Tag Archives: cooking

Don’t forget to read the label…

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Tonight was one of those oddball nights where our routine was completely thrown off. I was heading to a focus group for a local company and that left dh in charge of the entire dinner. Our meal plan – designed for ease and speed – was a mish-mash of Chinese-like substances. We planned for rice, baby corn and some frozen chicken that’s pre-breaded and sauced to be a reasonable approximation of General Tso (aka General Gao). By the time I got home, the kids’ tub was already running, and dh was about to usher them off to splashyland, but I hadn’t yet eaten, so I made up a plate of the leftover rice and corn, plus some of the chicken from the freezer bag.

As I took my first bite of the chicken, I realized – THIS TASTES WRONG. It tastes…icky. Too sweet. High fructose corn syrup, maybe? I finished my dinner (I was hungry, after all), and when I brought my plate into the kitchen, I opened the freezer and took a look at the back of the chicken bag. The fourth ingredient in was indeed HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. Ew.

Now, I know HFCS has gotten a bad rap lately and that folks like the Mayo Clinic have said it’s not so much HFCS as it is all overdone sugar intake. Fine. I get that. But we’ve been trying to rid it from our pantry as much as possible, so when it turns up like a bad penny, I’ve now got my tastebuds trained to recognize it right away. Their reaction, in a word: VILE.

Funny thing is, this is a semi-new reaction for me. I have this general reaction to any non-sugar sweetener; I hated saccharine, I never got the hang of aspartame (aka Equal), and sucralose (aka Splenda) just makes me wrinkle my nose in revulsion. It’s sugar – or nothing. This is one of those few cases where I just can’t substitute; I’d rather go without or do strict limiting.

Our efforts to get HFCS out of the house have been semi-successful. It’s probably still in the soda that we replenish only infrequently (I primarily drink water, coffee, tea or chai). However, we were able to find not one but two (!) versions of our favorite ketchup that come in forms without HFCS. The taste difference is subtle but nice – ketchup tastes like it used to, now. I stumbled to find an egg nog that didn’t have HFCS in it (the only one I found locally was the Lactaid brand – none of the store brands, nor the two local commercial milk brands’ versions, were HFCS-free). Still, where we rid it from our house, we feel better.

All of this prompts me to issue a reminder that’s just a generally good principle. If you’re not someone who can put together the resources, time and effort to make your own…everything…then you should make sure you’re reading the labels. Check the ingredients lists and don’t be lulled into complacency by the brand name; our ketchup mysteriously had HFCS in it one day and we didn’t realize it until we looked at the label and practically threw it out in frustration. A barbecue sauce that I really love will never again be purchased for our house because it has HFCS in it. I knew it was too sweet for a reason…sigh.

So, check that label. Feel free to demand real sugar from the manufacturers whose food products you purchase. I know I do…

Crock Pot Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

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I wasn’t expecting this to be the week of “things that include salsa and taco seasoning”, but so be it. Sometimes, you just get lucky.

This particular dish is a favorite of ours because it’s stupid-easy to make and can be eaten in a variety of ways. You can shred the chicken – or not. You can eat it on a tortilla (or flatbread) with cheese and lettuce, on bok choi with cheese, on rice…so many ways to make it work. It’s also yummy any time of year – so it’s not something that you feel is a fall or winter-only dish. Versatile, easy & yummy…those are definitely perfect characteristics of a great crock pot dish, in my opinion. Note: even though I list the cooking time as 6-8 hours, this one can definitely go all day. We routinely let it go for 11 hours and it’s perfectly fine!

One other thing of note to parents of wee ones: we tend to serve the chicken and sauce separately, to keep the kiddos happy. It’s up to you how you want to serve it, but you may find that having them separate at the dinner table cuts down on some of the “I don’t want SAUCE!” complaints that we get from the little ones. In their defense, though, I would like to point out that it was dd’s suggestion to put it on bok choi this time out. Even though she didn’t eat all of her leaf tonight, the fact that she’d even suggest it means that the CSA experiment has already borne some seriously good fruit. Yeay!!

 

Crock Pot Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

Chicken, sauce, cheese & bok choi...OM NOM NOM

 

Prep Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 6-8hrs on LOW

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1-1/4 to 1-1/2lbs total)

16 oz jar salsa

1 pkg (1/4 cup) low-sodium taco seasoning

2 Tb cornstarch

3 Tb water

1/2 cup sour cream

Optional toppings: shredded cheese, shredded lettuce

 

Make it Happen

1. Coat the inside of a 4qt crock pot with non-stick spray.

2. In a bowl, stir to combine salsa and taco seasoning. Spread a small amount of the mixture on the bottom of the crock pot, to create a small liquid bed for the chicken.

3. Place the chicken breasts in the crock pot. Pour the remaining salsa/taco seasoning mixture on top of the chicken evenly, so that the breasts are fully covered.

4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hrs (or up to 11 hrs, really, based on my experience).

5. Just before serving, remove the chicken breasts from the crock pot. If you plan to shred them, now’s a good time. Otherwise, just place them on a plate or in a serving bowl.

6. Mix the cornstarch and water in a small bowl and add to the salsa mixture in the crock pot; stir to combine.

7. Add the sour cream to the crock pot; stir to combine.

8. Either spoon the sauce over the chicken or place it in some other serving dish (we use a gravy boat). Serve the chicken and sauce with your choice of toppings (such as shredded cheese and lettuce) on your choice of bed/delivery vehicle (bok choi, soft tortilla, flatbread, rice, etc.).

Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff

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This is a really simple and fairly saucy dish that takes virtually no prep time and makes for a great winter meal. I’ve seen other stroganoff recipes before, but most of them are heavy on the beef. A trick I learned from being on Weight Watchers years ago is to substitute mushrooms for beef, for example: having a portobello mushroom on a burger bun instead of a beef (or even turkey) burger. I also like mushrooms in my stroganoff, so I laugh LOUDLY AND HEARTILY at the recipes that suggest a simple 4oz can of mushroom stems and caps. Really, folks?

Of course, I forgot to take a picture of this before it left the dinner table, so this is actually a shot of what went into the fridge. Depending upon how hungry you are, this can serve six people easily enough; we get two nights of meals out of this dish, sometimes with a little to spare. This is a fairly saucy one, but since we serve it over butter noodles (or occasionally with rice), the sauce finds a home. You could even try a crusty bread as a side, to help sop up some of the extra sauce. Save yourself on the prep time by buying washed and sliced mushrooms in your produce section (or by prepping them the night before and just shoving them in the fridge). We also buy our stew beef already cubed; again, it saves time. The beef costs the same whether whole or pre-cut; the mushrooms tend to be a little more expensive if pre-sliced/washed, but I’m willing to pay that price to save on the time of doing it myself. Some call it lazy; I consider it being efficient and knowing when to outsource.

 

Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff

Just because it's out of focus doesn't mean it's not delicious!

 

Prep Time: 5 mins before cooking; 5 mins before serving

Cooking Time: 8-10 hrs on LOW

Serves: 4-6

 

Ingredients

2 cans golden mushroom soup

1-1/2 lbs stew beef, cubed

1-1/2 lbs white mushrooms, washed and sliced

8oz french onion sour cream dip

 

Make it Happen

1. Coat the inside of a 4qt crock pot with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Add the soup, beef and mushrooms to the crock pot; stir well to combine.

3. Cover and cook on LOW for 8-10hrs.

4. When the cook time is over, turn off the crock pot. Add the dip and stir well to combine before serving.