Crockpot Barbacoa Beef w/ Cilantro Lime Rice & Corn Salsa

David may or may not have professed his love to me all over again after he took a bite of this dinner tonight.

I completely felt the same way.

Have you ever had the shredded beef at Chipotle? I actually never have, but apparently this is a recipe that is modified based off of that one. It's from none other than my new favorite blog - Skinny Taste - and it gave me my Weight Watcher points and everything.

I made the barbacoa beef this morning in my crockpot and it smelled so amazing all day. I used "eye of round beef roast" for my meat and I only used 2 chilis in adobo sauce so that it wasn't overly spicy. It was perfect. I am going to give you the link for the Barbacoa beef recipe, and then she has a link to both the cilantro lime rice and the corn salsa. You HAVE to make these two things with it. The rice was absolutely amazing. I used white Jasmine rice because I thought it would work well and it did. The corn salsa was so yummy on top of it all. As you can see in the pics - I just made it like a burrito bowl. I scooped David's into corn tortillas, but I liked mine all piled on top of each other on my plate.

I can promise you if you like Mexican food - this will make you happy in every way! Please try it and please tell me if you did and what you thought. I love to hear feedback!



I hope your night is a great one! I can't wait to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. :-)

Crockpot Creamy Potato Soup

Hello, and welcome to my horrible iPhone pictures that do absolutely NO JUSTICE to this wonderful soup. I haven't made potato soup in so long because, well, the carbs!! But - I've absolutely never made it in a crockpot and it was so easy that I may never go back to my stove - for this soup, that is.

I stumbled upon this soup on Pinterest (and, by the way - don't you love how you never feel like you have any original "findings" any more because you say you saw something on Pinterest and everyone you talk to tells you they saw it too and was getting ready to try it? Just me? I have pride issues.) So, I did see this on "P" (new code name) and I really wanted to give it a try to take to my life group friend that just had the most beautiful baby girl named Emily just a week ago. I had also seen this cute little site that gave you ideas of foods to take to new moms and I nabbed that idea as well and packaged her up the following grub and delivered it this afternoon.

I made her this lovely Crockpot Potato Soup.
A tub full of fresh blueberries, strawberries and grapes
Some fresh baguette rolls
and the BEST banana, caramel and pecan muffins I've ever had - well, if I do say so myself. I ate one to make sure I was only giving my friend the very best of course. :-) Recipe to follow this week!

I could've eaten my weight in this soup, but limited myself to 2 small bowls. It was windy and cold out today, so the day just seemed perfect for this soup. The crockpot part of this dish was so easy and a huge WIN in my book.

Parent's Review: We loved it. Loved the tangy-ness of the cream cheese in there and I simply added packaged crumbled bacon to the top out of laziness, and I actually liked it.

Kid's Review: My kids don't do potatoes unless they are a fry or a hash brown or a potato wedge. Something is wrong with them. They missed out.

Here's the recipe again if you missed it up top.

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

These wraps. Wow. So amazing. I found these from the Skinny Taste blog - the one I am currently obsessed with because it gives me my Weight Watcher points and the recipes look so delicious AND nutritious. Can you beat that?? I think not!

Here's the recipe for this lovely main course dish.

I actually got some strange, but huge thrill out of sticking those chicken thighs in my food processor and turning it into ground chicken. Am I crazy? I always wondered how in the world they made the chicken so itty bitty at places like P.F. Chang's and Tong's when I ordered chicken lettuce wraps. Now I know. So fun.

I don't like mushrooms at all, but I bought the sliced baby portabella's since that is all my grocery store had. I chopped these super fine, along with the water chestnuts and they just added to the thickness of the chicken mixture. To me, they didn't add any flavor at all, which is fine by me.

The spicy sauce that I poured over them was really good. It was a little strong for me in one sense, but in another - I totally dug it. I only added a little of the spicy sauce they mentioned and then used a little of my Thai Sweet chili sauce I had from Trader Joe's. I didn't want it to be overly spicy.

It was a fun and different dinner for us. Here's the reviews.

Parents Review: I ate 3 lettuce wraps and added some steamed jasmine rice on the side and some peas for a veggie. Wonderful. Amazing. Will make it again soon!

Kids Review: I served there's just scooped on their plate (no lettuce wraps for them). They loved it with the rice and the peas and gobbled it up telling me I did good. Perfect. :-)

Have a great night

Cheesy Chicken Shells

This was another Weight Watchers recipe I tried this week. I am enjoying the variety right now while I am getting myself back in gear with both my eating and my exercise. I know what kind of eating I'm going to be doing at the Superbowl party this Sunday, so I am being a good girl Monday through Saturday. :-)

Don't these little guys look yummy?


Here's the recipe in case you want to give it a whirl.

The only thing I tweaked on this recipe was where it called for just plain tomato sauce - I used this beautiful stuff instead.


It is some expensive stuff, but we like it enough that I will spend the money for it. It is all natural - no sugars - super wonderful for many, many diet plans. We love it.

I served up the Cheesy Chicken Shells with this yummy salad. I only do salads with like 100 ingredients. No bag of lettuce and some dressing thrown on top for me. I want a ton of veggies!

This particular salad has mixed greens with baby spinach, feta cheese, cranberries, red and orange bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and red onion. I made a dressing that is made up of balsamic vinegar, a little water, canola oil and 2 Tbsp of maple syrup. It is SO yummy!

Parents Review: We liked it, but I think the oregano was a bit overpowering. I would lessen this ingredient to almost half of what they called for. The spicy tuscan tomato sauce gave it all the flavor, so we would only make it again with this!
Kids Review: They had pizza. A little too spicy again for them.

Spicy Beef Tacos

Photo Source

I forgot to take a picture of our awesome dinner last night, but I grabbed the Weight Watchers site picture so you could see what they looked like.

This was my first time trying this recipe and David's words were, "those are the best tacos you've ever made. Please do those again!"

Score!!

You will want to try these - and soon!

Here's the recipe.

Parents Review: We loved it! The cumin was nice. I didn't have any coriander, so I just added a little dry cilantro. So, so good!

Kids Review: I made them chicken nuggets. They don't do spicy. :-)