I’m not much of a slow cooker girl. It’s rare that I get my act together early enough in the day to plan ahead for dinner, having all the ingredients I need on hand, readying them for that slow cooking pot. However, this recipe, only needing to cook for 6 hours, means I can be my procrastinative self and put this on later in the day if need be. It’s the perfect meal to cook on a lazy Sunday.

Most of the ingredients in this list are pantry items for me, which lessens the need to go to the store. I kept this recipe simple, with just two flavorful items going into my tortilla – pork and pickled onions. The pork is juicy and melt-in-your-mouth tender, with a nice heat, while the pickled red onions bring a little sharpness and crispness to the meal, cutting through the fat while adding a gorgeous jewel-like color to each bite.

Since I kept the ingredients on the tacos minimal, I decided to get my traditional taco toppings (read: veggies!) via a salad on the side. (more…)

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Comfort food, Dairy free, Dinner, Gluten free, Mexican by Courtney

Cinnamon-dusted roasted blueberries. Slivers of ginger crisped by the oven. White peaches just slightly warmed. Sometimes the best recipes are born of the random ingredients one has in hand. My husband has a love of blueberries that always leads him to pick up a pint at the grocery store, but then they end up forgotten, stashed in the produce drawer. I’m not a fan of the remnant bud on them, so they’re the last thing I want to snack on, and thus, they stay in the drawer. Until this week, wanting something light, I decided to make a salad. I figured roasted grapes are good, so why not roasted blueberries? Where on earth I had the idea to dust them with cinnamon I’ll never know. But I’m happy it did. (more…)

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Dairy free, Dinner, Gluten free, Quick and Easy, Salad by Courtney

I love it when recipes come together so easily. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a simple meal that wouldn’t take any time to prep. I actually had the luxury of time for it to cook, but I needed to be taking care of other things around the house, so the situation called for something that didn’t need baby sitting and would get me to work ASAP. Usually my go to in this situation is a roasted chicken, but I’ve made quite a few of those lately, so I turned to the cookbook Rôtis for some inspiration.

While I love this cookbook, I wasn’t too hopeful about finding a recipe I could make as most of them, though they need little prep, usually require forethought because the recipes have wonderful marinades. To my surprise, I stumbled upon a recipe for roast pork with lemongrass and tea that required no marinade, 15 minutes of prep, and about two hours to cook. Sold! Off to the store I went. (more…)

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Asian, Dinner, Gluten free, Prep for Later Use, Wine pairings by Courtney

Hoppin’ John is one of my favorite dishes, and it’s something that really shouldn’t be confined just to the first day of the year. For those of you who have never heard of Hoppin’ John, it’s a traditional Southern dish made with rice and black eyed peas, and when eaten on New Year’s Day, it is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity for the year. It is generally served with greens. The black eyed peas are supposed to resemble coins, and the greens add to the year’s prosperity and wealth due to their green color (you know, the color of money). Sometimes cornbread also gets into the action, given its golden color (again, the color of a different kind of money). While I’m not sure about all that, I am sure that creamy black eyed peas mixed with the saltiness of bacon and spiced up with some andouille and pepper makes taste buds happy and fills up bellies. (more…)

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Cajun & Creole, Comfort food, Dairy free, Dinner, Gluten free, Southern by Courtney

This is one of those recipes that upon first making it, I was surprised it could be so good. Maybe it’s because I grew up with a disdain for almost every vegetable, and the thought of broccoli was at the tip top of the list. Maybe it’s because as I branched out and started eating broccoli, I leaned heavily on dairy products to make it palatable. So when I first looked at this soup, while it seemed simple enough, I wasn’t sure 1 cup of skim milk and a lot of vegetable stock was going to be enough to distract me from the fact that I was eating half a pound of broccoli in a single sitting. Okay, so maybe I load up a bit on the cheese at the end, but even without the cheese, this soup will warm you up and put a smile on your face with its subtle flavors and creamy consistency. (more…)

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Comfort food, Dinner, Gluten free, Quick and Easy, Soups, Vegetarian by Courtney