Carrian Cheney of Oh, Sweet Basil is a blogger, wife and mother who believes in the power of home-cooked food and gathering at the dinner table to improve her family’s minds, bodies and spirits. Carrian is not only a fantastic cook and long-time fan of Hamilton Beach, but strives to inspire families to reconnect through food. She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
Hi everyone! I’m Carrian and I am from the blog, Oh Sweet Basil. My family and I love to get into the kitchen and cook together. (In fact, I’ve got a bowl full of churro pretzels waiting to be photographed right now!) My husband Cade and I run the site together where we talk a lot about food, with a little health, fitness and lifestyle mixed in. Almost everything in our kitchen is from Hamilton Beach so we just knew we had to do a little recipe for our friends there.
This particular recipe came out of sheer desperation. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that I was totally done with my kids and their whining at dinner, but we are all about real life, so I’m just going to give it to you straight.
Both of our girls have been picky eaters. That’s not exactly the most fun thing for a food blogger, as I constantly want to try new things. Our oldest daughter is almost eight, so we buckled down and solved her picky eating issues years ago. Sometimes, I can still see a little disappointment in her face when I serve dinner (chicken is strangely not her favorite, yet she will eat bok choy and hummus all day long), but she knows the rule: we eat what’s prepared.
The little one is three, and we had finally gotten her over the picky eating thing only for it to raise its ugly head again this past month. Ugh! Who knew meal time could be so exhausting! And you know what? I totally deserve it because I was the pickiest eater growing up. But, in an effort to help meal time be more successful, I’ve been using something she does enjoy as a constant ingredient, and then changing the meal around it. She loves pork, so I started thinking up easy dinners that would use pork and still introduce her to new foods and textures.
That’s where the rice bowl came in. I knew I could keep the flavors pretty easy-going, but still allow us adults to add to the dish and make it a little more awesome. We added peppers, cheese, and pico de gallo while she kept hers the pork and rice. Then, she has to try a bite of the peppers, as that’s our rule. And that’s ok with me. The rice is a favorite recipe on my site, cilantro lime rice, and it’s helping her to slowly try new things. Anyone else singing Daniel Tiger? “Try new things ‘cause it might taste gooood.”
Enchilada Rice Bowls
Ingredients
Instructions
- Place the pork in a slow cooker. In a small bowl, whisk together the sauce and brown sugar and pour over the meat.
- Cook on LOW for 8 hours, shredding the meat after 7 hours, then allowing to continue cooking.
- In a bowl, add the rice, pork, and peppers and top with cheese. Place under a broiler and melt the cheese, then top with pico de gallo.
Text, photos and recipe by Carrian Cheney.
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