Crock Pot Meal: Beef Fajitas

Slow Cooked Beef Fajitas adapted from Ring around the Rosies

 Placed in a tortilla shell and top with your favorite toppings! Here I used sharp cheddar cheese and plain greek yogurt (makes a great substitute for sour cream!)

• 1 lb beef round steak cut into strips
• 1 8 oz cans diced tomatoes w/ chiles
• 1 small onion
• 1 green pepper, cut into strips
• 1 red pepper, cut into strips
• 2 tsp cilantro, 2 cloves garlic, minced, 2 tsp chili powder , 2 tsp cumin, salt and pepper to taste
• 1 jalapeno chopped 

Cook on low 5-6 hours (for me it was more like 10. And the food was still good!). Scoop with slotted spoon onto flour (or corn) tortillas, alternatively serve a top rice (although then it's no longer a fajita). Garnish! Ideas include sour cream (or plain greek yogurt), avocado, shredded cheese and pico de gallo.

This meal was easy to make and tasted pretty good. I know you could make this easier (and with a similar outcome) just by stir frying it but I do still love the convenience of coming home to something already warm after a long day. The only real change I would make would be to add some salt to the meat. You just need a little more salt (perhaps a teaspoon or two) to better bring out the flavor. Additionally, I served this alone, but I think I need to add a side. Spanish rice perhaps? Let me know if you have any good ideas.

Crock pot meal: Sausage and Shrimp Gumbo

Sausage and Shrimp Gumbo adapted from Whole Foods

Doesn't it look good? This isn't true gumbo, but it still makes a tasty supper. 

• 3/4 lb bone-in chicken legs (what we had in the freezer)
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 potato, sliced into 1" pieces
• 1 package frozen spinach
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes, with liquid
• 1-2 Tbsp hot sauce
• 3/4 lb andouille sausage, sliced into 1/2" slices
• Shrimp

Combine chicken legs, onion, bell pepper, celery, broth, potato, spinach, bay leaf, tomatoes, salt and pepper, and hot sauce in a 5 qt. crock pot (3.5 qt works too, but it's a tight fit). Cook on low for 8 hrs. 30 minutes before eating, add the sliced andouille sausage and shrimp. Serve over rice.

I had a slightly difficult time finding andouille sausage. I ended up using Johnsonville Andouille sausage. My mom used to buy this sausage occasionally for our family dinners. It is delicious! But I think if you ate it every day you would turn into a sausage :) Additionally, instead of fresh shrimp I used frozen shrimp (and they were very small ones). I did turn up the crockpot to high when I arrived home, as I thought the mixture had a little too much liquid so I wanted to boil some off. I would probably add only 1 cup of chicken broth next time, and maybe even drain some of the tomato liquid. If your rice is slightly dry however, the extra moisture helps and makes the rice taste very good. I would also suggest not freezing your potatoes. My potato turned a very unattractive brown/black color. Next time, chop your potato the morning you plan on making this (or maybe in the fridge overnight).

We ate this for dinner one night (my boyfriend had a double serving) and then dinner again the next night (and there are still some left overs), so about 7-9 servings. He really enjoyed this one, although he suggested that maybe meat without bones would be better since everything else is very soft. I really liked this meal, although if you are expecting this to be close to real gumbo it is not. To me it had enough flavor, and even with the 2 Tbsp hot sauce, I could taste it without being overwhelmed by it.

This meal is definitely going to stay on the crockpot rotation :)

Inaugural Post

Yay my first post!

As a very busy research assistant/graduate student, I sometimes don't return home until late in the evening. As my stomach growls, I try to figure out what to cook. Generally hurried and unprepared cooking does not make for the best food (unless you are my college roommate Kat who can make anything!). To overcome this, I have started to become an avid slow cooker. There is something wonderful about coming home to a nice warm meal! Meal planning is also great for the wallet, and has cut my grocery budget by half!

Here's what I've planned for our next 7 meals (sources in parenthesis):

Slow Cooker White Chili (making 1/2 the original) (Whole Foods)
Slow Cooker Chickpea and Lentil Stew (Whole Foods)
Slow Cooker Pork and Cider Stew (Whole Foods)
Slow Cooker Pot Roast (Whole Foods)
Sausage and Shrimp Gumbo (Whole Foods)
Slow Cooked Beef Fajitas (Ring around the Rosies)
Cilantro Lime Chicken with corn and Black Beans (Six Sisters)

I started out by finding recipes from Melissa Fallis (here). Following her numerous posts, I started to do mainly meat (to me veggies turn out too soggy and tasteless depending on the dish), but my boyfriend thought I needed more veggies (boys can be picky - if there is too much meat he says something, but if there is no meat he says something :) ) Melissa seems to get most of her recipes from Stephanie at Mama and Baby Love. Her ebook on slow cooking looks interesting, but I don't know if I am ready to spend $10 on it when there are so many free sources (thanks to Pinterest and your local library). Jaima, another blogger at Ring Around the Rosies has a lot of freezer cooking (round up here). She references Stephanie a lot (and reviewed her book), and also has freezer recipes for toddlers (not that I have any need for that).

I was really excited when I started poking around that I found recipes for slow cooking from Whole Foods. I am interested in eating healthy, and have an interest in organic food, so getting more veggies and beans into my diet is a good thing. I also like that the Whole Foods recipes don't have a lot of "Condensed Cream of X Soup." I am not sure canned soup is the direction I want to be going.

Anyways, I'm off to the grocery store in a bit to purchase everything. Look for reviews forthcoming!