Burrito Bowls

I can't wait any longer to share this new to us recipe. It's just so good. And so easy. If you like Mexican food, this meal is a must.

A few weeks back, J and I had one of those nights where we hadn't planned anything for dinner and weren't sure what to do. I secretly love these nights. Because things like this occur, where we end up making an amazing, completely unexpected meal.

I can't say we thought of this 100% on our own. I mean, who doesn't love the burrito bowls at Chipotle?! We had eaten there at some point the week before this meal came together. And obviously it was so dang good that it was still on our minds.

So, here's what we used to put together an easy, quick, go-to meal:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil or coconut oil - I've been working more coconut oil into our lives
• 5 ounces sliced chicken breast, or steak, or shrimp - protein of your choice
• This taco seasoning - do it, it's worth it and you'll have plenty to spare for future meals
• Trader Joe's Organic [frozen] Brown Rice - also worth grabbing if you can, otherwise 2 servings of cooked brown rice works too (just limits the quick part of this meal)
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can whole kernel corn
• Shredded cheese - we prefer cheddar
• 1 diced avocado
• 1 diced med. tomato
• 1 cup diced lettuce
• Salsa of your choice
• Nonfat plain greek yogurt
• Hot sauce, if you prefer

In a small bowl, mix the cut up meat of choice with a tablespoon of taco seasoning. Add more if you'd like a stronger seasoning, or go with less if that's how you roll. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil. Add in seasoned meat and cook through - stirring occasionally, should cook in 7 minutes or so.

While the meat is cooking, drain the canned black beans and corn in a colander. Give a quick rinse with cold water. Once the meat is almost done cooking, toss in the beans and corn, add a little more taco seasoning if you'd like (I do), stir, cover and let cook on low heat.

While the flavors are blending together on the stove, dice up your tomato, avocado, and lettuce. If you're lucky enough to live by a Trader Joes and have purchased the 3 minute brown rice, now is the time to pop it in the microwave. They're not kidding, it's perfectly cooked in 3 minutes. 

Once the rice is cooked, set yourself up a little buffet of toppings. Add a large scoop of rice to the bottom of your bowl. Then add the meat, bean, and corn mixture. Next, add on the toppings. I prefer shredded cheese next so that it has a chance to melt from the heat of the rice and meat. Then veggies, salsa, sour cream yogurt. I'm not kidding when I say that you won't be able to tell the difference between sour cream and yogurt in this dish. Even J was shocked.

How to make this meal even quicker - use left over grilled chicken, steak, etc from the weekend's cookout (this was done in these pictures). Slice up the cooked meat, season with taco seasoning, place in heated skillet for 2 minutes on med-high heat to warm through, follow remaining directions

And making a little extra so that burritos are the meal of choice on day two doesn't hurt either! :)

There are so many options with burrito bowls. Add what you like, leave out what you don't. Next time we make these, I think I'd like to use shrimp. I'm also loving the idea of incorporating the ingredients used in fish tacos into a burrito bowl. 

Enjoy! And let me know if you give this a try. I absolutely love hearing from you!

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Pulled Pork

First off - Happy Valentine's Day! Any big plans for the evening with your special someone? J & I have decided to lay low this year. House shopping costs more than enough, so no flowers, no special dinner out, nada this year. We'll be hanging in and cooking a nice meal at home. 

Seeing as I don't even know when the last time I made it to the gym was, lets stick with food. How about another great recipe?

For some reason, I always forget I can use my crockpot to cook for us. Maybe it's because I don't have any family recipes or even memories, of crock pot meals. Maybe it's because I picked our crock pot up for a whopping $15 at Walmart one day, it has no pre-set timer, just high/low/keep warm. I have no idea. But what I do know, is that when I remember to use it, the meals are always amazing.

Who doesn't like pulled pork? So good. J & I love BBQ food. You just can't go wrong. We had a package of pork chops in the fridge that needed to be cooked this weekend. Unfortunately, I had little desire to stand over the stovetop and cook a big meal. This past weekend was all about relaxing, in between shoveling....

I started out by throwing in things we had that I remembered using the last time I made pulled pork, but then decided I'd double check a recipe. This recipe to be precise.

Because I was cooking for just J & I, and because I followed this recipe very loosely for 2 people versus 6, here's my rendition of it.

Ingredients - Serves 3 (a little extra for lunch the next day!)
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
1 lb pork chops
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon chile powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablesoon brown sugar
8 ounces water
1 cup barbecue sauce

Place the onion in the bottom of the crock pot and lay the pork chops on top. Sprinkle in the seasonings, pour in the water (I avoided the meat so that the seasonings would stay put). Crock pot cooking is that easy.

I cooked this concoction on low for about 6 hours. When we came in from shoveling out my car, the condo smelled amazing! I have to thank the cinnamon. This was the first time I've added cinnamon before and it was a great addition. I may have even heard J say this was the best ever....

Not the greatest photo, coloring seems off from the seasonings and cooked fat, but I promise you it's tasty!

Once done, we shredded the pork on a cutting board, drained the excess water from the crock pot, placed the shredded pork back in and mixed in the barbecue sauce.

And, if you know me, you know that BBQ must come with a side of mac n cheese. It's bad, but I just love that stuff!

I think next time I'll opt for fresh garlic versus garlic powder but other than that, I'll be saving this recipe for a future use! Nothing like an easy, delicious meal to serve up during a snow storm. If you give it a try, let me know what you think! Do you normally put cinnamon in your pulled pork recipe? J & I were both very pleasantly surprised by it.

Enjoy!

Wine & Chocolate Tasting

Last Saturday, I was invited to a wine and chocolate tasting party. Seriously? Two of my most favoritest things! There was no way I was missing that!

Everyone was asked to bring a bottle of wine as well as a chocolate that paired well with it. You could go the straightforward route and bring chocolate candy, or you could get fancy and make a chocolate dessert. I went the straightforward route....

Of the 6 girls, we worked it out perfectly and had 3 whites to try and 3 reds. Prosecco, Moscato, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Red Zinfandel. Yum!

Our directions were as follows:

It was awesome. Everyone did a great job picking out the perfect chocolate for their wine. I brought the sparkling wine and decided to go with fruity chocolates. Lindt Intense Orange bar and Ghiradelli Raspberry squares. It worked out perfectly! I favored the orange. But, either way...follow the steps above and you will be quite satisfied with your pairing!

 The six pairings were as follows:

• Prosecco with fruit flavored dark chocolate
• Mosacto with Lindt white chocolate
• Chardonnay with Ghiradelli french vanilla chocolate
• Merlot with a milk chocolate mousse
• Cabernet Sauvignon with Trader Joe's dark chocolate truffle and caramel with black sea salt
• Red Zinfindal with a dark chocolate tart

I would never have expected this, but the pairing I was most surprised by and loved was the Moscato and white chocolate. I don't normally drink sweeter white wines but omg, add the white chocolate in and this was quite the dessert! 

Another thing I noticed was with the Merlot, the chocolate mousse seemed to smooth out the wine. Because you taste the wine alone first, you can really taste the difference once you add in the chocolate. It certainly enhances the flavor of the wine!

The two homemade desserts were incredible. I couldn't stop. 

Cait was kind enough to provide us with some great eats in addition to chocolate. An amazing cheese plate? Count me in.

Swirl, sniff, sip! Oh, and then eat chocolate and sip again!

Well, I failed in my blogging duties during the wine event because I totally forgot my camera! So I hope you don't mind these iphone photos. And I didn't snag a group picture...wah! But we had a great time. And I would highly recommend giving this a try.

Thanks for hosting such a fabulous event Cait!

Travel Tuesday: Newport, RI

Weekend getaways can be so relaxing. I am definitely fan of weekends away.

This past weekend J & I headed south to Newport, RI to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. We've found getting away for the weekend to be our style rather than gifts. Year 1: Colorado (just realized I haven't recapped that trip yet. I'm on it). Year 2: Ludlow, Vermont.

We left right after work Friday, hit some traffic on the way down - no surprise there - and were at the hotel by 7. It was freezing here in New England Friday! And down on the water, omg so cold and windy. We stayed at the Pearls Boutique Hotel right downtown and I would certainly recommend it.

Thank goodness our room was so cozy. The fireplace was awesome. We don't have a fireplace in the city and my parents haven't had one since we moved back in the '90's so I totally forgot how nice they are. The hotel put a duraflame in our room while we grabbed dinner but left it for us to light. We only lit one end of it so it burned slowly all night. It was pretty cool to wake up to a still burning fire. (Rather Downton Abbey-esque if you ask me.)

Up and out pretty early! After breakfast prepared by the chef at the hotel, we headed out to the Cliff Walk. We'd heard great things but needed to see for ourselves. And oh man were we not disappointed! It was certainly cool out but gorgeous in the sun.

 What a view.

 We put an offer in on this small cottage while we were down there. Figured why not.

Our original mission was to grab coffee after the cliff walk. When that fell through we headed for the next best things, sugar and booze.

 Outdoor bar, on the water, sun shining, bloody mary. Life is good.

 Well, to our surprise there was a Seafood Festival going on! A fresh Octoberfest from the Sam Adams table, don't mind if I do!

 A little clam chowder taste test. Same as the picture of the signs, left chowder was Clarke Cook House, right Wharf Pub. I bought the Wharf Pub one after seeing that it was award winning. It also weighed twice as much as the Clarke Cook House one so I thought I had the win in the bag. I was so wrong. Although I don't normally like thin chowders Clarke Cook House won by a landslide. Not sure what award the Wharf Pub won but it was not great. 

 $1 oysters, $5 for half dozen littlenecks. Unbelievable. They were out of oysters by the time we got around to them and we were told they had gone through 1,600 of them. Crazy!

 The littlenecks were delicious. So fresh.

 Such a beautiful harbor. And such a beautiful day!

 After plenty of day drinking and seafood tasting, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap before getting ready for our anniversary dinner.

A preview of what I wore

 Boo for blurriness. 

 Dinner was at 22 Bowen's Wine Bar and Grille. And it was fantastic. Without fail I get filet mignon at a steak restaurant. I always consider getting a different cut but never do. At this point I think of my consistency as a true taste test. And this filet was one of the best I've had so far. I know everyone says filet has no taste compared with other cuts but this was soooo tasty. It could have been the scoop of House butter on top of it but whatever, it was GOOD. Oh and so was the side of truffle mac n cheese we got. J & I both agreed it was the best mac n cheese we've had to date. I must attempt that one! What is that picture to the right you ask? That would be our surprise anniversary vanilla creme brulee after a few bites. Oops! Also amazing. If you find yourself in Newport and are looking for a nice meal, head to 22 Bowen's.

We had a fantastic weekend away. Just what we both needed after a few long, sad weeks. We were discussing where we should spend anniversary #4 next year. We're liking the driving distance so far, appreciating the beautiful fall weather New England has to offer. Any recommendations?

Morocco: Eats

Ah, yes. What the heck did we eat over there?!

I wish I could tell you we got our daily fruit and vegetable intake.....it seems the idea of salad was foreign.

Morocco

But, the local dishes we ate were fantastic. The cuisine focused on meat for the most part. Tagine to be exact. No matter where you went, you could find tagine on the menu. The name tagine comes from the pot the meal is cooked in. Seasoned meat, oil, garlic, and vegetables are placed within a heavy clay bakeware and slow cooked until the meat is extremely tender.

Our very first meal in Morocco was lamb tagine. And it was delicious. After being picked up at the airport, our driver stopped at a local restaurant outside the city limits of Marrakech so that we could grab a bite to eat. He ordered for us thankfully, and before we knew it, we were eating one of our best meals during the trip.

 Glass bottle soda is the most refreshing by far. Gulped this bad boy down.

Voila. Lamb Tagine.

This tajine had plenty of onions, peppers, and prunes. The meat was incredibly tender. It seemed so indulgent to be eating such a flavorful meal, with lamb, for lunch. But boy did we enjoy it!

Our first meal at the resort. Ugh we were so full from our lamb tagine earlier that day. We decided to split a meal, and attempt to get our fill of veggies. Couscous with seven vegetable. Don't ask me which seven...

We travel allll the way to Africa and this is the beer they have?! Geesh. Only J would find Budweiser. Real story - they ran out of the local beer we ordered and brought us this. Of all beers, they bring us J's favorite American brew.

A little breakfast grub. Breakfast was by far the hardest meal for me. There was a daily buffet. But the prepared foods consisted of what I woud consider lunch or dinner - hot soup, roasted vegetables, chicken and mushrooms in a cream sauce, meat, cheese, olives, etc.

They always had croissants, some fruit, yogurt. So I ate way more than my fair share of croissants during our vacation. In fact, I want one now. J was more daring and tried the brunch items. 

 My one, non Moroccan meal I caved and ordered one night. Sole stuffed with shrimp and sautéed VEGETABLES (wahoo) on the side. 

Our stay at the resort included a Moroccan cooking class. We made Moroccan salad, chicken tagine, and oranges with cinnamon. I would forget to photograph the main meal.... But yes this is the appetizer and dessert. And YES we made those tomato roses! Expect more of those at my dinner parties. I'm so fancy.

After our fancy resort Moroccan food, it was off to Marrakech! Oh myyy....the fresh squeezed orange juice was to die for. And for less than 50 cents a glass, we hit up these food stalls often. So refreshing in the 100 degree plus weather.

You couldn't walk five feet without seeing a table selling these fruits. And people eating them on the spot. Any clue what they are??? scroll down..

Prickly pear! And let me tell you, it was delicious!! Though this photo of J makes you think otherwise ha. We were taken off guard with this tasting. We hired a personal guide our first day in Marrakech, which was a GREAT decision. We learned sooo much about the history, the people, the religion, etc. And he took us to areas of the city we would not have visited otherwise. And he had us taste things, like prickly pear from a street vendor, that I would have never had the courage to try on my own.

And we tried fresh figs. Our guide was buying some to take home and talked the vendor into letting us try some. I love figs. But let me tell you, fresh Moroccan figs were AMAZING. So sweet and fresh. 

We were able to try both the white and black figs. I preferred the white ones, a little fresher/sweeter tasting to me. J didn't have a real preference. I'm not sure I've ever seen white figs in the states before though... I am now on the lookout. Let me know if you see them!

Just like the plaza was filled with orange juice stalls during the day, it came alive with food stalls at night. Rows of food vendors, yelling at you to eat at their food, and serving the exact same thing as everyone else. ha. So we gave it a try.

No surprise there, we were each given a loaf of bread to eat before even eating. We were so tired from walking around all day with our guide, hot from the heat, and probably a little dehydrated. The idea of salty, spicy meat and potatoes was just not what I wanted at the time.

So we stuck to veggie kebobs, olives, Moroccan salad, and calamari. The seating was long benches, J sitting across from me, locals sitting on both sides. So I decided to put my camara away once food was served.

And lastly, our Riad provided breakfast daily. The bowl front and center was for coffee. We had no idea what to do the first morning. Until we realized nothing was coming out that we'd need the bowl for, aaand we had no coffee mugs. Welp, coffee bowl it is then! The three mini bowls in the center housed butter, honey, and a fig jam. For the mound of bread they brought us. That we ate. Yikes. We did make sure to drink the OJ they brought us. 

During the trip I was telling J that I cannot think of another time in my life that I drank orange juice 7 days straight. I was just not an OJ kid. Give me cran or apple juice any day and I was content. But the orange juice over there was so unbelievably fresh. No tanginess. 

Madrid

Oh Madrid. How I missed thee! We made our way around Plaza Mayor and Sol, hitting up a pub here or there. Best part about getting drinks in Madrid? The tapas!

Mmm, Spanish red wine. Remember the Spanish wine tasting J gave me for christmas?

Ahh, cafe con leche. We really enjoyed cafe au laits this trip, every morning. I am now obsessed. I'll be ordering mistos at Starbucks and cafe au laits everywhere else this fall for sure.

And lastly, what is a trip to Madrid without ham (jamon)?! Wow, I didn't realize how much I missed it. Yes, we were total tourists and went to the Museo del Jamon (Ham Museum) for bocadillo de jamon y queso (Serrano ham and Manchego Cheese sandwiches) to-go. And brought them to the airport with us! #bestdecisionever

And I made J take a picture of me with the first jamon y queso I grabbed before even getting to Morocco. What? It's been 6 years! I was a little excited...

So that's that. Yes, we probably gained 10 pounds. But we loved eating the local cuisine. Hmm where to next? :)