Mango Chutney-Glazed Short Ribs

I am always on the lookout for recipes that are easy, delicious (of course), and don't require a lot of babysitting, since my kids seem to regard meal prep time as their own competition time to see who can drive Mama round the bend the fastest.  This "witching hour" means that I pink sparkly puffy heart my crock pot, since I can just chuck everything in during nap time and forget about it for a couple of hours.

I adapted this recipe from one a friend passed on.  This night I served it with mashed potatoes and roasted cauliflower (I usually try for a more colourful meal, but was trying to use these up before they went bad), but they are also good with rice (for a more Indian meal) or polenta.  You can also double or triple it to have a seemingly fancy meal for a crowd.  They're so popular in our house that every time I see short ribs on sale I have to put this on the menu!

Ingredients: (Serves 4)
     2 pounds (about 8 pieces) beef short ribs
          (note:  you can also use beef chuck short ribs, but will need to increase the cooking time)
     1 small onion, sliced
     kosher salt and ground black pepper, about 1 tbsp. each
     1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
     1 jar mango chutney
     1 cup beef broth
     2 tbsp. tapioca

First, slice your onion thinly and place in the bottom of the crock pot.

This is the bed for your short ribs.  Next, rinse the ribs and pat dry, then sprinkle both sides with kosher salt and black pepper.  Put them bone-side down on top of the onions.

Spread the mango chutney over the short ribs.  Pour the Worcestershire sauce, broth and tapioca around (but not over -- don't wash off the chutney!) the ribs.

Cover and cook on low heat about 4 hours, or until the meat is falling off the bones.

Enjoy!
Linking up to:  Make Something Monday , Tasty Tuesday , Handmade Tuesdays and Show Me What You've Got !

Mexican meh -- Chicken Enchiladas with Red Chiles & Cheese

I love Mexican food.  Capital-L Love.  Chile rellenos, enchiladas, guacamole, nachos, you name it, I love it.  I've perfected a few recipes to make at home -- carnitas, Chipotle-inspired soft tacos and burritos, refried black beans -- but I am still trying to make enchiladas that are as good as our local hole-in-the-wall for those nights hauling 3 kids out to dinner just isn't going to happen.

Thanks to Pinterest , I found this Rick Bayless-inspired recipe on Elly's blog and decided to try it out.  After all, Rick Bayless is (at least according to my impression watching Top Chef Masters ) the go-to dude for accessible Mexican recipes.  I should've known not to trust a white guy with a soul patch.  *shakes head sadly*

Anyway, the original recipe and Elly's adjustments are on her blog.  Here's what I used:

*6 medium-size dried guajillo chiles, stems removed
*4 cloves garlic
*1 28-oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes and their juice
*1/4 tsp. ground cumin
*1 tsp. ground black pepper
*1 cup chicken broth
*3 shredded chicken breasts
*1/2 white onion, plus a bit diced for garnish
*10 corn tortillas
*4 oz. shredded Oaxaca cheese
*diced avocado for garnish

First, I seasoned the chicken breasts with salt & pepper, granulated garlic, and oregano and roasted them at 375 for 30 minutes.

I toasted the dried chiles in a dry saucepan over medium heat and flattened them with a spatula a couple of times, then chucked those, the garlic, the tomatoes, the cumin & pepper into my food processor and blended until it was smooth.  I pressed it through a fine sieve and put it on medium heat to reduce.
When it was about the consistency of tomato paste I added the chicken broth.

While the sauce simmered, I set the oven to preheat to 350 and put the tortillas in to warm.  After about 10 minutes, I poured about a cup of the sauce into the bottom of a 9 x 13 glass pan and mixed about 1/2 cup of sauce into the shredded chicken.
To assemble the enchiladas, I dipped both sides of a warmed tortilla into the remaining sauce, then filled it with chicken, rolled it, and placed seam-side down in the pan.  Once they were all assembled, I poured the remaining sauce over them, sprinkled the cheese on and popped it in the oven for 15 minutes.

Overall, this dish was OK.  It wasn't quite hole-in-the-wall good, but it was decent, and Darling Husband really liked it.  The sauce, even though I added two more chiles, two more cloves of garlic & the onion *and* left out the sugar that Bayless' original recipe calls for, was kind of bizarrely sweet.  If I try this recipe again, I'd like to try it with plain tomatoes to see if that makes any difference.

If anyone has a fabulous enchilada recipe, please share!
Linking to Handmade Tuesdays at Ladybug Blessings , Tasty Tuesdays at 33 Shades of Green and What I Made Wednesday at Sweet Peas & Bumblebees !

Goalposts: The Obvious Edition

Last week I laid out some of the goals I'm hoping to hold myself accountable to.  First up?

A Cleaning Schedule That Involves the Kids.
I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about how I envision the house looking, what makes things easier for me, what age-appropriate chores the kids can help with, and how much (or little, in the interest of honesty) time I'm willing to devote to cleaning.  Here's what I came up with:

*I envision the house looking like something out of a magazine.  However, I loathe cleaning.  While the two aren't mutually exclusive, they are at odds.  Add 3 kids, a cat that sheds tumbleweed-sized fur balls and a desire to spend no more than 30 minutes per day cleaning, and the first thing I need to do is lower my expectations and don't let the desire for perfection get in the way of just getting something done.  

*Thinking about what makes things easier for me led directly to my list of chores to do every day:
     *putting the kitchen to rights (loading dishes, wiping 
       counters, putting away placemats, getting the coffee 
       maker ready for the next morning) every night.
     *scooping the cat box (on Wednesdays, change the litter 
       completely since trash day is Thursday)
     *clean off my side table (next to the couch)
     *take recycling out to bins.


*I am extremely lucky to have a cleaning dude twice a month (best birthday/Christmas present EVER, mom!).  Because of that, my list of chores to do weekly is pretty short:
     *vacuum tv room twice a week
     *vacuum rest of house
     *change sheets on beds
     *change towels in kitchen & bathrooms
     *water plants (inside & out)
     *laundry:  Z, the girls, mine, sheets & towels
       (darling husband does his own)
     *wipe down bathrooms

*The girls (5 and 3) can most definitely help with keeping things clean.  As Z gets older he'll be expected to help, too, for now we'll model picking up toys after we're done playing.  We tried breaking down chores between AJ and Ellie, and usually ended up with "but I wanted to do that!", or "but why do I have to do my chore now and she doesn't?"  So for now, the chore belongs to both of them (especially since they'll need supervision).  Their chores:
     *put away placemats & take napkins down to laundry
     *wipe off table after meals
     *take recycling out to bins
     *water outside plants


Right now I am writing the list down in my dayplanner so I can make changes as we start out, but eventually I want to have a checklist with daily and weekly chores.  For the girls, they each have a dry-erase chore chart like this:

This is what the lists look like broken down:

You can see on the bottom my meal plan for the week.  Which brings me to my second goal:  get 5 fruits and vegetables every day.  Thanks to the stomach bug the kids all shared last week, I've mainly been concentrating on my eating.  It quickly became apparent that in order to get 5 servings in, I need to actually feed myself.  In other breaking news, water is wet, and fire is hot.
Seriously, though, there are too many days when all I've had is coffee for breakfast, yoghurt or a granola bar or a couple bites of the kids' PB&J for lunch, and then I'm cranky and craving chocolate and not carrots.  So in addition to planning out the dinner vegetables, I'm making an effort to have something in the morning.  My favourite so far?  A green smoothie!
There are tons of links to recipes online, but I've kind of winged it with the stuff I've got in the fridge and I haven't been disappointed yet.  A little milk, some strawberries, blueberries, or banana, a big handful of kale and a couple of ice cubes (to make it frothy), et voila! My only issue is with our POS ancient blender, but I'm adding this to my wish list -- supposedly as good as a Vitamix yet $400 cheaper!

Later this week I'm going to share how we're trying to incorporate the other 5 things -- time to create, be outdoors, learn, exercise & clean into our schedules.  I'd love to hear what goals your family has & how you're working towards them!