Jan's Crock Pot Chicken and Salsa

To be fair, it's Jan's Daughter's Crock Pot Chicken and Salsa, but that just doesn't roll off the tongue. Also to be fair, it's my version of her recipe. Her recipe is also provided below. The only downfall I saw in this recipe is that I was at home while it was cooking. It was really hard to not eat the whole thing before dinnertime. The chicken fell apart and shredded into the rest of the dish and it was awesome!


Jan's Crock Pot Chicken and Salsa
1 package frozen chicken breast
2 cups fresh black beans
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 bag frozen corn
1 jar salsa
1 tblsp cumin
salt and pepper
shredded cheddar cheese
brown rice
plain yogurt
Add chicken, beans, water, corn, salsa, cumin, salt, and pepper to crock pot. Cook on low all day. Serve over brown rice topped with cheddar cheese and yogurt. Seriously. That's it.


Original Recipe
1 package chicken breast
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1 jar salsa
1 block cream cheese
rice
Add chicken, beans, corn, and salsa to crock pot. Cook on low all day. About 1 hour before eating, add block of cream cheese and stir to combine. Serve over rice. Personally, I'm going to try this one as a dip one day since the inclusion of cream cheese screams dip to me. I think this and a big bag of tortilla chips is in my future!

Easter Sides, Part II

So, to hedge my bets that the other people at Easter dinner would enjoy a side dish, I picked up some green beans... But then I thought the heck with them! Just kidding. I really do hope they like the beans even though they're not just steamed. I actually serve this as a salad a lot when beans are in season - just top lettuce with the beans and drizzle the sauce over the salad as dressing. Delicious. If you really feel like dressing it up a bit, add some grilled veggies and feta or goat cheese to the mix. Mmmm... 


Balsamic Beans
2 tblsp olive oil
1 qt green beans
3 tblsp water
3 tblsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add green beans and toss to coat. Add water and cover for 3-4 minutes tossing occasionally. You want the beans to cook, but still be firm and crunchy. After beans are cooked, remove lid and turn heat up to high. Cook off half the water. Add balsamic, salt, and pepper and toss to coat. Let the beans cook for a minute or two in the balsamic and then serve.

Easter Sides, Part I

So, it just wouldn't be a family dinner if I didn't bring a side dish that only me, my mom, and Kevin would eat. Last time I brought kohlrabi, which my sister actually liked, but everyone else made faces over. This time, I went with kohlrabi sprouts (actually, there are two kinds of sprouts, but I can't remember what the others were). These young greens are much sweeter than more mature greens, so give them a try even if you don't like the bitterness of other greens. The sign at the farmers' market said that they would be good stir fried, so I just went for a quick sauté. 


Kohlrabi Sprouts
3 tblsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1 large colander of kohlrabi sprouts
salt and pepper
Heat olive oil over high heat. Add sprouts and toss. Add garlic and toss. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the leaves are slightly wilted. 

Potato Leek Soup

This soup is crazy easy. I can't believe I never tried it before. And for all you onion naysayers out there, leeks are onions for people who don't like onions. Just give it a try. I made this for meat free Monday dinner, but if I were making it on any other day of the week, I would have started with a little bacon. As a bonus for me, the kid even ate a little bit... Okay, he dipped his bread in it and then ate the bread, but I'm counting it as vegetable consumption!


Potato Leek Soup
1 tblsp butter
1 tblsp olive oil
4 leeks, whites and greens, sliced thin
4 white potatoes, peeled and chopped into small chunks
1 turnip, peeled and chopped into small chunks
1 quart vegetable stock
1 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
Melt butter in pan with olive oil over medium heat. Add leeks (if you don't know how to clean leeks, see below) and cook until tender. Salt and pepper cooked leeks. Add chopped potatoes and turnips and stir to combine. Add stock and water and salt the broth. Cook until potatoes and turnips are fork tender. Using a stick blender, blend soup until smooth. In a separate small saucepan, slowly heat milk and heavy cream, but don't boil. Add milk mixture to the soup and stir to combine. Serve with crusty bread.


On cleaning leeks. Leeks are layers and layers of sand and dirt trapping goodness. For this application, the easiest way to clean them is to slice them in half lengthwise, then slice each half into thin slices. Put the leeks in a large, deep bowl filled with water. Swish the leeks around and then walk away. Let them sit for 5-10 minutes and then skim the leeks off the top of the water with a mesh scoop. 

Fiesta Corn

Okay, so we all know my kid won't eat vegetables. So, when I went to make a side vegetable for dinner the other night, I thought I would try adding salsa and cheese because who doesn't like salsa and cheese! Well, it turns out that Natty doesn't like salsa and cheese. At least not when it's served on vegetables. Oh well. Kevin thought it was delicious. For lack of a better name, I threw in fiesta since that seems to universally indicate the involvement of salsa and cheese!


Fiesta Corn
olive oil
1/2 bag frozen sweet corn
1 large handful frozen peas
1/4 cup salsa
2 oz cheddar cheese
In a skillet over medium heat, heat olive oil. Add corn and peas. Cook until warmed through. Add salsa and stir until warmed. Turn off heat and add cheese. Stir to combine. Serve hot.

Vegan Apple Tart

A friend of ours has gone vegan for Lent and when we decided to get together for dinner, she tasked us with dessert. Actually, what she said was that we should just plan on dessert for us because it's next to impossible to find vegan dessert. Do I hear a challenge? Luckily, I recently had a delicious dessert at my neighbor's house that just so happened to be vegan. Ha! Take that! It's actually quite tasty and since it's apples and whole wheat bread, I don't feel guilty eating it. 


Vegan Apple Tart
1 batch pizza dough
4 large apples (I used red delicious since that's what they were selling as the "seconds" at the farmer's market that week)
juice of one lemon
1 tblsp sugar (or more to taste)
cinnamon (to taste)
Prepare pizza dough. Cut apples into 1/4 inch slices. Put in bowl with lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon. Shape and place on a cookie pan or casserole dish. Layer apple slices on the dough. (You can do this either functionally or artfully. I'm pretty bad at the artful stuff. I alternated mine in rows of slices with the curved side facing the same direction. Right. That makes perfect sense to me.) Sprinkle top with a little bit of sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 400 until crust and apples look delicious and lightly browned. 

Chicken with Lemon Butter White Wine Sauce

As you can tell from the name of this recipe, it's going to be pretty straightforward. Any recipe that can list almost every ingredient in the title is bound to be a) really easy to make and b) a crowd pleaser since you're not likely to be serving anything that needs to be picked out or looked at questionably. I would have added capers to this if we had any, which might have detracted from point b with a lot of people, but would be super tasty. I served this with a salad and a side of sauteed broccoli and sugar snap peas. A piece of bread on the side for sopping up the sauce is also a necessary addition in our house.


Chicken with Lemon Butter White Wine Sauce
olive oil
1 package chicken breasts
1/2 cup white wine
juice of one lemon
1 1/2 tblsp butter
salt and pepper
Heat olive oil in pan over medium high heat. Brown chicken on both sides and cook to 165. Remove chicken from pan. Deglaze pan with white wine. Add lemon juice and butter and salt and pepper to taste. Once butter is melted, return chicken to pan and let sauce reduce for 3-5 minutes while you take everything else to the table. Remove from heat and serve chicken topped with sauce.