Pork Chili Verde

This meal ended up being a rushed meal eaten on the fly. We were trying to get out family garden ready so I had to run back home to finish it off, eat my share and get the kids ready and take it to them. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though which was good. I love rice but some of my kids aren't the biggest fans, oh well I'm mean and make them eat it anyway ;) One thing I would try next time is to try and make the sauce thicker, well if I wanted to use it in a tortilla like the recipe said to do. It was a yummy recipe though and yet again another crock pot recipe which I love :)
1 boneless pork sirloin roast (3 lbs.), cut into 1-inch cubes
4 med. carrots, sliced
1 med. onion, thinly sliced
1 c. minced fresh cilantro
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 T. canola oil
1 can (28 oz.) green enchilada sauce
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1 T. cornstarch
1/4 c. cold water
Rice
Flour tortillas

In a large skillet, saute pork, carrots, onion, cilantro and garlic in oil in batches until pork is browned. Transfer to a crock pot, add enchilada sauce and jalapenos. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or until meat is tender. In a small bowl combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into pork mixture. Cover and cook on high for 30 minutes or until thickened. I may have not cooked it long enough afterwards thicken it, I would suggest doing that if you want to eat it with tortillas. Yummy Scrummy, ENJOY :)

Asian Chicken Thighs

Once again another recipe from one of my new cookbooks and this one is DEFINITELY a BIG KEEPER!!! As soon as my husband tried it he said that it needed to go on our regular rotation and I totally agree. There are only a few things I would change about the recipe, one being I would use boneless thighs and the other is I would double the recipe so we could have more chicken for each of us and for leftovers :)
5 boneless chicken thighs, skinned (I'm going to use boneless next time)
5 tsp. olive oil
1/3 c. warm water
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 T. orange juice
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. ketchup
1 T. white vinegar
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. Chinese five-spice powder

In a large skillet over med. heat, cook chicken in oil for 8-10 minutes on each side until cooked. In a small bowl, whisk warm water, brown sugar, orange juice, soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar, garlic, red pepper and five-spice powder. Pour sauce over chicken and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer uncovered for 30-35 minutes or until chicken is tender, turning occasionally. The recipe said to mix 2 T. of cold water and 2 tsp. of cornstarch together and then add it to the sauce to thicken it but my sauce was already thick enough so I skipped that step. I served this with white rice which was yummy, especially with the sauce drizzled on top.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

I've been meaning to make this recipe for a couple of weeks and finally got round to it tonight. It was WAY easier than I thought it was going to be as well which was nice. Even though I'm loving trying to recipes sometimes I get put off when the recipe seems like it's a lot of work. The thing that kept putting me off this recipe was making the meatballs, I don't know why. Anyway they were SOOO easy and it was fun doing something I had never done before. This is another recipe from the school cookbook, it was submitted by Shari Bruce. My kids LOVED the meatballs but really aren't fans of rice. They ate the meatballs SUPER fast but it took them a while to eat the rice but I'm a mean Mom and I make them eat everything. I thought it was REALLY yummy too but it was quite high in calories, luckily I hadn't eaten tons during the day so I had enough calories to spare. The whole meal was 2308 calories. I made 24 meatballs so I just divided the calorie amount by that and just multiplied that number by how many meatballs I ate so I guess the meal could have been less but I was hungry :) You'll have to add the rice too, I used brown rice so for 1/2 c. it was 150 calories.
1 1/2 lb. raw hamburger
1 beaten egg
1/2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
dash of garlic salt
dash of onion salt
dash of nutmeg
2 slices of bread (I used 3 slices of whole wheat bread)

Mix ingredients together and form into balls (I made 24 meatballs, they were a good size). Bake meatballs for 20 minutes at 350F. Drain well.

1 15 oz. can pineapple tidbits, drain and reserve liquid (I used a 20 oz. can)
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 T. cornstarch
1/4 c. vinegar
1 c. reserved pineapple juice and water (I just used all the reserved juice)
2 tsp. beef bouillon granules
2 T. soy sauce

On top of stove, combine cornstarch, bouillon, vinegar, sugar, salt, soy sauce and pineapple juice. Cook until bubbly and thickened. Add green pepper and pineapple tidbits. Add meatballs to pineapple mixture and stir gently until all meatballs are coated. Simmer for 15 minutes. Serve over rice. Freezes well so you could double the recipe and freeze half for another day. To freeze put meatballs into a freezer bag and pour cooled sauce over meatballs. When ready to use thaw and simmer for 15 minutes.

Russian Chicken

Does this look familiar??? As I was making this I thought , this looks a lot like the sticky chicken I made last week. I had never used Russian dressing before so I wasn't sure how this was going to taste but it sure looked the same. I didn't have to flour and brown the chicken with this recipe but I don't think you have to with the sticky chicken either. Anyway once we tried this it did actually taste different. It has more of a sweet and sour flavour which I really like. Something I'm really starting to love about cooking though is how I'm learning things I can try next time I make something like this. Maybe trying a totally different sauce to change the flavour or adding fruit and other things to make it a true sweet and sour dish. Anyway I really liked this recipe and what made it even better was that it was SOOO easy to put together, great for a Mom of 5 kids and that's something REALLY important for me.
1 bottle of Russian dressing
1 jar of apricot preserves
1 packet of Lipton onion soup mix (I used the store brand)
5-6 chicken breasts

Put chicken pieces into a 9x13 baking dish (I cut my pieces of chicken in half). Mix dressing, apricot preserves and onion soup mix together. Pour mixture over the chicken. Bake at 350F for 1 hour. Serve over rice (I've been using instant brown rice which is 150 calories for 1/2 cup). There is 3220 calories in this recipe. I divided it by 8 so each serving was 402.5 calories (most of the calories actually come from the sauce so if you don't have very much of the sauce it would be less calories). This recipe is from the school cookbook again and was provided by one of my good friends Andrae Seward.

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Besides desserts and a few other things, one of my most favourite things to eat are soups. I came across this soup a few weeks ago and have excited to try it. I think wild rice is super good so this soup combined a lot of food I like. It seemed like most of my kids liked this meal too, I did have to pick the beans out for one of my daughters but other than that it was a success :) This recipe came from one of the new blogs I found. She has a really good dessert I want to try too, I have all the ingredients to make it but haven't. I should have made it this past weekend when I was eating too much, dang it ;)

1 c. chicken or turkey (shredded or cubed)
1 T. chicken base (or 2 cubes)
2 (10.5 oz.) cans cream of chicken soup
5 2/3 c. water
1 small box Uncle Ben's long wild rice (and seasoning packet)
1 small bag frozen mixed vegetables (any kind you like or none if you would prefer)

In a large pot combine water, chicken base, and wild rice. Bring to a boil. After it starts to boil, reduce the heat and cover to cook the rice (following time recommendations on the box). Add the vegetables and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the soup and the chicken. Stir until everything is heated. This recipe has 1540 calories in it which isn't very much. It could probably serve around 8 people which makes it 210 calories per serving, not bad :)