Slow Cooker Chili

Ingredients

2 pounds ground beef, cooked

2 cans (16 oz) kidney beans, rinsed and drained ****

2 cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can (8oz) tomato sauce

2 medium onions, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbs chili powder

2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Garnishes (shredded cheese, corn bread, tortilla chips)

Add all of the ingredients, except for the garnishes, to a crockpot and cook on low for 8-10 hours.  

***I used almost 3 pounds of ground beef and half way through the cooking time I realized there was way too much beef and not enough beans.  I added a HUGE can of kidney beans and 4 more ounces of tomato sauce because I'd originally opened a 12 ounce can.

Our Review

I'm not sure why I make a face and shy away from making and eating chili.  This is the third time that I have made it, and each time I have eaten it and thought it was pretty darn good.  Apparently I have a mental block.  My only other review is that it definitely needed more beans, even if I hadn't used more beef.

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Easy Crockpot Salsa Chicken

Ingredients

2.5 lbs chicken breasts

1.5 C of salsa

2 limes

2 tbs chili powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

salt and pepper

Add the chicken, salsa, juice of both limes, and chili powder to the slow cooker.  Place the lime halves in.  (We did not do this.)  Cook on low for 8 hours.  When it is done cooking, pull out and discard the limes, shred the chicken, and add the other seasonings.  Set the cooker to warm and continue cooking 30 more minutes.

I added the seasonings in the first step and did not do the additional 30 minutes on warm.

Our review

This was great as a burrito stuffing with lettuce, salsa, cheese, and guacamole.  I was surprised that the next day it didn't taste as good when it was reheated.  It wasn't bad, but it tasted more bland than the night before.  Perhaps it's because the next day I didn't add guacamole and salsa.

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Philly Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 large sweet onion, sliced

2 green bell peppers, sliced

3 chicken breasts, sliced

2 tbs Dale's Steak Seasoning ***

salt and pepper

sliced Mozzarella cheese

Hoagie rolls

Add the onions, peppers, chicken, steak seasoning, salt, and pepper to a slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.  Serve on hoagie rolls with a slice of cheese on top.

*** I could not find this seasoning, and while I was going to look in other stores or create a "copy cat recipe" I ran out of time and ended up adding asian BBQ sauce that I had in the fridge.

Our review

It could be blamed on the seasoning, but I wasn't totally impressed.  It tasted fine, but definitely not like a Philly Chicken sandwich.  In fact, don't those usually have chicken cubed pieces?  Anyway, I would try it again with some tweaks on the seasoning, but I'm not in any rush.

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Cafe Rio's Sweet Pork Barbacoa

Holy cow this was good.

So I was looking online for a recipe like Cafe Rio's Pork Barbacoa because the salad they have is really good, and I found one.  I had to adjust it slightly, really I just had to adjust the measurements and I had to come to terms with using soda since I haven't had soda in over 17 years.  I'd like to try to find a way to do this again without the soda, if that's possible.

Ingredients

2 lbs pork (okay so maybe I used 5ish pounds of Wegmans' bone in pork shoulder blade roast $1.29 a pound)!

2 cans of coke - not diet (okay so maybe I used two bottles)

1 and 1/2 cups of brown sugar

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1/4 c water

1 four-ounce can diced green chilies 

1 10 or 14 ounce can enchilada sauce (See below)

Okay so this recipe has two steps.  Step one is to marinate the pork.  Mix 1/2 cup of the brown sugar and 1 can of Coke and then marinate it with the pork.  You can marinate it for a few hours or overnight, I did it overnight.  Also, since I used a bottle of Coke I poured in about 2/3 of the bottle.  I put all of this in the crockpot.

Step two is the next day.  Drain the liquid from the crock pot and then pour 1/2 a can of Coke (I did about 1/3 a bottle), water, and garlic salt into the crock pot and cook for 3-4 hours on high.  I did 4 hours and it was fine.  

Pull the pork out and shred the meat.  Again, I cheated and just cut it into chunks.  Empty the crock pot juices and put the pork back in.  In a bowl or blender (I used a blender) mix the other half of the can of Coke (I used 1/3 the bottle), the can of chilies (I used about half a can because I don't like spicy things), 3/4 of the can of enchilada sauce (I used about 3/4 of the 14 ounce can but the original recipe said to use 3/4 of a 14 ounce can - which is about 10 ounces if you get a 10 ounce can), and the last cup of brown sugar.  Pour this mix over the pork and heat it in the crock pot until it is warm.

We made burritos with it (pictured above) and gave some with chips, cheese, and salsa to the neighbor to make nachos.  Next time I'd like to make the salad and I'll be prepared with guacamole.

Our Review

This was good.  The mix in the blender didn't smell anything like what I'd eaten at Cafe Rio so I wasn't very optimistic about it, but once I took the first bite of the meat, I was sold.  It's sweet, and ours really wasn't spicy, probably because I barely used any of the chilies.  We will definitely make this again.

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