Back to the game!

Cheers,

Bart

Say What?

I have a confession: I'm not exactly a very spontaneous person. And I'm a bit of a worrier about the unknown. Not in a major way, but I certainly like to know what to expect in most situations. As much as I often like predictability, or the ability to at least be prepared, I'm not a huge fan of it when it comes to dinner.

My reaction every Sunday. I'm pretty 

sure I perfected the eye roll as a child, just like this girl. 
My mom was probably less than thrilled.

Every Sunday morning, we make a menu plan for our crock-pot meal, and then two or three more dinners to get us through the first part of the week. Every Sunday morning, I ask my husband "What do you want for dinner this week?" and every Sunday morning, I hear the same one-word answer: "Steak". Sometimes I get the occasional two-word response of "Steak...duh". Sigh. I'm pretty sure if he was given the opportunity to eat steak and potatoes almost every night, he'd take it (not every night though...some would have to be left open for sausage and peppers). But, I continue to ask every week. I think they say that's the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result?

Well, imagine my surprise when the most recent response to my question was "How about we make those buffalo chicken lettuce wraps?". You can bet I quickly said yes - I was excited to hear a different response and looking forward to making a recipe we had made previously and really liked. It's from one of my favorite food blogs, Skinnytaste, which specializes in recipes that are a bit lighter and healthier but are still full of flavor. We've found a lot of favorite recipes on the site, including this one for Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps.

I used the same ingredients, but made a slight change to the directions - I added the hot sauce to the crock-pot while the chicken was cooking, rather than after shredding it. I think it helped the chicken absorb the flavor a bit more, but made the hot sauce a little less...hot, which I preferred.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg of chicken breasts (about 1.5 - 2 pounds)
• 4c low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2 of a small white onion, diced
• 3 celery stalks
• 1/2c Frank's Red Hot sauce
• Head of iceberg lettuce
• 2 carrots 
• Optional:
• Crumbled low-fat blue cheese
• Low-fat blue cheese dressing

Place the chicken in the crock-pot. Cover with chicken broth, hot sauce, diced onions, garlic and one celery stalk. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.

 Remove the chicken from the crock-pot and shred. Discard the broth except for about 1/2 a cup. Place the chicken back in the crock-pot and cook for and cook for an additional 30 minutes. If you'd like, add a couple additional teaspoons of hot sauce.

While the shredded chicken is cooking, cut the carrots and remaining two celery sticks into small, thin slices.

When the chicken is done, place a little bit in each leaf of lettuce and top with carrots, celery, blue cheese and blue cheese dressing as desired. Enjoy (with lots of napkins)!

With blue cheese dressing

or with crumbled blue cheese

This dish is really something that could work either as a dinner or as a snack. It's kind of like deconstructed chicken wings with a healthier twist. Perfect for football and definitely husband approved!

Faux Pho

 "It smells like Mekong in here!"

In my eyes, this was a pretty good compliment and a fantastic accomplishment to hear from my husband when I got home from work, especially with minimal effort. To put it in context, Mekong is a local Vietnamese restaurant and is one of our favorite places to eat. It's become something of a Richmond institution and is actually better known for their beer than their food. Don't get me wrong though, their food is delicious - we've never been dissatisfied after a visit or after getting take out. Except for the one time I didn't check the bag when I picked up the take-out and didn't realize they had forgotten our crispy spring rolls until I got home. An amateur mistake. I think my husband almost shed a tear when that happened. It's still a bit of a sore subject.

Located in a small strip mall between a Latino market and a dance studio, Mekong is the kind of place you'd be likely to drive by without noticing, but it is absolutely worth a visit. It was just voted the Best Beer Bar in America by CraftBeer.com for the second year in a row. Both their beer and food menus are extensive and you really can't go wrong. Alright, you're probably thinking "What is this, a restaurant review?"...no, no it's not. So back to the reason for my tangent.

I was not this happy at the end of the game.

I recently came across a recipe for Korean-style short rib soup, which seemed awfully similar to pho, and we decided to give it a try for dinner this past Thursday (we again found ourselves out of town last weekend, celebrating our 1 year anniversary at the Ravens-Packers game, thus a mid-week crock-pot meal). As much as I enjoy having dinner ready whenever I'm ready to eat it on Sundays, I think I might enjoy having dinner ready when I get home from work even more. It can just be a little trickier to plan, but walking in the door and having our house smell like Mekong was well worth it.

The prep work for this soup was minimal, so I was able to get home at lunch time, throw everything together in the crock-pot, and be on my way back to work. The crock-pot part of this soup is really just the broth and meat, the rest comes later and you can pretty much make it however you want. We tweaked the recipe from Food Network just slightly:

Ingredients:

• 3-4lbs beef short ribs
• 4c low sodium chicken broth
• 1/3c soy sauce
• 1/4c sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 tablespoons red Thai garlic chili paste
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 12oz package of rice sticks (these are easy to find in the supermarket Asian foods aisle)

For garnish:

• 1 carrot
• 1/2 cucumber
• cilantro
• lime wedges

Directions:

Place the short ribs in the crock-pot (leave the bones in for now)

Whisk the chicken broth, soy sauce, sugar, ground ginger, chili paste, sesame oil and garlic together in a large bowl. Pour the mixture over the ribs. Cover and cook on high for 6 hours.

About 30 minutes before serving, put the rice sticks in a large bowl and cover with hot water. Let soak for 30 minutes before transferring to serving bowls. At that point, the rice sticks should look like this:

Meanwhile, slice the carrot, cucumber and lime.

Transfer ribs to a cutting board to trim the fat and remove the meat from the bone. Skim any fat from the top of the broth in the crock-pot before adding the meat back to it.

Cover the rice sticks with the broth and meat from the crock-pot. Garnish as desired with carrot, cucumber, cilantro, lime and Sriracha or additional chili paste (if you're into that kind of spice).

Enjoy!



As you know, I'm not a fan of spice (I just can't handle it), but the amount of chili paste that goes in the broth adds a really good, unique flavor and is not too spicy. Of course if you want to add more to your bowl, you could make it pretty spicy. I didn't really know what to expect from this meal and it turned out to be SO. GOOD. We had just enough leftover for a third bowl.

Hers and his

We rarely have soup as our main dinner dish, but this soup was hearty enough to be the large part of our meal (and I just didn't want to stop eating it). We had it with a few pieces of warm, crusty bread (Billy Bread, a Richmond favorite) - perfect for a chilly October evening. I highly recommend giving this one a try!

A Fall Dinner for Summer Weather

This past weekend was H-O-T hot, especially as October weekends typically go. I'm talking 90+ degrees without a breeze. Lucky for us, we decided to remove our window AC units last weekend. Wait, no...that's not right. It didn't exactly turn out to be one of the smartest decisions we've ever made.

Why did we remove our AC units? Well, the husband doesn't hold a lot of weight in what meteorologists say (something about it not being a "real" science like chemistry), especially when it pertains to the 10 day forecast ("how could they possibly know that far out what the weather's going to be like??"). I'm not sure we even actually checked the forecast, just assumed that we wouldn't possibly need air conditioning in October since we hadn't used it in almost a month. Regardless, it turned out to be quite unseasonably warm inside and out. Meteorology: 1, Chemistry: 0 (sorry, honey).

Lookin' good, Mister Rogers.
Note: I once tried to explain that my love of cardigans was caused
by my childhood love for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. 

You know how a lot of women tend to be cold all the time? They're in a fleece when it's 70 degrees and keep a blanket or cardigan on their office chair just in case? I am most certainly not one of those women. I'm the one in a tank top when others are in a sweater. I happen to love all three of those keep-you-warm essentials (especially blankets and cardigans...definitely cardigans) but I just always seem to be warm. The other day I even blamed how uncomfortably warm I was on the lamp in our living room (it's giving off too much heat!). But really, it's just my nature, I can't deny it. Lucky for me (actually lucky this time), our crock-pot plan meant that I didn't need to use the oven and increase the temperature in the house any further. I'm pretty sure I was close to melting to begin with, so I was very happy to avoid that.

Partly because of this, and partly because the husband had been wanting to make chili for the past six weeks, we decided on a lighter version of chili than a traditional red meat and beans chili. I think of traditional chili as a classic comfort food reserved for chilly weather (chili...chilly...get it?). With one of our favorite warm-weather meals in mind (tacos), I decided to do some experimenting, and I must say I was pleased with the result.

Turkey Taco Chili

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 lbs ground turkey
• 1 15oz can black beans
• 1 15oz can corn kernels
• 1 packet low-sodium taco seasoning
• 2 8oz cans tomato sauce
• 1 c water
• 12 oz Newman's Own mild salsa

Optional for serving:

• Red pepper flakes
• Frank's Hot Sauce
• Fresh jalapeno
• Low-fat shredded mild cheddar cheese
• Tostitos multi-grain scoops

Directions:

1. Brown the ground turkey in a skillet on the stove, just until it is no longer pink.
2. While the turkey is browning, drain the can of corn. Drain and rinse the black beans.
3. In the crock pot, combine all ingredients (except those for serving)

Slow cooking in progress

4. Cook on low for 5-6 hours
5. Personalize as desired to serve - enjoy!

Hers and his, obviously.
I love cheese!

Hodgepodge Jambalaya

Whenever I think about jambalaya, that catchy jingle for Zatarain's gets stuck in my head. I can say with fairly strong certainty that I've never had Zatarain's jambalaya, but I'm sure I've seen their commercials more than a few times. I sincerely hope that the jambalaya we made for our Sunday night dinner was nothing like Zatarain's however (unless you think jambalaya mix out of the box is awesome, in which case, I'll allow the comparison).

The husband really wanted to wait until one of our teams was playing New Orleans to make jambalaya because it seemed fitting, which I totally get. However, upon further investigation, I realized that this wasn't going to happen at all this season. To avoid the potential wait until next season or beyond, we decided to go ahead and make it this past Sunday. New Orleans was playing on Monday, which I figure counts as close enough, especially considering we had enough leftovers to last all week. The jambalaya just so happened to be perfectly timed because we were able to incorporate leftovers from Saturday's dinner.

We had my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephew over for dinner on Saturday. The nephew recently turned four - we weren't really sure if he'd eat chicken or his old standby and favorite, pb&j. We made enough chicken just in case, but ended up having a good amount of leftovers. Turns out he doesn't eat chicken breasts but does sing Blurred Lines (or at least try). It's awesome and I'm completely fine with that as a trade off. Unfortunately I don't have a video of this, but I think this picture sums it up pretty well.

Not only did we have leftover chicken, but we actually had leftover jumbo lump crab meat that I didn't use when I made crab dip as an appetizer on Saturday. It wasn't a large amount, but enough to include in the jambalaya as an extra flavor. If my mother is reading this, she's probably gasping at the fact that I had leftover crab meat (at least it was jumbo lump!). I opted not to load up the crab dip that I made, as would likely be tradition for a Baltimore native (sorry mom), but it ended up contributing to a really good dinner.

This jambalaya turned out to be protein-packed, with chicken, crab, sausage and shrimp. I think that's one of the great things about jambalaya, you can almost make it however you want. Here's how we made this super easy dish.

Ingredients (it's a long list, but it's really simple, you'll see):

• 3 - 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into pieces
• 1 lb sausage, cut into 1-inch slices (we used andouille sausage)
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 large green bell pepper
• 2-14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (we used Hunt's with celery, onions, and green peppers)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled & deveined (we got shrimp already seasoned with an Old Bay mix)
• 1/4 lb lump crab meat
• 2 cups long grain rice

Veggies, chicken, sausage and spices - pre-cooking

Directions:

1. Chop the onion, celery, green pepper and garlic
2. Combine chicken and next 10 ingredients (everything except the shrimp, crab and rice) in the crock pot
3. Cook on low for 5 hours
4. Cook rice on stove according to package directions
5. Add shrimp, crab and rice to crock pot and cook for an additional 30 minutes

We served this with cornbread (Jiffy, of course) - the slightly sweet flavor was a perfect complement to the Cajun seasoning of the jambalaya. This recipe also makes a ton! It completely filled the crock pot. We had so many leftovers we sent my friend Kelly, who came over for dinner, home with a small Tupperware container that seemed to weigh about 5 pounds. After that, we then had a giant container leftover for ourselves (which the husband has been slowly chipping away at for lunch).

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture of the full meal after it was cooked before we dug in to eating...again, so my apologies. I'll do better next time, promise!

Thinking about the word "jambalaya", my mind wandered a bit...jam...jimmy jam...you just got jammed! I couldn't help but think of that catchphrase from the sporadically present yet always irritating Councilman Jamm on Parks & Rec, so I'll leave you with that until next time. Happy weekend everyone! 

Note: I love Parks & Rec. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend checking it out.

Breakfast Worth Falling For

Hi there! It's been awhile. Last weekend I didn't make or post anything since I was out of town, and couldn't even convince the husband to take on a crock pot meal of his own since he was out of town as well. So this past weekend, I was back at it and made two crock pot meals to compensate. First up: an overnight breakfast casserole.

Generally, I'm not a big breakfast person, primarily because I don't really like eggs all that much. I've tried, really, really tried to like them, but I just can't eat them without cheese, breakfast meat, and preferably a biscuit. So basically, I usually like them when I can't taste them all that much. My man, on the other hand, LOVES breakfast. A lot. Like almost as much as Ron Swanson loves breakfast.

 I decided to make this casserole because:

1. I knew he'd like it.
2. With the list of ingredients to balance out the egg, I knew I'd like it.
3. I knew I'd want a big breakfast (something more than cereal and yogurt) after my 17 mile run on Saturday.

 Now, before I get in to the recipe, let me back it up a little bit to Wednesday. Wednesday evening was lovely - perfect weather for the 8 mile run I was slated to do. Since I've been running longer distances with a group, and since someone I work with convinced me that I would most certainly be attacked if I wore headphones while running alone, I have stopped listening to music while I run. That being said, 8 miles is kind of a lot to run alone without any tunes. Spending this much time alone, continuously moving can often be a nice thing, and reminds me of my swimming days, when I'd spend hours everyday with my head underwater, staring at a black line (at least running outside has a lot more to offer visually). Just shy of 4 miles into my run, I was thinking about my upcoming 17 miler and daydreaming of what I'd have for breakfast afterward when BAM! All of a sudden I found myself face to face with the sidewalk. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I tripped and fell, scraping and bruising my knee, and somehow managing to bruise my chest by kneeing myself as I fell (it's ok if you're laughing trying to picture this, I'm laughing thinking about it). Have I mentioned I'm the clumsiest person I know? Not only was I already thinking about Saturday's breakfast on Wednesday evening, but after falling while thinking about it, I decided it better be GOOD when I actually got around to eating it.

After a weekend away, I was looking forward to a pretty relaxing weekend at home, so 10:30 pm on Friday night was the perfect time to get cooking on this dish. Luckily it was a pretty quick preparation so I was able to get back to my wild night of partying couch.

Ingredients:

• 1lb turkey breakfast sausage (or pork breakfast sausage, your preference)
• 1-20oz bag of hashbrowns (refrigerated, not frozen)
• 10 eggs
• 1/4 c of milk
• 1 tbsp ground mustard
• Salt & pepper
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Brown the sausage in a skillet
2. While the sausage is browning, whisk the eggs and milk in a bowl; add the ground mustard and a dash each of salt and pepper
3. Place a layer of hashbrowns in the crock pot, just enough to cover the bottom
4. Cover with about half of the browned sausage
5. Cover the sausage with 1 cup of the cheese; repeat layers of hashbrowns, sausage and cheese

 

6. Pour egg mixture over the layers
7. Cover the crock pot and cook on low overnight, about 7-8 hours
8. Wake up and enjoy!


I've recently noticed that our crock pot seems to cook faster than what most recipes recommend for cook times, so keep that in mind if you make this one, especially regarding the eggs. It may be best to make this when you're either going to bed late or waking up early so you can keep more of an eye on it. When I woke up after about 7 hours of cooking, the edges were already starting to brown, so at that point I decided to switch it from low to "keep warm". I knew the hubs wouldn't be awake until after 8, so I didn't want to risk the eggs overcooking (and they didn't), and it was still perfect when I got home at 10:30. Of course, he added ketchup mixed with a little Sriracha, and I just ate it plain. You can see that he was so excited to try it before I got home that this is the only post-cooking picture I managed...

I also popped some Pillsbury Homestyle biscuits in the oven before digging in to this breakfast (if ever I can find a way to include a biscuit with my breakfast, I most certainly will). They bake for 13-17 minutes, so be sure to start them a little before you plan to eat.

Check back soon for our Sunday Jambalaya dinner recipe!