Articles by traveleatlove

I am not sure why I always wait until it is cold out to bring out the old crock pot. It doesn’t heat up the kitchen, so it is ideal for summer cooking. I guess it just calls for heavier types of meals that we don’t eat in the summertime. Over the next few months you will be seeing a lot of this crock pot. From chili to stew to macaroni and cheese to coq au vin, the crock pot is where its at if you want a hot meal made for you when you get home from work. My crock pot and most modern day crock pots have a removable pot for easier cleaning, but this also allows you to prep everything the night before, leave the pot in the fridge, and pop it in to start cooking before you leave for the day. Earlier this week, I made crock pot chicken burritos. I actually wasn’t cooking huge cuts of meat or anything like that, so I was able to put the crock pot on when I arrived home and to eat an hour later. So easy!

Please excuse the ugly raw chicken photo above! Trader Joe’s salsa verde makes a really excellent base for a bunch of things, including burrito filling. For this recipe I took 2 large chicken breasts and placed them in the crock pot with about 3/4 jar of salsa verde. Then I set it to cook. That’s it. You could easily throw in a few cups of black beans and corn instead of chicken and slow cook that for awhile to get a perfect blend of flavors. One thing that I love about my cooking is that pretty much everything I make can be easily adapted to a meatless diet. While the chicken was cooking, I made a quick guacamole with 3 avocados, 3 cloves of garlic, some chopped white onion, and crushed red pepper.

And a tasty salsa with a can of organic tomatoes, white onion, garlic, and a big fat habanero.

Excuse the foaminess of the salsa. . . it tasted really good. I don’t know why it looks like that. . . Once the chicken was cooked, I used a couple of forks to shred it and then put it back in the salsa to cook on low for a bit longer. Haha then I decided I didn’t want chicken, and scrambled up some eggs instead.

My egg burrito topped with some Oikos plain yogurt. Hubs ate the chicken, and he said it was good 😉 This “recipe” is great with a whole chicken and a whole jar of salsa, cooked low and slow for a whole day. Oh the possibilities of the crock pot! I can’t wait to share all of my favorites with you. Do you have any easy crock pot recipes? My mom got me a great cookbook for crock pots last year. It is PACKED with great recipes and some that are super old school and very funny to read!

What a day! I started checking email at 5 am, went back to bed for a bit, officially started working at 7:15 and finally stopped at 6:30. I am likely going to miss a big deadline for tomorrow due to a few different factors, which means another weekend of working. I am SO grateful at this point that I decided to not run the Newport Half. Despite my tiring day, all I wanted to do was to come home, put on some old Damien Rice on iTunes, and get cooking. The cold weather outside got me craving hot and spicy, so I concocted a sweet potato and shrimp stew. Trying to use up some of the food we have in the house I made the stew with the following ingredients:

A good glug of olive oil to coat the bottom of a heavy pan

4 medium sweet potatoes cut into thin discs

can Goya coconut milk

remnants of various bags of frozen veggies – peppers, broccoli, green beans, onions, and water chestnuts

Trader Joe’s broccoli slaw

chopped jalapenos

a few dashes Goya habanero sauce

heaping TBS of Thai Kitchen red curry paste

sprinkle of cayenne pepper

scoop of peanut butter

a few crushed coriander seeds

a few spoonfuls of ground flaxseed

20 medium sized shrimp, peeled and deveined

Sautee sweet potatoes in olive oil until soft. Toss in the frozen veggies and lower the heat  to allow everything to get warm. Pour in can of coconut milk, and add in all of the spices, hot sauce, jalapenos, curry paste and ground flaxseed. Simmer for 15-20 to let the flavors mingle. In the last 3 minutes, add the shrimp to the mix and cook until light pink.

Serve with amaranth!

The smell in our kitchen right now is amazing. It is full of all sorts of spices and coconut. Who needs scented candles when you have great food? 🙂

I know this is just a variation on the shrimp curry that I did awhile back, but this one was a bit more soupy/stew-like and included some new spices and sweet potatoes to mix it up. It was the perfect meal to serve on a very dark October evening.

Any fun plans for the weekend? The weather is not looking good for much here, but I am really looking forward to walking dogs, getting this work project done, and getting some rest!

Random question – what are the most common search engine terms that bring people to your site? Mine have been “love of food” and “wine blog” lately. And I love it!Another was “Irish bread horse”. . . a horse made of bread? 😉 I love reading through the search terms; I really get a kick out of it! I also obsessively check my stats. Please tell me I’m not the only one! They are really starting to climb, yay! I don’t think I have mentioned it, but I FINALLY started telling friends and family about the blog after over 4 months, and the response has been good so far. Now I can’t wait to tell more people. I think the only people I am not going to tell are my co-workers.

Don’t forget that I am collecting guest posts for while I am traveling in November. I just booked another trip for work today, this one to Scottsdale, AZ in January. Its going to be a busy fall/winter!

Have a great night! I am off to make some dessert, something that involves shortbread and dark chocolate. And that will likely be featured on the blog sometime this weekend.

G’nite!