A Pioneer Woman Night!

Last night we tried a new recipe along with an old one that we love. For dinner last night we had The Pioneer Woman's Grilled Ribeye Steak with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce:

with this:

and you can find the recipes here and here. They were delicious and the perfect meat and potatoes meal that makes me crave summer when we can eat outside with flip flops on listening to the crickets.

After dinner we were still a little hungry so I made a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies that I'll post soon.

I'm so glad Monday's over. It was cloudy and rainy and yuck! I hope we're getting it all out of the way before Spring Break!

Crock-Pot Brisket

I'm falling in love with my Crock Pot. It's spent too much time unused and I'm finding new ways to fix this. My mother used our Crock Pot at LEAST once a week while I was growing up. There is nothing like setting a whole meal up in a pot before you leave for work and opening the door when you come home to the most incredible smell. I know that if I plan on being a working mom one day, I will learn to love it as much as my mom did raising me. Seriously, if I can cook a meal while at work AND set my washer to start a load an hour before I come home I can do ANYTHING! :)

My mother in law makes her brisket this way when they don't smoke it outside on the grill. She brought this over for Christmas and it was delicious! This recipe is EASY! Seriously, here are the ingredients:

• 1 brisket (your choice of cut and size)
• 1 package of McCormick Grill Mates Seasoning in Mesquite flavor (or more if brisket is larger than 2 pounds)
• water
• oil as per package directions

Directions:

Place brisket in Crock Pot. In separate bowl, mix together seasoning packet as per directions. Each package is enough to work with 2 pounds of meat so you may need multiple packages. Pour marinade over brisket. Add about an inch of water to the Crock Pot and place lid on pot. Set to "low" and go to work doing what you do. I set it at 6:45 this morning and came in at 4 pm to a perfect brisket.

After removing from Crock Pot, shred as so:

We like to mix our favorite BBQ sauce with the shredded meat and heat up over stove. Then we serve on top of a baked potato or mashed potatoes. Delicious! The two pound brisket makes enough for about 5 meals if you pile the meat over potatoes.

If you make it, let me know what you think! We're trying a few more new recipes over the next week so I'll post those if they turn out to be keepers!

Cheesy Baked Mexi-Rigatoni

The other night we tried this new recipe after I stared at it for a few days on a few of the food blogs that I read. They all claimed it was delicious and the picture appeared to say the same thing to me. I think the original recipe came from Picky Palate.

Cheesy Baked Mexi-Rigatoni

(my picture doesn't give it much justice!)

1lb Rigatoni

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion finely chopped

2 Anaheim green chili's finely chopped

1 lb lean ground beef

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon Lawry's garlic salt

1 can cheddar cheese soup

1/2 cup milk or half and half

1 cup sour cream

2 15 oz cans diced fire roasted tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves (I ommitted this one because I didn't have it and don't really care for that much cilantro).

2 cups mexican blend cheese shredded

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta and drain. Place olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Saute onions and chiles until softened. Stir in beef, salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Cook and crumble until browned. Stir in soup, milk, sour cream, and tomatoes. Stir until well combined. Reduce heat to low and stir in cilantro and cooked pasta. Pour mixture in lasagna dish. Sprinkle with cheese and bake until cheese is melted and bubbly about 20-25 minutes.

The verdict: It was very good and easy to make! Next time, I may cut back the fire roasted tomatoes to 1 1/2 cans or maybe even 1 can because at times certain bites were overwhelming. We loved it even more for leftovers the next day but we think it was because we were able to pick out the parts of the pasta that we liked the most (i.e. not a scoop with tons of fire roasted tomatoes in it). I'll make it again, but put my own spin on it. If you make it, let me know what you think! :)