Category Archives: Food

Crock Pot Dilly Beef Sandwiches

We are having an open house Saturday and are expecting about 20 people to come through so I’ll be away from the computer all day. I wanted to give you this easy recipe that would be great to make ahead for Sandwiches for a lazy Sunday afternoon after church or on Saturday while you watch College Football.  Enjoy! Now I’m off to the kitchen to make a Bavarian Apple Torte!

 

I saw this recipe on Boo Mama’s Souptacular deal and then couldn’t find the person who posted it so I googled Dill Pickle Beef Crockpot recipes and found this one to try. This is a very simple crockpot recipe and the beef comes out very tasty.

Ingredients: 4 lbs. Boneless Chuck Roast, 1-16oz. Jar whole Dill pickles -undrained, 1/2 Cup Chili Sauce, 2 cloves garlic minced, 10 hamburger buns split. If you don’t have anything else to use the chili sauce for just dump the whole bottle in.

Cut roast in half and place in slow cooker. Add pickles with juice and chili sauce and garlic. Cover and cook for 8-9 hours on low setting.

Discard Pickles, Remove Roast, Shred the beef and return to sauce in crockpot and heat through on the high setting. Use slotted spoon and fill each bun with about 1/2 cup meat. Bon Appetit.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Pasta Puttanesca ~ Rachel Ray

Round Robin Challenge ~ Food Glorious Food!

I’m having computer issues that are zapping my ability to post much and to get around much. My computer keeps shutting down on me. Please bear with me.

 

 

The only thing I did different in this recipe was to use my husband’s favorite olives instead of black olives. (Kalamata and Green) You can also add artichoke hearts to this dish. My husband always orders this if it’s on the menu at an Italian restaurant and many times they have artichoke hearts included in the sauce.

 

Boy did the condo smell good all night long after I made this!

To see more Round Robin Challenge Food entries click here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

BooMama’s Souptacular Crockpotalooza

There’s a lot of great recipes going on over at BooMama’s ! Click on over to see all the hoopla. I’m adding this crock pot roasted chicken recipe into the fray…

 

I bought a whole chicken when they were on sale last week and decided to try cooking it in the slow cooker. I found the basic recipe at All-Recipes.com and there’s even a video here.

 

I sprayed the inside of the crock with Pam and then washed and dried the chicken. Next I stuffed the cavity with lemon wedges, onion wedges and garlic peeled and gently crushed. I tied the legs together and put a rub all over the skin. The original recipe calls for salt, pepper and paprika which would work just fine. I placed the whole chicken on top of wadded up foil so the juices could run free off the chicken. I then poured white wine in the bottom of the crock, about 1 cup. I set the crockpot on high and let it cook 6 hours.

 

The last 45 minutes I added carrots and little potato wedges.  I tried to get them on the sides and under the chicken so they’d be flavored by the juices.

This was very good and moist chicken.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Ode to the Sniffles

 

So Dear and I have been sick in the head and throat since early Friday. I had to leave Bible Study early and he came home from work early on Friday morning.  Weird that this attacked us at the same time. We’ve been convalescing in the Condo since Friday. When we get sick in the head we always turn to the Chinese Take-Out for Hot and Sour Soup. It really clears the sinuses! On Saturday evening we got tired of raiding the refrigerator and were craving some salty, comfort, bad for you food. We called one of our favorite restaurants and ordered Onion Rings and The Cuban Sandwich with curly fries. (Thank goodness it’s not stomach flu) Here’s a poem about the flu written in 1919. Update: Dee commented wondering if this was written during the Great Flu Pandemic and it probably was as the Pandemic was between 1918 and 1919. Somewhere between 20-40 million people died.

The Flu ~ by J.P. Mcelvoy, 1919

When your back is broke and your eyes are blurred.
And your shin-bones knock and your tongue is furred,
And your tonsils squeak and your hair gets dry,
And youâre doggone sure that youâre going to die,
But youâre skeered you wonât and afraid you will,
Just drag to bed and have your chill;
And pray the Lord to see you through
For youâve got the Flu, boy,

Youâve got the Flu.

When your toes curl up and your belt goes flat,
And youâre twice as mean as a Thomas cat,
And life is a long and dismal curse,
And your food all tastes like a hard-boiled hearse,
When your lattice aches and your headâs abuzz
And nothing is as it ever was,
Here are my sad regrets to you,
Youâve got the Flu, boy,

Youâve got the Flu.

What is it like, this Spanish Flu?
Ask me, brother, for Iâve been through,
It is by Misery out of Despair,
It pulls your teeth and curls your hair,
It thins your blood and brays your bones
And fills your craw with moans and groans,
And sometimes, maybe, you get well —
Some call it Flu — I call it hell!

Hope your weekend is going better. Looking forward to a new healthier week! :0)

Bruschetta

I was standing in the bank waiting my turn and on the television they had Giada from the Food Network making some great looking bruschetta. I got the ingredients I needed and decided to try it. Hopefully I get it right because I didn’t write anything down.

 

The ingredients she used were whole milk ricotta cheese, tomatoes seeded and chopped, fresh mint chopped, salt and pepper. I don’t remember if she used garlic so I went ahead and used a clove of garlic, also. She mixed these ingredients all together and put it into a nice serving bowl. She used Ciabatta bread that she drizzled with olive oil and grilled. After it was grilled she squeezed some fresh lemon on the slices. Your company can spread as much of the topping that they want on the slices of bread and enjoy…

If you need more specific amounts here’s what I used. About 8oz. of ricotta, 1 beefsteak tomato chopped, 10 mint leaves chopped, 1 clove garlic, minced, salt and pepper to taste. I bought a small loaf of Artisan Sea Salt Filone bread from Von’s/Safeway. This bread worked out good because it filled in the extra salt the dip needed. I will be making this again because it was duhlicious! Michelle found the link for the original recipe  and you can find it here.

Photobucket is holding my photos hostage from 2007-2015 and replacing them with an ugly black and grey squares demanding money to release them, so frustrating.

Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs ~

 

INGREDIENTS

    • 4 pounds pork baby back ribs

 

    • salt and pepper to taste

 

    • 2 cups ketchup

 

    • 1 cup chili sauce

 

    • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

 

    • 4 tablespoons vinegar

 

    • 2 teaspoons dried oregano

 

    • 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

 

    1 dash hot sauce

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). I browned the ribs on the stove top.
  2. Season ribs with salt and pepper. Place in a shallow baking pan. Brown in oven 15 minutes. Turn over, and brown another 15 minutes; drain fat.
  3. In a medium bowl, mix together the ketchup, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, oregano, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and salt and pepper. Place ribs in slow cooker. Pour sauce over ribs, and turn to coat.
  4. Cover, and cook on Low 6 to 8 hours, or until ribs are tender.

I got this recipe from all recipes.com here.

Since this was my first time making ribs in a slow cooker I went with the first recipe that looked decent. This sauce was very good. Since I made these on Saturday I’ve read a couple other recipes and this is the sauce I’ll try next time to see if it has a little more kick to it.

These ingredients come from Taste of Home Magazine ~ Tasty Pork Ribs ~ Feb/March 2008 Recipe by Michelle Rominger…

1 cup ketchup, 1 cup bbq sauce, 1/4 C. packed brown sugar, 1/4 C. worcestershire sauce, 1 Tblsp. balsamic vinegar, 1 tblsp. molasses, 1 garlic clove minced, 2 tblsps. dried minced onion, 1 tsp. Cajun seasoning, 1 tsp. ground mustard, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper.

 

Oops! I don’t see anything green on the plate. Can anyone say COMFORT FOOD?

Photobucket is holding my photos hostage from 2007-2015 and replacing them with an ugly black and grey squares demanding money to release them, so frustrating.

Anthony’s Lingonberry Slump

 

Dear and I split this wonderful Washington Lingonberry Slump at the Anthony’s at Seatac Airport on Monday night. So you can probably guess now why I went up a jean size :0)

Here’s a recipe I found online for a berry slump in case you want to try it from RecipeZaar.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site. All my photos that I stored and uploaded from that site are now big ugly black and grey boxes with a message to pay big bucks to get them restored to my blog. It will take me a long time to restore thousands of posts.

Magic Bars ~

We were having a family get together on Saturday and I decided to try this recipe for Magic Bars that I saw on Trish’s blog and that she posted on the MGCC blog (Mennonite Girls Can Cook). I blew it right off the top cuz I only bought one package of Fig Newtons and 42 Fig Newtons means you need 2 packages! Hey did y’all know that Oreos come in a Golden Variety??

Magic Bars with a twist by ellen b.

45 Newton cookies/ Strawberry or Raspberry/ Trish and I used Fig (you’ll need 2 packages)
1 (14oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup pecan pieces (walnuts would work, too)
8 Golden Oreos or regular ones if you can’t find the Golden broken up into pieces
1/4 cup shredded coconut (Lana and Steve B. you can omit the coconut!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper. Lay Newtons side by side in pan to fill bottom. (Here’s where I went wrong so I improvised and used the Golden Oreo’s to fill the rest of the pan. Yikes I hope they turn out ok… Pour condensed milk over the top of this layer.

Yep one package left me a little short…

Sorry to say as creative as this improvise was it did not work!!

Stir together chocolate chips, nuts, broken up pieces of Oreos, and coconut. Sprinkle over the Newtons and condensed milk.

 

Bake for 22-25 minutes. Let cool and then chill for a while. Cut into 24 bars.

The finished product out of the oven. The Fig Newton side cut well into squares but here’s the improvised side…

Thankfully there were enough bars to share from the Newton side…

 

These were easy and good when you follow the recipe and buy enough Fig Newtons. The Fig flavor was well received but I’m thinking I’ll try Raspberry next time. Enjoy…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Birthday Dinner

 

Well Dear’s birthday landed on the night that Holdren’s has their Sirloin and Bacon Wrapped Prawn Special with soup or salad for only $20.00 and that included potato or vegetable on the side. This meal is usually $35.00. Yummy! Then we were treated to dessert on the house. A lovely filling meal in a nice setting just minutes from our condo.

Thanks to everyone who left Dear birthday wishes. He appreciated and enjoyed seeing them.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Mango Crockpot Chicken

Sandy at 4 Reluctant Entertainers shared this recipe on her blog and I decided it would be perfect for my Saturday Company/overnight guests. Sandy has the gift of hospitality and if you are timid about entertaining she has a lot of great tips and inspiration on her blog for you.

Spray the inside of your crockpot with whatever cooking spray you like. Load it up with whole boneless chicken breasts. I used boneless/skinless half breasts – 6 of them. Pour 1/2 a plastic tub of the Mango Peach Salsa that Costco sells over the chicken. Cook on low all day long. Do not open, do not stir. When it is done you can shred the chicken and stir it into the sauce.

This is what it looked like before I shredded the chicken.

After I shredded the chicken

 

Here is how we chose to serve the chicken up this time around. Build your own soft tacos with corn or flour tortillas, cilantro, rice, more salsa, beans, onion, cheese, and jalapenos.

Here’s Dear’s creation before he gobbled it up.

After the 4 of us had our fill I still have enough of the shredded chicken left over to serve up a lot of meals this week. Let’s see there’s chicken enchiladas, chicken salad, chicken tacos, chicken burritos, chicken soup…

My brother Tim and his wife Letty came up to visit us on Saturday and stayed overnight. The beauty of cooking a meal in the crockpot is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen while your company is around. We went out for lunch and did a little antique shopping in Old Town Camarillo while our dinner was taking care of itself. The toppings were all easy to put together at the last minute especially since I made the 90 second Uncle Ben’s Santa Fe Rice :0). Everyone gave the recipe a thumbs up!

Thanks Sandy!

Tonight I used some of this leftover chicken for chicken enchiladas.

 

I bought Green Enchilada Sauce for these. Heat up half the sauce in a saucepan and heat up each tortilla in the sauce to make it more pliable. Fill the tortilla with the chicken and some cheese. Roll up and put in baking dish. ( I sprayed the baking dish with Pam before I filled it with the enchiladas) After all the tortillas are in the baking dish cover with remaining sauce and with more cheese. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so…

Here are the baking dish of enchiladas after they have been heated through.

They made a great dinner for Dear and I with a fresh salad on the side…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!