KitchenAid 13 Cup Food Processor with Exactslice System

Oh my goodness it is beautiful.  I did not need this, in fact I already have a Cuisinart one downstairs in my storage room but maybe I should not have turned on The Shopping Channel late one night.  I was totally captivated by the show and knew I would use this so much more than the one I already had.  I absolutely love any kitchen gadgets or appliances, it is kinda a problem but I usually always use them, I cook so much.

So it came in the mail today:

Doesn't it look so good!  The colour is called Empire Red, I just love it.

It comes with 2 discs, 3 blades, scrapper in this handy storage compartment.

It also comes with this mini bowl that sits inside of the work bowl for when you just need to map a small amount of something like salsa.

It was on special, they call it a show stopper.  I paid $199.97 and regular it is on for $354.98.  They also sent a cook book with it, I am making something from it tonight, Potatoes Anna.  Will keep you posted and let you know how I like it,  I'm sure it will be great.

President's Choice Black Bean Stir-fry Sauce, not recommended!

It may seem odd to blog about foods that do not turn out well but you must try new recipes and products in order to find new favourites.  I like to try new things but get so disappointed when they do not come out as expected.  My husband is working close to home this summer so I usually make him lunch or he has leftovers.  Today I wanted to try something new and have had this stir-fry sauce in the cupboard for awhile and wanted to try it out.

First I got out my Wolfgang Puck Mini Versacooker and started some brown rice.  I am glad I did as it takes just under an hour to cook.  Isn't it so cute!!

Cut up 2 carrots, 1 onion, 1 yellow bell pepper and some broccoli florets.  I had these all on hand so no extra trip to the store.

Also had one and a half of chicken breast thawed out from the freezer ready to go.

So I just cooked it up like you would regularly cook stir-fry. Smelled and looked good.  My husband was pretty excited to try it as he is a black bean sauce fan.  I should have tried the sauce before I added it to the  pan because it was not the best.  It tasted okay but it wasn't spicy but was overly tangy which was really odd.  We still ate it but I tossed out the leftovers and what was remaining of the sauce.  I will have to try another one and know now to taste beforehand.

I was happy that the brown rice turned out perfectly, I love the texture of it.  Nice to use this handy lil'cooker for something other than mac & cheese.

Tomorrow he is just getting leftovers, he'll like that.

Mexican Pork Chops

Mexican Pork Chops was a freezer meal that I had prepped in one of my earlier posts which I prepared this week for dinner.  The recipe was from the 30 Day Gourmet Website.  I had always had great luck with their recipes so I was really looking forward to this one.

I thawed out the package in the fridge:

Sprayed a baking dish with cooking spray and assembled the casserole.

The photos do look horrible, I have to work on my photography skills.

Baked in oven for an hour, removed foil and put the shredded cheese on and baked for another 15 minutes.

The meal smelled really good while it was cooking.

As I had mentioned I was really looking forward to tasting this meal and I have to admit I was disappointed.  Yes it did smell amazing, the pork chops were cooked nicely and the rice was not over done but the flavours just weren't right.  It wasn't inedible but I will not be making it again and for once do not recommend this recipe, which surprised me because I do love 30 Day Gourmet.

I do still have a couple more pork chop meals that I prepped that day and I am sure they will be good.  I will post about that soon.

Happy cooking!

Slow Cooker BBQ Beef Ribs. So delicious, just yummy!

Yesterday I was catching up quite bit on some freezer meals that I had been prepping lately and there is one that we had this weekend and it was so yummy.  I will be making this again, very soon.  It was fast, simple and easy to prep.  I got the recipe from the A Year of Slow Cooking Blog.  

I just thawed the package in the fridge.

 Poured all the contents in to my slow cooker set on low heat.

And a few hours later the ribs were ready.  I must admit that I did sneak a taste while I was waiting for the family to get home for dinner.  I couldn't resist, the smells were luring me in to the kitchen.

The ribs were very tender and juicy, just perfect.  Is a family favourite recipe now.  Can't wait to try the other beef rib meal I have in the freezer.

Try this recipe, you will be thanking me.  Enjoy!

BBQ Beef Ribs, easy, fast and cheap freezer meal

Recently my local wholesale store had Beef Ribs on sale for $1.99/lb.  I had never cooked with them before but the price was right.  Just looking around on the web I saw a couple of recipes that were easy and super simple.  Everything except the ribs I had on hand so I thought I would prep 2 meals and freeze the remaining ribs to try a different way.

Using these ingredients I had on hand:

 I bought 5 packs of these ribs:

The first recipe I prepped was fast as it do not require me to brown the ribs before hand.  The recipe for this recipe was from  The Simple Skillet.

The next recipe was still as fast but had to brown the ribs first.  Kind of like that I have prepped them two ways to see if the browning makes a difference, which we can almost say for certain that it will.  Of course the ribs smell delicious when they are browning in the oven which is a fast and clean way to brown them.

I got the recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking which is a really fun blog.

I did freeze the remaining two packs of ribs to try a different way.  In my Williams-Sonoma Grill Master Cookbook there is a recipe to smoke the ribs on a BBQ that I would like to try.

Will post the the recipe results soon, enjoy.

Marinade for Pork Chops

On my previous post I made four freezer meals with pork chops that we on sale.  It took very little time to prep these meals and have made a couple.

I thawed out the Pork in the marinade in the fridge.

Discarded the liquid and grilled the chops.  Super simple, fast dinner.

They were very tasty and will defiantly be making again.  This would be a great camping meal too since clean up is fast.

Here is the recipe, can be multiplied easily.

Marinade for Pork

6 Pork Chops
16 oz. Pineapple Juice
1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1 tsp. ground Ginger
1/2 tsp. minced Garlic
1/3 cup Italian Dressing

Combine all marinade ingredients.  Place meat in freezer bags or containers.  Pour marinade over meat.  Freeze.

Serving Directions:
Thaw.  Grill, broil or pan fry pork chops until browned on both sides and no longer pink in the centre.  Discard marinade.

I served mine with rice and steamed broccoli, will me making again, soon!

4 Pork Chop Freezer Meals

Pork chops were on sale for a great price a couple of weeks ago so I thought I would do up some freezer meals to take advantage of the great prices and save some time as well.

All recipes are from the 30 Day Gourmet website or cookbook.  I have tried a few other freezer meal cookbooks but this is the best.  The flavours are always amazing and the recipes really work.  I have quite a few favourites and look forward to sharing them soon.

All of these recipes I have never tried before but since they were from 30 Day Gourmet I was quite confident that we would like them.

Using this staples I had on hand:

 Buying the pork chops for a very decent price:

This is what I made:

Saucey Oven Pork Chops

Teriyaki Pork Chops

Marinade for Pork

Mexican Pork Chops

 Ready for the freezer, all the meals were easy to prep and only two recipes required the pork chops to be browned.

Since the meals were made awhile ago, I have prepared/served a couple.  Will update this week.