Recipe Time Again

Welcome to our newest visitor Sue at Susie's Space. Not to be confused with Susie at My Gobhole.

Sue is from the San Francisco Bay area, has two grown kids, and four grandchildren. She's in the midst of kitchen remodeling and is on the lookout for simple recipes which can be doubled easily, prepared in appliances such as a crock pot, and frozen.

Here's her chicken chili verde. I have used lean pork as well. As she says, either one should work out beautifully.

Chili Verde
2½ cup salsa verde (I use Trader Joe’s brand, yummy)
1 4 oz can diced mild green chiles
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts or 1 lb boneless pork loin (both equally good)
14 oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed
14 oz can of white beans, drained and rinsed
Place 2 cups of the salsa verde in the Crock-pot. Stir in the chilies. Add meat. Cook on high for 4 hours. Take meat out and shred with two forks. Add back to crock-pot along with remaining ½ cup salsa*
and the 2 cans of beans. Stir and cook on high for 30 more minutes.
Serve as filling in tortillas or over rice.
*I usually add about ¼ cup water to salsa at this point.
My husband loves this and it freezes well. I also double my rice and freeze that in a Ziploc. It reheats in a snap!

Upon reading further I discovered this link to a blogger who calls herself "Overwhelmed". She's an adoptive mom who has launched a feature called "Five Ingredients Friday". The Chili Verde Recipe came from her. Check her out if you'd like to join in.

Here, from Pea is her gran's raisin pie recipe.

GRAN'S RAISIN PIE (Double crust - 45 minutes @ 375 ° F)

1 cup raisins
3 cups water
1 cup brown sugar

Put the above ingredients into a pot and bring to boil.

add 1/4 cup molasses and 1 tbsp lemon juice. Let boil for 20 minutes.

At the last minute, thicken with cornstarch that's been mixed with some water. (Note from Ann: Pea doesn't specify amount of cornstarch and I'm no help because I usually go by instinct. Most cornstarch boxes have the amount to thicken one cup of liquid for gravy and you could probably multiply by 3. Or perhaps Pea knows. I'll ask her. Meantime, better too little (in a small amount of cold water) than too much. You can always add; it's hard to take away.)

Note from Pea:I usually use 2 heaping tbsp of cornstarch and mix it with enough (cold) water to make it runny. Hope that helps! lol

Take off element (burner) and add 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tbsp butter and pinch of salt.

Put in pie crust, cover with top crust and make slits for steam to escape. Bake at 375 F for about 45 minutes or until crust is browned. Let cool completely. We like it even better when it's been in the fridge and is completely cold. Enjoy!!

I'll probably be back later with the day's excitement.

Mollie - Giants 7, Mets 6. 12 innings.