What's For Dinner: Spicy Cajun Pollock

So, today was one of "those" days. Last night, I was kept up with food poisoning (not from anything I made, from take-out), my husband came home sick from work with food poisoning, and I had two cavities filled at the dentist and my face was still frozen when it was time to start thinking about dinner. With all of this and a busy one year old - what was I to do? My husband took it upon himself to cook dinner using a recipe he pretty much made up on the spot.

Using basic ingredients that we had in our freezer and pantry, he was able to whip up a pretty decent meal in no time at all, leaving me with the time to sit on the couch and whine about how much my face hurts and beg him to go get me more ice cream. Here is the recipe for Derek's special spicy cajun pollock:

Ingredients:

• 4 - 6 pieces of any whitefish (we had pollock on hand, but really anything will work)
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 4 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 1/2 tbsp Cajun seasoning
• 1 tsp thyme
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400
• Combine breadcrumbs, Cajun spice, thyme, and salt and pepper in to a medium bowl
• Coat fish with butter, then roll in the spices
• Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes

Here is the finished product, I apologize for the crappy photography, it's the camera. Not me.

Lesson learned, my husband can cook dinner whenever he chooses!

What's For Dinner: Slow-Cooked Chicken Caesar Sandwiches

So, when we got married in 2007 my husband and I received a slow cooker as one of our wedding presents. Since we were living in my parents basement at the time, we didn't have a need for it and packaged it away with all of the other presents as we continued to save for a downpayment for our first home. When we bought our home in 2009, we unpacked the slow cooker and all our other gifts and found a nice spot for it on a shelf. Last year, I finally learned how to use it! If I had any idea how simple a slow cooker was to use, I would have taken it out years earlier!

This recipe for slow cooker chicken casear sandwiches is modified from one I found in a magazine a few months ago. If you search online for one, you'll find dozens of different variations, this is mine.

Slow Cooker Chicken Casear Sandwiches
Ingredients:

• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 1 cup Caesar salad dressing (any brand, I use the Western Family Roasted Garlic version)
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp real bacon bits
• 1/4 cup parsley
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 cups lettuce, for topping the sandwiches
• 4 hamburger buns

Instructions:

• Place chicken in slow cooker with approximately 2 cups of water, just enough to make sure the chicken is covered. Put the cover on the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 hours
• After 4 hours, remove the chicken from the cooker and drain the water. Place the chicken on a cutting board and use 2 forks to shred the chicken and remove any additional fat
• Put the chicken back in the slower cooker and add dressing, parmesan, bacon bits, parsley, and pepper over the top. You can follow the recipe here or you can eyeball it a little bit - I tend to go heavier on the dressing and a little lighter on the parsley because you can really taste it in the finished recipe
• Stir everything together, cover again, and cook on high heat for another 30 minutes
• When finished, spoon mixture on to buns and top with lettuce (I added mayonaise to the buns first, but you can modify it as you like)

Here is how our finished product turned out:

My husband is probably the easiest person to cook for, he loves almost everything I make and tells me how great everything is (probably so I will keep cooking for him). He said these were awesome and I agree. A little bit time consuming, especially since we didn't start slow cooking until after 3 pm which meant we were waiting until 8 pm to eat but it's easy enough to make.

My Favorite New Hobby

So last year when I was on maternity leave, I learned how to cook. I had always had a general knowledge of cooking - I knew how to microwave, I could use an oven, and I had a few recipes that I could make but with only a limited range of dishes that I could make, we found ourselves eating out more often than we were eating at home.

With a lot of extra time when L was very little, I realized that I needed a hobby and that my husband needed to eat. With having a small baby at home, going out for dinner on a regular basis was an expensive hassle that I wanted to avoid. So, the solution was simple - learn how to cook! I really didn't know what I was doing at the start, I'd find myself going through the grocery store and buying things that I thought would go good together. Of course, I'd end up throwing out way too many vegetables and wanting to try recipes that were too far out of my skill range which often didn't turn out as I had hoped.

I decided to enlist the help of a meal-planning service. For $20 per month, they would e-mail me five new recipes and a grocery list each week and I'd just go from there. After the first month, I realized that although I had gotten 20 new recipes - I was paying for something that I really should be doing myself. I started using the Internet and an Excel spreadsheet and finding recipes that are easy and work for my busy family.

This blog is another new hobby of mine. Over the past few months, I have been finding some amazing recipes online and have shared many dishes with family, co-workers, and friends. The one question that I've been getting asked over and over is, "can I have the recipe?". This blog is going to be a great way for me to share my favorite recipes and all the new stuff that I keep on trying. Hope you all enjoy!

Christine