Taco salad and chipotle ranch dressing

One Lovely Life

Dressing
1 cup mayonnaise or veganaise (homemade or store-bought)
1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk (or dairy milk or water)
1 chipotle peppers in adobo
juice of 1 lime
salt, to taste

1/2t garlic powder

In a food processor, blender, or using an immersion blender, puree all ingredients (start with 1 pepper!) until very smooth. Taste and add additional salt or chipotle pepper as desired.
Dressing will keep in the refrigerator up to 1 week.

I served with Lisa Morby's Taco salad-

Romaine lettuce

lightly smashed tortilla chips

ground beef or shredded beef, pork, or chicken (look at recipe link below)

black beans

corn

chopped tomatoes
chopped peppers

shredded cheese

avocado
optional- chopped 1/2 red, 1/2 yellow, 1/2 orange peppers

I prepared, cooked and chopped everything in the morning. Then reheated the beans and beef b4 dinner and then dinner was ready in the evening!!! Delicious

#1. I have used this Crockpot Mexican Chicken for the meat, turned out delicious

#2. Or Beef Carnitas  

https://www.onelovelylife.com/slow-cooker-beef-carnitas/#tasty-recipes-22054-jump-target

Chinese Egg rolls

Steamy Kitchen

Serve with Oyakodon

1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with ¼ cup of cool water to seal egg roll

Cooking oil, for frying
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 pound ground pork or leftover  cooked or uncooked meat
1 shredded head of cabbage  (or could use leftover salad)
6 fresh sliced shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded
1 cup julienned carrots
2 cloves garlic, very finely minced
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Freshly ground black pepper
sauteed onions

I had leftover seasoned shredded pork.

Heat a wok or large saute pan over high heat. Add the cooking oil and swirl to coat. Add the marinated pork/meat and stir-fry until no longer pink, about 2-3 minutes. Turn heat to medium-low, push the meat to one side of the pan. Add the garlic, cabbage, carrots, ginger and the mushrooms and stir-fry for 1 minute, until the vegetables are softened. Add the rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and black pepper. Continue to stir-fry for another minute. Scoop out the filling to a baking sheet and spread out to cool. Prop up one end of the baking sheet so that it tilts and will allow all the moisture to drain to one end. Let cool for 15 minutes.

 Discard all of the accumulated juices. Use paper towels to blot the filling to rid of extra oil or juice. Now, you're ready to wrap (see photos for instructions on how to wrap).

IMPORTANT: Only use 1 heaping tablespoon of filling for each egg roll. These are slender egg rolls, the width of the egg roll should only be 1.25" diameter.

Keep the rolled egg rolls in neat, single layer and covered with plastic wrap to prevent drying. If you want to stack the egg rolls, make sure you have layer of parchment paper in between the layers to prevent sticking. Keep wrappers also covered with plastic wrap to prevent drying. Refrigerate up to 4 hours until ready to fry or freeze.

 To fry the egg rolls, fill a wok or pot with 2 inches of high-heat cooking oil. Heat the oil to 350°F (175°C) or until a cube of bread will fry to golden brown within 10 seconds. Gently slide in or lower the egg rolls, frying 4 to 6 at a time, turning occasionally until golden brown about 1½ minutes. Place on wire rack to drain and cool.

NOTE: To fry frozen egg rolls, do not defrost the egg rolls – just add them to the oil frozen, frying 4 to 6 at a time. Add an additional 1½ minutes to the frying time since they are frozen.

2/12/25  I made these egg rolls. I sauted some on the stove and cooked some in the oven at 440 degrees on a greased cookie pan.
I had extra filling leftover so I made Fried rice. 
 -Cooked rice, sauteed rice . 
-Added the leftover sausage cabbage ( egg roll filling) to the rice and 
-scrambled and cooked 4 eggs. 
-Added frozen peas

Crockpot Kalua Pork

All Recipes
Original recipe 12 servings

1 (6 pound) pork butt roast (or chicken)
1 1/2 tablespoons Hawaiian sea salt
1-3 tablespoon liquid smoke flavoring (depending on the strength of the flavor you want)

1 onion and celery (3 stalks) Chopped (optional)

Pierce pork all over with a carving fork. Rub salt  over meat. Place roast in a slow cooker. Add chopped celery and onion.
Cover, and cook on Low for 16 to 20 hours, turning once during cooking time. A few hours before the meat is being served I add liquid smoke.
Remove meat from slow cooker, and shred, adding drippings as needed to moisten.

Serve with rice

Serve with either Macaroni salad or green lettuce salad

To serve (20-30 people)
3 pork boneless roasts weighing about 4 lbs each
2 onions and celery (3 stalks) Chopped (optional)
salt
2 containers of liquid smoke

For our extended family we made this.  Begin cooking a whole day before the event.  Put pork, salt, onion, and celery in the crockpot on high the first 8 hours then put it on low for 8 more hours. A few hours before the meat is being served I add liquid smoke (b/c it makes our house liquid smokeyness).

 I have used butt roast or shoulder roasts before and it works out just fine.

Leftovers!!!!!  (day 1) Kalua pork, served with sticky rice & mac salad; 

(day 2) Pulled pork - add BBQ sauce & nuke, serve on buns; 

(day 3) Carnitas - crisp up the pork in a skillet with a squirt of juice from a plastic lime, sprinkle of cumin, & fresh cilantro if I have it, served with guacamole & salsa. 

Serve Macaroni Salad with this pork/chicken recipe

Blueberry & Avocado with grapefruit dressing

A Bountiful Kitchen

• 1 large head of lettuce, preferably Romaine or leaf lettuce, washed,dried and chopped
• OR one 8-12 oz bag of Spring mix or Spinach (about 15 cups total greens)
• 1 pint of blueberries, washed
• 1-2 avocados, cut into chunks or sliced
• 1 cup dried apricots, sliced
• 1 cup crumbled Gorgonzola or Blue cheese, crumbled, I used regular white cheese (mozzarella) and sliced it up in small cubes
• 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds or almonds (salted or unsalted)
• could add cooked quinoa
• 
  

FOR DRESSING- (2 quantities to choose from)
less    More

2/3    ¾ cup fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
1/4    ½ cup white or golden balsamic vinegar
1       2 cups light olive oil or canola oil*
1/2    1 teaspoon salt
1/2    1 teaspoon pepper
1/8    ¼ cup green onion, white part only
1/8    ¼ cup honey or sugar, more or less to taste
optional- 2 cups leftover chicken breast meat, cooked and cut into chunks

I made the less version of the dressing

1. Place the lettuce in a large bowl. Toss with remaining ingredients, reserving some of each of the ingredients for topping the salad for presentation.
2. Make the dressing by whisking all of the ingredients together in blender until green onions are smooth.
3. Drizzle dressing on top of salad or dress the salads individually.
4. Refrigerate any leftovers.

This salad may be made ahead and all of the individual ingredients stored in Ziplock bags until ready to serve. Do not cut the avocados until ready to serve. 
-For serving, reserve some of the ingredients and place on top of the salad after tossing the rest of the ingredients together in bowl. Drizzle dressing on top. 
-If you are doubling the salad, one recipe of the dressing will cover a double or triple batch of salad.
-If you need to cut the avocados early, toss them with some lemon juice and a bit of the dressing and seal with plastic wrap pressed next to the avocado in a bowl or ziplock bag without smashing the avocado. Pressing all of the air out and tossing with something acidic will prevent the avocado from browning! Make sure to refrigerate.
- I used a mixture of Butter lettuce and Spring Mix in the salad photographed, which I love, but don='t recommend if you're going to let the salad sit in the fridge for a while. Butter lettuce is wonderful, but very tender and doesn't hold up well if it has to sit for very long, refrigerated or unrefrigerated! Romaine or other bagged lettuces which have been spun very dry that are pre packaged work well if you have to let the salad sit for a while on a buffet table.