Low Brow Know How

This week saw some pretty low-brow, but quite tasty recipes grace our kitchen.  Sorry for the terrible low-light photos!

1. Pineapple BBQ pulled chicken:

This recipe is embarrassingly easy, so easy that it almost doesn't require a recipe (but I got the idea from this website): pulled chicken made with pre-made BBQ sauce jazzed up with hot sauce, pineapple and onion, all melded together care of the slow cooker. I'm not normally a jarred BBQ sauce person, but we were the recipients of a bottle of Jack Daniels Spicy Original when Ben and Erin moved, and it's that bottle of sauce that sparked this idea.

Place boneless (or bone-in if you're feeling sassy and don't mind picking out bones later) chicken breasts (would probably be even better with thighs) in slow cooker, cover with a roughly chopped onion and pineapple (you could use drained canned pineapple, but I used fresh because I live in the tropics and that's how we roll), top with BBQ sauce and hot sauce (I used Sriracha, tentu saja) to taste.  Turn on cooker, cook for 3-4 hours, shred chicken with 2 forks, cook for a little while longer so chicken soaks up sauce, eat.

We served the chicken in wraps with a little bit of lettuce and cheese, but you could put it in buns, too.  

We also served it with a side of crunchy jicama and carrot slaw:  matchstick jicama and carrot mixed with raisins that had been soaking in lime juice, a squirt of hot sauce, a teeny bit of oil, chopped cilantro, salt and pepper... I also added matchstick yellow pepper, but would leave that out next time as it was too watery and its flavor was overpowering.

2. Chipotle egg salad:

Egg salad made with a little bit of mayo, some Dijon mustard, adobo sauce (from a can of chipotle in adobo), minced green onions, minced dill pickles, chopped parsley and S&P.   Served on slices of homemade 100% whole wheat sandwich bread a la Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Baby Shower Goodies: The Savory Stuff

Liz, Joanne and I hosted a 25-person baby shower this past weekend in honor of Barbara and baby... based on the reactions we got it seemed to have been quite a success!!

We decided to go all finger foods for simplicity- no forks. We stuck with some pretty traditional shower fare and sprinkled in some less typical treats, too. Here's the run down of the savory part of the party!
1. Open-face cucumber and lemon dill cream cheese tea sandwiches: These traditional little sandwiches were great- the cream cheese was totally addictive!2. Curried chicken salad sandwiches: Made with rotisserie chicken to save time, shredded for spreadability... this recipe was super flavorful and relatively healthy since it used some yogurt rather than straight mayo. Really nice on thinly sliced whole wheat bread with a few leaves of spinach.3. Egg salad sandwiches: Like their chicken cousins above, these were made on thinly sliced whole wheat bread and topped with spinach. More egg whites than yolks, a little mayo, a little mustard, minced green onions, salt and pepper, done.4. Smoked salmon and herbed butter sandwiches: smoked salmon, lemony herbed butter, pumpernickel bread. So simple.

5. Tabouleh and hummus rolls: Taking a cue from the Other Martha, I made these little rolls- some tabbouleh (loosely based on this recipe), stuck to the wrap with some hummus, rolled in a log and then sliced into cute little spirals. 6. Crostini with black olive tapenade, roasted tomatoes and mozzarella: Based on a recipe that Liz found, we thinly sliced a baguette and topped it with this black olive tapenade (minus the ancovies), cute little mozzarella balls and a strip of roasted red pepper.