Salsa Chicken

Last night was salsa chicken night! It is one of our most favorite meals ever. When ever I make this we eat leftovers for days after. Which is a huge deal in my home. My daughter Allie hates leftovers. She would rather eat Ramen noodles for dinner than eat a plate a leftovers. Snob. But salsa chicken she will eat over and over again. She actually will ask for it two days in a row! Score!

Salsa chicken is super easy. Kind of embarrassing to call it cooking because it is effortless and takes no real kitchen skills. My kind of recipe! If you have been paying attention then you know I am all about easy. I hate recipes that have more than 5 ingredients or take longer than 10 minutes to prep. Who has time for that?!?! That is probably why I will never be a famous cook on T.V. I am way to impatient in the kitchen. 

But I guarantee salsa chicken will be a hit in your home too!

Let's roll...

                      Salsa Chicken

Ingredients:

~4-5 boneless skinless chicken breasts

~1 large can (or 3 small cans) of Cream of Chicken Soup. (I love mine soupy so I add more. Go with your gut)

~1 cup mild salsa (I usually eyeball this too and add more)

~1 packet mild taco season mix

~flour tortillas

~sour cream

FYI: You can really spice this recipe up by using medium or hot salsa and taco seasoning. We are not a spicy family so I stick with mild. But go nuts if you dare!

Start by placing the chicken breast in the bottom of your crock pot. Of course first wash them and remove excess fat. I kind of assume you know that but then again I am a novice in the kitchen and you may be too. So wash it then place it in the bottom of your crockpot.

Next sprinkle the taco seasoning over the chicken breast. It is not a good idea to sniff the taco seasoning mix. It will send you into a weird sneezing, coughing, gagging, dear God I'm gonna die fit. Not that I am warning you from experience or any thing....

Next, in a separate bowl dump the Cream of Chicken soup and salsa in together and mix it up. I always mess around with this amount. As I said, I like it soupy. Also, in this case size matters. Sometimes I am using thick fresh big chicken breasts that need more soup. Other times I am using cheap frozen thin breasts that only need a little bit of the mixture. I also will add a little more salsa depending on the type I am using. If I am using a thick and chunky salsa I add more. If I am using a thin normal salsa I add the recommended amount. You really can't go wrong with this recipe. I say always error on the side of more. 

Lastly, add your soup and salsa mix to the crock pot. You want it to cover the chicken plus a little more. This is why I buy the small cans. If you don't have enough then mix a little more soup and a little more salsa batch together and add it until your heart is happy with your results. Your concoction should look like the picture below.

                    Soupy salsa heaven

You want to cook this on high for 4 hours. Every few hours use to forks and start to pull your chicken apart. 

When it is finished really dig around in the crock pot and make sure you have no big chicken lumps. You want the chicken completely shredded. 

Serve on warm flour tortillas with a dollop of sour cream. Be prepared to die over it's greatness. There is something about all these favors together that are very addicting. Even after I am stuffed from inhaling this meal I still want more. 

And that is what is for dinner!

This is another recipe you can tailor to your families likes and dislikes. You could add shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, or whatever else you feel would taste good with this recipe. It also goes great with a side of Spanish rice. 

It is such a simple delicious meal that doesn't keep you in the kitchen for hours yet provides you with a hot meal to share with your family. What more can anyone ask for!

Toffee Blondies

Last night was a leftover night for dinner. No real cooking was done on my part. Unless you consider heating a plate in the microwave as cooking. Which is exactly what I used to consider to be cooking.

I am very thankful food was ready and that all I had to do was heat it up. My RA has been flaring up a little more these past few days than it has been all week. It makes chopping and stirring impossible. I do have some knifes and other utensils that have rounder than normal handles. If that makes sense. According to reachbeyondra.com larger rounded handles are suppose to ease the pain of gripping. Some days I would agree and some days not so much. Some days my hands are so swollen that the handle would have to the the size of a tree trunk to help. Those days, we eat leftovers or fast food. 

Despite the stiff swollen joints I did make a very simple, yet very delicious, dessert. I made a batch to go with Sunday nights dinner too. That is how fast and simple these blondies are. You won't mind mixing up a batch two nights in a row. Or you can save yourself the time and double the first batch. That is really what I should have done. Sweets in this house don't have a fighting chance. I think I ate a blondie for my breakfast, lunch and after dinner....maybe a late night snack too. Who am I kidding! I know I ate them and am not ashamed! 

                      Toffee Blondies!

                    

Ingredients: 

~1 stick of unsalted butter (melted)

~1 cup of brown sugar

~1 egg

~1 tsp vanilla extract 

~pinch of salt

~1 cup flour

~1/2 cup toffee bits (or more if you're like me and really like toffee bits)

That's it! 

Preheat your oven to 350*F. 

Before you begin line an 8X8 baking dish with parchment paper. I cut two long strips and crossed them. That worked much easier than just laying the parchment paper in the dish. Thanks Mom for that tip!

The parchment paper saves your dish from becoming a huge sticky mess. 

Mix it all up!

Mix the melted butter and brown sugar on low to medium speed. I only have a hand beater. I am sure if you have one of those fancy KitchenAid stand mixer this recipe will be even easier. But I don't have that luxury. Thankfully, I am talented and can mix and pour at the same time. I can also walk & chew gum and pat my head while rubbing my stomach. Or is it the other way around? Yes, I am a woman of many talents. Please tell all of your single, good looking, male friends.

Once you have mixed the brown sugar and melted butter add the egg and vanilla extract while still mixing on medium to high speed. Once thoroughly mixed reduce the speed to low and add the salt and flour. If you don't reduce the speed your flour will poof all over the place. Nope, this does not just happen on T.V. 

Finally, and this is the BEST part, stir in the toffee bits. Don't use a beater to mix these in. You will end up turning your bits into dust and your blondies won't be crunchy.

The tricky part of this entire recipe is transferring this toffee masterpiece into the lined baking dish. Or at least it was difficult for me. You've got to hold the mixing bowl while pouring the mix. It is a thick mix so it doesn't spread real easy and the parchment paper slides around. But come hell or high water it will be done! And hopefully look as wonderful as the picture below.

Bake your blondies for 25 minutes. The edges will pull away from the sides of the dish and turn a lovely golden brown. Also while cooling you may notice they sink a little bit. It may be an error I am making but both of my batches sank. Doesn't matter if it isn't pretty! It tastes glorious!

                             YUM!

Once they have completely cooled use the parchment paper to lift them out of the dish. Cut them up and gobble them down. 

I ate one while it was still a little warm and gooey. Major YUM factor! Once they completely cooled I had another one (for blogging purposes only of course. I wanted to be able to keep you well informed. Your welcome!) and it was even better...

Another great thing about this recipe is it seems that it could be very versatile. I would think that you could add nuts, use the chocolate covered toffee pieces or even add chocolate chips. Although be careful or you will change your blondie into a brownie.

Sunday Dinner

Wow! So I was right. Sitting down with the family to a hot, homemade dinner was exactly what my soul needs! 

I decided that my first "Sunday dinner" meal would be a pot roast. I was a little scared since usually my mom cooks these big meals. Or at least in my mind this is a "big meal". Big not as in size but as in emotion. A pot roast dinner is a big deal. Big importance. Big (and hopefully fond) memories. A pot roast dinner to me is the type of meal you will always remember. You will always remember as a child your mom cooking up a pot roast dinner. You will always remember a house full of that amazing pot roast smell. A smell that years later when smelling it again it will flash you back to that time in your childhood. This is what terrified me!! What if I screw this up and ruin my child's views on pot roast dinners for the rest of her life?!? I can pictures botching this meal so bad that any mention of the word pot roast to Allie in her adult years will cause her to vomit violently while curled up in the fetal position under a bed. But lately I am about making memories. Good and bad ones I guess. And so it was decided. I would cook a pot roast dinner.

 I will admit I had no idea there were so many kinds of roasts! For the love! How does one decided?? Thankfully I took Mom with me:) She is my cooking guru. Her knowledge of do's and don't amazes me. She is one of those "if you don't have this use this instead" type of people.  Bringing her to walk with me through the grocery store to guide my cooking ways puts my nerves to rest some. Thank God! Plus, that woman can stretch dollars further than anyone I have ever met. Another thing that is very useful in the grocery store. 

While at the meat case Mom was checking out $17 roasts. Hahaha. She cracks me up! Apparently she & I need to have another talk about what my checking account looks like these days. Seriously! Even if I had the money I am NOT paying $17 for ONE hunk of meat! The roast I was looking at was only $7ish. Mom was looking at beef while I was looking at pork. Mom claims pork tastes better. I couldn't even begin to tell you the difference! I know one moo's and the other oinks. And hopefully not while you are trying to wrestle it into the pot. Anyway, I went with the cheaper, apparently tastier roast...PORK! 

The beginning....

                    Coke Pot Roast!

Ingredients:

~1 Pot Roast (2-3 pounds)

~1 can cola (I used 1 1/2 cups Coke and it make a done of juice!)

~1 10.5oz can Cream of Mushroom soup 

~ 1 packet onion soup mix

~ 1 pound carrots (next time I will use more because I LOVE veggies that have been cooking with a roast all day)

~ Red Potatoes (I bought a 5 pound bag and used most of them. But again I love veggies that have been cooked with a roast. I just added them until I ran out of room.)

~Kosher salt, pepper, minced garlic (enough to rub your roast down with)

FYI: I used generic ingredients for all of it. No need to pay $1.19 for a can of Campbell's soup when $.59 for Aldi's brand taste the same. Also, if you really want to be snazzy you could make your own cream soup. But I am taking baby steps...

Prep it up! 

The first thing I had to do was cut the skin off my roast. It had actual pig skin still on it! Actual little pink piggy skin. Only somewhere along the way it lost it cute piggy pinkness and was just skin color...*gag* I felt like Hannibal Lecter. "Why, hello little piggy."

I had to use scissors because due to my lack if cooking experience/knowledge/skills I don't own sharp knifes. Well that and the fact that my steak knifes also double as screw drivers or box opener, or whatever else I need to break into and can't. Yeah so my knifes are dull. Big deal. Scissors worked just fine. 

Once the skin and chucks of fat were removed I rubbed that sucker with tons of Koser salt, pepper and minced garlic. I mean really rub it. Don't just sprinkle it on there. Rub that roast like it pays your bills. I read that not only does this help the salt, pepper and garlic sink into your meat but it also helps the meat to relax. Which I guess helps the cooking process some how. Okay, whatever. Rub away!

Next, the roast need to be seared. I didn't know what searing was. Thank you allrecipes.com for explaining it! Below is the link. You might have to copy and paste it. I don't know to "link" websites to blogs.

http://allrecipes.com/howto/searing-meats-tips-and-tricks

But here is a crash course. 

For searing: get your pan HOT, HOT, HOT! If your pan is cool your roast will stick. If your roast doesn't have a lot of fat on it then you'll need to add a little bit of oil to the pan. Once your pan is HOT drop your roast in. Each side took about 2-3 minutes to sear up. My roast was round so it took some talent on my part to sear all of it. This process locks in the juices and gives your meat a great charred flavor. Or so I think.

Putting it all together

Now it was time to finish this little dance. Once that roast is all seared up put it into the crockpot. Arrange your carrots and potatoes all around it. 

Lastly, mix the Coke, Cream of Mushroom soup and onion soup mix in a separate bowl. Mix slowly because the Coke fizzes and you will end up with a mess. Trust me I know. Once you have it all mixed up pour it all over your roast. It will look pretty and smell yummy! 

Low & Slow...or high & fast. You decide.

That's it! Cook this pot of porky heaven for 4-5 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. I ended up cooking it for about 5 1/2 hours on high. Not because it needed the extra time but by the time I set the table and such an extra half hour had past by. That is the beauty of the crockpot! 

And that is what is for dinner!

I am so happy I decided to start this new cooking chapter of my life. There wasn't much conversation at the table because we were all to busy shoving our faces. But holy cow was it amazingly good! Or should I say holy pig?:)

Getting started.....

Hello!

I should probably start off by warning you that I am not a trained cook. I have never taken cooking classes. I don't know how to sauté. I have no clue what "al dente" should taste like. And dear God please don't ask or expect me to make anything from scratch. But that is all about to change!

Most of the meals I make for my family are made by machines in some factory far away, frozen and ready for me to pop in the oven. That is my idea of cooking. Lasagna? Sure! Stouffer's family size baked at 450 degrees for one hour.

This processed way of cooking is not done because I don't love my family. Nor is it done because I can't cook. I use those frozen entrée meals out of convenience. I am a single mom who works full time. Now, I am sure there are single moms out there who cook from scratch every night and yippee for you. Write a book. But for me it isn't an option. I need quick meals I can put on the table and shove in my face all in an hour or less. Or so I thought.

I recently had an epiphany of sorts. I decided to slow life down a bit. No God did not speak to me and tell me to took better meals or I would be invaded by locus. I did not have a near death experienced caused by a Marie Callender's Mac & Cheese. I did not give in to the media's attack on processed food and decide to go all natural. We get it, NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN and all the other three lettered nagging stations, processed food is bad. Give up the lecture! I simply decided I want to cook for myself and my family. Everything else in my life can wait a few hours while I cook dinner. I want to make dinnertime mean something good in my home. I want that quality time. I want to sit down at the table every night and not in front of the T.V. I want to start the meal with a thanksgiving to God for blessing me and those around me. I want to end the meal with a busting gut and smiling faces. What can I say, I am a sucker for family time.

And so starts my journey. I have decided to cook my way through family recipes, Pintrest recipes, and any other suggestions that comes my way. Feel free to follow me on Pintrest. Username anderl24. My board titled "upcoming recipes" is filled with meals that are on deck, waiting for oven lovin'. My board titled "stuff I've done" is filled with....well stuff I've already done and what I thought about it. Feel free to send me pins. Any and all suggestions, tips, comments, blah blah blah are welcomed.

I deeply hope and pray that this process will not only make me a better cook but will also give me quality time with my family that I will forever cherish.

~Leslie