Hello friends! How’s your weekend going? In my never-ending quest to find the balance between nutrition and time, I’ve decided to use the CROC POT for the first time….ever. I’ve hesitated to use it before because a) I don’t usually need enough food for 6 people and b) I’m mildly intimidated by the prep work involved in cooking that much food. I hate recipes that tell you to brown the meat first, oh and chop up half a garden, and add a whole bunch of spices that I don’t have. Puh-lease.

Enter: a little post by Yellow Heart Art. (Yellow Heart Art, or Leonora as the woman behind it is called,  also  has a shop on Etsy, where she sells cool prints and “squishable art” that I really like!)

She made croc pot cooking seem so easy! And apparently, it saves you time…without using the microwave. What a revelation. I am totally guilty of buying those $2 lean cuisine type things for the days when I just can’t be bothered to cook/assemble a sandwich.

So anyways…I took a bunch of pictures, but they are kind of boring. There was a box with a croc pot in it, and I opened it, and then I put some stuff in. I started out easy and made a “mexican” pulled chicken dish:

• 4 chicken thighs (Leonora used breasts but the thighs were on sale for 99 cents/lb. Couldn’t pass that up!)
• 1 jar (16 oz) salsa (I used Herdez. It’s pretty basic.)
• 1 packet taco seasonings (Or some cumin powder, chili powder, and oregano)

Directions:

1. Throw it all in the crock pot, and set it on low for 6-8 hours. (I went for about 6.5 hours.)
2. Remove chicken, tear up with fork and discard bones.
3. Spoon some of the salsa-sauce on top and let rest for 5 minutes or so.
4. Serve it as you wish. BOOM! You are now eating dinner. (And in my case you now also have 3 more meals. Yeah-yuh!)

I just threw my chicken in some sturdy “hand made style” tortillas (because this recipe is kind of juicy and messy) and topped it with shredded cheese and sour cream. (I know I mentioned that I’m lactose intolerant, but I CAN tolerate small amounts of certain forms of dairy.) In the future I might add any of the following: sliced olives, shredded lettuce, guacamole, black beans, corn…and pretty much anything else that you want. Think Chipotle’s toppings.

You could also sneak in some veggies and throw celery, onions, corn, bell peppers, etc into the croc pot at the beginning.

Other ways to eat this, besides tacos:

• Over chips (nachos!)
• Over rice (can someone teach me how to make mexican rice? I def just ate this over plain white rice.)
• In enchiladas
• …you get the idea.

I found that overall this recipe was satisfactory and has successfully cured me of my phobia of croc pots. I’d probably jazz it up a little more next time (or find a different salsa?) because the flavor wasn’t all that dynamic. (Look at me! Talking about food as if I actually know anything about it.) Like I mentioned before I would throw in some veggies so that I wouldn’t have to make a side dish of some sort of vegetable…my dad’s a produce farmer so I’ve developed a compulsion for eating veggies with dinner.

Unless dinner is at In-N-Out, then I have to declare potatoes vegetables…

So um..yeah. Next time you don’t feel like cooking, try this out! Thanks again Leonora for the inspiration! If you have a great croc pot recipe, send it my way!

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Remember last week when I said I was trying to clean out the pantry? Well most of the details of that are kind of boring, but I did find a way to use up some of the jam I had lying around. And after a week my pantry didn’t look all that much emptier so I did eat out a few times with friends, but I still haven’t been to the market in over 10 days. The only thing I’ve run out of that I can’t live without: soy milk. Which brings me to the more exciting part: STRAWBERRY-GUAVA “CHEESECAKE”.

By the time valentine’s day had hit, I had already eaten up the remaining part of my chocolate stash (it doesn’t ever last long in my house) so I decided to make one of my favorite desserts: cheesecake. Minor detail: I don’t own a spring form pan. Also: I’m lactose intolerant.

I used this, plus the soy milk.

Enter: Jell-o no-bake cheesecake that I picked up for $1.50. You can use soymilk with it and it still sets!!! All I added was about a half a stick of butter, a few tbsp of sugar, 1.5 c of vanilla soy milk, and 4ish tbsp of strawberry-guava jam.

I picked up this jam at this local Japanese market that stocks some great little hawaiian items…it closed down after being in business for over 100 years so I stocked up on a bunch of staples (and this “frivolous” jam) a few months back.

To make: follow the directions on the box to prepare the cheesecake and let it chill in the fridge for an hour. Here’s the tricky part! After you let the cheesecake chill for at least an hour (do the dishes and then watch an episode or two of 30 Rock) take a few giant spoonfuls of jam and mix it with some water (4:1 ratio if I had to guess) and then microwave it for 30 seconds to get it nice and runny.

Pull the cheesecake out of the fridge and spoon/drizzle the jam over the whole cheesecake…return to fridge for another 40 minutes…and you are done!Ta-da!!! Easy peasy dessert.

Did it taste like cheesecake factory? Nope.

Did it make me sick? Nope!!!

Did it satisfy my sweet tooth? Yes!!

My dinner companion didn’t even realize this was a box mix because I had added the layer on top

(Apologies for the terrible photos. I took them all with my iPhone 3GS…my camera broke and I haven’t replaced it yet.)

Other things I’ve done with this jam: make a vinaigrette and tossed that with salad, make “uncrustables” type PB&J sandos…and of course enjoy over toast!

What are your favorite thing to spread jam on?

I go through phases with how I approach food, especially my cooking. Over the past year: a Glamour diet (that was thwarted by a midnight run to In-N-Out), refusing to buy pre made baked goods (I own a ton of flour now), trying to be super healthy/gourmet (so much work), cooking more Japanese dishes from a church cookbook, shopping “euro” style aka hitting the market 4 days a week, going coupon crazy/studying the weekly food fliers (and turning a semi-blind eye to nutritional content), and most infamously, *trying to stop going to Starbucks.*

Euro-style shopping was a lot easier in Italy.

Last Friday was pay day…so I paid my bills…and after doing that (yay for online bill pay) I had to leave the computer screen to keep from getting sad about my lowered bank balance. So I wandered to the kitchen to have a snack. I opened the cupboard and did not immediately find something delicious to eat…but I did find that my pantry is almost FULL.

Of food I haven’t eaten yet.

That I bought a while ago.

That, if I were to move next week, I would have to throw out or pawn off onto someone else.

That (most importantly) I have ALREADY PAID FOR.

So instead of doing what I usually do when I’m feeling cash-poor and trying to see how many “no-spend” days I can rack up in a week, I decided that I was going to make a dent in that pantry.

I must have bought all that food at some point because I wanted it. I know this because I am the only person who buys my groceries. Sound logic, right?

Coincidentally I saw that a friend on the Facebook had started posting photos of her $25 food week. And because I figured I couldn’t just eat scones for a week straight (although that’s an experiment I wouldn’t mind trying) I wrote down everything semi-appealing that I owned and then came up with a list of things I might need to make myself actually eat these things. And then I set a $20 limit with an extra $5 throughout the week in case I needed something.

I love lists. This strengthsfinder thing I did at work says that I am analytical and like to accomplish things. Anyone who has ever seen my crazy lists already knows this. On an un-related note I also love arrows and circling things a lot.

I am on DAY 6 of this thing and it has turned out pretty good. I’ll post more about what I actually ate, but for now I will tell you that:

• I decided that I had to buy groceries in the first place because I did not want to be in a cruddy mood or feel deprived all week. I live in a city full of restaurants. Not eating out is hard enough. Especially restaurants are my main source of social interaction.
• I initially spent $21.87 (Safeway) + $2.35 (Big Lots) on groceries. So I came in at $24.22 to start.
• I had to make something for Valentine’s Day. More on that later.
• I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday so I forked over $4 for a Jamba juice. Sugar AND vitamins? Yes please!