A Few of My Favorite Things

Currently this Arizona desert girl is living in Billings, Montana. My husband is selling SmartHomes for Vivint and this is his "market" for the summer. It's been an adventure packing up 5 kids in the minivan and living with a lot less stuff for 5 months (we're 2 months in now).  Something crazy that has happened since we came here is that I've started to cook a lot more. Like I've only picked up Little Caesar's $5 pizzas once! I'm not someone who really enjoys cooking, but I really do enjoy eating. I find recipes and usually mess around with them to fit what ingredients I have on hand, how much work I am willing to do, and the time-frame until my hunger won't wait any longer and junk food will win. Sometimes I consider what's healthy. Other times I debate the definition of that word. And most the time I'm just proud of myself for feeding my family something other than cereal. (Which my children and husband still live on - a lot). So I'm sharing some of the things that have made cooking a bit easier and more fun for me this summer.

One of the secrets to success for me this summer has been finally learning the not-so-secret ways of my Instant Pot I bought a couple years ago. Frozen roast cooked and tender within 2 hours? Done. Chicken in 20? On it. Steel cut oatmeal (doesn't that sound healthy?). Just give me the time it takes my kids to drag themselves out of bed and get dressed. I'll try to post some of the modified recipes I've made to help others when I decide to find the time, but here's my top favorite recipe so far:

Mel's Kitchen Cafe Chile Lime Chicken Tacos
But of course I just buy mango salsa at Sam's Club instead of making hers. And I tried the avocado cream sauce but I prefer the copy cat El Pollo Loco Avocado Salsa. So basically I've been making the chicken - and it is delicious with or without the salsas.

A fun addition to our kitchen as been an air fryer! My mother-in-law came to visit, used my friend's air fryer, and generously decided I needed one too. It's close to having a deep fryer without the hot oil. It's touted as a healthier option but honestly I'm actually a fan of oil - but I'm happy to avoid the dangerous boiling hot lava state. And the air fryer is FAST! Every day I find myself looking for something to cook in it.

So far I've tried:

• chicken pineapple sausages
• hot dogs (both were like they'd been grilled)
• pot stickers (in the future I'll stick to the stove for these)
• reheating chicken wings from a restaurant
• frozen boneless buffalo wings
• frozen tater tots
• frozen french fries
• frozen chicken nuggets

The recipe book has all these great recipes for cutting up potatoes and breading your own chicken, so I wanted to be clear this also works for lazy cookers like me. But the taste is SO much better than from the oven. 

I know that I do not fully access all the power and beauty of my Blendtec Blender. But I use it enough that it was definitely packed for this trip even though I couldn't bring very much. We have enjoyed summer smoothies using the pre-proportioned packs (say that 5 times fast) of fruit from Sam's Club and whatever else we have on hand - we don't let anything like not having an actual smoothie recipe slow us down! The thing I make most often in this blender is salsa. As a southwestern girl, homemade salsa is considered a staple (I'll post my recipe - or list of ingredients I sometimes use - in a future post). It's also great for the milkshake or orange julius bribes I give my kids. I didn't bring a mixer with me and I've even used it for cookie dough (although that was kind of messy). Basically this blender is a staple for me. It was expensive but I got a deal on it at Costco several years ago. And when it broke all I had to do was take it in and they gave me a new one. Pretty sweet. I'm not getting into the which blender is better debate here - I honestly don't know. I just know that having a super strong extra special kind is handy. 

Also, Walmart has colored kitchen utensils (in buckets by all the other fancier ones) that I like to buy. They're not only inexpensive, but having colorful utensils just makes cooking more fun! 

BTW, I am on the search for low cost yet awesome knives if anyone has any suggestions for me. I think that is one of my hold ups on pursuing lots of recipes that look good to me. My knives are no good and it takes too long to cut stuff. I literally had chicken shooting off the cutting board and flying across the kitchen a few days ago. And that's just plain gross.