Day 32, 33: Pepperoncini Beef Sandwiches.

I'm obviously an advocate of crockpot meals.

Why?

Because for the most part, it's really hard to screw up anything you put in the crockpot.

I made this for my friend who took me to the airport, my boyfriend, and another friend...at my boyfriend's request.

Literally, to prepare the beef, all you do is pour a 16oz jar of pepperoncinis on some sort of beef roast, and set it on low for 6-8 hours.

Although that day, I also added a bottle of beer in with everything.

It also doesn't hurt to throw on some salt and pepper.

When the beef is nearly done, take two forks and shred it, and caramelize some onions.

(I'm sure one of these sandwiches would also taste fantastic with some sauteed mushrooms.)

Toast a baguette or sandwich roll just before you eat, add your meat, onions, any sauces you want, and some provolone...and eat!

(Also, this definitely came from Reddit's slowcooking subreddit.)

Also from that day - I didn't want to eat too much before dinner, so I pretty much just ate a bagel with a spread of this honey cream cheese mix I tried concocting myself...except I added way too much honey and the spread is mostly just a goopy mess.

The next day was leftover sandwiches of course, and a turkey sandwich from Jimmy John's, and after I work up talking about them...a chocolate donut filled with cream.

Something Else from Day 28

I nearly forgot! On Tuesday night, I made some coktail weenies in the crockpot from a recipe that seems to be everywhere on the internet.

If you mix a package of "Lil' Smokies" with about half a jar of grape jelly and about half of a 12oz container of barbecue sauce in the crockpot and cook it on high for 2-3 hours, you get some pretty delicious cocktail weenies. They make a great snack.

Day 18: Lobster Fettuccine and Salad, Stir Fry

Yesterday I met my mom in my sister in this shopping center in Loveland, where we ended up going to Biaggi's. I was going to order the lobster fettuccine regardless, but they happened to have a half-pasta, half salad deal - so I got that, with the Caesar salad.

Yes, those are black fettuccine noodles. They're honestly not that different from normal noodles.

After a quick stop in Cheyenne for some Chick-fil-a for the boyfriend (he LOVES Chick-fil-a...like a lot), I got home and wasn't feeling too hungry. But boyfriend wanted to make stir fry for dinner, which we ended up making around 8:00.

This stir fry was probably the best I've ever made. In the past, I've tended to add too much Teriyaki sauce. It was still good, but I thought this time's tasted much better and slightly more wholesome overall.

Recipe:

• 2 chicken breasts, cut into smaller chunks
• 3 carrots
• 4 stalks of celery
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup snap peas
• 1 can baby corn
• 1 green pepper, cut into matchsticks
• 1 tbsp. Red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. olive oil

Cut chicken into cubes and cook in skillet with olive oil until outsides are white. Chop vegetables into medium-sized chunks. Add remaining vegetables, spices, and sauces and cook over medium heat until chicken is done, stirring about every 1-2 minutes. Serve over rice.

 This stuff was GOOD. The red pepper really made this - it was spicy, but not overwhelming. Next time, I may try this without the store-bought teriyaki sauce and just use soy sauce and brown sugar, with more ginger. I also would have liked to have added water chestnuts and broccoli, but the boyfriend never would have agreed to eat it otherwise. The amount of red pepper was just about perfect, though. And it makes for good leftovers!

Day 13: Stuffed Peppers, Leftover Chili

I didn't bother taking anymore leftover chili photos, because at this point, everybody tuning in knows what my chili and bowls look like. (Side note: I bought 8 of those bowls at a yardsale two and a half years ago for a dollar - never buy new dishes unless you really care about your stuff matching).But that was my lunch.

But tonight I made stuffed peppers. I'm trying to find new recipes that my boyfriend will eat and things he is unfamiliar with. I used my crockpot, mostly because that's the way I remember my mom making them - although she mostly filled them with Spanish rice. That was actually my original plan, but the boyfriend has a thing against rice that isn't plain, unless it's mixed with chicken and buffalo sauce, so I avoided a rice-only stuffed pepper, opting for ground beef instead.

Recipe:

• Approx 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 small can green chilies
• 3 stalks of celery
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 1 tsp. creole seasoning
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp. garlic powder

Cut tops off green peppers and discard tops, insides, and seeds. Brown ground beef. Just before ground beef is finished cooking, add minced onion and celery. When beef is done, stir in remaining ingredients. Add mixture to peppers in crockpot and cook on low for 6-7 hours.

Overall, these were...okay. I prefer them with rice. But one thing I did not do was drain the can of diced tomatoes and green chilies at all, and a lot of liquid ended up pooling in the bottom of the crockpot, and the green peppers became really soft and sort of watery. Boyfriend thought that the meat tasted good, but the dish overall with the pepper was bland. This is definitely a good starter recipe, but if I made it again, I would probably use less beef, add some rice, and some other sources of flavor - perhaps some Worcestershire sauce?

I actually made three of these, but boyfriend ate one before I got home. Also, I didn't realize how bad the photo quality was before I'd already eaten another. Whoops!

Day 10: Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms

Today I made stuffed mushrooms for the second time ever, using spinach that was leftover from last week's Chicken and Gnocchi Soup. I knew my boyfriend probably wasn't going to touch anything with spinach in it, so I knew I was on my own. I decided to experiment with using it in stuffed mushrooms, and I ended up with something that would probably be perfect for a St. Patrick's Day-Themed Potluck.

They look sort of weird, but they were actually quite tasty! Here is the recipe I used:

• 1 package of baby portobello mushrooms.
• 1 cup fresh spinach
• 1 8-oz block of chive and onion flavored cream cheese
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tsp. Creole seasoning
• 1-1.5 tablespoons of white wine

Remove stems from the mushrooms and chop them up fine. Set aside mushroom caps. Chop spinach (I used my food processor). Heat a skillet to medium heat and add chopped mushroom stems, spinach, cream cheese, butter, seasoning, garlic, and white wine until well mixed. Generously spoon mixture into mushroom caps. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

The chive and onion cream cheese was more or less a fluke - when shopping the other day, there were no small blocks of unflavored cream cheese, and I figured chive and onion would taste better in a mushroom than, say, honey nut cream cheese.

Here are photos from the process:

Finally, I ate these with a side of leftover cornbread.

Day 8: Egg and Cheese Sandwich on Wheat, Carmelized Onions, Chili and Cornbread

I'm a day late posting this, but I did actually take pictures of everything.

I made myself another egg sandwich for lunch yesterday, but it wasn't until I had already started making the egg when I realized that my boyfriend had eaten the last bagel in the house. Whoops. So I used the only thing we had: Walmart Brand Wheat Bread. The bread itself is pretty bland, and it was sort of stale to begin with, so the sandwich as a whole wasn't that great.

For dinner, my boyfriend and I decided on chili. Chili is an interesting dish, because I think everybody has their own way of making chili. I particularly remember offering to make chili for a group of friends in Boston, and at least two of them replied hesitantly with, "Well...I have my own way of making chili and I'm very picky about it." One of them was from Texas, and I've heard they tend not to use beans. I tend to make a more savory chili, though I've tried plenty of sweeter chilis.

My chili yesterday was pretty simple - I used the ingredients below, plus spices. One thing that differs from a lot of other people's recipes is that I usually use stew meat, as opposed to ground beef.

I start by cutting the stew meat into even smaller chunks and cooking it.

At the same time, cook the onions in butter until they start appearing translucent. (I use a whole onion and cut it into large strips, but you can use less onion if you prefer.)

Add the green pepper, cook that for a few minutes, then add the cooked meat.

Then add the diced tomatoes, beans, beer, and spices. To season the chili, I used chili powder, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, red pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt and pepper.

Normally, I would use a beer with a stronger flavor, but some friends left some Bud Light here a few months ago, and this is probably the only way either of us are going to use the Bud Light.

Anyways, let the chili simmer for a few hours at a low temperature, and serve with some cheese and a side of cornbread.

This is my go-to cornbread recipe. I find it to be not as dry as most cornbread recipes, though yesterday's batch was a bit drier than normal. I also cut into it almost as soon as it came out of the oven, because I was hungry.

Also, yesterday afternoon's snack was caramelized onions, made from half an onion I had leftover from another time. These were made with butter, white wine, and brown sugar.

Day 4: Homemade Chicken Tenders, Chili's, Chai Latte

I think the biggest problem with me and this blog is going to be remembering to take photos of things I'm eating when I'm around people.

First off, last night, I had some more banana bread and some chocolate milk before bed:

And then, after spending probably an hour or two trying to figure out what he wanted to eat, my boyfriend offhandedly mentioned that we should make homemade chicken tenders sometime, to which I replied that such a thing would not be that difficult. But first, he wanted to stop at the coffee shop (Coal Creek Coffee in Laramie) and get hot chocolate. I got a chai latte:

It's supposed to be a tree. But I didn't think to rotate the actual glass until it was too late. Whoops.

The chicken tenders were made in the fryer, soaked in egg and breaded with a mix of roughly 1/2 cup flour, 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, and 1 tsp. of Creole seasoning. It was just about perfect, though others would probably find it too salty.

Moving on, the boyfriend wanted fries to go along with the chicken. (Actually, creole seasoning tastes awesome on fries.)

And for a late dinner, I was trying to ask what my boyfriend wanted to eat for dinner, and we ended up at Chili's. But I forgot to actually take a picture of my full meal because we were with a friend (whoops), so I took a picture of my leftovers: wings and southwestern eggrolls.

Day 3: Chicken and Gnocchi Soup in the Crockpot

This is an attempt at something I'd sort of wanted to try, but was nervous about. Well, we had some leftover chicken breasts in the fridge that really needed to be cooked, as well as some carrots and celery - so I finally attempted recreating Olive Garden's Chicken and Gnocchi Soup...and it wasn't bad! (Though there is room for improvement).

Most recipes for this soup were done on the stovetop, which is fine, but the cooktimes required were pretty low, and I wanted to get as close to that soft meat you tend to get in soups as possible. And seeing as I hadn't even cooked the chicken yet, I thought I would try adapting this for the crockpot in an attempt to get that softer chicken.

Recipe Used:

• 3 chicken breasts
• 1/2 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 3 stalks of celery
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups half and half
• 1 tablespoon Thyme
•  1 16-oz package of gnocchi
• 1.5 cups spinach
• Salt and pepper to taste

Vegetables were added into the crockpot first.

 Then the chicken breasts.

The broth was actually some homemade broth I'd made a few months ago and frozen. It was mostly thawed before I put it all in the crockpot.

This mixture was then cooked on low for about 6.5 hours. Then the gnocchi, half and half, and spinach was added. This is before I added the spinach.

Boyfriend had requested some without spinach, so I ended up having to divide it before I added the spinach.

Overall, this soup was very heavy on the chicken. If I was going to try and get closer to the Olive Garden version, I'd probably cut it down to one, maybe two chicken breasts. There were also more carrots than normal, and I was fairly generous with the spinach, but I tend to prefer soups with a lot more vegetables. The amount of gnocchi was about right, though, as was most everything else.

I didn't add any salt at the beginning, because when I initially made this broth, it turned out to be pretty salty, and I didn't want to over-salt the soup. However, after the addition of half and half, I definitely needed more salt, and ended up adding close to a tablespoon.

I also regret not grabbing any kind of Parmesan for this at the store.

Also, I didn't make any breadsticks - rather, I combined restaurants and ended up making cheddar biscuits with this recipe.

The butter may have had just little too much parsley. :)