Crock Pot BBQ Beef Ribs & Sausage

Sweet and melt in your mouth good without all the fuss. Need I say more?

2(ish) lbs beef ribs
Tex-Joy BBQ Seasoning

1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. coarse grain mustard
3T. liquid smoke
3 cloves garlic, chopped
salt/pepper

1 onion, sliced

1/2 c. Dr. Pepper

1 lb. sausage, sliced on the bias

Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce

Trim ribs of skin and excess fat. Sprinkle on seasoning of your choice. Mix next group of ingredients together. Coat ribs with glaze. Layer ribs and onions in crock pot. Pour Dr. Pepper over the top. (I accidentally forgot to pull in my crock pot and it sat for an hour. I think it might have helped.) After that I realized I wasn't smelling my food like I should have, I went to check on it and then plugged in it. :D Let this cook on high for three hours.

After three hours, I pulled the ribs out and poured on BBQ sauce on the ribs and added the sausage. I then cooked for another two hours on low.

Next time, I would cook the sausage a little to lessen the fat. (And be more cautious when I trim the fat too). Either that or cook it the day before I wanted it, stick it in the refrigerator and then remove the fat and reheat the next day. I would also drain about half of the first liquid off before I added the BBQ sauce. I am assuming this would result in a thicker sauce that could top the BBQ. Don't get me wrong, the flavor was awesome! I will definitely make this again!

Chicken Spaghetti

Valentine's Day was coming this year and I wanted something a little indulgent. We had lots of leftover chicken lying around and me being the frugal one I couldn't let it go to waste. Add cheese to anything and you have the perfect dish. So this might be a little odd, but this blog recipe will have two parts. The first part I made it in the crock pot. Then it wasn't cheesy enough so I tweeked it for leftovers. I'm crazy, I know.

2(ish) cups cooked chicken
1 (ish) cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can diced tomatoes (I used garlic and onion), undrained

1 pound (1/2 loaf velveeta)

cooked spaghetti noodles

Place the chicken in the crock pot. Add tomatoes, cream of mushroom soup and enough chicken broth to make it soupy. (This part makes it very adaptable to however much chicken you have left!) Then thickly slice the velveeta and lay it on top. Simmer on low for 5-6 hours. Serve over cooked noodles.

It turned out okay, not anything spectacular. It didn't become the oozy cheesy that I had expected it to. I think because I let it go for that long in the crock pot (I left the house to teach) the chicken stock boiled and didn't let the velveeta do it's magic. To fix, I would just cook it until it's reheated and all gooey.

Chicken Spaghetti, Redux

To maximize the cheesyness, (I like to add -y to words because I can!) I decided to make a cheese sauce to add to it. To do this, I took about 3/4 pound of velveeta, cut it into cubes and added chicken stock to think it out. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say I used about 1/3 cup of chicken stock. (Psst, I actually warmed this in the microwave until it became smooth and creamy.) Once smooth, I folded it into crock pot chicken spaghetti. This was DELISH!!! This was exactly the way I had planned it.

Next time, I would make this when I was at home so I could monitor and allow it to become creamy because I really think it would. Or if I had the time, I would just make the sauce, throw it in a casserole dish, top with cheese and brown it in the oven. Either way, the second go around was super tastey!!!

Crock Pot Carnitas

Nothing beats authentic and simple Mexican food. These carnitas are super easy to make and with the simplest condiments make a fabulous meal. The best thing is you can use the leftover meat for quesadillas or enchilada casserole.

4 lb pork (shoulder, roast, carnita meat)
1 bottle Miller Chill beer
1/2 fresh orange juice
1/2 bunch cilantro
4 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and pepper

Rub the pork with salt, pepper and garlic. Place in crock pot and pour OJ and beer in crock pot and place cilantro around pork. Let simmer on low for 6 hours.

Serve on corn tortillas with lime wedges, pico, fresh avocado, and crumbled queso fresco. Keep it simple! It's so tasty.

Next time, I would add 2 limes (cut into wedges) to the crock pot while simmering. I was afraid that the Miller Chill would be too limey but it wasn't at all. I would also use a different kind of beer. The Miller Chill just didn't do it for me. I don't know what exactly I'd use, but I'd try something different. I'd also just go ahead and add a whole bunch of cilantro (minus some for the pico). Why the heck not? :D

Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu

Okay, so I can't let you think that everything I make is good. This recipe was an epic fail. I'm not even going to lie. I don't know how it went wrong, it sounded so good in my head. I am determined to revisit this and try it again. But here's what I did so you will know what NOT to do...

In a crockpot, layer:

Chicken Breasts
Ham
Canned Mushrooms
Swiss Cheese

Mix 1 can of cream of chicken and 1 can of cream of broccoli cheese soup and pour over layers. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

I think where I went wrong was with real cheese. I believe cooking it for an extended period of time melted it too much changing the texture and integrity of the dish. I also would stick with cream of mushroom soups. I particularly care for the cream of chicken and broccoli cheese soup, but that's just me. I haven't figured out exactly how to redo this, but I'm gonna find a way!

Chilaquiles

This morning I had to have my car worked on in San Juan which is about 30 miles from the town I'm working in. In case you're wondering there a few things I only trust with select people. I'm very picky about who does my hair, my eyebrows, takes care of my dog and my car falls into this category as well. A friend of a friend of my uncle's referred me over here, so here I am. Nevertheless, the point of this post is food! Being stranded for a few hours, I decided to walk down to the first restaurant by the shop which the owner had recommended. It was a small place in a strip mall so I was a little cautious. Everything looked too new to fall in the 'greasy hole in the wall reaaaallly good mexican food' category. The breakfast menu was overwhelming with options. Eggs with anything you could imagine, some I couldn't identify what it was. Two different kinds of migas, three different kinds of chilaquiles. I was intrigued. I've never had authentic migas OR chilaquiles and really didn't know the difference. After asking the waitress a few questions, I decided on chilaquiles rojo con chorizo. See, migas and chilaquiles both have fried tortilla bits in them, but where they differ is migas are cooked with eggs and chilaquiles are simply covered with sauce, maybe a meat and queso fresco. I ordered scrambled eggs on the side as well.

Chilaquiles
Picture from www.chezpim.com

Migas
Picture from www.roadfood.com

As you can see from these pictures (that I didn't take), the migas are more egg-y, while the chilaquiles are more sauce-y.

The plate came out with this wonderful red conncotion on a third of the plate with beans, fried potatoes and my eggs, which were real for the record and not the fake powdered kind. Although the above picture is not my meal, it was very similar, minus the pepper and tomato with a little bit more sauce. My first bite and I was hooked. The tortillas were still crunchy and the rojo sauce was the perfect blend of spices and heat. The chorizo was crumbled enough to not interfere with the simplicity of the dish. A bite of chilaquiles and a bite of eggs and I was in mexican food heaven. I swear I have a mexican grandmother somewhere in my genes because nothing is better than homemade mexican food. Shortly after I received my order, the four staff of the restaurant sat down and enjoyed breakfast together. You know it's good when you see the people that cook and serve it all day sit down and eat it. I only hope I have a reason to travel to San Juan again so I can try something else from there!

Crockpot Gumbo

3/4 c. oil
3/4 c. flour

1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced (including leaves)
1 bunch green onion, chopped (roots removed, including green tops)
4 cloves garlic, chopped

2# chicken breasts
1# sausage, sliced
4-6 c. chicken stock

red pepper
pepper
salt

*I still don't have a camera, I might insert a stock photo later. Sorry!*

Chop all your veggies first! I did not use bell peppers because I frankly don't care for them. I instead used a whole bunch of green onions and included all the tops as well.

Heat oil in a skillet until hot. Slowly whisk in flour until blended. Brown flour to a dark brown, not black. (I've heard this can only take ten minutes, but I was too afraid of burning it so it took me upwards of forty five minutes.) As soon as it reaches the correct color, remove from heat and throw in the veggies. Stir around, cover the veggies with the roux and sautee with the residual heat left in the pan.

Dump the roux and veggies in the crock pot. Add chicken (I prefer dark meat because it takes to longer cooking in the crock pot, white meat has a tendency to dry out) and sausage. Add enough chicken broth (I actually used chicken and beef because I had some open from the last time I cooked) to cover the chicken and sausage. Add salt, pepper and red pepper to taste. Cook on low allllllllll day. Seriously, I put mine on a 10:00 in the morning and we ate it at 5:30 in the evening.

Gumbo is one of those amazing things that you can simmer forever and the better it gets. If your chicken hasn't fallen apart, use a fork and gently shred it before you serve. Serve over cooked rice with some file, Tony's and Tabasco. This stuff is so simple, but sooo good! I made a whole 4 quart full and it was all gone after one sitting!

Recipe in the Making

I got a crock pot for Christmas!! And yes, I actually asked for it! Now that I have one, it's my new obsession. For the next month, I plan to use my crock pot every Saturday while I'm away at indoor drumline rehearsals. I have been researching crockpot recipes for the past two weeks and they all seem to look the same. Pot roast. Chicken. BBQ meat. What about some variety? There's a lady who cooked something in her crock pot EVERY DAY of the year last year and didn't get too tired. I figured surely I can cook something once a week and not get bored. One of my favorite dishes I haven't made in a while is Hawaiian chicken. Usually I cook it in a foil pouch in the oven, but I'm thinking maybe I can do it in the crock pot...Hmmmm. I think I can. I'll let you know.

*And I promise to update with my first crock pot recipe and pictures soon!