Would you be horribly offended if I started sharing crock pot recipes with you on a regular basis?

Because with our new, nearly five-night a week karate schedule, the crock pot and I are about to become the very best of friends.

This recipe was simply amazing. So yummy, so flavorful, and so darned easy.  Guys?  The prep time on this was around 10 minutes.  Turn on the crock pot, walk out the door, and when you get home–chow down!

I’d love adding onions in with the chicken while cooking, and garnishing with green onion when serving, but Doodle won’t come near anything that might have possibly brushed up against an onion. But, if you aren’t feeding someone quite so onion-phobic, add them in for me, okay?

Do you use your crock pot?  What’s your favorite crock pot recipe?  Please share some recipes in the comments below–I’m desperate for family-friendly meals to use on busy work nights!

XO, Ashley

We’re huge Chinese food fans in my house.

I loveitloveitloveit.  But if we ate the take-out from the restaurant down the street from our house, I’d weigh a bizillion pounds.

The great thing about making Chinese at home is that you can really tone down the salt, oil and/or butter content, and add a mad amount of veggies to make sure all the food groups are covered.  See?  Totally healthy.

This recipe is hands-down my favorite make at home Chinese dish.  We’ve made it a number of times, and it never disappoints.  It’s definitely one of our staple rotation meals, and I love that it has the “take-out” taste without the “take-out” calorie-count.  We usually serve this meal with brown rice, but if you really want to jazz it up a bit, serve it with my favorite version of fried rice.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

Is anyone else out there feeling end of summer stress? Or is that just me?

Doodle starts kindergarten next week, and I still have a million things left to do.

Including having a semi-nervous breakdown. How is my kiddo old enough to be in kindergarten?

We went to an open house at the school a few nights ago, and he refused to hold my hand or walk next to me.  What’s up with that?  I thought I still had a few more years before he was too embarrassed to be seen with me.

So, would it be weird if I stalked his classroom during the week?  You know, just to make sure he’s doing okay and hasn’t forgotten about the person who gave birth to him.

In the meantime, I’m on the look-out for quick and easy weeknight meals as we start our new schedule for the school year.  And it doesn’t get much easier than this recipe.  Chicken, a jar of salsa, a crock pot, and my pie-hole.

What’s your favorite easy weeknight meal?

If you have leftovers, add shredded chiuhauha cheese (a Mexican melting cheese; smoked Gouda or Monterey Jack would also work well) to your chicken. Roll the mixutre up in corn tortillas, and place in a baking dish. Top with additional cheese, and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Serve with salsa verde and your favoite toppings!

Oh my gosh, guys.  Oh. My. Gosh.

I did not intend to post this recipe.

I wasn’t planning on photographing a single thing Sunday night as we sat down to dinner, but then…

…we took a bite of this chicken.

Amazeballs.

So I quickly snapped one shot to share with you guys and then went back to shoving my face full of this messy, saucy, wonderfulness.

I’m not sure if it was the Tall Boy’s fabulous grilling skills or what, but this chicken might have been the best I’ve ever eaten.  And I’ve eaten a lot of chicken, let me tell you what.  I’d made a very simple (like four ingredient simple) marinade earlier in the day, threw my chicken in a ziploc bag in the fridge and forgot about it until grilling time.  I’d planned to use some bottled barbeque sauce for basting and serving, but then I decided to try my hand at making my own sauce.

Holy macaroni, I’m glad I did.

I’ll preface this by saying that the sauce took a little while to make.  Well, the actual preparation took no time at all…it’s just that the sauce needs to simmer for around an hour or so.  But it’s so, so worth it.  No joke.  Make this for your Fourth of July cookout, and then come thank me later.

I’m linked up at these great parties this week: Crazy Sweet Tuesdays, Trick or Treat Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesdays, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Cast Party Wednesday, Whip it Up Wednesdays, Watcha’ Whipped Up Wednesdays, Eat, Pray {Read}, Love, Sweet Treats Thursday, Mrs. Fox’s Sweets, Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons, Itsy Bitsy Paper, Crumbs and Chaos,  I’m Lovin’ It Fridays, Weekend Potluck and The 21st Century Housewife!

We grill out almost exclusively in the summertime, simply because it’s too darn hot to do much of anything else.

And it’s still only the beginning of June.

If you’re like me, you get tired of the same old meats and veggies thrown over the open flame–and by the time dinner time rolls around, I’m usually too hot and tired to do very much kitchen prep.

Which is why I love quick and simple marinades–you can mix ‘em up in less than five minutes early in the day, and all you have to do at dinner time is throw stuff on the grill.  This is hands-down my favorite kind of cooking.

What’s your favorite way to cook in the summertime?

I’m linked up at these great parties this week: Crazy Sweet Tuesdays, Trick or Treat Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesdays, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Cast Party Wednesday, Whip it Up Wednesdays, Watcha’ Whipped Up Wednesdays, Eat, Pray {Read}, Love, Sweet Treats Thursday, Mrs. Fox’s Sweets, Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons, Itsy Bitsy Paper, Crumbs and Chaos,  I’m Lovin’ It Fridays, and Weekend Potluck!

I don’t like chicken pot pie.

Not even a little bit.

But the Tall Boy does.  When we first got married, he liked to take those tiny little frozen pot pies in his lunch.  You know the ones I’m talking about, right?  The kind that you warm up in the oven for like 30 minutes, and taste like cardboard.  Complete with gross, rubbery “vegetables” and some sort of mystery meat that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

This was my impression of pot pies pretty much my entire life.

Until about eight years ago, when a coworker suggested I make a pot-pie for a special anniversary dinner for the Tall Boy.

I was unconvinced.

I mean, it was my anniversary, too.  Why should I be forced to eat some goopy, mushy mess of a meat and vegetable “pie”?  Seriously, if I’m eating pie, it should be chocolate.  Or coconut.  Black Forest, maybe.  Or pretty much anything other than a pot pie.

But since we were are actually still in the honeymoon stage of our relationship, I thought I’d surprise the Tall Boy with a special meal and give this recipe a try.

While it may not photograph well, this dish has now become a signature dish around our place.  I make it every year for our anniversary, and any other special occasion the Tall Boy can talk me into it.  Even if you think you don’t like pot pie, you’ll like this.  I promise.  Take it from a non pot pie eater like me.

If you need a special meal to impress, this is it.  This isn’t a quick meal, so there is some planning time required.  I usually make the filling in the morning and assemble the pie, popping it into the oven about 45 minutes before dinner.  I’ve made this so many times now that I don’t really follow a “recipe” anymore, and I tend to mix and match my cheeses depending on what I already have open in the refrigerator.  What I’ve listed below is the basic recipe, so feel free to switch it up to find a combination of flavors that most appeals to you!

Have a great Monday!

Look, I’m not gonna lie to you guys–my lovely, lovely, invisible internet friends.  I am sort of fascinated with Rachel Ray.  I know, I know, there are a lot of people out there who say she is not a “real chef.”  But guess what?  I’m not, either.

I’m just a girl who likes to cook, and am learning as I go.  And I appreciate all of you travelling down this path with me.

One of the first shows on Food Network I ever watched was 30 Minute Meals.  Now, this was back in my single days–the days when I was still eating macaroni and cheese directly out of the saucepan and claiming it as fine cuisine.  So attempting to prepare a meal that required more than a few ingredients or didn’t come pre-packaged seemed a little overwhelming time consuming.  I mean, really, I would rather have spent my evenings reading fashion magazines, talking on the phone with my girlfriends about guys and taking belly-dancing classes (mm-hmm, that’s a story for another day.  When I’ve had a glass or two of wine, perhaps.).

Anyway, when I saw this show, it was the first time cooking actually appealed to me, and looked like something I could actually do.  And while my cooking techniques have definitely improved over the years, it’s nice to have some quick and easy fall-back recipes to rely on when you’re too stressed out from the work-week to think about doing much more than throwing chicken into a pot.

This is one of mine.

Okay, moment of truth time:

I’m not a huge fan of chicken noodle soup.

I guess it just reminds me of the meals I eat when I’m either (a) sick or (b) dieting, and doesn’t spark much culinary excitement.  Typically, if I’m going to make soup, I want it to be one that’s super fattening hearty, like meatball soup or chili.

That being said, I’m not one to back down from a challenge–so when I saw Tina’s featured food item this month was chicken noodle soup, I set out to find a recipe that was not only full of flavor, but would also keep me satisfied past mid-afternoon.

And I think I found it with this recipe, ya’ll (at Doodle’s request, I’ve been tasked with talking like the “ya’ll girl” (Paula Deen) when I cook).  I was a little hesitant about the ranch seasoning mix in this, but it gave the dish a very mild, but interesting flavor.  The original recipe calls for heavy cream, and while I’m not dieting per se, I’m also not out to intentionally sabotage any chance of wearing shorts this summer.  I used fat-free half and half, which was just creamy enough to keep me fuller longer than just plain old broth.

In a word: YUM.

Maybe the best chicken noodle soup I’ve ever had.  Served with some crusty bread, cheese and crackers, I had a warm happy, and very full tummy.

I love Mexican food.  Really, really love it.  I don’t understand people when I hear them say, “Oh, I don’t really want Mexican food, I just had it last week.”  Last week?  I’d be in some serious withdrawal if I had to wait that long.

As it stands now, I already keep a running supply of salsa in my refrigerator.  One of my guiltiest pleasures is hiding in the panty, shoving my face full of tortilla chips and salsa, scrambling to hide the evidence when I hear my husband’s car pull into the garage.

I attribute this to my mother’s food cravings when she was pregnant with me.  The story is that she and my dad ate once a week at a local Mexican restaurant during those nine months.  And let me tell you a little something about this place: back then, I’m not certain just how by the book they were about following restaurant code, but most patrons didn’t care because it was so crazy good.

And authentic.

And spicy.

Believe me when I say I can out-eat just about anyone in a spicy foods contest.

I was on a blind date once with a guy who tried to “impress me” by attempting to eat the special back of the kitchen hot sauce I’d requested, and ended up leaving the table in a fit of coughing, red-faced embarassment. 

Clearly not the guy for me.

All that aside, this recipe is not spicy, though you certainly could turn it up a notch if you chose to do so.  Whatever you do, make it, because it is good.

Start by shredding about 2 cups of cooked chicken, or more, depending on how many you are serving.  Deli chicken would be perfect for this, although I happened to have some leftover grilled taco chicken, and that’s what I used.

I also had some leftover southwest cream sauce leftover from the shrimp tacos I’d made a few days before, so I mixed it all together…

…then rolled the mixture into wheat tortilla shells secured with a toothpick to keep them closed.

To get the crispy, fried effect without sabotaging your diet, spray the tortillas with canola oil and sprinkle with Kosher salt.  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, turning once halfway through.

Serve with green salsa, black beans and shredded monterey jack cheese.  YUM.