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Happy holidays and Merry Christmas! 

Need a quick, delicious recipe for tonight or tomorrow? Go forth and conquer some muhfuggin' eggnog. Alcohol optional. 

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xoxo-cooks:

My girl Adrienne has put together a really fantastic, simple, and beautiful gift guide for foodies of all budgets. No joke, I just put everything on her list (that I didn't already own) in my Amazon cart and you should do the same.

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The Future Is Now (And Dinner Will Make Itself) - Sponsored

Picture this: it's 7:30 on a Monday. You're stuck at work in a last-minute mandatory meeting that's droning on and on. Meanwhile, your slow cooker is bubbling away at home, on high, with no timer set, because you were supposed to be home 15 minutes ago to turn it off and retrieve your perfectly cooked veggie stew right on time. But your meeting's got no end in sight, and every minute you watch tick by means mushier vegetables. Will you be going home to a healthy and comforting dinner, or a crockpot full of hot baby food?

This actually happened to me recently - or could have. I got stuck in a late and long meeting with a crock pot full of chicken chili cooking itself into oblivion in my prolonged absence. Except my slow cooker is the new Crockpot Slow Cooker with WeMo. So as my meeting dragged on, I stealthily opened up the WeMo app on my phone and turned my slow cooker from 'High' to 'Warm,' instantly saving my dinner from oblivion. 

The Crockpot Slow Cooker with WeMo is part of The Internet Of Things: essentially one of the coolest new steps in technology. With WeMo products, you can adjust cooking times, turn lights on or off, monitor your energy use, even check on your pets with a Netcam. Small, daily-life things that make your day a little bit easier, a little more worry-free, a little more organized and secure. 

Slow Cookers have always been touted for their ease of use and hands-off cooking, but with WeMo hands-off becomes hands-free. Last Monday, my Crockpot with WeMo enabled me to save dinner when my schedule got messed up; the next day, I popped the Slow Cooker with my leftover chicken chili back into the base and left the house for work. Around 3pm, I opened up the WeMo app and set the Slow Cooker to 'Warm,' so when I got home at 7 dinner was, yet again, waiting for me at exactly the right temperature for a warm, comforting meal. 

Check out more about the Crockpot Slow Cooker with WeMo, and get your own for only $129.99 - an incredibly competitive price, considering how much more you can do compared to standard Slow Cookers.

Slow Cooker Chicken Chili with Corn, Beans, Squash and Kale

4 boneless, skinless free range chicken thighs

1 teaspoon adobo or chipotle paste

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 cup organic chicken stock, veggie stock or water

1 cup organic corn

1 cup organic black beans, rehydrated or canned

4 organic zucchinis or summer squash, in 1/2" cubes

2 cups organic kale, torn into 1" pieces

kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste

To serve:

jalapeno peppers, cut in rings

shaved red onion

sour cream

shredded cheese

tortillas, chips, rice or couscous

cilantro

Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and set aside.

In the cooking insert of your Crockpot Slow Cooker with WeMo, combine the adobo or chipotle paste, the garlic, the spices, and the stock or water and whisk together.

Fold in the vegetables and stir to coat. Gently fold in the chicken thighs, and distribute evenly.

Set your slow cooker to 'Low' for 4 hours or 'High' for 2 hours.  Serve over rice or couscous or with tortillas or tortilla chips and garnished with your favorite combination of cilantro, jalapeños, red onions, sour cream, and shredded cheese. 

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This is hilarious

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RECIPE!

Chipotle chicken, black bean and corn chili

This has made about 4 lunches for me, go ahead and double/triple/etc:

1 can chipotles in adobo

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/4 cup chicken stock or water

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 plum or roma tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 cup fresh or canned corn

1-2 cups rehydrated or canned beans of your choice (amount varies depending on how bean-y you want this to be)

4 boneless skinless chicken thighs

salt and pepper, to taste

In your slow cooker insert oven thingy, combine the adobo sauce, the tomato paste, and the chicken stock or water and whisk to combine. Depending on how spicy you like it, chop up a couple of the chipotles and throw them in, too.

Season with cumin, cinnamon and garlic. 

Fold in the tomatoes, corn and beans. Taste, and adjust the seasonings. 

Nestle the chicken thighs into the salsa-y mixture, make sure they're either submerged or mostly covered.

Cook in your slow cooker on low for 6 hours or high for 4. Shred the chicken meat (it should spread with just a spoon), stir it in, and either enjoy right away with cilantro and crema or cotija cheese, or refrigerate and reheat as needed.

No slow cooker? You can also do this in a dutch oven, just preheat to 375, coat the bottom of the pan with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and add a little more chicken stock to prevent too much evaporation.

Chicken, black bean and corn chipotle chili. Working from home is awesome but it can be super difficult to plan lunches - more than once I resorted to stale peanuts and dried up bits of cheese.

Then I put my slow cooker to use. It’s almost too easy to throw some proteins and veggies into the pot. Set it and forget it and in a couple of hours you’ve got hot lunch ready and waiting. Best of all, you can just stick the insert pot in your fridge overnight and pop it back into the slow cooker the next day for perfectly heated leftovers.

Tl;dr: I don’t even care if this makes me sound like a #housewife

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Check back! I added a recipe/guide!

Banana & salted caramel ice cream. 3 ingredients: bananas, caramel, sea salt.

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Yo I got your weekend RIGHT HERE.

Cut 4-6 bananas into coins and freeze, at least 2 hours or overnight.

Plop your bananas into a food processor. Process the bananas, holding the machine down so it doesn't jump all over the place. Stop and scrape down the bowl as needed.

Just when you're about to give up and declare failure, the bananas will suddenly morph into creamy ice cream. Rejoice.

Now, with the machine running, add in your caramel and your sea salt. Keep the machine going because the caramel will start to seize up when it touches the cold bananas, and you don't want massive chunks of frozen caramel. Or maybe you do?!?!?!?!

(Not into caramel and sea salt? Then go for chocolate chips, peanut butter, chopped nuts, broken cookies, chocolate syrup, maple syrup, and/or coconut flakes instead.)

Scoop your ice cream into a container and firm up in the freezer, at least 2 hours but preferably overnight. Enjoy knowing your ice cream is not only the tastiest but also pretty much the healthiest.

Banana & salted caramel ice cream. 3 ingredients: bananas, caramel, sea salt.

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Heat wave got me like

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Breakfast sandwich: sesame seitan steak, local egg, lettuce/cucumber/green onion, sriracha mayo, organic whole wheat sourdough. Take that, Monday.

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ALL GRILL EVERYTHING. Kale: toss with olive oil, salt, garlic and hot pepper flakes in a foil packet. Keep to the cool side of the grill. Corn: remove the silk but keep the husks on. Soak in water for about 5 minutes. Grill, moving back and forth from the hot side to the cool side until the kernels are soft and charred. Eat as is, or slather with butter and salt or crema/sour cream, cotija, lime juice and cayenne. Spring onions: trim, skewer, drizzle with olive oil and salt, grill until charred and soft.

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Tacos de siempre.   I've eaten approximately 427 fish tacos since moving to Los Angeles 2.5 years ago and have roughly 0 regrets about any of 'em.

These are from Ricky's Fish Tacos which I live blessedly close to. BRB, need more fish tacos.

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Charbroiled mushrooms and peas, salsa verde, truffle Brie, sunny side up farmers market egg TACO.

Taco Tuesday change up! Craved something a little untraditional today and went with something that comfortably straddled breakfast and lunch. And also was a taco.

Because tacos.

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It's Taco Tuesday, friends. Act accordingly.

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Did you know that grilling bivalves is one of the easiest things to cook? Not to mention one of the most insanely delicious.

Here's a recipe that is so easy it can't really even be called a recipe:

Put about a pound of cleaned clams/mussels/oysters/cockles in a clean pie plate

Toss in whatever flavors you like with your clams/mussels/oysters/cockles. In the picture above, I used a pound of Manila clams with 1/2 a lemon, a heaping handful of scallion greens, and about 2 tablespoons of butter. 

Chuck the pie plate on the hot side of your grill, cover, and let the bivalves do their thing for about 6-8 minutes, then take a peek under the lid. If the bivalves are open, carefully remove the pie plate from the grill and enjoy. If they're not all open, pop the lid back on for a couple more minutes.

Other flavor combos to try: 

coconut milk/cream, lemongrass, ginger, sliced chiles

minced garlic, Old Bay, butter

white wine, scallions, butter

ghee, paprika, curry powder

hefeweizen, butter, chopped bacon, finish with cream

What's your favorite recipe for clams, oysters or mussels?

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Protip: Put fresh greens in the middle of your grilled cheese instead of on the bread to keep your sandwich crispy, not soggy. // Roquefort, local buckwheat honey, smoked turkey breast and local baby arugula on sourdough.

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Thai basil buds straight from the garden! Gonna toss them with some raw red onion, lime juice and fish sauce and heap it on top of some grilled chicken breasts.

What are you cooking this weekend?

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Who Started The Food Truck?

One dude in 1872, apparently. Awesome article.