Try a new recipe each week

I found this fancy/easy recipe online when I was searching for appetizers for my friend’s Bachelorette party. The hardest part of this process was finding the ingredients for these skewers: Grape Tomatoes, Block Feta Cheese, Kalamata Olives and English Cucumbers. Then you basically cut the into cubes, drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. There were a bunch of left overs which I took off the skewers and ate for lunch the next day… just as good.

I have never made spinach artichoke dip and I tried for the first time in a crock pot. It was a hit at the party, and easy enough that I will make it again.

I wanted to make something other than just plain chocolate fondue. I found a great/easy recipe for chocolate chips and peanut butter, with sugar and milk. Nothing fancy like half and half or whipping cream. You can hardly taste the peanut butter in there, but I suppose that is what added the creaminess. This picture doesn’t do it justice.

This was a pretty easy recipe. I found an online recipe for an easy cocktail sauce and then added some re-cooked shrimp. This is one of many recipes I made for a Bachelorette party I had for my best friend. I looks so cute in it’s martini glass!

I made these for a football party yesterday. They were very easy. I just threw some chicken wings in the crockpot with soy sauce, brown sugar and a little tequila (not sure why you need the alcohol – but what’s wings without alcohol). They cooked on high for 4 hours and were perfect.

I have mentioned my love of this website: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ before. I love to use my crockpot, and this site has great new ideas. This Salsa Chicken Black Bean Soup sounded yummy and healthy, so I put everything on to cook in the morning and when I got home from work I had a great meal. It was so good. I had two huge bowls and lots of leftovers. In the crockpot: a pound of chicken breasts, two cans of black beans, two cans of chicken broth, a jar of salsa, some frozen corn. Later you mix in some sour cream and add cheese and advocado when you serve it. I will definately make this again. I might even serve it to some friends soon.

I was craving Orange Chicken from a chinese food restaurant. But I am trying to watch what I eat, and Chinese food is not the place to go when you want to eat healthy. So I looked online and found a recipe for Grilled Orange Chicken. It was easy to make, but lacked the taste I was hoping for. I also made instant brown rice (but that’s too easy to count as a new recipe). I won’t make this again. I made myself eat the left overs for lunch the next day, but I wasn’t looking forward to them

My aunt gave me a new cookbook, and since I was visiting her, she thought that I should make something out of it for dinner (how nice of her!). I chose to make Beef Strogenoff, because I like it, but haven’t actually ever made it at home. I have tried the Hamburger Helper version, but I’ve never made it with beef and other real ingredients. It was really easy and delicious. I would be happy to make it again.

I found this recipe for Lime Chicken on www.allrecipes.com and was excited to try it since I had lime left over from my salsa last week. This went into the crockpot all day with lime juice, chicken broth and some spices. Then in the last 15 minutes you put instant rice in and it cooks up nicely. It was totally bland. It had a pretty awful lime taste. I won’t be making it again; I couldn’t even get myself to eat the leftovers.

I slightly cheated on this recipe. These muffins are the same as the zucchini cake I made a few weeks ago. I needed to make something for a brunch, and I had zucchini to use, and this was so good the first time, I couldn’t imagine trying a new one. So technically I used the same recipe, and this wasn’t “new”. BUT! I made them into muffins (both mini and regular sized) and I cut out a 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 of oil (and they were still excellent). Learning to adapt recipes seems like it fits into this goal, so I am letting myself count it as new!