lesson learned… when you see something on Pintrest or Facebook that looks amazing but doesn’t come with a detailed recipe… keep looking… unless you enjoy wasting your time…
the salad was fine… basically just added what I had in the fridge to make a carrot salad and the reviews from the 12 and 14 year old were good so I think it was a success…
carrot pistachio salad
Ingredients:
- 3 lbs carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 3/4 cup shelled pistachios
- 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
Directions:
- grate the carrots and place in a large bowl
- in a small mason jar, add dressing ingredients and shake until well mixed
- add to the carrots
- add cilantro and using tongs toss the salad
- top with pistachios and serve cold
and the crockpot Mexican Chicken over rice is an excellent recipe to have kicking around if you have a busy day and want a nutritious supper… I served it over Basmati Rice which is my favourite type of rice…
crockpot mexican chicken
Ingredients:
- 1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
- 3 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 (14.4 oz) can chicken broth
- 1 (4 oz) can diced green chiles
- 2 yellow onions, diced
- 4 large cloves garlic, minced
- 5 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped (1/2 a bunch)
- 1 tbsp fresh lime juice (or put slices of lime beside the dish)
- optional toppings: chopped green onion, shredded cheese, avocado, sour cream
- serve over rice
Directions:
- in a slow cooker, combine tomatoes, black beans, chicken broth, green chiles, onions and garlic
- add chicken on the top and season
- cook on high for 4-6 hours (or on high for 2 hours and then low for 6 hours)
- when the chicken is cooked, add cilantro and lime juice
- serve over rice with toppings or also great on tacos or in burritos
but… if you want to waste about 5 hours of your day wasting your time… try doing this…
first of all, you view a video of someone making something in fast forward on Facebook… many of them are called ‘Tasty’ or ‘Little Things’…
then you look for the recipe only to not be able to find it…
so you pause the video and write down the recipe as it flashes up on the screen…
you go buy all the ingredients and proceed to cook it… only to figure out that it didn’t tell you how many cheesecake cupcakes it was supposed to make… or it left out details about cooking time or temperature… or exactly how to make a caramel sauce…
or you buy 4 packages of cream cheese only to find out that you didn’t need that big of a cheesecake recipe for the little muffin tins you are filling…
and 1/3 of it goes to waste…
when you finally get to the last step which only took 20 seconds on Facebook but has taken you 4 hours to get to… you realize it might be a bit tricky to make a caramel sauce…
this is after you have burnt sugar onto two pots and ran out of pots and had watched two YouTube videos on making a caramel sauce…
you resort to melting a chocolate bar to pour over the top of the cheesecakes because your supper was running late…
they were delicious… so go for it if you so choose… just don’t expect it to go as quickly as the video you saw on Facebook!
salted pretzel cheesecake cups
Ingredients:
- 2 cups crushed pretzels
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 1/2 sticks butter, melted (3/4 cup)
- 4 (8 oz) pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 tbsp flour
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 cup pretzels, slightly crushed
Directions:
- mix the crushed pretzels, sugar and butter
- press into 24 foil lined muffin trays, around 1 1/2 tbsp per muffin cup
- bake at 350 for 5 minutes
- beat cream cheese and sugar until combined
- add flour and combine
- add eggs, one at a time, until combined
- add heavy cream, sour cream and vanilla
- pour mixture into the muffin cups, filling them to the top
- there will be left over cheese cake mixture – I greased a pan and poured the mixture into it and baked it separately
- bake at 350 for 22 minutes
- chill in fridge for 2 hours
- to make the caramel sauce, put sugar and water into a pan
- do not mix with a spoon or whisk, but give the pan a shake occasionally
- boil until the mixture turns an amber colour
- using a pastry brush and water, brush down the sides of the pot so the sugar does not crystallize on the sides
- take off the heat and pour in heavy cream, while standing back as it will react
- whisk this together and add the butter
- pour the caramel sauce on the cooled cream cheese cupcakes
- add some crushed pretzels and serve
i feed a farmer 