Crock Pot BBQ Beef Brisket

I've never made beef brisket. It seems odd as I believe it's a staple in America. Although, since I've never made it and have rarely eaten it, maybe I'm incorrect in my thinking? Either way, I had the challenge of making something with the beef brisket cut that we received from our 1/4 of a cow that we purchased. Plus, as I've attempted to have dinner ready before my husband gets home from work, I have been totally loving my crock pot. So, BBQ Beef Brisket in the crockpot? It's an amazing marriage. 

I took the lazy way out and used store-bought BBQ sauce. If I had had the ingredients, I totally would've made the recipe that the country cook had provided. Maybe next time. 

Going into the crockpot, this looked kinda disgusting. So, if you want to see a picture, keep in mind, it's not pretty. If you don't want to see the picture, just keep on scrolling...

Mmmm...raw meat.

BBQ Sauce-covered raw meat...tasty.

I cooked the meat on high for 1 hour and then reduced the heat to low for the rest of the day. I would recommend not going over the time recommended in the blog as it can dry out the meat. Thankfully, the BBQ sauce took away some of the dryness. 

To go with this dinner, I made veggies and potatoes and it was wonderful. And, it made enough for us to have leftovers. However, as a leftover - you wanna have a side ready to go...like a baked potato or something just as delicious. Yeah, I think I'd make this BBQ Beef Brisket again. It's a good'n, ya'll. 

Creamy Chicken and Asparagus Pasta

I have been so busy with Pinterest Tests but haven't posted about many recently! I have some catching up to do.

Since I've been cast in "Young Frankenstein the Musical," I've made it a goal to have dinner ready before my husband gets home so we can eat together as a family before I leave for rehearsal. I've used Pinterest multiple times a week for this purpose. The recipe I'm going to post about today is creamy chicken and asparagus pasta.

I didn't take many pictures of the process of making this meal as cookingclassy's blog has done a great job of laying it all out with pictures and the like.

This was a very rich meal. I think we'd like it better without the *gasp* bacon. I know, crazy, right? Most people would probably like it with it, but it made it a little too heavy for us. We think that's what it was anyway. It was still yummy, but I feel like it needed some adjusting. I'm thinking of adding sun-dried tomatoes and omitting (or using less) bacon. It didn't seem to reheat all that well, either. So, be prepared to eat it all in one sitting. Not that it was bad reheated, it just definitely wasn't as good.

And that's what I've got on this. Enjoy!

Thai Steak and Green Bean Stir Fry

Ok, I've done a whole lotta food posts recently - but that's what I've been experimenting with more recently. I'm gonna have to try to make a goal to do something else at least once a week at some point...but, that's not gonna be today! This is one of my recent favorites. Thai Steak and Green Bean Stir Fry.

Picture from Barefeet in the Kitchen's blog

A couple of things that I did differently: I did not have any fresh ginger, so I used just a bit of ground ginger. I also used thai noodles rather than rice. And, I tried using coconut oil once and olive oil once. I preferred the coconut oil, although the olive oil was very good as well. I also used soy sauce rather than fish sauce, which I think would be the only preference of my family.

I used fresh green beans from our CSA box which was very nice for my 3-year-old son because he was able to help me snap the beans. He totally enjoyed that process. It was a little more work for me as I had to pick out some of the ends from the good green beans, but it was still nice to work alongside my son in the kitchen. 

Once everything was cooking, the smell in my house was divine. Oh goodness, did it smell wonderful. 

My husband said he would've preferred for the green beans to be cooked a bit longer, but I thought they were perfect. I like them to be a little crunchy. This dinner is a keeper. It is so very yummy. Give it a try, I bet you'll be pleased too. I mean, if you like green beans...and steak...if you don't, don't bother. ;)

Tomato Basil Chicken

I love fresh basil and the taste and smell of it. Oh yum! We've gotten a lot of basil in our CSA box recently, so I have been frequenting the Pinterest boards to find new, tasty recipes. The most recent wonderful recipe I've discovered is this Tomato Basil Chicken.

Photo from Pinterest

This is refreshing. Kinda sorta tastes like summer. It didn't dirty up too many pots and pans, either, which is always a plus.

I used some cherry tomatoes and some romas. This is a dinner that is sure to delight your tastebuds. Give it a try and bask in the final days of summer.

Summer Squash Burritos

As I've mentioned before, we get a produce box weekly from a local farm. Generally, we end up with veggies that I wouldn't buy on my own, making it a fun weekly challenge to try out new recipes. Recently, we received yellow squash in our produce box. Yellow squash is probably not that difficult to find a good recipe for, but I never had really tried - other than just sautéing it. But, I found a fabulous recipe that I really enjoyed. Summer Squash Burritos.

Photo from Pinterest

I changed the recipe up a bit and added steak to the burritos - making them no longer vegetarian. I guess I just like meat too much. But, for my vegetarian friends - this is vegetarian friendly!

I first sautéed some onions, then added strips of steak and then put in the yellow squash. I have also added zucchini to it, and that is quite tasty as well.

Add the tomatoes and cheese and wrap in a tortilla and you have a meal. A tasty, rather quick meal. I have now made this recipe multiple times, so this is definitely a tried and true. And you should give it a try and see if I'm telling the true...th. haha! Ok, it's late - that was a bad one. ;)

Artichoke Tomato Chicken

And now for another week of food-blogging! One of these days, I'll actually blog more frequently about crafting and cleaning and such, but in the meantime, I've been trying lots of new recipes with many successes this week! Yay!! Including this wonderful meal, artichoke tomato chicken.

I tweaked this recipe slightly to accommodate the ingredients I had...that, and I may have misread and used basil instead of oregano. But, that was an amazing mistake!

And I used colby-jack cheese instead of provolone, which tasted very nice as well.

It doesn't seem that I normally have so many beautiful meals, but this one looked and tasted quite lovely.

I would recommend cooking the dish for at least another 5 minutes as it seemed to be just slightly undercooked, but otherwise, oh yum! It was delightful, kind of like a pizza without the crust. I especially liked it when paired with noodles (smothered in olive oil and an assortment of herbs).

So, the mistake of using basil rather than oregano is a mistake I will continue to make. I have no words. It was delicious. I have already made this dish twice and loved it both times. Also, it reheats well. Bonus!

Slow Cooker Quinoa Tex Mex

This has been a week for slow cooker meals. So many slow cooker meals. It's been frustratingly humid, and I haven't wanted to turn on the oven or the stove for fear of warming up our house more than it already is. My slow cooker has been a lifesaver!

Here's one of the many new recipes I tried this week. Slow Cooker Quinoa Tex Mex.

Photo from Pinterest

I wasn't sure about rinsing the quinoa - thinking about it falling through the colander, so I used a mesh strainer, and that worked wonderfully. 

This dish took longer to make than I expected. The blog said it would take anywhere from 3-6 hrs (how's that for a range?), and it seemed to take about 5 hours for the quinoa to soak up all the liquid. 

I added ground beef, but this could easily be a tasty vegetarian dish. I did not have any green onions or mozzarella cheese. So, instead I used colby jack cheese and just left out the green onions. I wasn't able to get a picture of it as soon as it was done, because I had rehearsal for a musical that I'm a part of, so I took it to my mom's to finish cooking after I added the cheese. 

The consensus was that this dish was tasty, although needed a little more salt. It wasn't quite as quick as I would've liked, but it still turned out really tasty. My mom put the food into a tortillas shell and I am looking forward to trying it that way my ownself.

This is a keeper recipe that we will certainly be making again.

Cheesy Ground Beef Rice Casserole

So....this post is going to be boring, unimaginative and brief. My brain doesn't want to work so hard to be creative, so I'll write within the capabilities of my tired brain and call it good. Get ready for short and sweet. 

Cheesy Ground Beef Rice Casserole.

Photo from hungrylittlegirl.com

I didn't have any sour cream, so I used plain greek yogurt. I didn't care for the taste of the greek yogurt all that much in it, but it worked. I also didn't read the directions closely enough and put the greek yogurt and cheese in before I popped it in the oven. So, the picture of my dish vs. the one above doesn't look near as tasty. Oh well.

After it was all baked, I plated it with some steamed veggies and we ate.

This was delicious, although next time I will try it with sour cream and add it in at the right time. My husband thought it was a bit too cheesy, but for those who love cheese, this is definitely a good meal and it doesn't take too long to make.

Sticky and Sweet Slow Cooker Chicken

I know I've said it before, but why do I not think to use my crock pot more during the summer? It doesn't overheat the house and you still get some mighty tasty meals. I tried a new recipe in my crock pot the other day. Sticky & Sweet Chicken Drumsticks.

My husband is the master griller, but we were on a tight schedule the other night so I knew there wouldn't be time to stoke up the BBQ and get the meat all grilled before I needed to leave, so this was the perfect alternative.

The preparation wasn't too hard, and I actually pulled the chicken out of the freezer and put it directly into the crock pot. The time-consuming part was making the BBQ sauce. You certainly don't have to make your own sauce, I'm sure, but I thought I'd try it out. 

After the sauce was made, I poured it on the chicken and turned the crock pot on high. The recipe calls for covering the chicken in the sauce and making sure it's all mixed in. 

I turned the chicken and made sure to smother the BBQ sauce all over the meat about halfway through since I wasn't able to do it in the beginning with the chicken frozen solid. I had it cook for a little over 4 hours on high since the meat had been frozen. I don't think that was necessarily a good choice; the meat wasn't very juicy by the time all was said and done. But, it smelled amazing.

After the chicken was broiled on both sides, we served it up with some yummy salad, rolls, watermelon and pasta salad.

This dish was beautiful and tasty and summery. In the future, I may not cook the chicken for as long since it was a bit dryer than I would've liked, but it still turned out quite delightful. Sweet and, indeed, sticky, but yummy! 

How To Shuck Corn

Do you remember when you were a kid and you watched your mom (or dad) shucking the corn off the cob and would beg to do it, and then once you started you were immediately tired of doing it? Or, was that just me? The worst part was the little tiny corn hairs (I totally had a moment of forgetfulness and couldn't remember the name of that stuff! It's corn silk by the way!) that seemed to stick like static to the corn or to your arm, your fingers, your...well, just anywhere that it landed it seemed to just cling. So, as I grew older I grew smarter (except for the occasional brain fluffs - "corn hair"? really?) - I quit begging to do it and began hiding while it was being done, frequently unsuccessfully. 

As the main meal maker in my home, I have now reached a time in my life where I am having to shuck the corn. My husband is gracious enough to help me when he's available to do so and my kids haven't reached the age where it's fun to do it - or at least it appears to be fun to do. So, I work real hard removing every last strand of corn silk. Until today. No more do I work real hard on this. 

Thanks to the Huffington Post, you don't have to anymore either! Check out this video for a more visual description.

No peeling, no mess, no heating up the kitchen. Stick the whole ear of corn (I did one at a time) in the microwave, set it on high and cook for 3 minutes.

After the microwave dinged at me, I used my ove-glove (although you could use a regular pot holder if you don't have the awesome ove-gloves (aka grill gloves) ) to remove the corn from the microwave. It will be very hot.

After you remove it from the microwave, cut off the shank (the end that doesn't have the hair) and a little of the corn. Then grab that corn by the peel and the silk and give it a super good shake. It pretty much just falls right out, although I did have a time or two where the corn didn't shake out very easily. Nuking it a bit longer probably would've been a good idea at that point, but it eventually did come out after many brutal shakings.

 

I did this with 8 ears of corn and out of the 8, 2 were a little more difficult to remove - nothing as challenging as peeling without this step though. This was fantastic.

At this point, the corn is cooked and you can eat it, although I prefer the way my mom cooks corn, so I proceeded to boil the corn with a little lemon juice and a pinch of sugar and they were delish! 

And now you know the secret to shucking corn. I don't know that shucking corn has ever gone this smoothly or quickly before. I will definitely be doing this again. 

Cheesy One Pot Pasta with Parmesan and Pine Nuts

Awe dinner...I have a love/hate relationship with you. I LOVE to eat, but coming up with a plan of what to make at last minute - I hate. This could always be avoided if I would just sit down and plan out my meals for the week, but alas, my organizational/scheduling skills have not attained this level of greatness in recent years. Thankfully, there is this great site called Pinterest that helps the procrastinator in me. I discovered this recipe a while ago and since I had all the ingredients, I gave it a try. To check out the recipe, go here.

Photo from Barefeet In The Kitchen's Blog

This was super quick and took little preparation. The most time-consuming part of the preparation was cutting the tomatoes, shallots (or onion) and basil, which took just a few minutes.

30 minutes, start to finish and this dinner was ready to go. It was delightfully simple and tasty. It had a little kick to it from the red pepper flakes, but it was kind of a nice addition to the dish.

Barefeet In The Kitchen's blog says that this is really creamy, but mine didn't turn out quite as creamy as I had hoped/expected. I may not have put in enough cheese though. I definitely liked the added crunch of the pine nuts though. That was uber tasty. Highly recommend doing that.

In conclusion: Simple recipe = happy mama. Yummy recipe = happy daddy (and everyone else). Quick recipe = happy kids. Yay for another Pinterest win!

60 Minute Cinnamon Rolls

Just the other day I posted about some tasty paleo cinnamon rolls and this is the sister blog post to that one. The fat sister. The unhealthy, but terribly good looking sister. (I feel like I went too far...too far?? Oh well...) :) 60 Minute Cinnamon Rolls. Pure bliss.

Photo from yourhomebasedmom.com

These cinnamon rolls took practically no time to make, as far as cinnamon rolls go. The recipe called for regular yeast, but all I had was bread machine yeast (don't you hate it when you don't discover this until after you are in the middle of mixing??). I went to the Fleischmann's yeast website and found that I could, in fact, use bread machine yeast as regular yeast. Yay! Fleischmann's and my bread machine yeast for the win!

Once I got the starter ingredients in the bowl, I let it set for a bit. It was uuuugly and I didn't take a picture of the yeast mix after it had foamed, so I'll just spare you the gory image of disgustingness. 

As the yeast was foaming, my son and I started working on the chocolate chip cookies I was also preparing for our MOPS retreat. This is totally unnecessary to this blog post, but I thought I'd share so that I could show you how baking is done at our house....

I suppose this could have something to do with this post as it shows you just how quick and easy making these cinnamon rolls was - I was able to do it as I made chocolate chip cookies. Oh yeah! This sweet toothed mama was happy!

After all of the ingredients had been mixed and set for the allotted amount of time recommended, I sprayed down my kitchen counter with pam (after it had been washed and dried better than a surgeon right before surgery). Seriously, how had I never thought to do this? The dough was so much easier to work with when the surface was greased. 

Obviously, I still didn't get the perfect rectangular shape, but as I stated in my paleo cinnamon rolls blog, I'm not so much into taking a ton of time getting it into the right shape. After preparing the filling, I spread it out on the rectangular blob and patted it down. 

I took a hint from the last cinnamon rolls I made, and placed parchment paper in the bottom of the baking dish I would be using. From there, I rolled up the cinnamon rolls, made marks where I'd be cutting them so they'd be even (for the most part) and then cut them apart and placed them in the baking dish. Don't they look divine?

I didn't bake them right away, in fact, I put them in the fridge and didn't bake them for 2 days. They continued to rise a bit over the next 24 hours (I think they stopped after that) and the lid was being pulled off of the baking dish due to the sheer mass that the cinnamon rolls were creating. It was a beautiful thing. 

On Sunday morning, I took the dough-y rolls out of the fridge and placed the baking dish with the rolls into the pre-heated oven. Obviously I removed the lid on the dish as well. 

Thankfully, my lovely friend, Katie, helped me determine whether the rolls were done when they were supposed to be. I put them in the oven for the entire 15 minutes and looked at them, thought they looked good and pulled them out. Katie, however, being the wise one that she is, told me that, although they looked super tasty, the middle ones were still looking quite doughy. So, back in the oven they went. 5 minutes later we pulled them out and flipped them over onto a cookie sheet. Everyone delighted in the beauty of these tasty looking cinnamon rolls. Did you catch that? "Tasty looking." Yeah. They still weren't done enough. Everyone that had taken a bite quickly discovered they still needed quite a few more minutes. So, back into the oven they all hurriedly returned.

Within a few minutes (10, maybe?), we pulled them back out of the oven and they were definitely cooked and, although now a bit more crystalized from the frosting that had been melted and then hardened in the oven, were still delicious. I imagine the 15 minute bake-time would've been perfect had it not been for it being in the fridge and likely needing to thaw for just a bit. Oh well, lesson learned. And I'm not really complaining. These still tasted pretty fantastic.

Paleo Cinnamon Rolls

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, the recipe that I linked is no longer available. :( So, thanks to a paleo Mama friend, here is a new link with a very similar recipe.

This weekend, I went to a cabin at Detroit lake with some pretty amazing women. It was our annual MOPS Steering Team (aka leadership team) retreat and it was wonderful, relaxing, helpful, lesson-building and just grand. In years past, we've gone to a camp that prepared our food for us - which was quite a luxury, but this year we opted to have everyone make one meal. It worked out quite nicely. On the last day of our retreat, my co-coordinator and myself made breakfast. We sincerely wanted to spoil our team; they worked so hard and we wanted them to know how very much we appreciate them. We had decided ahead of time what to make for food: an egg-bake dish, fruit, orange juice, and cinnamon rolls. When we found out about some of the ladies' allergies, we decided we should accommodate all of our lovely workers. (You can't really show how much you appreciate *all* of them if you don't prepare food that *all* of them can eat.)

Just for kicks, here is a picture of my amazing steering team

Paleo seems like a safe bet for most allergy-related meals...unless you are allergic to nuts...then you have to be very careful with paleo options as well.

Anyway, I decided to stick with making cinnamon rolls and found a recipe for paleo cinnamon rolls!

Photo from Pinterest

This blog may be a bit redundant since the blog linked above has all of this information, but I wanted to include pictures (from when I remembered to take them) so you could see what it should/could look like. First, I toasted the pecans. I did not use walnuts. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't know when they "start to smell delicious," since I'm not much into nuts, but these - you could totally tell when the pecans started to smell delicious. I don't think you'll have trouble figuring that out. It just smells a little toasty and almost kinda sweet...but maybe that was just what I thought. After the pecans were toasted, I made the dough. 

Once the dough was done, I stuck it in the fridge for 15 minutes. It seemed firm enough to me prior to sticking it in the fridge, but it definitely didn't hurt. After I took it out of the fridge, I rolled it into a ball so that I could more easily flatten it out. In the blog above, it recommends rolling the dough into a large rectangle. How on earth people make it into any shape other than a blob is beyond me. Ok, maybe it's not "beyond me"...I suppose if I had more patience, it might work better. ;) The other thing they recommend is putting the dough in between two pieces of parchment paper. This is one of the most ingenious ideas I've ever tried when baking! It keeps your dough from sticking to the counter and it's easier to manipulate. The one thing that I would recommend is laying the parchment paper on a towel. I didn't do this at first and my parchment paper was sliding all over the place. So frustrating! Also, laying the parchment paper on top was awesome because then nothing stuck to the rolling pin either! Genius, I tell ya!

I made up the cinnamon rolls' filling - which was incredibly sticky because of the honey - and did my best to practice self-control and not lick the bowl. I did add in the cardamom, which I think made it smell even better. All of this smelled delectable, by the way.

Smearing it on the cinnamon rolls was much easier than I expected; not like frosting a cake where it feels like the frosting kinda globs together on the spoon. 

See - a giant not-very-rectangular blob

I then added the toasted pecans. I only used a 1/4 cup of pecans rather than a 1/2 cup. I wasn't sure how many people would like the nuts in there, so I didn't want to put in too many. 

It kinda looks like a big blob of a maple bar, doesn't it?

Once this was done, I rolled up the cinnamon rolls starting with the edge closest to me. I didn't struggle too much with the edges being more blobby than rectangular - it still rolled nicely and fairly evenly. Along the way, I had to pinch and manipulate the dough so that it didn't break apart in some spots, but it really wasn't difficult to mold.

Once all of that was completed, I cut the dough and placed it on a piece of parchment paper (the one that I had already been using for rolling it) in a baking dish. 

I didn't have any coconut cream, so I skipped that step and drizzled honey over the top of the cinnamon rolls and sprinkled some cinnamon on it. 

Then I stuck it in the oven. I baked it for about 15 minutes longer than recommended, because it seemed to take a long time for it to even get golden, but it worked and I don't think they really burnt.

Not counting baking time, I'd say this recipe took about 30-45 minutes to make. Quickest cinnamon rolls ever. Once they were completed, I put the lid on them and brought them to retreat. Two days later, everybody got to enjoy them. Our ladies who needed paleo-friendly food said they were very tasty and even had seconds. Another friend tried them and said they tasted nutty, but she liked them. Unfortunately, I have to go off of just what everyone else says and not give my own personal review as I was too busy devouring my non-paleo-friendly cinnamon rolls...and those were AMAZING! (I'll post the recipe next.) I'd say this recipe was a success.