Shredded BBQ Chicken

I'm all about simple recipes, and this one may be the easiest I've posted yet. Though it is easy, it is delicious! Whether at home in a crockpot or on the road in our Farberware 7-in-1, the smell of cooking will have you drooling by the time it's ready.

You ready for this?

Ingredients:
1 small bottle Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce
3 chicken breasts or 6-8 chicken tenders, raw boneless
Any other seasonings desired

Squirt sauce around the bottom of the pot until it is nearly covered. Lay raw chicken on top. If you need to layer chicken, squirt sauce between layers. Squirt more sauce on top to nearly cover the chicken. I usually use about 3/4 of the bottle altogether.

That's really it, folks. Use the low setting on the crockpot for a couple hours, the high setting or the chicken setting on the 7-in-1 for 30 minutes. Once the chicken is thoroughly cooked, shred the chicken (still inside the pot), stir in the sauce, and let simmer another 15 minutes. It will absorb a lot of sauce!

Serve over rice or with pasta. It's a little sloppy for sandwiches but a piece of bread to sop up the sauce always helps!

Pork Chops and Potatoes

For my first time cooking on the road, I decided to make a very simple recipe - just 4 ingredients! It turned out perfect. The potatoes were tender, the meat was falling apart, and I was drooling after 2.5 hours of driving while smelling it cooking!

I used my trainer's Roadpro Lunchbox cooker, but it can easily be made in a crockpot, or even in the oven at home. This serves 2, so feel free to double as needed.


Ingredients:
2 pork chops
3-4 small red potatoes
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 package garlic and herb dry salad dressing mix
Splash water

Scoop a third of the can of soup onto the bottom of a meatloaf sized foil baking pan, splash a little water, and sprinkle some of the dry soup mix. Place pork chops on top and repeat the soup and dry mix. Clean potatoes (I leave skins on) and chop into bite-sized pieces, and place on top. Add the rest of the soup and dry mix and another splash of water.

In a lunchbox cooker, 2.5 hours (checking every hour) was perfect. For crockpot or oven cooking, check every half hour. When potatoes are tender, sauce is thick and bubbly, and pork chops are cooked through, stir and serve.

Banana Orange Muffins

In the chaos of moving and getting ready for the new chapter of our lives that is about to begin... I needed a quick break, a spot of creativity, a glimpse of stability. I also needed to use some of what is still in my cupboards! Thus was born... Banana Orange Muffins.

You already know it's going to be quick and easy and tasty...and it's even husband-approved! For the guy who eats all things chocolate and rarely ventures into the world of fruit and healthy-looking snacks, that's a win.

If you want to make it healthier, you could always substitute egg whites for the egg, and applesauce for the oil, and a gluten-free cake mix if you're into that. For fall flavoring, add cinnamon or use a spice cake mix. Or use a chocolate cake mix, or a strawberry cake mix...seriously the options are almost endless! Feel free to modify!

Ingredients:
2-3 very, very ripe bananas
1 egg
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp each of vanilla extract and orange extract
1 vanilla cake mix

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare muffin tins (or a bread pan, if you prefer). Peel the bananas and place in a medium mixing bowl. Mash with a fork, then mix in the egg, oil, and extracts. Add the dry cake mix and stir or beat until thoroughly mixed. Pour into prepared tins and bake for about 18-22 minutes, testing with a toothpick when done. Makes 12 muffins or one loaf of bread.

Soft Pretzels

I have no idea why we haven't done this before. Seriously. And when you try them, you will wonder the same thing! They are best hot and dipped in queso...or cheese...or ranch...or plain...they are straight up amazing!!

They're actually pretty easy too - you know I'm all about easy recipes! It just requires a little prep time.

For us, it's a joint venture. You got it - we like to make them together, as a team. I mix the dough, he heats the water. I roll it out, he twists it into pretzels. And we both eat them...oh my yes.

For the dough, you need:

2.5 cups all purpose flour
dash of salt
spoonful of sugar
package of yeast (either quick-rise or active dry)
1 cup warm water (about 110 F)

Mix the flour, salt, and sugar together in a large bowl. Pour the yeast into the warm water and stir until mostly dissolved. Pour the yeast water into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly - if you have a mixer with a dough hook, that would be best; if not, beat it roughly with a wooden spoon. It should be a soft, smooth lump of dough, not sticky. If it is too sticky, sprinkle with flour and keep kneading. When you have a nice tidy lump, dust with flour and cover the bowl with a towel.

Let's stop and talk about yeast for a moment. If you are using quick-rise yeast, half an hour should be plenty of time to rise. If you are using active dry yeast, somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour usually works best for me.

For the topping, you need:

1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp baking soda
non-stick spray
coarse sea salt for sprinkling, if desired
2-3 tbsp butter, melted

Whisk the warm water and baking soda together and place in a cereal bowl. Spray a pan, and heat the oven to 450 F.

Lightly spray the countertop to help keep the dough from sticking. Take the dough out and use a pizza cutter to divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each section into a long rope and twist into a pretzel shape.

Now, believe me, it's a whole lot harder than it sounds! Easiest thing to do is to double it over, twist it together about a third of the way from the bottom, and roll the ends over. Just play around with it for awhile, you'll get the hang of it. And make sure to ask your sweetheart to try it too - it makes for a lot of laughs!

Dip the pretzels in the soda wash and place them on the sheet. Sprinkle with salt, if desired. Honestly, we find we don't really need it, they're good without, but it's up to you. Let them rest for 10 minutes.

Bake for 8-9 minutes until nicely golden brown. As soon as you take them out of the oven, brush with melted butter. Try to hold off eating them until they are cool enough to touch. Mmmm.

Tilapia and Rice

When my sweetheart and I have time together, one of our favorite activities is cooking as a team. We divide and conquer, each working on a part of the meal, so it's all ready at about the same time. We each have specialties, and this meal is one of the best we make together.

Now, for the record, I don't like most seafood. Besides shrimp, and a dish my friend Cristin makes with salmon her dad has caught fresh, I generally don't like anything fishy. But my honey decided that I should learn to eat tilapia - and surprisingly enough, I did learn to eat it the way he makes it, and I like it too!

We like Zatarain's Crispy Southern fish breading, jazzed up with a little garlic powder, a little Mrs. Dash onion and herb, and sometimes a dash of cajun seasoning for extra zing. My love dips the fish filets in egg white and presses them into the breading mix, thoroughly coating both sides. He then places them on a cookie sheet covered in aluminum foil and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. The oven should be preheated to 450. The tilapia bakes nicely on the top rack for about 15 minutes, coming out flaky and moist, with the breading cooked to a nicely crispy texture.

The basmati rice is my specialty. A few years ago, when I moved into my first apartment, a dear friend gave me a rice cooker and a 25 pound bag of basmati rice. Since then I have learned to tweak the way I make it to just the way we like it. First I measure out the desired quantity of rice, and rinse it twice to clean off any dirt, hulls, etc. Then I add water in the ratio prescribed in the directions on the bag, but I add an extra half cup of water because we like the rice moist. From there, I add seasonings based on what meals the rice will be complementing. Most of the time, it involves a spoonful of chicken bouillon, a healthy sprinkling of onion powder and garlic powder, and a dash of cajun seasoning or cumin, depending on the theme of the meal. I stir it up with a pat of butter or a teaspoon of olive oil, and let it steam in the rice cooker, stirring it occasionally to ensure everything gets mixed up.

The rice is usually done in about 20 minutes, perfect timing to be ready at the same time as baked fish, baked chicken, sauteed Italian sausage, chicken casserole, or whatever I'm pairing it with. Add french bread or sandwich bread, toasted or broiled, and some kind of vegetable, fruit, or dessert. With the two of us working together, it's a meal completely prepared and on the table in about 35 minutes!

Orange Dreamsicle Cake

If you've been reading my recipe blog, you have probably noticed by now that I like simple, easy recipes. My google search history is full of things like "quick and easy dessert" and "5 ingredient cookies." I ran across this recipe, tweaked it to make it my own, and it was a smashing success! I took it to a work pitch-in and it was completely gone in about 2 hours.

The cake part is a simple vanilla box cake mix, made to the instructions on the box in a 9x13 pan. The only thing I would change is to add a splash of vanilla for better taste. Oh, and separate the eggs in a small bowl and whip them with an electric beater for about a minute before adding them to the cake mix, oil, water, etc. The whipped eggs help make the cake very light and fluffy, which is rather important to the success of this venture. You can make a cake from scratch if you feel so inclined, but I guarantee you most people won't know the difference.

Once the cake is cool you're ready for the frosting. Here goes:

1 box orange Jell-O mix
1 box vanilla pudding mix
1 cup milk (I used 2%)
splash vanilla extract
splash orange extract
1 tub cool whip

In a medium bowl, whisk the Jell-O powder, pudding powder, and milk together thoroughly until it is well mixed and slightly thickened. Add the extracts, and extra red and yellow food coloring if you want it to look more orange. Fold the cool whip in and mix with a spoon or spatula.

It's best if you let the frosting sit in the fridge for an hour or two to set up nicely before frosting the cake. And then my advice would be to slice yourself a piece first, because once the cake is cut and everyone gets a taste, it will be gone before you know it! It's a wonderfully light, summery cake, with just the right mixture of orange and vanilla to remind you exactly of an orange dreamsicle.

The Best Cookies Ever

Hello again! I just made the most amazing chocolate cookies! Seriously...soft, moist, rich, and extremely amazing. Like can't stop eating them. Like someone stop me please. No seriously stop me.

Anyway, these cookies are some of my husband's favorites, and they're one of mine too because they're so simple. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup softened butter 
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp milk
1 box dark chocolate cake mix 

Heat oven to 350. Cream the butter (if it's a little bit melted, it's ok). Beat in egg, vanilla, and milk. Thoroughly mix in cake mix by hand. Drop by spoonfuls on a cookie sheet, then flatten with fingertips. These cookies spread a little but not much. Bake for about 7 minutes - do not overbake, they will look puffy when they are ready. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for 4-5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to finish cooling. 

So here's some awesome things about these cookies. First, they are very soft and nice. Second, they actually taste better as cookies than as cookie dough, which means that more of them end up as cookies. And third, they don't have to be chocolate - they can literally be made in any flavor, for any occasion.

Think about it. The main ingredient is a cake mix. It can be customized to any taste or occasion. For Thanksgiving, use a spice cake mix. For Valentine's Day, use a strawberry cake mix, then dip half of each cookie in melted chocolate. During the summer, use a lemon cake mix, and in the winter use a vanilla cake mix and add mint extract and red or green food coloring. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination - and the WalMart baking aisle. See why these are the best cookies ever?