Sausage Fest!!

Spicy Sausage Pasta

Let me start by welcoming all of my little Shamsters back! It's been a WHILE since I posted last and let me tell you, I have missed this! As most of you know, food is my life and I love nothing more than finding a delicious recipe and then sharing it with as many people as possible! So here goes! I found this recipe on the recipe sanctuary, also known as Pinterest. It looked amazing on there and sure enough, it did not disappoint! It was fairly easy, affordable and good enough to triple the recipe next time I make it. I love recipes that involve using precooked meat, as I will do just about anything to avoid handling raw meat. Smoked sausage, penne pasta(or whatever pasta you desire,) monterey jack cheese, heavy cream, green onions...does it get any better than those ingredients? No. I have had over ten people message me about this recipe since posting it, hence the blog post. So here you go, I hope everyone reading this goes out and makes this recipe so that I can hear feedback! I was seriously considering going on a diet this week to rid the last of the pregnancy weight, but then I saw this recipe, and it just seemed wrong. Enjoy!

Spicy Sausage Pasta Recipe

Shammy Says "Pasta is the Key to True Happiness"

Cake + Cookies = HAPPINESS

These were nothing short of fantastic

I was extremely excited when I saw a recipe on Pinterest that mixed cake mix in with cookie batter. The result was pure perfection. Sprinkles, white chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, I need to stop typing because this is making me hungry all over again for these. The recipe was a little more difficult than most cookie recipes but you know the saying, hard work pays off. This is so true in this situation, go the extra mile and your mouth will be very happy that you did. Since there is not too much more to say about this recipe I will make you wait no longer. Here it is:

Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Shammy Says "Best cookies I've ever made"

Surprise Surprise!

I have been eyeing this recipe on Pinterest for months now, and just assumed it was a bland recipe that looked good but tasted like crap. What happens when you assume? It makes an ASS out of U and ME. I've always waited for the perfect moment to insert that into one of my blog posts. Moving forward, I decided to try these out this week and I am sure glad I did. Not only were they much easier than regular enchiladas, but they were so good that I may be making this my go to recipe for enchiladas from now on. Funny story on how these finally got made; I put the chicken in the crockpot yesterday and got it cooking. By the time dinner rolled around, pancakes sounded much better than chicken enchiladas. So I turned off my crockpot and whipped up some pancakes and bacon. I was so tired and nearly on the brink of just tossing the chicken because I didn't want to mess with cooking the rest of it. But I rose above the exhaustion and decided I didn't want to throw away $8 worth of chicken. I was surprised at how quickly these came together, I mixed some ranch and picante and spread that onto corn tortillas(because I was out of flour tortillas,) topped with the shredded cooked chicken, and some shredded cheese. After they were prepped and in the pan, I baked them in the oven for 30 minutes. By this time, the exhaustion had worn off and pregnancy brain had set in. I decided to hop in the shower, only to panic halfway through when I realized that my enchiladas had been in for about 10 minutes too long. As I screamed at Pooh Bear to go get them out of the oven, I had come to terms with the fact that they were probably ruined and that this dish was just not meant to be. Low and behold they were not ruined and they tasted DELICIOUS. My leftovers today had everyone at work salivating and asking me what I was eating. I will say I am most surprised with this recipe out of all the recipes I have made. It is easy, cheap, yummy and apparently idiot proof. Whoever thought to use ranch in enchiladas in place of enchilada sauce is a GENIUS. 

Ranch Chicken Enchiladas Recipe

Shammy Says "Don't ever judge a recipe by it's picture"

Crockpot Beef Carnitas Tacos

Not bad if I say so myself...

Original picture, personally I think mine is better.

I received so many messages and requests for this particular recipe that it blew my mind. I've made these twice now and I am shocked that it hasn't been more. These are low carb and cheese free, so it is shocking to me that I even enjoy them. Not only are they amazing, but this is one of the easiest recipes I have ever made. You buy a flank steak, yes you heard me right a flank steak, rub it with a generous amount of spices and place it in the crockpot. Chop up some onion, peppers, and jalapeno, throw those on top of the steak and set that baby on low for 8 hours. While that is cooking, I make my pineapple pico, which I found a while ago originally intended for a salmon recipe. I thought it didn't go very well with the BBQ Salmon so I tucked that little gem away for a different recipe later on down the line, and this is the perfect recipe for it. They go together like salt and jolly ranchers. I often find myself eating the pico all by itself with a bag of Lime Tostitos. The pineapple pico is pineapple, cilantro, onion, lime juice, jalapeno and salt. Simple, and in my opinion so much better than regular pico with tomatoes. I like my tomatoes sliced plain, with about a pound of sea salt. I will halt my raving about this recipe so you can rush out to the store for these ingredients right away. Don't be alarmed at the price of the flank steak, it is pricey but so worth it, especially when you will have dinner for 3 nights.

Crockpot Beef Carnitas Tacos Recipe

Shammy Says "Who knew flank steak could be so delicious?"

PANCAKES!

This is the picture from the original post, I have NO clue how they got them that fluffy.

My picture looks nothing like the picture above from the original post, but they tasted so delicious I that I really don't care.

Pancakes pancakes pancakes, where do I begin to describe my love for pancakes? We have pancakes for dinner on a normal basis, and we have them for breakfast on a more than normal basis. I have perfected the art of making the perfect pancake, or so I thought. This recipe is the absolute best pancake recipe I have come across. The only thing is that mine did not turn out fluffy at all, in fact they were quite limp. It may have been because I use Almond Milk instead of cow's milk, but like I said the taste is so yummy that I chose to disregard that small detail. When I saw sugar, melted butter, and white vinegar in the ingredients list, I was more than intrigued. Don't be alarmed about the vinegar, it is intended to curdle the milk(i.e. buttermilk,) so that it creates that delicious flavor of--BUTTERMILK PANCAKES. It really is the secret weapon in this recipe and it is going to be hard for me to rely on my Krusteaz mix from now on, which is damn good but not as good as these. The taste is creamy, rich, sweet and very cake-y, if that is even a word. Next time I make these I will try it with cow's milk to see if that gets me the fluffiness that I am longing for. Until then, ENJOY!

Best Pancakes Ever Recipe

Shammy Says "Batter up!"

Costa Vida...Muy Bueno!

Sweet Pork Nachos

Flan and Key Lime Pie

I was perusing Facebook a few months back and stumbled upon a video that one of my friends had posted. It was a guy preparing a tub of nachos, in a restaurant called "Costa Vida." I came to realize that he would soon be opening one in Tulsa, to my excitement. As I watched him drizzle multiple layers of nacho cheese, and apply shredded cheese, beans, slow cooked pork and then top it with cool guacamole and sour cream, I was sold. I had to have this dish, and SOON. Chuck Smith, my friend and the manager of Costa Vida was generous enough to invite me, along with many others to the soft opening to sample the food--for free. It doesn't get much better than that! The food was SPECTACULAR. There aren't words to describe the sweet pulled pork, it really is in a class of it's own. I've never actually tasted anything quite like it, it is sweet, tender with a little bit of a kick. I could have eaten a meal of that by itself, and I'm not a big meat person, as you all know. I knew the nachos would be tasty, but I wasn't expecting them to be as good as they were. The thing that separates them from 90% of the nachos that I have had in the past is the LAYERS! They start with a layer of chips on the bottom, then meat, then cheese, and then they bake them. After they finish baking, they add MORE meat, MORE cheese and their delicious homemade queso--which is out of this world. It is similar to Chili's skillet queso, except 100 times better! I topped mine with mexican cheese, guacamole, cilantro and of course 2 scoops of sour cream. I ate nearly the entire thing. I was so full that I could barely walk, but it was so worth it. Chuck then brought us out some of their key lime pie and their flan. I am not a huge fan of flan, but it was very good. The key lime pie was awesome. Overall I would give them a 10 out of 10. If you haven't heard of them until now, you need to check them out! They open today and they are located at 68th and Memorial next to Red Lobster. If you want to browse their menu before going, I posted a link to their website below, you're welcome :)

Costa Vida Website

Shammy Says "My new favorite mexican place!"

WOW

All in the crock pot!

Anybody who knows me in the slightest knows that Chicken Spaghetti is pretty much my favorite dish. I normally make the Pioneer Woman's recipe, which has been my favorite...until about thirty minutes ago. This recipe, Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti by the Crockin' Girls is fantastic AND easy. My best friend Fawna has been raving about the Crockin' Girls for a while now. She told me about this particular recipe last night and I immediately wanted to try it for myself. I mentioned before that I usually make the PW recipe, which is very good but it is pretty time consuming. This recipe was simple and it tasted just as good, if not better. My husband raved about it, making only one suggestion--to add more chicken. Men. They always need more meat. I could have eaten this sans meat and been just fine, but I am a woman, so that's par for the course. If I consumed cheese for the rest of my life I would be a pretty happy camper, I'm not picky. Back to the recipe, the only heavy lifting was chopping an onion and a bell pepper, if you even consider that heavy lifting. It calls for canned chicken, which is what really made this recipe a breeze, and all the more appealing to me. Throw in a couple of cans of cream of whatever soup and a can of rotel, and of course the star of the dish, VELVEETA. I used the white Velveeta per Fawna's recommendation. I do everything Fawna says because she's never steered me wrong :) The total cook time was around 2-3 hours, leaving me plenty of time to shove Doritos in my face while dinner was cooking. This may be one of my favorite recipes now, and so I shall share it with you all, if you don't already know about it!

Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti Recipe

Shammy Says "Crock Pot Recipes Rock"