Crock Pot Thai Chicken Wraps
Tonight is open house at my son’s school and the timing makes dinner as a family tough. So, it is going to be date night instead— but eating out is expensive, so I’ll feed the kids early and then us parents can eat when we get home (and the kids are sleeping!). But since I’m not sure what time we’ll get home from the school, I’m going to start the crock pot late this afternoon so that dinner is ready when we get back.
One of my favorite appetizers is those amazing sauced up thai chicken wraps that you can get at fancy Asian-inspired restaurants. The unfortunate part is that the lettuce is totally an illusion making you think this is a healthy choice. The typical sauce is usually full of really salty, sugary, high calorie ingredients that I totally don’t want to indulge in tonight. So I’ve come up with a healthier way to enjoy this treat, using the crock pot to get the most out of all the flavors and then whipping up a quick sauce in a pan to coat the whole mixture.
Most restaurants serve this dish with iceberg lettuce because it is crisp, but you can also use leaves of romaine lettuce or even tortillas. I hope you get to enjoy this at your next date night at home, too!
2 stalks celery, chopped Read more
Crock Pot Cowpea Soup
Filed under: Dinner, Recipes, Side dishes, Uncategorized, vegetarian
Most of you probably just read the title of this recipe and giggled. Yes, cowpea sounds a lot like cow pie. In fact, cow pee makes it seem even more funny. So if you haven’t heard of a cowpea before, let me tell you a little about it. But seriously, you can stop giggling now. Cowpeas are meaty little legumes that come in long pods. Once you pull the string off, you’ll see the tightly packed peas pop out of the pod. They are sometimes classified as a black-eyed pea, but you can also get purple-eyed ones, they can be green, white or dark in color and they are hearty little nuggets to cook.
When you can get them fresh, you are good to go once they are out of the pod. If you get them dried, then you need to soak them in water overnight for about 8 hours and then rinse them a few times before you throw them in the pot.
Cowpeas are common in a lot of Read more
Crock Pot Summer Vegetable Puree
As much as winter is the time for soups and stews, I really like summer soups too. This one isn’t too hearty since it’s a puree and I think it tastes really light when it is served warm, not hot. I’ve had to become really creative with vegetables this summer— with so much amazing local produce, I tend to over buy!
I like to base this recipe on carrots, because the orange color of the puree is so inviting, but feel free to experiment with whatever is in your basket. Just remember to include a starch (potato, sweet potato, kohlrabi, etc.) to help thicken the dish and something sweet (apple, beet, melon, peach) to make this unique for summer. Herbs are totally up to your discretion, too. I like fresh basil, but if you have rosemary or thyme or some oregano, those would be great as well.
Whatever you do, you are making a crock pot of wonderful by using fresh vegetables and your imagination. This should be served in a bowl, but it’s perfect when it’s thicker than soup, but thinner than mashed potatoes. PS– it’s also a GREAT puree for baby food, but you can make it for your whole family to eat. Enjoy!
4 c. fresh carrots
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 yellow squash, cut into chunks
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
2 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
1 medium apple, cut off of core
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
6-8 leaves fresh basil
2-3 c. vegetable broth
Put all vegetables and herbs into the crock pot, pour broth on top. Cook on high for 6 hours. Using immulsion blender, puree in pot. (If you don’t have one, then let dish cool and puree in batches in a standard blender.) Serve with a dollop of sour cream or greek yogurt on top and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.
Crock Pot Gumbo
I opened up my weekly CSA delivery and was so excited to see the ripe, fragrant produce. One thing in particular caught my attention– OKRA. The first thing I thought of was some hot, spicy gumbo. I think half of what I unpacked is going to end up in the gumbo— okra, tomatoes, basil, corn, green pepper… now if only I stopped at a farm for some chicken and then headed to the coast for some shrimp, but I guess I’ll have to buy those at the grocery store.
Gumbo is a perfect recipe for the crock pot because it needs to simmer for a long time to fuse all those flavors together. Cut your veggies into small pieces so you can have a bit of each morsel in your mouth! This soup would also freeze really well, so make the gumbo for dinner this week and then enjoy all these fresh treats again later this fall when they aren’t so available.
This soup can also be made vegetarian if you leave out the chicken, sausage and shrimp. I’d amp up the amount of veggies though and maybe get a little more okra, so that this tastes more robust and unique than just vegetarian vegetable soup. You can also use Morningstar Farms chicken strips (fake meat) if you’d like to add some protein. Enjoy!
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 lb. okra, sliced
1 c. of corn (cut off of fresh ears)
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
3-4 ripe, sweet tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
2 stalks celery, sliced
4-6 leaves fresh basil, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. salt
1 t. black pepper
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
1/2 t. paprika
1/2 t. chili powder
1 T. parsley
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
2 T. Tabasco sauce
2 c. water
3 pork sausages, cooked and sliced
1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and cleaned
2 c. cooked white rice
Combine all vegetables in crock pot. Add liquid ingredients. Sprinkle with all seasonings. Place chicken pieces on top of mixture next. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Add shrimp, sausage and cooked white rice and cook for an additional 1 hour on low.
Crock Pot Beef Stew
So after the amazing stroganoff last week, somehow I still wanted to make more beef. (I think we had BBQ chicken one too many times over the holiday weekend.) So even though it is summer, I thought some hearty beef stew would satisfy my craving for red meat. The nice part about this meal and the hot weather is that a small serving is enough to satisfy and you can use local produce to really enrich the flavors of the stew. I am adding some extra vegetables to my stew that are in season, ripe and fresh right now. Check out your local farmer’s market and see what vegetables look good to you. Enjoy!
1 lb. beef, cut into stew meat
1 c. baby carrots Read more
Crock Pot Barbequed Salami
My nana didn’t make cookies. She didn’t make tea sandwiches. She didn’t make cute food like fruit, desserts, hors d’oeuvres, cordials or ganache. But she made amazing, hearty dishes in mass quantity like spaghetti and brisket and homemade potato salad. But anyone in my family could tell you that the one dish that she was known for was her barbequed salami. It is spicy and soft and just the right amount of sauce to smother a plain hamburger bun and make it melt.
Nana always bought the big tubes of kosher salami and hand sliced in and then quartered it. I don’t know how she made it so thin. I suggest using the tubes of Hebrew National salami, but here’s an easier way to prepare it— cut it in half longways and then in half longways again (it will almost look like four hot dogs at this point). Then, run it through your food processor to slice it really thin. Or, you can do it by hand, like Nana, if you have a sharp knife and a lot of patience.
Kudos to Nana for always serving this amazing feast to our family, for getting us all together and giving us memories to last forever. This will always be a favorite meal for me and I can’t wait to share it with all of you, too. Make it for your next picnic, family gathering or game night. Barbequed salami is best served with a pickle, some wavy potato chips to scoop up anything that falls off the bun and a huge stack of napkins. Enjoy!
2 lbs salami, sliced and quartered
2 12 oz. bottles Heinz chili sauce
1 c. ketchup
1 onion, quartered and sliced
1 green pepper, minced Read more
Crock Pot Turkey A La King
Hear ye, hear ye…. thy dinner is potting! Thy royal family shall enjoy a delicious banquet of wild bird prepared in a lavish sauce that is truly fit for a king. Only, I don’t have a royal chef, a housekeeping staff, a castle moat or a dragon. I think the term “a la king” actually refers to the “richness” of the sauce on the meat. But instead of doing shredded or cubed chicken, I’ve decided to continue the royal renaissance theme to the meal and use whole turkey legs instead.
You don’t need to be savage in eating the turkey legs, simply serve them over pasta or rice or even biscuits and use a fork and knife instead of your hands. Enjoy this tender meat and please realize that you don’t need to be royalty to enjoy a divine meal.
3-4 turkey legs (2-3 lbs)
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can condensed cream of celery soup
1/2 c. milk
3 T. flour
1 t. black pepper
1 t. paprika
1 t. celery seed
1 medium onion, diced
1 stalks celery, diced
1 roasted red pepper, sliced
Place turkey legs in crock pot laying flat (it’s best to use an oval shaped crock pot). Add onion and celery. Mix flour, seasonings, milk and soups in a separate bowl and then pour on top of meat and vegetables. Cook on low 6 hours. Add sliced roasted red pepper as garnish when serving.
Crock Pot Fish Chowder
Crock Pot Potato Soup
My 93-year-old grandmother-in-law was visiting last week and the woman is amazing. She is clear minded and sound of body. She might not win the race, but she will definitely reach the finish line. She loves her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and hates to be idle. So when she was here visiting and offered to help in the kitchen, I was pleased to have her assistance.
My least favorite food prep is cutting onions. Let’s be honest– I’m a big baby about it. My eyes first burn and tingle, then water profusely and run all down my face. I look like I’m in a bad soap opera by the time that innocent white bulb is finally all chopped up. So, I politely asked my ”sous-chef” to complete this task and she diced enough onions to fill half of a gallon-sized freezer bag full!
Now I needed to figure out what to do with all these onions. I thought about a side dish of creamed onions or maybe crisping them up with some garlic to start a nice curry dish, but decided instead that it would only be appropriate to make my mother-in-law’s recipe for for potato soup and to use the onions that her own mama chopped up. My M-I-L didn’t make this dish in the crock pot, but Read more
Crock Pot Roasted Chicken (and curried chicken salad)
It’s Friday! I work hard all week waiting for today. Tonight we get to start our weekend. I can’t think of a better way to welcome the weekly 2-day vacation than to have a family meal together at home. To make it more special, we are having guests this evening as well. Ok crock pot, it’s time to do your thing and make dinner tonight taste like it was hard to make (but really it’s only noon o’clock and it’s already done).
The most challenging part of this recipe is making sure that your meat will fit in the crock pot. If you have a round and more vertical design of a crock pot, you might have to use a cornish hen instead of a chicken if you want it to fit! This recipe really works best in a 5-6 qt. crockpot that is oval shaped. I just thought you should know this before you start trying to shove everything in and then being disappointed when it doesn’t fit. (check out my next post about buying a new crock pot!)
If you have leftover chicken after tonight, I’d recommend making curried chicken salad tomorrow. Add a stalk of fresh, chopped celery (not a cooked one from the pot), add a small can of diced water chestnuts, 1/2 c. quartered red grapes and then enough mayo to make it a good consistency. Then, add curry powder, a little salt and pepper— I can’t tell you how much because I don’t know how much chicken you have left, but remember that curry powder becomes more potent after it gets a chance to fester. Make this salad up and then put it in the fridge for a couple hours– when it turns a darker copper color (from the curry), it’s ready to eat!
Well there you go, I guess it’s a two recipe day. You have one for today and one for tomorrow!
Now for to the roasted chicken recipe:
1 3-4 lb. fresh chicken, thawed, rinsed and patted dry
2 T. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped Read more
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