"The most expensive ingredient in your house is the one you are throwing away." - Melissa d'Arabian
Pinterest is for those random few minutes in between, and last week I had more of those than usual. I went a little crazy, pinning everything in sight. It can be a little more than just a little addicting you know. I took advantage of the in between time and pinned several new recipes that I actually wanted to try. A different approach than pinning recipes that just look good.
Today with a full week ahead of us I thought it would be a good time to try out a new crock pot recipe, and boy was it a good one. For those of you who have been following along since Use-it-Up February, this recipe is the perfect solution for using up some odd-ball ingredients.
This is my version of Spicy Crockpot Chicken.
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salsa - whatever amount you have available, up to about a jar
1/2 bag of frozen corn
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. dried onion
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
3 mini bell peppers or one big bell pepper roughly chopped
1/2 cup water
This is the perfect recipe for me because there is no way to mess it up. I always have half eaten containers of salsa in my fridge and this is a great way to use-it-up. Put the chicken in the crock pot and the other ingredients right over top in the order listed. Set crock pot for 6 hours on high. Shred chicken about 30 minutes before serving and let it soak in all the juices. Serve on multi grain tortillas.
(On a side note, if you haven't tried Mission's new artisan brand, you are missing out. I love the flax and blue corn.)
Inspired by the success of the chicken, I decided to try another pinned recipe that "looked good," roasted chick peas. They were as bad as they sound and for some reason the fire alarm thought I had started the house on fire. I didn't notice any smoke, but that's what you get for putting in new batteries and roasting tiny beans in the oven on high heat.
After all of that, I was craving something sweet and thought it would be fun to make vanilla shakes. Sure, that sounds like a nice idea, except that I "forgot" that my blender doesn't work. Just because you haven't used your blender since 2008 doesn't mean it's still not working...maybe if you just gave it another try. It's only ice cream and milk, how bad could it go?
Darn subconscious. If a blender is broken in 2008 and no one fixes it, it still will not work. It made an awful sound, sputtered and splurted, and I ended up mushing together something that resembled a shake with my spoon. Somewhere between waving a dish towel around the hallway and talking myself into the blender situation, I momentarily lost my mind and handed the baby a cup full of shake and a spoon. He's pretty good at both, but the consistency was really bad. Pretty soon the shake was all over his face, hands, arm and legs. And all over the floor. Kevin laughed at me and suggested that maybe making a shake wasn't such a good idea.
Having it all doesn't mean having it all together. If the rest of the week goes this well, I think we'll be doing pretty good! :)
