BLT with Avocado Salad

Credit: Jen Cochran
Recipe:
- 1 Red Bell Pepper
- 1 Yellow Bell Pepper
- 1 Salad Tomato
- 1 Avocado
- 1 head of Red Leaf Lettuce
- 1 Romaine Heart Lettuce
- 1/2 lb of thick sliced bacon, chopped

Dressing
- 2 Tbsp Dijon
- 3 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/3 cup of olive oil

Croutons
- 4 slices of whole wheat bread
- fresh grated Romano cheese to coat
- Olive oil to coat
- salt and pepper to taste
- Garlic, minced, to taste (I used 1 clove)

Put 1/2 pound of bacon (about 6-8 slices) in freezer for 15 mins... it's easier to cut when slightly chilled. Slice bacon. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil into a pan and cook bacon until crispy. While bacon is cooking, follow instructions below. When fully cooked, remove bacon and set to side on to cool and drain grease.

Slice bread in cubes. Put in a bowl or zip lock bag. Add olive oil to make moist, but not completely dampen. You just want enough to help seasoning stick and make bread brown. Add cheese, salt, pepper, and garlic. Mix thoroughly. Lay on a greased cookie sheet or an oven mat in a single layer. Cook until desired crispiness in the oven at 350 degrees. I cooked ours about 20 mins.

Dice bell peppers, tomato, avocado, and clean and pull apart lettuce. In your serving bowl, whisk together dressing ingredients: Dijon, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Add lettuce to dressing and mix well. Next top with bell peppers, avocado, and bacon. Serve croutons on the side. And enjoy! This meal came together so fast and was a much healthier alternative to the traditional BLT, as it has mayo and we would've had much more bread.

Extras
- Keep dressing, bell peppers, tomato, and avocado to the side if you think you will have extra for leftovers so your lettuce doesn't get soggy.
- I'm not a huge fan of having salad as the main course. This salad was hearty enough that I found it satisfying as a meal.
- More pics:

Pulled BBQ Chicken

**These are our dear friends Steve and Sandra with our son. Their visit from Holland was the reason for the open house. I'm working on a food pic. Until then, enjoy these faces I love oh so much!!**
Credit: This is a Jen Cochran original. I made this up for an open house party and everyone loved it.
Recipe:

- 1 box of chicken broth (I believe it is 4 cups)
- water (see instructions below)
- 10 whole peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 lbs frozen raw boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- Durkee Grill Creations St. Louis Style Chicken & Rib Rub to taste
- Weber Beer Can Chicken Seasoning to taste
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
3 Tbsp of olive oil

Place the chicken in the slow cooker. Sprinkle with peppercorns, salt, and bay leaves. Pour chicken broth over top of everything. Add water so liquid comes to the top of the chicken. I use a 7 quart slow cooker. Cook on high 5 hours or low for 8 hours. Making the chicken is definitely a step you can do in advance.

Once the chicken is cooked, carefully remove the chicken from the slow cooker and let it rest a few minutes (I'm guessing here, 15 mins or so. It's not really a deal breaker if it is longer). While the chicken is cooking, I strain the liquid from the slow cooker into a container.

The chicken is so tender you can now use two forks to pull the chicken apart and shred it. Place the chicken back into the slow cooker. I seasoned the chicken with Durkee Grill Creations St. Louis Style Chicken & Rib Rub and Weber Beer Can Chicken Seasoning.

I did this on a whim preparing for 70ish people. So, I apologize I don't have exact measurements. I'd say just give it a good coating. Stir the chicken and add more so it is noticeable there is seasoning throughout. I added more salt and pepper to taste, as well. I love garlic, so I also added 3 minced cloves of garlic. I then added about 3 Tbsp of olive oil, and mixed it all together. Olive oil wakes up dry seasonings to release full flavor.

I knew my chicken was going to be sitting for a few hours in the slow cooker since it was for an open house (eat all day environment). In efforts to make the meat moist, I added a cup of the broth I drained from the slow cooker earlier. **Side Note: I put the rest in a plastic container and used in quinoa, etc in place of store bought chicken broth.** I then added a bottle (18 oz) of Sweet Baby Rays Original BBQ Sauce. **Side Note: pic captured is a different flavor than original, but wanted you to have a visual. The bottle I used is long gone.**

This made it a bit soupy, but it was perfect at dinner time a few hours later. If you're eating right away, I recommend adding the BBQ sauce first and then adding the chicken both as needed to get the texture you want.

That's it. Slap it on a bun and call it a day. We really enjoy it on a whole wheat bun topped with a vinaigrette cole slaw. Yum! Yum! Yum!

Extras:
- If you don't like biting into garlic chunks, smash open 3 garlic cloves and put them in w/ the raw chicken. Then you can strain the cloves out.
- Use the BBQ sauce you love. The sauce listed above is what the boys brought home. So, I used it. I use different ones often.
- I normally look at the ingredients in prepackaged seasonings and then just make my own. These were a gift at some point. So, I just used them. Feel free to play with the seasonings to your liking.
- I think everyone likes this so much due to the tenderness of slow cooking the chicken and the layering of the flavors. Adding flavor at each step really takes it up a notch.
- This makes a lot of chicken. You can make this recipe as is and freeze what you don't eat for later, or cutting it in half would probably make for a nice family of 4 dinner.

Oatmeal Pancake Cupcakes

Recipe: Donnie Cochran (my husband), cooking instructions by Gwaltney Foods

Gwaltney Foods Link: http://www.gwaltneyfoods.com/food-fun/?fun=sausage_pancake_bites

Recipe/Cochran Review: My husband is the true morning chef in our house. He's been tweaking and perfecting his pancake mix for quite awhile now. I found a fun way to make pancakes through Pinterest. The Gwaltney Foods link said to mix pancakes as instructed and provided a unique cooking method for pancake bites... or as we like to call them, pancake cupcakes. Call anything shaped like a cupcake just that and our toddler will gobble it up! Parent trickery!

So, here it is. Donnie's recipe combined with Gwaltney Foods cooking method. Enjoy!

Oatmeal Pancake Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease mini or full size muffin pans, your choice.

- 1 & 1/4 cup of oatmeal (ground in food processor or blender finely)

- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

- 3 Tbsp of Greek yogurt or 1/4 cup of oil (we prefer yogurt)

- 1 tsp of baking soda

- 1 tsp of baking powder

- 1/4 cup sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1 & 1/4 cup of milk

- 1 tsp of apple cider

- 1 egg

- Extras desired: Turkey sausage crumbles, fruit, nuts, syrup, etc

In a small bowl, mix 1 & 1/4 cup of milk with 1 tsp of apple cider. Let this mixture stand for a minimum of 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, blend ground oatmeal, flour, Greek yogurt, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, vanilla, and egg. After milk & apple cider mixture has sat at least 5 minutes, combine in large bowl with other ingredients. If the mixture appears too runny, adjust by mixing in small amounts of additional flour.

Pour mixture into greased muffin pans. Add extras. For example, we like turkey sausage crumbles, strawberry & banana, strawberry & chocolate chip, toasted almond & syrup, etc. We even made one with apples, cinnamon, & nutmeg, like an apple pie! Yum! This is where you can get creative and personalize the pancakes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes.

This baking method is great for several reasons:

- the cook can socialize with a cup of coffee instead of slaving over the stove

- little hands love to gobble the cupcakes up

- fun dipping into syrup or fruit compote, if you choose

- they freeze well; so, make a large batch during the weekend, and breakfast is quick with a reheat

- these travel well for breakfast on the go

- for those who struggle eating oatmeal, you'll never know you did

- And last, but not least... Toddler approved!



Hope you enjoy!

~ The Cochrans

Turkey Pot Pie

Credit: Carla Hall, The Chew
Reciepe: http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/Thanksgiving-Carla-Hall-Turkey-Pot-Pie

Cochran Review: Hoping to make this tonight.

Pumpkin Cookies

Credit: Cookies and Cups
Recipe: http://cookiesandcups.com/2-ingredient-pumpkin-cookies/

Cochran Review: These are so easy and so yummy! They'll satisfy your cookie and cake craving. Fair warning, they expand while baking. So, make the cookies slightly smaller than you want them to be when putting them on the cookie sheet before baking. We decided not to do the icing and throw some chocolate chips in them. Yum! Enjoy!

Here's a picture of our cookies:

Mini Turkey & Veggie Meatloaves

Credit: One of my best friends, Marianne, found this through Perdue
Recipe: http://m.perdue.com/recipes/details.asp?id=143&titile=Mini

Cochran Review: This is my 100th post! Crazy to me that I've posted so many recipes! Thank you to all of you for having interest in what I'm cooking! My blog gets over 1,000 hits per month, which I find very humbling.

We are having these cute little mini turkey meatloaves for dinner tonight. I decided to throw a broccoli bunch and a carrot in the food processor to mix into the loaves. I like to sneak extra veggies in for our family in dishes like these where they go undetected.

These were good. My son (almost 2) helped with dinner. So, we served it with mac n' cheese. I don't know if it is because Thanksgiving is around the corner of what, but I'd like to try something fun and different with this. I'd like to put green beans in the food processor and mix with the turkey, seasonings, cheese and add stuffing instead of bread crumbs. Then I'd serve it on a bed of mashed potatoes and drizzle with gravy. I may have to try this soon! LOL! Enjoy!

Here's a pic from our dinner:

Corn Spoon Bread

Credit: Real Simple Recipes
Recipe: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/corn-spoon-bread-10000001548373/index.html

Cochran Review: Decided to add this to our Mardi Gras themed dinner tonight. We will let you know. -- Well, this came together quickly and was very easy to make. However, the Thyme took over the dish and caused us to throw it out. Picture of our dish below. If there were a way to remove the Thyme after cooking, we would have. I will make this again, but omit the Thyme. Now, in all fairness to this strong herb, my family and I aren't big fans of Thyme. If you are, you'll love it! Enjoy!

Pretzel Bites

Credit: Get Off Your Butt & Bake

Recipe: http://www.justgetoffyourbuttandbake.com/?p=932

Cochran Review: We made the Garlic Parmesan Pretzel Bites for a party recently. They were a big hit! We enjoyed them without the cheddar dip, but I'm sure that would be delightful, too. These were pretty easy to make. They seemed to take 30 mins to bake in our oven rather than the 15 mins the recipe references. Also, I didn't melt butter for the bites. I just rubbed a little stick butter over the top as they were fresh out of the oven, sprinkled garlic powder, cracked sea salt, sprinkled fresh grated Parmesan over the top, tossed, and served. One guest referred to them as being "legit". :) Enjoy!

2/6/12 Update: We tried the cinnamon sugar w/ icing dipping sauce on Super Bowl Sunday. Oh. My. Goodness. So, so , so good!!!! The garlic Parmesan were a hit once again, but the cinnamon sugar bites were the shinning star! Also, garlic Parmesan bites were very tasty dipped in the queso dip! Yum! Enjoy!

Crescent Pepperoni Roll-ups

Credit: Plain Chicken
Recipe: http://www.plainchicken.com/2011/12/crescent-pepperoni-roll-ups.html

Cochran Review: These were very easy to make and very tasty! The recipe calls for warm pizza sauce to dip them in, but we ended up not dipping them. We didn't feel like it needed the sauce. Our party guests enjoyed these quite a bit! Enjoy!

Slow Cooker French Dip

Credit: Picture Perfect Cooking
Recipe: http://pictureperfectcooking.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/slow-cooker-french-dip-sandwiches/

Cochran Review: Easy to make and very tasty. It satisfies all of your French dip cravings. Make it and enjoy it!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cresents

Our Treat for the Week!

Credit: For the Love of Cooking
Recipe: http://d1307624.t196.myhsphere.cc/2009/10/chocolate-and-peanut-butter-filled-crescent-rolls.html

Cochran Review: Wow! These little guys are AH-mazing!!! Cheap, easy, and melt in your mouth good! Yum! Yum! Yum! I thought spreading the peanut butter on raw dough might be tough (splitting, stretching, etc), but I had no issues. I used natural peanut butter and Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips. My mouth is watering for them as I type this! We will have these again, and again, and again! Ha ha! Enjoy!

Slow Cooker BLT (Bacon, Leek, Tomato) Brisket

Credit: Rachael Ray Show
Recipe: http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=4438

12.19.12 Update: RR changed their site. New link attached above, but doesn't include the crouton recipe. Here is her garlic crouton recipe I found that we can just add parmesan to: http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=4895

Cochran Review: OH EM GEE!!!! This dish... AH-mazing!!!! That says a lot coming from me, because I will choose turkey or chicken over red meat 95% of the time. Definitely don't skip making the easy salad and croutons! It was so easy and adds so much! Mom mentioned she loved the different textures: soft falling apart brisket, crisp salad, and crunchy croutons! Mom & Dad loved the stewed cherry tomatoes. My husband & I enjoyed the flavor the tomatoes gave, but didn't eat them. Donnie has an issue with tomato texture and I'm allergic (can only handle small doses). I can really understand why Rachael recommends caramelizing the meat before slow cooking it! It really added flavor!

Our salad was actually made with Boston Lettuce instead of Watercress or Arugula. My husband doesn't care for Arugula. So, I was going to use Watercress. However, Watercress doesn't hold up well and isn't widely sold in our area. So, the groceries only order upon request. If you want Watercress, make sure you check with your grocery or produce stand a few days in advance. That being said, Boston Lettuce was recommended by my grocery produce manager and we enjoyed it very much!

Also, the recipe calls for 2 Tbsps of honey. Our pediatrician recommends not giving our son honey until after he is 2. So, I substituted 2 Tbsps of honey with 1&1/2 Tbsps of maple syrup and 1 Tbsp of white sugar. See my article about Food Substitutions for more detail. I think our son thought it was worth it, because he gobbled this meal up!

This recipe has a few steps. So, I did some of them the night before. I cut the leeks, and put the veggies in a zip lock so I could just dump them into the slow cooker in the morning. Also, I cooked the bacon and caramelized the brisket the night before and put it in a zip lock. I made the croutons before serving, but I certainly think this step could be done the night before, too.

Hope you give this a try and enjoy! We will be making this again!