Crock-Pot BBQ Ribs Recipe

The meat falls off the bone as you take them out of the crock pot!

Ingredients:
4 pounds Ribs of your choice
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoons vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1 bottle of sweet baby rays BBQ
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoons oregano

Directions:
In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients except for the ribs themselves.
Place ribs in slow cooker. Pour sauce over ribs, and turn to coat.
Cover, and cook on Low 6 to 8 hours, or until ribs are tender.

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Team Pie and Team Cake Shirts

I’ve been meaning to make these shirts since the first Twilight movie came out, because I never cared much for Edward or Jacob, but I do care a lot about dessert. I also have a vague recollection of having a (semi-sober) discussion (argument) with someone about whether cake or pie was better, which was quite a silly thing to have a disagreement about because everyone knows that pie is better than cake. Thankfully, I don’t remember with whom I was having this discussion, so I can’t hold their wrong opinion against them. (Notice I was nice enough to make a shirt for the misguided cake-espousers. Because I’ll take their money, even though they’re wrong.)

Team Pie Shirt

Team Cake Shirt

Team Pie and Team Cake Shirts, for sale on redbubble.com.

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The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater

Link: The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater via Northwest Edible Life.

I know you. We have a lot in common. You have been doing some reading and now you are pretty sure everything in the grocery store and your kitchen cupboards is going to kill you.

The article is meant to be funny, but’s almost literally my experience. I tried eating more fruits and veggies at the recommendation of my cardiologist, and the seeds triggered diverticulitis and made me very sick. No matter what I did to “eat more healthy” I got spun around at every turn.

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Cheese Sauce

From the kitchen of: David Speakman

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black or white pepper (I use white)
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups grated cheese

Preparation:

Melt butter; remove from heat. Stir in flour and seasonings. Gradually add milk, stirring until well mixed. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth. Cook for 5 minutes longer; add cheese. Stir until smooth and well blended.

If it is too thick – add milk to get it the correct consistency. Salt to taste (if ti tastes too floury, add a little more salt)

Also – feel free to add more cheese to make it cheesier.
Serve with pasta or vegetables.

Extra can be refrigerated and re-heated (add milk to thin as needed)

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Cooking Templates

via Jezebel – Resolved: Eat Better, Not Less, for a Healthier Diet Jezebel’s article on healthy eating covers an approach that I’ve heard from many of my thin friends:

What you need are a few core recipes that you’re good at, or can get good at, that can be adapted for almost any combination of ingredients. You probably already know them–they’re the safety recipes you go to when you’re cooking for other people, and you want guaranteed success. In my household, it’s a chicken with Thai basil stir-fry (despite almost never having actual Thai basil), a recipe for stuffed peppers, and a few different ways of making thin white fish: broiled with butter or oil, pan-fried with a coating of flour mixed with spices, and cooking en papillote, or wrapped in tinfoil or wax paper.

Mark Bittman recommends three more “core” recipes, which have the added benefit of being very sustainable for the Earth and healthy: a broccoli/chicken/mushroom stir-fry, a chopped cabbage salad, and a lentil/rice boil with pork as an optional add-in. The Boston Globe has a few more. They work the same way my own recipes work: when you’re missing something, throw something else in. By making the basic version a few times, you learn how the dish should come together, how to use your knife or food processor to prep the ingredients, and what kinds of cook times you should expect. At that point, the proteins, beans, vegetables, rice, leafy greens, and other ingredients all become plug-and-play elements.

You’re no longer beholden to everything–time, ingredients, recipe, and mood–falling into place. You can just cook with what you’ve got, and be assured that the results are pretty good. Save the Martha-impressing recipes for when you’ve got a Saturday night off.

I’m going to spend some time putting some ideas like this together with Stephanie, because this tends to be where we scramble to get stuff made before it goes bad, rather than having a plan and throwing in whatever ingredients.

And some other ideas blatantly copied from the comments:

My favorite go-to quick dinners: Sauteed cherry tomatoes, spinach, and feta over whole what pasta. Sautee the veggies with some garlic, toss in cheese, throw over pasta. Mozzarella or parmesean or peccorino work well if you don’t have feta around.
Also my “fiesta bowl” Brown rice (I usually cook a bunch at once and keep it in the fridge-it keeps for a good two weeks with canned beans, salsa, and whatever else you have on hand-chicken, beef, cheese, peppers, broccoli Both require 1 pot and 1 pan, and if I’m really lazy I just eat it right out of said pot.

-A lentil-potato-coconut-milk curry that probably ends up costing about 60 cents per serve and is super yummy with corriander and yogurt on top.
-Veggie & bean Chilli. I make a huge pot and then use it for nachos, tacos, serve it over rice etc. Sometimes I even wrap it in puff pastry and bake it.
-Colcannon. Kale, onions, garlic and taters on crusty bread with butter. Mega-Irish comfort food.
-Pasta suace with beans and lentils. I can use this sauce for a lasagna with cottage cheese and spinach or chard if I feel like something different.

cooked brown rice tossed with sauteed spinach, sliced sauteed onion (if I have one) and chickpeas. Sometimes I add chopped cherry tomato if I have a few hanging around the fridge. top with 1 fried egg and a spoonful of garlic sriracha. Sometimes, I sub quinoa for the rice. Quantites depend on whether I have company or not.

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Grilled Pork Tenderloin

We grilled pork tenderloin and mini potatoes on the grill today. Stephanie made a simple marinade of lemon juice and rosemary for the pork, and it came out delicious, and I seem to be getting the timing of grilling down better because it wasn’t dry or undercooked; just juicy and tender. Soooo good. I cut up the potatoes and doused them in olive oil, garlic, onion and fresh dill from our CSA (thank you Big City Farms). I wrapped them in foil and put them on the grill, and they also came out well; nice and soft. Stephanie cooked some sweet corn her dad brought down, which was also nummy.

I like this grilling outside thing. It’s fun.

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Lemon Capellini

Weight Watchers

  • 6 ounces capellini or angel-hair pasta
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1 – 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • Freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Cook the capellini according to package directions omitting the salt, if desired; drain.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring
frequently, until softened, 2 – 3 minutes. Add the capellini, parsley, lemon juice, and salt; toss to coat. Serve, sprinkled with pepper.
Makes 4 servings
Wwight Watchers Points – 4
Recipe adapted from Weight Watchers Stir it Up Cookbook

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Parmesan Tiapia

  • 1 pound of tilapia
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 T. garlic powder
  • 1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
  • cooking spray

Mix together the cheese and the garlic powder. Put the egg whites in another bowl. Spray a skillet with cooking spray and heat over med-high. Then take the tilapia and dip in egg whites and then the cheese mixture. Press to coat. Pan fry on first side until brown and then flip. Cook until flaky, about 5-6 minutes total.
Weight Watchers points – 4

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Southwestern Pork Tenderloin

Weight Watchers

  • 1 T. chili powder
  • 1 1/2 t. sugar
  • 1 t. pepper
  • 1 t. salt
  • 1/4 t. onion powder
  • 1/8 t. garlic powder
  • 1/8 t. ground cumin
  • 1/8 t. cayenne
  • 1 (1 1/4 pound) pork tenderloin trimmed
  • 1 t. canola oil

Make the rub by combining all the spices in a large ziplock bag. Add the pork and rub the spices on it while in the bag. Leave in the bag in the refrigerator for 1-24 hours.

On the Grill:
Place the pork on the grill preheated grill rack. Turn occasionally until center reads 160 degrees for medium. 18-22 minutes.

In the oven:
Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Place tenderloin in shallow pan and roast for 20-27 minutes, until internal temperature reads 145F.

Transfer the pork to a platter and cover loosely with foil. Let stand about 10 minutes. Cut into 12 slices.

Serving size – about 3 slices
208 calories
7 grams of fat
663 mg sodium
1 gram fiber
32 grams of protein

Weight Watchers Points value-5 From the Savoring Summer cookbook

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