Slow Cooker Broccoli Beef

I got this recipe from a food blog consisting only of slow cooker recipes.

Slow Cooker Broccoli Beef

Ingredients:

½ cup soy sauce

¼ cup white wine

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp brown sugar

4 tsp sesame oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

2 lbs. beef (I use ribeye)

2 bags frozen broccoli florets, thawed, or two heads fresh broccoli

Directions:

Combine soy sauce, wine, vinegar, brown sugar, sesame oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes in slow cooker. Slice meat into thin strips and add to slow cooker. Toss to coat thoroughly.

Cook on low for 6 hours. An hour before serving, add broccoli. Cook for another hour or until broccoli is at desired tenderness.

Stir gingerly to coat broccoli. Serve over rice.

Makes 6 servings.

Super good! This is doubled from the original recipe, because it was so good that I was kicking myself for not doubling it the first time. We would have loved to have had leftovers for lunch the next day.

It's super easy too. I had the beef sliced up the night before and ready to go in the fridge. It only took me about 5 minutes to throw the rest of the ingredients in there before going to storytime at the library. The beef was almost done when we got back (2 hours later), but it gets really tender if you leave it in there all day. After 6 hours it was so tender it was practically falling apart. I like stir-fry, but everytime I have made it, the beef seems to get really tough on me. I don't know if I am using the wrong cut of beef or cooking it wrong, but this was way better than any stir-fry I have made.

A tip for you working people: if you are unable to add the broccoli an hour before serving, you can just steam it (in the microwave, or however you like), and add it to the beef right before serving. It won't have soaked up as much of the flavor, but it will still be good.

I will definitely be making this again.

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Roasted Amaretto Acorn Squash

I had never made acorn squash before, but I'm currently on a fall kick when it comes to cooking, so I thought I would give it a try. I stumbled across this Tyler Florence recipe and thought it sounded awesome. This is the first time I have made one of his recipes.

Roasted Amaretto Acorn Squash

Ingredients:

2 acorn squash, about 2 lb. each

Kosher salt

Olive oil

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar

3 tbsp amaretto

½ cup vanilla wafers, crushed

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400°.

Split the squash in half and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Set the squash halves, cut sides up, on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Drizzle with olive oil. If squash are very large, cut lengthwise into quarters.

In a bowl, cream the butter with the sugar, and almond liqueur. With a brush or a spoon coat the cut sides of each squash half with the butter mixture. Sprinkle with the crushed cookies.

Bake until tender, about an hour, basting every 20 minutes with any remaining butter.

Makes 4 servings.

This is so good! I don't really like acorn squash that much; I think it's the texture. So the only way I can eat it is to make it sweet. And this recipe gets the job done! When he came up to the table, Jim said, "I see dessert, but where's dinner?" :) He loved it, of course. And I did too.

The original recipe called for 1 lb. acorn squash and it was supposed to cook for only 30-35 minutes. But the smallest ones I could find at the grocery store were 2 lbs. each. So if you can find smaller ones, they won't need to cook as long. The 2 lb. squash make the serving size a bit large (I couldn't finish my half), so if you can find the small ones, get those.

The amaretto is so good with this. I was going to try it with Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur), but they only had a huge bottle at the store and I didn't feel like spending $26 on it! So I got a small, cheap bottle of amaretto and now I'm glad I did because I loved it.

I highly recommend this recipe. I know I will be making it again!

I served these with Pecan Crusted Pork Chops. Great fall dinner!

Amy from A Little Nosh chose to make this recipe when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club in October 2012.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

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Pecan Crusted Pork Chops with Pumpkin Butter

This is a recipe adapted from one on Allrecipes.com. A perfect dish for fall.

Pecan Crusted Pork with Pumpkin Butter

Ingredients:

1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree

¾ cup apple juice

¼ cup brown sugar

⅛ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup pecan chips

¾ cup soft bread crumbs

4 boneless pork chops

Salt

2 tbsp oil

1 tbsp butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°.

Whisk together pumpkin puree, apple juice, brown sugar, cloves, and cinnamon in a saucepan until smooth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until the mixture has reached the consistency of applesauce. About 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine pecan chips and bread crumbs in a shallow dish. Season pork chops with salt and press into the pecan mixture to coat.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add breaded pork chops and cook until golden brown on both sides, about 4 minutes per side. Remove skillet from stovetop and place in preheated oven until pork chops are cooked through, about 20 minutes, depending on thickness.

Stir butter into pumpkin butter and serve over the warm pork chops.

Makes 4 servings.

I changed a few things from the original. I changed the sugar in the pumpkin butter from ¾ cup white to ¼ cup brown. Reviewers of the original recipe said it had too much sugar, and I already had the brown sugar out for another recipe, so I used that instead of white. I also added the butter to it. It is called pumpkin butter, after all! I just thought it would help the texture out a bit.

The original recipe called for cooking the pork chops through completely on the stove top. But a lot of people said theirs didn't get done that way because they were thicker than what the recipe called for, ½". Mine were thicker than that too, so I browned them in the skillet and finished them off in the oven. And they came out perfectly. Also, the original recipe didn't call for salting the chops before breading, but I didn't think that pecans and bread crumbs would be enough seasoning.

If you can't find pecan chips at the store, get chopped pecans, and either chop them a little finer or use your food processor. They need to be smaller than the chopped pecans I saw at my store, which is what the original recipe called for. But when I saw the pecan chips, I knew they would be perfect and wouldn't need any further chopping.

Outside of fall, these chops would be great without the pumpkin butter. I really liked them a lot.

I served these pork chops with Roasted Acorn Squash. Yummy!

Shared at Sharing Sunday at Everyday Sisters

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Roasted Chickpeas

This is something I saw on a blog a while back and headed right to the kitchen to make! Super easy snack.

Roasted Chickpeas

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)

Olive oil

Salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°.

Drain and rinse chickpeas. Spread out on a kitchen towel and pat dry. Place chickpeas on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt.

Bake about 40 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Makes 4 servings (as a snack).

Not much to say about it, except make sure they are really dry before drizzling the oil on them. They won't get crispy if they aren't completely dry.

Oh, and you can add any kind of spices to these to make them a little more interesting (although they are pretty darn tasty on their own!). I saw a recipe for roasted chickpeas with Moroccan spices that sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll try that next time.

Apparently they sell these as street food in Mediterranean countries.

And even though I put 4 servings, Jim and I ate nearly one whole can by ourselves. :)

Enjoy!

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Ginger Garlic Linguine

This is a Taste of Home recipe that I discovered this summer. Makes a simple and very tasty side dish for a variety of main dishes.

Ginger Garlic Linguine

Ingredients:

12 oz. uncooked linguine

6 tbsp butter

2 tbsp onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp fresh ginger, minced

2 tsp garlic, minced

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Salt

Parsley or cilantro for garnish

Directions:

Cook linguine according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, saute the onions, ginger, and garlic in butter for 3-4 minutes or until onions are tender. Drain the linguine; add to skillet and toss to coat. Sprinkle with cheese and salt. Garnish with chopped parsley or cilantro.

Makes 6 servings.

I decreased the butter from the original recipe and changed some of the spices (it had cayenne, I think). I like this dish because probably 85% of the main dishes I make have either garlic or ginger (and many have both!), so this is one of my go-to side dishes.

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Roasted Sweet Potato Chowder with Bacon Fontina Grilled Cheese Sandwich

While I was working on my meal planning for October yesterday (yes, I'm behind!), I came upon a recipe called "Sweet Potato Soup." I thought it sounded good, but when I read it, I thought a chowder would be even better. I went to Allrecipes.com and they only had one recipe for sweet potato chowder and it didn't sound like what I had in mind. Then I went to Food.com and they had about 20 sweet potato chowder recipes, but none of them were quite what I had in mind either. So I just made up my own recipe. I was so excited about it that I decided to make it for dinner last night. I had everything on hand except the bacon, and Jim was more than happy to stop by the store in order to pick some up.

This is how it turned out.

Roasted Sweet Potato Chowder with Bacon

Ingredients:

2 large sweet potatoes

½ onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

¼ cup butter

¼ cup flour

3 cups milk

1 cup chicken stock

1 cup corn

4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled

1½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground nutmeg

Directions:

Peel and cube one of the sweet potatoes. Boil or steam until tender. Meanwhile, wrap the other sweet potato in foil and bake at 425° for an hour and 15 minutes, or until very soft. Unwrap, peel, and mash. Set both mashed and cubed sweet potatoes aside.

In a large pot, saute onion, garlic, and ginger in butter until onions are soft but not browned. Add flour and cook for a minute or so. Slowly whisk in the milk and chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Once it starts to thicken, reduce heat to low add mashed sweet potato. Stir well to completely incorporate it. Then add potato cubes. If the cubes look a bit large to you once inside the pot, break them up a little bit with a potato masher. Add corn, bacon, salt, and nutmeg. Stir until well combined.

Garnish with a little bit of extra bacon crumbles, if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

Note: Serving size is a guess. Jim put away the leftovers so I didn't see how much was left, but it seemed like it made a lot.

Bacon Fontina Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients:

4 slices bread

Butter

2 oz. Fontina cheese, thinly sliced

4 slices bacon, cooked

Directions:

Butter one side of each slice of bread with the butter. Place a few slices of cheese and two slices of bacon on the unbuttered side of one piece of bread and top with another one, buttered side up. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Heat skillet over medium-high heat and place sandwiches on. When brown and crispy on one side, flip over and cook until brown and crispy on the other side.

Remove from heat and place on cooling rack for a few minutes before cutting in half.

Makes 2 servings.

This turned out perfectly. It was just what I had in mind: creamy sweet potato flavor running throughout the chowder, with small chunks as well. I had to use two different cooking methods to achieve this, but it's not that much work and it was well worth it. I used the Pampered Chef microcooker to boil the cubes. Just put them in, cover them with water, and microwave for about 11 minutes. But you could easily do that on the stove top. And how easy is it to throw a potato in the oven?

And the bacon grilled cheese sandwiches were the perfect accompaniment. You can use any cheese you like, of course. But I had some leftover Fontina from another recipe and it worked really well. I only had enough for one sandwich, so I made Jim's with that, and I used some leftover Monterey Jack for mine. That was really good too. The fontina reminds me a little bit of Swiss, but not as bitter.

Makes a pretty chowder, I think.

Look at all that ooey gooey goodness!

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Fall Spice Apple Dip

This is a yummy apple dip that I came up with recently. Super easy.

Fall Spice Apple Dip

Ingredients:

½ cup sour cream

3 tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

2 medium apples

Directions:

Combine sour cream, brown sugar, and pie spice. Stir well to combine. Core apples and cut into wedges. Arrange apple wedges on a plate around the dip.

Makes 4 servings.

Doesn't get much easier than that. I'm not a big apple lover, so I usually like to have some kind of a dip with my apples. I like that caramel dip from the store, but if you don't have any of that, this is easy to put together in just a few minutes.

I'm not happy that summer has left us, but I do enjoy making fall recipes. More to come!

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Slow Cooker Six Layer Brownies

This is a recipe I got from a blog where the author made a resolution to use her slow cooker every day in 2008. She did all kinds of dishes from appetizers to desserts. This is one of the desserts that caught my eye.

Slow Cooker Six Layer Brownies

Ingredients:

1 package brownie mix

¼ cup butter, melted

1 egg

¼ cup water

1 can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup chocolate chips

½ cup rolled oats

½ cup shredded coconut

½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts)

Directions:

Combine brownie mix, butter, egg, and water. Pour into slow cooker (I used a 6 qt.). Smooth out the top. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the brownie mix and smooth out. Sprinkle on chocolate chips, oats, coconut, and nuts.

Put on lid and cook on low. Mine took about 6 hours, but start checking it at around 4 hours by poking a fork into the middle of it to see if it comes out clean. You can also tell it is getting done when the edges start to pull away from the sides of the crock.

Makes about 8 brownies.

Note: The yield is a total guess; since mine ended up in a jumble on the serving plate, I can't really tell how many brownies it made.

I call mine "Six Layer Brownies" while hers were five, because I added the chocolate chips. A reviewer on that blog suggested it and I thought it sounded like a good addition!

The only bad thing about these brownies is that they are really difficult to get out of the slow cooker. I thought about using a slow cooker liner, but changed my mind. When it was time to serve, I was regretting that decision. I think it would be really easy to lift the whole thing out and then cut it. I tried lifting it out with two pancake turners, but one side of it crumbled on me.

Looks so pretty in the crock.

Not so pretty on the serving dish!

I didn't really care for these brownies too much, but that's because I don't like coconut or nuts. I made them for Jim (in lieu of a birthday cake), and he loved them, so that's all that matters. He ate his with ice cream.

If you don't like coconut or nuts, you can omit those. I was able to pick some of them off, and the brownie with just the chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk was pretty awesome. The sweetened condensed milk comes out looking and tasting like caramel.

I would call my first attempt at baking in the slow cooker a success!

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Gorgonzola Penne

This is a recipe I made for my sister and her husband for their wedding anniversary. I got it from Food.com, formerly known as Recipezaar.

Gorgonzola Penne

Ingredients:

1 lb. penne

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 shallots, minced

2 tbsp flour

1 cup chicken broth

⅓ cup heavy whipping cream

8 oz. gorgonzola, crumbled

3 tbsp fresh sage, finely chopped

½ tsp salt

Directions:

Boil penne according to package directions. Drain well.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil and butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and shallots and saute until soft and translucent.

Add flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in the chicken broth and heavy whipping cream. When it comes to a boil, turn heat down to low and add gorgonzola, sage, and salt. Stir until cheese melts into sauce.

Add cooked pasta to skillet and toss to coat. Garnish with more chopped sage, if desired.

Makes 4 servings.

You have to really like gorgonzola to like this dish, but if you do, then it's awesome. Creamy and tangy. We served it with grilled steak, green beans, caesar salad, and garlic breadsticks. A note on the number of servings: It makes 4 servings as an entree. If you are serving it as a side dish, like we did, it will make much more than 4 servings, probably more like 8.

Note: Gorgonzola should not be eaten by pregnant women. There is a restriction on soft, unpasteurized cheeses for pregnant women. It was one thing that my sister and I really missed when we were pregnant. So this would be a great dish to make for a gorgonzola lover who just had a baby! :)

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Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Soup

This is another original creation that I came up with. If you haven't noticed by now, I love chipotle, and decided to make a soup with it.

Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter

½ onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 chipotle, minced, with 4 tbsp adobo sauce

3 tbsp flour

3 cups whole milk

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups cooked chicken

1 cup corn

3 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Cilantro

Tortilla chips

Directions:

Heat butter in large pot over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, chipotle, and adobo sauce. Saute until onions are translucent but not browned. Sprinkle in the flour and cook another minute or two. Slowly add the milk and chicken stock, whisking thoroughly to combine. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add chicken, corn, and cheese. Heat until cheese is melted.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with tortilla chips.

Makes 4 servings.

It turned out really well. It has a nice heat to it, making it the perfect soup for those cold winter nights. I wouldn't make it in the summer! You can easily adjust the heat by increasing or decreasing the chipotle. Like the recipe says, I used one chile (seeds removed), and 4 tbsp of the adobo sauce. Make sure you mince the chipotle really finely because you don't want to bite into a big chunk of it.

Jim really liked it too. He suggested adding either rice or black beans to it. Those would both be good additions.

I served this with a nice sweet cornbread. That turned out to be the perfect complement to the spicy soup. Jim even crumbled some of his cornbread into his soup and he said that was really good too.

I will definitely be adding this to my December meal plan. And probably January, and February, and maybe even March! Gotta love Michigan winters! (Not really.)

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