zesty shredded chicken: 5 ingredients in the crock pot and done.

I am an "easy cooker" by nature, I like things to take very little effort but also be delicious and healthy. So when someone tells me that they have a crock pot recipe that has no pre or post prep involved, I'm usually quite keen to give it a go.  This is one of those recipes. :)

I actually got this recipe from my Momma when I had to head up the big Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet dinner for our church congregation several months ago. I needed something I could prepare and freeze beforehand since I was out of town for the actual event but something that was also cheap and good tasting. (We've all been to at least one not so delicious big event dinner, right?)
So, instead of less healthy and much more expensive beef for the taco salad we served, I made this.

This dish is so versatile, not only can it serve as the base tons of different dishes, it can EASILY serve masses, you can make a double family-sized batch and freeze some for an even quicker meal later, or make just enough for one meal.
The recipe I'll share is intended to be used as part of several different meals for a family of 4.

INGREDIENTS:
8 oz Zesty Italian Dressing (I used Kraft, you can get light or fat free, whatever your usual preference)
1/2 T chili powder
1/2 T cumin
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
2 lbs chicken breast (I put mine in frozen)

Directions: 
1. Mix dressing and spices together and pour over chicken in the crock pot.
2. Cook for 6 hours, shred chicken within the last hour and mix together. (you can do whatever time setting works best for your schedule that day of course.)
3. Serve as part of whatever dish you'd like, I've used it on my favorite go-to salad (see recipe), loaded nachos with mozzerella cheese,  black, red, or pinto beans, green onion, cheese, salsa and sour cream, taco salad, chicken fajitas or as a topping for loaded baked potatoes.

My boys both love this chicken too, and because it's shredded even my 11 month old (with no teeth...) can eat it really well, he had a dinner of shredded chicken, pinto beans, and cantaloupe last night and was in heaven.

Tomato, Basil and Parmesan White Beans.

Tomato, Basil and Parmesan White Beans.

This is a favorite of ours for a few reasons;

it is 250 calories per serving (1 cup), it takes 15 minutes total to make AND it is delicious. 

Picture a favorite pasta dish with creamy white beans instead of pasta.

INGREDIENTS:

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 cans Great Northern, drained and rinsed

(or other white beans, but Great Northern are my favorite, hands down)

2 cans, tomatoes, petite diced

(any type works but I prefer the Italian-style or the kind with chili peppers to add some spice)

*when fresh tomatoes are available you can ALWAYS substitute fresh for canned

1 tsp Italian seasoning or Basil

*substitute fresh Basil if you can get it.

½ cup Parmesean cheese, grated (or the kind in the can)

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

1.In a skillet, sauté the garlic in the olive oil.

2. Add beans, tomatoes and seasoning. (I don’t drain my canned tomatoes)

3. Cook for 7-10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

4. Add Parmesan cheese and lemon juice and stir until fully mixed/melted.

Serve with wheat crackers or a baguette. Fresh veggies or a salad make perfect sides.

This dish makes excellent leftovers too, which is a big deal around here.

Enjoy!

This recipe is based on one of our favorite dishes from Zonya’s Lickty-Split Meals. A cookbook we use more than most. Her meals are quick, healthy and easy. (win-win-win) I highly recommend picking this one up, we got ours on Amazon.

sautéed chicken, jalapeño and mushroom salad. (with some sugar, spice and everything nice…)

 We generally have a salad for at least one dinner a week, so we are always looking for ways to switch it up. This one was one of the best we’d made in a long time…delicious.

Salad Ingredients:

1/3 head romaine lettuce, chopped

feta cheese, crumbled on each serving, to taste

1-2 chicken breasts

1 jalapeño pepper, chopped

1 green onion, chopped

2-3 white mushrooms, thinly sliced

½ apple, chopped

¼ cup caramelized pecans:

¼ cup pecans, chopped

1 Tbsp. salted butter

½ cup brown sugar

poppy seed vinaigrette salad dressing (recipe here)

Whenever Kevin cooks it’s off the cuff so…I tried my hardest to get him to nail down what went into the chicken marinade for this salad.

Chicken Marinade Ingredients:

2-3 Tbsp. brown sugar

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

dash of salt

½ cup apple cider vinegar (or enough to cover chicken)

*for later:

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

Directions:

1.Mix up marinade in a Ziploc bag and add chicken. (Mixture should cover chicken when laid flat on it’s side…add apple cider until it does.)

*let marinade at least an hour

2.Caramelize about ¼ cup chopped pecans. (make more or less depending on how much you like this sweet element…)

Put about 1 Tbsp salted butter and ½ cup brown sugar in a pan. Once they’ve begun melting and mixing, add the chopped pecans and stir until the nuts are golden brown. Let cool on parchment paper.

3. Chop apple, green onion, jalapeño (remove seeds), set aside.

4. Slice mushrooms, set aside. (wash or remove the top layer)

5. If you don’t keep a supply of this dressing in the fridge, (like I do) make it now.

6. Chop lettuce, set aside.

7. Thinly cut the chicken breasts and sauté in olive oil with freshly minced garlic until about half cooked then add the chopped jalapeño and sliced mushrooms.  Sauté until chicken is cooked through.

8. Fill bowls with lettuce and top with sautéed chicken, mushrooms and jalapeño, green onion, caramelized pecans, apples, feta cheese and dressing.

Enjoy!

fast.food.at.home: veggie style (aka my new obsession)

I am always looking for a new recipe that can check off all my boxes; healthy, fast, delicious, cheap, simple...not always super easy to find, right?
(good rule of thumb: if I can make it, it's super simple)

Well, I found this one on allrecipes.com a while back and we can't stop using it as a "we have no time to make dinner tonight" fallback because it's so tasty and healthy.

We really changed almost everything you put in the recipe, this is how we've grown to love it;
*You can put in whatever veggies you have or are in season. (love it when you can do that)

Ingredients:
1/8 cup olive oil
1-3 cloves fresh garlic, minced (add more if you like a strong garlic taste like we do)
1 tsp salt
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced 
2 peppers, chopped (we like peppers with a little kick but Bell peppers would work just as well)
3-4 Tbsp. Balsamic vinegar
feta cheese, crumbled (we just sprinkle as much as we want in, it probably amounts to about 1/4 cup (unpacked))

Baguette, sliced and broiled
*Our grocery store has white, wheat, and mixed grain baguettes you can cook at home, so the bread is hot and fresh. If you use this kind, cook the bread while you're making the dish, butter or brush with oil and broil after it's cooked.

Instructions:
Saute the garlic in the olive oil in a large skillet. Add salt, chopped veggies and sliced mushrooms and cook until they are warm through and tender. Add Balsamic vinegar as the veggies cook.  Add feta cheese directly after taking it off the heat and mix throughout. 

Cut baguette in half horizontally and spread butter or brush olive oil on halves.
Broil under golden brown, cut pieces to your desired size.

We serve the veggies in bowls with the oil and vinegar sauce it cooked in so you can dip the baguette in it...SO good. Spoon onto your baguette slices and try not to devour it all at once, seriously... :)

Black Bean and Quinoa Burgers.

I don't know about y'all but I really love beans, so the idea of a bean burger has always appealed to me. Being a healthy alternative to red meat was a plus too.

*As I've said before, though I love the taste of red meat, it's not really great friends with my stomach.


I used this recipe from allrecipes.com as a starting point for my first attempt at black bean burgers. My "burgers" were actually a combination of my favorite advice for changes I took from several different reviews of the original recipe.
(I would recommend trying some of the ideas at the bottom of this post on your first go-around to give your burgers a bit more flavor.)

So my recipe looked like this; (everything in red is a change I made to the original recipe.)

1/4 cup quinoa (cook this first and mix it in when smashing the beans)
(quinoa uses a 2:1 ratio like rice, so I used 1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup quinoa)
1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained, rinsed and dried  
(I dried mine on paper towels, this  helps keep them from falling apart later.)
2 hatch chili peppers, cut into 2 inch pieces (these are our new favorite pepper of the South, you can use bell peppers as called for if you can't get them)
1/2 sweet onion, cut into wedges
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin (I thought that the cumin was a bit overpowering, so I'll use less and add different flavors next time.)
1 teaspoon chili sauce (I used Sriracha Chili Sauce)
1 cup bread crumbs (I used Panko)

Directions

1. If grilling, preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C), and lightly oil a baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty. Mix in cooked quinoa. (I mashed it a lot with a pastry blender.)
3. In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Strain out the excess liquid in a fine strainer. (I pushed the mix against the strainer to get as much liquid as possible out.) Then stir into mashed beans.

   

   Just after adding the pepper, onion and garlic. My bowl sure makes the beans look like beef.

4. In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and chili sauce. (I added a bit of salt too.)
5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into four patties.
6. If grilling, place patties on foil, and grill about 8 minutes on each side. If baking, place patties on baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes on each side.

*everything in black is from the original recipe from allrecipes.com which you can find here.

*I put the patties in the freezer until we actually cooked them to help them keep their form.

We grilled onion and pepper to put on our burgers, added a little mozzarella,  some fresh guacamole and we topped it all with spinach.

So, I think when eating vegetarian burgers it's important to not expect it to taste like a hamburger, because it doesn't.  Think of it as a bean dish and it'll be a lot more delicious to you.


Both Kevin and I agreed that we wanted the actual bean burger to be "bursting with flavor" a little more and I think our next ones will be.
We are really excited to try a "teriyaki-style" burger with sliced pineapple on top. We also want to do a "mexi-style" burger with taco seasonings with fresh pico and guacamole on top.

Happy Friday!

lunch lifesaver. best dressing in the world.

I'm always trying to find ways to keep it healthier in the food department at our house and having a salad most days for lunch has been really successful for me.

With my two boys under two...(okay, two boys under one and a half) quick meals are a necessity during the day. But I still like my food to taste delicious.  For all these reasons, this salad is my go-to lifesaver.

For me the key is an old family recipe for a poppy seed, oil and vinegar dressing;

2/3 cup sugar  
2/3 cup white vinegar
1 cup olive oil (original recipe calls for vegetable oil)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp poppy seeds
1 diced green onion (optional)   

Romaine lettuce is the base (obviously) and then I go from there with what I have in the house.  
From there I had loads of topping go-tos;
red, black or pinto beans
bell peppers
red onion or green onion
doritos
mozzarella or feta cheese
crasins
cucumber
dried fruit

*When we have this type of salad for dinner we throw a chicken breast and some sweet onions and peppers on the grill to add in but I can't manage that during the day with the kiddos.

So so good. I know there are healthier ways to eat a salad, but for me, a salad is better than most other things I can whip together for lunch so it's worth it, at least for now. 

* Random Tidbit: I hated most vegetables up through my college years prior to serving as an LDS missionary. A love of anything veggie, is new and still developing for me.  So salads for lunch are a big deal, especially since I sincerely love them.  I love *most* vegetables now. So if you read this and think, "easy for you to do Michelle, I hate vegetables", no worries, I did too.  

Here's to a conscious effort to be a little better. (and delicious food)

Happy Monday y'all!

best.pasta.salad.ever

Back when we were getting ready to move from Utah to Texas my sweet cousin called and asked if she could bring dinner over to eat while we chatted and packed.   I said "yes", of course, and she ended up bringing a pasta salad that quickly became my very favorite. I've made it again so many times and thought it was too good not to share with y'all. 

We have done a little bit of a variation but I'll get to that; here's the original recipe;

Ingredients: 

1 lb. pasta, (your choice, I used multi-grain Rotini) cooked, drained, and cooled
2 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 lb. cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in halves or quarters depending on size
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
2 medium carrots, grated
1/2 cup (packed) fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 tsp. chopped fresh mint
1/2 lb. Feta cheese, cut into bite sized cubes
1/4 cup chopped Kalamata olives (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper


Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 11 minutes
Total Time: 31 minutes

Yield: 8 servings


Here is the dressing, that in my opinion, is what makes the salad;
(courtesy of Athelia Graham)
 

Ingredients: 

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp salt

 ¼ tsp pepper

3 Tbsp vinegar:

*this is the key: half white vinegar and half balsamic vinegar

¼ cup olive oil

¼ tsp dry mustard

¾ tsp grated onions(or fresh green onions)

¾ tsp poppy seeds

* I always double the dressing recipe so I have plenty if it needs a little boost for leftovers, and leftovers with this salad are AWESOME.

So, like I said we often do a variation on the original recipe based on what we have in the house and to save on cost.

Here is a favorite alternative list of ingredients to add to the pasta;

-sauteed sweet onions and Hatch chilli peppers, chopped 

(you could substitute bell peppers or something with a hint of spice for the Hatch peppers if you can't get them.)

*saute with a bit of olive oil and one minced clove of garlic

- chicken: 1 breast, grilled and chopped or one can, shredded

*We still added the cucumber, spinach, green onions, fresh basil, Feta and pepper.

fiber delight.

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm working on a more healthy lifestyle again, now that I'm out of the 24-hours-a-day nauseous period of this pregnancy.  Of course a huge part of a healthy lifestyle is healthy food. I've been meaning to make some bran muffins because they are delicious, healthy, easy, save forever, Kevin can take them to school, and I love them. 

This is a Tanner family favorite recipe. (found in Tanner Tasties I and Tanner Tasties II).  
(Attributed to Bobbie Graham and Terri Mitchell.)

Refrigerator Bran Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups boiling water

2 cups All-Bran

1 cup oil

2 cups sugar OR 1 cup honey

1 quart buttermilk OR sour milk OR yogurt

4 eggs, beaten

5 cups whole-wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

5 teaspoons baking soda

4 cups dry All-Bran

*optional: raisins, craisins, nuts, berries, coconut, etc...

Directions:

*Pour boiling water over 2 cups All-Bran. Cream oil and sugar (or honey) then add buttermilk, eggs, hot bran mixture, flour, salt and soda. Mix well.  Add 4 cups dry All-Bran and mix well again.

*Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

(*Add nuts, raisins, craisins, berries, coconut, etc.. just before baking.)

finished batter is a bit lumpy.

*Can store in a tightly covered container in refrigerator and use as desired/needed.

Left over batter after making 6 muffins.

Even though it saves for weeks, I probably still could have half-ed the recipe for our small family.

I just sprinkled coconut on top before I baked them.

One thing I love about this recipe is that you can make as many or few muffins as you need so they're always fresh. 
My cousin Ashley Anne and I would make this recipe frequently when we were roommates in college. They are really delightful straight out of the oven in the morning.

Just out of the oven.

Ready for breakfast for the next few days.

 Like I said, I love these bran muffins and they are so easy to make.  Win-win. :) Happy Wednesday!

life lately.

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1. Lee loves rocking on a rocking chair that is just his size and used to be his Dad's.
2. Lee is starting to really love playing independently since he's learning how things work and how to play with them.
3. Lee really enjoys his post-bath, pre-clothes time.
4. I feel like I'm getting big so fast this time.
5. Lee scoots himself under things all the time since he still hasn't mastered the idea of moving forward.
6. We found out that Lee loves swimming.  Perfect! Since we are both water lovers and we're moving to Texas.  Lots of swimming in the future.
7. Lee likes to fall asleep with a book, just like him Momma. (the top is Lee, bottom is me.)
8. Now that I'm finally not feeling nauseous every second I'm trying to hop back on the healthy lifestyle wagon. It feels so good.
9. Lee wants to eat whatever we eat, in this case his first taste of frosting on graham crackers. yum.
10. Lee seems to be crazy about stuffed animals. (really helpful when he doesn't want to fall asleep right away.)
11. In general Lee is growing up so quickly and I'm trying to love all the fun moments.

i love fresh food....

The contents of our basket this week.

We finally got a basket of fruit and vegetables through Bountiful Baskets, and what can I say? We are So thrilled.  So much delicious food, such a great price.  If you're interested, you should check it out, Bountiful Baskets. It's pretty simple, you decide if you'd like to purchase a basket on a week to week basis.  For us, one basket ($15 for the non-organic) will definitely last us for two weeks. You select the pick-up location nearest you and show up there at the date/time shown. The exact contents of the basket are purely based on what they can get that week.  They also have weekly deals for other things; granola, bread, bulk quantities of fruits and or veggies, etc.... Yep, pretty excited.  Woot.