White Bean Soup

White Bean Soup
*Just toss a 1 lb bag of dry white beans in the crock pot and cover with enough water to rise 2 inches above the beans. 
*Add in 2 C cooked shredded chicken, 2 tsp cumin, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp Cajun spice. Cook on medium for 6-8 hours. 
*1 hour before eating add in 1 can of Rotel and 4 C chicken broth.
*It is delicious... especially if you add a sprinkle of cheese to it:)

Autumn Apple Cake

AUTUMN APPLE CAKE 

Ingredients:
5-7 apples
1 (9 ounce) package yellow cake mix
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 stick real butter

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Fill your 9x12 pan 1/2 full with apples which you've peeled, cored and sliced thin
(peeling is optional).
Sprinkle the apples with dry cake mix.
Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the cake mix.
Melt butter and drizzle over.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Oxtail Stew

 

 

So this recipe came about because I had a few random leftovers from a cow that we had butchered last fall. I saw "OXTAIL" on the wrapper and was like, what?! What am I supposed to do with that? I was determined to cook it, somehow, someway. So, I scoured various recipe sites and saw that Oxtail is used in a lot of Asian cooking, Caribbean cooking and Italian cooking. Well, Italian cooking speaks my love language, so I started looking at the Italian recipes. I decided I wanted to cook it slow and didn't really want to have to mess with it, and this is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did, because it turned out simply amazing.

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs of oxtail chunks (If it doesn't come already chunked or segmented, ask your butcher to do it for you. You really want the marrow to be visible)

1 lb baby carrots (I get these because I really don't like chopping carrots)

6-8 golden potatoes

2 cans of diced tomatoes (regular size)

Italian seasoning

Kosher Salt

Ground Black Pepper

Red Wine

My kiddos don't like onions, but I think pearl onions would be fantastic in this.



I did this in my crock pot; which is 5.5 quarts. First put down a layer with your carrots covering the bottom. Then chop your potatoes into good size chunks and place those on top of your carrots. Then a layer of the diced tomatoes with the juices. Place the oxtail on top of this. Do a healthy sprinkling of salt and pepper and the Italian seasoning. I think people are afraid of seasoning and beef really responds best to a good sprinkling. Around your beef, pour enough of your red wine to not quite cover your carrot layer. I saw people suggesting a burgundy wine with this, but I really just think any good table red would work. I put mine in the crockpot on low for 3 hours and then thought it might take too long on low, so I bumped it up to high and cooked it for five hours like that and it was perfect. I think if you cooked it on high for 6 hours that would be a good place to start. Maybe start it on low if you're going to put it on early in the morning.