As much as I love to cook, its sometimes nice when Brian takes over the cooking for the evening. Even better, when he makes some as fantastic as this chili! I love finding great crockpot and freezer-friendly recipes. This is also one of those foods that gets even better after freezing- something about all those peppers and spices sitting mixed with everything else. It’s so flavorful! Because this freezes so well we make a huge double batch of this every time.  The recipe below reflects the double batch.

Chili
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Ingredients:
2 lbs ground beef or venison
2 red peppers, diced into larger chunks
2 yellow peppers, diced into larger chunks
2 1/2 C frozen corn
1 28 oz. can tomato sauce
1 30 oz. can chili beans
1 medium onion, chopped
2 C canned black beans
3 T. chili powder
Tabasco  to taste
sour cream and cheese to top, if desired

Directions:
In a large skillet, brown and drain the beef. Chop the peppers and onion. Add these into the crockpot. Add in the rest of the ingredients, aside from the sour cream and cheese, and mix well.

Simmer for 8-10 hours on low. Garnish with sour cream and cheese, serve.

Source: A Brian original

Brian and I are often in need of fast but tasty dinner options. What with 2 kids, jobs, and long commutes each day we unfortunately don’t often have time in the evenings to make the time-consuming but awesome dinners I’d like to prepare. Thankfully these sloppy joes are both delicious and quick and easy. It’s a standard dinner option in our house.

The recipe below is for a double batch. We always make a double, if not triple, batch of this since the sloppy joe beef freezes and re-heats so well. The measurements for the ingredients are an approximation since we tend to add them to-taste instead of by measurements.

Sloppy Joes
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Ingredients:
2 lbs ground beef
2 1/2 c catsup
2 T brown sugar
1/4 C vinegar
1 medium onion, diced
olive oil or butter for sauteing

Directions:
In a large skillet, saute the onion in a bit of olive oil or butter until softened. Add in the ground beef to the pan and brown the beef, then drain any excess grease.

Add in the catsup, vinegar, and brown sugar. Simmer until completely heated. Serve on a bun.

Source: a Laura original

I have fond sherbert memories from childhood. What? Most people don’t have food memories? Oh honey, I do. I’ve always loved food (perhaps a bit too much? Hello, gym membership!) But the sherbert from my childhood was always that stuff that came for $2 in the little plastic container and was so orange in color that it most certainly did not come that way in nature. Granted, this fantastically fake orange sherbert made one of my still-all-time-favorite things, sherbert punch. Every year on New Years Eve my mom would make a batch of this sherbert punch. It’s still one of my favorite New Years Eve rituals.

This sherbert is more like Sherbert for grown-ups. Espresso and chocolate! Heck yeah! Not to mention, it’s milk instead of heavy cream so you can eat half the batch without feeling guilty. Or at least I did. Perhaps that gym membership is coming just in time….

Mocha Sherbert
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Ingredients:
2 1/4 C brewed espresso or coffee (I did espresso beans in the coffee maker for a really strong coffee)
3/4 C sugar
6 T. dutch-process cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s Special Dark)
pinch of salt
3/4 C whole milk

Directions:

Combine the coffee, sugar, cocoa and salt in a large sauce pan. Bring the mixture to a boil. Whisk constantly while the mixture boils for 3o seconds.

Remove the pan from heat and stir in the milk. Let the mixture cool, then chill completely in the refrigerator. Once cooled, freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacture directions, then place in the freezer. Or eat half of the batch. Whichever works for you.

Source: The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

Tacos are one of the few things our family could eat once a week, every single week and never get tired of. In fact, we do eat them pretty much every week. All this time I’ve been buying those little seasoning packets, and using double the seasoning amounts because they were good, but just not spicy or flavorful enough for us.

Then one day a few weeks ago I was looking at the packet and the ingredients list had only 3-4 ingredients. One of the ingredients was “spices”. Um, a bit ambiguous, don’t you think? I for one like to know what is in my food. Along came this fabulous recipe. I’d made taco seasoning from home once before and it was good, but missing a little something. This was perfect. I added in a bit of red pepper flakes to give it a bit more oomph and I was pleased with the results. This taco seasoned beef made the absolute best taco salads the next day that I’ve ever had. It would make an absolute killer batch of wet burritos or cheesy taco pasta bake, too. I am never going back to those little packets again!

Taco Seasoning
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Every morning I wake up thinking “Boy, do I need my coffee and spinach”. What? You don’t? That’s ok, neither do I. You don’t normally equate spinach with breakfast, right? Well NOW I do! I’ve been reading about these “Green Monster” smoothies for a few months now and my reaction was, well, probably what a lot of you are thinking now too: GROSS!

Then, slowly but surely, I started seeing them more and more of them around the blogiverse. Finally I decided to be all bold and daring and courageous and just try it. I couldn’t believe it! It was great! Ok, I’ll take my Green Monster with a side of crow, please.

The first time making this I didn’t have the equation quite right. I left out the ice and used only frozen banana which left the consistency a bit weird- and the smoothie a bit warm. Bleh.

There are multiple variations you could make including adding berries or any kind of fruit, adding vegetable juices, add nut butters (which I have done and it’s YUM). Make it your own. The best part is that the banana kind of overrides the spinach flavor so you’re not left feeling like you’re eating frozen spinach.

Green Monster Smoothie
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made one gigantic smoothie- the glass shown above is a pint sized glass and I still had about 1/2 C left in the blender

Ingredients:
2 C spinach
1 banana
1/2 C milk (or almond milk, or soy milk, or yogurt or whatever else you can come up with. make it your own)
1/2 tray of ice cubes
1/2 C raw rolled oats

Directions:
Place the spinach in a blender- it’s important to put the spinach first so that it’s closest to the blades. The banana and ice will hold it down and make sure the spinach gets finely chopped so you’re not drinking leaves of spinach.

Pour in the milk and add banana to the blender and puree until smooth and leaf-chunk-free. Add the ice and any other add-ins you’d like. Puree again until the ice is crushed and everything is blended together. Enjoy!

Source: Seen all over the blog world, but the Original Green Monster is from Angela from Oh She Glows  and the Green Monster Movement

Hi there, friends! Just a quite note for you. You might notice if you are coming here via http://laurasrecipecollection.wordpress that I’ve been redirected! I’m officially on my own domain: www.laurasrecipecollection.com! You should still be able to reach me via the old address, but just in case, you can update your google readers/rss feeds to show the new domain. Thanks for reading, and onto this fabulous recipe!

I’ve been a bit hesitant to try risotto for a while. Partly because I’ve been told that it’s complicated, that you have to watch it constantly or it will ruin. Partially because Brian, with his food-texture issues, swears he doesn’t like it.  Finally, when we made venison filet with gorgonzola sauce I decided to try it. I figured that if he liked it, great. But if he didn’t he could eat all the venison he could ever want and not miss having a side dish. After smelling the garlic simmering with the wine and butter, he agreed to at least taste it. Then he took another taste. Then another. Then a heaping spoonful on his plate. Finally, he agreed that not only was it good, it was fantastic! I knew he would! I so love when I’m right

I really enjoyed the flavor of this risotto. It paired really nicely with the venison, too. The flavor combination was quite similar to this creamy parmesan orzo recipe, but the texture was, obviously, that of risotto rather than a pasta. I am already starting to come up with risotto variations that I can try. Especially now that The Husband will eat it

Risotto is a bit time-consuming since you have to watch it pretty carefully, so it worked well with the venison, since the venison was maintenance free after it was placed in the oven. I’m really glad I didn’t let the “Risotto is complicated” warnings I’d heard deter me from making this!

Garlic Parmesan Risotto
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Ingredients:
1 shallot, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 T. of butter or 2 tbsp olive oil or 1 tbsp each
4-5 C of chicken or vegetable broth (I used the whole 5)
¼ cup dry white wine
1 C arborio rice
¼ C freshly grated parmesan cheese (estimated amount. I didn’t measure, I just threw some in)
3 T. freshly chopped parsley

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, heat the chicken broth and continue on low heat to keep it warm.

Chop the shallot and garlic. Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat, then add the shallot and garlic. Saute until softened. Add the rice and toss to coat.

Pour the wine into the pan and simmer, stirring continuously until the liquid is absorbed.

Add in one cup of chicken broth and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Continue this process until all but 1 C of the broth has been used. This took me about 20 minutes.

With the last cup of broth also mix in the parsley. Simmer until about half of the broth has been absorbed, then add in the cheese and stir until melted and combined.

Serve!

Source: adapted from Mary Ellen’s Cooking Creations

While flipping through yet another of my library copies of Ina Garten’s cookbooks, I came across this recipe for beef filet and gorgonzola sauce and thought “wow, that looks good”. But we very rarely buy beef steaks. Rarely as in never. I don’t think I’ve ever once made a steak at home that wasn’t venison.

Then it occured to me! Make it with venison! Oh my word. I’m so glad we did. The way we prepared the meat left it so unbelievably tender and juicy. You could, quite literally, cut it with a fork or butter knife.

The gorgonzola sauce just was the icing on the cake. What a perfect combination! Better still, it was AMAZING left over the next day.

Venison Filet
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Ingredients:
4-5 lbs beef or venison filet (we used 1.5 lb back strap filets of venison)
2 T. unsalted butter at room temperature
1 T. kosher salt
1 T. coarsely ground black pepper

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 500° (since we were using smaller, thinner steaks, and a lesser amount we only did 450°).

Pat the meat dry with a paper towel, then spread the butter onto the meat with your hands. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Roast for 22 minutes (or in our case 20 minutes). We used a meat thermometer and roasted until it reached medium-well temps, about 160° in the center.

Remove from the oven and cover with aluminum foil and set aside to rest for about 20 minutes.

Gorgonzola Sauce
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Ingredients:
4 C heavy cream
3-4 oz crumbly Gorgonzola
3 T. freshly grated parmesan cheese (I was a bit more heavy-handed and didn’t measure it out perfectly)
¾ t. kosher salt
¾ t. freshly ground black pepper
3 T. minced fresh parsley

Directions:
In a medium sauce pan, bring the heavy cream to a boil over medium heat. Watch it carefully as it tends to want to boil over and go everywhere. Trust me on this. Keep at a rapid boil for 45-50 minutes until it’s thickened considerably. It should be similar to the consistency of alfredo sauce.

Remove the cream from the heat and mix in the remaining ingredients, whisking everything together until the cheese has melted.

Slice the meat and spoon the sauce over the meat. Serve.

Both recipe sources: Barefoot Contessa Parties! by Ina Garten

Ingredients:
9 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
4 stalks of celery, diced
1 t. salt
½ C (1 stick) butter
milk, to taste (for thickness)
pepper, to taste
sour cream and cheese for garnish, if desired

Directions:
Cut the potato into chunks, dice the celery and the onion. Place everything in a large stock pot and cover with water. Boil until the potatoes are tender, then drain the water.

Pour the contents of the pan into a blender or large food processor and puree until smooth. (I had to do this in batches). Pour the potato mix back into the pan and add in a bit of milk very gradually, stirring, until you get your desired soup thickness. Add in the butter and heat until melted in and the soup is fully heated.

Add some additional salt and pepper, to taste, garnish with sour cream and cheese, and serve.

Source: My mother in law. Original recipe source unknown.

When we go to Olive Garden (never. Brian hates it. HATES it. He’s so picky.) I always drool over the smoked mozzarella fonduta appetizer. Then one day, back in the I Suck At This Cooking Stuff days, I wandered online to search for a recipe. It’s melted cheese. It couldn’t be that complicated to make, right?

Right! This is such a fast recipe to throw together. The most time-consuming part is grating the cheese.

Sidebar: I have a confession. I loathe grating cheese. For some reason, I’m very, very slow at it and it takes me half the time of preparing and cooking a dish to grate the dang cheese.

Just a suggestion- if at all possible, purchase slightly more of the smoked cheese than you need. If you’re anything like us, you’ll end up eating half of it while it’s being grated, then you’ll need to go buy more for the actual fondue. Not that I’ve ever done that….

Smoked Mozzarella Fondue
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Ingredients:
3 C shredded smoked mozzarella cheese*
3 C shredded provolone cheese*
1 C sour cream
1 t. dried thyme
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
3 T. grated romano cheese
3 T. grated parmesan cheese
diced roma tomatoes and chopped fresh parsley for garnishing, if desired. I leave these out
1 loaf Italian or French bread, sliced into pieces. I prefer them a bit thicker- 1/2 inch or so

* Note: You can use either smoked mozzarella or smoked provolone, but just use one of the cheese smoked. Otherwise the flavor gets a bit overwhelming.

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 450°.

Grate the cheese and set in a large bowl. Mix together the mozzarella, provolone, sour cream and spices until well combined.

Lightly oil a 9×9 glass pan. Pour the cheese mixture into the pan and bake for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the bread into 1/4 inch thick slices (or however thick you’d prefer). Set them on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Add the bread into the oven and bake both the fondue and bread for another 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and slightly bubbly on the edges and the bread is toasted.

Garnish with tomato & parsley and serve. (I skip the garnish)

Source: Unsure. I believe I got the recipe straight from Olive Garden’s website a few years ago.

It’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing colors, the temperatures are dropping. And the cold and flu season is upon us. Just ask my 4 month old, Madeline. Thankfully, just in time for this nasty illness season, I discovered this recipe for chicken noodle soup- the age old Mom Cure for ailments

I found this actually freezes nicely, but you wouldn’t want the noodles to be too squashy when you freeze them. The first time around the noodles were a bit more al dente than I would have prefered but after freezing and reheating they were perfect!

Ingredients:
2 split chicken breasts, bone in, skin on (I used leftovers from whole roasting chickens)
olive oil
kosher salt
ground black pepper
2 quarts chicken stock
1 C medium-diced celery
1 C medium-diced carrots
2 C wide egg noodles
1/4 C chopped fresh parsley

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 350°. Coat the chicken with olive oil, then season generously with salt and pepper. Roast for 35-40 minutes or until no longer pink in the center. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Once the chicken is cooled enough to handle, remove the bones and skin and cut up or shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces (or whatever size you desire in your soup).

In a large soup pot, simmer the chicken stock, adding the carrots, celery and noodles. Simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the noodles are completely cooked. Add in the chicken and parsley and simmer until fully heated. Serve.

Source: Barefoot Contessa Family Style by Ina Garten