Slow Cook Taco Soup

The original recipe can be found here.  There were all sorts of good ideas about in the comments about how to change the recipe, including an idea to saute the onions first.  However, this has become my "I have no time, but I want delicious hot food" recipe, which means I usually go for the simple route. Consequently I usually keep the ingredients for this soup on hand at all times. Below you will find my version.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef - I have a freezer full of ground beef in 1lb packages.  So for this recipe I just pull out the ground beef as is (aka still frozen) and toss it in the crock pot and let it cook through before I break it up a little while before serving.

1 onion, chopped - I like to use the sweet onions, and use a medium/large sized onion for this.

16oz can chili beans - For the beans you could probably use just about any bean. I get pinto and kidney beans, but they don't have to be the seasoned chile beans.

15oz can kidney beans

8oz can tomato sauce

4oz can diced green chile peppers

29 oz diced tomatoes - I forget these often enough that I would list these as optional. :o)  Also, in the summer I prefer to use fresh tomatoes rather than canned ones.

~3½ cups water - If you are at home, you can measure this.  I cook this away from home enough so now I just use one of the cans and add about two can-fulls of water. 

1 pkg taco seasoning

Cheese (optional)

Chips (optional)

I leave the corn that the original recipe calls for out usually, because of friend's food allergies, but the corn is yummy.  I also usually add a green bell pepper, just chopped up and thrown in. 

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook on low for ~8 hours. If desired top with cheese and serve with chips.

Cinnamonkeys

We call these Cinnamonkeys, but I've also seen them called cinnamon pull apart muffins.
(Personally I like cinnamonkeys better. ;o)

Original Recipe can be found here

 Preheat ove to 350 F

Servings - 12 cinnamonkeys.  If you are like me, this means 6 servings. ;o)

Bread Dough - 2 lb
I think if you buy bread dough in the store 1 can = 1lb. Usually for this I just toss the ingredients into the bread maker and let the machine run for an hour before using the dough. I have tried this with refined flour and whole grain spelt flour and both are amazing. The spelt is nice and light, so I think I will go back to that since it is healthier.  B loves it either way too, and he didn't grow up on whole grains.

~1/2 stick of butter
~2/3 cups honey
2tsp cinnamon

These quantities are subjective, tweak them around to find your optimum sweetness/cinnamon level. This mixture should leave a little left over in the pan to drizzle over the top if you like. Be warned however, it will make them a little more messy. :o)

Instructions:
Melt butter in pan, add honey and cinnamon.  - You want the honey to get warm enough to brush onto the dough easily. I recommend keeping the pan on a warm burner so the honey doesn't start to thicken again. 

Meanwhile, roll out the dough (I don't roll it all out at once) to ~1/4" thick, or less (it really depends on how thick you like them.  Thicker segments = less cinnamonkeys, but are still delish!).  Next cut the dough in to ~2 - 2.5" "squares." - I'm not precise here, this is just an approximation

Place 8 dough squares on a plate or cutting board and brush them liberally with the honey/butter/cinnamon mixture.  Stack them on top of each other and then place them sideways in a muffin tin.

Repeat until you fill the tins/run out of dough.

Bake @ 350 F for 10-12 min.

Pull apart and Enjoy!

Sushi!!!!

This recipe is copied from an old post I made on another blog, and updated somewhat.  I have made sushi MANY times since this post was written, so any questions not addressed here I can probably answer.
This is actually really fast once you get the prep done, so if you want to make extra rice and cut veggies and store them in the fridge, then you can whip up several rolls pretty quick.

How much rice you make determines how much sushi you want.  1 cup of rice will make about three rolls, which is perfect for two people.  I am going to type up the recipe according to this measurement and you can multiply according to need.




You can buy most of your supplies from an Asian market for way cheaper than you can at a regular store... we usually get the meat elsewhere, but all else is bought at the Asian Market.


Shopping List:
This cost us about $25 and we had enough for 6 people, plus a few extra sheets of paper, and lots of extra rice. (we had cucumber, green onion, carrots, and crab as filler for our rolls here)

Japanese Short-Grain Rice - this is the key, you can use white or brown rice but it need to be short grain.
Rice Vinegar -This is part of what gives the rice it's "sushi flavor" so get the rice vinegar
Sugar
Salt
Seaweed paper

Wassabi
Bamboo Roller
Chopsticks

Whatever fillings you want, here are some suggestions:
Cucumber
Green Onion
Carrots
Cream Cheese - bought at a normal store
Avacado - this you would prob have to get at a normal store too
Artificial Crab Meat - bought at a normal store
Smoked Salmon - a little more expensive but definitely delicious! Think Alaska roll - available in any regular grocery store
If you are brave you can get the raw fish, I don't trust myself working with that.

I've used artificial crab, and we cooked it in the frying pan with some asian seasonings I want to try thin chicken strips sometime


Prep:
Rice: Get this going first, and then cut your veggies while the rice is cooking (but keep an eye on the rice, don't let it burn!)
1 cup short grain brown rice. Place rice in colander, rinse thoroughly with water until the water runs clear. Most recipes tell you to drain for 30-60 min, but I just let it sit for at most 5 minutes then cook... (and if you forget to rinse it... its okay... I've done it a couple times, and nothing exploded ;o)
Place rice and 1.25 cups of water in sauce pan and bring to a boil, then turn to low and cook for about 10min.
Take rice off the heat and let sit covered for 15-20 min.
** About 5 minutes before the rice is done you will need to prepare the rice seasoning (see below) ***
Spoon rice into glass dish (I like to use a casserole dish because the rice is at an even depth) and spread evenly, don't pack, leave it loose *** use a wooden or plastic spoon, NOT metal it will damage the rice

Pour rice seasoning onto rice and mix with wooden spoon till everything is evenly coated

Fan rice till it reaches room temp and has the sticky, shiny sheen that is characteristic of sushi rice.
I like to fan it with a plate so that it cools faster, but you can set it aside to cool as well, if needed, stir the rice a bit to expose the underside to the cool air. The rice needs to be at room temp before rolling. In case you are wondering you can also roll the rice cold (ex: from the fridge... if you have extra)

Rice Seasoning:
2 TBS Rice vinegar
1 TBS Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
Mix in small bowl and dissolve in microwave, or mix in small pan and dissolve on stove.
just heat it till all the sugar is dissolved then pour over rice

Fillings:
This depends on what you want.  Don't fill the roll too full, I recommend starting small and then see how much more you can add. 
The rolls pictured below have Green onions, Carrots, Cucumber, and Crab
Whatever you use, thinly slice it.

Tezu: the one thing I remember the name of!
This one is easy, mix 4TBS Rive vinegar and 4TBS water in a bowl, be sure to wet your hands with this before touching rice in order to keep it from sticking to you (believe me, it will stick)

Rolls:
Place seaweed paper on bamboo roller, rough side up/shiney side down.
Cover with ~1/4 inch of rice, leave about 1/4-1/2 inch of seaweed uncovered at the end
Place fillings in a long pile at top of the paper
Roll
-as you roll fold the bamboo roller back on its self so you can keep rolling the sushi
At the end wet the Seaweed paper with some tezu and then it will stick to its self, sealing the roll
 I like to then take the roll and gently squeeze it in the bamboo roller just to be sure it is tight.

Cutting:
I have found it is easiest to make all the rolls, then cut them, letting them sit for a bit helps them to cool and they are easier to cut.
If you have sharp knives, then this will probably be easier, wet the knife with Tezu to keep it from getting stickyfied 
It helps to have a friend there so they can hold the roll and that way the cutting is more stable.


Eating:
well, I think you can take it from here ;o)
  

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas

This is one of my favorite new recipes. I love that it is so flexible. Also we used Whole wheat tortillas, but it could very easily be done with corn or spelt and be just as good:


Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas
2 t oil
1 small onion, diced
2 sweet potatoes, diced (about 2 1/2 c)
2 c. cooked black beans with a little cooking water (I used 2 cans of beans)
2 c. chopped greens (kale, spinach, etc)
sea salt and black pepper to taste
2 c. enchilada sauce
8 large tortillas (wheat) or 12 corn tortillas
8 oz. sour cream, yogurt cheese or creme fraiche

Preheat oven to 375.  
Heat oil in large skillet.  Add onion and saute 5-10 min or until soft.  Add sweet potatoes.  Cover and cook about 10 min.  or until tender.  Stir in beans and greens.  Cover and heat about 5 min.  until greens are wilted. Ad a little water if needed.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Cover bottowm of 9x13 in baking dish with about 1/3 c of enchilada sauce.  Place tortilla on flat surface - fill with filling and roll and line them in pan-- At this point you are supposed to also add a little bit of yogurt, but I didn't realize that and it was still amazing. We just put a little dollop of yogurt on after it was cooked.  Cover enchiladas with remaining saue.  Cover pan and bake 20 min.


Variations:
black bean and squash: substitute 2 3/4 c squash for sweet potatoes
black bean and carrot: sub 2 3/4 c diced carrots for sweet potatoes
black bean and brown rice: sub 2 3/4 c. cooked brown rice for sweet potatoes but add them at the same time as the beans and greens.

Favorite Chicken Pot Pie

Preheat Oven to 425
Cook Time: 30-40min (or ~25 for mini pies)


Ingredients:
crust for a 9" double pie 
1/3 cup butter 
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup potato starch (this is the same equivalent as flour if you want to use that)

1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1.5 cup broth
2/3 cup milk
 2.5-3 cups your choice of meat (I like chicken or turkey best)
2 cups mixed vegetables - cooked (I usually end up putting in more like 3 cups, my standard veggies are carrots and broccoli)

Melt butter over medium heat in a large saucepan; add onion; cook two minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, measure out broth and milk.  (For the broth I LOVE using Seitenbacher Vegetable Seasoning .  You use 1tsp per cup of "broth" called for, mixing it into water)
Add the starch or flour to the broth and mix thoroughly.  (if you mix the thickener in the cool water it wont clump)
Stir in broth and milk.  Cook stirring constantly until bubbly and thickened. Add meat and vegetables.
Spoon mixture into crust.


* if you want to make mini pies (like in the picture):
Each recipe will make 4 pies. We typically double the recipe and make 8.  If you choose to only put a top on the pie (again how I did it in the picture above) then you will need 1 crust per recipe (or two crusts for 8) Obviously you can tweak this if you like thicker crusts etc.
Lower cooking time to ~25min

Pe(c)an Tarts

(one of these days I'll start actually taking my own pictures)

Preheat oven to 350

Crust:
1 8oz package of cream cheese (softened)
2 cubes of butter (softened)
2 cups flour
* We use white flour.  Also, this time I forgot to double the butter and so essentially, we only had 1 cube per batch and its good that way too (if you want to cut back on fat)

Filling:
1 cup honey 
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups chopped pecans

Mix Crust (you may want to chill crust dough for a little while to make it easier to work with)
Roll crust into balls and place in mini cupcake pans sprayed with non-stick spray. Push dough around to make a tiny pie crust

Mix filling and put about one teaspoon of filling in each mini crust. 

Bake at 350 for 20-25 min
Makes 2.5 to 3 dozen

We always seem to have more filling than we do crust.  So, you could either make the crusts thinner, OR use the extra filling and some crust to make larger tarts in big muffin tins (just remember they will have to cook a bit longer.

* The name is a joke.  Every year we have a hard time finding the recipe because Celeste spelled it Pean instead of Pecan.