Smoked Salt & Pepper

So, in my previous Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie post , I gushed about how much I love my slow cooker. And it's because of genius things like being able to make Chex Mix in it! And then you get a house that smells of Chex Mix. MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm! As if the microwave method of making homemade chex mix isn't easy enough, you can now make it in your slow cooker. In all honesty, making it in the microwave is way easier but like I said before, you can make your house smell like chex mix! You can customize this recipe to any version of Chex mix you prefer, but I like the OG recipe that comes right off the back of the boxes of Chex. I, personally, really like my Chex mix to have only Chex pretty much. I really don't much like the pre-made bagged versions of Chex Mix because it just doesn't taste as good. And I end up picking out all the Chex to eat first anyway. Then I have a sad bag filled with rye chips and pretzels and weird bagel chip things. Ok, the chedda...

I stumbled upon this idea a few years ago while I was surfing the internet for good slow cooker recipes. I can't remember the original source for the inspiration, but I think it was a blog that featured a slow cooker recipe for every day of the year! It might have been this one? A Year of Slow Cooking Anyway, it was chock-full of awesome slow cooker ideas and recipes. I fell in love with my $20 CrockPot in Veterinary school. I bought a cheapie on sale at Target and started using it for the typical chilis, stew, soups, pot roasts, etc while I was stuck in class or clinics. It was so revolutionary for me to be able to come home to a hot dinner that was already made! It was fan-freaking-tastic! So as I got a little more comfortable with the CrockPot I started to look for other was I could use it. Jambalaya, creamed corn, mac n' cheese, chex mix! The possibilities were pretty much endless. There were totally a few flops, but for the most part I was pretty happy with this...

Nem Nuong are traditionally Vietnamese grilled pork meatballs or patties.  They can be eaten over a bowl of vermicelli noodles or rice, over a simple salad of greens and herbs, or rolled up in rice paper wrappers.  Basically you have the meatballs + some format of rice (vermicelli noodles, rice, rice paper wrappers) + lettuce + herbs + some kind of crunchies.  When making the spring rolls in rice paper wrappers, they are dipped in a savory peanut/hoisin sauce.  Nem nuong cuon (rolls) are super refreshing and tasty and a great alternative to anyone tired of shrimp filled spring rolls.  Because making them actually does require a lot of different components, I learned a trick from my mom to get dinner on the table on a weeknight, after work, on time, and....I use store bought chicken teriyaki and pineapple meatballs from Costco! Ok, I admitted it! I didn't actually make the main part of this dish.  But that's what makes this so great! It's so delicio...

In August, my family went to Turks and Caicos for my parent's (1 year) belated 35th anniversary.  It was a beautiful time.  Thanks to my brother-in-law and sister, we stayed at an amazing resort where we had two personal chefs and two attendants.  Our meals were prepared to our liking each day, and though we gorged ourselves on food, it was all rather healthy and tasty.  Reid and I were sure we'd come back 10 lbs heavier, but he actually lost weight and I stayed the same.  We've both been trying to be more conscious about living healthier, working out and eating better so this was a delightful reminder that we can eat really well, but still be pretty healthy.  It inspired me to make some lighter, but flavor-filled foods when we got back, nice and tan ;) In Turks and Caicos, we enjoyed a lot of conch salad, as it was conch season.  The chewy, salty conch was complimented well with a lemon juice and oil dressing and lots of fresh veggies.  ...

We threw a New Year's Eve party this year and it was lots of fun with some good friends.  I love trying out new recipes when I've got plenty of people to give me opinions, so I tried a few that I'd been saving up.  I worked New Year's Eve, so I did want to make sure I could either semi-home-make some or prepare them ahead of time.  None of these recipes are season specific, so they would be great for any party. My menu fore New Year's.  Click on link for recipes Cheese from Antonelli's Cheese Shop (brie, gruyere, gouda, and blue cheese) with homemade wheat crackers : why let crackers be an after-thought? Meatballs in tangy sauce : Reid's grandma introduced me to this easy and delish meatball appetizer Furikake Chex Mix : sweet, salty, umami, addicting! Pop over to my friend's blog for the recipe Meyer's Elgin Pork Sausage on pretzel sticks with mustard: no link, you can figure this one out! Sweet Potato Pancakes : bite-sized sweet potato latke...

You cannot be a proper Tex-Mex lover without eating at least 1 quart of queso per year.  I'm pretty sure I started the year off in the right direction by making this copy-cat Kerbey Queso for NYE.   Kerbey Lane Queso is my favorite in Austin.  So creamy, so cheesy, and so good.  White queso with pico and a scoop of guacemole in it that you kind-of have to dig around in, which makes it soooo good.  Have I said how good it is? That being said, I've tried so many queso recipes.  I've made beschemels, I've used expensive, good cheeses.  No queso seems to hold that creamy consistency very well.  So when one of my friends, Rachel, was back home in Austin from her now home-town in Seattle she asked one of the servers what's in it.  She just had to know.  The server leaned in close to her and whispered, "it's white processed cheese."  OMG, my mind was blown.  No wonder it's so flippin' good.  I think the HEB brand white queso is...

What's in your Christmas cookie tin?  In previous years, I usually just do gingerbread mean, but this year I was really in the holiday spirit and baked gingerbread cookies, Christmas Kisses thumbprint cookies, magic bars, peppermint bark, and no-bake chocolate bon-bons.  I gifted these to the techs, receptions, and vets at my work and my family.  Each of these recipes are relatively easy and simple, and I even used a mix to cut down on work for the thumbprint cookies.  The peppermint bark especially, was very tasty to test-try.  The peppermint bark rivals the famous William-Sonoma ones. The gingerbread men are my favorite recipe for producing perfectly crispy on the outside, but chewy on the inside gingerbread men.   The no-bake 5 ingredient bon-bons are great because they use almond butter instead of peanut butter which means my peanut-allergic-self can make them without fear that my fingers will swell up! Gingerbread man recipe from Food Network Kitch...

Nothing is better in the cold than a piping hot bowl of ramen!  There are a few really excellent places in town (Ramen Tatsu-ya, Daruma, Kome at lunch) and one of the places we frequent is called Michi Ramen.  There, they have a 'Texas' style ramen, which is served with Texas toast and has brisket in it.  Yesterday I made pulled pork sandwiches (2 lbs pork butt, salt and pepper, 1/2 sliced onion and 1 c. chicken broth in slow cooker on high for 4 hrs, then shredded with a fork and mixed with bbq sauce), had some left over pork and pork broth so I made this copy-cat ramen.  The bbq sauce in the pulled pork gave the ramen lots of flavor. Homemade ramen is soooo much better than store bought.  It tastes better and it doesn't have all that awful sodium and MSG most of the packaged stuff has. That stuff is bad for you!  I remember when I was younger, my mom, sister and I would go to France to visit our grandparents.  My dad stayed back to keep his phar...

You know that classic tomato basil soup from La Madeline, the casual French dining chain? Well, it's the perfect meal (with Rustic Rosemary Bread ) for when you're fighting the flu or cold, which Reid and I had the joy of doing all last week.  It was also a great way to use up some of by fresh basil, which I'm trying to trim down for the winter.  This a copy-cat recipe that I created by combing two tomato soup recipes I really enjoy.  One was found in a cook book my friend Laura's mom gave me in college, called Survival Cooking for Students.  It was a compilation of easy and tasty recipes that she and Laura's dad had printed.  The recipe for La Madeline's Tomato Basil Soup was from the Houston paper.  The second recipe that inspired this was the Roasted Tomato-Basil Soup from William Sonoma's Soup cookbook.  Both recipes have the option of buying fresh tomatoes, roasting or peeling, coring and chopping tomatoes or using canned.  I use canned beca...

One of Reid and my indulgences is Auntie Anne's pretzels.  That buttery crust with flecks of salt is the perfect companion to our outlet shopping days or traveling through the airport.  Last week when we were coming back from Cancun, we literally followed the smell of the pretzels to grab a quick 'sninner' (snack-dinner) during our layover.  It's always fun to watch the workers twirl the pretzel into the pretzel shapes, too!  Since pretzels are basically fat covered carbs, I thought I'd try to make it at home and see if I could re-create the deliciousness without quite as much caloric guilt.  I had the intention using water to get the salt to stick but-Surprise! Butter does make everything better! At least we didn't accompany these with the 360 calorie lemonades we usually get at Auntie Anne's... Copy-cat Pretzels Ingredients 1 c. bread flour 3 c. all purpose flour (can substitute whole wheat flour), , plus more for kneading 1 pkg (1 1/4 tsp) a...

Did you know that homemade bagels are AMAZE-BALLS?!!!!! Well, they are! OMG they are so good.  I don't know how anyone could ever give up carbs.  I mean, these bagels are so good.  They are totally worth the 2 days it took to make them.  Yea, it took two days to make them, but all of it wasn't hands on.  Most of the wait was waiting for them to rise for 24 hrs (and I didn't have time after work one night, so I actually let them rise for 48 hours).  I'd always been kind of nervous about making bagels because one super traditional recipe I read used lye to boil the bagels.  Lye? Like the caustic basic solution stuff? The recipe even had a note about how it's hard to purchase/illegal maybe to sell lye in the grocery store so you had to order it online.  Can't remember where I saw that recipe, Food & Wine or epicurious.  But yea, that put me off making bagels.  But then my friend Laura told me she made bagels with her mom and they were a...

Reid and I have not eaten at chick-fil-a in over a year and I was really starting to miss it. Reid suggested we stop supporting their business once they officially came out as anti-gay. He is much stronger than me, and I found myself craving that delicious chicken and those crispy waffle fries I decided to try this recipe I found on Pinterest and man, oh, man! It delivered! Tastes so good and so much like the real thing! Now I just need the time to make home made waffle fries (I used frozen). Chick-fil-A Bites with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce Serves 2 Adapted from Iowa Girl Eats Directions: 2 large chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces and seasoned with salt & pepper 3/4 cup milk 1/4 cup pickle juice 1 egg 1-1/4 cups flour 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar 2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon pepper 1/2 cup peanut oil, divided (or canola or vegetable oil) Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce: 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt 1 1/2 Tablespoons yellow mustard 1 Tablespoon Dijon mus...