Chili Verde Pork

We hosted supper club last weekend and I made this Chili Verde Pork, along with Tortilla Soup, for our "South of the Border" themed dinner. I'm planning to make this again for the community pool closing party, which means I'll need to scale this to feed about 150 people (and borrow several crock pots from neighbors!).

Chili Verde Pork

Chili Verde Pork

Prep time: 45 minutes
Total time: 4 hours
Servings: 20+

INGREDIENTS

8 fresh poblano chile peppers

3 pounds fresh tomatillos, husks removed

4 fresh jalapeno peppers

2 yellow bell peppers, seeded and chopped

1 bunch cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

1 pork butt (6 to 8 pounds), cubed

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 large yellow onions, chopped

7 tablespoons brown sugar

6 cloves garlic, minced

½ tablespoon sea salt

freshly ground pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon ground cumin

DIRECTIONS

1. Broil the poblano peppers until the skins start to blister and blacken. Turn them over and do the same for he other side. Place the poblanos in a zippy bag to sweat and set them aside.


2. Broil the tomatillos until they begin to blacken. Turn them over and do the same for the other side. Put the tomatillos into a blender—be sure to include any tomatillo juices from the pan.


3. Peel and seed the poblanos and add them to the blender along with the yellow bell peppers, the jalapenos, and the cilantro and give it a whirl until pureed. (I do this, and cube up the pork, the night before.)


4. Heat oil over high heat in a large stock pot or frying pan (the high sides of the stock pot helps to minimize oil spatter) sear the pork in the vegetable oil until golden brown. Remove the pork and place in a crock pot.


5. Reserve 2 tablespoons oil in the pan and saute the onions and garlic until onions are tender. Season with salt, pepper, and cumin, then add the mixture to the crock pot and add the tomatillo puree.


6. Carefully give it a stir (my crock pot was brimming—I even had to remove some liquid part way through the cooking) and set the crock pot on low for at least 4 hours.

Bo Ssam—Korean-style slow-roasted pork

Or, as I call it, Mind Control Pork.

I came across this article about Bo Ssam in the NYTimes—the picture alone convinced me I would need to try this recipe, but then I read the article. The recipe is the creation of David Chang, chef and owner of Momofuku in NYC where it sells for $200 and feeds 6–10 people. (I get this on the table for less than $20.) And get this:

[R]ecipes like Chang’s bo ssam are a godsend. They make any cook appear to be better than he or she really is, elevating average kitchen skills into something that approaches alchemy. Tell no one how easy this all turns out to be, though. Simply cook the food and serve it and watch as those at your table devour the meat in a kind of trance.

Did you catch that bit about a trance? That's why I call it Mind Control Pork. The pork roast itself is delicious, but the salty/sweet bark that forms on the outside is amazing! If there's an unpleasant task on the Honey-Do list, or the list is getting particularly long, I just tell Scoob I'm making this for dinner and suddenly things start getting done.

In fact, Scoob prefers it to the kalua pig that he makes (which is also amazing and simple). Coming from him, that's saying something.

I've made this a few times now, and it just seems to get better each time. The last time I made it, I even invited neighbors over for dinner (that's how confident I am with this easy recipe), and now it's being requested whenever we're the host house for supper club.

I've made a few adjustments to the original recipe—I found it unclear at one point and reduced the oven temperature and increased the time for the final step in the oven (500° just filled the house with too much smoke—extremely unpleasant, especially if you're expected guests). The recipe also recommends oysters as an accompaniment, but I didn't go there with it.

Feeling saucy?

The recipe includes directions for the accompanying sauces. I love the ginger-scallion sauce. Even though it sounds like an odd combination, I urge you to try it. Scoob refuses to try it because he hates onions—I don't care for a lot of onion either, but this stuff is addictive! Oh well, more for me! (I now make this sauce fairly regularly to go with noodles and pot stickers, too.)

Neither one of us really cared for the ssam sauce (pictured in the middle, above), so I usually skip this now and just set out some chili paste. And even though I do like kimchi (in the back, pictured above), I don't really care for the brand we have available locally. Scoob likes it though, so he gets the kimchi while I get the ginger-scallion sauce.

Bo Ssam

Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: Overnight + 6½–7½ hours cook time (mostly hands-off)

INGREDIENTS
Pork Butt

1 whole bone-in pork butt or picnic ham (8 to 10 pounds)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon kosher salt

7 tablespoons brown sugar

Ginger-Scallion Sauce

2½ cups thinly sliced scallions, both green and white parts

½ cup peeled, minced fresh ginger

¼ cup neutral oil (like grapeseed)

1½ teaspoons light soy sauce

1 scant teaspoon sherry vinegar

½ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Accompaniments

2 cups plain white rice, cooked

3 heads bibb lettuce (we used Romaine), leaves separated, washed and dried

Kimchi

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the pork in a large, shallow bowl. Mix the white sugar and 1 cup of the salt together in another bowl, then rub the mixture all over the meat. (I know it sounds like a lot of salt, but you do rinse it off later. I've found ½ cup each white sugar and salt to be fine on a 6-pound pork butt.) Cover it with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, or overnight.




The morning after.



2. When you’re ready to cook, heat oven to 300°. Remove pork from refrigerator and discard any juices and rinse off any excess salt and sugar. (The original recipe did not call for rinsing, and my first try at this recipe was extremely salty.) Place the pork in a roasting pan .




Into the oven.



3. Cook for approximately 6 hours, after the first hour, baste hourly with pan juices. Once the roast collapses (somewhere around 200° internal temperature) and yields easily to the tines of a fork, you may remove the meat from the oven and allow it to rest for up to an hour.




Somewhere around the 4 hour mark.



4. You can make the ginger-scallion sauce while the roast rests, but I've found I like the taste even more after it has had a chance to meld—I usually make mine when I put the roast in the oven. In a large bowl, combine the scallions with the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and taste, adding salt if needed.




Ginger-scallion sauce



5. While the roast rests, prepare the rice, wash lettuce, and set out the sauces.


6. When your accompaniments are prepared and you are ready to serve the food, turn oven to 400°. (As I mentioned earlier, 500°, as called for in the original recipe, produced way too much smoke in the house. I may try this at 450° next time, but 400° did work, although it took a bit longer. You may want to wait on setting out your rice so it doesn't get cold.) In a small bowl, stir together the remaining tablespoon of salt with the brown sugar. Rub this mixture all over the cooked pork and spoon some of the pan juices over the top being careful not to rinse off the rub. (I found spooning some juices onto the roast at this point helped the sugar form more of a glaze-crust instead of the thicker, more sugar-granular crust I experienced the first couple tries with this recipe.) Place in oven for approximately 15–20 minutes, or until a dark caramel crust has developed on the meat. Serve hot, with the accompaniments.

Going down in a glaze of glory—yes, it is Bon Jovi-worthy

Scoop some rice on your lettuce, layer on some pork,
and top with the sauce of your choice.

Leftovers, if you're lucky enough to have them, are delicious as repeats, and when you get down to the nubbins, they make an awesome fried rice. If it's just the two of us, a 4–5 pound pork shoulder easily feeds us for several days (and no one complains about getting tired of it!).

Bo ssam pork fried rice

Okra Fries

One thing I've learned since moving to North Carolina—Scoob loves okra. He likes it soups, pot pies, casseroles, and pretty much any way he can get it.

I, however, am not a big fan of okra's slimy qualities. Though, whatever it is that makes okra have that slime is supposed to be very good for you.

So I keep a bag of frozen okra in the freezer and Scoob can add okra to whatever he wants and I can stay happily okra-free.

I did make an okra and polenta casserole that wasn't too bad. (I love that autocorrect wants to change polenta to tadpole—okra and tadpole casserole would be beyond disgusting.) Though I was stunned at how difficult it was to find coarse ground cornmeal for polenta/grits here. Aren't grits a Southern staple?

And speaking of cornmeal, Scoob really likes fried okra, which is basically okra sliced into rounds, battered in cornmeal to soak up the slime, and fried. (This usually gives me heartburn, a tummy ache, or both.)

So the last time Scoob conned me into buying a pound of okra at the farmers market, I decided to fry it a bit differently. Instead of slicing it into rounds, I quartered it lengthwise, and I did not batter it. I just added it au natural into the cooking oil.

And once they browned a bit, I removed the okra fries from the oil, blotted up the excess oil with paper towels, tossed them on a plate, and sprinkled them with a little kosher salt.

I've now found Scoob's new favorite way to eat okra, and I like it too! If you like baked kale chips, you'll probably like okra fries. In fact, next time we get some fresh okra, I am going to try baking them instead of frying.

Chile Rellenos Quiche

Oh, I have been holding out on you, people. My rendition of this Chile Rellenos Quiche recipe is super easy to throw together. I almost always have the ingredients for this on hand, which is especially helpful for those nights when I don't have a clear dinner plan. And the leftovers make for a yummy, protein-rich breakfast the next morning. I've made it several times now and we love, love, lurve it!

You can find the original Chile Rellenos Quiche recipe on the Taste of Home website. They've got the nutritional information there, but I've made a number of changes so it probably isn't relevant to this version.

I'm tempted to just dive in to the whole quiche pie.

Oh, but a slice is nice.

Chile Rellenos Quiche

Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 40–45 minutes

Ingredients

2 Tbsps corn meal

3 eggs

½ cup low-fat mayonnaise

hot pepper sauce to taste, optional

1 6–7 ounce can chopped green chiles, drained

1½ cups shredded Pepper Jack cheese (reduced-fat if you can find it)

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 450°. Evenly sprinkle the cornmeal over the bottom of your pie dish and toast for 3–5 minutes in the oven.


2. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, mayonnaise, and hot pepper sauce, then stir in the chopped chiles and the cheese, and pour into the dish.


3. Bake for 30–35 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

I love the flavor of green chiles and this really hits the spot. It may not be the healthiest recipe, but by eliminating the pie crust altogether and cutting down on the amount of cheese, I think I've at least made it healthier than it was.

Tortilla Soup

Oh my, oh my, oh my. I'm so happy the weather cooled off a bit because now I can make this soup again!

Did I tell you I got a new cookbook? No? Well, I did. And I'm loving it!

About a month ago I ordered Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. If that name sounds familiar it may be because I've also got her Veganomicon cookbook and have posted my experiences with some of those recipes too.

**Full disclosure: I work for the parent publishing company that also handles Appetite for Reduction, but I paid full price for it. Well, I paid Amazon price for it. Which was just stupid, because if I had ordered it through work I would have gotten it for half price. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not getting paid or compensated in any way to shill for this book.

Although Moskowitz is a vegan, I am not, so I do not adhere to a strict vegan interpretation when cooking her recipes, but I love how she approaches veggies. Meat is now an afterthought at mealtime, and more often than not, we end up going meatless.

I've tried 8 recipes from Appetite for Reduction so far and we have loved all of them. Well, love might be a bit strong for the Yam and Black Bean Soup with Orange and Cilantro; but it was tasty and I would make it again. One thing I appreciate about Appetite over Veganomicon is that the recipes are decidedly healthier in Appetite (almost all of them come in under 400 calories) and all of the recipes include basic nutritional information, which was lacking in Veganomicon.

Anyhow, I tried this recipe a couple weeks ago just as the weather was beginning to warm up again. I ladled out about a cup of soup into each of our bowls and we sat down to dinner. Given my past experiences with Moskowotz's recipes, I don't know why I thought this soup was going to be "meh," but as soon as we took our first bite both of us knew we would want a second helping. It's. That. Good!

So I'm stoked to make this again. And, it only takes about 30 minutes to pull together! Which is another thing I appreciate about Appetite, a lot of the recipes can be on the table in 30–45 minutes. Some recipes require more time, but a lot of it is hands-off time. Anyhow, let's get our soup on!

Oh-so-yummy Tortilla Soup!

Tortilla Soup

Prep time:15 minutes
Total time:30 minutes
Servings:6 servings

Ingredients

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 jalapeños, seeded and sliced thinly

1 poblano pepper, seeded and chopped into ½-inch pieces

4 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp kosher salt

28-oz can of diced tomatoes

24 oz of broth (I use chicken)

4 oz tortilla chips (about 2 cups)

1 Tbsp ground cumin

15-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup frozen corn

½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

juice from 1 lime

1 ripe avocado, pitted and sliced

Directions

1. Preheat a 4-quart pot over medium-high heat. Sauté onions, jalapeños, and poblano in about 5 minutes, or until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt, and sauté for another minute.


2. Add the tomatoes (with liquid) and broth to the pot. Mix in the cumin and crush 2 ounces of the tortilla chips into little pieces and crumbs and add that to the pot.


3. Cover and bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer, add the beans, corn, and cilantro, and let simmer for another 5 minutes.


4. Add the lime juice and taste for salt. Ladle into bowls, crumble remaining tortilla chips over the top and garnish with cilantro and avocado slices.

The original recipe called for whole tomatoes and sliced onions, but Scoob doesn't like onions, but I can sneak them past him when they're chopped small enough, and I cannot handle the texture of large chunks of cooked tomato, hence the diced onion and tomato. I also swapped chicken broth for vegetable, black beans for pinto, and the avocado is all mine. It isn't pictured above because I didn't think of it until we had the leftovers, but it was yummy!

So without my alterations, this recipe has 270 calories, 50g carbs, 10g fiber, 12g protein, 0 cholesterol, and 820mg sodium. I'm going to ease up on the salt a little tonight because we do try to be as low sodium as we can here with Scoob's blood pressure.

Portobello-Wild Rice Soup

I'm being a bit slow in getting up the recipes I'm trying. And depending on how quickly this second third glass of wine hits me, I may be a bit slower with this one.

(Don't judge me, we went to our first community HOA-style meeting tonight and I'm self-medicating in the aftermath.)

(Somehow I got nominated to moderate the next meeting.)

(Probably has something to do with the bitchy moment I had around the 90 minute mark, when I raised my voice over every one in the room to point out the fact that they were ignoring the meeting moderator who was trying to move the meeting along.) (And what the hell was I thinking actually training as a meeting facilitator back in college.)

(We're too new to the community to be making enemies this way.)

[Side Note to the side notes: I watched one woman (whom I know socially, though I wouldn't say we're friends (I don't know her well enough to know if I even want to be friends, though at this point I haven't seen any discernible reason not to)) come into the meeting late. Perfectly coiffed. Dressed casually, yet pulled together. And I had one of those envious moments—"She's got her sh*t together. Why can't I be more like that?" I suspect I'll become really familiar with that feeling in the South. At least I had some (minimal) make-up on, but my hair was pulled back in a pony. (Point added for the make-up; two points deducted for the hair.) (I'm so f*cked.) (Oh, and most of the women here seem to instinctively know how to be "nice" and assertive.) (Double f*cked.) (Just one more reason to continue watching/studying GCB.)]

(It's like high school all over!!!)

(Okay.) (Breathe.)

(Remember who you are.) (They either like you, or they don't.)

(And their loss if they don't.)

Okay. Back to the cooking.

In my last recipe post I was telling you about my Veganomicon cookbook, this recipe is adapted slightly from the same cookbook and we love it. It's a shame the weather is really warming up here (pushing 80° the last couple days) because this is a really yummy, satisfying soup, and pretty easy to make.

The dried mushrooms were a bit difficult to find, but our regular grocery store had them, just in a place I wouldn't expect. (It's only logical to look for dried mushrooms in the fresh produce section!) The original recipe called for dried porcini mushrooms, but Krogers seemed to have everything but dried porcinis, so I used dried portobellos instead.

The original recipe also called for chervil instead of parsley. But hell if I even know what chervil is. (It's purported to have a lemony taste.) And trying to find it in rural North Carolina? Well, I went with parsley instead.

I've had some really yummy mushroom soups in my time,
and when I remember this one has no fatty, cholesterol-load cream or butter,
and I made it myself,
well, there's absolutely no reason to try any other recipe!

Portobello-Wild Rice Soup

Prep time: ± 1 hour

Ingredients

½-oz. dried portobello mushrooms

2 cups boiling water

2 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbsps fresh thyme

1 tsp sea salt

freshly ground pepper, to taste

8 oz fresh cremini mushrooms, sliced thinly

1½ cups wild rice (preferably a blend)

4 cups stock
     (as I've said before, I'm not vegan, so I don't really care
     what kind of stock you use)

1 carrot, peeled and grated

¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped

Directions

1. In a bowl, pour boiling water over dried portobellos. Cover bowl with a plate and set aside.


2. Preheat stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and sauté the onion for about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes, until browned, stirring often.


3. Add the sliced creminis and sauté another 3 minutes, or so.


4. While the creminis sauté, remove the portobellos from the covered bowl (with tongs or a fork; don't discard the liquid) and thinly slice. Add them to the stockpot along with the liquid they steeped in. Let the mixture cook a few more minutes.


5. Add the wild rice blend and the stock. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 45 minutes.


6. When rice is tender, add the grated carrot. Turn off heat and let rest for 10 minutes. (If the soup is too thick, add broth or water until desired consistency is found.)


7. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango

I had purchased a copy of Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, shortly after it came out (late-2007) to give to a vegan friend as a hostess gift only to find she already had a copy by the time I arrived at her house. Anyhow, it's been mine ever since, though I haven't done much with it until we moved here.

Scoob and I started reducing the amount on meat in our diets several years ago and at first it was as simple as making a bigger salad and a smaller portion of meat. Our less-meat-ness progressed and at some point we realized we were only eating meat 1 or 2 times a week.

About that same time, I realized our meals were getting really boring. And as much as I love roasted cauliflower, a heaping plate of cauliflower is not a balanced meal.Now that I have a kitchen I can turn around in, I'm starting to experiment with vegan recipes from this cookbook.

**DISCLAIMER: The publisher of Veganomicon is under the same parent company as the travel publisher I work for, though never the twain shall meet.

I also have the authors' previous cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance, but I've never made anything from it. I've tried to get myself motivated to make something, but it just never happened. It seemed, to me, that a lot of the recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance were aimed at cooking with a meat replacement. I'm all for cooking with tofu occasionally, but really, I just want good recipes for vegetables. And that's what Veganomicon's got in spades.

Remember that Betty Crocker bible our mothers had? This is it for veggies.

There are still plenty of recipes that include tofu, tempeh, and seitan, but the bulk of the cookbook is about cooking vegetables. And since I'm not terribly concerned about begin vegan, when the book calls for vegetable stock, I use vegetable or chicken stock—whatever I have on hand. And when it calls for vegan margarine, I just use my regular margarine or butter. And if I think adding cubed chicken or pork to a recipe sounds good, then I'll do it. You get the picture.

Anyhow, Scoob and I are part of a supper club here. There are 7 couples in the group and each couple takes turns hosting. So far we've been off the hook for hosting, but now that we have a dining table and chairs (I think we can squeak in 10 at the table, though we only have 8 chairs) and my surgery is behind us, I know we'll need to step up and host.

Anyhow, last month was our kick-off supper for 2012 (we had to reschedule the January dinner) and the theme was " A Recipe from Your Favorite Famous TV Chefs." This is a problem when you really haven't had television for about 10 years. We got some random stations in Fremont, but nothing we could really count on, and the closest thing to TV chefs we watched with any regularity were Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods and Anthony Bourdain's Without Reservations—both travel shows with chefs as hosts.

I will say I do enjoy watching America's Test Kitchen when I catch it, but since I haven't purchased their membership, I can't browse through their recipe library.

So I was stuck trying to come up with something for supper club. That's when I stumbled on Veganomicon gathering dust, and as luck would have it, one of the authors, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, used to have a public access cooking show, The Post Punk Kitchen. Not really a "famous" TV chef, and certainly not one I had ever watched on TV, but a TV chef nonetheless. And the fact that our hostess for supper club was my vegan friend, I said what the heck.

We went grocery shopping today and I bought everything I'll need to make this one again. Just for us. It's not exactly the same recipe as the cookbook, but pretty darn close. (And I'm trying the Porcini-Wild Rice Soup recipe tonight. With a side of roasted cauliflower.)

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango

Prep time: 35 minutes; 15 if using leftover quinoa

Ingredients

1 mango, peeled and cut into a small dice
     (we like something Scoob calls a half-ripe mango; just a slight bit
     of give to the skin and a tart sweet flavor, rather than full-on ripe)

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced as small as you can

1 cup diced shallots

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 Tbsps red wine vinegar

2 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil

¼ tsp salt

2 cups cooked quinoa

1 15-oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

Directions

1. Mix the mango, red bell pepper, shallots, and cilantro in a mixing bowl. Add the red wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt, and stir to combine. And the quinoa and stir until everything is combined, then fold in the black beans. Serve right away, or let it sit a bit for the flavors to meld.

Even though it's not summer, I know this is going to be awesome when it's on a hot summer evening and I don't want to cook anything hot.

Our New Sweet Potato Classic

This is so good! Every time I've made it, desert has been left untouched.

Seriously!

I've never really gone for the classic sweet potatoes with marshmallow on top at Thanksgiving, but Scoob loves sweet potatoes so I'll usually make sure it gets on the table. This last Thanksgiving, however, I decided to try something different and now we'll never go back to the marshmallow-topped stuff again!

I've been tweaking the recipe and feeling a bit like Goldilocks.

When I made it at Thanksgiving it was too runny and cloyingly sweet, so I added more sweet potatoes; at Christmas the filling was not quite sweet enough, so I cut back on sweet potatoes; and for Valentine's the filling was just right, but the topping seemed a little too sweet still, so I'm cutting back on some brown sugar with this version.

Scoob has requested another turkey dinner for his birthday (Saturday), so I'll give this a go then, but I think it will be just right.

Our very favoritest sweet potato recipe.

New Sweet Potato Classic

Prep time: 20 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes

INGREDIENTS
Filling

4–5 medium sweet potatoes

¼ tsp salt

3 Tbsps all-purpose flour

¼ cup butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ cup white sugar

2 Tbsps heavy cream

Topping

¼ cup butter, softened

3 Tbsps all-purpose flour

½ cup packed light brown sugar

½ cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS
Filling

1. Preheat oven to 350, line a baking sheet with foil and lightly spray with cooking spray. Cut the sweet potatoes in half lengthwise and place cut-side down on the foil. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until they begin to soften. Remove from oven and allow the potatoes to cool enough so you can handle them.


2. Peel the potatoes (the skins should slide right off) and place in a large bowl. Add the salt, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, white sugar, and heavy cream and mash until smooth. Transfer to an 8 x 8 baking dish.

Topping

1. In a medium bowl, combine softened butter, flour, brown sugar, and chopped pecans. Mix with a pastry blender until crumbly. Sprinkle over sweet potato mixture.


2. Bake for 30 minutes until topping is crisp and slightly browned.

Given how easy this is to make and much we like this recipe, I'll have to try and healthify this up. I think I could substitute 2 Tbsps no-trans margarine and 2 Tbsps applesauce for the ¼ cup of butter in the filling. And I wonder if we would even notice if I left out the heavy cream. The butter for the topping could also go no-trans margarine, but I wouldn't use applesauce here. Might could swap out some sugar for Splenda, too.

Dude Ranch Stew

This started as a low-carb slow cooker recipe from The Everyday Low-Carb Slow Cooker Cookbook, but I've found I like it better on the cooktop (mostly because I'm not firing on all cylinders in the morning to toss this in a crockpot).

But it is easy-peasey to toss this together and just let it simmer. Even better, I almost always have the ingredients on hand.

The original recipe called for twice as much meat and a cup of cheddar cheese, and had no additional water, corn, or okra. (I've also upped the chili powder and cumin each from 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp because we like it spicier.)

Nutritional values for the original recipe were:

Calories: 398
Protein: 53g
Net Carbs: 11.5g
Fat: 11g
Cholesterol: 125mg
Sodium: 1,024mg

I like to think my changes below lowered the overall fat, cholesterol, sodium, and calories while upping the veg factor without adding too much on the carb side. I've been making this about once a week since the first time we tried it. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Dude Ranch Stew

Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 1 hour or more depending on your simmer time

Ingredients

1 pound round steak, cut into bite-sized pieces

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 4-ounce can diced green chilies

1 Tbsp chili powder

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 Tbsp ground cumin

2 cups beef broth (low-sodium if you can find it)

1 6-ounce can tomato paste

1 cube beef bouillon

2 cups water

1 15.5-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

3 celery stalks, chopped

2 cups frozen white corn

2 cups frozen sliced okra

Directions

1. Heat a large soup pot on the stove over med-high heat and brown the steak. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, 2–3 minutes.


2. Add the diced green chilies, chili powder, black pepper, and cumin and cook another 2–3 minutes.


3. Add beef broth, tomato paste, beef bouillon, kidney beans, and celery and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and add the frozen corn and okra about 15 minutes before serving.

The longer this stew simmers, the better it is, but, when pressed for time, I've served it after simmering only 30 minutes Scoob still loves it.

What's for Dinner? Chicken, Broccoli & Wild Rice, Crockpot Style

On one of our first grocery shopping adventures after moving here, we picked up a James Foods (a local company) Chicken Broccoli & Wild Rice frozen casserole at our local Teeter Totter (that's what we've been calling the Harris Teeter grocery store). It was really good and not too salty, which seems to be increasingly difficult to find in pre-made convenience foods.

When I went back to Teeter Totter I was kinda shocked to see the price was regularly $7.39 ($1.85/serving), but they were on sale at $4.97 ($1.25/serving), so I went ahead and got a couple for those nights when we have no plan for dinner.

The last time we made it I really read the ingredients list and thought it could adapt it and make something similar in the crockpot, so I set out to find all the pieces to the puzzle. After stops at 3 grocery stores and we still hadn't found plain wild rice, I ended up going with a pre-packaged mix for the rice and wild rice.

On the one hand, that made it easier because I didn't need to mess with rice-to-wild rice porportions, but it also meant I couldn't control the sodium in the dish if I used the included spice packet.

Next to Scoob's kalua pig, this has been the best crockpot recipe I've ever tried—and I made it up myself!

I forgot to take a picture of it, and besides,
I've yet to see a crockpot dish actually look appetizing.
(And the frozen version doesn't really look like this either.)

Chicken, Broccoli & Wild Rice

Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 6 hours

Ingredients

1 pkg Uncle Ben's long-grain and wild rice mix (or your favorite brand)

1 Tbsp extra virgin oilive oil

1 can low-sodium condensed cream of mushroom soup

¼ cup light mayonnaise

2 frozen chicken breasts

2 carrots, roughly chopped

2 ribs of celery, roughly chopped

1½ cups mushrooms, quartered

1 banded-bunch of broccoli, cut the crowns into florets, peel and roughly chop the stems

Directions

1. Add the olive oil, mushroom soup, and mayonnaise to the crockpot along with however much water the Uncle Ben's package directions call for, add the Uncle Ben's seasonings packet and whisk together, then add the rices.


2. Place the chicken in the mixture, followed by the veggies. Smoosh things down in the crock so that the liquid covers everything. Cover and set on high for 6 hours.


3. Before serving, fish out and shred the chicken breasts then mix the shredded meat back into the crockpot.

I love that I can just toss in the chicken still frozen because that seems to be my weak spot when it comes to cooking at home—I think far enough ahead to make sure I have things on hand for dinners, but forget to take things out of the freezer to thaw so they're ready to be cooked when dinner time rolls around.

When I make it again (and I will!), I'll cut back a bit on the water and probably swap half of it out for broth. (Of course, wouldn't you know it, I broke my crockpot with this one. The dial snapped right off after I set it to high.)

Although my total cost for making this was about $8.75, it also made enough for about 8 servings whereas the pre-made frozen one only had 4 servings. So even when it's on sale, the homemade version comes out ahead at $1.10/serving. I also know I had way more veggies in mine, so score on the nutritional front, too!

I'll continue to hunt for plain wild rice; if I can start with raw rices instead of Uncles Ben's or the like, I can cut the cost of the recipe further. I used to get it at Trader Joe's in CA, so the next time we're near a TJ's I'll make sure to look for it. Otherwise, my best bet is Amazon, but I hate the idea of getting groceries that way and would rather our money support the local economy.

What's for Dinner? Roasted Beets

So after my amazing recovery from the brink of death, I found a whole refrigerator filled with veggies that needed to be used up. I had a plan when I bought the veggies, but do you think the Phlegm Faery cared? Nope. Not one bit.

Scoob had to throw out the arugula I bought to go with these roasted beets, but I picked up some spinach while we were in Apex on Sunday. And I had to sort through a couple bunches of kale I'd bought because some of the leaves in the center of the bunches were starting to turn. But other than that, there weren't many casualties.

Oven roasted beets with goat cheese (and assorted other veggies).

Oven Roasted Beets with Balsamic and Goat Cheese

Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

6 beets

3 cloves of garlic, whole and peeled

3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

ground rosemary, about ½ tsp

ground thyme, about ½ tsp

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup water

spinach

goat cheese

balsamic vinegar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Clean the dirt from the beets and trim the ends. The skin will slide off after they've roasted, so there's no need to peel them.


2. Place the beets in a baking dish along with the whole cloves of garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper. Make sure the beets get coated with the oil and spices.


3. Add 1 cup of water to the baking dish and cover tightly with foil. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes, or until beets are tender with a fork.


4. Let the beets cool a bit so you can handle them. Gently squeeze the beet to break the skin and peel it off, then slice.


5. Put the spinach on a plate, add the sliced beets, a couple tablespoons of goat cheese, and drizzle with balsamic. Any leftover liquid in the baking dish can also be cooled and drizzled over the plate.

I've eaten versions of this several times and loved it, but this was the first time I tried to make it myself. Since I had so many other veggies to use up I also roughly chopped a couple carrots and a turnip (or maybe it was a rutabaga, I dunno) I'd had in the fridge along with the beets. I don't recommend the turnip, though; it was very bitter.

I also had some yellow squash to use up, so after about 30 minutes I added that to the dish, and that was good. I also made kale chips with the rest of the kale. One of my favorites! It's healthy and it satisfies my cravings for crunchy/salty.