crockpot chronicles: day 3

hello! i hope y'all have had a great weekend - i sure did! i'm sorry i'm late in getting this third review up; there's been quite a lot going on in my little corner of the world. so! here's the chicken and vegetable bake my mom and i had on thursday night. for a lady who is such a picky eater and generally doesn't like vegetables, she was quite fond of this chicken dish, so i'll step a little out on a limb and say it may be safe for picky eaters!

Chicken and Vegetable Bake – from slowandsimple.com

INGREDIENTS

8 chicken thighs

1 pkg. frozen vegetables

2 cans whole potatoes, drained

1 can water chestnuts

1 tsp. garlic powder

Salt & pepper

1 bottle Italian salad dressing

DIRECTIONS

Sprinkle chicken with salt, pepper, & garlic powder. Place chicken in bottom of crock pot. Add remaining ingredients. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or high for 4 to 6 hours.

i made a couple changes to this one. instead of chicken thighs (because my favorite picky eater doesn't like dark meat), i used chicken breasts. i had a 5 lb bag of frozen boneless, skinless breasts, and i used about half of them. dumped them in the crockpot frozen and seasoned them there. this may not have been the best idea, it may have been better if they had at least been thawed, but i don't imagine it had too much of an adverse effect. since the recipe wasn't specific, i just picked the frozen veggies that appealed the most to me - my bag happened to have squash, zucchini, carrots, and asparagus, but get whatever looks yummy to you! the recipe didn't say to, but i drained the water chestnuts, and i'm happy with that decision. also, i didn't shred the chicken in the crockpot when it was done cooking, but i think the next time i make this recipe i will, and the reasons for that are twofold. one, it would be easier to evenly portion out servings. two, i think shredded chicken would have better absorbed some of the juices/sauce so it wouldn't have been quite as runny. since it was a bit rich in liquid, i'd recommend serving it over some rice. i didn't do that this time, and like i said, we loved it, but i think it would have been a nice addition. maybe some wild rice? also. it would be a great idea to cut up the potatoes before you try to serve. i didn't pay much attention when i was putting it together, but i imagine they're about as easy to cut straight out of the can as fresh potatoes, and since i like to cut things with a fork, probably waiting till it's done is best. as you can see in the picture, i had a whole potato on my plate, which is fine for me, but not too little-kid-friendly. i'm guessing. 

here we go:

• ease of prep - 5 - another dump and go - love, love, love that!
• multiple parts/same pot - 4
  almost totally complete! only lacking some rice/pasta, but now that i think about it, that's probably not totally necessary. maybe cut down on the dressing a little? or not. your call. but the more i think about it, the more i think i would add a second bag of veggies. maybe the same, maybe some variety...but they would stretch the chicken out even further.
• cooks for 6-8 hours - 5
  in the crockpot at 9, on the table at 7. perfect after 10 hours. (okay, it wasn't really on the table, it was on a plate in my lap watching the big bang theory. i feel that honesty is important here)
• crockpot to table ease - 5
  i'd actually give it a 5+, but i hate when people say "on a scale of 1 to 10, she's an 11." well, no, she's not, the scale only goes to ten. and this scale only goes to five, so i'm not going to go against my better judgement and add a +. but it was really, really easy.
• freezer leftovers - 5
  it's in the freezer. and it was easy. and i see it being quite easy on the way back out, too.

this one is definitely a front-runner with a final score of 24/25!

i know i got behind by one recipe this week - so sorry! i will get in four this coming week, and i'll try to push it and get that fifth one in, too, so we can see all ten before we're done. i hope y'all all have a fantastic week, and a happy leap day!

♥ whit

crockpot chronicles: day 2

we made it halfway through the week! - should be a downhill slide from here til friday, don't y'all think?

we had some delicious italian beef on monday, and today we went for some more beef, but from a different region - slow cooker barbecue beef? yes, please! here we go:

Slow Cooker Barbecue Beef Sandwiches – from Southern Living via myrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 (3 1/2-pound) eye-of-round roast, cut in half vertically

2 teaspoons salt, divided

2 garlic cloves, pressed

yes, i buy store brands. no, i'm not store-loyal. :-)

1 (10-ounce) can condensed beef broth 

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup lemon juice

3 tablespoons steak sauce

1 teaspoon coarse ground pepper

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

12 Kaiser rolls or sandwich buns

Dill pickle slices

Preparation

Sprinkle beef evenly with 1 teaspoon salt.

Stir together remaining 1 teaspoon salt, garlic, and next 7 ingredients. Pour half of mixture into a 5 1/2-quart slow cooker. Place beef in slow cooker, and pour remaining mixture over beef.

Cover and cook on HIGH 7 hours.

Shred beef in slow cooker with two forks. Serve in rolls or buns with dill pickle slices.

the prep (or getting things in the pot) for this one took a little more time than the italian beef, if only for all the measuring. i must say, i am a fan of throw-and-go. (as in...throw it in the crockpot and go away.) i used the same chuck roast as i did yesterday. well, not the same one, but the same as in it was chuck like yesterday's and i bought it at the same time. also, it was only 3 pounds, not 3 1/2, and i did not cut it. i don't think any of this affected (that's affect, with an a) the outcome negatively. yummy in my tummy!

other notes

• i grated the garlic instead of pressing. gosh, i can't wait to get myself a microplane. [random sidenote - got a gift card to crate & barrel for my birthday and i saw one in the catalog so it probably won't be much longer!]
• i used fresh lemons for the juice, one, because i didn't run into any bottled juice in the store and two, i have this handheld juicer i love using. it took 4 small lemons to get the 1/2 cup of juice - watch for seeds!
• the whole "mixture" came out to about 3c for me, so 1 1/2 c in the crockpot before the roast, 1 1/2 c after. it usually helps me to know how much of something i've got coming so i know what size bowl to mix it up in. i know some of y'all know what i'm talking about, when you start getting everything put together then you realize it's not going to fit...
• don't forget, when you're shredding the beef in the crock pot, to pull out any fat - it came off pretty easily for me again today.
• i used those same hawaiian rolls from last night because they're so yummy and just the perfect size.
• i skipped the pickles because pickles are gross. if you don't find them gross, by all means, but i just couldn't do it.
• i didn't have a side, but i would go for some green beans. i have this great green bean and pine nut recipe that uses fresh green beans and, if memory serves, takes under 10 minutes. fantastic!

now to the judges:

• ease of prep - 4
  it did take like 15 minutes. and 15 minutes to put everything in a pot? come on. i can take one point for that.
• multiple parts/same pot - 2
  again, no other parts here. but a green bean side wouldn't have been much trouble at all, so i can leave a couple points here.
• cooks for 6-8 hours - 5
  the recipe says 7, i took it out at 6 1/2 - the roast almost fell apart in the crockpot. perfect!
• crockpot to table ease - 5
  no problem here at all. put some meat on the buns/rolls, spoon a little juice (really not thick enough to call it a sauce) over the top, and since pickles are gross, we're good to go.
• freezer leftovers - 4
  i'm starting to worry that this is a sort of double-taxation category and these recipes are getting penalized twice for not having a side. for this reason, there may be some scoring revision before all is said and done, but for now, i'm going to leave it as-is. (i'm also thinking of adding a yummy-ness category because that seems pretty important!)

final score - 20/25

i'm going to check out for this p.m.; all this yummy food is wearing me out! - i'd love to hear how the italian beef turned out for y'all!

crockpot chronicles: day 1

as promised, here's the italian beef! (spoiler alert: i just had it for dinner, and it was delicious!)

here's the original recipe as i received it - the notes/comments are from my sister-in-law, jamie:

Italian Beef – from Jamie Koonce

Ingredients

6 lbs Rolled Rump Roast (I just get a roast that I would use for roast and potatoes)

2 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

1 package onion soup mix

1 jar of pepperoncini

3 cups of water (sometimes a little less)

Directions

Mix dry ingredients and sprinkle over meat. Add water and the pepperoncinis (and the juice). Put all in crockpot and cook on low all day. Remove from pot and shred with fork (I sometimes also take the stems off of the pepperoncinis). Return to juice after shredding. Serve on rolls (I use Potato) and add shredded mozzarella.

now for my notes: i used a chuck roast instead of the rump roast - it was a bit cheaper per pound than the rump roast and there was more of it at the store. i also only used 3 pounds instead of the 6 - i am, after all, a poor college student cooking for one, sometimes 3. i put the roast in the pot and seasoned on top of it. since i halved the beef, i eased up on the spices, too, but i am a student of the rachael ray school of cooking, so i just seasoned until it looked good. half of the onion soup packet, half of the jar of pepperoncinis - i just eyeballed it all. also, on the pepperoncinis, i got sliced instead of whole, which eliminates the de-stemming step. this morning, from fridge to crockpot was ten whole minutes. then, when i got home tonight, it took another ten to get it ready for my tummy.

this is what it looked like when i walked in the door. i put the beef into a separate bowl and proceeded to shred. this is a good time to get out any fat, and for a couple of reasons. one, when you take the beef out, it tends to separate itself along the fat lines. two, if you do it right then, you don't have to think about it later. i'm all about the simplification. there really wasn't much fat on the roast anyway, so it didn't take much time. then the beef went back into the juice. a word of caution here - it will splash, and it will be hot. keep your bare arms out of the way because if not, ouch! i put my little sammiches together on those little hawaiian dinner rolls, because seriously, who doesn't love them? topped off with some cheese - i used mexican blend because it's what i had on hand - and a little cup of juice for dipping. i was quite pleased with myself.

the cost breakdown was as follows:
3# chuck roast $13.44
pepperoncinis $1.72
hawaiian dinner rolls $2.98
the onion soup, cheese, and spices were on hand, but let's say (leaving lots of room) $5 there.
which brings us to $23.14 for the whole meal, before tax. i'm estimating 12 meals out of it, so that's about 2 bucks a meal, which i can totally swing. hey, almost as cheap as mcdonald's, and a whole lot tastier!

now for the scoring breakdown:

• ease of prep - 5!
• multiple parts/same pot - 2
  this really didn't have any other parts, but i don't think it needed any. granted, a vegetable wouldn't have hurt, but under the "keep it simple" premise, i didn't want to mess with it.
• cooks for 6-8 hours - 5
  i left it for 6 on the dot, but i don't think any longer would have hurt it one bit.
• crockpot to table ease - 5
  ten minutes is a completely acceptable time frame in my world.
• freezer leftovers - 4
  it does go right in the freezer - it's great - but if i'm any hungrier next time i pull it out, it's going to need a side, so that's the only reason it lost a point here. what i do love, though, is that it would just take some fresh rolls to make a brand new dish.

final score - 21/25

y'all get out your crockpots and non-cook along with me! let me know what you thought!

as a side note, i tend to get a little frustrated with the lack of formatting in can do on this blog. if any of you have any pointers for the technologically challenged (i'm a no-html girl), i'd be forever indebted. thanks in advance!

crockpot chronicles: intro

y'all ready to get down to business? let's go!

i think we'll start off easy. the best idea i've come up with for that is some slow-cooker meals. i've spent some time searching the internet, my own cookbooks, and the recipe boxes of my dear family members looking for the simplest crockpot recipes. the goal was this: a meal that requires minimal preparation, has multiple parts (meat and veggies, generally) that are in the crock-pot at the same time, cooks for 6-8 hours, has a high degree of crockpot-to-table ease, and makes leftovers that can go in the freezer. this search came as a solution to several challenges. first, as a full time (plus) college student who works, i don't often have the time to come home and cook a whole meal, but on the flip side of that, i also don't have the cash to eat out every night, even if it is the mcdonald's dollar menu. second, i'd like to have something with a bit more nutritional value than whatever grade of "beef" it is that they use at taco bell. this is not to say that i don't enjoy the occasional baja chicken chalupa or fries and a diet coke, but they're not going to constitute my daily meals. (well, the diet coke might.) with these criteria in mind, i have compiled a list of recipes to test out. just to avoid my fear of the unknown for now, i'm sticking to the beef/pork/chicken family. once i get a little more confident in my cooking and i'm sure i won't kill anyone, i may branch out to seafood, but not quite yet. - i know it sounds weird, at least it did to me, but i have found some seafood crockpot recipes. the recipes i chose will be scored on a 25-point scale (that's right, this is official!), and at the end of the testing period, i'll put together a ranking for all to enjoy! this go-round i'll plan on eight recipes, which is about two weeks in my world, and they'll start tomorrow, monday. first up is going to be italian beef - yum! i'll do my best to update on a daily basis with a report of how everything went. i hope y'all enjoy, and as always, any suggestions are much appreciated! have a great week!

it's the weekend!

and it's been a pretty big one for me! i had a birthday, but the real news is...eleven inches of my hair came off yesterday and got sent off to locks of love! i haven't had any more than a trim in at least eight years, so this was, as they say, kind of a big deal. i guess i'd been wanting to cut it for a long time, and i finally worked up the nerve (and grew it long enough) to do it - gone!, just like that. chandra, the woman in the picture holding what used to be attached to my head, was wonderful. a couple short hours and a good dose of salon gossip later, we were finished. since i was making such a big change, i figured the color might as well be something brand new, too. it's going to take some getting used to, but so far, i'm loving the new 'do. i went with my parents tonight for a delicious dinner at del frisco's double eagle steakhouse here in houston. the food was outstanding! crab cakes, filet mignons, and banana bread pudding - yes, please! i feel so lucky that i still have my parents close enough to get to spend lots of time with them. as my birthday weekend draws to a close, i'd just like to send out a huge thank you and an even bigger i love you to my mom and dad. they've done more for me than i could have ever deserved, shown me over and over again what real, unconditional love looks and feels like, and they have never given up on this work in progress. thanks, mom and dad, for turning me into the woman i am today. i hope i'm a daughter you're proud to claim, because i'm sure proud to have you for parents. i love y'all!

welcome to wednesday!

i hope you're not feeling too much of a sugar hangover from all the valentine's day candy. - funny how, in my head, at least, valentine's day is just as much a candy holiday as halloween.

what's newsworthy today:

• i got a report tuesday morning from the mommy of the joys of my life (also known as my sister-in-law) that valentine's gifts arrived just in time! one heart headband even made an appearance at school on valentine's day. i feel so honored!
• i just hit my first milestone in the blog world - i have a member! so it's my mother, yes, but i would want no one else to be my first (and only, so far!) member. honored, again.

i've been toying around with a couple ideas of how to start things off here. after revisiting pinterest (is that not the best invention ever?), i noticed that my recipe board was the biggest of all, so i figured i'd start off there. details on that to come in the next couple days.

i don't want anything around here to get stale, so i'll try not to spend too long on any one topic. as i said yesterday, your comments and suggestions are not just welcome, they're encouraged!

hoping y'all are having a wonderful wednesday,
whitney

valentine's day crafts

i have two nieces (ages 6 years and 11 months) and one nephew (age almost three), and they are the joys of my life. they live a few states away, so i don't get to see them as often as i'd like to, but they're my favorite people to craft for! i think my mom and i will keep the post office in business with everything we send to them! hey, if grammy and aunt whitney can't spoil you, who can?

some of the inspiration for the valentine's crafts came by way of pinterest, and some by way of google searches. also, allfreecrochet.com is a great site with lots of ideas for all sorts of projects. i'll try to find the links to the sites where i got the patterns for all these goodies, and i will update with links as soon as they're found. until then, i'll just share the pictures of the finished products!

heart elephant for c, age 11 months

"moomintroll" for d, age 2 years 11 months

bobble bag and headbands for a, age 6

as relatively new crocheter, i am quite proud of my efforts. there is certainly room to improve, but i think it's a pretty good start! i hope my little ones enjoy their goodies, because i sure enjoyed making them! happy valentine's day! ♥

welcome!

i'd like to take this opportunity to welcome y'all to my version of the deep south! i hope this valentine's day finds you well and with lots of chocolates, whether your sweetie bought them for you or your momma did.

i'm a georgia peach by birth, and, after a stint above the mason-dixon, where my love for cardinals baseball was cultivated, i became a rough-and-tumble texan by transplant. the road to where i am hasn't always been smooth, but i'm currently two semesters away from (finally) graduating with my bachelor of arts degree in spanish from the university of houston. the plan then is to continue my education, although the where/what questions remain unanswered at this point. during my free time (can y'all hear the sarcasm?), i wait tables, which has become my main motivation for finishing my degree. when all is said and done, i'd like to have a huge front porch east of the mississippi and south of the mason-dixon where i can sit and sip my sweet tea while i watch a bunch of kiddos catch lightning bugs on those summer evenings that seem to stretch out forever. until then, i'd like to share with y'all my love of cooking, crafting, and entertaining. (for the sake of full disclosure, i must say that my opinions on myriad subjects may sneak in from time to time.) i am, by no means, an expert in any of these areas, and i'm a something of a beginner in at least one of them, but i hope we can all share and learn together.

i'd love any suggestions y'all have, or ideas for anything new to try. again, welcome, and i hope this is a fantastic time!