dinner at home Archives - Page 2 of 3

Oven Baked Tacos

It’s been a long time since we’ve done the Taco Tuesday theme. I mean, heck, for a few years there, Taco Tuesday and Margaritas were an expectation on Tuesday …

That esophageal cancer certainly did change a lot of things in our life.

So the other night, I was digging around in that chest freezer and found a lonely package of ground beef.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of Aldi’s Grass Fed Beef even though it was only $3.99 … it’s got a chewy texture and that just wigs us out a little bit so I was glad to use it for tacos instead of burgers!

I was also thankful that Publix had these taco kits on sale B1G1F when I ran in for something else. I normally do NOT buy the kits but this time I did!

I had a bag of frozen corn in the freezer so that’s what I used as well …

1 pound ground beef

1 onion chopped

12 taco shells (corn, you know the crunchy ones!)

shredded cheese

taco seasoning packet

1/2 cup water

can of corn, drained

avocado sliced

hot sauce of choice

Ready to get your Taco Tuesday on? Let’s do this!

Cook your onion and ground beef in a large skillet til no longer pink. Drain the excess fat off. Might as well go make yourself a margarita while this is going on! I’ll take mine on the rocks with salt please!

Add your corn (drained!) and sprinkle the taco seasoning over all the meat/onion/corn mixture. Pour in your 1/2 cup of water and stir. Let simmer on low heat until the moisture has pretty much cooked out.

Grab a large baking dish and turn the oven on to 350 degrees.

Stand up your shells, the best you can, and fill the base with cheese. As much or as little as you’d like because it’s cheese!

Then top with the meat mixture, making sure to drain as much liquid as possible so the shells don’t get soft …

Top with MORE cheese, because … it’s cheese!

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and you are really ready to start the Taco Tuesday festivities … did I forget to tell you to make yourself a margarita while the meat was cooking??

Top with shredded lettuce and avocado and serve up! Yummy! And 2nd margarita is totally optional!

#TacoTuesday #DinnerAtHome #EatAtHome

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties … go check them out!

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BLT Inspired Chicken Salad

This is a super yummy salad that is Whole30 Compliant, Paleo, Grain Free, Dairy Free, Gluten Free and all that other stuff BUT so stinkin’ good! I promise, you will be so very glad you gave it a try!

It’s easy, and really, REALLY tasty!

*I mean, come on, BACON?*

Continue reading “BLT Inspired Chicken Salad”

Lemon Garlic Chicken – Slow Cooked

I picked up a few (4) packages of boneless skinless thighs a few weekends ago from Target … they were on sale for $3.99 AND had a $2 off coupon … well of course I snagged them! I was polite and left a few packages behind because, you know, I’ve got a chest freezer and a malfunctioning refrigerator … which will be fixed this week, thankfully. And the quote makes me glad I bought some cheap chicken because it’s a LOT to fix a 30 plus year old SubZero fridge … good grief!

all in

So this recipe came from Instagram … FitSlowCookerQueen … if you haven’t checked out her page, GO NOW!! It’s ok, I’ll wait for you to come back!

Oh, hi! Your back!? I hope you clicked the little follow button? 🙂

Ok, so I had all the ingredients thanks to a little stop at Aldi Saturday … and I made this on Sunday in the crockpot!

*Can I just tell you how HARD it is to take pictures in this house??

2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs

2 lemons (1 sliced and the other zested and juiced)

1/2 cup of water (chicken broth is recommended)

1 tsp basil

4 to 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

1/4 tsp black pepper

generous sprinkling of season salt of choice (I used Onion Salt)

1 onion, sliced

Add the onions to the bottom of the crock. Toss the chicken thighs on top of the onions.

Add the rest of the ingredients over the top of the chicken, making sure you season the chicken heavy with your season salt.

Add the lemon slices over the chicken. Put the lid on, cook on high for 2 to 3 hours OR 4 to 6 hours on low.

Once cooked, pull the chicken out of the crock and either slice or shred. Hopefully it’s not falling apart too much on you!

Yup, different time I cooked it … leave the lemons halved or sliced, it’s your call!

Serve with some yummy herbed riced cauliflower (or regular rice if that floats your boat!)

Enjoy!

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties … go check them out!

#DinnerAtHome #Crockpot #SlowCooker #SavingMoney

Gold Chicken Wings – Slow Cooked

These are the BEST! The very very BEST!

They are NOT fried. And are only baked at the end to crisp up …

Bring out the crock pot baby!

I know I constantly talk about the temporary housing …

THIS is what I have to work with … and then I have this thing staring at me as well:

Which is WHY you are seeing a few more crock pot / slow cooker recipes lately …

Ok, so these wings? I got the recipe over at MadeItAteItLovedIt … and you really need to go check her site out, ok?

2 pounds of chicken wings that have been split. I used some from my 10 pound bag I bought from Costco eons ago and are taking up a big chunk of that damn chest freezer

1 cup of mustard based bbq sauce. I used Trader Joe’s Carolina Gold … *mustard base is NOT sweet so it needs to be this type!

1 tbs of hot sauce, give or take a few extra shakes depending on how hot you like it! I used the Tessemaes Buffalo Sauce because I can’t find my Aldi knock off of Franks (still unpacking folks)

Salt and pepper

Ready?

Toss the wings in the crockpot. Measure out your bbq sauce and add the hot sauce to that. Mix it up.

Pour it over the chicken wings.

Put the lid on and set it to 6 hours on low. Ok, so truth be told, I cooked mine for a few hours on high and then knocked it down to low because I got distracted that morning by a girlfriend who came by …

Once cooked, lay the wings out on a baking tray, preferably lined with parchment paper to reduce your clean up headache and either bake at 400 degrees or broil til crispy and golden brown. *The oven we have here in the temporary house does NOT have a broiler. What? No freezer?? No broiler?? Hence, I baked for 5 minutes, flipped and baked again. Yummy results!

Parchment paper saves the day.jpg — Parchment Paper Saves The Day!

Serve up with some celery sticks and blue cheese or ranch dressing. Or just skip that fancy stuff and dig right in!

Enjoy!

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties … go check them out!

BBQ Beef Crockpot Style

You know our temporary housing didn’t have a freezer? All we had was a mid-80s SubZero refrigerator. That worked at about 60% of it’s capacity. And that I was not impressed with. So I made Hubby take me to Best Buy and I got a small chest freezer.

THIS was a huge transition for me! Coming from a 3 freezer home to a ZERO freezer home and THEN a small chest freezer. Whee things were challenging.

The number ONE challenge with a chest freezer is everything goes SOUTH and to the bottom in no time flat. Oh joy.

So when I saw Mary shared this recipe on her site at Sweet Little Blue Bird, I was all about digging out these 2 lovely hunks of beef I knew were in the bottom of said chest freezer.

It was worth the frostbitten fingers and mosquito bites galore. And I’m glad I opted to keep the LARGE crockpot out of storage!

4 pound beef roast

1 1/2 cup ketchup

2 tbs worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbs grey poupon

1 tsp liquid smoke (I remember telling Hubby we had FOUR bottles of this stuff and I could not locate ONE! I finally opened another box and there they were!)

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

Mix all your sauce ingredients together. Toss the roast in a large crockpot, pour the sauce over the top and turn that bad boy on high for 5 hours or low for 8 hours. I got a late start that Sunday morning so it was high for 5 hours which was PERFECT!

You can either shred your beef or slice it. 9 times out of 10 you will need to shred it as it will be falling apart.

Skim the fat stuff off the top of the juice. The juice will be super thin.I wanted a thicker gravy style so I sprinkled a little over a tablespoon of Wondra over the top, stirred it in and added the beef. Turn the setting to low for 30 minutes or so and let the beef warm up again and you will have a nice beefy gravy thing going on!

kitten on books.jpg — When I can’t find the fluffy cat, I just need to look up. She’s discovered the ledges around this house now.

Originally, I was planning on serving as BBQ Sandwiches but instead, we had mashed potatoes (Mark) and riced cauliflower (me) with it. Healthier options are always available!

We were able to pack some for lunch for 3 days and we had it for dinner another night so this does make a lot!

#CrockPot #SlowCooking #Beef #BBQBeef

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties … go check them out!

Super Easy Citrus-y Chicken

Citrusy is just not a word. What’s up with that?

So this here recipe? It’s Super Simple. Technically, it’s equal parts of everything. 2, 2, and 2 is how I went for this round!

Like, go make it TODAY!

Continue reading “Super Easy Citrus-y Chicken”

Awesome Italian Potatoes

Here’s a super quick, awesome side dish to add to your next summertime Sunday Dinner at the grill!

Ok, let’s get one thing straight … these are NOT Italian Potatoes in the sense that anyone Italian grandmother would be making for Sunday dinner.

There. I put it out there …

They are, however, an awesome, easy side dish to make if you are grilling for a Sunday dinner.

So there. I put that out there as well!

Continue reading “Awesome Italian Potatoes”

Honey Mustard Dressing

This dressing was a staple in the house for so long … and then I stopped making it.

You know how you make something over and over and you just get tired of it?

Continue reading “Honey Mustard Dressing”

Chicken Caesar Salad with Pasta

This is a pretty awesome salad that can be made with leftovers!

For a while there, I would make this salad for lunch at least TWICE a week! It’s so simple and was so worth it!

And now that summertime is here in full force, it’s time to bring out the dinner worthy salads, right?? RIGHT!

So yeah, this could be TWO servings, but I will admit, I’ve made this all for ME, ME, ME. Selfish? Nah? Piggy … well, maybe, a little bit but geesh, it’s healthy, right??

Here’s what you need to do!

1 head of romaine lettuce, bottom cut rinsed well and chopped

1 grilled chicken breast (leftovers are perfect for this!)

leftover pasta, I prefer to use a thicker shell type noodle

sprinkle of fresh parmesan (from that pasta dish the other night!)

Caesar dressing … I’ve been tied to Ken’s Caesar dressing for quite a few years

Croutons if desired

This is so easy.

Dump everything in a large bowl. Mix well to combine and coat everything.

Serve up and enjoy!

*Everything in the pictures is LEFTOVERS!

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties … go check them out!

Shrimp with Mango and Cucumbers – Whole30/Paleo

Mark is heading out of town on Wednesday and will be out for 10 days … what a perfect time for me to give myself a little break and get my food stuff back on track!

First up will be this yummy salad … bonus because I have everything on hand! Yes!

For a while, there I would call this a “shrimp salad” but it’s not really a salad, per se, nor is it a salsa … so I don’t know what to call it! It’s just a Whole30/Paleo Approved Shrimp with Mango and Cucumbers ….

Easy Peasy.

So, let’s talk about the shrimp itself, ok? This bag is from Trader Joe’s. It’s $10.99 for a full pound. It is, by far, the best tasting, cleanest shrimp I’ve found in a LOONG time … I was hooked on Costco for a while there but then had this for New Years Eve a few years back and I’ve since been stuck on it! And the price? Never changed. Always the same.

Ok, let’s get to the recipe!

1/2 pound of cooked shrimp, peeled and those pesky tails removed! I prefer to cut in half or 1/3 to make smaller bite size
1/2 cup of cucumbers, seeds scraped out if really watery and chopped (tip: just buy the english cucumbers!)
1/2 mango, chopped
1/4 cup of canned pineapple, drained, and chopped
1/4 of a red pepper, diced (I use the mini peppers too if that’s all I have!)
1/4 of a small red onion, diced
1/2 smallish jalapeno, seeds and membranes removed, diced
1/4 cup of parsley leaves, chopped
3 tbs olive oil
juice from 1 lime
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Place shrimp, cucumbers, mango, pineapple, red pepper, onion, jalapeno and parsley in larger bowl.

In a separate smaller bowl, mix all the other ingredients, whisking to incorporate well.

Pour the liquid over the shrimp mixture, cover and place in the fridge for 30 minutes or so to allow everyone to do a meet and greet and get friendly with each other.

Serve cold and enjoy!

#Whole30 #Paleo #Shrimp #RealFood #Salads

Looking forward to sharing with some of these GREAT Parties … go check them out!