Cilantro Lime Chicken & Avocado Tomato Salad

I found this recipe on one of my favorite recipe websites: allrecipes.com. I love this website because you can edit how many servings you'd like to make and it will alter the amount of ingredients needed so you know just how much you need to buy. Plus, I can always find something that sounds delicious so it's my go-to resource when it comes to dinnertime.

The recipe seemed really easy to make, with only a couple of ingredients and it got great reviews! Plus, it cooks in a slow cooker so it's easy to throw it in the crock pot, go to class or a meeting and not have to worry about making dinner when I get back. Of course, I changed the recipe a little bit. I always read the reviews and some of the other contributors had some great ideas for when they made this dish.

P.S.  It smells great when it's cooking too!

Ingredients: 
*Look at the actual webpage from allrecipes.com for the exact amounts you'll need.

Chicken
Salsa
Lime
Cilantro
1 pkg taco seasoning

Mix all ingredients except chicken in the crock pot until well combined. Add chicken and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6-7 hours. I cooked mine on high for 4 hours. Then, shred the chicken. The website says to use a fork to hand shred the chicken, but if you have a Kitchenaid mixer you can carefully take the chicken out of the slow cooker and use the paddle attachment to shred the chicken. Then, re-add the shredded chicken back into the slow cooker. At this point I also added a can of rinsed black beans and some frozen corn I had on hand.

I served the chicken with Tandoori garlic Naan bread which is an Indian flat bread. If you've never had Naan bread you are missing out! It's delicious! There are recipes for it all over the internet (including allrecipes.com), but I bought mine from Walmart for $2.00 and change for a package of two. It's a little expensive for not getting very much (especially because once you taste it you always want more), but in my opinion it's worth it.  I'm not sure if any Walmart carries it, but I found mine in the bakery section kinda by where you'd find the donuts. Follow the package directions to reheat.

I also made up some brown rice and flavored it with chicken base.  When everything was cooked we layered the rice on the Naan bread and then the chicken mixture. You fold the Naan bread in half and kind of eat it like a taco.

For the salad:

This is something I had a work that I kind of had to revamp and make up on my own. It's simple and delicious, especially when it's hot outside.  

Ingredients:
Tomatoes (the bigger the better)
Avocados (the bigger the better)
Garlic salt (to taste)
Olive oil
Lemon juice (to taste)
Black pepper (to taste)

Cut the tomatoes and avocados into wedges. These are really the only things in the salad (although you could add lettuce if you wanted to) so it's better if they are left a little big. Drizzle olive oil over them until just coated and add the salt, lemon juice and pepper to taste. Toss and serve!

The boys put the salad on the bread also. They really like the dinner and we will be making again! 
Note: I also added mozzarella cheese just because I had it. The recipe doesn't call for it.

Pancit


Ingredients
6 cubes chicken bouillon
8 cups water
1 can chicken broth (adds taste to chicken)
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 lb small raw shrimp (deveined with no tails)
6 cloves garlic
1 TBSP black peppercorns
1 large onion
4-6 celery stalks (thinly sliced, think little boomerangs)
4-6 large carrots (julienned)
1 whole head napa cabbage (chopped)
2 cups sliced mushrooms (optional)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce (found in the asian isle)
3 packages rice noodles (also found in the asian isle or in asian food stores)
Directions
Makes 15-20 servings

1. boil water with peppercorns, 4 whole cloves of garlic, bouillon, chicken broth, and chicken breasts until chicken is tender.

2. cut cooked chicken into chunks, set broth aside.

3. in heated wok, saute 1 clove minced garlic, and 1/2 of the onion. Add chicken and shrimp. Cook until shrimp are pink.

4. Add celery, carrots, mushrooms and cook at high setting in wok until mushrooms are soft.

5. Add napa cabbage, and cook in down in wok until cabbage is soft and the cabbage volume gets smaller.

6. Remove meat and veggie mixture from wok.

7. Saute other half of the onion and 1 clove minced garlic in the wok. Add soy sauce, fish sauce, and 6 cups of chicken broth (set aside). Bring to a boil.

8. Spray rice noodles with water to soften them slightly. Add the noodles to the boiling mixture in the wok. Cover and simmer until the noodles are soft and have absorbed most of the liquid.

9. Mix the veggie/meat mixture with the cooked rice noodles. Serve as a meal or divide it up for several lunches! Enjoy!

Number of Servings: 15

Filipino Lumpia

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound ground pork
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup minced carrots
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup thinly sliced green cabbage
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon soy sauce
30 lumpia wrappers
2 cups vegetable oil for frying
Directions
Place a wok or large skillet over high heat, and pour in 1 tablespoon vegetable oil.
Cook pork, stirring frequently, until no pink is showing.
Remove pork from pan and set aside.
Drain grease from pan, leaving a thin coating.
Cook garlic and onion in the same pan for 2 minutes.
Stir in the cooked pork, carrots, green onions, and cabbage.
Season with pepper, salt, garlic powder, and soy sauce. Remove from heat, and set aside until cool enough to handle.
Place three heaping tablespoons of the filling diagonally near one corner of each wrapper, leaving a 1 1/2 inch space at both ends.
Fold the side along the length of the filling over the filling, tuck in both ends, and roll neatly.
Keep the roll tight as you assemble.
Moisten the other side of the wrapper with water to seal the edge.
Cover the rolls with plastic wrap to retain moisture.
Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat, add oil to 1/2 inch depth, and heat for 5 minutes.
Slide 3 or 4 lumpia into the oil.
Fry the rolls for 1 to 2 minutes, until all sides are golden brown.
Drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.

Tortellini salad

Hello all! I know it has been a while, but it's been quite a semester. School is almost out and I've started a new job. I move apartments in two weeks! I'm trying to fit a post in between all of that. This is something that we enjoyed at work. Somewhat surprisingly, the boys both liked it too. I used sweet vidalia onion dressing, but honey mustard dressing is really good too. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
Lettuce (I used hearts of romaine because they are my favorite and I generally have them on hand, though when we had it at work I'm pretty sure it was iceberg)
Tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella
Tortellinis (find them in the refrigerated pasta section)
Shrimp (I used frozen cocktail shrimp, but at work they used large shrimp)

You can buy Buitoni refrigerated tortellini for about $7.99 and it cooks for only 9 minutes. I like it because it's so quick! I can make this recipe right when I get out of school around 6:30 and we can eat dinner before 7:00 PM. It also comes in several different fillings. I used the mixed cheese tortellini because the pasta comes in different colors.

Boil the pasta according to package directions.

If you are using frozen shrimp and you didn't defrost them ahead of time, put the shrimp in a colander and run them under cold water until they are defrosted. The salad is meant to be eaten cold so there's no need to heat them up.

Cut up the tomatoes and lettuce and add them to a bowl. I shred the mozzarella by hand but you can cut it up if you don't want to do that. Add the cheese to the bowl.

When the pasta is finished cooking it will have plumped and will be floating. I ran mine under cold water so that I wasn't having hot pasta in my cold salad. Then add both the tortellini and the shrimp to the bowl. Mix and serve!

Tex Mex Goulash

2 lbs ground beef cooked, drained and rinsed

1 can Rotel crushed tomatoes with chilies

1 tsp each garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt & pepper

3 tsp paprika

1 small yellow onion

cook and simmer to let flavors marry

1 lbs egg noodles

serve meat over noodles

garnish with sour cream

add ins- red kidney beans, elbow mac instead of egg noodles, turkey instead of beef, cheese

chunky tomatoes instead of crushed

I also added a few dashes of Cayenne sauce for more spice and 1 tbs butter with 1 cup of noodle water for more sauce

Special pumpkin pie- from Kathy Neid

Here is a pumpkin pie recipe from Kathy Neid- look closely folks, this one has butter...YUMMY!

• Pie crust
  
  1/2 cup softened butter
  2/3 cup shortening
  1 tbsp sugar
  1/4 tsp baking powder
  1 tsp salt
  3 Cups flour
  1/2 cup milk
  Cream butter and shortening add 1/2 of the flour along with sugar,baking powder, and salt. Mix well, add milk and remaining flour. Shape into 2 balls wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate about 20-25 min. Roll out on floured board making two bottom crusts

  • Pumpkin Pie Filling
    
    1 can pumpkin, not the pie filling- whole pumpkin
    1 can evaporated milk
    3/4 C sugar
    2 eggs
    1 Tbsp melted butter
    1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
    1/4 tsp nutmeg
    1'4 tsp ginger
    1/8 tsp ground cloves
    3/4 tsp salt
    
    mix everything together with mixer, pour into unbaked pie shell Bake @ 425 for 15 min. Reduce heat to 350 continue baking for 40-45 min.
    Same Recipe on the Libby's can only difference is the melted butter.

    Thank you Kathy for the contribution to our blog!

  
  

Fleischkuechle (meat pies)

This is my husband's dad's family recipe/ so the Schwarz side- hope you enjoy..

Original recipe-

Meat mixture . . .

• 1 1/2lbs ground beef

• 2 tsp minced onion

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp celery salt

• 3/4 cup hot water(I use almost boiling and enough to make the meat soft and easily spreadable- this also pulls out some of the fat)

Mix ingredients well.

Dough . . .

• 1 pint 1/2 & 1/2

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Enough AP flour to make a soft dough (start with 4-5 cups)

Mix ingredients & let rest 1/2 hour. Heat enough oil to fry- get it hot while you assemble the pies. Divide the dough into pieces the size of 2 walnuts and roll out thin like a pie crust (oblong circle shaped and use flour on the counter so they don't stick).
Put about 2 Tbs of meat mixture onto dough, fold over & pinch tightly to close so they don't break open too badly when frying (they will some anyway, but don't worry).

Fry until golden and meat is done. I usually cut the first one open to determine the cooking time.

**I don't really use a recipe anymore- I make sure the meat smells good and I put pepper in the dough too. I also just use a season salt and add garlic and cayenne pepper too.

Joel likes to bite off one end then drain into a bowl and dip into ketchup. I prefer ranch dressing.

I sometimes add chopped mushrooms. These could probably be baked if you cook the meat first then egg wash the dough, but Joel would not have it that way-- only fried for him!

ENJOY!!