Tag Archives: recipes

What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Miss Meg’s Marinade

6 Aug
In honor of Meg's last week, a recipe from her to me.

In honor of Meg’s last week, a recipe from her to me.

ORIGINALLY POSTED JUNE 19, 2013

Reposted today in honor of Miss Meg and her beau William and their recent wedding!!

“What’s for Dinner Wednesday” is my editor Meg’s brainchild. As my blog was in its infancy, it was Meg who asked me if I’d like to do a weekly post with my recipes for the Cranston Herald’s Facebook page.

Of course I said yes, and “What’s for Dinner Wednesday” was born.

This Friday is Meg’s last day at the Cranston Herald as she has gotten an exciting new job, working as the press secretary for our  Congressman, James Langevin.

We will miss her soooo much. So, so much. Meg is a wonderful editor, a wonderful boss. A great listener and someone who knows just what to say, how to say it, and when.

Did I mention that we’ll miss her?

Recently, Meg passed along a recipe to me for a new marinade. She found it on Allrecipes.com and said she thought we’d like it a lot and that it was easy. I said I’d try it soon, and just in time for her last “What’s for Dinner Wednesday” post, we did.

And yes, we liked it a lot.

So today, in honor of Miss Meg’s last day at work this week, I am sharing with you the recipe she shared with us.

Thank you Meg for all you’ve done and best of luck in your future! I know you will go far!

Remember to save a little bit for basting later on!

Remember to save a little bit for basting later on!

Miss Meg’s Honey Marinade

originally from Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves cut into 1″  cubes (I used chicken tenderloin and cut them into 1″ cubes.)

2 cloves garlic

5 small onions, cut into 2″ pieces

Skewers

You can add bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, or anything you’d like to your skewers!

Marinade first, skewer second.

Marinade first, skewer second. Ready to grill!

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a large bowl, whisk together oil, honey, soy sauce, and pepper. Before adding chicken, reserve a small amount of marinade to brush onto kabobs while cooking. Place the chicken, garlic, onions and peppers in the bowl, and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours (the longer the better).
  2. Preheat the grill for high heat.
  3. Drain marinade from the chicken and vegetables, and discard marinade. Thread chicken and vegetables alternately onto the skewers.
  4. Lightly oil the grill grate. Place the skewers on the grill. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes, until chicken juices run clear. Turn and brush with reserved marinade frequently.

Fun Friday: Baked Oatmeal: It’s not just for breakfast

6 Jun
100_3245

I’d eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

ORIGINALLY POSTED MAY 10, 2013: The other day I came across a great new recipe for baked oatmeal. It was on Skinnytaste.com, a blog I follow on Facebook. I love all kinds of oatmeal from steel cut to overnight to baked.

This recipe also had a fruity combination that I love: strawberry and rhubarb. I didn’t have rhubarb, but I noticed that it had bananas in it, and strawberry and banana is another top favorite combination of mine so I decided to make it without the rhubarb.

Besides the fact that I skipped the rhubarb, the other thing about this recipe is that I made it as an after school snack, not for breakfast! It was so good, and everyone had seconds, everyone loved it and there was very little left over.

I would definitely make this recipe again and if I had rhubarb, I’d throw it in there, but it was also fine without!

Without further ado, here, from the Skinnytaste Blog
For the fruit filling:

  • 2 1/2 cups strawberries, hulled and quartered
  • 3/4 cup rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 medium ripe banana, sliced thin
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 1/3 cup honey
This snack was quick to put together with simple ingredients.

This snack was quick to put together with simple ingredients.

For the Oats:

  • 1 cup uncooked quick oats (use GF oats if Gluten Free)
  • 1/3 cup slivered almonds
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 3/4 cup fat free milk (or any milk you desire)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Lightly spray a 9 x 9″ ceramic baking dish with cooking spray; place banana slices on the bottom of the baking dish and set aside.

Combine the strawberries and rhubarb in a large bowl. Add honey, sprinkle with cornstarch and toss until fruit is well coated and place in prepared baking dish over the bananas.

In a medium bowl, combine the oats, half of almonds, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt; stir together.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining honey, milk, egg, and vanilla extract, then add to the oats.

Pour the oat mixture over the strawberries and rhubarb, making sure to distribute the mixture evenly.  Sprinkle the remaining almonds over the the top.

Bake the oatmeal for about 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the oatmeal has set. Serve warm from the oven.

What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Taco Stuffed Shells from She Knows and Gina

21 May
This Mexican/Italian meal was yummy!

This Mexican/Italian meal was yummy!

ORIGINALLY POSTED JUNE 26, 2013

I am never afraid to admit it: I love Facebook. I really do. I love connecting with people and I really love re-connecting with people. I also love food. I love seeing all the neat things that people are cooking and eating. Recently, a friend of Don’s from high school, Gina, posted the link to a recipe that he thought looked amazing. He posted it on my wall to see what I thought, and I thought it looked good too!

The recipe was from the site She Knows, and it certainly looked delicious! It was a recipe that combined jumbo Italian pasta shells with a Mexican filling. It sounded like something everyone would like and I actually had all but two of the ingredients to make it, we were only missing the taco seasoning and the cream cheese, both easy enough to pick up. This was also something we could make to fit our dietary restrictions just by using fat free cheese and low fat cream cheese. We also used ground turkey instead of ground beef, a leaner option.

This past weekend Don gave it at try. Using Gina’s recommendations, he also picked up a couple of side items: lettuce, tomato and avocado, which we served on the side. Everyone loved them! Everyone had second helpings also. This is a recipe I’d definitely make again.

Thank you for sharing, Gina!!

Stuffed Mexican shells recipe as seen on the “She Knows” website

Yields 16 stuffed shells

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 packet taco seasoning
  • 4 ounces cream cheese
  • 16 large pasta shells
  • 1 cup medium-spiced salsa, divided (more if desired) **we used mild, not medium
  • 1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese

Directions:

  1. Brown ground beef, drain and add in package of taco seasoning. Prepare meat according to taco seasoning packet directions.
  2. Once cooked down, add in cream cheese and stir until it’s completely combined. Set aside.
  3. Add water to a large pot and put on stove to boil. Once boiling, add in 1 tablespoon kosher salt and large pasta shells. Boil till al dente.
  4. Once shells are cooked, drain, lay out in a single row and cool till they are cool enough to touch. Fill each shell with taco/cream cheese mixture. Start off by adding 1 tablespoon per shell and then adding more if there is leftover filling.
  5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  6. Add 1/2 cup salsa to the bottom of an 8 x 8-inch pan and put stuffed shells into the pan so they are snug. Top shells with remaining 1/2 cup salsa.
  7. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes until everything is warm.
  8. Take off foil and sprinkle with cheese and bake for another 15 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbling.

Resolutions and Recipes: Sweet and Sour Beef and Broccoli

9 Apr

ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 13, 2012: Earlier this month, when I talked about grocery shopping on a budget, one of the staples that I mentioned buying pretty regularly was stew meat. I have two recipes that I use most regularly when making something with stew meat (and I NEVER make stew, I don’t like it.) Recently though, I was looking for something new and different to make with the beef. I did a search of Allrecipes.com and I found one. The recipe called for cooking the stew meat through, throwing in broccoli and onions and adding a teriyaki sauce to it while it simmers and everything cooks through. I figured I’d try it out since I almost always have broccoli on hand and I had an onion. So, I went on Allrecipes.com again and found a teriyaki sauce recipe.

The end result, a one-dish meal (I love one-dish meals) that got all thumbs up all around and looked like this:

Sweet and Sour Beef and Broccoli Teriyaki

I love a meal that you can make in just one pan. Easy to cook, serve and clean up.

Below is the recipe for the sauce as I found it on Allrecipes.com.

Restaurant Style Teriyaki Sauce

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 cup water

1/2 tsp. grd. ginger

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

5 Tbl. packed brown sugar

1-2 Tbl. honey

2 Tbl. cornstarch

1/4 c. cold water

DIRECTIONS

1) Mix soy sauce, one cup water, ginger, garlic powder, brown sugar and honey in small sauce pan.

2) Mix cornstarch and 1/4 cup cold water together in a measuring cup.

3) Add the cornstarch and water to the pan of sauce.
Heat to desired thickness, add water to thin.

I served this on a bed of brown rice.

ENJOY!

Superbowl Week: Chili and Loaded Chili ‘skins

29 Jan
Chili with shredded cheese, sour cream and chips

This chili looks almost too good to eat!

ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 27, 2012:

Don makes a great chili, he really does. I’d never even HAD chili until I met him and had his. I also had never had peppers or onions because growing up my dad didn’t like either, so we steered clear of them when cooking. Now though, I eat all of those things and I especially love my husband’s chili. It’s perfect for Superbowl Sunday.

INGREDIENTS

5 lbs ground beef or ground turkey or ground pork (or any combination of the three)

2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 six ounce cans of tomato paste and 2 cans of water

2 twenty-eight ounce cans of diced tomatoes

3 twelve ounce cans kidney and/or black beans

2 green peppers, chopped

1 large onion chopped

4-6 TBL chili powder

1 tsp. oregano

Salt/Pepper to taste

Sour cream, cheddar cheese, chips for topping

DIRECTIONS

1.) Combine and cook meat, garlic, oregano in large cooking pot

2) Add chopped peppers and onions

3) Add all other ingredients and cook on low for two to five hours.

If you’d like to cook this in the crock pot, cook up the meat first and then throw it all into the crock pot to cook on low for the 2-5 hours.

This is the sort of recipe you can make according to your taste. The spicier you like things, the more spicy ingredients you can add to it (hot sauce, chili powder, chili peppers etc.) The more mild you like it, the less you add.

****************************************************************************************************************

BONUS RECIPE: LOADED CHILI POTATO SKINS

Loaded chili potato skins

A bonus appetizer that you can use some of your chili to make.

We love potato skins and chili seems to lend itself to an additional appetizer idea: Loaded chili potato skins.

Cook up a bunch of baked potatoes ahead of time. Let them cool a bit.

Cut them in half and hollow them out, leaving about 1/4″ to 1/2″ of the potato in the skin.

Add some of your chili and some cheddar cheese to the inside, and bake them until cooked through.

Broil at the end to crisp up.

Add your favorite toppings: sour cream, guacamole, etc.

Superbowl Recipes: Homemade Salsa(s) and Guacamole

22 Jan
Football Helmet and Football

We are big Patriots fans here!

ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 24, 2012:

I hate football. Yup, I’m a buzz-kill when it comes to football season, (and also baseball season) Superbowl, anything like that.

However, I love food. So, featuring Superbowl Week, several days of recipes you can cook for the upcoming Superbowl Sunday feast, works for me.

The cool things about these recipes is 1) none of them are recipes I grew up with and 2) they are all recipes I would not have, had I not had these people come into my life at some point or another. To me, that makes them extra-special in a different way than the ones I treasure from my childhood.

Today I am featuring several recipes at once. The first is a Homemade Salsa recipe from my friend and college roommate, Karen. She first shared this recipe with me when we were in college and I’ve held onto it, making it ever since. She is also the one who introduced me to my husband when we were out back in December 1992. But, that’s a whole other story for another day.

KAREN’S HOMEMADE SALSA

Karen's Homemade Salsa

This is what Karen’s Homemade Salsa looks like when it’s all done.

2 cups peeled and cored plum tomatoes (I buy 18 but it says about 12)
peeling and coring is the most time-consuming part of the recipe. The rest is quick.

1 long green frying pepper (light green)

1-3 chili peppers chopped (Buying one or buying three depends on their size and how hot you like your salsa.)

1/3 cup chopped onion (I use one medium sized onion.)

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 cup cider vinegar

DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients in sauce pan, bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Serve hot or cold.

*****************************************************************************************************************

This next recipe is from my brother’s mother-in-law, Marianne. She makes a kickin’ guacamole and ever since we first tasted hers, it’s been the one we make as our own. Had my brother not married his lovely wife, we would not have this recipe to share with you! Unfortunately when we made this recipe last weekend, along with the above salsa, I took photos of the salsa but forgot to take photos of the guacamole! So next time I make it, I’ll add a photo here. But, you all know what guacamole looks like….green.

MARIANNE’S HOMEMADE GUACAMOLE

2 Avocados, mashed

1 tsp. salt

Juice of one small lemon (we use half a lemon, even for a double batch. You can always add more, but you can’t add less!)

1/2 of a 6 oz. plain lowfat Greek yogurt or non-fat (We get this at PriceRite for about $1)

chili powder to taste

Mash, mix and eat!

*****************************************************************************************************************

The last recipe is one I haven’t made in a while, so I don’t have a photo yet, but again when I do, I’ll add it in. However, my friend Stacey brought this to a cookout at our house one year, I think a dance recital cookout we were having about ten years ago. It was so good and she said she got it off the side of a can of Bush’s Black Beans. I have made it since then and I think of her every time I do.

STACEY’S BLACK BEAN SALSA

one 15 oz. can Bush’s Best Black Beans, drained

one 11 oz. can white shoepeg corn, drained

one 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (basil, garlic and oregano flavor)

one 10 oz. can diced tomatoes and green chilies

one 8 oz. bottle Italian dressing

Chopped onion to taste

DIRECTIONS

Mix all ingredients together.
Refrigerate for at least 1 1/2 hours.

Serve with tortilla chips.

German Apple Cake

18 Nov
German Apple Cake is a recipe I loved, growing up.

German Apple Cake is a recipe I loved, growing up.

ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 17, 2011

**I decided to re-post this today, November 18, 2013 because I made it this weekend for our friends who came for dinner. Making it reminded me of this post, so I thought I’d run it again for my newer followers who may have missed it.**

Growing up, this was one of my favorite recipes that my mom made. I have one specific memory also, of a time (the ONE time) when my mom was sick and my dad helped us make this recipe for her. I still think of that each time I see the recipe or eat this cake.

As with all of my recipes it’s super easy and of course, super delicious.

What’s your favorite apple recipe for fall?

Ingredients:

3 c. chopped or shredded apples

1 c. oil

2 c. flour

1/2 c. choc. chips (or a few more if you love ’em as much as I do!)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

pinch of salt

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together by hand in large bowl.

Grease and flour bundt pan.

Pour batter into pan.

Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Cool 1/2 hr. before removing from the pan.

 

What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Cranberry Chicken

23 Oct
plate of cranberry chicken and green beans

You can serve this over rice for a perfect combination of flavors!

ORIGINALLY POSTED NOVEMBER 6, 2011:

*To make this recipe in a lower fat version, we use I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter instead of butter.* To make it Gluten Free, we use an all-purpose flour blend from Trader Joe’s.*

Since it’s a frost-on-the-ground type of morning here in New England, I thought I’d post one of my favorite fall meals for you. I have posted this on FB before, and I even saw a friend on Facebook post it last night for her followers as well. It’s on my list of meals to make for dinner this week myself. I just bought a bag of cranberries on my last shopping trip. With Thanksgiving coming, I will be posting a few different cranberry recipes in the coming weeks as well. This is a meal that my entire family enjoys and a meal I’ve made often for company and so far it has always gotten rave reviews. Enjoy!

CRANBERRY CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, pounded (To feed five of us, plus at least one serving for leftovers, I generally thaw 15 frozen boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins and don’t pound them. I get them at Price Rite by the bag, for those who live near a Price Rite.)
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup water
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Dash ground nutmeg

cooked rice

Pan of cranberry chicken

DIRECTIONS
In a shallow dish, combine flour, salt and pepper. Dredge chicken. In a skillet melt butter over medium heat. Brown the chicken on both sides. Remove and keep warm. In the same skillet, add cranberries, water, brown sugar and nutmeg. Cook and stir until the cranberries burst (about 5 minutes.)

Return chicken to skillet. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until chicken is tender, basting occasionally with the sauce.

Serve over rice. Yield 4-6 servings.

Elizabeth and Cranberry Chicken

Elizabeth was so proud of this dinner. She requested it and she made almost the entire thing herself, with very little help from Daddy!

Fun Friday: Bread and Jam

11 Oct
"Mom, you *have* to share these recipes on your blog!"

“Mom, you *have* to share these recipes on your blog!”

As a reporter and writer, I have a wacky work schedule, I’ll be the first to admit it.

Flexible, but wacky.

It’s different every single day, night and weekend, and I’m often working when a lot of people are off, but at the same time I also have a lot of flexibility to plan around the needs of my family, and that allows me to keep my focus of “family first” a top priority.

This week, after what seemed to be a crazier block of work days and nights than usual, I finally had a day off. I had a whole Wednesday day and night, where I didn’t have to work at all. I had nothing to cover, nothing to type for the newspaper, no place to be while my children were at school. Although my afternoon and evening would be busy bringing the kids to their Wednesday activities, my day was free.

Wide open.

You might think to yourself, “Oh…shopping, lunch, manis and pedis!!”  But no, I didn’t go that route. Instead, I decided that I’d use that day to the best of my ability, to cook ahead as much as I could, in order to be better prepared for the coming days when things were back to normal.

I’m so glad I did.

Focus, focus, focus! Once I got on a roll, I got a lot done!

Focus, focus, focus! Once I got on a roll, I got a lot done!

I got so much accomplished.

In one day, I cooked two banana breads, three batches of strawberry jam, 16 crustless baby quiches, six peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches to freeze ahead for lunches, and a dinner for that evening that was NOT cooked in the crock pot, of Shepherd’s Pie, which I made into seven individual pie tins just for the fun of it.

I rocked it.

I ate one of the sandwiches before it went into the freezer, but it’s okay. I earned it.

When my kids were eating their breakfast the next morning, enjoying their jam, Elizabeth said to me, “Mom you definitely have to share this recipe on your blog, it’s so good!”

And so I will share it with you today.

I can’t lie though: A big part of the secret to my success on Wednesday involved the crock pot…again!

Just when my kids thought I couldn't cook another new thing in the crock pot, I pull out the triple crock, and go to town!

Just when my kids thought I couldn’t cook another new thing in the crock pot, I pull out the triple crock, and go to town!

However, I used something different: our triple crock pot that we normally use for big gatherings–holidays, birthday parties, and big events like that. An anniversary gift from my mother-in-law years back, I never thought to use it “just” to cook in.

I don’t think I even realized that you could cook in it, since we’d always used it as a warmer to keep the food we’d pre-cooked for the parties, warm.

When a friend passed along two recipes to me, one for banana bread in the crock pot and one for strawberry jam in the crock pot, I decided to give it a try, and do it all at once in the triple crock. This would allow me to use my oven and stove top for other things at the same time so that I could get more than one thing going at a time.

I must say, I loved that option! I also have to say my house smelled AMAZING the entire day. I was hungry all day long!!

The recipes were both super-easy and super-fast to prep. My triple crock has two small wells on the sides and a larger well in the middle. For that reason, I opted to make two smaller breads using the sides and do the strawberries in the middle. I could’ve gone either way I suppose. I could also, in the future, make a double batch of breads: one larger one in the middle and two small ones on the sides.

Lots of options.

Using my crock pot freed up my oven and stove so I could cook a non-crock pot meal for dinner that night!

Using my crock pot freed up my oven and stove so I could cook a non-crock pot meal for dinner that night! Individual shepherd’s pies were fun to eat!

And, now that my bread and jam in the crock pot experiment was successful, I know that I could do this as an after school snack in the future, baking all day long while I’m gone, making the house smell warm and welcoming when we return.

The link to the bread recipe is here, from the Crockpot Ladies.com.

The link to the jam recipe is here, from The Lady Wolf.com.

I encourage you to try them both and see what you think!

What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Mongolian Beef (Take Two)

2 Oct
This was so good, I almost forgot to take a picture of it!

This was so good, I almost forgot to take a picture of it!

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

As you probably know by now, I’ve been making crock pot meals approximately four times a week, as a means of getting us through this fall sports schedule (which ends at the end of October for us).

So far, it’s been working out well, allowing me to “cook” meals that are ready when we get home from whatever we’re at, arriving home in time for dinner even though no one was here to cook dinner. I’m lucky, in that I am usually home from work at lunch time most days, so I set my dinner up at that time and let it go when I go back to work. Depending on when we need to eat, I put it in anywhere between 10 am and noon.

A week or two back, however, we had a crock pot debacle. As I was making the Who Needs a Cape Mongolian Beef, one we were really looking forward to, I licked the spatula before throwing it into the sink (AFTER I’d used it) and realized the Hoison sauce I’d bought was VERY VERY spicy. I was nervous for the outcome. I even watered down the sauce during the cooking time.

I kept my fingers crossed that it’d work out for the best, but it didn’t. It was so spicy. No one really liked it.

I wrote “BLECH” on my recipe sheet and prepared to throw it in recycling.

I was so disappointed. We’d really been looking forward to this one.

However, when I shared the news with my friend Gina, she asked what kind of Hoison sauce I used. When I told her, she looked it up and found that it contained red hot chili peppers.

Just like the band from the 90’s.

Red

Hot

Chili

Peppers

Yikes.

We’re not spicy food lovers here, most of us.

I decided to try the recipe again, because both Gina and another friend of mine, Amy, had both tried it and proclaimed it to be as amazing as we’d thought it would be; a top favorite on their lists of meals.

I went to the store, I turned all the Hoison sauce bottles around so that I could see the ingredients. I found one with chili peppers. That one was definitely out. I found another that said “slightly spicy.” Forget it.

I finally chose one that seemed safe and decided that this week we’d give it another try.

This Monday night, we did.

SUCCESS!!!!

It was sooooooo good. Totally delicious.

And, there was a little bit left, just enough for my lunch on Tuesday, and guess what??

It was even better the second day! The flavor was bursting! I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch.

We served our beef with our usual Chinese Fried Rice, but I also added a batch of quinoa as one of our side dish offerings. Personally, I love mixing the quinoa with the rice, and that’s what I did with the Mongolian Beef. It was fabulous.

So the lesson learned is two-fold: 1) check the ingredient labels when buying a new sauce, and 2) don’t give up!

I’m so glad we tried the Who Needs A Cape Mongolian Beef again, it’s most definitely a keeper!!

I’ve linked to the recipe twice in this post, and I’m putting her recipe below as well. I hope you’ll give it a try, and remember, if you don’t like spicy, CHECK YOUR LABELS!

WHO NEEDS A CAPE
MONGOLIAN BEEF

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. stew meat
  • 2 tsp. olive oil
  • 1 onion, thickly sliced
  • 1 tbsp. minced garlic
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. fresh minced ginger
  • 1/2 cup hoisin sauce

Instructions

  1. Freezer directions- dump all ingredients into a labeled freezer bag, seal, mix up, freeze flat. It’s as easy as that!
  2. When you’re ready to cook- take the bag out of the freezer the night before and let it defrost in the fridge. The next morning dump the bag into the crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours. If you’re going to be longer just add a bit more water so it doesn’t dry out. Serve with fresh slice green onions and rice. Yum!