Turkey with Mushrooms and Cream

Ingredients
* 1 package of turkey slices (17.6 oz is how they usually come)
* 1 tbsp oil
* 3 tbsp butter, divided
* 3/4 cup water, divided
* 1/4 cup apple cider
* 2 tsp chicken bullion granules
* 1/4 tsp pepper
* 3/4 cup sour cream
* 1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced

Directions
1. In a large skillet over medium high heat cook turkey in oil and 2 tbsp of butter until golden brown and cooked through.  Remove from skillet and keep warm.
2. In the now empty skillet, combine 1/2 cup water, cider, 1 tsp bullion and pepper.  Cook over medium heat until the bullion is dissolved. Stir in the sour cream and heat through.
3. In another skillet, combine 1 tbsp butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 tsp bullion. Cook over medium heat until the bullion is dissolved. Add mushrooms and cook for 10 minutes of until the liquid has evaporated.
4. Plate the turkey with sauce and mushrooms.  Enjoy!

Notes
This can be served with rice, or egg noodles, or even potatoes.  Our family has been on a brown rice kick and as a result we served it with that.  It was nice to make turkey instead of chicken, but I am sure you could make this with chicken if you had that on hand.  I would suggest pounding the chicken thin so it can quickly cook.

Chicken Thighs with Shallots & Spinach

Ingredients
* 6 boneless skinless chicken thighs
* 1/2 tsp seasoned salt
* 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
* 1 1/2 tsp olive oil
* 4 shallots, thinly sliced
* 1/3 cup white wine or chicken broth
* 1/4 cup sour cream
* 1 package fresh spinach ( 9 or 10 oz)

Directions
1. Sprinkle the chicken with seasoned salt and pepper.
2. Heat the oil over medium heat, then cook the chicken in a large skillet about 6 minutes per side, or until cooked through. Remove the chicken and keep warm.
3.  In the same skillet saute the shallots until tender.  Add the wine and sour cream.  Bring to a quick boil, then cook for an additional 2 minutes or until the sauce has slightly thickened.    Add the spinach, cook and stir just until wilted, then remove from the heat.
4. Serve the chicken on a bed of spinach.  Enjoy!

Notes
I should add an additional direction... de-bone and remove the skin from the bone-in/skin-on chicken thighs you accidentally bought!  We loved this dinner!  The spinach was great with the chicken, and the thighs were a nice change of pace from the usual chicken breasts we have.  You could easily serve this for company as it has a nice presentation and tastes delicious!

September 13, 213

It's Friday the 13th!  Any plans?  Many, many years ago we used to watch scary movies on Friday the 13th.  I don't even really like scary movies, and it was always my idea!  I suppose I just thought it was a fun thing to do to mark the day, but thankfully I grew out of that routine.  Tonight I think we are watching 42 for our traditional pizza/movie Friday night.  The big kids and I saw it, but Ryan hasn't, and it is definitely worth watching twice.

This week had little opportunity to try new recipes, but we did find one new keeper!  A friend of mine was looking for vegetarian slow cooker ideas, and though this certainly doesn't fit into the category, her request pushed me to find a new slow cooker recipe for this week.  Slow cooker teriyaki pork turned out delicious, and was ridiculously easy.  The hardest part was trimming the pork, and adjusting the time because I ended up with chunks of pork instead of one full roast I could easily cut in half.  So yes, it was easy!  I served it with brown rice, and everyone was a fan - even of the brown rice!  I have to admit, I usually use white rice when serving it with a meal, but decided that since the brown rice salad was such a hit last week, why not try plain brown rice.  And, surprise, surprise, everyone had a few helpings of the rice, and no one complained!  I think the kids liked it even better than white rice! The recipe suggested serving this pork with mashed potatoes, but given the teriayki spin to it I felt that rice made more sense.  I am glad I went that route, but you can serve this with mashed potatoes, or even egg noodles.  And when I had the leftover pork for lunch the next day, it was still fantastic.  If you had enough left over to reuse it in a meal, you could reinvent it as part of a filling for quesadillas.

I am still on the hunt for vegetarian slow cooker recipes...if you have a good one (or more than one) email me at monkeysinthekitchen@gmail.com

New Recipe
Slow Cooker Teriyaki Pork 

Slow Cooker Terayaki Pork

Ingredients
* 1 boneless pork roast (shoulder, butt, etc), 3-4 lbs
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/3 cup apple cider
* 1/3 cup soy sauce
* salt and pepper, freshly ground
* 2 tbsp cornstarch
* 3 tbsp cold water

Directions
1. Trim your pork to remove as much fat as possible.  Cut the roast in half, or in big chunks if that is how it works out when you trim it.
2. Rub the pork with the borwn sugar, then place in your slow cooker.
3. Pour the apple cider and soy sauce over the pork, then season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours (depending on size of roast and how you cut it).
4. Remove roast and cover to keep warm.  Strain the sauce, then return to the slow cooker.  Combine the corn starch and water until smooth, then add this to the sauce in the slow cooker.  Stir well, then cover and cook on high for 15 minutes or until thickened.
5. Slice or chunk the pork, serve with gravy.

Notes
We loved this.  So easy to throw together, and there is nothing better than the slow cooker doing all the work for dinner while you work or are out and about.  We served this with brown rice, but you could pair with potatoes or egg noodles as well.

September 6, 2013

What a week!  We hosted a fabulous Labor Day BBQ with friends, and it was an amazing time.  Given that our group was about 30 people, I didn't want Ryan standing over the grill all afternoon (and I didn't think we had room to cook for that many), so I suggested we go the route of really good pulled pork.  Ryan agreed, and we did it.  I used a recipe that I made and posted back in 2011, but really upped the size of the roast.  We used an almost 10 lb bone-in pork shoulder, and though it took a long time, the results were fantastic!  I put it in at 9pm the night before the party, it was cooked to the desired temperature by about 1:30ish the next afternoon, and then we shredded it around 5pm.  Although I could be biased (since I made it) it was some really gosh darn good pulled pork!!!  After dinner one of the dessert offerings was a new recipe - cookies and cream fudge.  It got rave reviews, and one friend said he was was going to request it for his birthday instead of cake!

Prior to dinner I put out the corn avocado salsa that I learned from one of my sisters.  What a hit that was  - with the adults and kids alike!  You have to make this if you get a chance!  When I decided to make it I realized I could use some of my homemade black beans that I portion out and keep in the freezer - it was so nice to have one less ingredient to add to my grocery list.

I suppose it is only fitting that after we celebrated Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, later in the week I made apple cinnamon oatmeal.  Talk about a fall, even winter-y, breakfast. It needs some tweaking, but the kids thought it was pretty good.  I need to work on it to make it a full blown keeper.  But to flip the seasonal table again we made a brown rice salad that tasted like summer.  Such bright flavors, lime, cilantro, tomato... it was as if August was turned into a side dish and placed on my dinner table.  It was a light and fresh side dish, and if you swapped the rice for quinoa, you could use this more as a vegetarian main dish.  Or add some cooked diced chicken to the salad and have an easy, and portable, summer main dish.  Give it a try if you have a chance.  One friend that tried it has never found a brown rice dish she liked...but she loved this!

Both the rice salad and the oatmeal were recipes from the same group of folks.  The rice salad was from a Cook's Illustrated issue and the oatmeal was from an episode of America's Test Kitchen.  status.  The brown rice salad earned keeper status this week, and I am hoping that the oatmeal will make it to keeper soon!  The fudge recipe found me via an email blast from Nestle.  From the rave reviews it got at our BBQ, I think it has earned keeper status as well!

Happy Cooking!

New Recipes
Brown Rice Salad
Cookies and Cream Fudge

Cookies and Cream Fudge

Ingredients
* 3 cups granulated sugar
* 3/4 cup butter
* 5 oz can evaporated milk (I used 2%)
* 1 package white chocolate chips
* 7 oz jar marshmallow cream
* 1 2/3 cup finely crushed chocolate cream cookies, divided
* 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
1. Line a 9 x 13 pan with foil. 
2. Combine the sugar, butter and milk in a medium sized, heavy bottomed sauce pan.  Bring to  a full boil, then stir constantly for 3 minutes.  Remove from the heat.
3. Mix in the white chocolate chips, marshmallow cream, and 1 cup of the cookie crumbs.  Pour in the pan.  Sprinkle the remaining 2/3 cup of crumbs on the top of the fudge.
4. Refrigerate for at least an hour or until cool.  Remove the fudge and foil from the pan,cut into small squares.  Keep leftovers in the fridge.

Notes
The original recipe calls for bigger pieces of cookies on the top, but I found it easier to just process all the cookies at the same time and use some in the fudge and some on top, rather then making some super fine crumbs and some cookie pieces.  But, you can do it however you'd like!

Brown Rice Salad

Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cup long grain brown rice
* 2 tsp salt
* 2 tsp lime juice
* 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
* 2 tsp honey
* 2 garlic cloves, minced (or grated)
* 1 tsp grated lime zest
* juice of a lime (at least 2 tbsp)
* 1/2 tsp ground cumin
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp pepper
* 1 cup of diced sweet peppers (red, yellow, green, orange)
* 1 cup tomatoes, chopped
* 1 avocado, halved, pitted and cut into small pieces
* 1 jalapeno chile, stemmed, seeded and minced
* 5 scallions, sliced thin
* 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced

Directions
1. To make the rice, bring 3 quarts of water to boil in a large pot.  Add the rice and the 2 tsp salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the rice is tender, about 27-30 minutes.  Drain the rice, then spread it out on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Drizzle the rice with 2 tsp of lime juice and then let it cool completely which should be about 15 minutes.
2. To make the vinaigrette, whisk together the olive oil, honey, garlic, lime zest, juice of one lime, cumin, salt and pepper.
3. Transfer the cooled rice to a large bowl.  Add the peppers, tomatoes, avocado, jalapeno and vinaigrette and mix well to combine.  Let is stand for 10 minutes.
4. Mix in the scallions and cilantro.  If desired, season with additional salt and pepper to taste.  Serve at room temperature, or chill and serve cold.

Notes
This was great!!! Such bright flavors - very summery tasting!  I made this but served the tomatoes and avocado separately to meet the needs my family. Some of us love one but not the other, some don't like either.   Just easiest with a salad like this to put it together with all the communal ingredients and then pass the additional ones for people to include if desired.  Just a  note - for me, I liked the rice texture at 30 minutes, so begin to taste it at 27 minutes and see if you feel the rice is done.  If not, add a few minutes of additional time.

I shared this with a few friends, including a vegetarian, and they also loved it!  We agreed that you could swap the rice for quinoa and probably it would be a great dish as well. Give this salad a try soon!  And if you have leftovers and are having it the next day or so, refresh it with a little more fresh lime juice.  This will bring the salad back to life and won't weigh it down with additional olive oil.  Enjoy!