Crock Pot on Hold...Maybe

We've got family in town this coming weekend for a couple of weeks....so we may not be crockpotting at all until they leave.  Got lots of places to go, family to see, etc.  Which means we may have lots of "Dining Out" posts!

Tonight we went to Paesanos in Manoa...will be posting a "Dining Out" review.  The food was fabulous and so was the service.

Crock Pot Red Wine Braised Short Ribs for Two

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, tasty, reminds me of my mom's pot roast - meat just falls apart.
SHE SAID: Tasty and delicious, but only once a year due it being beef and not very lean.

This past week there were several articles mentioning braised short ribs.  Reading through the recipes made the female half of this couple hungry for braised short ribs...mmmm....we don't eat beef much and if we do, it's very thinly sliced for shabu shabu or sukiyaki, once in a while a nice steak, but never short ribs!  Most of the recipes we found required red wine, mmmm...almost everything braised in wine tastes yummy!

This is also our very first beef dish made in our crock pot (other than the first try on Skyline Cincinnati Chili)!  Wow, if were meat eaters (the reason we're no longer meat eaters, we're getting older, need to watch the cholesterol, etc) we'd make this dish at least once a month!  This was very tasty and tender.  It's very simple, there were several other more complex recipes we thought about trying, but this recipe we didn't need to purchase any additional ingredients other than the ribs.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 7-9 hours on low
4 qt. crock pot

1 c. dry red wine
2/3 c. ketchup
3 T. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. dark brown sugar (we used light since we had it already)
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
4 lbs. beef short ribs with bone
1 small red onion, chopped

Before

Combine first six ingredients in slow cooker and mix.  Add ribs, submerge as much as possible in sauce (we spooned sauce over the ribs too).  Scatter onions over ribs.  Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours.  We turned the ribs over half way thru cooking to ensure the sauces soaked into entire ribs.  If you plan well enough ahead, we read a lot of reviews which suggested cooking the ribs the night before, refrigerating the sauce separate from the ribs, then the next day scrape the fat off the sauce.  We took out as much of the oil/fat as we could just before serving.  Serve with rice or pasta.  If you like gravy, mix some cornstarch paste (cornstarch with water) into the gravy, stirring constantly to make your own gravy.

Enjoy..we sure did!

Dining Out: Island Sub and Burger in Manoa

One of our favorite takeout places in Manoa is Island Sub and Burger.   Inexpensive, great food tucked away in the Manoa Marketplace.  The only thing is, they close early (7:30PM and even earlier on Sundays).

Half of the penne w/marinara

1/2 of a Chicken Philly 6 inch

We haven't tried everything...we haven't even tried their burgers...but the male half of this couple loves their marinara sauce.  For $4.95, you can get a nice sized serving of penne with marinara and a small piece of garlic bread.  We'd ordered it in the past with chicken...but for the extra money, the chicken is nothing to write home about.   We normally share the penne with marinara and one of our other favorites, the Chicken Philly sandwich.  Another great deal.  There aren't too many restaurants in Hawaii who can cook up a Philly sandwich up to a Pennsylvanian's liking.  Island Sub and Burger uses that CheezWhiz stuff on theirs which makes their cheese really gooey...mmm.  One of our friends reminded us shredded cheese has an anti-caking agent which when melted will never melt into that gooeyness of CheezWhiz.  Their philly sandwiches may not be the best or equal to the ones you can get in Philadelphia..but for Manoa, we love it.

We've also tried their Reuben sandwiches which are also very good.

If you're looking for an inexpensive, but great tasting fast food meal, Island Sub and Burger is worth a try.

Crock Pot Chicken Adobo for Two

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, moist but a bit salty
SHE SAID: Same, salty, but good.

Chicken Adobo, before

Happy May Day!  May Day is known as Lei Day in Hawaii.  We both were really busy, so no Lei Day festivities for us.  Decided we needed something lighter to eat and we've been on a vinegar kick (both food and cleaning!).  Didn't take the time to find the female half of this couple's recipe which came from a Filipina friend's grandmother (her recipe calls for more vinegar versus shoyu).  Instead, we decided to pull one off allrecipes.com which is often times a great resource.  Generally what we do is what many other posters do, take the recipe and tweak it with our own additions/changes as well as suggestions by other reviewers of the recipe.  Most have turned our fabulous...this one was a bit too salty for the one with high blood pressure.  Plus, we prefer our adobo more on the "vinegary" side.

For those who don't like a strong vinegar taste, this recipe may work for you!  As mentioned in other posts, the female half of this couple is on a lower carb diet, so we make more than 2 servings.  The crock pot worked well for this recipe.  We normally simmer the chicken in the adobo sauce for about an hour on the stove, it's still good on the stove, but not as tender as when done in the crock pot.

Since the female half is on a lower carb diet and we've been reading about vinegar's greatness, we will definitely use our own adobo recipe very soon (and we may marinate the chicken first)!

RECIPE:

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low
2 qt crock pot

6-8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2/3 c. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
1/3 c. white vinegar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. ground ginger
2 bay leaves
1/2 T. black peppercorns
1/2 to 1 t. truvia (or sugar)
1 T. garlic powder

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Place chicken in crock pot.  Layer in ingredients (we usually start with the dry ingredients first).   Give it a quick stir.  Cover and cook on low for 6 - 8 hours.  Serve with white rice.

We didn't need rice this week, so we bought the male half of this couple a kaiser roll, toasted it and served the chicken shredded with sauce on the roll.  We prefer adobo with rice.

Enjoy!

P.S.  Forgot to take a pic of the finished product!

Crock Pot on Hold

It's been a REALLY busy week.  Last week we started renovating a rental unit, then on to cleaning it for the new tenant.  College students and recent grads are NOT clean people.  Yuck!

Anyway, due to all the hours we've been putting it, we've not had time to use the crock pot much since Friday!  We have quite a few recipes we want to try, including a healthy, very low carb chicken adobo recipe.

We've got another busy weekend ahead, so no crock pot meals until probably next weekend.  We did mostly takeout this past week.  If you're into healthy pizzas, Whole Foods sells pizza by the pound.  It was ok, not the kind we like :-)  There always seems to be a line for the pizzas.  You can by it by the slice or you can buy three pounds which is a whole pizza shaped like a skateboard versus a round pizza.

We also had pasta from La Pizza Rina.  Will be posting a review of La Pizza Rina since it's one of our usual pizza takeout places.

Dining Out: Pho One in Honolulu

Lemon Beef Salad w/Jellyfish

We're not very experienced eaters of Vietnamese food, but we do enjoy chicken Pho and lemongrass chicken.  Recently we made friends with a young gal who's parents are from Vietnam...she is fluent in Vietnamese.  Great gal, very nice and intelligent...oh and generous.  I always tell her she has an old soul, wise beyond her years.

Pork Plate

Our friend offered to share her culture via tradiational Vietnamese cuisine at Pho One in Honolulu (near Ala Moana Shopping Center).  We couldn't refuse!  She knows the owners of the restaurants and knows they make their own chicken and beef stocks from scratch, clean the vegetables one by one and by hand, etc.

Special Beef Pho

We asked her to do the ordering and we got some fabulous dishes:  Lemon Beef salad with Jellyfish, Beef Phở and a dish that wasn't on the menu, Bò lá lốt...more on this dish later.  She also ordered a dish with broken rice (small grains of jasmine rice), pork chops, shredded pork and Vietnamese pork meatloaf.  The Vietnamese steam their meatloaf making it light and fluffy and looks more like a piece of dessert (pretty)....it was very tasty.

Bo La Lot

First came the Lemon Beef salad with Jellyfish.  Very tasty dressing, the lettuce fresh and the onions mild.  The beef is served rare.  The male half of this couple doesn't get excited about food, but he claims this is the best salad he's had in a long time.  Next came our Beef Phở...it was one of the better bowls of Pho we've had, but we could've done without the tendons, tripe and whatever other piece of beef was in there.  This Pho is served with raw thin slices of meat also...our friend asked the waiter to have that meat served on the side so we could put the beef in when it arrived at our table...so the meat doesn't overcook...it was a great idea.

Rolling Bo La Lot

The last dish is the female half of this couple's favorite dish...Bò lá lốt, the meat portion is beef rolled in a pepper leaf.  At Pho One, they serve all the ingredients on a pizza pan, you roll the ingredients in rice paper yourself.  The tray comes with very fresh ingredients and it was recommended to us to lay down half a leaf of lettuce as the base (on the rice paper which you dip quickly into warm water), followed by the rest of the ingredients in whichever order you prefer.  The rest of the ingredients were: bun (noodles, cake form), the meat portion, pickled vegetables, basil and mint (leaves only).  Roll like a burrito tucking ingredients in so the rice paper isn't loose.  Dip the roll into the fish sauce holding it close to the top or else after you take a bite, everything tends to fall out of it.

It was quite an experience...but a great one.  We were too full to try the three layer Vietnamese ice dessert..next time we think we'll just to the salad and Bò lá lốt.

Crock Pot "Mexican" Chicken For Two

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Very good.
SHE SAID: Yum!

Years ago before the female half of this couple's cousin married her first husband, he introduced our family to this easy but yummy recipe.  Simple...simple enough for a teenager to make and easy on the pocketbook too.  We believe it was his own recipe.  He made it with sliced canned mushrooms, sliced black olives and shredded cheese melted on the top (baked).  We this without the mushrooms and olives since the male half of this couple doesn't care for them.

Before (forgot to take a  pic of the finished product)

For the salsa part of the recipe, it's really to taste.  Depends on how spicy you like your salsa, if you like it chunky or smooth...we've also made this with homemade salsa.  We normally serve this dish on rice...mmmm, but you can serve with tortilla chips if you prefer.  The amount of sauce you make also depends on how much you like the sauce.  If you're not into sauce, you may want to make just enough to cover the chicken...if you love sauce, make extra sauce for dipping.  The sauce tastes great as leftovers too!

The original recipe calls for the chicken to be baked in a 9x13 pan at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour (until chicken is cooked, but not overcooked).  Using the crock pot made the chicken softer, but the sauce runnier.  We probably won't be making this in the crock pot again since the thicker sauce is easier to dip.  If you don't mind the runnier sauce (it doesn't taste bad, just hard to dip) and you're just pouring the sauce over the rice, the crock pot way is a bit tastier and as mentioned, the chicken is very tender.

It was another very busy day, dinner had to wait until 9:30PM, so we forgot to take a pic of the finished product!  Will definitely post one when we have leftovers.

RECIPE:

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 6- 8 hours on low
2-4 qt crock pot (depending on how much sauce you want)

6 - 8 pieces boneless, skinless chicken thighs (cut in half or whole)
2 small cans or 1 large can cream of mushroom soup (again, depends on how much sauce you want)
1-2 cups of salsa (your choice, depends on texture and spice you desire)
1 small can sliced mushrooms, drained (optional)
1 small can diced black olives, drained (optional)
shredded Mexican blend cheese (optional)

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Place chicken pieces in crock pot.  In a bowl, mix cream of mushroom soup until smooth and creamy.  Add in as much salsa as you wish (we usually use at least 3/4s of a jar of salsa or more).  Mix in mushrooms and olives.  Pour sauce over chicken, be sure sauce covers chicken.  Cover and cook for 7-8 hours on low.  Sprinkle cheese on chicken just before serving...melt the cheese.  Serve over rice or with tortilla chips for dipping...or both!

Enjoy...we always do!