Crock-pot Sloppy José's

Get it? The Spanish version of Sloppy Joe's? 

I rarely make recipes I see on Yahoo! Shine, but this one already had some reviews and it looked interesting. I was lured in by the versatility of the recipe, claiming you can use eat it on buns, in taco shells, or in a taco salad. Frankly, taco salad was the magic word as it is one of my weaknesses. We had two hungry 20 year old boys (missionaries) coming over for dinner right after I got home from work so I decided this would be a perfect time to try out the recipe. 

As I know how my mornings usually go, I cooked up the meat and chopped all the veggies the night before so that the next day I just pulled it all out of the fridge and threw it in the crock-pot for a 5 minute preparation. 

After work, I was welcomed home by a wonderful smell. We set the table with buns, tortillas, tortilla chips, salad, salsa and shredded cheese and told the missionaries to create their own masterpieces. Between the two of them they proceeded to eat: 5 sloppy joes, 1 huge soft taco, a plate of nachos, and some salad on the side. I think they liked the food. :)  Today for lunch I had an excellent taco salad and verified the recipe's claim. 

Ingredients:

2 lb lean ground beef

3 cups sliced fresh mushrooms

1 1/2 cups chopped red and/or green pepper

2 tsp salt

4 cloves garlic

2 16oz jars salsa (I used 1 jar mild and 1 jar medium)

1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

1/3 cup tomato paste

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper*

      (this is a tame amount, if you like spice feel free to add more)

Directions:

1. In a skillet cook beef over medium heat until brown, stirring to break meat in pieces. Drain fat. In 5- or 6-qt. slow cooker stir together beef and remaining ingredients (except rolls).
2. Cover; cook on high-heat setting 4 to 5 hours or low-heat setting 8 to 10 hours.
3. 
   

Recipe Credit: http://shine.yahoo.com/food/recipes/spicy-beef-sloppy-joes-535428.html

Black Bean Dip

I have been the lucky recipient of a lot of party invitations recently and so I decided I needed a new "go-to" treat. I had a few requirements for this treat, the most important being that it needed to be savory, not sweet. I don't eat very many sweets and can really only enjoy a few bites at any given time so I mostly snack on veggies or pretzels, etc. I got the idea for a black bean dip when I rummaged through my pantry and compiled a recipe from things I already had on hand.

When I debuted it a few weeks ago, I was rather nervous as it doesn't look particularly appetizing. However, I didn't need to worry. The bowl was empty within minutes as the dip tastes divine and it is quite filling. I have also found that it is very tasty when made into a burrito. :)



Ingredients:

2 cans black beans
2 tbsp veg oil
½ med onion
1 c. corn kernels
1 can diced tomatoes, half drained
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 cube cilantro bouillon
1 cube chipotle bouillon
1 tbsp chipotle pepper seasoning (optional, but adds a good flavor dimension)
1/3 c cheese, shredded
2 tbsp lime juice

Directions:

1. Place black beans in a medium size mixing bowl, partially mash beans -- beans should remain a little chunky.
2. In a medium size frying pan, heat oil over a medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic and saute for 4 min.
3. Mix beans, remaining ingredients into the frying pan; cook for 5 minutes or until thickened.

This tastes best when it has time to sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I personally prefer to serve the dip just slightly warm, but it is also good when chilled or hot.

Momma's Chili

With the cool weather setting in, I can't help but pull out all my favorite soup recipes and when I want comfort food to warm me up, I can't do much better than my mom's wonderful chili recipe. She usually served it up with fresh cornbread, but I made homemade biscuits instead (find the recipe here), and boy were they tasty! (As a side-note: I also used that biscuit recipe for a biscuits and gravy breakfast and the biscuits were solid enough to handle the thick gravy while still managing to be fluffy.)



Mom gave me a recipe for the chili, but nowadays I tend to just throw it all in the pot and guess at quantities. I think it tastes better that way. With that in mind, I will tell you my guesstimate on the ingredients:

2 large cans of tomato juice
Red/kidney beans (mom's recipe used dried beans that were soaked, but I always cheat with 3 rinsed cans of beans instead)
About equal quantities ( 2-4 tbsp, to taste) of the following spices: cumin, curry powder, garlic powder (or fresh garlic), sugar, chili powder (although I tend to add a lot more of this), salt to taste
1 lb ground beef, cooked with 1 chopped onion

Add it all together on the stove and cook for about an hour, give or take. If you use the canned beans I recommend waiting to add them until halfway through.

Southwestern White Chicken Chili

My husband and I just got back from a soirée in Arizona where the weather was hot and my craving for Mexican food was a bit overwhelming. Now that we are back in Kansas City, the air feels chilly and today seemed like the perfect day for soup. Like all my soups, it was created based on what was in my cupboard at the time. I decided to create a white chicken chili since I had never done it before and I happened to have white beans on hand. Halfway through cooking, I decided to give it a more pronounced southwestern taste to answer my tex-mex craving and added black beans as well.



As I never measure anything I create, the rough estimate of my soup recipe is below. The good thing with soup is that it is easy to fix if it doesn't taste quite right.

1 1/2 lbs of chicken, chopped and cooked in 1 tbsp of veg. oil
2 Tbsp of southwestern chipotle pepper seasoning mix
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 Tbsp minced garlic
2 stalks of celery, chopped
5 cups of chicken broth, or water with chicken bouillon
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 can of great northern white beans (rinsed)
1 can black beans (rinsed)
1 can of chopped green chilis
1 Tbsp white pepper
2 cubes of cilantro bouillon (seriously, this stuff is amazing and can be found in a little box in the hispanic food section of the grocery store)
1 Tbsp cumin
Other ideas I had that would be good but I didn't have on-hand: red or green pepper, sour cream, fresh cilantro

Mandatory add-ins: (these REALLY made the soup terrific!)
Shredded Mexican Cheese (mine is a mix of cheddar & monterey jack)
White Rice (we had this leftover from our chinese dinner last night)
Tortilla Chips, broken on-top of soup

Chop the chicken and cook it in the veg oil, seasoning with salt & pepper. Halfway through the cooking add the southwestern chipotle seasoning.

In a rice cooker or separate pan, cook rice according to your usual methods, set aside.

Meanwhile, in a soup pot add olive oil, onion, garlic & celery. Cook until soft. Add water or broth. Mix in cream of chicken soup (to thicken the soup) & green chilis. Bring to a boil. Once at a boil, reduce to simmer and add beans, cooked chicken, cilantro bouillon, white pepper & cumin.

When serving, put about a 1/2 cup rice in the bottom of bowl, pour soup over top. Top with cheese and chips. Enjoy!


Beverage Tip: Ginger ale is a great pairing with this dish as the ginger is a compliment to the spicy flavors in the soup.

Chimijitas - A Taste of Pure Happiness

Seriously, pure happiness! Today I was craving Mexican. Okay, I actually ALWAYS crave Mexican (or technically, tex-mex) but today was my breaking point so I decided to do something about it. Depressed by the lack luster offerings of the surrounding El Gross-o restaurants, I sent myself to the kitchen to see if the fridge had anything useful in it. Luckily for us, it did.

I set to work with no recipe, just a vague idea of what I wanted the end result to taste like. I took all my favorite parts of tex-mex cuisine and combined them. The filling was based on fajita filling, with green & red peppers, onions and chicken. I added a special and unique blend of spices to get it just right. Once I had rolled the filling up in tortillas, I fried them up a few seconds on each side in a little bit of oil.

After they were plated, I spooned on some of the special sauce I had made. The sauce is a green chili sauce, made with a mixture of cream of chicken soup, green enchilada sauce, diced green chilis and an assortment of spices. The idea was to make the inside hot and spicy and the outside cool and refreshing, mixing the two in perfect harmony. Because they are a mixture of fajitas and chimichangas, I named them Chimijitas. :)

I served the chimijitas with mexican rice/black beans, corn, and romaine lettuce, creating a fairly balanced plate of flavors. The end result was shockingly good. They needed no salsa or cheese, they were simply perfect displaying all the flavors I had been craving. Success is rarely so tasty!