This recipe was truly a labor of love. For the second testing, I couldn’t find a turkey breast so I bought a smallish turkey to try instead. I brought it home, made the brine, and let it soak up all of the sweetness and flavor from the cider and seasonings. I pulled…
Have you ever made ranch seasoning? It’s awfully hard to compete with the green “MSG packets” (as my husband affectionately calls them), but I think I did rather well. The ranch seasoning in this recipe adds great flavor and texture when you stir some mayo into the…
When I nailed this dish, I couldn’t keep my fingers out of it. I probably ate two or three lettuce wraps worth of chicken and sausage before we even sat down to eat. It was a tad spicy (which I love), but luckily, the celery slaw helped cool it off for my little…
I’ve always loved stuffed peppers. I made them several times when my husband and I were first married, but it wasn’t until around year five that Steve admitted he doesn’t like cooked peppers. I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed that he didn’t tell me sooner or touched…
Everything about this recipe reminds me of November—the sweet potatoes, cranberries, and sweet oranges mixed with warming cumin spice. It’s autumn with winter approaching on its heels. This recipe would also be good using a whole chicken. Prep time 15 minutes Serves 4…
Wrapping a drumstick in prosciutto is a great technique—it’s as if the drumstick is getting a big, salty hug. The butternut squash below gets basted by prosciutto-spiked chicken juices. There’s some serious flavor sharing going on in this slow cooker. I don’t usually…
Let’s face it—the star of this recipe is the Blackberry-Chipotle BBQ Sauce. It’s smoky, tangy, and the fruity sweetness from the blackberries plays well with the chicken and vegetables. Raspberries and chipotle have become a popular combination lately, but after a…
It saddens me that I’m late to the strawberry-balsamic game. I’m a convert now, and I’ve made up for it with this recipe. Adding a strawberry-balsamic reduction at the end really amps up the tangy-sweet flavors. This is the same sauce that goes on the vanilla cake….
This recipe is based on a shrimp recipe I found in Bon Appétit magazine several years ago. I had recently fallen in love with peperoncini peppers, so I did some ingredient swaps and adapted it for my slow cooker. The peperoncini add a little kick, so I use sweet…
I love the combination of maple and mustard: sweet playing off of tangy. But the carrots and Brussels sprouts nearly stole the show, because the sauce created in the cooker was the perfect complement to the vegetables. Prep time 15 minutes Serves 6 1 pound (455 g)…
I always keep some precooked, uncured Italian sausages around because they make such fast, easy meals. Our family loved these saucy sausages and peppers over “Baked” Sweet Potatoes, but Cauliflower Rice (shown here and here) or Squash Noodles would also be good…
There’s this little Greek restaurant in Sacramento (Opa! Opa!—and you must say it in an excited voice) that has incredibly garlicky hummus. It’s fantastic. I wanted the same punch of garlic in this dish, so I added it in the form of an aioli—which is basically a…