Slow Cooker Strawberry Rhubarb Jam ~ Recipe

So last week the kids and I went strawberry picking. We picked a ton of beautiful strawberries and I have really been wanting to try my hand at making some freezer jam. I was searching around for some recipes and couldn't quite find what I was looking for. Many recipes called for fruit pectin, which I didn't have on hand and some of the others required you to cook the jam on the stove-top all day. Nope.......I don't have all day around here with three little ones. And then it dawned on me.......how about using my trusty slow cooker! So that's what I did.........

Slow Cooker Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Ingredients:

3 lbs. fresh strawberries

2 lbs. rhubarb

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:

Step 1: Grab your strawberries and rhubarb and start cutting them into large chunks. The farm where we went strawberry picking sold rhubarb as well so it worked out perfectly for this recipe.

Step 2: Place half the strawberries and rhubarb in your slow cooker and sprinkle with half a cup of sugar. Then add the other half of the strawberries and rhubarb and sprinkle with the remain sugar and cinnamon.

Step 3: Set you slow cooker on low for 6 - 7 hours. After four hours of cooking, remove the lid but allow the mixture to continue to cook. This will cause some of the liquid to evaporate out.

Step 4: Around 5 hours cooking time, get out your potato masher and mash up the mixture as best you can. I like the jam to be nice and chunky, but if you prefer a smoother consistency then you could always transfer the mixture to your blender.

Spread your strawberry rhubarb jam on toast or serve it warm over vanilla ice cream or add it to your favorite yogurt and granola.

I put some of the jam in our refrigerator in glass jars (it will save for 1 - 2 weeks) and the rest of it I put in freezer safe containers in the freezer.

Also, I really love the tart and sweet taste of strawberry rhubarb jam; however, if you prefer things on the sweeter side, then you will definitely want to add more sugar to this recipe. My oldest daughter Savannah tried this and she said it was 'JUST right!'. She's a pretty tough critic, so I'll take that to mean that it's pretty darn good. 

Enjoy!

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46th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest Recipe: Parmesan Crusted Veggie Spirals

So guess what? Remember last year when my mom (Grandma Jane) made it into the finals of the 45th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest (see post here)? She flew to Orlando, FL to compete for the $1 million dollar prize and unfortunately, she didn't win with her Biscuit Corn Cakes with Goat Cheese in Blackberry-Thyme Sauce. However, that didn't stop her from wanting to go again this year! She entered several different recipes into this years competition (46th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest) and she has made it into the semi-finals with her Parmesan Crusted Veggie Spirals! Yay!

They are doing things a little bit differently this year and they are choosing the finalists based on online voting rather than picking finalists in-house like they did last year. So, with that being said.......Grandma  Jane NEEDS your vote! The online voting is only open for 10 more days (through June 27th) and I would absolutely love if you would head over and vote for her recipe: Parmesan Crusted Veggie Spirals.

I decided I had better try this recipe myself and thought I would share it with you all here on the blog.

You are going to love it!

Parmesan Crusted Veggie Spirals

MAKES 20 SPIRALS

I guarantee that this will be a go-to appetizer recipe for your family! You can also change up some of the filling ingredients and really get creative with this recipe to make it your own.

So will you help a girl out and help me send my mom (Grandma Jane) to the finals of the 46th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest? I would really, really appreciate it! And so would Grandma Jane.

You can go over and vote for her recipe (Parmesan Crusted Veggie Spirals from Jane Michel from Houston, TX) by clicking HERE. You will have to fill in your email address to enter, but they won't start sending you things unless you opt in. Feel free to 'pin' this recipe, share on facebook or twitter or anywhere else you can think of that would help spread the word.

Thank you so much and I hope you'll give this recipe a try.

You're going to love it!

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Goat Cheese & Mozzarella Tomato Toast Recipe

I am a savory kind of girl. What about you? When it comes to breakfast, I much prefer something on the salty side rather than the sweet. This easy little breakfast or lunch is perfect for when you want something nice and satisfying to get your day started off right!

Goat Cheese and Mozzarella Tomato Toast

Serves 2

Ingredients:

4 slices multi-grain bread (good quality, grainy bread)

4 vine-ripened tomatoes

1/2 -3/4 cup crumbled goat cheese

3/4 cup shredded mozzarella (more, if you like)

Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Garlic salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Lay out your multi-grain bread on a cook sheet. Try to purchase a good, quality bread in the bakery section of your grocery store.....that makes a big difference. Drizzle your bread with extra virgin olive oil.

Slice four tomatoes. Place tomato slices on top of bread. There should be one full tomato per slice of bread. Season with garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top of tomatoes and then goat cheese. You can use more or less cheese depending on how much you like. Season again with garlic salt and pepper and another little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Place in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes until bread is crunchy and the cheese is melty and bubbly. Once you've taken your toast out of the oven, feel free to add any fresh herbs on top.

 

Serve two slices per person for a hearty breakfast or lunch or one slice per person if you are serving this with eggs for breakfast or a salad for lunch.

Enjoy!

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Smoked Chipotle Pulled Pork Quesadillas ~ Recipe

As you might have noticed, I'm on a slow cooker kick lately and this recipe is no exception.  You make the Smokey Chipotle Pulled Pork in your slow cooker during the day and then make the quesadillas right before you're ready to eat.  You can also serve this pork just as it is on a hamburger bun or use it as a filling for tacos.....it's very versatile.

Smoked Chipotle Pulled Pork Quesadillas

Ingredients:

3-4 pound pork loin roast

1 onion, chopped

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon oregano

1 teaspoon chile powder

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 cup chipotle salsa or 1 tablespoon of chipotle in adobo sauce (sauce part only)

Flour tortillas

Shredded Cheddar Jack Cheese or Mexican cheese blend

Directions:

Place pork loin roast in slow cooker and top with onions, garlic, cumin, oregano, chile powder, and chipotle.  Set on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 5 hours.  

Once pork is cooked, remove from slow cooker and shred with two forks.  Return the pork back to the slow cooker to soak up all the juices.  This recipe makes a lot of pork, so you will only use part of it for the quesadillas.  Freeze remaining pork for later use or plan your weekly menu around other recipes using shredded pork.  

To assemble quesadillas, sprinkle shredded cheese on top of tortilla.

Place some of the pork mixture on top of the cheese on one side of the tortilla.  Heat skillet on medium and melt a little butter.  Once butter has melted place tortilla, as pictured above, into pan.

When the tortilla is in the pan, fold the cheese only side over on top of the pork mixture.  We don't want to fold the quesadilla before it goes in the pan because then we won't have butter on both sides of the tortilla.

Cook for about 3 minutes or until golden brown.  Flip quesadilla and cook until other side is golden brown.  Once both sides are cooked and cheese is melted, remove from pan and cut in half.

You can make as many of these as you would like or as many as your family can eat!

I like to serve these with some chipotle salsa, but you could dip them in any salsa your family enjoys.  Would also be great with some sour cream or guacamole as well.

Personally, I think two quesadillas is a perfect dinner serving and one is probably good for lunch.  Feel free to get creative here and add in any ingredients you would like.  

This pork is SO delicious, give it a try........you're going to love it!

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Apple, Ham and Cheese Dinner Cups

My mom (Grandma Jane) came to stay with us for a week after baby Cass was born.  Whenever she comes after I have a baby she brings tons of recipes and does major cooking.  She completely stocked our freezer with easy-to-prepare meals and little shortcuts (like already cooked shredded chicken) to make my life easier.

Well, while mom did tons of cooking while she was here, there were a couple recipes she never got around to making, so I decided to try my hand at this one after she left - Apple, Ham, and Cheese Dinner Cups.  Mom forgot the recipe, so I lucked out and found it in our kitchen after she left.  She had already bought all the ingredients, so it was super-easy for me to whip up!  I called them dinner "cupcakes" to entice my girls to give them a try.

Apple, Ham and Cheese Dinner Cups

Ingredients:

1 can Pillsbury Grands Jr. Golden Layers Biscuits (10 count)

1/3 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup apricot preserves

3/4 cup chopped ham

3/4 cup chopped apple

3/4 cup cheddar or jack cheese

2 tablespoons chopped green onions

Substitution: I used left over pork loin (cubed) instead of ham in mine, but chopped, cooked bacon would be delicious as well!

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Pull out your regular sized muffin pan and spray with cooking spray.  Open biscuit can and stretch out each biscuit to about 2.5"-3" wide.  Place biscuit into muffin tray, pressing it so it's like a little cup that you can use to put your filling inside.

Mix sour cream, mustard and preserves together in a bowl.  Once mixed, add your meat, apple, cheese and green onions.  Divide the mixture among the 10 muffin cups.  Bake for 22-25 minutes or until golden brown.  I suggest using the middle rack of your oven.  

Serve two per plate along with a nice side salad.

Enjoy!

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Mexican Taco Pasta Bake

Life with three kids is going pretty well.  Have I touched my sewing machine since Caspian was born? Well, no, not even once.  I'll get back to the machine eventually - it's always there waiting for me, ready to welcome me back with open arms.  But this little guy.......he's already growing up right before my eyes, so I am trying to soak up all the little baby time possible.

One of my biggest challenges has been preparing dinner because I'm never quite sure when my little guy is going to nurse.  He tends to want to eat right when I should be cooking dinner - go figure, right?  However, he seems to be doing a pretty good mid-afternoon nap, so I'm trying out some new recipes that I can prepare during the day and then just pop in the oven before dinner.

Today I'm sharing my latest recipe that I tried out last night.  I'm calling it "Mexican Taco Pasta Bake".  It's really all the flavors in a taco, but mixed is mixed in with pasta and cheese.  What could be bad about that, right?

The next time you want to prepare a meal ahead of time, give this one a try.  My husband even went back for thirds!  Would also be great to feed a crowd and your kids will love it too!!

Mexican Taco Pasta Bake

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef (or ground turkey)

1 lb. pasta (any shape)

1 onion, chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1 can Rotel (tomatoes with green chile)

1 package taco seasoning

1/2 brick light cream cheese

1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded

Topping:

1 cup crushed tortilla chips

1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded

Garnish:

Sliced green onions, slice black olives, and sour cream.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Meanwhile, brown ground beef in a large saute pan.  Remove beef from pan and drain on a paper towel.  Add onion and green pepper to pan and saute until cooked through.  Add back in cooked ground beef, taco seasoning and Rotel.  Stir to combine and cook for 3 minutes.  Add in cream cheese and melt it down into the beef mixture.  Once cream cheese is melted, add 1/2 cup shredded cheese.  

Drain pasta.  Pour beef and cheese mixture over cooked pasta and stir to combine.  Spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray.  Pour combined pasta and beef mixture into the casserole dish.

Sprinkle the top of the pasta with crushed tortilla chips combined with shredded cheese.  Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes.  Might need a little longer if it has been refrigerated.  Basically you are just melting the cheese and heating it through since all the ingredients are already cooked.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of sliced green onions and black olives.

 

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Lemon Lavender Tea Cookies

My mom and her husband, Allen (aka Pepo), recently attended the Lavender Festival in Blanco, Texas and they sent me this wonderful lavender cookbook and culinary grade lavender.  I had no idea there were so many ways to cook with lavender.  I thought these Lemon Lavender Tea Cookies would be just perfect for Matilda's "Tea for 2" party and they definitely were just right!

These cookies are light and contain absolutely no eggs, so they are definitely more of a shortbread.  Be careful though, because the dough tasted so yummy that I'm surprised I even got some cookies out for the party!

Makes 24 cookies
From the "Local Flavor of Lavender" cookbook
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon dried culinary lavender
2 cups all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
2/3 cup sugar
Zest of one lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

You will need to use dried culinary grade lavender for this recipe since that is what is suitable for human consumption.  Above is the lavender that was sent to me by my mom from the festival.

Finely chop 1 tablespoon of lavender.  If you have a coffee grinder used for grinding herbs, that would be a great thing to use or you could also use a food processor.  I opted for a basic knife.

Zest one lemon.  I like to use my microplane for zesting, but a box grater would work just as well.  Make sure you only zest the yellow part of the lemon.  The white can be pretty bitter.

Cream wet ingredients, lemon zest and sugar with a hand-mixer.  Then add in dry ingredients.  Stir until dough comes together.  It should not be dry, but not too sticky either.  If you think it is too dry, keep stirring, it will come together.

Place dough in refrigerator for 1-2 hours, until firm, or overnight.  Remove from refrigerator one hour before rolling out dough.  The next part is up to you.  You can make these like regular cookie cutter cookies and roll your dough 1/4" thickness and cut with a round or heart shaped cookie cutter.  Or you can do what we did, which was to roll the dough into two logs and slice the cookies, then coat them in sugar.  Either way, they will turn out great.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cookies are slightly brown on the edges.  Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

The dough can be made up to two days in advance and cookies can be baked one day in advance.  Freeze any leftover cookies for a sweet treat on another day!  These cookies will have your guests talking because they are delicious and a unique flavor.

The next time you have the ladies for tea or coffee, give these a try, they will love them, that is, if you don't eat all the dough first!

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Goat Cheese and Ham Wrapped Asparagus

These Goat Cheese and Ham Wrapped Asparagus were a huge hit at Matilda's "Tea for 2" party.  And surprisingly it was the men who really gobbled these up!  They are a great finger food because they don't require a fork and are easy to pick up and eat while you socialize.

Serves 15-20
Ingredients:
2 lbs. fresh asparagus
1/2 lb. honey ham
8 oz. herb goat cheese
1/3 brick cream cheese, softened
30+ fresh chives 

Cut off the tough ends of the asparagus (approximately 1"- 2"). Cook asparagus.  Only cook for a few minutes in boiling water and then shock them in a large bowl of ice water.  You do not want to over-cook the asparagus because they will lose their beautiful green color.  You also still want them to have a good bite and not be flimsy.  I'd say, in this case, better to under-cook than over-cook.

Clean your fresh chives.  We picked these from our herb garden so they are super long.  You will need one chive per asparagus spear.

Combine your herb goat cheese and the 1/3 block cream cheese.  The cream cheese will help the goat cheese be easier to work with when spreading it on the pieces of ham.

Cut ham in half or thirds (we did thirds because our ham slices were very large).  Spread a very thin layer of goat cheese on each piece of ham.  Roll up asparagus in ham/goat cheese.  Tie with a chive to secure.  Place in a container to keep cool in the refrigerator.  Can be made a day in advance.

Remove from refrigerator just prior to serving.  Place on a serving tray.  I love using white because I think it makes the colors pop, but you can use whatever you'd like.

I would suggest discarding any un-eaten asparagus after the party if it has been sitting out for several hours.  These asparagus were eaten up SO quickly. I would recommend making more than you need and maybe bringing them out in two rounds so they don't spoil. 

Give this recipe a try - you're going to love it!

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