Crock Pot Recipe Round-Up

A few links from around the web that sound like great crock-pot recipes worth trying out:

• Creamy Chicken Enchiladas -- for this tasty recipe, all the sauce/meat/cheesiness cooks in the crockpot, then you spoon it into tortillas & bake 30 minutes before dinner-- so it's a partial-crock-pot recipe.
• Honey Sesame Chicken -- oh goodness, this sounds tasty over rice!
• Chicken Chili -- I normally do beef chili, so this might be worth a try
• Beef Stew -- Sounds simple and tasty, just right for cold weather!
• Crock Pot Salsa Chicken -- the blogger says this can be served as a soup, over tortilla chips and garnished with cheese, or if you strain with a slotted spoon, you can stuff tortillas or taco shells with it for a meal.  Sounds versatile & tasty!
• Chicken Noodle Soup -- the kiddos LOVE chicken noodle soup, so I definitely want to try this one.
• Chicken & Corn Chowder 
• Crock Pot Taco Soup
• French Dip Sandwiches -- YUM!!!
• Pulled Pork Sandwiches -- another YUM!  (Plus, her comments are funny to read.)

I need to be more diligent & efficient & put my crock pot to more frequent use!  Hope this gives you ideas too!

Southwest Soup

This is an easy dump-and-heat soup that tastes great!

• 1 can pinto beans, drained
• 1 can stewed tomatoes
• 1 can corn (drained)
• 8 oz. tomato sauce
• 1 can chicken broth
• 2 cans cooked chicken breast (or 1 lg. cooked chicken breast)
• chopped onion
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 2 Tbsp. fresh cilantro (if desired)

Mix & simmer.  Add water as desired; salt & pepper to taste.  Tear up flour tortilla in soup bowl; serve soup over tortilla w/ cheese sprinkled on top. 

Crock Pot Pork Carnitas & Crock Pot Pinto Beans

Just wanted to share this recipe that has delighted my family twice in the last 10 days--  it's easy as pie & I've altered it to be completely done in the crock pot.

Here's the link to the original:
Simple Carnitas Recipe

Here's how I've adjusted it:

CROCK POT CARNITAS
Turn your crock pot on high & put in these ingredients:

• 3-4 pounds pork shoulder, cut into 2-inch chunks
• 2 Oranges, peeled & quartered
• 1-2 Onions, peeled & quartered
• 1 whole head garlic, peeled & chopped
• 1/4 cup salt (kosher/sea salt would be better, but table salt works fine for us)
• 2 Tbsp oregano
• 1 Tbsp pepper
• 2 bay leaves

Add hot water until meat is just covered inside crock.  Cook on high for 4 hours, OR cook on high for 1 hour and then reduce to low & cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Use a slotted spoon to remove the pork; reserve juices in crock pot.  The meat is delightfully tender, so simply use 2 forks to shred the meat.

Use for carnitas tacos/burritos, garnishing with cheese, salsa, beans, lettuce, tomatoes; or use as a tender flavorful meat over mashed potatoes; or for BBQ pulled pork sandwiches.  

CROCK POT PINTO BEANS
A great part of doing it this way is that because you removed the pork from the juices, there is a flavorful broth in which to cook your pinto beans.  You can either start right away, or refrigerate the juice overnight and make it the next day.

• Leftover cooking broth from pork carnitas
• 1 pound pinto beans, with any bad beans sorted/removed

All you have to do is pour your 1 pound of beans into the reserved juices from the carnitas, then set your crock pot to high for 3-4 hours, and cook on low an additional 2 or more; OR you can cook on low for 7-8 hours.  The beans are amazingly flavorful; just be sure to use a slotted spoon to remove the orange quarters and large onion slices before serving the beans.

These could be used for bean & cheese nachos, as a side item for Mexican food, in chili, or whatever else you want to use them for.  They are so very tasty!

Beef n' Bean Taco Casserole

Tried this one tonight, and it was a hit.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of crescent rolls, or 2 pie crusts, depending on the kind of crust you want.  
• 1 lb. ground beef, browned w/ taco seasoning added
• 1 (~15 oz) can refried beans 
• 1/2 cup salsa, if desired
• 8 oz. cream cheese (I used generic-brand reduced fat cream cheese and the taste was still excellent)
• Shredded cheddar cheese 

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Brown meat & mix in water & taco seasoning packet according to packet instructions.  Once seasoned, stir in 1 can refried beans, and salsa if desired.
3. Layer 9x13 casserole dish with either rolls or crusts, pressing with fingers to seal edges and to conform crust to dish.
4. Use a spoon to spread the cream cheese to cover the bottom of the crust.
5. Cover cream cheese with bean & beef mixture.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes @ 375 until crust is browned, then sprinkle top with cheddar cheese & put back in oven for 2-5 minutes until melted.

Yummy!

Spanish Rice

Long-grain rice

Vegetable oil

Tomato paste

water

garlic salt

chicken bouillion cubes

red pepper flakes

In a small omelet-size frying pan (or the bottom of a saucepan), cover the bottom in corn oil. (***If you have extra or want to include it, you can toss in one small chopped onion to the oil at this point.***) Then add in the amount of rice you'd like to use (we generally do 1-2 cups for our family if we're having it as an add-on to our meal). Saute just a minute or two until the rice turns clear and is coated in the oil.

Then, cook rice as you normally would, but to your normal rice & water pot, FOR EACH CUP OF RICE, add in:

• 2 cups water
• 1-2 tsp. tomato sauce
• 1/2-1 tsp garlic salt
• 1 chicken bouillion cube
• red pepper flakes to taste.

Kristy's Enchilada Sauce

This one is very non-specific, and I'm sorry about that. I just wrote down the basics when my friend made it several years ago, and I'm basically posting it here to remind myself.

• Sautee garlic & 1/2 onion in butter.
• Add: milk, sour cream, cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes (is this the same as paprika? I can't remember...)

Use this to pour over whatever kinds of enchiladas you want.

For chicken enchiladas: Flour/Corn tortillas, each with shredded chicken & salsa inside.

Cuban-style Black Beans

This recipe is for a 1 kg bag of black beans. To do a 1-pound bag, you'd need to divide everything in this recipe by half, and then use slightly less than that amount. Sorry I can't be more specific.

Ingredients:

1000 g. bag dried black beans (sort them, and pull out any bad beans or -gasp!- stones)

1-2 garlic heads, crushed

4 Tbsp. dried oregano

1 bay leaf

4 Tbsp. olive oil

2 lg. yellow onions, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

2 Tbsp. cumin

2 jalepeno peppers, seeded & chopped

4 Tbsp. vinegar (I use lemon vinegar, it's all we have here, and it works fine.)

salt & pepper to taste

STEP ONE:

Presoak the beans. Choose one of the following (don't do both):

• Boil for 2 minutes, remove from heat, and let stand for 2 hours. (I prefer this method, and think the beans are less smushy this way.)
• Soak beans for 8 hours overnight in fridge.

After soaking beans, drain in strainer & rinse with cool water.

STEP TWO:

Return beans to pot or dutch oven. Then add:

• 8 c. water
• 12+ cloves garlic, crushed
• 4 Tbsp. crushed oregano
• 1 bay leaf

Bring to boil. Simmer 2 hours. Drain & return to pot.

STEP THREE:

In small skillet, heat 4 tsp. olive oil. Add 2 lg onions (chopped) & chopped red bell pepper. Heat until softened. Add 2 Tbsp cumin & 2 seeded & chopped jalepeno peppers. Heat 1 minute more.

STEP FOUR:

Add 4 Tbsp. vinegar & onion mixture to beans. Salt & pepper to taste.

If desired, these beans can then be mixed with 2 cups of rice to make black beans and rice, or added to soups, casseroles, Black Bean & Corn salsa (add in chopped red onions, 1 bag frozen corn, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and 2 chopped tomatoes), or any other Mexican dish you can dream up. We often use them as one of the options for make-your-own burritos with large groups of guests. They're delicious just by themselves too! Enjoy!

Make-Your-Own Seasoning Mixes

Here are a few from-scratch seasoning mixes I picked up from an online friend:

Chili Seasoning
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp season salt
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Add 1 Tbsp seaoning to 1/2-1lb browned ground beef. (add 1 can diced tomatoes and 1 can beans and you've got chili)

Taco Seasoning
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp onion flakes
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp onion powder/salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp sugar

Add to 1 lb (or so) browned ground meat along with 2/3 c water.

Italian Salad Dressing Mix
1 Tbsp garlic salt
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp celery salt
2 Tbsp salt

Mix together. Store in a tightly sealed container.

To use:
1/4 c white vinegar
2/3 c canola oil
2 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp mix

Make-Ahead Burritos

The other day after making an enchilada dinner, I had a lot of beans and tortillas left over and ended up making up bean and cheese and egg and cheese burritos ahead of time. For the next week, I had additional options for breakfast foods and quick dinners. And whether you use eggs or beans, this is a filling meal that will keep kids hungry through the next meal.

This is something that I'm going to try to have on hand all the time while I'm here in the states. It is SO much simpler to make up a bunch all at once rather than one here or there... cutting down on all the steps and just doing them all once. Here's all I did:

REFRIED BEANS (or eggs, if you are making breakfast burritos)
SHREDDED CHEDDAR CHEESE
FLOUR TORTILLAS

Take the tortillas, put a stripe of cheese down the center, and then do a layer of beans (or eggs). Fold like a burrito, and then you can fit 3-4 of these per ziplock bag. Label them if needed, and then they'll keep for the rest of the week. You can freeze them as well, just make sure you pack them nicely to where they won't stick together. Heat them up as you need them, and you're all set.


(And yes, for all you gourmet chefs out there, I know this is an extremely simple idea, but I like to share the simple things- they help out moms like me when we're in a pinch!)