Crock Pot Hot Beef Sandwhiches

Make ahead meals are great... when you have the forethought to actually plan ahead and make them. Crock pots are awesome for the make ahead meals. Not that it's a secret or anything. One of my favorite recipes to make in the crock pot is shredded beef.

Recipe:

• 1 can Campbells French Onion Soup
• 1 package Lipton Beefy Onion soup mix (dry)
• 1 beef chuck roast
• 1 soup can water

This is how I fit it into a working schedule:
PM: Mix all together
Cook on low overnight.

AM (before leaving): shred beef
put in fridge for finishing later

After Work: remove from fridge, cook for 2 hrs on high.

Serve on buns.

Homemade Pizza Dough

My fiance and I love to make our own pizza. It's a lot of work to make the dough by hand, but the end result is worth it. We still haven't managed to make a good thicker crust pizza, but our thin crust rocks.  So we stick to what we know. :)

Recently, I became the proud owner of a food processor.  A food processor, I bought my mom for Christmas two years ago that she decided she doesn't actually use, so she gave it to me. So I guess in a way, I bought myself a food processor before I ever even knew I needed one.

One of the things I heard I could make in it is dough. So tonight I decided to give our fabulous pizza dough recipe a shot in the food processor. I have to say that I had my doubts that it would work.

It did! .... kind of. It wasn't a 100% success, but it did cut down on the time standing around with my hand on the mixer. It mixed things well, but my 7c food processor wasn't quite powerful enough to finish the job, so I had to remove the dough and finish with the hand mixer. Removing the dough from the food processor was a bit of a pain as it's quite sticky. I nicked a spatula on the blade and cut off a chunk of that. After pouring some oil on the remnants stuck in the bowl, I was able to extract them and finish the job with a hand mixer.

Another post as we actually bake the dough.....

Salad, What's for Lunch 2/10/2010

I have a very love-hate relationship with salad. Up until about a year or two ago, I wouldn't even touch salad, mostly because of the lettuce. I grew only exposed to Iceberg lettuce. That stuff makes me vomit just thinking about it. Since then I've been more apt to try new things and I've given salad a shot. I'm still pretty picky about lettuce and even go as far as being picky about the appearance of my lettuce.

My must haves for lettuce:

• Romaine or spring greens
• Fresh as absolutely possible
• a healthy green appearance (not wilted looking or fading)
• Not too much of the white crunchy stalk area
• Not too big of pieces.

Yes. I'm psychotic. I get that, which is why my fiance has given up trying to sort out the logic behind all my food issues  It is also is why I don't partake in restaurant salad too often. I used to only like caesar salad loaded with super-bad-for-you caeser dressing and parmesan cheese. I  rarely ate it because I knew just how bad it was calorie-wise. I mean, what's the point of getting a salad for the health benefits if you just slop it full of unhealthy dressing, right?

Somewhere along the way, I discovered I loved italian dressing, specifically a Roasted Red Pepper and Parmesan dressing. My favorite salad morphed from Caesar to:


Roasted Red Pepper and Parmesan salad:

1. Spring green mix or Romaine
2. Dressing
3. croutons
4. carrots
5. red cabbage

 I have since tired of this salad and have discovered a new one that is my new lunch obsession:


Asian Toasted Sesame Salad:

1. Romaine
2. Dressing
3. croutons
4. carrots
5. red bell pepper
6. (Chow Mein noodles)-- didn't have any of these, but would like to get some for this salad

So this is a combo post as that and a Cara Cara orange were for lunch today. I feel so healthy!

Coffee Obsession

Since starting to work in a coffee shop, my obsession with coffee has grown. Right now it's full blown obsession. I'm obviously partial to my store's coffee as that's what I get to drink and that's what I get to bring home with me. I do not have nearly as in depth tasting of other coffee shop coffee so this post is in no way meant to disparage any other coffee shop. It is not meant to declare superiority of one brand vs another. This post is also NOT intended to be an advertisement for my coffee shop. I'm not paid to blog. This is meant as a means for me to look back at the evolution of my coffee obsession and talk about some of my favorite coffees, specifically the ones I've encountered that give back to the local community.

I've gone through many phases with coffee, once I started actually drinking drip coffee.

I started out just drinking Maxwell House's master blend. At one point, I tried the Organic Coffee Company's zen blend and gorilla decaf and was in love. Then I got sick of paying $9.00/lb of coffee and returned to the days of Maxwell House.

Once again, I became sick of cheaping out on my coffee. So I found a local blend called CityKid Java, specifically the Sumatra Mandheling. My Cub foods didn't carry many varieties so that's kind of what I was stuck with anyway. I was in love with this coffee and still am. If you're willing to pay $8.99/lb per coffee and live in the Twin Cities metro, I'd recommend trying this brand out. I really like that they give their proceeds back to the community through the Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation.

Now, of course I'm a die hard Caribou Coffee fan. I love supporting a MN company and working there, I get my coffee for free. My top 3 are: Mocha Java, LaMinita, and Acacia. The Acacia blend is also organic so there isn't the pesticide exposure involved. After I go through my stockpile of Reindeer blend and Mocha Java beans, I will be getting some Acacia if we have it. Always being a fan of products that also give back to the community, I'm really starting to like their Pass the Goodness Blend. For each pound purchased, they donate 1 lb to food shelves (1/2 to a local one, 1/2 to a national one).

As I close this entry, I want to reiterate: This is not meant to be an advertisement. I am not a professional blogger. I was not paid to write about coffee or write this entry as a means to promote where I work. I just really like coffee.


Coffee is the top traded commodity in the world behind oil. Yet alot of it is grown in some of the poorest regions in the world.  For an eye opening look at the coffee trade check out the movie Black Gold. This movie is what prompted my renewed desire to spend more for coffee that either gives back to my local community, is from a company that values responsibly raised product (either Rainforest Alliance or Organic), or is Fair Trade.

As I always say, Life is too short to drink bad coffee.

Oatmeal Adventures

When I was growing up, my mom would try to make me eat oatmeal. It was usually of the instant variety and the overall soupy texture of it was completely unappetizing to my picky palette. So I swore off oatmeal and have often referred to it with extreme disdain since then.

Recently, at my part time job at Caribou Coffee, they started serving oatmeal. I begrudgingly tried some with many reminders to everyone that oatmeal is not my thing. Well, a combination of trying several of them and a more mature palette, has led me to change my mind about oatmeal. I don't think instant oatmeal has probably changed much so I'm trying to see how I can replicate the pretty good oatmeal I have access to at work, at home. So I will be trying to find my way through oatmeal land. Look for more entries.

Attempt 1:
1/2 c Quaker quick oats
1/2 c near boiling water
1 T hot milk
1 tsp brown sugar
sprinkle of salt

Mix together, covered 1 minute, stirred, added maple syrup and topped with more brown sugar

Results:
I think the caribou oats are bigger. Mine were really compact, more "paste" like. not quite as well rounded of  flavor. I predominantly tasted the sweetness of the brown sugar, a bit of the maple and then the paste like nature of the oats.

Verdict: Caribou's is still way better

Ideas for improvement: try raw sugar, follow a different recipe

What's for dinner 1/19/2010

Tonight's menu:

• Maple Dill glazed salmon
• Glazed carrots
  
• Kraft Mac n Cheese

So a 1/2 glamorous meal for tonight.
I found the recipe for the salmon in a magazine. I've never tried it in the oven, just on the grill. It's too icky to go out and work the grill so I'm going to attempt to do this in the oven instead.

Recipe for Salmon:

1. Marinade:

• 1.5 t Dijon Mustard
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 c maple syrup
• 1/2 t minced garlic
• 1 t dill
• 1/2 t salt

• Whisk ingredients together

 
2. Marinate salmon for 1 hour.
3. Bake for 13 minutes at 375
4. Broil approximately 2 minutes



Glazed Carrots:

1. Drain 1 can of pre-sliced carrots
2. Put in small saucepan along with 3 T butter or margarine
3. Bring to light boil
4. Add 1/4 c brown sugar
5. Reduce to simmer
6. Simmer approximately 5 minutes

Results: The salmon turned out PERFECT!!!! It had a nice sweetness to it from the maple syrup. I used dried dill so it didn't seem to be very "dill" flavored. I mostly tasted the syrup. Cooking in the oven resulted in a nice even done-ness. Aside from the hour of marinating, the prep time and cook times were relatively low. One could probably prep and marinade in the morning and have an extremely flavorful, yet quick dinner.

Tips I've found helpful with salmon:

1. It's worth paying the money for a quality piece of fish. We used to cheap out and get the individually frozen pieces when they were 10/$10.... Then we made the "mistake" of buying a good piece of fish. It's made all the difference. Exception to the fresh is best rule: No Name Salmon filets are quite good

• Sometimes I really wish I lived on a coast where I could get really fresh salmon. But meat department of my local Cub foods will have to do....
  

2. Defrosting: I prefer to either leave in the fridge overnight or thaw in warm water as opposed to the microwave. I've found the microwave tends to start cooking the salmon
 

What's for lunch 1/15/2010

Tri-Color Rotini and homemade Arrabiata Sauce. Nothing too exciting.

My arrabiatta sauce is a recipe that I took from Lakewinds Co-op. Since then, its one of those recipes that never quite tastes the same each time I make it. I used the Lakewinds recipe as a bouncing off point and each time I tweak it. It's great to make in large batches and freeze and then pull out for a quick meal.

I'm getting so used to my homemade arrabiata sauce and sprucing up my normal pasta sauce with extra herbs and garlic that I can no longer stand plain marinara sauce from a jar. I also tend to feel more like I'm "cooking" when I'm tweaking the off the shelf stuff too.

Another sauce I make myself: Pizza Sauce. I love continuing to play with that too. It tastes excellent on our homemade pizza crust too.... hmmm... must make homemade pizza soon...