I think it’s about time I get back on the blogging train. What do you think? I figured I would start things off with a recipe that many people have requested over the past few years: a way to make Three-Ingredient Crockpot Chicken Tacos without using processed, preservative-packed salsa and seasoning from the store. For a long time I was hesitant to break down the components of this recipe into homemade versions because 1) If you make your own salsa and taco seasoning, the recipe is no longer three ingredients, and aside from the taste, that’s the best part about it. 2) The original recipe only takes about 2 minutes in prep time. 3) As we all know, making something healthier often means spending more money to buy fresh ingredients.

I decided that my approach would be to make a homemade salsa that would be delicious on its own.  Homemade salsa is easy to make if you have a food processor -- just throw in all of the ingredients you like and pulse them together. I did use canned tomatoes (no salt added) and canned green chiles in mine, but you could leave both of these out and just add in more fresh tomatoes if you're opposed to anything canned. I’d recommend blanching the tomatoes first if you decide to do that.

I used the standard All Recipes taco seasoning for the second “ingredient” in my crockpot chicken tacos. The recipe has thousands of 5-star ratings, so I made it exactly as written.

After cooking the chicken, salsa and seasoning in the crockpot for 6 hours I was ready to go. The results? The chicken tasted the same. Hooray!

I know what you're thinking: "What?! There's nothing spectacular and fresh about the taste now that I've used all fresh ingredients?" No, but the flavor in the original recipe is exactly what you want. The reward is that you feel slightly better about eating it because you know exactly what you used to make it. I’m generally not one to care too much about this (judge me, if you will), but that’s not to say I don’t appreciate knowing my ingredients, when possible.

Make the salsa on its own, or go ahead and make the salsa, seasoning and the tacos. Regardless, you will love the results. You can keep it healthy and top the chicken with fresh ingredients like corn, tomatoes, and avocado. I ate mine in corn tortillas with guacamole and cheese, BUT I used greek yogurt instead of sour cream on top. That was enough for me to justify eating another one..or two.

Enjoy, and thanks for your patience during my long hiatus. I’m back!

Crockpot Chicken Tacos
1oz Homemade Taco Seasoning (See Recipe Below)

16oz Homemade Salsa (see Recipe Below)

6 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, Thawed*

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker and stir to mix the seasoning with the salsa, coating chicken. Cook on high for 4-6 hours or low for 6-8 hours. Chicken should shred easily with a fork once it is done. 

Shred all chicken with a fork until it is fully incorporated into the remaining sauce. Serve in tacos, quesadillas, tostadas, taquitos, on salads, etc. You can't go wrong!

*Use standard-sized chicken breasts that you find at the grocery store. I often only use 4 breasts, and keep the other amounts the same. There will be slightly more liquid if you reduce the size or number of chicken breasts, but the recipe will still work.

 

Homemade Salsa

Juice of One and a Half Limes
1 Red Onion, Chopped
1 Clove Garlic, Chopped
1 14.5oz Can ‘No Salt Added’ Diced Tomatoes, Drained
1 4oz Can Green Chilis, Drained
1 Jalapeno, Seeded and Diced*
Large Handful of Fresh Cilantro
1/2 Tsp Ground Cumin
5 Fresh Tomatoes, Sliced

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in food processor. Pulse until salsa has reached the consistency you prefer.

*If you want more heat, you can leave some of the jalapeño seeds in.

Homemade Taco Seasoning
Recipe from All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:
Stir all ingredients together in a small bowl. Store in airtight container if not using immediately.

I think it's apparent I'm not the healthiest of eaters. I mean... I have a blog full of chocolate recipes, and I'm fairly certain a scan of my brain would show there is an entire section devoted to thinking about carbs. That said, if I can make a healthier version of something I often will.

Recently the craze seems to be using cauliflower in recipes. Who knew cauliflower was such a versatile vegetable? I've seen cauliflower mac and cheese, cauliflower alfredo sauce, cauliflower buffalo chicken bites...you name it. Cauliflower pizza crust also seems to have been big over the past year. Being the pizza fanatic that I am, I decided I should give it a try.

Here's the thing about cauliflower pizza crust compared with regular pizza crust: it cannot possibly compare if your favorite thing about pizza is doughy, delicious crust, and you're hoping to discover the way to get that taste with only a fraction of the calories. You will be disappointed. It's a vegetable. There is nothing that is going to make it rise and magically become a delicious, carby crust. If only. But, unless I'm at a place with delicious pizza crust (i.e. Mellow Mushroom), really crust is just a vehicle for toppings. It's kind of like people who eat foods on rice cakes. Does anyone actually like plain rice cakes? I doubt it. But when you spread peanut butter on a rice cake does it become infinitely better? Absolutely.

If you like thin crust pizza anyways you'll think this crust is a great substitution. It slices just like a regular crust, and even browns and gets a slight crunch around the edges. You can also add all sorts of Italian herbs and spices. I used turkey pepperoni (which I actually really don't like), so that made it even healthier. I also added a ton of cheese because apparently I'm incapable of going too far into the healthy zone.

I would definitely recommend giving this recipe a try. I took these pictures the day I had to stay home from work because of the polar vortex (which apparently wasn't actually a polar vortex), so it doesn't look as cheesy and hot as regular pizza, but that's because it literally froze the second I walked outside to photograph it....as did my fingers while taking these pictures. Sacrifices.

I will definitely be trying some other cauliflower recipes in the future. Do any of you have any good ones? I'd love to hear some other ideas!

Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Recipe from The Lucky Penny

Ingredients

• 1 head (Small Head) Cauliflower
• ¼ cups Parmesan Cheese
• ¼ cups Mozzarella Cheese
• ¼ teaspoons Kosher Salt
• ½ teaspoons Dried Basil
• ½ teaspoons Dried Oregano
• ½ teaspoons Garlic Powder
• Red Pepper Flakes (optional)
• 1 Tablespoon Almond Meal (optional)
• 1 whole Egg

Directions
Place a pizza stone in the oven, or baking sheet if you don’t have a pizza stone. Preheat oven to 450ºF. On a cutting board, place a large piece of parchment paper and spray it with nonstick cooking oil.

Wash and thoroughly dry a small head of cauliflower. Don’t get one the size of your head unless you are planning on making 2 pizzas. Cut off the florets—you don’t need much stem, just stick with the florets. Pulse in your food processor for about 30 seconds, until you get powdery snow like cauliflower. You should end up with 2 to 3 cups cauliflower “snow”. Place the cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl and cover. Cook for 4 minutes. Dump cooked cauliflower onto a clean tea towel and allow to cool for a bit before attempting the next step.

Once cauliflower is cool enough to handle, wrap it up in the dish towel and wring the heck out of it. You want to squeeze out as much water as possible. This will ensure you get a chewy pizza like crust instead of a crumbly mess.

Dump squeezed cauliflower into a bowl. Now add Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, kosher salt, dried basil (crush up the leaves even more between your fingers before adding), dried oregano (crush up the leaves even more between your fingers before adding), garlic powder (not garlic salt), and a dash of red pepper if you want. Add the egg and mix. Hands tend to work best.
Once mixed together, use your hands to form the dough into a crust on your oiled parchment paper. Pat it down thoroughly, you want it nice and tightly formed together. Don’t make it too thick or thin either.

Using a cutting board, slide the parchment paper onto your hot pizza stone or baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 8-11 minutes, until it starts to turn golden brown. Remove from oven.

Add however much sauce, cheese, and toppings you want. I’m not gonna give you measurements for this. You know how you like your pizza—so go for it! Slide parchment with topped pizza back in the hot oven and cook for another 5 to 7 minutes until the cheese is melted, bubbly, and slightly golden.
Test your patience and allow it to cool for a minute or two. Probably closer to two. Then using a pizza cutter and a spatula, serve up your delicious grain-free cauliflower crust pizza!

There are few things more comforting in the winter than a warm bowl of chili. I mean, really, very few. A warm fire, hot chocolate, chili… that's my winter comfort list. I must confess I've never made chili myself. I decided around the age of 10 that my favorite chili ever was from a place my family stayed in the Grand Tetons, and despite the fact that there's no way I still remember what that chili tasted like, I deemed it unbeatable. The close second contender was the chili made in church chili nights growing up. Some of the best food seems to be made at church events, but I couldn't begin to tell you what the ladies who made it used in the recipe.

My boyfriend happens to be a great cook, so it's easy to swap some homemade desserts for a few of his homemade meals from time to time. A few weeks ago he made this chili, and I couldn't get enough of it. I was scraping my bowl and legitimately upset when I finished off the container he gave me to take to work. It's much different than a lot of chili I'm used to because it's sweeter. He says it's the tomato puree that does this--I don't know if that's it, but I'm a fan. 

The sweetness somehow makes it even better with a bit of sour cream stirred in. I know it's January and we all try to avoid the extras like sour cream as a topping, but you shouldn't skip it with this chili. This chili + cheddar cheese + sour cream = Grand Teton good chili. I didn't have sour cream at my office so I put a spoon of Greek yogurt in it and that was delicious too. Sidenote: after this success I tried adding Greek yogurt to my Chipotle bowl when I decided to skip on the sour cream to be "healthy" and that was not a good swap. Just a word to the wise if you're like me and have backwards ways of convincing yourself things are not that bad for you.

Long story short, I got him to make it again this weekend because tomorrow the high in DC is 18 degrees, and I think I'll need this chili. For all of you in the mid-west and up north who would gladly take 18 degree weather over the negative temperatures you are experiencing right now, I think you need this chili even more than I do. If you don't have a crockpot you can also make this in a large stockpot. Because everything is already cooked it's just a matter of heating it long enough for the flavors to really blend together. The more time you give it the better it will get. Enjoy!

Sweet Crockpot Chili

Makes 8+ hearty servings

4 15 oz cans tomato puree 

1 15oz can of diced tomatoes 

2 15 oz cans of sweet corn 

1 15oz can of black beans 

1 15oz can of red kidney beans 

1 yellow onion diced 

1 6oz can of green chiles 

2 packets of McCormicks Original Chili powder 

1 lb ground beef (90% lean) 

1 package of chicken Andouille sausage 

Put tomato puree and diced tomatoes in the crockpot. Add corn, black beans, kidney beans, diced the yellow onion and green chilis. Stir to combine.

Brown the ground beef until no pink remains. Drain pan almost entirely and add beef to crockpot. Next, cook the chicken sausage in a little of the beef drippings reserved in the pan. When sausage is cooked through, pull off pan, slice into 1/4-inch slices and quarter the pieces. Add sausage to chili. Alternately, you can slice the chicken sausage before cooking and cook this way instead. 

Stir in both packets of McCormicks Chili powder with 1/4 cup of water. Cook in the crockpot on low for 5 hours. 

I can think of few things better than the smell of something cooking in the crockpot all day. Crockpot Chicken Tacos are by far the most popular recipe on my blog. Besides the fact that they're delicious, there's something to be said for a recipe that only uses three ingredients yet feeds 12. That goes for most crockpot recipes. They're usually pretty straight-forward and feed a crowd. So, you can imagine how excited I get when I find another great crockpot recipe. This is one of those. I may like it even better than the Crockpot Chicken Tacos because it is THAT good. 

Of course I used North Carolina BBQ sauce (Sticky Fingers). I know there are various regional preferences, but this seemed like a given to me. Disclaimer: this is not the vinegar vs. tomato vs. mustard pork BBQ sauce debate. Obviously vinegar-based is where my heart lies on that one. This BBQ sauce is the thicker red sauce that is made for BBQ chicken. I used Sam Adams Summer Ale for the beer portion since I'm a big Sam Adams fan, and I wanted the rest of the six pack for myself.

The chicken is incredibly flavorful and rich with the sauce. I served it in warm kaiser rolls and popped a piece of cheese on top. I'm not big on slaw, but I imagine that would be good for those slaw lovers out there. I added sweet potato fries as a side because...well they're sweet potato fries. Does that even need an explanation?

I really can't imagine anyone not loving this recipe. It will absolutely be one of my new go-to recipes for summer cookouts. It also makes a giant serving so I was eating BBQ beer chicken sandwiches for my lunch for multiple days in a row. Despite eating this for multiple meals within the course of four days, I was still upset when I ate the last serving.

Enjoy!

BBQ Beer Shredded Chicken

Recipe from The Dainty Chef

Ingredients:

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 6 large)
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp paprika
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup beer (any kind you like)
3-3 1/2 cups of barbecue sauce
Add all the ingredients, other than the chicken into the bowl of a crockpot and stir to combine. Add the chicken and cover with the sauce. Cook on low for about 6 hours.

Directions:

Shred the chicken, and serve on toasted kaiser rolls. Top with cheese or cole slaw.

*Freezer-Friendly Tip* – Freeze extra chicken in ziplock bags to use for pizza, quesadillas and baked potatoes.