Easy Slow Cooker Philly Cheese steak #2

We have a great philly cheese steak recipe on here already, but this one was just as easy, and I didn't have to go back to the store to get forgotten items.  Necessity is the mother of new recipes.  

Easy Slow Cooker Philly Cheese Steak
adapted from: www.sixsistersstuff.com

1 roast, thinly sliced against the grain (I had the meat guy do this for me)
1 (14 oz.) can of beef broth (or use a couple of boullion cubes and water)
1 envelope italian dressing mix
1 green pepper, sliced
1 onion, sliced
mushrooms, sliced
canola oil
provolone cheese slices
bread or buns

Pour the beef broth and italian dressing mix in your slow cooker and stir it to combine.  Place your sliced roast in the slow cooker and spoon the liquid over the top of it.  Cook it on low for 6-8 hours.  Don't over cook it.  When your meat is done, saute' your onions, peppers and mushrooms in a large frying pan, until tender.  Layer it all on your roll and top with provolone cheese. 

Lemon Blueberry Pancakes Dos

For our family reunion this year (my immediate family totals 30 people now!) we divvied out the meals to make it easier on everyone.  Carolyn and I picked up a breakfast, (because who’s kidding, we’d both rather be trying a new pancake or waffle recipe any day), and came across this one, Lemon Blueberry Pancakes.  I know you’re saying to yourself, but Nicole, you’ve tried a million variations of Blueberry pancakes.  Aren’t you satisfied yet?  The answer is NO people.  I will always be trying new variations of my favorite pancake because every time I try a new one I find it exciting and delicious and just a little different than the last.  (Although it truth be told, I do have a favorite basic recipe that I use most often.)  This one was no exception.  Everyone loved them, especially when we put it over the top with Buttermilk Syrup!  Oh it was so yummy!  You should definitely make this, especially if you have an insatiable love for blueberries and lemon (and pancakes) as I do!

Side note: If you have picky eaters like, you know, all of my nieces and nephews (so what if I myself was an extremely picky eater most of my life), I made the lemon pancakes for them, sans blueberries, and the freshness of the lemon was a delicious twist on a regular pancake too.  They loved it (all minus one who shall not be named and ate toast for 2 mornings).

Lemon Blueberry Pancakes

from About.com, Southern Food

Ingredients:

1 large egg

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup milk

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 cup fresh blueberries, or use frozen thawed blueberries

Preparation:

Beat egg until frothy; beat in remaining ingredients except blueberries, beating just until smooth. Gently stir in blueberries. Grease a heated griddle. Cook as usual.  Serve with Buttermilk Syrup if you want to make it exceptional.

Oh look, the picky-eater herself.

Olive Garden's Ravioli Di Portobello (Actually, Just the Amazing Sauce Recipe)

                                           
My hubby and I recently ate at Olive Garden, and I was determined to eat something besides their Stuffed Chicken Marsala (I get it every time I eat there. Literally.).  I chose the Ravioli Di Portobello.  And I have found my new favorite Olive Garden dinner.  Smoked Gouda cheese.  Sun-dried tomatoes.  And... well, not much else.  Not only is this recipe delicious, it is super easy!  I made it for our family reunion, and it got rave reviews.  To make my life ridiculously easy, I just went ahead and bought a big thing of 5 cheese tortellini from Costco and served the sauce over that.  And, for about the same cost as one dish at the Olive Garden, I fed 13 people!

Sauce for Olive Garden's Ravioli Di Portobello
from: food.com

2 c. milk
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
8 ounces smoked Gouda cheese
3 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the flour and stir it until it makes a thick paste.  Add the milk, stirring constantly.  Cook it until the sauce thickens.  Cut up the smoked Gouda cheese and add it to the saucepan.  Throw in your sun-dried tomatoes and stir it all until the cheese melts.  Serve it over ravioli (or tortellini, or whatever you want).
*Note: this amount serves 2-4, not 13!
                                           

Crispy Pan-Fried Tilapia

The other day I was looking for a new way to cook fish, and for some reason fish and chips sounded really good.  I found this recipe in my good ol' Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book and we were not disappointed.  The crust was crispy, the inside was tender.  I made some lemon mayonnaise to dip it in, but it wasn't even worth putting the recipe on here.  For some variety, the book suggests putting a little curry powder or chili powder and paprika in the breadcrumbs.  My family thought it was delicious this simple way.  And I served it with some homemade fries.  Close enough to fish and chips to satisfy me!

Pan-Fried Fish
from: Better Homes and Gardens

1 pound fish fillets (I used tilapia)
1 beaten egg
2/3 c. cornmeal or fine dry bread crumbs (I used Italian bread crumbs)
1/2 tsp. salt
dash pepper
cooking oil for frying

Rinse and pat dry the fish fillets.  Cut them in half.  In a shallow dish, combine the egg and 2 tablespoons water.  In another dish, mix the bread crumbs, salt and pepper.  Dip the fish into the egg mixture, then coat the fish with the bread crumb mixture.  In a large skillet, heat 1/4 inch cooking oil.  Add the fish to the pan and cook it on one side until it is golden.  Turn it carefully and fry the second side until it is golden and the fish flakes easily with a fork.

Homemade Granola Bars

This is a great recipe for easy, no bake, throw in whatever you have, granola bars.  I got the recipe off of a food blog, but I have tweaked it a few different times and used whatever sounded good at the moment.  If you look closely, you'll see in the picture that there are marshmallows in this recipe.  This was a s'more granola bar.  I have since made it using different kinds of chocolate chips and no marshmallows and also with almonds.  It would taste great with any nuts, coconut, variety of chocolate chips, or even craisens or other dried fruit.  It is so quick and easy and really yummy!  I cut mine into strips and then wrap them in plastic wrap to put in my kid's lunches.  Yay for no preservatives!!

Homemade Granola Bars

adapted from: twopeasandtheirpod.com

1/4 c. margarine or butter

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. honey

1/4 c. creamy peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c. oats

1/2 c. crispy rice cereal

1/2 c. chopped graham crackers, or almonds, or something else that gives substance

1 c. mini marshamallows (or leave this out, if you aren't doing s'mores)

1/2 c. chocolate chips

Line a small pan with wax paper (8X8-ish).  In a large saucepan, stir together the butter, sugar, honey and peanut butter and bring it to a boil.  Boil it for two minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly (the last time I made these, I took it off the heat before two minutes were up.  It started to look like it was going to burn.  Just watch it closely).  Take it off of the heat and stir in the vanilla.  Then add the oats, crispy rice cereal and graham crackers (or almonds, or whatever you choose) and stir it until it is all combined.  Very last, mix in the chocolate chips and marshmallows (or whatever you choose).  Press it into the pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes.  Then you can cut it into bars and store them for later, or eat them all in one evening, as we often end up doing! 

Chocolate Tacos

In celebration of Cinco De Mayo (which we have never actually celebrated before, but then again, we've never found a recipe for chocolate tacos before, either!) we made chocolate tacos.  These were awesome!  They were kind of like chewy, thin brownies.  It's like having an amazing banana split, or hot fudge sundae, in the palm of your hands.  So yes, it is a little messy.  But totally worth it.  I've been thinking about using this recipe to make homemade waffle cones or bowls.  We opted to drizzle a little melted chocolate and sprinkles on our tacos.  Then we put them in the fridge until the chocolate hardened.  Chocolate on your chocolate?!  Si!

Chocolate Tacos

from: www.lovefromtheoven.com & www.myrecipes.com

1/2 c. powdered sugar

1/4 c. flour

3 Tbsp. cocoa

1 tsp. cornstarch

1/4 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. egg whites (I used about 1 1/2 egg's worth)

1 tsp. milk

1/4 tsp. vanilla

cooking spray

1/2 c. chocolate chips

1 tsp. canola oil

sprinkles

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  In a medium bowl, combine the powdered sugar, flour, cocoa, cornstarch and salt and stir it well.  Then mix in the egg whites, milk and vanilla.  Coat a baking sheet with the cooking spray and draw six five inch circles with your finger onto the pan.  These will be a general outline for your batter.  Drop 1 tablespoon of batter onto each circle, and using the back of the spoon, spread the batter into your circle shape (I couldn't fit all six onto one pan, so I did it in two shifts).  Bake it for 6 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown.  While they are baking, find some wooden spoons and suspend them over deep bowls, as shown below (just imagine them without tacos draped over the top):  

Working quickly when the tacos are cooked, carefully loosen the edges of the tacos with a spatula, drape each taco over a suspended wooden spoon and gently shape them into the shape of a taco.  They are pretty delicate, but even with some helpers, ours all remained intact.  Let them cool completely in this shape.  When they are completely cooled, you are ready to add more chocolate!  In a small glass bowl, microwave the chocolate chips and canola oil for 30 seconds, then stir it until it is smooth.  Dip the edges of the tacos in the chocolate and then sprinkles (and drizzle the leftovers on, for good measure).  Put them in the fridge until it is hardened.  

When you are ready to eat, take them out, add some ice cream scoops and any toppings that you want and enjoy your chocolate taco!

Brazilian Beans And Rice (Feijoada)

My hubby served a mission for our church for two years in Brazil.  That was 16 years ago.  And for the first time in our 12 years of marriage, I made him some Brazilian food.  I thought it was going to be harder than it was, and so I never did it.  And maybe if I had made this totally authentic, it would have been harder.  But I made it with what I had, and in the slow cooker, and it was actually really easy and really tasty.  If you ever buy a big spiral ham around Christmas time and don't know what to do with the ham bone, here is your answer!  If you've ever had a bag of dried beans sitting in your food storage for about 10 years and didn't know what to do with it, here is your answer!  This is the recipe you need to use up random food items that you don't really know what to do with.  Yay!

Brazilian Beans and Rice (Feijoada)
adapted from: honestcooking.com

1 lb. dry black beans
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 onions
1 ham bone (or any of your spiral ham that is leftover-I had a ham bone and also some ends of the ham that weren't sliced and I didn't know how to use them)
5 cloves garlic, minced (2 1/2 tsp. already minced)
1/2 lb. bacon
2 beef bouillon cubes
1/2 tsp. pepper
fresh ground salt to taste (you don't need much, the ham and bacon will make it salty)

Dump your black beans into your crock pot and then fill up the crock pot with water until it covers the beans.  In the morning, drain the water from the crock pot.  Then add six cups more water to the crock pot (just to get fresh water).  Thinly slice your onions.  In a frying pan, pour your olive oil and saute' your onions until they are translucent.  In the same frying pan, caramelize the edges of your ham bone, then add the onions and ham bone to the crock pot.  In the same frying pan, cook your minced garlic for one minute, then add to the crock pot.  Add your bacon to the frying pan and cook it until it is almost crispy, then throw it in the crock pot, too.  Add the beef bouillon cubes, pepper and salt to the crock pot and gently stir it all together.  Cook it on high for 1 hour, then turn it down to low for 5-6 hours.  At the last hour of cooking, remove the ham and bone,discard the bone and shred the ham, and then return the shredded ham to the crock pot.  You may want to cut the bacon into chunks (if you have little kids like I do).  The original recipe called for a couple of different kinds of sausage as well.  I think you can basically add any pork item that you have on hand and you won't go wrong.  I served mine with brown rice, orange slices and a salad, and it was delicious.