Lemonade

6 lemons
3 qt water
1/2 cup honey

Slice lemons into thin strips and boil in water for 10 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup honey to mixture and serve hot or cold.

Awesome recipe link

http://www.eat-yourself-skinny.com/p/recipe-box_20.html

There are SO many recipes I want to try from there!

CrockPot Gyro Recipe

I followed the fantastic recipe online by Sarah Christine Bolton, the Savvy Slow Cooker of CDKitchen. Sarah knows her stuff---I recommend spending some time checking out her recipes.

The Ingredients.

For the gyro meat:

--1/2 pound ground lamb
--1/2 pound ground turkey
--2 t oregano
--1 t paprika

--1/2 chopped onion
--3 cloves minced garlic
--juice from 1 lemon

For the Tzatziki sauce (optional, but not really):

--1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
--1 cup plain non fat yogurt
--1 T olive oil
--3 cloves minced garlic
--2 T chopped fresh mint
--juice from 1 lemon

Extra stuff (optional. for reals.):

--pita bread
--lettuce
--tomatoes
--feta cheese
--olives

The Directions.

Don't freak out about the number of ingredients. This comes together very quickly. I promise. Chop up the onion, and 3 cloves of garlic, and put them in the bottom of your crockpot. In a small mixing bowl, combine the two kinds of ground meat with the paprika and oregano. If your spices don't have a fresh smell anymore, or if you think they may have been purchased in the 90s, consider buying fresh bottles for this dish.

Make a little meatloaf with your hands. Put the meatloaf log on top of the chopped onion and garlic in your crockpot. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the top of the meat.

Cover and cook on LOW for 3-4 hours, or on HIGH for about 2.

While you are waiting for the meat to cook, make up a batch of the yummy Tzatziki sauce and put it in the fridge.

You will know when the meat is done, because it will not be raw when you cut into it. This is all so very technical, you know.

Carefully! remove the meat from the crockpot and slice it thinly on a cutting board.

Serve it with pitas (or corn or brown rice tortillas) with the Tzatziki sauce and whatever desired fixings you have chosen.

Vietnamese Pho

The kids and I LOVE pho (pronounced fuh, not foe) and on the rare night we go out to eat as a family pho is usually our go-to. You get an enormous bowl that the kids can split and I can barely finish (it's an effort, but I apply myself diligently) for $7.95. You can't beat feeding three people at a restaurant for under $20. Once in a while, if we get lunch I'll spring for the coffee too and then I spend the rest of the day vibrating. If you've ever had Vietnamese coffee you'll know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, well you need to if you like coffee because it's as close as you can come to mainlining the stuff.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to attempting this recipe. I'm going to be focusing heavily on the crockpot this summer since my new kitchen is super small and not very well ventilated. I turn on that oven and the entire front of the house heats up at least five degrees (while the back of the house stays a nice cool 78).

This recipe comes from crockpot365, my favorite crock pot blog ever!

The Ingredients.
--6 cups beef broth or stock
--2 inch chunk of peeled ginger
--3/4 t anise (I just use one whole star anise)
--1 cinnamon stick
--2 sliced green onions
--1 lb thin sliced beef (I used bulgogi meat from the Asian market)
--package of rice noodles
--1 t fish sauce (I also throw three whole frozen anchovies in the broth)
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1/2 t black pepper

Garnish:

--lime wedges

--bean sprouts

--cilantro

--basil

--sriracha

--soy

--fish sauce

The Directions.

Put all of the broth into the crockpot. Add the meat, green onion, ginger, fish sauce, and spices. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours, or on low for 4-6. It's done when the meat is fully cooked. I used a 6qt Smart Pot for this recipe and it took a good 4 hours on high for the large amount of broth in my crock to get hot enough to cook the meat.

--my edit, I like my meat rare, so I put it in the bottom of the bowl and pour the broth from the pot on top of it.  The meats cooks up perfectly, just like in the restaurant.  When I followed the directions, the meat was tough and chewy.

15 minutes before serving, add the entire package of rice noodles to the pot. Push them under the liquid with a wooden spoon, and cover.

By the time you set the table, the noodles will be tender and glass-like. Serve in bowls.