{Thrice Favorites} DIY Taco Seasoning

Jana here with a very versatile recipe - Homemade Taco Seasoning!   This is great for several reasons.  It is good make in a pinch if you were planning to use taco seasoning in a packet, but are out.  It is much cheaper to make it yourself, and healthier!  There is less salt than the packaged seasoning, and you know exactly what is in it!  I found this recipe at All Recipes. 

Homemade Taco Seasoning

3 tablespoons chili powder

3/4 teaspoon garlic powder

3/4 teaspoon onion powder

3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

3/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1 1/2 teaspoons paprika

1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon black pepper

In a small bowl, mix all ingredients.  The measurements above will make about 9 tablespoons.  Two or three tablespoons of the mixture will be equal flavoring to a taco seasoning packet.  You can easily make more or less of this, to serve your needs.  I like to make at least this amount, and store it in an air-tight container so I have some on hand! 

{Thrice Favorites} Creamy Chicken Chili

Jana here with a recipe that the whole family absolutely loved!  Add a garden salad, and some whole wheat bread, and you have a delicious meal!  This is also made in the slow cooker, so it is very low maintenance, and easy to prep!  I found the recipe that I based this on here.  For a quick meal on a busy day, you will definitely want to try this!

Creamy Chicken Chili

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 can corn, undrained

1 can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 package ranch dressing mix

1 teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon cilantro

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

2 chicken breast halves, or 1 cup shredded chicken

1. Place the chicken in the bottom of your slow cooker.  Add beans, corn, and tomatoes on top. 

2. Add ranch mix and seasonings on top, and stir with the beans, corn, and tomatoes to combine.

3. Put the block of cream cheese on top of the mixture, and cover.

4. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. 

5. Stir cream cheese in, and shred the chicken. (if you have used chicken breast halves)   Mix together, and serve.

Enjoy!

{Thrice Favorites} Ground Beef Risotto

Jana here with a {Thrice Favorites} recipe!  I originally posted this recipe several years ago, and it is one that I have made many times since then!  It is easy to make, the kids love it, and it's healthy!  If you give it a try, leave a comment and let us know!

Ground Beef Risotto

1 pound lean ground beef (or turkey)

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 cloves minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup uncooked rice (I used brown rice)

3 1/2 cups beef broth (from 32 ounce container)

1/2 cup shredded carrot

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1. In a medium skillet, cook beef, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper over medium heat.  Cook until the beef is browned.  Drain if necessary.

2. Stir in rice.  Cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

3. Stir in broth, and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Stir in carrot. Cook uncovered for 5-7 minutes, or until most liquid is absorbed.

5. Remove skillet from heat, and stir in cheese. Cover, let stand for 3 minutes.

Enjoy!

{Thrice Favorites} Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Rainy days always make me want to bake.  Am I the only one?  I hope not!  :)  One of my sons is 4 years old, and mixing up muffins is a perfect recipe for him to help with!  He loves practicing using the measuring spoons, dipping them in the flour and other things, and pouring them into the mixing bowl!  A little bit of patience on the parent's part goes a long way!  I can already see him improving in the past year!  Maybe in a few years, he will be baking muffins for us on his own!

I found a recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins on a food website, and modified it some to fit our family's preferences.  These turned out very good!  They are moist, but are slightly firm on the outside, which I enjoy!  This recipe will make 18 regular sized muffins, or 12 regular, and 12 mini as we did!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

3 ripe bananas (approximately 1 cup mashed)*
1/3 cup natural applesauce (can use coconut oil instead)
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour (or all purpose, if you prefer)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a muffin tin.

2. Place the mashed bananas, applesauce, eggs, milk, and vanilla in a mixer. Mix on low speed until well combined.

3. Add the dry ingredients (flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt), and mix well.  (do not over mix!)  Add the chocolate chips, and mix just to stir them in.

4.  Fill approximately 18 muffin tins 3/4 of the way full. 

5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, checking to make sure a toothpick can be poked in and out without having batter on it.

Happy Baking!

*Whenever we have fresh bananas that get too brown before we can eat them, I have a method for saving them to use later.  First, I peel the banana.  Then, put it in a ziploc bag.  You can usually fit several in a sandwich size bag.  Then, mash the banana, and freeze it for later!  It is really easy to pull a bag of mashed banana out to use at a later time!

{Thrice Favorites} Slow Cooker BBQ Ranch Country Ribs

Jana here with a slow cooker recipe that completely surpassed my expectations!  So I decided to try this recipe from Picky Palate.  The ribs were falling apart when I took them out of the slow cooker, and were so tender!  It was so good, and everyone in my family was asking for seconds! 

Slow Cooker BBQ Ranch Country Ribs

2-3 pounds country style ribs (boneless)
1 packet of Ranch dry seasoning mix
1 1/2 cups Ketchup*
3 tablespoons yellow mustard
4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon black pepper
pinch of salt

1. Turn slow cooker on high heat. Place ribs in slow cooker, and sprinkle Ranch dry seasoning mix on top.

2. Place remaining ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, and mix well.  Pour BBQ sauce over ribs, making sure to cover all.

3. Cook on high heat for 4-5 hours.

*I prefer to buy Simply Heinz ketchup.  It doesn't have corn syrup, and only has a handful of natural ingredients, unlike most standard ketchups at the store!

{Thrice Favorites} Slow Cooker Apple Butter

Jana here with a recipe for delicious Apple Butter!  If you're not familiar with apple butter, it is a spread typically used on breads. (toast, sandwiches, biscuits, etc)  It is sweet, and can be used as a jelly.  Although it has the word 'butter' in the name, butter is not one of the ingredients.  After doing some research, I learned that the name comes from the spread's thick, soft consistency.  The ingredient list below will yield approximately one pint of apple butter.  You can store the apple butter in a sealed container in your refrigerator, or freeze the apple butter. If you choose to freeze the spread, make sure you leave space at the top of the container to allow the spread to expand as it freezes. I used Gala apples to make mine. You can use any variety of apple, although I would recommend using a sweet(ish) apple.  I used this recipe as my starting point, and then changed several things.

Slow Cooker Apple Butter

2.5 pounds apples, peeled, cored, chopped finely
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup honey*
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Once apples have been prepared as described above, place in a slow cooker.  Mix remaining ingredients together in a small bowl.  Pour the sugar mixture over the apples.

2. Cook on high for 1 hour. Reduce heat to low, and cook for 9-11 hours.

3. Once the cooking time has passed, check the mixture for the following things: it should have thickened considerably, darkened in color to a dark brown, and most of the moisture should be gone.  If these things have happened, it is done cooking. If not, cook for an additional hour in the slow cooker with the lid removed.

4. Put the apple butter into a blender or food processor, and blend until it has a smooth consistency.

Enjoy!

Printable Version

{Thrice Favorites} Creamy Mexican Chicken

Jana here with a delicious slow cooker meal that is super fast to prepare!  This is a great meal for a day when you only have a few minutes to spend on dinner.  One of the things I love about it is the finished product is very versatile!  We ate it the first night over brown rice.  The second time we had it, we put it in tortillas, added salsa and cheese, and had a yummy burrito!

Creamy Mexican Chicken 

2-2.5 lbs frozen chicken breasts
1 can corn, drained
1 package cream cheese
1 can Rotel
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried cilantro (optional)

1. Place frozen chicken breasts in your slow cooker.

2. Add remaining ingredients on top.

3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, stirring every few hours if possible.

About halfway through the cooking time, I used a fork to stir and shred the chicken.  It did so very easily, and made it where the chicken could absorb the flavors and moisture of the sauce even more!  This would make a great freezer meal also!

Printable Version

{Thrice Favorites} Slow Cooker Chicken Curry

Jana here with a recipe that my family really enjoys!  After eating at an Indian restaurant last year, I discovered that I really enjoyed the flavors of the food we ordered!  I came home, and decided to start making different forms of curry. This recipe is so delicious, and you can make it as spicy (or not!) as you prefer!   I found the recipe here, and followed it fairly closely.  I hope you'll give this a try, even if it's different from what you normally cook!

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or tenders)
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
15 ounce can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
cayenne powder (to taste)

1. In the bottom of the slow cooker, mix together the coconut milk, broth, tomato sauce, curry powder, salt, and cayenne.

2. Add chicken breasts, onion, chickpeas, and sweet potatoes. Gently toss ingredients to evenly coat.

3. Cook on low for 4-6 hours.  Serve over rice. (I found Basmati rice at my local store, and it was delicious!)

Enjoy!

Printable Version

{Instant Pot} "Baked" Sweet Potatoes

Becca here, with a quick "Instant Pot" pressure cooker recipe/tutorial.  I have been an avid Instant Pot user for seven years now, and am actually on my second Instant Pot, after an unfortunate incident with the lid being left too close to our gas stove, and melting.  When we had a major water leak at our home, requiring my family of myself, my husband, and our five kids, to live in a hotel for exactly sixty nights, my Instant Pot is the one kitchen thing I brought with me, and enabled us to eat somewhat normally some of the time, while living in a hotel!  I'm super excited that they have become really popular lately, and recipes are showing up all over, so I thought I would add some of my favorites to the mix now that it's something many more people have in their kitchens!

One thing that I commonly use mine for is to make perfect "baked" sweet potatoes.  To get great results, with non-mushy sweet potatoes, you'll want to get out the steam rack that came with your instant pot.  It looks like this, once placed into the bottom of the stainless steel pot insert (which I have two of, and often use each of them every day!).  You want to make sure that it is feet side down.  Pour in 1 cup of water.  The water will not be touching the bottom of the steam rack.

Insert sweet potatoes.  It is okay to stack them up, as long as the lid will fit on without touching them.  I can generally fit about five pounds of sweet potatoes in mine at one time.   I have a larger than typical family, so this is two meals worth for us.  We usually eat them 'baked' the first meal, and then I put the leftover ones into a square casserole dish with a bit of maple syrup, cinnamon, and sprinkled with pecans and coconut oil on top, for an oven-ready side dish for another meal.

You want to cook the potatoes for 30 minutes at high pressure.  You may do that by pushing either one of two buttons.  Either the Bean/Chili button I'm pointing to here, OR

the "Soup" button I'm pointing to here.  You could also manually set the pot to high pressure for 30 minutes, but I'm not sure when you would go to the extra trouble when either of these buttons work perfectly with preset settings!

The Instant Pot will pause for a moment, and then switch to the screen reading "On".  This means that it is heating up, and building up pressure.  This will take several minutes.

When the Instant Pot has reached the correct temperature and pressure settings, it will start counting down the remaining time "at pressure".  I think this is confusing to people sometimes, because a 30 minute setting actually takes quite a bit longer, allowing for the Instant Pot to heat up and reach pressure, and then naturally release pressure, unless you're in a hurry, and to a quick pressure release.  These are often abbreviated in Instant Pot Recipes/Groups as NRP (natural release pressure) and QPR (quick pressure release).  Natural pressure release simply means that you don't do anything at the end of the cooking time, and let the Instant Pot automatically switch to the "warm" setting, and open the pot to eat when you're ready.  Quick pressure release means that you move the valve on the top of the pot, to "open" to let the big burst of heat and pressure out, so that you can then safely remove the lid and eat, before the pot has naturally and slowly let the steam and pressure out itself.

At the end of the cooking time, the Instant Pot automatically switches to a "warm" setting, where the screen looks like this, and it counts up the warming minutes, or hours, if applicable, and slowly starts lowering the pressure.  Because it is an airtight and sealed environment, I have found that even something like rice can stay on the warm function for several hours without any loss of quality at all.

What are your Instant Pot questions or recipe requests?  Or favorite tips?  Let us know in the comments here, or on our Facebook Page!!

These Are a Few of my Favorite {Summer} Things!

Becca here with some of my favorite summer recipes today!  With the school being out around here, and the 4th of July approaching, I thought it would be fun to highlight some of my favorites from the Thrice the Spice blog over the years.  Remember you can always use the search bar on the right sidebar to search by topic, ingredient, cooking method, etc.  You can also choose a category to browse on the right sidebar as well.  What are some of YOUR favorite summer treats & activities?

 

4th of July Flag Toast

and another idea for the 4th (also dye free!) 
Red, White, & Blue "Celebrate America" Dessert!

Fruit Butterfly Snacks

Fresh Lemonade

and while you're buying and juicing lemons, make this Simple Lemon Sugar Scrub for yourself or a quick gift!

Or, these 'Clean Eating' Lemon Bars are another tasty way to use lemons and enjoy a treat without going way overboard.

Strawberry Pina Colada Popsicles

I also make popsicles using just 100% fruit juice, or add frozen fruit or peas for an extra treat, although since we don't normally drink juice a juice popsicle is a treat in itself! 

These Orange Creamsicles are another delicious popsicle idea we've tried & enjoyed.

What is your favorite homemade popsicle 'recipe' or idea?  Enjoy!