Kitchen Creations: Steak Bites & Sides

I'm going to give you guys the entire dinner recipe today. Because some days I feel like I belong on the food network. 

I bought stew meat because it was on sale. But let's be honest here, it is literally cut up steak.  So I threw the stew meat in the crock pot (that's what it's made for!) and made a delicious, tender steak dinner.  

With the stew meat, I seasoned it to taste, added butter, and put it in the crock pot for two hours. I did one hour on high and one hour on low, because those are our only two settings.  I imagine you can just do two hours on medium.  This made the meat tender, pink, and juicy just like we like it. Obviously, if you like your steak well-done you'll have to cook it longer. 

I paired our meal with unsweetened applesauce. I warmed up my applesauce for a minute in the microwave and sprinkled cinnamon on top. My husband ate his plain and cold, like his soul. (Ha, I found that funny!) Seriously, y'all applesauce is a very versatile side dish, especially without the added sugar. It's slightly sweet, but not too sweet and it genuinely compliments most of our meals that aren't chicken or pizza. I love having it with dinner! 

Balancing out our applesauce we had no-bake baked potatoes. This idea came from my husband's awesome cousin! We boil the potatoes for 30 minutes (or until you stick it with a fork and it'a soft in the middle) and then microwave them for 5 minutes. The inside is perfect and soft, and the microwave gives the outside a slight crunch and makes it so easy to peel (if you don't eat the outside). It's quicker than a regular baked potato and just as good! 

And there you have it: Medium steak bites, baked potato, and cinnamon applesauce. From your wannabe bootleg food blogger of the day, Kayla. Enjoy! 

Kitchen Creations: Fried Whisky BBQ Nuggets

Usually, I use Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce. It's my husbands favorite, but I decided to try a different sauce this week- just to switch things up. Because of my husbands love for straight liquor (unlike me), Jack Daniel's Barbeque sauce caught my eye and I thought he would love it. (It was also like 15 cents cheaper than Sweet Baby Ray's.) 

Despite insisting that he's tried and hated the barbeque sauce, I decided to use it anyway....on chicken, fried chicken. Because you can fry with Barbeque sauce, right? And because we always eat chicken; it's versatile and delicious. So it's always on-hand. Here's how I made my Fried Whiskey BBQ Nuggets. 

I didn't take any pictures, so you're going to have to pay attention. It's only like a 2, 3 step process.  I soaked 1 pound of nuggets (cut up tenders) in half a bottle of  Jack Daniels Barbeque Sauce- Master Blend, 1/4 cup of water, 5 tablespoons of honey, 1 tablespoon of malt vinegar, and seasonings of choice for 45 minutes, you can always soak them longer. My seasonings of choice were garlic powder, salt-free seasoning, parsley, pepper, and onion powder. 

Then I threw it in the fryer with the oil at the halfway mark. The oil rises every time you drop a batch, I'm guessing because of the sauce

I separated them into three batches, fried them 5-10 minutes each, and let them drain for a few minutes on a paper towel.  

Because of my sheer laziness and eagerness to take a bath, we just ate nuggets for dinner.  It took an hour to prep and cook them, but it was super simple.  And these fried nuggets were pretty awesome. You could taste a hint of everything: honey, BBQ, whisky flavour, even the garlic and pepper. It was mild yet flavorful, and not at all messy. I answered my own question last night: yes, you can fry with barbeque sauce. 

Kitchen Creations: Catalina Wine "Mincer"

I may or may not have seen a few scenes from Step Brothers recently. And from that movie, comes this chicken was made up only because of the name. The inspiration behind it is it played on the "Catalina Wine Mixer". 

Although I didn't mince the chicken (which I originally planned to) to make the name make more sense. 

But it's sweet, tangy & BRIGHT PINK! (I couldn't get a good photo of how pink it really is.)  Seriously, who wouldn't love trying fuschia chicken?!  (The answer is everyone; No one was eager to try the chicken. Everyone gave me really skeptical looks and asked 26 questions about why it was pink before actually eating the chicken. But that's not the point, everyone also enjoyed it, so I'm going to share my recipe, anyway!) 

I cut up 7 chicken tenders into little nuggets, seasoned them (to taste) with onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper. Put them in a skillet, and added 1/2 cup of Catalina dressing and 1/8 cup of Chardonnay. I let it cook about 10 minutes on medium, squeezed 1/2 lime in the skillet, and let it cook another 10 minutes (or just until all the sauce has soaked into the chicken). Making sure to flip and move the chicken around every 5 minutes or so. That easy & that quick. 

Because the chicken is made with salad dressing, it's perfect for salad.  We had it on top of salad with cheddar biscuits, and it was an extremely satisfying dinner for everyone.  As long as there is some chicken in every bite, you don't even need dressing! (Of course, that didn't stop me from adding it, but to each its own, right?)

UPDATE: For lunch, I fried the leftovers, and they were pretty good that way too! 

Kitchen Creations: Yogurt Parfait Dip & Other Yogurt Things

Okay, technically it's just yogurt with stuff added, but am I the only person who doesn't want to grab the spoon every time I eat yogurt? So I give you my "Yogurt Parfait Dip", a short list of things to dip in the yogurt, and a few personal and random yogurt facts .

One day we were out of granola, and I was craving a parfait.  So I took some cheerios & crushed them into my yogurt; I haven't looked back since.
To make my yogurt dip, I use these few items:

                                                                                                                                                           yogurt, strawberries, bananas. cheerios, and brown sugar

I put yogurt in a bowl, crush up a hand full of cheerios, slice a few banana pieces, and sprinkle some brown sugar on top.  Then I start dipping strawberries, & enjoy my snack! 

My kids are really big fans of the "dipping" thing too; I guess they get it honest!  But sometimes we don't have strawberries to dip, but luckily there are many substitutions.  We usually have a few on-hand. 

1. Any Other Fruit (Blueberries, Bananas, Pears, Oranges, etc.) 

2. Marshmallows

3. Graham Crackers 

4. Teddy Grahams-- aka Cute Little Graham Crackers

5. Granola Bars

6. Waffles 

7. Muffins-- this is something the tots do 

8. Pretzels-- again this isn't something I do personally 

9, Rice crispy treats

10. Honey buns 

11. Cookies-- one more toddler food

12. Sweet Potato Fries

13. Chocolate Candy 

14. Celery 

15. Carrots 

16. Cheese-- toddler snack, yet again

17. Pancakes 

18. Cupcakes

I believe, with my kids, I can slap yogurt on anything, and they'll eat it.  Does anyone out there have anything they like to dip in it?  Or any other ways they like to eat their yogurt?  I sometimes use yogurt as a craft, and let the boys make their own dip.  I freeze it, and eat it as a kind of sherbert.  I mix it with cool whip and make it into a heavenly concoction (especially if I add granola and strawberries); I freeze it this way too; it's probably my favorite way to eat it. What I love most about yogurt is it's delicious and it's also a pain-free and fast way to stop diarrhea when paired with a banana. It's a food we keep in the house; I may be posting other "kitchen creations" using it soon...   

Kitchen Creations: Garlic Bread Spinach Alfredo Pizzas

Dinner tonight was everyone's favorite.

The super fast. 

Really easy.

Cheap. 

Ridiculously yummy....

These things are filling & versatile.  You can add chicken or broccoli or just have cheese. 

You can also make tomato based pizzas. We just use the alfredo recipe because it pairs so well with  the garlic flavor, and it has the texture of a deep dish,

Ingredients:

Alfredo Sauce

Garlic Bread or Garlic Toast

Mozzarella Cheese

Spinach 

Directions:

You can make these easy meals alone or with the kiddies, and they'll still clean up easily with the use of foil.  The best part about the garlic bread pizzas is that they are very cheap.  I spend around $6 on the ingredients.  Tonight we just added a box of $1 penne noodles and used the rest of the sauce to make alfredo noodles. We spent a grand total of $7 on tonight's dinner! 

Seriously, you can't get better than tasty, cheap, easy, AND fast.