14 Delicious, Nutritious, Slow Cooker Meal Ideas

 

Greetings to you all! On this wonderful Tuesday morning, I’m taking pen to paper to create a shopping list. I underestimated my time commitments this week, and under-shopped at the store over the weekend. I know I’m not the only one who’s done this! Alas, the internet came to my rescue this morning with a wonderful list of 14 slow cooker meals. This link provides you with a variety of great meal options and not only that, it provides you with macro-nutrient information for each meal! Not only can I save myself time with one of these slow-cooker meals, but the macros are already done for me! Here’s to a successful, productive week to you all. Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Naked Summer Bean Salad

What You’ll Need

• 1 can Garbanzo Beans
• 1 can Black Beans (Crave extra Zest: Try Cuban Style Black beans)
• 1 can Sweet  Corn
• 4-6 Garlic Cloves (minced, to taste)
• A bunch of basil leaves (chopped, to taste, I use 1-2 full bunches of leaves)
• A splash of Red Wine Vinegar (to taste, light coating over entire salad)
• A splash of Olive Oil (to taste, same as the Red Wine Vinegar)
• Salt (to taste)
• Pepper (to taste)
• Trader Joe’s Smoked African Spices (optional, to taste)

How TO

• Put the beans and (warmed/microwaved) corn into a strainer and rinse, allowing all liquid to drain
• Put beans, corn, minced garlic, chopped basil leaves into a large bowl
• Add red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt+pepper (any favorite seasoning toppings)
• Mix, and mix well as you add each ingredient
• EAT
• *Chef’s remarks, I like this salad cold, right out of the fridge. And it makes a great side to my paleo big-o bacon burgers, (scroll down mid page for recipe)
• Additional add in: tomatoes, serve over a bed of kale, quinoa, or couscous.

Nom Nom Paleo: Prosciutto Wrapped Mini Egg Frittatas

This simple recipe Via Rachel Ray and Nom Nom Paleo, will leave you with a dozen delicious, ready on the run, egg frittatas.

Mini egg frittatas wrapped in a crispy prosciutto shell, you can’t go wrong!

20 minutes hands on, 10-12 minutes in the oven. Boom

How to: Prosciutto wrapped mini frittatas

The Best Meatball Recipe In The World

How to: The best meatball recipe in the world

I’m Sicilian. Making meatballs, pasta, anything Italian is in my blood. I take great care and pride in the Sicilian creations that come out of my kitchen. Authentic.

One day I came across this recipe for sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. I made some adjustments and changes to it the first few times I cooked it, and every time since then, but the product keeps getting better.

It’s somewhat time intensive, but well worth it! Often, I double the recipe to ensure meatballs for meals for the better part of a week. Once, last year, I made these meatballs on a Friday nite. I’d invited a guy friend to stop by and since they had just finished, offered up some warm, pesto covered meatballs. Long story short, my meatballs impressed him. We ended up dating and everytime I made the meatballs, we joked that they had been the way I’d made it to his heart, through his belly.

So ladies, make these for your favorite men. Make them for yourself, like the boss you are. (as I did last nite, as I stood over the kitchen island devouring them precious bite by bite, completely consumed in the savory divine goodness I’d created.)

I feel like I’m giving away a golden ticket…for real. Do yourself a favor and add these to your holiday menu!

Chicken and Shrimp GUMBO

Hello my loves. I feel like it has been TOO long since I’ve connected with my DIVINE friends on the blogsphere. I have been busy living, and doing a bit of impromptu travel, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Or at least until I write a blog about it, which I will soon.

I came home from Vegas delirious from lack of sleep and HIGH from excessive stimulation, so Sunday afternoon called for ADHOC CROCKPOT cooking. This is a GREAT dish that is easy to put together and works well for dishing out into containers to carry you through meal time during your week, or serve it all up for one great shared meal.

SHORTHAND

Take 2 pounds Chicken Breast, 1 bag of medium sized shrimp(shell removed, medium sized shrimplets, frozen), I can diced tomatoes, I can Garbonzo Beans, I can Black Beans, I can sweet corn, 10 turns Smoked African Spices (Trader Joes brand), 5 shakes of Red Cayenne pepper, approx. 1 tbs Cilantro.

**The smoked African herbs, cilantro, and Cayenne were added literally with no thought in mind, so you may want to play with this a bit for your personal tastes. This came out with a mild kick, but a palpable kick, so you may want it stronger, or more milder. Just go with it.

Cook in a slow-cooker on HIGH for 4-5 hours, on MEDIUM 5-7

This made 6 individual servings for me-One large chicken breast per container and lots of shrimp and beans and fixings. Depending on what types of ingredients you use, each serving is approx. 430 calories and a whopping 40-50 grams of protein.

Prep Time- 10 minutes

Cook Time- 4-8 hours

Enjoyment time- All day, everyday.

 

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• Sausage Gumbo (thirstytravelz.wordpress.com)

Crisp-Baked Sesame-COCONUT Chicken

To impress your friends while feeding your belly some seriously good chicken…Read Below.

Shorthand

Preheat 450F

Coat 2 LBS of chopped Chicken Breast in Garlic Aioli,** 1 egg yolk, 1T sesame oil, 1/2 t salt and pepper. (imagine 1 inch pieces of chicken/finger food kinda munching size)

Roll your garlic aioli covered chicken breastssss all around 6T sesame seeds 

Then roll your chicken over 4t coconut flakes***

Bake on a wax covered cookie sheet in the middle of your oven for about 20-22 minutes, or until the coconut starts to look crisp- I am ALL about crispy coconut covered chicken, so I started watching the oven around 21 minutes.

Let them cool for about 2 minutes before taking them off the cookie sheet so all the coconut and sauce gets stuck on dat shit nice and good. If you’re like me, you’ll also use a spatula to scrap ALL the toasted cocoNUTS off the cookie sheet and pour it on top of the chicken.

This shit is seriously delish. If you want a dish that is pretty quick to put together (prep time about 10 minutes) then this is it.

Not to mention, you tell your friends/guests/boyfriend/girlfriend/friend you want to invite over because you want to sleep with that person, make this dish and watch how they look at you differently. In a good way. Like DAYUM, this shit came out of YOUR kitchen/oven?!

Just like that, you’re starting to cook like a BOSS

**(I picked this up from Trader Joes, well worth it time wise over making your own and it’s fucking delicious, and you’ll have left overs to dip the chicken in, and pretty much anything else in your kitchen that you want to cover in garlic badassness)

***I couldn’t find coconut flakes at TJ’s so I bought shredded coconut and just rolled the chicken around in that before placing it on my wax paper covered cookie sheet.

IN ADDITION

I AM STILL baking/eating/devouring the Pistachio Rosemary cookies I blogged about a few posts ago.

So if you HAVE NOT tried them out, seriously what is stopping you?

Do you like cookies?

Do you like cookies that make you want to take off all your clothes, lay blissfully naked on your kitchen floor while eating all 45 the recipe produces and drinking all the almond milk straight out of the container?

Well then, go bake some damn cookies.

And while you’re at it, think about how AWESOME you are!

Ya, that’s right, you’re AWESOME

Related articles

• Be Prepared: Dukkah + Coconut Chicken (wrongside.me)
• Sunday Night Dinner- Honey Sesame Chicken (notagameitsalifestyle.wordpress.com)

Harissa Crab cakes

Made some crab cakes. This was a test of patience. 4 Hour Chef- You are testing me! But shoot, I’ll take some lessons in life and in the kitchen, more so if it means I’ll have BOMB food to eat as a result.

Make these. Also, They taste incredible, so share, impress your friends 🙂

Shorthand

Mix 1 egg white, 1 chopped scallion, 1T harissa sauce (Asian spices isle, yo), 10 turns of the pepper grinder, and 8-10 ounces of CRAB.

Mix those suckers up and form them into about 4-6 balls (smaller the better, I think, I made about 6) and put them in a skillet that is warm/sizzling with oil- I used about 2 T of Coconut oil. Cook for about 3 minutes or until brown around the edges, then flip and smoosh them flat and cook another 3 minutes, or until brown, and until they are sticking together.

Okay, now these little crab punks are delicate. I mean that. Once you put them in the skillet, DO. NOT. TOUCH. THEM. until they are super firmly cooked on the bottom side. When you go to flip them, use some support on the top of the crab cake because THEY WILL fall apart, and then you are left with CRAB-HASH, which trust me, is STILL edible, but a lot less enjoyable. My first nite of making these, I enjoyed CRAB HASH, it wasn’t until the second attempt, with a BADASS none sticking skillet and the tender caress of a kitchen assistant handling the balls of crab, did they finally make it out of the skillet in one piece.

I squeezed LIME over them when serving. EAT THESE.

I should have taken pictures, or video, because this experience was amusing and frustrating, and highly rewarding.

I followed these CRAB CAKES up like a champ with my Rosemary Pistachio Cookies. It is rewarding to CREATE such great food, and the experience of eating the DELISH fruits of my labor are even more rewarding!