What's Cooking Wednesday | Beef and Beer

This week's What's Cooking Wednesday (Thursday?) is brought to you by Steph at The Kat Almanac.  Enjoy!

I know what you are thinking: She knows how to cook something other than chicken? Yes, yes. chicken is my go-to ingredient during the week. But I do dabble in beef. This is like a stew. But it has beer in it. Can it get any more better than that? Follow along people. This is will soon be your go to crockpot meal! Oh, I didn’t mention it is cooked in the crockpot? Well friends are you surprised? I’ve moved on to beef but I haven’t lost my mind and forgotten my clutch cooking tool!

This recipe came from my bridal shower. Guests were asked to bring recipe cards of their favorite meals. I got like 50+ cards. I’m pretty sure that this is the only one I’ve ever really tried.



So without further ado, Beer and Beer.



Ingredients

1 lb of beef (you can use stew meat, or cut up a nicer cut)
1 packet of onion soup mix (I made my own since Lipton’s is not gluten free. recipe can be found here).
1 bottle/can of beer (I used gluten free cider)
1 package mushrooms
2 bay leaves
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp thyme
3 tsp of flour (I used glf flour)
1 tsp brown sugar
Rice or egg noodles

Method

Take your pound of beer and dump it in the crockpot.



Add your spices, onion soup mix, brown sugar, bay leaf, and flour and mix well coating everything. If you are adding mushrooms you can go ahead and add them at this time too.

    

Pour in your beer. I used gluten free hard cider. It was great! Added a little hint of a sweet apple flavor. But in my pre-gluten free past, I know that Miller or Bud works just as well!



Beer will make everything foam really nicely.



Next cover your crockpot and let it hang out for 5 hours on low. The result will be a rich, thick gravy with yummy beef!



In the mean time, you can cook your rice or noodle about 30 minutes before you want to eat. The beef and beer is great ladled on top!



Enjoy!

PS. Guess who got her camera back! No more bad pictures!!

What's Cooking Wednesday | Sage, Bean, and Spinach Soup

 
You guys are going to like this week's recipe.  (That is, if you like soup.  With pasta.  And beans.)  It is SO EASY, so tasty, and so perfect for dinner on a cold winter day.

Also, not to brag or anything, but I completely invented this recipe myself, based on ingredients that I had on hand.  I must say, I was very, very pleased with the results.  Even E loved it!

And did I mention, it is really really easy to make? 

What You Need:

• 2 onions, chopped (I used one white/one red)
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups beans (Any kind will work, but I think red or white beans would taste best in this soup.  Also, make sure you rinse them if using canned, otherwise your soup will be super salty.)
• 5 cloves of garlic, diced
• 2 TBSP sage, chopped (I used sage left over from my garden, that I had frozen in olive oil)
• 1 cup spinach, chopped
• 1 cup pasta (I used whole-wheat rotini)

What To Do:

Combine all ingredients, except for the pasta, in your crock pot.   

Cook 4 hours on high, or 6-8 on low.

Then, add your pasta during the last 30 minutes of cooking.

 

Voila! Dinner is served. :-)

What's Cooking Wednesday | Pancakes & Muffins

This week's What's Cooking Wednesday is brought to you by Steph at The Kat Almanac, in honor of her little boy A's first birthday week!  Be sure to pop over to her blog and give A some birthday love!  

When A eat lunch and dinner, he usually gets some sort of version of what we are having. But for breakfast he has two favorites: pancakes, muffins, and bananas. So in the morning he usually gets either pancakes or a muffin and a banana.

The pancake and muffin recipes are so versatile I wanted to share them here!

Anything pancakes



Pancakes

1 cup quick cooking oatmeal or cream of buckwheat (you can also try Cream of Wheat. Haven’t done it myself but I’m sure it would translate well)
1 1/2 cup milk (I use almond milk)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 c fruit or veggie puree (I’ve used banana and pumpkin with great success)
1 egg

Method

Make 1 c of your favorite oatmeal using either my instructions or those on the package. Add cinnamon. At the end of cooking, add in fruit or veggie puree. Let it cool about 10 minutes.
Take egg and whisk it in a seperate bowl. Add to mixture and mix well.

Grease a pan or waffle maker and use a 1/4 measuring cup to scoop out the mixture.
Cook on either side and serve it up!

I give A one per morning and this patch will make you plenty of pancakes. I freeze whatever else I’m not using!

Anything muffins

(Image found here.)

Anything muffins (I found the basic recipe here but modified it below)

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup fruit or veggie puree (I used sweet potato or butternut squash. If you want to go the savory route, you can also add lentils, quinoa, or cous cous!)
1/2 applesauce
1/4 milk (I used almond milk)
1 egg

Method

Preheat the oven to 375 deg F (180 deg C).

Mix the oats, whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and spices together in a bowl.
Add your puree, applesauce, milk and egg and mix together until the ingredients are all completely moistened.

Grease muffin tins (I used mini tins) and bake about 10 minutes.

I set aside what A will eat for the week and freeze whatever I have left over!

Enjoy!

What's Cooking Wednesday | Sweet and Spicy Crockpot Chicken

This week's What's Cooking Wednesday is brought to you by Steph at The Kat Almanac.  Enjoy! 

So B likes his root beer. Or I should say he likes fancy root beer. Before I got him a soda stream for Christmas, I used to frequently pick up this Hansen’s Root Beer. I accidentally picked up diet one day. And it tasted like butt. So it sat in the fridge for what feels like forever. Until today. Today I decided was the day to get rid of this pop!

Now I know starting off a recipe with an ingredient that I have previously stated tasted like butt is probably not a good idea. However, trust me. It was good! Just the the right amount of sweet and spicy. And you don’t have to use root beer. Any kind of dark pop would be fine: Coke, Pepsi (if you are into that…. I’m a Coke girl can you tell?), Dr. Pepper would all work fine. Pair it with some grits and zucchini and you are good to go!

Sweet and Spicy Crockpot Chicken

Ingredients

Chicken breasts (use however much you need… if you have too much liquid that’s ok)
2 cans of dark pop (I used root beer)
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp dry mustard
1/2 tbsp cayenne (go easier if you don’t like the spicy)
1 tbsp sesame seed oil

Method

Take your root beer and add it to a crockpot.



Then plop your chicken down in there.

Then comes the spices.



Yes we buy cayenne in bulk. And yes it gets it’s own container. What can I say? The south has definitely rubbed off on us!

Then my secret weapon: sesame seed oil! Seriously if you don’t have this, go out and get it. It adds a really great smokey flavor! I drizzle it directly onto the chicken.



Then cover your crockpot with a really cool cookie sheet. Oh, you have a lid for your cookie sheet and don’t use a cookie sheet? You must be real special.

Just let this hang out for about 4 hours on low and it will cook up perfectly!



This is what happens when you take a cookie sheet lid off: massive amounts of steam!!

When it is done you can either take the whole breast and plate it like so



or you can shred it…. my favorite vehicle for chicken! And in the background you can see B’s favorite method: a taco! Yes friends, feel free to toss it in a taco!



Enjoy!

 

What's Cooking Wednesday | Honey Sesame Chicken

Yesterday, S requested something "chickeny" for dinner.  I wasn't really quite sure where I was going to take that, until I remembered I had pinned this crock pot honey sesame chicken recipe.  It did not disappoint!  I made a few slight changes, and was quite pleased with how it came out. 

What You Need:

• 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 4 TBSP sesame seed, divided
• 1 tsp chili powder (or more to taste)
• green onions, sliced (for topping)
• rice, prepared (for serving) 

What To Do:

Toss the chicken breasts in your crock pot.  (Mine were frozen solid, and I just threw them in there anyway.)

Gather the rest of your ingredients.

 

Chop up your onions and garlic.

 

Throw the chopped onions right on top of the chicken. 

Combine the ketchup, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, chili powder, garlic, and 2 TBSP sesame seeds in a bowl, and mix to make a sauce.

Pour the sauce on top of the chicken and onions.  (Use a spatula to spread it around and coat the chicken as best as you can.)

Cook for 4 hours on high, or 6-8 hours on low.  

Then, remove the chicken from the crock pot and shred it into small chunks.

Return the chicken to the crock pot and mix it around, so that it is coated in the remaining sauce. 

Let the chicken soak in the sauce while you prepare your rice and slice up your green onions.

Serve over rice and top with green onions and the remaining sesame seeds.  

YUM!

Also, since this recipe is dairy-free, I served E up a toddler-sized portion.

She DEVOURED it.  

This is what was left... of her second serving (plus some random chopped up green beans). 

So, there you have it...  An inexpensive, quick and easy, kid-friendly dinner!  I will definitely be making this again at our house. :-)

What's Cooking Wednesday | Pretzel Chicken

This week's What's Cooking Wednesday is brought to you by Steph at The Kat Almanac.  Enjoy!

So I just joined Pinterest. Shocked? Yeah, so am I. I’m surprised I let it go this long. I remember about two years ago when it first came out and was making the rounds on all the design blogs I read. At that time, you had to wait for an invitation. I “applied”. I was “invited”. But I didn’t join. Why? Because you had to use your Facebook or Twitter as a log in and I wasn’t down with that.

But now all that’s changed b/c I can login with a simple email! And now I’m addicted. This is just one of the billion recipes I’ve pinned. I have to say, I really liked it!

Let me preface this recipe with saying, my pictures look HORRIBLE. I had to send my camera away for repair and I’m working with my old point and shoot. It was night. I was PMSing (ok I wasn’t but that’s always a good excuse right??). So please friends, do not hold the awful pictures against this tasty piece of chicken. It did nothing wrong.

So as always, b/c I can’t leave anything good and well alone, here is the recipe I referenced.

And here is how I did it.

Pretzel chicken.

4 chicken breasts cut up into tenders
2 cups pretzels
2 eggs
For the sauce
1 tsp mustard
1/2 c cheese
1 tsp sirracha (optional if you want it spicy)
Salt
Pepper
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
I c milk

So first blend up all your pretzels so that they form a nice mix of chunk and powder. Add in salt and pepper to taste.



Then chunk your chicken. You could keep it as breasts but I like working with a tender like chicken.



Then set up your coating station of egg dredge, pretzels and chicken. I like to put it right next to the stove in order so that it can go right in the pan. (The original recipe does a double coating of egg and pretzels but I eliminated the second step and only did one.) Take the chicken and dredge in egg and then pretzels then into a pan with a good coating of olive oil.



Once you have a bit of a crispy sear on both sides of the chicken take it out and put it on a cookie sheet and pop it in the oven to continue cooking. I like this method b/c you get a good crisp on the chicken but avoid frying the whole thing in oil. Continue cooking at 400 degree oven for 10 minutes.



In the meantime, lets make a sauce! You can use whatever cheese or mustard you have on hand. I used dijion mustard and added siracha to make it spicy. And I used goat cheese for the cheesey party b/c that’s what I had!

Get a good roux going: melt the tablespoon of butter in a pot.



Once its melted add in your flour (I used tapioca flour since I’m GF).



Cook that together till it forms a paste. Add in your milk (I used almond milk) and thicken. At this point, add in your mustard, siracha (if desired), and cheese. Cook until a sauce forms, stirring frequently.



Take your chicken out of the oven and pour on the sauce!



And in a baked potato and some veggies and you’ve got a meal! So what was the verdict? The light sear from cooking the chicken in oil then baking it gave it a nice crisp without the heaviness of frying. The sauce was good, but I almost felt like you didn’t even need it! I make a spicy mayo with is just mayo and sirracha that would have done just as well in this situation.

Enjoy!

PS. I warned you about the pics. I’m sorry. Can we still be friends?