I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

slow cooker

Slow Cooker Almond Joy Chocolate Clusters

Slow Cooker Almond Joy Chocolate Clusters are great to whip up for homemade holiday gifts. Making them is basically hands off as you use a slow cooker!

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It’s time to get baking cooking, making candy, and decking halls. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

I’m sure that you are just as stuffed as we are from Thanksgiving, but I’m still ready to cook up a storm. I’m not running out looking for the best deals today. I don’t do all that Black Friday Hoopla. I’m just going to get cozy with some cookbooks and plan out all that baking I am going to be doing this Holiday Season.

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Jalapeno Jelly Glazed Slow Cooker Meatballs

Jalapeno Jelly Glazed Slow Cooker Meatballs are an easy and delicious appetizer that are perfect to whip up with tasty Jalapeno Pepper Jelly and sweet BBQ sauce for parties and holiday celebrations. 

This post and recipe was created for Tastefully Simple, but, as always, opinions are 100% mine.

I feel like it’s finally fall!!!

The temps have finally started to cool here in Florida, and I just read that we are 60 days out from Christmas. OMG, where has the year gone to?!?! It is now the season for holiday parties. I am soooo ready for it all.

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Slow Cooker Sweet Spicy and Short Rib Tacos

I just started going back to work from maternity leave with Hunter. Man, it’s been a rough week. Oh shoot, it’s just been 3 days. Wahhhh!!

I am thankful that starting on Tuesday has meant that it is a short week for me. Same with next week with Labor Day. Starting off slow is much better than being thrown into the deep end.

Hunter has been great but I have been a useless mess. I have sobbed driving to work every morning.

I even ditched Price on the first day by dropping off Autumn and leaving him standing at the door to Hunter’s classroom with a puzzled look on his face as I ran our through the main doors waving a frantic bye among other kids trying to get out and get on a bus. I then followed that up with a text in the car apologizing but explaining how I couldn’t go in the room. Very much like the post it that Berger left for Carrie in SATC “I’m Sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”

I’m hoping for a better week next week, but lets be real, it will probably suck too. Gotta keep some realistic expectations over here.

Besides that, it’s all about adjusting to the new morning routine and how to get prepped for the day. I already had 1 issue with forgetting nipples for Hunter’s bottles and my neighbor saved the day by dropping off some at his daycare. It takes a village!

One of the things at makes life a bit easier is having dinner ready when I get home. I do love using my Instant Pot Pressure Cooker, but there is something so nice and familiar about using a slow cooker. Plus, it’s awesome to come home to a house that smells so good.

Short Ribs are my go to meat right now. I love them in tacos and in marinara sauce. Last year I shared another short rib taco recipe using a slow cooker, but I swear this one is different! I love finding new-to-me spices and ingredients so I was excited when I grabbed a bag of Chile Guajillo peppers. They are a mild to medium spiced chili that is often used in salsas, sauces, and rubs to flavor meats.

I wanted to try them with the short ribs by allowing them to flavor the meat as it cooked all day. To cut some of the heat, I used some orange juice for sweetness. And the beer is another great way to add some flavor. If you prefer, you can sub our the beer for stock as that is just as flavorful, in a different way. I think it worked out so well. yum!

Hoping you enjoy these tacos just as much as we did!

 Slow Cooker Sweet and Spicy Short Rib Tacos

Makes 8 Tacos

Ingredients

For the Short Rib Filling

  • 2 pounds of boneless short ribs
  • 1 Cup Orange Juice
  • 1 Cup light beer or beef stock
  • 3 dried Guajillo chilies
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper

For the Tacos

  • Flour Tortillas
  • desired fillings such as greens, avocado, tomato, diced onion, cheese

Process

  1. Combine all of the ingredients in a slow cooker.
  2. Cook for 8 hours on low.
  3. Discard the bay leaf and chilies.
  4. Shred the short rib meat, discarding pieces that are too fatty. Return short rib meat back to liquid in slow cooker.
  5. Assemble tacos with desired toppings.

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Slow Cooker Monkey Bread

I am going to conquer our little office this weekend. Well, I hope.

I have a plan for our little office nook. It’s an outcove off our kitchen area, on the way to the bathroom. It’s quite efficient for space so there aren’t too many options for it. We have a folding table there now but that isn’t a long term solution.

Since there isn’t too much to it, we are going to install a counter there. This was an option for the builder to do but it was crazy expensive. There was no way we were paying $2K for this area. Sure, it would have been great to have a matching counter to our kitchen, but that was an expense that we were just not interested in paying.

So I am heading over to Ikea to pick up a kitchen counter for $45. It will need to be trimmed about a foot or so but there is not much to it. Then we’ll get some brackets up and set it on there. Done and done. Then Price will set up the computer again since I’m useless in that department. I need things color coded or something to hook it all back up properly.

One thing I can simply operate is the slow cooker. ha!

Making monkey bread in the slow cooker is as simple as it gets. You place the coated, cut-up biscuit pieces.

While this method takes longer than your typical baking method, I think it would work well on a morning when you are hosting people or need to get out the door and the rest of the family is sticking around.

I find that cutting the biscuits with kitchen shears to be the easiest way to cut the biscuits. It makes the job super quick as well.

You house will be filled with the sweetest cinnamon roll smell as it cooks.

Slow Cooker Monkey Bread

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients

For the monkey bread

  • 2 cans of large buttermilk biscuits (1 pound each)
  • 2/3 Cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon.
  • 1/2 Cup butter
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the glaze

  • 4 ounces of cream cheese, softened
  • 2 Cups powdered sugar
  • 1 -2 teaspoons milk

Process

  1. Cut each biscuit into 8 equally sized pieces.
  2. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Coat the pieces with the cinnamon sugar mixture.
  3. Add the sugar coated biscuit pieces to the slow cooker that has been sprayed well with non-stick cooking spray.
  4. Melt the butter and then add the vanilla extract. Evenly pour the butter over pieces.
  5. Turn slow cooker on to  the 2 hour setting (high) for 2 hours. After 1 hour, run a rubber spatula between the monkey bread and the side of the slow cooker. Repeat 30 minutes later.
  6. Just prior to the monkey bread being done, make the glaze by combining all of the ingredients.
  7. When cooking is complete immediately remove the slow cooker vessel from the warming element. Drizzle with the glaze.