Pot Roast for tacos

Last week there was a sale on beef roasts.  They were buy one get one free! I got 2 roasts for $15
I wanted to make a beef for tacos and burritos.  I think they turned out great!

And the best part, I will get 2 meals out of 1 roast!

I put a frozen roast in the crockpot. I cooked it for 8 hours on low, then turned it to warm for 2 hours.

Here you go:

3 pound Beef Chuck Roast, frozen
1/2 cup taco seasoning
2 cans Kroger diced salsa style fire roasted tomatoes with Jalapenos
1 can water

Sprinkle taco seasoning on both sides of the roast. Cover with tomatoes and water.
Cook on low for 8 hours.  It will be fall apart tender.
Remove from crock pot and pull apart with forks.

I served it on flour tortillas and crunchy corn tortillas.

I also used 1 cup of the beef stewing juices to add to my rice water. It was yummy too!

Why am I so busy???

In the last month I have not posted.  I have only worked 2 days a week if that.  Why am I so busy? I need to get my booty in gear and do something! 

I work tomorrow so I know that not much will get done!  Oh well, maybe Wendesday!

Dinner tonight is an old recipe.  I think I have posted it before:

Grilled Marinated Pork Tenderloin with a salad.

I may make sone tater tots for the kids if they want them. 

I do plan to not over cook the pork tonight like I did the last time I cooked it.

I will let you know how it turns out!

Grilled Marinated Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons sherry

1 1/2 teaspoons dried minced onion

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pinch garlic powder

2 (3/4 pound) pork tenderloins

Directions

Place soy sauce, brown sugar, sherry, dried onion, cinnamon, olive oil, and a touch of garlic powder in a large resealable plastic bag. Seal, and shake to mix. Place pork in bag with marinade, seal, and refrigerate for 6 to 12 hours.

Preheat grill for high heat.

Lightly oil grate. Place tenderloins on grill, and discard marinade. Cook 20 minutes, or to desired doneness. Slice into medallions, and serve.

I'll blog the recipe this weekend!

I am the biggest procrastinator! Is that even spelled right?
I have been cooking a lot lately. Not very healthy but VERY yummy!
A list of the things I have made in the last few weeks but have not blogged:
Cream Cheese Bars
Mushroom Soup with (or without) Meatballs
Chicken and Bacon Mac 'n Cheez
Microwave Caramel Popcorn
Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies

Recipe 1 of the 5 I will post over the next few days:

The Cream Cheese Bars have been in my recipe box for over 10 years. I don't think I have even made them in the time that Ashlyn has been alive.
No Photos of this, but man are they tasty.
I made them for Easter. I made WAY too many of them, we ended up tossing half of them out. My flavor combonations for easter were: 1/2 Cherries with chocolate 1/2 Just Chocolate. For the other pan, I mixed peanut butter into cream cheese mixture until it tasted more like pb and less like cream cheese. I put chocolate chips only on half of the mixture.


CREAM CHEESE BARS
(Rose's recipe - mellowyellowof3)
2 pkg crescent rolls
2-8 oz cream cheese
1 cup sugar
2 t vanilla
blueberries (or fruit of your choice, even chocolate) fresh or frozen

Topping
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 t cinnamon
Mix together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla.
In a 9 by 13 pan roll out one can of crescent rolls (crease all the openings together)
Spread mixture all on top. Add on top a drained bag of blueberries (or any fruit you might have that may sound appealing. Blueberries is our favorite. Or even nothing works for plain cream cheese bars.)
Spread second pkg of crescent rolls on top and again crease openings together (as good as you can)
Melt butter and brush on top. Sprinkle mixed topping over butter and bake 350 for 30 minutes.

I make some Yummy Lemon Bars!

We had some friends over. Their daughter is gluten free. We were only serving deserts.
I googled Gluten free lemon bars. No reason why I just wanted to make them. I found this cool website, www.howtocooklikeyourgrandmother.com Drew writes a blog and posts step by step directions. Thank you Drew Kime for the inspiration!
The Lemon bars were not GF. But they looked very yummy. I scrolled through the comments and someone, asked about making them GF. He gave a suggestion, then someone who is GF gave a recipe for the crust. I used that recipe and tweaked his Lemon Bar filling to reflect my own style. Below is the recipe for the lemon bars, As I made them. I have not made the regular crust, only a GF crust. I added soy free to the title since there are so many people who are eating soy free too. I didn't do anything to make them soy free, they just are.


Gluten and Soy Free Lemon Bars

Crust:
Gluten Free Crust: *Non-Gluten Free Crust:
1C Rice Flour *2 C Flour
½ C Corn Starch *1 C Butter
½ C Powdered Sugar *½ C Powdered Sugar
¾ C Butter, room temperature

Filling:
2 C Sugar
4 Eggs
4 Tbl Rice Flour for GF, All- Purpose for Non-GF
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
+/- ¼ C Lemon Juice, about 2 lemons, the more lemon, the longer you cook it.
Lemon Zest from 2 lemons

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For Crust:
Combine all ingredients in a mixer. Pat into a 9x13 pan in an even layer. Bake 20 minutes. Do not brown.
For Filling:
Combine all ingredients, making sure not to whip the eggs. Pour into pre-baked crust. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes.
It should be set, not giggly. Allow to cool. Cut before putting in the fridge. Store cut bars, covered, in a single layer for up to 4 day, if they last that long!

Marinated Pork Tenderloin!

The diet has not been going so well. There is WAY too much good food out there!

This is a pork tenderloin recipe that first I made last summer. It was good. I followed the suggestions on the website I got it from and was not as happy with the results.

This time I followed it as written, I did over cook it but MAN was it amazing!!
Dale is not a fan of most pork. He likes bacon & sausage (who doesn't) and loves to smoke pork shoulders. Even Dale said this was good and gave me the go ahead to make it again!

Here is what I started with. I think the marinade cost around $2. I did double the recipe but a single amount of marinade is more than enough for the 2 pork tenderloins that it calls for.

I found Pork Tenderloin on sale at Sprouts a few weeks ago, it was in a vacuum sealed bag so I knew it would keep in the fridge for a bit.

We paired it with grilled zucchini, frozen peas and smashed red potatoes.

Here is my estimated costs: We served 6 adults and 2 kids.

Marinade $4

Pork Tenderloins $10

Red Potatoes $3

Zucchini $2

Peas $0.50

Total: $19.50 or $2.44 per person!

Marinated Pork Tenderloin

Via, allrecipes.com
Ingredients
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons sherry
1 1/2 teaspoons dried minced onion
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pinch garlic powder
2 (3/4 pound) pork tenderloins
Directions
Place soy sauce, brown sugar, sherry,
dried onion, cinnamon, olive oil, and a touch of garlic powder in a large
resealable plastic bag. Seal, and shake to mix. Place pork in bag with
marinade, seal, and refrigerate for 6 to 12 hours.
Preheat grill for high heat.
Lightly oil grate. Place tenderloins on
grill, and discard marinade. Cook 20 minutes, or to desired doneness. Slice
into medallions, and serve.

If you find it on allrecipes.com, the reviews say to make a batch of the marinade, simmer it until it makes a sauce. We did this last time and there was SO much sugar in the marinade that it made a caramel sauce. Not good on PORK! The meat needs the sugar in the marinade, it gives it a nice crisp outside, it does not make it sweet. The sherry is also an important ingredient as well, please do not try to sub it out with something else. The bottle I bought was $3 at fry's, It will last me a while.

Now I get to find other ways to use it! Also, remember, it is a liquor, so they will card you if you try and buy it!

"White Girl" chilaquiles

I love that the boys at work like to cook food for us. I have a favorite, chilaquilies! Oh man, can they make some yummy stuff! I was first introduced to these at a local mexican restaurant. Theirs are pretty good but they go NOTHING on my boys at work.

I went to work yesterday and I talked about the dinner that I was planning to make. I was so excited! I love my Doritos Casserole! Sounds weird, Doritos in a casserole?

I got the recipe from my cousin Kelly Cook. Yep, her last name is cook, so let her do it!

So, I made dinner last night, it was as good as I remember. It has been a while since I made it.
I took the leftovers to work with me today so that they could try it and Tracie said it tastes like "white girl chilaquilies" So that is what I will rename it!
I have been making this for YEARS!!!!
We love it, I make 2 changes; I use less chicken, who needs 6 chicken breasts? I also add the green chilies to the layers. My kids are not huge fans, so I make half with and half without.

Green Chilies Casserole

4-6 chicken Breasts, cooked and chopped
2 cans diced green chilies
2 cans cream of chicken soup
16oz Sour Cream
3/4c Chicken Broth
14oz bag doritos, smashed into small pieces
1pound Cheese, grated

In a large bowl combine Chilies, Soup, Sour Cream and Chicken Broth.
Grease a 9x13 baking dish.
Layer 1/2 crushed chips, 1/2 chicken, 1/2 soup mixture, 1/2 cheese. Repeat.
Refrigerate 30 minutes to 2 hours. This is important, it allows the chips to soften.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
I like it with sour cream!

I have made this with cream of mushroom soup and ground beef. It is a bit different but still good.

Since the canned items are in 2's you can make a half recipe of this!

Crock Pot Tacos

I have heard many people talk about the website crockpot365.com
I decided to try a recipe.
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2010/10/crockpot-tex-mex-pot-roast-recipe.html

I made tex-mex pot roast.

It was good. Not amazing but good. We used it for taco filling. I hoped it would take on more flavor from the rotel and the chipotle. It really just tasted like tender pot roast.

Now, I used the juice from the meat to make some rice-a-roni. That was good! I used 2 cups of the juice and veggies. I also added 1/2 cup of water to the rice pilaf flavored rice-a-roni. I followed all the directions on the box.

Enjoy.

Tex-mex pot roast

2 pounds boneless beef chuck roast
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1 (15-ounce) can chili beans, undrained
1 (11-ounce) can corn with peppers, undrained
1 (10-ounce) can Rotel (tomatoes and chiles), undrained

Use a 6-quart slow cooker. This is a super simple dump and go
recipe--my favorite kind! The meat was frozen solid when I put it into the
cooker.
After your meat is in, add the chipotle chile powder and all the
canned ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, or on high for 4 to
6. I like to cook it long enough that the meat falls apart--but you may take it
out whenever it reaches your preferred desired tenderness.