Easy Dinner Recipe

   Sometimes I'm in the mood to plan something challenging for dinner. Sometimes I don't want to plan or even cook for that matter but most often I want to do what I want to do and still have a yummy home cooked dinner. Being that it's summer and I live where people come to vacation I wanted one of those "do what I want days at the beach with friends but not have to scramble off the sand early to get dinner ready" days. That's where the trusty old crock pot comes in to play. Ok my crock pot isn't really that old. I had an old one with a High, Low and Off switch. It was harvest gold with a removable brown crock. It worked great. But then I started hearing the buzz about new crock pots, ones with auto shut off, warming temp, bright shiny and white. I looked at them when I was at the store and read the stats on the side of the box. I did this for probably a year. How could I justify a new one when the old one worked just fine? I even bought a dial lamp timer to plug mine into so that it could come on while I wasn't home or turn off while I was still out playing. That worked pretty well although I did have angst about it over cooking my food or just over heating. In the end I gave into all the bells and whistles of something new to replace something that still worked. It was a good decision. For one thing my new one is bigger. It has 4 different time settings and automatically switches to warm once the time is up. Crock pot liner bags are another great improvement in crock pot cooking. You still have to wash the crock but it makes clean up way faster and easier.

   Let me tell you what I made in my crock pot last week that was a big hit. This is one of those easy dinner recipes you'll go to again and again. Green chili pork. I should come up with a better name but this is what it is. Country style pork strips were on sale for $1.79/lb when I was at the store. Whenever I see these on sale I get excited, kind of. There always seems to be a great ratio of meat to price and then I'm suspicious. Why aren't people buying this stuff up? What's wrong with it? Nothing that I can see. I once knew a Sicilian grandmother who cooked them all day in a tomato sauce to serve over pasta. It was to die for but I knew I'd probably never stand over the stove all day and stir sauce. Mine wouldn't have an Italian flare but a nod to south of the border. I prepped the crock pot with the liner, added seasoned meat, covered it with green sauce, chilies, added some spice, set it for 8 hours and went to the beach. I know I take this to the next level and most people don't want to and you don't have to and still have a great dinner. But, if you are looking for an amazing over the top dinner make your own tortillas. It's easy I promise and you will never eat tastier tortillas than fresh homemade. Try my Green Chili Pork and if you are adventuresome enough, make Homemade Corn Tortillas. Do it. And for those who don't know when to say when, make cheese.  Make your own Queso Blanco. It's a fresh white cheese that is crumbly and creamy with just the right amount of saltiness and goes best with this kind of food. It only has 3 ingredients and you can make it in about an hour. If you make any or all of these I wanna know. Make one thing and buy the rest then the next time make something else. If you never try it you'll never know if you can. If nothing else you can say you tried. Nothing was ever accomplished without trying and most things tried probably had an early failure. Without failure there is no trying and without trying we have nothing.