Amazing Slow Cooker Recipes for the Coming Year

Slow cooker is an amazing appliance which makes cooking easier and hassle free. With a slow cooker you can imagine a scene, where you are coming back from long tiring day from work and while entering the door your house welcome you with an enticing aroma and slow cooked dinner. Sounds astonishing isn’t it!

In slow cooker, meat and chicken recipes are cooked in the most tender and moist way. It got all the juices and since the meat has been cooked by the slow cooking method it’s the most aromatic and tasty dish you can have. Other than this slow cooker is amazing for beef recipes too. It cook beef amazingly moist and tender. 

Slow cooker also makes amazing soups and stews. There are plenty of recipes that you can try all around the year with a slow cooker and all you have to do is put the precise ingredients, set the temperature settings and then just leave to cook by itself. I believe slow cooker is a boon for many people. People like students, singletons, people those who works in shifts and have bare minimum time to spend in kitchen and also busy moms who are busy nursing their kids and toddlers. If you will check online, you will find plenty of cookbooks offering recipes for slow cooker and few of them are pretty amazing too. 

Today, I am sharing few amazing recipes that I have tried all around the year. These recipes are easy and simple to make. I hope you will like these recipe list of slow cooker –

My Christmas Meal Ideas for 2013

Christmas is just after few days and it’s time to decide our menu for Christmas lunch and dinner. In today’s post I am sharing meal ideas that you can try on Christmas. I am jotting down the list of recipes that will make your guest go gala over your cooking skills. 

In particular the things we make on Christmas are cakes and puddings, roasted turkey or chicken, any favorite beef recipe that’s been a tradition for years in your family, cookies and ginger man, salads and dressings, dips and finger food etc. If you have a huge family like mine, holidays means lots of work at home and making dinner is a carnival itself. Therefore, I had planned the menu beforehand so that there is no confusion as such. Christmas is just a way of saying that winter won’t lasts for long and when sun will come again a new life, new beginning will start with ray of new hope. 

Nevertheless, let’s discuss what all we can make this Christmas. I will share the name of dishes which you can make in lunch first and then for dinner – 

This Christmas make some Spanish rice for Dinner

When Christmas is around not just gifts and decorations are important but the Christmas recipes that you will make are considered to be important too. As we all know, a meal consists of an appetizer or starter, main course, side dishes, gravies or dip recipes, desserts and drinks. A complete meal is consist of each item but in an order. In this, sides are very important like you have vegetable or chicken side dishes or pasta sides or rice sides or whatever you prefer as side dish along with main dish. In fact, quinoa is also served if you are health conscious people.
 

Anyways today’s bottom line is what you will serve on Christmas Eve. I was planning to serve some Spanish rice sides this festival. There are many recipes for Spanish rice available online and even in our granny’s cookbooks. Spanish rice is also known as Mexican rice as it is available in Northern Mexico. This recipe is mostly famous in Southwestern United States especially, there are many families who make this recipe exclusively for Christmas. This rice sides go perfectly with roasted or baked chicken or turkey. Spanish rice is an appetizing recipe that goes perfectly with seafood, chicken, beef, or just by itself. This recipe is juicy and tangy and completely moist which makes it really flavorsome and delicious. Well I am not sure about the recipe’s name that how they started calling it Spanish rice, because it got nothing with Spain.

Easy meatball Recipe: Cranberry and Cheesy Turkey Meatballs

One of my favorite recipe is meatball recipe. Simple, yum and versatile. Serve them as a gravy main course or just serve them solely as a nice appetizer. Today I am sharing an appetizer version of this recipe, if you feel like you can even put them in a gravy of your choice. I got this recipe from one of my friend on thanksgiving and I just tried to make this recipe in my own style and made few changes to make it more as an appetizer recipe.

You can simply serve this recipe with any dip recipe of your choice and I served them with cold vegetable dip. It tasted just awesome. In this recipe I used minced turkey you can also use chicken if you like. I also added Parmesan cheese in the middle which was a complete delight as it just gets melted in the mouth. You can exclude the cheese if you are a fitness freak but I would suggest to add it a little. Believe me it tastes just awesome.

The cranberry uplifts this recipe and add the perfect zing to this recipe. Anyways let’s jot down this recipe quickly –

Grilled Pork Delight: Coffee and Molasses Pork Chops

I am addicted to coffee so whenever I hear coffee it fascinates me and encourage me to think, what all I can cook with coffee. And one of my friends knows this addiction of mine and sent me this amazing grilled pork chop recipe made from coffee and molasses. When I saw the name, I had started drooling and decided to make this recipe ASAP.

I just made few more changes in this recipe. This recipe is originally cited in Taste of Home’s website. This recipe is indeed super scrumptious and addictive. *Don’t get confused with what I had said about my addiction with coffee and don’t think that I love this recipe because of coffee; but believe me this recipe is really addictive in terms of taste, flavors, richness*

This recipe was such a hit in my family that I have decided to make this easy recipe again and this time for Christmas dinner. It’s juicy, tender and super moist. For glazing, again coffee is used so the flavor of coffee is strong but not over powering. Anyways let’s get into some serious cooking –

Dinner Ideas for your Busy Weeknights

Weeknights means super busy and hectic days. For me Tuesday and Wednesday are the most tiring day in a week. Not just I am busy at work but feels lazy too, to cook on these particular days. God knows why! So, on these particular days I actually look for some easy dinner ideas.

Anyways this weekend I was planning and scheduling my work assignments and I got this wonderful mail from my very old friend, she has sent me some wonderful pictures of her vacation and asked for a favor that write something on weeknight meals and dinner ideas. Well frankly speaking, I thought it is a great idea. Plan your dinner menu beforehand. Why didn’t I get this idea before? :O

There is a famous quote by Calvin Trillin; it says – The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found... hehehe... Quite true! It is okay to use leftovers at times on weeknights but making some healthy recipes is important too. So, today I am sharing 3 easy recipes that you can make on any busy weeknights. This menu is consists of a soup recipe, main dish and lastly an easy dessert.

Today’s Menu is –

• Chicken and Asparagus Stove Top Casserole
•   Steak Tacos- Griddle Style and
• Chocolate and Banana Filled French Toasts

Simple Home-cooked Spaghetti Sauce

It’s like a trend at my place, each approaching Christmas I make a nice home-made spaghetti sauce and store it for further use. I guess for any Italian kitchen, all you need is a worthy tomato sauce. This spaghetti sauce is versatile and can be used in almost anything you are cooking. It not just add that tangy flavors to that dish but make it super scrumptious.

With crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped garlic, onion bell pepper and fresh herbs believe me, you’ll be making this recipe all around the year. You can use this sauce in spaghetti and meat ball recipes. Simply cook some chicken or beef meatballs with ground beef add cooked spaghetti or cooked pasta and top this with spaghetti sauce and sprinkle some grated cheese. Yum simple and easy dinner recipe that gets cooked in just few minutes.

Store in a jar and put it in a refrigerator and use it whenever you want. In few spaghetti sauce they also add minced meat or beef but I am keeping it vegetarian so that I can use this even on Meatless Mondays. You can make a spaghetti sauce even in slow cooker too but I will suggest use slow cooker when you are cooking it with beef, otherwise tomatoes are too tender and can be cooked in skillet pan or saucepan easily. 

Nevertheless, let’s jot down the recipe –

Nutritious Quinoa Mushroom Risotto

If I talk about mushrooms then mushrooms are one of the healthy vegetable/fruit that you can include in your diet. Mushrooms are low in calories, fat-free, cholesterol-free and very low in sodium, yet they provide important nutrients, including selenium, potassium, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin D and many more. They are rich in anti-oxidants and improve your immunity, additionally they also have the properties to protect you from cancer. Hence, you can see this small little vegetable is a wonder veggie. 

Anyways I was thinking over mushroom risotto from quite a long. Traditionally, risotto is an Italian rice recipe that is cooked in broth, wine, cheese and Arborio rice until it’s creamy and smooth. It’s rich and flavorsome and definitely falls under holiday and celebration recipes. Mushroom risotto is an easy and simple recipe that you can make in any party or festival. It is known as the first course of the meal too. You can try varieties of options like mushroom & chicken risotto, or seafood risotto, simple vegetable risotto etc. what I was looking for some interesting healthy twist to this recipe and I found one. 

Instead of Arborio rice, you can use Quinoa too. Amazing isn’t it? However, adding quinoa doesn’t make this recipe boring or tasteless. This recipe is still creamy and flavorsome. You can in fact bring some interesting twist to this recipe i.e. by adding 3 types of mushrooms instead of one. This is a simple recipe and believe me there is no rocket science in making this recipe. 

Anyways let’s start cooking, I can’t wait to share this awesome recipe with you all –

Dinner Tonight: Picky Eater’s Dinner Ideas

Whether you are a mom of picky eater or you have fussy eaters at home, deciding menu for them is always a challenge! You are always in a dilemma what to cook and what not to cook. Quite frustrating isn’t it? Anyways today I’m sharing few recipe ideas that you can try for dinner.

If we take a general survey most picky eaters don’t like to eat vegetables. They like meat or chicken recipes more than any spinach or kale recipe. However, we all know vegetables are important too. So how can you make someone eat a healthy dish without making them realize, what they are eating? In today’s content I will also give some tips and tricks to handle the tantrums of a picky eater. So, let me ask you guys out – “Dinner tonight??!!” 

Anyways if you have any feedback please share with me, I really love your feedback as it helps me to understand the things better and it will help me to make things more organized and controlled. 

Quick and Easy Dinner Recipe: Chicken Breast Cooked in Foil

From years, chicken cooked in foil is my favorite recipe for dinner. It’s not just easy and quick to make but it’s healthy too. Just put some veggies, seasoned chicken breast and herbs in a packet of foil and put it in an oven to cook for 35-40 minutes, that’s it. Your easy scrumptious meal is ready. 

I used to make this all easy recipe when I was in college and used to feel too lazy to cook anything off late. This recipe was the rescuer and the best thing about this recipe was I didn’t had to order any junks or pizza for my dinner (I am a fitness freak and always take care what goes in my mouth).

All you need is a thick foil paper for cooking, if you don’t have that cooking paper handy use two foil papers at the same time. Secondly it should be large enough to cover the whole chicken and veggies together, there should not be any space or vent from where the hot air can escape. Let the chicken cooked in all those aroma and flavors of herbs and vegetables. 

Second important ingredients are veggies you like to have from zucchinis to mushrooms, bell pepper to asparagus, potatoes and tomatoes. You can add anything which you like, make sure use fresh herbs. 

Anyways let’s start cooking –