Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken

SparkRecipes is a collaborative kind of cookbook; anyone can submit a recipe for approval and any member can rate it. It irks me a little that there's no emphasis on low calorie, or low anything, but this is Web 2.0 for you.

So you can imagine how many recipes there are, their general quality, and number of ratings. Sure a recipe might have five stars, but it's typically from one person rating the recipe and that person is their mom.

Imagine a recipe, then, that has over 2,500 reviewers. And over four stars. And pops up randomly in articles because just that many people love it.

This is Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken. It's not a revolution in cooking; it's chicken, a taco seasoning packet, a cup of salsa, and a can of condensed soup (I hate sour cream) in a slow cooker. As we have a very nice slow cooker now, I'm anxious to "slave in the kitchen all day" with it.

Mmm, that looks tasty. Nothing at all like barf. Toward the top of the picture you can see where Andy discovered that the chicken pulls apart just like shredded chicken from your favorite Mexican restaurant. Yum.


You could eat the chicken as is, but we added cabbage, couscous, and whole wheat tortillas. I'm on some kind of whole wheat kick lately. And believe it or not, I'm coming to terms with cabbage. I recall having it and being horrified by the bitterness. This is not bitter, so it was probably just a bad experience. Plus I got to use up the chicken I don't like and break open the magical Sam's Club chicken. Seriously, I have not found better frozen chicken anywhere.

This is why you get a slow cooker. There are just so many possibilities here. Like adding beans and corn. Or my favorite, shredded beef. Or making an enormous pot for a work potluck.

Banana Bread

My husband eats bananas. I do not. Every once in a while, we get a little off schedule and some of our bananas get too mushy to eat. And yet, at this point, they are perfect for baking. That's when I get really excited about bananas!

My other default recipe-finder is SparkRecipes. Of course they'd have an easy, low-calorie banana bread for me. Which required a run across the street for unsweetened applesauce. Arg. But I also got to use a wedding gift in the process!


I've heard of replacing oil with applesauce in breads and muffins and always wanted to try it. These didn't come out bad per se; they were just really, really dense. Like home-building quality bricks that taste like really moist banana bread. So, the lesson here is either just use the oil, or at least try applesauce and egg whites.

Better yet, I think next time I'd go with oil and egg whites. My theory is that it will come out like cake. But, this will have to wait until our next round of mushy bananas.

Bunny Cakes

So, I mentioned I made dessert for a Memorial Day barbecue. But this is no ordinary dessert. No, it's a confluence of small, inconsequential events.

Sounds more exciting than it actually is. I'm just building it up because I forgot to post the picture last week.

I happened to go to the local cake decorating store with some friends, and someone pointed out this Wilton's pan on clearance from Easter. Now, I'm trying to be fairly conservative with my spending lately, but as you know, bunnies know no season in my house. And it was on clearance.

I also fully believe you should have at least one cake mix in your home at all times. Did you know you can buy cupcake mixes? Possibly one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. Basically what you're buying, regardless of cake or cupcake, is a finely sifted mix of flour and sugar. But if it's at the .99 store, I will try it.

Thus:I can't say that the cupcake mix was really any different; I can say that my magical cake release sure didn't pan out like it usually does (but I probably didn't use enough). And yes, I used whole eggs rather than the whites. But I will say that the cupcake mix will make exactly 12 cupcakes, rather than the 16-18 I usually get out of a cake mix.

I had a lot of leftover white icing which I divided and made pink for the ears and nose, although you can't really tell. I kind of wish I'd had time to make extra frosting (although in hindsight apparently I would have had enough) and cover the whole thing.

Theses were a hit simply because they're just so darn cute. Don't deny it.

Tantalizingly Thai

You know that restaurant five minutes from where you live, that you've never tried, but always tell yourself you should?

I literally run by this restaurant almost every time I go out. See that sidewalk to the left in the picture? That is the view I have almost every other day. I usually don't look in, since it's too dark to see, but the patrons get a nice view of me all sweaty while they're eating. Yum.

Oddly enough, I was tired of cooking one night and the closest places in the Entertainment book were all fast food. What's more, we had both thought about Tantalizingly Thai that evening, so we took it as kismet and went.

I'm not a big Thai food person, but Pei Wei's is a favorite among my work friends. I know it's what Taco Bell is to Mexican food, but sometimes you want it, you know? Plus, there are usually a lot of curry dishes, and these are not my friend.

It's a little pricey, but I ended up with fried rice noodles with shrimp, and Andy went with green curry beef (and no, it wasn't green). I liked the rice noodles but was only meh on the curry for obvious reasons. Next time, I'd rather split an order of pad thai and an appetizer, because a plate was a lot of food for one person but juuuust not quite enough for two.

As for the reviews, I disagree with it being a horrible pit of a place (/exaggeration). The reviewer who talked about white people discussing the movie Sideways? At least on a Thursday night, that seemed to be the clientele. Except for the nut job yelling at the cars outside the liquor store in the next strip mall over. I'd go back mostly for the convenience factor. But if you're in the neighborhood it might be worth trying. And you should try your local restaurants too. Isn't it more fun to have a nice little place close by?

Twice Baked Potatoes

Last weekend we were invited to an impromptu barbecue, and signed ourselves up to bring a potato and a dessert.

I forget where I got the idea for twice baked potatoes. I will credit my lovely husband for it.

The thing is, these are painfully easy to make. Sure, the baking takes a while, but have you ever had a bad twice baked potato? Of course not.

I hit up Allrecipes for this one again. It looked the easiest. Plus I got to break out the food processor. Yes, there are other ways, but it is a wonderful luxury to have in your kitchen.

The only problem here was that I thought they were a bit dry. Because I don't like sour cream and I don't like to use a full cup of butter. Even still, I'd say they were a success because our hosts kept the leftovers... and I made a lot.

And I still have about three pounds of potatoes left over. Expect more potato dishes in the future.

Chicken Curry

Having lived in Southern California a while, I've finally worked my way up to the typical medium-spicy salsas. This, with the Indian food at the Stroll & Savor last week, meant I wanted to make curry.

So I googled chicken curry and got a decently rated recipe from Allrecipes.com. It looked promising. As far as I could tell. I mean, before seeing the recipe, I knew of curry spice.



I also made regular Mahatma rice (I wasn't about to go buy jasmine rice all special for this one dish, even though I bought curry spice for this one dish) and spinach. There's some kind of spinach dish served at Indian restaurants, but I was too lazy at this point to try and figure out what it was.

It came out fine; very spicy. It made my stomach hurt, as all curry does, so I must have done something right. Although it was missing something; a warmer, maybe creamier flavor? This is most likely because I couldn't find plain yogurt in something smaller than 36 ounces at the store, and didn't bother with the coconut milk. I just used regular milk.

So, lesson learned: you can't always just substitute something. Especially when it's the first time you've made it and you don't know what you're doing.

Pizzoccheri

I spend probably more time than I should looking up new and fun things to cook. So when our friend living in Italy posted an instructional video for pizzoccheri I was planning on adapting it for my kitchen within the first two minutes.

Essentially, it's noodles, cabbage, potatoes, and cheese; like macaroni and cheese made from scratch and not the electric orange box kind.

I used:

• 16 ounces whole wheat pasta
• 1/2 "green cabbage" (yes, this is what our local store called it)
• 2 giant russet potatoes
• 8 ounces parmesan cheese
• 8 ounces butter (or margarine, or vegetable spread, or whatever I bought last)
• some garlic
• some bay leaves

Obviously I didn't have a lot of the same ingredients. But it seemed like things came out alright.

Mmmm... yummy looking, right? If I were to make this again (and I will), I would leave the cabbage in bigger chunks and not cook the potatoes as long. They sort of ... disintegrated.

Making the whole box of pasta really makes a lot, especially if there's only two of you. So we had it the next night as a side dish to tuna steaks and a white wine.


And there is still some left over. But it reheats like magic. Next time I would (will) add some bacon, but you could really add anything you'd like. Significantly improvised, but successful!