Tricia's Slow Cooker Vietnamese Beef

Contributed by: Tricia Netland Wencel

Ingredients:

• 1 lemon grass stalk, peeled and chopped
• A few fresh mint leaves, chopped
• 3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1T ginger juice
• 1 fresh red chili, seeded and chopped finely
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• Ground black pepper
• 2 lbs boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
• ¼ cup peanut oil (sorry allergies!!)
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 14-oz can chopped tomatoes
• 1 cup beef stock

Put the lemongrass, mint, fish sauce, sugar, ginger juice, chili, and lots of fresh ground pepper in a bowl and mix well. Add the beef and turn to coat. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

Heat the oil in a skillet then add the beef in batches and sauté until browned on all sides. Return all the beef to the skillet, add the tomato paste and tomatoes, and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Transfer to the slow cooker, cover, and cook on High for 4 hours, until the meat is tender. Serve topped with shredded scallions and mint sprigs. (I just chop the scallions….or don’t use them at all. Shredding them is pretty but unnecessary.)

The recipe says to serve with crusty bread. I serve it with steamed rice AND crusty bread.

Notes from Kate: This sounds AMAZING! I am not sure my kids will eat it, but I don't even care. It is going in our meal plan for next week.

Tricia's GO TO Chicken Bacon Wraps

Contributed by: Tricia Netland Wencel

This recipe is highly flexible to whatever you have on hand!

Ingredients

• Boneless chicken breasts OR rotisserie chicken.
• Olive oil, salt, and pepper (If not using rotisserie)
• Whole wheat wraps or tortillas
• Bacon strips

Other things I use:

• Red Onion
• Cheddar cheese (or whatever you like)
• Avocado
• Tomato
• Greens
• Ranch or blue cheese dressing
• Lime (to squeeze over the other ingredients)

Cook bacon until very crisp. I like to do it in the oven at 375, because it makes the bacon flatter and crispier. Put bacon aside. While bacon is cooking, chop up any of the optional ingredients that you are using.

Broil the chicken breasts by cutting them in half, drizzling olive oil, salt, and pepper on them. Broil on high for 4-5 minutes each side.  Slice broiled breasts diagonally into 3-4 inch strips.

If I’m using cheese, I like to shred it and melt it on the wrap before filling the wrap with other things.

When wraps are ready, put chicken, bacon, and any of your optional ingredients inside, and wrap it up! 

Notes from Kate: I cannot wait to try Tricia's recipe! My kids (and husband) are pretty bacon obsessed and I like how flexible this is. I am going to try this recipe next week and I think I'll serve it deconstructed like tacos and let everyone make their own. I think it will be the perfect use for our leftover chicken from the Lund's Six Buck Cluck  ($6 rotisserie chicken on Friday). I am making bacon with breakfast on Saturday so I figure with leftover chicken AND leftover bacon, this should come together super easy on Monday night!

Crock Pot Tacos (and optional guac)

contributed by: Kate Lockwood

I love taco night because I just throw everything on the table and everyone can customize their dinner. So, if the 4.5 year old wants to eat a plain tortilla and the 1 year old wants to shovel guacamole into her mouth with a spoon that is THEIR CHOICE.

Crock Pot Taco Chicken Ingredients:

• 1 cup of chicken broth 
• 1 can of petite diced tomatoes (optional)
• 1 packet of taco seasoning (or 2T+ of homemade spice mix)
• 1-2 pounds of chicken breast 

Dump all that stuff in your crock pot and set it for 6 hours on low. I use frozen chicken and set the crockpot for 8 hours so that I can start it when I leave for work in the morning. When you get home, shred the chicken with two forks. Put out with all the taco fixins and let everyone build their own dinner.

Homemade Taco Seasoning (if you don't have a packet on hand)

• 1 T chili powder 
• 1/4t garlic powder
• 1/4t onion powder
• 1/4t crushed red pepper flakes (optional for spice)
• 1/4t dried oregano
• 1/2t paprika
• 1 1/2t cumin (I always put in extra because I am cumin obsessed)
• 1t salt
• 1t pepper

Mix it all together. Use as you would regular taco seasoning

We almost never have tacos without guacamole at our house because I think guacamole is the only food on the planet that everyone in my family will eat without complaint. (I also bring this to pretty much every pot-luck party we attend.)

Guacamole Ingredients 
This makes a lot because we eat a lot and have it on our sandwiches for lunch the next day. You can halve the recipe for a smaller batch, or double for a big party

• 3-4 ripe avocados
• 2 roma tomatoes diced
• 1/2 red onion diced super fine
• 1 bunch of cilantro chopped super fine (optional)
• salt to taste
• fresh lime juice to taste
• cumin to taste (optional)

Mash up the avocados (this is a great job for kid kitchen helpers). Add salt and lime juice starting with 1/2t of salt and juice of half a lime. Adjust salt and juice to taste. If you are adding cumin put it in now. Stir in the onions and tomatoes. Add cilantro if you like (I usually leave this out for parties in case there are cilantro haters in the crowd)

We typically start the crock pot in the morning and when we get home we shred the chicken then have the kids help make the guac while the taco shells are warming. To make things go faster we might pre-dice the tomatoes and onion for the guac the night before and store in Tupperware in the fridge.

Week-night Pizza

Contributed by: Kate Lockwood

My kids will generally eat pizza and since I dislike making a dinner that they both refuse to eat, we have this on pretty regular rotation. Besides - pizza sauce is tooooootally a veggie - right???

Dough Ingredients

• 3 1/2 to 4 cups bread flour (can also use all-purpose or a mix of whole wheat - we do a mix of wheat and bread flours unless we are out of bread flour) 
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 envelope instant dry yeast (or 2.5t from the big jar)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt (can use less, or use garlic salt for extra YUM - you can also add garlic powder if you like)
• 1 1/2 cups water, 110 degrees F
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 teaspoons

Other Ingredients

• Sauce - you can totally make this yourself, but we typically use a jar of Trader Joe's. One jar will last through 2 pizza nights
• Cheese
• Toppings - my cost saving tip here is to hit up the salad bar at Whole Foods you can buy just enough veggies for your pizza 
• Random stuff from your fridge (is it about to expire??? THROW IT ON YOUR PIZZA)

Dough Instructions

Combine the bread flour, sugar, yeast and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and combine. While the mixer is running, add the water and 2 tablespoons of the oil and beat until the dough forms into a ball. If the dough is sticky, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together in a solid ball. If the dough is too dry, add additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead into a smooth, firm ball. (If you don't have a stand mixer, just mix in a bowl with a wooden spoon and knead by hand)

Grease a large bowl with the remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil, add the dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm area to let it double in size, about 1 hour. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Cover each with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let them rest for 10 minutes.

Making the dough yourself is super cheap, here are a couple of alternatives if you have a busy schedule:

• Trader Joe's refrigerated pizza dough (it's like $1.25 for one crust)
• Prep the dough in the morning (up to the point where you let it rise) and leave it in the fridge while you are out and about for the day. Take it out and let it sit for about 20 minutes when you get home while you prep the toppings, then use it to make pizzas.
• We typically make this on a day that one of us is working from home so we can take a quick break to start the dough about an hour before the other one gets home with the kids 

The dough recipe will make enough for TWO pizzas (read that as "easy leftovers for lunch the next day"). Typically we let everyone top their own pizza. When the dough is ready to be used, we divide it in half. One half gets turned into a serviceable pizza that everyone will eat (cheese, pepperoni, maybe a veggie or two). From the other half, everyone gets a chunk to roll out and top as they choose. The kids have fun playing with the dough and while they are smearing flour over every surface in my kitchen, I take the time to pop a vegetable on the stove (or let's be real, in the microwave). While all this is going on I preheat the oven to 425.

Once all the pizzas are ready we pop them in. Cooking time will depend on how thin you rolled your crust, how crispy you like it and if you let your oven preheat all the way (speaking from experience here). If you like SUPER crispy crust, you might want to pre-bake a little before topping, but I am too lazy to do this. You'll want to keep an eye on the pizzas because they don't take that long. I'd check at 10 minutes and then fairly frequently after that until they are the way you like them. 

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: This is pretty easy although I always feel like yeast adds a layer of unpredictability if you haven't used it much before. 

TIME to MAKE: This takes a long time if you count the rising time of the dough, however it all comes together quickly once the dough is ready to go and the baking time is minimal so I still think it works great for a week night.

This is actually delivery pizza. 

The dough recipe is adapted from the Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/pizza-dough-recipe.html