Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Stew

Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Stew

The temperature in my area dropped to the 40's today. I froze most of the day. I am not a cold weather person. While I love fall for the leaves turning colors, the baking etc I hate when the weather starts to turn towards winter. Growing up in Seattle it stayed mild most of the year. While it did get colder in the winter, it was no where near as cold as it gets here. When it hits into the single digits going to the bus stop with my oldest is just torture. Winter also brings about pneumonia and strep throat, just to name a few of the things that I have been fortunate enough to have the last two years (with hospital stays). I don't think my body was built for winter. My husband's is always turning the heat down since he roasts while I literally shake from being cold. I blame genetics, my dad is rail thin and freezes all winter also. Thanks dad.

One thing that I do love about colder weather is stew. There is something incredibly comforting about sitting down at the table with a giant bowl of steaming stew and a crusty loaf of bread. This week I tried a new recipe for Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Stew.

Cabell County Courthouse Huntington, WV

This recipe has 16 ingredients. It takes 8 hours and 30 minutes of total time, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 8-10 servings. I made a number of changes to the original recipe. My local grocery stores refuse to stock currants, so I substituted equal amounts of chopped raisins and dried apricots. I could not find my turmeric (sometimes spices hide in my cupboards or simply somehow disappear) so I left it out entirely. Since couscous is not gluten free I served the stew over white rice. While I know brown rice is better health wise, I just can't eat it all the time. When you can't eat gluten free brown rice can become a little bit monotonous so I allow myself white rice when I want it. Finally, as I have talked about before I make my own chicken stock. This way I can control the amount of salt in the recipe and it tastes so much better! I allowed the stew to cook on high for 6 hours and served it with homemade Irish soda bread.

Ritter Park Rose Garden Steps Huntington, WV

Lamb stew is normally a hit in my household and this was no exception. The lamb cooked perfectly and the spices blended well. I did add cinnamon to the crock-pot along with the other spices listed in the recipe. I love the flavor of cinnamon with lamb and it was a nice addition. I used the same amount of cinnamon as the allspice, which worked out perfectly. I would recommend making this addition. Over rice this stew was delicious. It also re-heated well the next day served alone in a bowl with crusty bread. 

For the recipe go to Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Stew. 

The Huntington photos from today are from this summer. I wish it was that pretty today!! I miss the warm blue skies.

Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Stew

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

A flavorful slowcooker recipe for Moroccan Lamb Stew. Great with a loaf of crusty bread during the fall and winter!

Preparation Time: 0h, 30m

Cooking Time: 8h, 0m

Total Time: 8h, 30m

Yield: Serves 8

Summer Grilling Time: Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

It is finally raining after a very hot week. Some people love the heat and humidity, I am not one of them. Having grown up in Seattle even when summer was at it hottest it was nowhere like it is where I live now. My mother was determined before she came out for my wedding that according to the weather channel the humidity wouldn't be that bad. It was 95 and very humid the day of my wedding. My mother never said another word about the weather. It didn't help anything that our wedding was outside, the rose garden was beautiful where we were married, but it was hot! Even my tomatoes are unhappy with the near 100 degree, hot and humid weather this week. They are not happy at all and I have lost a number of leaves to heat scorch. So let it rain as much as it want. There is something great about southern summer storms. Since the heat has been high I have been using the oven as little as possible. Yesterday I tried a new recipe for Jamaican Jerk Chicken from Redbook magazine.

This recipe has 8 ingredients. It takes 22 minutes of total time (plus marinating), all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes o the original recipe. First I used a seeded jalapeno. Since my kids were eating it I wanted to cut down on the spiciness. I used my indoor electric grill, with this heat I had no desire to go outside. I left out the time, because honestly I forgot. I was too busy doing other things that I failed to read it in the ingredient list. I served the finished chicken with basmati rice.

The sauce on this chicken is deliciuos. It is a nice combination of spicy and sweet. Seeding the jalapenos was perfect, it really cut down on the heat, which was perfect for my kids. This dish was even better the next day after the flavors had sat on the chicken over night. Plus it re-heated very well.

This recipe is currently not available online (Redbook's decision - not mine). You can find it in the August issue of Redbook magazine. (I think that is the issue, but for whatever reason they don't put the month on the bottom of the recipe pages - hint, hint Redbook). 

Don't Know What to Do with Canned Pumpkin? Try Pumpkin Pancakes

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Pancakes

I have a pet peeve, recipe disappointments. I'm not talking about recipe fails, they are obvious. You take the dish out of the oven and you can see right away, something didn't work. I'm talking about recipe disappointments, those moments when you finish your recipe, stand back and think wow, that looks yummy. Then you bite into the dish and everything falls apart. While it may look beautiful, the taste is flat. Don't worry I'm not perfect by any means and have these experiences quiet frequently. Normally when they happen I try re-making the recipe with changes in order to figure out what exactly needs to be modified. It doesn't help when many food sites are moving to user based reviews. While I like the idea of reviews, they have a few issues. When you see that thousands of people like a recipe you assume it will turn out and when it doesn't you instantly feel like a failure. I think that is the root of the problem, the more positive reviews a recipe gets the more pressure you feel to give a positive review. With my reviews I try to be as honest as I can, when something doesn't work I relate how to change the ingredients or steps in order to make the recipe work. Today I tried a new recipe for Pumpkin Pancakes from the new All Recipes magazine which was one such experience.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 12 pancakes. I made a number of changes to the original recipe and suggest even a few more. Perfect pancakes are something to be savored and I do my best to make delicious breakfasts. After struggling with pancakes for years I bought a griddle and haven't looked back. They are wonderful, no more gooey centers or burnt pancakes. I eat gluten free so I made two batches of these pancakes, one with gluten free flour and one as written. Either way I suggest a few modifications. The taste of the allspice is way too strong. It needs to be reduced to 1/2 teaspoon or less. The recipe does not include nutmeg, which to me helps reduce the strong taste of ginger and allspice in recipes. Additionally, the cinnamon flavor is hard to notice. I would suggest adding a 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg, increasing the cinnamon and using buttermilk instead of milk and vinegar. The flavor would be much better. The pancakes end up too dense and heavy, which could be alleviated by only using baking soda or baking powder. Using both of them and too little liquid makes for a pancake that sits in your stomach for days. A thinner batter would help for the pancakes to be a little less hearty.

I made these again with changes and they were much better. However, my two kids liked them either way, they ate both batches. For the second batch, which is pictured, I added chocolate chips. Both my kids and I preferred the chocolate chips since it mellowed the pumpkin taste. My family is an example of different food opinions, my boys loved the recipe as written, while I preferred it with changes. Food as with many things in life, is relative.

For the recipe go to Pumpkin Pancakes.

Coconut-Carrot Morning Glory Muffins

 I have been in the kitchen literally all weekend. My youngest is in a massive growth spurt and as soon as he has finished one meal he is ready for the next. He also doesn't just eat little meals or sandwiches, he wants full on pot roast or burgers. I think that he gets this from my husband. On Friday I made a pasta dish with chicken sausage. Today I found out that after dinner my husband went in and made himself turkey sausage as a snack since the meal didn't have enough meat. Some days I think that it might be easier to have girls instead of a house full of three males. I don't even want to think about how bad it will be when they are teenagers. Since I am being eaten out of house and home I have been baking and cooking a ton. Last week I tried a new recipe for Coconut-Carrot Morning Glory Muffins from the February 2013 issue of Eating Well magazine.

This recipe has 14 ingredients. It takes a total of 1 hour, 20 minutes of which is active and makes 12 muffins. Since I eat gluten free I did make a number of modifications. First instead of using wheat flour I used all-purpose gluten free flour. The flour that I prefer has coconut flour as a base and works very well. I also use foil muffins cups. I would highly recommend these if you haven't tried them before. The muffins never stick and they come out so much easier than the paper equivalents. Best of all the generic brand is only 59 cents at my local grocery store. I did find that I had to bake my muffins for slightly longer than the 35 minutes suggested by the recipe. This might have been due to the gluten free flour. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

These muffins weren't sweet enough for me. It might be that I like my muffins almost as sweet as cupcakes, but even my husband who prefers things not sweet thought that these needed more sugar. I also thought that there were too many shredded carrots. I would reduce the total amount of shredded carrots, as written the muffins taste too much like carrots and not enough like raisins or coconut. Increasing the amount of raisins would also help the sweetness and flavor of the muffins overall.

For the recipe go to Coconut-Carrot Morning Glory Muffins.

Slowcooker Pumpkin Harvest Beef Stew

Everyone knows how much I love my crockpot. If there is one kitchen appliance that I don't think that I could live without that would be the one. I love it and it makes my life so much easier, especially with two very active boys. While some people use their crockpot only in the colder months, I love mine year round. It's just as great to not heat up my kitchen in the humid and horribly hot summer months as it is to have a great meal of chili or stew waiting in the slowcooker at dinner time in the winter. Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love that the weather cools down, without being too hot or too cold. One of my favorite things about fall is the food. I absolutely love pumpkins and winter squash. They are delicious in so many recipes and dishes. Last week I tried a new recipe for Pumpkin Harvest Beef Stew from the October/November issue of Taste of Home magazine, which looked full of fall flavors and a perfect crockpot recipe.

This recipe has 17 ingredients. It takes 25 minutes of prep and 6 1/2 hours of cook time and makes 6 servings. I chose to use sweet potatoes instead of the pumpkin. I didn't want to take the extra step of peeling and cutting the pumpkin. I find sweet potatoes easier to deal with and make the substitution frequently. I chose to leave out the beef granules. The all natural beef broth that I chose to use is naturally lower in sodium and I preferred to salt at the table instead of adding the beef granules. Finally, instead of using flour I substituted cornstarch since it is gluten free. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love beef stew and making it in the crockpot is a great way to save time. It also works well on lower quality cuts of meat. This recipe does a great job of combining beef stew and fall flavors. My oldest son really loved this dish. He is a big fan of beef stew and ate all of the beef out of his serving. I like that this recipe uses multiple types of fall squash. Overall, a great fall crockpot recipe.

For the recipe go to Pumpkin Harvest Beef Stew.

Moroccan Snack Mix

I snack all the time. I have never been one of those people that can eat three meals a day and feel full. Instead I eat small meals throughout the day. Part of this need to eat all the time goes hand-in-hand with my inability to sit still. My kids help this problem by creating messes as soon as I clean them up. They seem to have an ability to see me sit down and have a disaster that needs mommy's attention. Since I have given up gluten I have tried to find new high protein snacks to keep me full. One of my favorite snacks is nuts. They are delicious and great at keeping me full during my busy days. Last week I tried a new recipe for Moroccan Snack Mix from the September issue of Family Circle magazine, which with 6 grams of protein looked perfect for daytime snacks.

This recipe has 15 ingredients. It takes 10 minutes of prep and 1 hour and 5 minutes of baking time and makes 20 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients and made no ingredient modifications. Make sure to fully dry the chickpeas before baking. If the chickpeas aren't dried adequately they won't become crispy. Instead they will be slightly soggy and not have a roasted texture. Additionally, the mixture needs to be stirred every 15 minutes to ensure even browning. I didn't let the mixture cool before adding the apricots and dates. I wanted the spices to incorporate with the fruit and adding them when still hot I figured would help with this process. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

With 6 grams of protein this snack mix is a great option for daytime snacking. However, my husband thought that the nuts weren't spicy enough and my two boys weren't fans of the mixture in general. The chickpeas weren't as crunchy as I would have liked. If I made this recipe again, I would let the chickpeas dry longer than the recipe states. Additionally, I would add chili powder in order to up the spiciness and add more flavor. With these changes I think this mix would be even better.

For the recipe go to Moroccan Snack Mix.

Kofta Kebabs

My two boys are growing up fast. Not just in the figurative sense, they are growing like weeds. In one day they can eat enough for two adults. I don't know where they put all the food, they are both very thin and eat constantly throughout the day. I really wish that we could swap metabolisms. While my metabolism is still great, it isn't what it was in my teens. In order to make everyone satisfied at dinner time, I have been buying a lot of marked down meat at the grocery store. I love when meat gets marked down. It saves a ton of money and lets me buy meats such as lamb which are normally out of my grocery budget. Last month I was able to find 8 packages of lamb for only 2 dollars a pound, so I stocked my freezer. Then I had the task of figuring out what recipes would work for 8 pounds of lamb. One recipe that I found for Kofta Kebabs from Allrecipes.com looked very easy and full of flavor.

This recipe has 13 ingredients (including skewers). It takes 1 hour and twenty minutes of total time and makes 28 servings. I made a few modifications to this recipe. First of all I forgot to buy parsley at the grocery store, so I omitted it from the recipe. Secondly, I ran out of time before dinner and didn't have the time to let the skewers sit in the fridge before grilling. So I skipped this step. Additionally I chose to grill four meatballs on each skewer. The one meatball on each skewer idea seemed like a waste of skewers and time for me. Plus my kids with multiple skewers would have spelled disaster. Since I use an indoor grill my total grilling time was longer than the recipe. My kebabs took approximately 10-15 minutes to cook. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

These kebabs were very good. I do think that they would benefit greatly from a yogurt sauce. I served my kebabs with a simple yogurt sauce made from yogurt, cucumber and mint. Tahini would also work well. My two boys loved that this dinner was served on skewers (with lots of supervision). I would suggest with younger kids to take the kebabs off the skewers when serving. I served the kebabs with a couscous salad with olives, cucumbers, and red onion. They were delicious together. Overall a simple and delicious lamb recipe.

For the recipe go to Kofta Kebabs.

Moroccan Ribs

I have two very food adventurous children. They will normally at least try anything that I put in front of them. I have had a lot of people over the years tell me that I am lucky to have kids that are so open to new things. This is partially true. I am very happy that my kids will try almost anything, but a lot of groundwork was put into place for this to happen. First and foremost I don't keep snacks in my house. If you look into my cupboards you will find ingredients, not packaged snacks. My fridge is full of fruit, vegetables and low-fat diary. All this is part of my food plan with my kids. They will always at least try their dinner knowing that if they don't eat it mommy will not be catering to making another meal. Kids and adults eat the same meals in our house. I also don't force food in my house, if they don't eat their serving for dinner, it goes into the fridge for when they are hungry later. This doesn't mean that they don't get special treats occasionally. The emphasis is on the word 'treat'. This summer if my oldest finishes one of his workbooks, he gets gelato from the restaurant down the street.  `He knows that if he doesn't do something to earn it no gelato will be coming his way. All of this food foundation became apparent yesterday at the park. My oldest had befriended a little girl around his same age. He started talking about how much he loved all the stir-fry that his mommy made and that I was making Kung Pao Chicken for dinner. The little girl told my son that she had never eaten Chinese food and that they only ate 'American'. My son looked at the girl confused for a couple of minutes not understanding at all what she was talking about. I had to tell my son later that not everyone eats the large variety of food that we do, he told me that was 'weird'. Love the things that come out of kids mouths! Given that I attempt to expose my kids to new flavors and spices a recipe for Moroccan Ribs from the June issue of Family Circle caught my attention, and I decided to try it when I discovered it was prepared in the crockpot.

This recipe has 18 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of prep and 6 hours on high in the crockpot and makes 4 servings. I did have to make a few modifications to the ingredients. I have never had great success with finding cheesecloth in my area and I have never seen all-spice berries, so I changed the spices. Instead of whole allspice berries and whole cloves I substituted 1/4 tsp each of ground allspice and cloves. I added the spices to the chicken broth mixture before pouring over the chicken. I always make my own chicken broth and this recipe was no exception. Since I don't salt my stock I added an extra 1/2 of salt to the recipe ingredients. For the orange juice I squeezed fresh oranges. The prices during the summer are very low on oranges and fresh squeezed tastes significantly better in recipes. My ribs were falling off the bone when they came out of the slow-cooker, so don't let the magazine photo be deceiving, your ribs will not be nicely held together like that. Mine were more chunks of ribs, which actually worked very well with the vegetable/fruit medley when spooned over the rice. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My two boys were very impressed with this recipe. They loved the taste of the apricots and prunes and didn't even notice that I served the dish with brown rice since I had run out of couscous. I have been trying to transition my family over to brown rice and significantly reduce the amount of white rice that we consume. So far it has been going well and this dish was perfect over brown rice. My husband liked this recipe much better than the crockpot bbq ribs I tried last week. He thought the flavors on this dish were delicious and that the ribs were fall off the bone tender. I liked that this recipe was different from your run of the mill crockpot rib recipe. It's nice trying a change of pace to my normal recipe routine. Overall, an interesting new spin on a crockpot rib recipe.

For the recipe go to Moroccan Ribs. (registration required)

All You Classic Carrot Layer Cake

I love cake! Growing up birthdays and holidays were my favorite times of the year because it ensured that I would be enjoying cake. When I was little my mom baked delicious cakes every year until I hit about ten. Then we discovered the bakery that to this day made the best buttercream frosting that I have every tasted. It was an Italian bakery in a not great part of town that made sheet cakes that people raved about. They really were that great. So from that year forward every year our cakes were ordered from that same delicious Italian bakery, and they were the best. When I first started baking in my early teens I never felt the need to learn to bake cakes since the bakery cakes were always so delicious. However, when I moved 2500 miles away from my favorite bakery I quickly learned that making a delicious cake was a major fete. The first 50 cakes I tried from scratch ended up lopsided or lacking taste. Then I discovered homemade carrot cake and fell in love. I absolutely love carrot cake and it is one of my favorite types of cakes to make or buy. The March issue of All You magazine had a recipe for Classic Carrot Layer Cake which looked delicious and perfect for Easter.

This recipe has 12 ingredients in the cake and 6 ingredients in the frosting. It takes 20 minutes of prep and 45 minutes of baking and makes 12 servings. All the ingredients I either already had or were easy to find at my local grocery store. I did make two modifications. First off since I was making the cake for Easter I chose to save time and bought pre-shredded carrots. I was worried at first that they might be too thick and not fully cook, but they worked perfectly. Secondly, I used roasted cinnamon, which creates a nice flavor. The most important change I made to the recipe was to the cooking time. The recipe states to bake the cake for 45 minutes. My cake was fully cooked at 25 minutes and if I had left them in the full 45 minutes they would have been severely overcooked. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

Everyone that tried this cake loved it. I served it for Easter and it was gone by the next day it was so popular. The best part of the recipe was the frosting. I loved the taste from the brown sugar and it was my favorite part of the recipe. The combination of the frosting and the cake worked perfectly together. This is definitely a recipe I will keep.

For the recipe go to Classic Carrot Layer Cake.

Food Network Magazine Roasted Carrots

Sorry I have been so absent on-line. Currently, I am on day four of no internet at home. On a positive note the phone company is coming to install DSL on Friday! Having no Internet has been weird for me since I grew up in Seattle and had Internet before anyone I knew. I never knew how wired I was until I didn't have access! I am going to try to still do some short posts this week so I don't lose all my followers, so here goes!

In the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with new vegetable side dishes. My youngest is obsessed with spicy foods, but has decided that he currently doesn't like vegetables. In order to combat this new trend I have been trying as many different ways to prepare fresh vegetables as I can. The January/February issue of The Food Network Magazine had a number of great side dish recipes including one for Roasted Carrots.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes approximately 30 minutes to prep and cook and makes 4 servings. All the ingredients are basic and I either had in my pantry cupboard or were easy to find at my local grocery store. I did find that the carrots were too crunchy for my tastes when roasted for 20 minutes, I suggest leaving them in the oven for closer to 30 minutes. Instead of walnut oil, which I have never been able to find in my area, I substituted canola oil. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My husband really liked these carrots. He normally isn't a large carrot fan, but he loved the combination of the raisin, walnuts and roasted carrots together. I am happy to report that both of my sons also ate this dish without complaints and even snacked on the leftovers the next day. Overall, a very easy recipe that takes little prep work and was well received by my whole family.

For the recipe go to Roasted Carrots.