Chili

I was in the mood for chili and hubby wanted "something" with stew meat in it so.... I tossed a couple packages of CAB (certified angus beef) stew meat in the crock pot with a cup of whole peeled tomatoes I had frozen from the summer harvest, sprinkled generously with garlic powder, onion powder, Lawry's, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and black pepper.  I wish I had measurements because it was perfect.  It was a nice change to have stew meat instead of ground beef in our chili.

Pepperoni Pizza Poppers

My family loves pizza. Especially pepperoni pizza. So I was excited to find an idea for a twist on pizza while looking at pinterest recently. It's like a savory monkey bread. I added the step of rolling each little ball of pizza dough in garlic butter. Then sprinkling each layer with parmesan cheese.Pop it in the oven at 400 and watch the buttery little pizza poppers (as my boys called them) puff up. When it was almost done, I cranked it up to 425. Maybe I was getting impatient. But look at that yummy golden brown goodness.I shouldn't even post this pic.. I didn't fix my plate pretty and you can't see the bowl of salad that we ate with it. But here they are on my plate. With a spoonful of warm basil, garlic, oregano tomato sauce (with a little more garlic and a little more italian seasoning added to it). Huge hit at my house. We ate the whole pan....which included enough dough to make 2 pizzas. Easy supper success. Thank you pinterest.

Who Turned OFF the Crockpot?!

So we were expecting company on Sunday after church. I get up extra early and get a roast going in one crockpot and just before we leave for church I start another crockpot with potatoes in it (suppose to be a pretty "potato roast" but later turned into mashed potatoes with thyme and shallots). Everything should be perfectly done when we got home from church right? Wrong! Why? One word: JACK. I left the crockpots close to the edge of the counter where Jack can reach the knobs and apparently when we weren't looking he turned the beef roast OFF and the potato roast to HIGH. So we came home to mushy potatoes and raw beef. Off to the local cafe we went. The roast and now mashed potatoes were good for supper though... and even better today.

Today I reheated the roast for supper and added flour and eggs to the shallot & thyme mashed potatoes and made potato cakes. The boys loved it. They went so far as to say that it was the best potatoes they ever ate. Maybe not the healthiest lol but the best!

Rice Broccoli n Cheese Cups

Our local grocery store sends out a recipe of the day if you sign up for their newsletter. Recently they sent the recipe for Rice Broccoli n Cheese Cups. We tried out tonight along with the best grilled pork chops and corn on the cob. The boys loved it and they are not usually happy about eating broccoli. I will make a couple of changes to it next time... it was a little dry for me... but it was tasty. Click HERE for the recipe. I swapped regular brown rice for the minute white rice.

Grilled Veggies

We had an awesome dinner... grilled steaks, corn, squash, & zucchini. I seasoned the veggies with garlic salt and lemon pepper and they were delish! I usually eat them just because they are healthy but I really liked them this way. And so did the boys! I didn't realize until after the picture that someone had already taken a bite of my food.... James must have been testing it as he grilled. Ha!

Pineapple Fried Rice

Wow, it's been a long time since I've cooked... I'm getting back to it though and loving it! I'm also trying to excercise, eat healthier (husband and kids too) and just live healthier in general. BUT, I do not want to sacrifice flavor. I don't care how healthy it is, if it's not tasty, I'm not interested!

A friend turned me on to Gina's Skinny Recipes. Basically good food revamped to be healthier and it still tastes good. She has the nutritional value and even weight watcher points for each recipe if you're interested. I tried out the Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice last night. We all (kids included) loved it! I was a little scared of brown rice but we really liked it and the husband even prefers it over white rice. Score! I think he recipe would be great with chicken or pork too if you aren't a shrimpy kind of person.

I changed a couple of things. I seasoned my shrimp with garlic salt although the recipe doesn't call for any season on the shrimp. I used quite a bit of cilantro because we love it in our house. Rather than just garnish with it, I stirred it into the rice just before serving. It was wonderful. One other change - I already had several cans of pineapple at home so I did not use fresh pineapple. It was still really good though and can imagine it would be even better with fresh pineapple. Cooking this made me wish I had a non-stick wok!

One word: CHOWDER

Clear Springs Cafe has an amazing Jalepeno Crawfish Chowder. I am in LOVE with it. I want to make it home but can't find a recipe for it. (anyone that works there feel free to share it with me!!!) It's spicy, it's a little sweet, it has chunks of crawfish in it... I'm thinking some corn too. It's SOOOOO good. I get it every time we go. Of course, everything I have had at Clear Springs has been good.

I found a recipe on The Pioneer Woman's blog for Corn Chowder with Chilies. I had hopes that it would remind me of my chowder from Clear Springs... just minus the crawfish. It didn't. But it was good! Spicy, corny, creamy... a little "bacony"... and hot...perfect for today!

Bacon, onion, and butter! It has to be good!

It called for two of these but I chickened out and went kid friendly with only one. With these and the green chile's... it was just spicy enough.

Throw in some corn and the peppers...

Add chicken broth and heavy whipping cream, masa/water mixture and simmer.

I added some cilantro for garnish and served with warm flour tortillas. DELISH!