Week One Recipes

Week one went really, really well! I was surprised, but more on that later.

This past week was one of the weeks where Peter has to eat both lunch and dinner at work due to his schedule, so my plan for us was to have salads most days for lunch and then a chili or stew for dinner. Also, I wanted to try making a tomato-basil-mozzarella salad as a tasty snack.

For the salads, we made variations of the Greek salad.

For the chili, I made my slow-cooker turkey chili and for a stew, I made a variation of a Betty Crocker slow-cooker jambalaya.

Side note (1): Notice a theme? I LOVE my crockpot!

Side note (2): Jambalaya is an oddly spelled word. It sounds like it should be JUMB-a-laya.

Slow-Cooker Turkey Chili

· Family pack of ground turkey meat (approx. 3 pounds)

· 2 - 28oz cans of diced tomatoes

· 1 - 8oz can of tomato pastes

· 2 cans of light kidney beans, drained and rinsed

· ½ an onion

· 2 to 3 cloves of garlic

· ¼ cup of chicken broth

· Salt and pepper to taste

· 1 ½ cup of water

· 1 tbsp chili powder

Directions:

· Brown turkey meat using onion, garlic, salt and pepper, and ¼ cup of chicken broth

· In crock pot, mix turkey mixture with tomatoes, tomato paste, kidney beans and chili powder

· Cook on low for 4-5 hours

I like to top with cheese and sour cream. Yum!

Slow-Cooker Jambalaya (adapted from Betty Crocker)

· From a two pack, use 1 cooked turkey sausage

· ½ a green pepper, diced

· ½ an onion, diced

· 2 celery stalks, diced

· 1 – 28oz can of diced tomatoes

· Salt and pepper to taste

· 1 to 2 garlic cloves

· 1 to 2 tbsp hot sauce

· ¾ pound shrimp, peeled and seasoned with Old Bay

Directions:

· In crock pot, place turkey sausage, green pepper, onion, celery, tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, hot sauce and can of tomatoes

· Cook 2 to 3 hours

· Add shrimp approximately an hour before jambalaya is finished cooking

· Continue cooking until shrimp is pink

Tomato-Mozzarella-Basil Salad

· 6 Roma tomatoes, diced

· 1 container of basil, chopped

· 1 container of mozzarella balls

· 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

· Mix all ingredients, enjoy!