EASY PEASY RECIPE: Chicken with Cucumber Salsa

I'm still recovering from the epic moussaka adventure, so as a sort of kitchen detox, I'm following up with the easiest recipe ever. Seriously. THIS IS SO EASY. And it's a great way to use up random leftover veggies.



Yum, right?

The cucumber salsa recipe comes from my friend Erika, the blogger behind Honey I Shrunk My Butt.

The chicken recipe is my own creation. If you can call it that. I mean, my two-year-old could probably come up with this if I left him alone in the kitchen for five minutes. (Okay, that's not true. If I left him alone in the kitchen for five minutes, he'd most likely eat a whole box of Triscuits and dump out every piece of paper in the recycling bin.)

You'll need:

• boneless chicken
• a cup of salsa (any kind)
• half a cucumber
• half a red pepper
• 1/4 of a red onion
• some corn
• 1/2 Tbsp. cilantro
• 1/2 Tbsp. Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle seasoning blend

THE CHICKEN
Put a pound of chicken in a crock pot with half a jar of salsa. (I used Newman's Own pineapple salsa, but any salsa is fine. I'm thinking salsa verde would be phenomenal.) Cook on high for 2-3 hours. That's it.

THE SALSA:
Dice the cucumber. Dice the red pepper. Dice the onion. (Shout-out to the Pampered Chef Food Chopper, by the way. It seriously might be my favorite kitchen tool. And my kids think it's a toy, so I can actually persuade them to help me cook!) I used about half a bag of Steamfresh corn. Mix it all together in a bowl with the cilantro and seasoning blend.

When the chicken's done, put it on a plate and dump the salsa on top, or wrap everything up in a flour tortilla. That's it. Super-healthy, beyond easy, and the cucumber is a refreshing twist on pico de gallo. This is totally getting added to regular rotation at our house.

SLOW COOKER RECIPE: Cuban Pork

Okay, fair warning: This is a two-step recipe. I suppose you could just throw everything in the slow cooker, but it's extra-awesome if you marinate it for a few hours, so I recommend going the extra mile on this one. It's worth it.

Here's what I used. Check the bottom of this post for substitutions if you can't get some Papa Joe's in time, or if you want to make it easier.

• 1-2 lbs. pork loin (I like boneless)
• 1 Tbsp. Papa Joe's Salt*
• 1/2 tsp. oregano
• 1/2 Tbsp cumin
• 3 oranges**
• 2 limes

Step 1: Marinade. Stab the pork with a grilling fork or any other poking device you have lying around. 

Um, I look like I'm slaying vampires, yuck. I hate when meat looks like meat!

Anyway. Once you've gotten the stabbies out of your system, throw the pork in a Ziploc bag with the Papa Joe's salt, oregano, and cumin. And then squeeze the holy crap out of the oranges and limes. (I was in a perfectly good mood when I made this, so I don't know why every step of the recipe seems like a de-stressing exercise.) Put the mix in the fridge for a couple of hours, or overnight. Whatever.

Step 2: Cook. Dump the contents of the Ziploc bag into your slow cooker and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours.

Just a note, feel free to use less of the Papa Joe's. Hubby and I strongly disagreed on whether it tasted salty. So, adjust to taste. 

I think this would be awesome on a sandwich with cheese, honey mustard, and pickles. Or in a quesadilla. Just sayin'!

* Papa Joe's salt is a mix of salts, pepper, and garlic. It's amazing and does magic things to steamed vegetables -- for example, it makes me eat them :)  Sweet serendipity, their HQ is apparently a whopping nine blocks from my house. But if you're not local, you can order it through their website. And if you don't have time to order it, just mix together some sea salt or seasoning salt, ground pepper, and garlic, so the mixture totals a tablespoon. 

** Feel free to use the squeezy lime and/or regular old orange juice. Not sure why I went so gung-ho with the fresh fruit. I'd guesstimate that 2 Tbsp of squeezy lime juice and 1/4 cup of orange juice would do the trick.

SLOW COOKER RECIPE: Sweetballs

I'm kind of a one-trick pony when it comes to appetizers -- I've probably brought the same spinach-artichoke dip to every party I've attended since 2005. But no more! Now I'm a two-trick pony! A beef craving inspired these tasty balls, which would make Pete Schweddy proud.

(If you haven't experienced the magic of Pete Schweddy, please take a moment...)


Anyway. Here's the recipe:

• 1 can cranberry sauce
• 3/4 cup ketchup (again, Heinz organic is the bomb)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)
• 1/2 can of beef broth
• a bag of frozen meatballs

Put everything but the meatballs in your slow cooker, and cook on HIGH for half an hour. Add the meatballs, reduce heat to LOW, and cook for 2 hours or until the meatballs are thawed. Balls accomplished.

SLOW-COOKER RECIPE: Sweet Pork Stir-Fry

Okay, so it's not technically stir-fry, but it tastes just as good without all the stirring and frying.

You'll need:

• a big old hunk of pork
• 1 bag of steam-in-bag asian veggie mix
• 1/2 can of mandarin oranges*
• 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 1/3 c. cider vinegar
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1 T. minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. chicken bouillon
• 1/4 t. ginger

Throw everything but the veggies in the crock pot and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours. A few minutes before you're ready to eat, cook the veggies in the microwave and dump them in. You can also dump them in frozen at the very beginning, but they stay a little crisper this way. At least that's what I tell myself; it's not like I ever tried it the other way.

* I assume you could just peel a regular orange, but who wants to? Oranges are one of my favorite fruits and I almost never eat them because they're so freakin' hard to get into.

I'm having a steamy affair...with my slow cooker.

Before I inundate you with my crockpot recipes, I should explain how my crockpot and I got together.

Because I don't have the patience for anything that requires more than two pots or three ingredients, I had exactly four dishes in my repertoire, and I'd estimate that my husband had eaten each one of them approximately 400 times.

(He cooks too. Don't get any June Cleaver notions. It's just that I work at home, and by the time 4:30 rolls around, I'm usually too hungry to wait for him to get home, get inspired, and get dinner started. So I'm just like, "Welcome home! I made crab quesadillas...again!")

Then we got the slow cooker for Christmas. Technically he got got the slow cooker, but I've commandeered it. Here's why I love slow cooking: Do you remember spin-art?

Put a piece of paper in the spinner, squirt some paint, and hope for the best. You never knew what the finished product would be until it stopped spinning, but it was always AWESOME! At least by my standards. I had spin-art all over my bedroom in 1988.

That's kind of how I feel about the slow cooker. I dump some ingredients in, stir, and 6-8 hours later, I find out what sort of tasty masterpiece I've created. (Or it tastes like total ass, and we wind up eating Spaghetti'O's instead. Usually that happens when I try to incorporate lentils.)

Anyway, thanks to the slow cooker, I'm happy, my husband's happy, and I'm eating REAL food for a change. I actually bought celery last week. And my potato peeler is finally getting some action!