we now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

hello, lovlies.

i know the last couple weeks have been maybe a little heavy. thanks to all of you for bearing with me while i reset my parameters, so to speak. since y'all've all been so patient with me, i'm going to reward you with some talk about chicken.

stop making that face.

in case you didn't see, about a week ago, i begged y'all to feed me and made a joke about the monkees/the beatles/the dave clark five that i think was lost on everyone (i'm looking at you, mom). my wonderful sister-in-law sent me a recipe for pork tacos that i haven't gotten a chance to try yet (i haven't been to the store since aforementioned begging), but it did remind me of how much i love shredded chicken anything. - it's in the crockpot at home right now and i can't wait to leave this library in seven hours and get home and eat it all. it also reminded me how easy tacos are. yay for chicken and tacos and chicken tacos! - this is really similar to spicy chicken, but much more low-maintenance.

it went something like this:

1. start with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. or, if you're less lazy than i am, don't.
2. cut all the nasty parts off the chicken (while your housemate sits at the table and asks, "what on earth are you doing?") - save these for stock. you can be as lazy as i am and still do this (more on that later. are y'all keeping track of everything i say "more on that later" about? will you send me a list?).
3. cut the chicken into (approximately) 2-inch "squares." make the pieces smaller. i'm not sure why i did this. i was quite tired yesterday. i think i was thinking something about increased surface area for the marinade? this is probably not a necessary step.
4. mix the marinade. we eyeball this step, everyone. maybe that's why it never tastes the same. it's about 2 parts lime juice (i think fresh-squeezed is best, but i know we're busy people and it's not like limes just grow on tr---okay, so maybe they do. but i like to save my fresh limes for margaritas. it's just a marinade it'll be real hard to tell the difference. it's not like we're making a lemon meringue pie or anything.) to 1 part olive oil, a whole lot of fresh ground black pepper (if you think you have enough, go a little longer), some onion powder, garlic powder (or smashed cloves - whatever's in the pantry), just a little bit of salt, and a heaping handful of cumin. whisk it all together. - if you have some tequila on hand, throw a little of that in, too. we didn't have any, which speaks to bigger issues in my house right now.
5. pour the marinade over the chicken.
6. put the chicken in the fridge. i left it overnight, but i guess that's not entirely necessary. if  you choose a time-frame shorter than overnight, skip to step 9.
7. go to bed.
8. wake up.
9. put the chicken in the crock pot on low. if you're not studying for comprehensive exams/writing final papers, leave the chicken for 6-8 hours, and skip to step 11.
10. go to the library and cry for 8 hours. try to get some work done. in the words of a sweet friend of mine, "you. got. this." and just remember, by the time you get done with this, your chicken will be ready to eat - yummy yummy!
11. transfer chicken to a bowl because you don't want to scratch your crockpot. using two forks, shred it up. it'll fall apart.
12. wrap it up in a tortilla and go to town. add some cheese if you want. maybe salsa. avocado (not you, mom). good gracious, i'm hungry. just know that this chicken in a tortilla (from HEB, if you're blessed enough to live in the lone star state) will make you plenty happy. it certainly does me, and i don't even have the good tortillas.
13. sit down, fat and happy, and go back to writing your papers. (again, if you're not writing comps papers, you can skip this step.)

i also like to use this chicken for quesadillas and enchiladas and sometimes i get a little fancier with my tacos, but if y'all haven't heard, i'm writing comps papers and probably don't actually have time to be telling you about my chicken.

my nose is going right back in a book (or PDF, as the case may be). right this second. stop talking to me. you're distracting me. spanish spanish spanish. that's how it goes, right?

have a wonderful week, my dears!

♡whit

wait...you mean i didn't cook them? or how to cook dry beans

disclaimer: there is a very long, self-depricating story before i share with you how i cooked my dried beans. feel free to skip all the way to the bottom to find that. i promise, my feelings won't be hurt if you don't read my story!

oh y'all.

you know how i enjoy a good bit of self-deprication, right? get ready.

i've been on a weird kind of a kick this summer. go natural, save some dollars. this has been brought about by my newfound (within the last year) complete and total lack of dollars. when i got accepted to UF and was granted a teaching assistantship, i thought i had hit the jackpot. and honestly, i kind of did. i'm getting paid to get a master's degree. doctors and lawyers will find themselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt when they're done, and i'll be sittin' pretty on my leftover five bucks. the thing is, though, i have never had a job and made so little money in my life. again - definitely not complaining, super-grateful for where i am and what i've got - but it's resulted in a resetting of everything. i used to be at the thrift store looking for treasures once a week - now it's maybe once a month, and even then, i get a little nervous. gone are the days of cruising down to wally world to dig through the $5 movie bin.

fortunately, i didn't have to make a huge change from eating out all the time to learning to cook and eating at home. i cut back on the pizza delivery (completely) and the chinese takeout (maybe once every two months), but that really hasn't been such a big deal. also, i don't know whether or not y'all are aware, but it's difficult (not impossible, i know) to find meals for one. or two, even, so i've taken to cooking a whole whole bunch on sunday afternoon and not entering my kitchen for another two weeks except to pull something out of the fridge and nuke it. i don't want to bore y'all with all the details of this particular journey, so let me get to the point: i've stopped (for about a week - i may go back, this may prove to be too much work) using beans out of the can. because oh. my. goodness. it's like half as expensive to just buy them dry and cook them! and i know beans are cheap to begin with, but when you're already on a budget and a large portion of your meal planning consists of beans of one variety or another, reducing that by half is huge.

here's what happened: one day i bought some dry lentils. honestly, i only bought them dry because i couldn't find them in the can and the girl at publix was not helpful. (surprise! i hate publix. probably only feel as strongly as i do because of the Texas-shaped hole left in my heart by the absence of HEB.) so i come home with my lentils, and i read the package, and it says you don't have to soak them, just put 'em in the pot and cook away. awesome. so i got them cooked. by boiling and simmering in plain water. and they tasted like mushy cardboard. it was okay, though, because i was going to roast them with lots of other spices. which i did. and they were yummy, if not kind of a lot of work and hard to pick up and get in your hand all at once because when you roast an already tiny lentil, it shrivels up to the size of ... i don't know. i can't even think of an analogy here. they're hard to eat that way.

cut to a couple days later when i'm making this delicious spicy chickpea and ground beef (turkey in my house, because it's healthier and cheaper) recipe from kalyn's kitchen. shout-out to kalyn's kitchen for keeping me fed for the last year. the woman is amazing. the recipe calls for (obviously) lots of chickpeas. well. only two cans. but i double it, so it calls for four. what can i say? i love to eat. also, it uses the...juice(?) out of the chickpea cans. i think this is an important detail to the rest of the story. here i go with my dried chickpeas. it's something like four in the afternoon, and i'm only just getting started, so i'm not about to put these chickpeas in a pot and let them sit all. night. long. i remember having read something about a "quick soak" method, so off to the trusty google i go. and there it is! quick-soak your chickpeas, and be ready to go in just over an hour! this was certainly for me. cliffs-notes version - boil for five minutes, let them sit in the hot water off the heat for an hour. so i do it. they don't get as soft as i think they should, so i boil them a little bit again and let them sit some more. softer still. i think i should give it one more go, so i do. then we're ready to make dinner! i follow my recipe, just like always (which means i mostly follow my recipe), and instead of putting the canned chickpea juice, i put in some homemade chicken stock. the recipe does say that if your chickpeas didn't give you enough juice you can add chicken stock. i just took it a step further. everything else is just like normal. i get done. i take a bite. hmm. this is not good. i mean, it's okay, but the chickpeas have kind of ... zero flavor. [at this point in the writing of this post, i had to get up and go get my giant cup of coffee to be able to push through telling y'all the rest of this horrible story. this is the giant cup.

]

not thinking much of it, i blame this flavorlessness on my homemade chicken stock. they're also not quite as soft as when i used the canned version, but i guess that's okay. i mean, it's not like i'm chewing rocks or anything.

a little while later, my sweet momma calls, in what my roommate erroneously refers to as our "daily conversation." (let's be real. there are at least two on any given day, and likely three. so maybe it was our "afternoon conversation." that cord is not cut now, and i doubt it ever will be, and i'm mostly okay with that.) i start telling her about the Great Chickpea Adventure and how it didn't turn out so well. i started with the end of the story, the part where it didn't turn out so well. and like any good detective, momma works backwards to figure out where it all went wrong. and then she says, "wait. you didn't cook them?!" i'm sitting here thinking, "what do you mean, 'i didn't cook them?' i put them in the water, i boiled them, and then i cooked them with the dinner. totally cooked them."

NOPE. DID NOT COOK THE CHICKPEAS, AND I AM A TOTAL IDIOT.

we had a good laugh. such a good laugh, in fact, my roommate came out of his room into the living room to see what all the fuss was about. i didn't tell him. and i let him eat half of the raw chickpea meals. before y'all get mad and tell me how horrible i am, remember that i ate the other half, and i actually KNEW they weren't cooked. the story does have kind of a happy ending, though, in that i had a do-over and actually cooked the chickpeas the second time. with spices and seasonings, so they would have some flavor. it turned out delicious. deliciously. whatever.

so! here's what i learned about cooking chickpeas: it's a two-step process (as seen in the five steps listed below), and they do not come out of the ground (is that even where they come from?) with any of their own flavor. i apologize to everyone who already knew this and has sat through this atrocity of a cooking experience only to find out that i'm a complete doofus. and now i will reward you with my summary of how to cook chickpeas:

step 1: look for rocks and other debris in your beans. remove them. this is the most boring of all the steps. even if you overnight soak.

step 2: there are choices here. they are:

• option a: soak them overnight (covered) in a large pot of water. way more water than chickpeas.
• option b: quick soak them - large pot of lots of water, chickpeas. boil for about 5 minutes, turn off the heat, let them sit for about an hour in their hot tub.

step 2: drain and rinse them.

step 3: put them back in the pot with a lot of water. several more inches of water than there are inches of chickpeas. at this point, add things to (and this is super-important) FLAVOR THE CHICKPEAS. in all my googling, i never found a list of things you should add, so i kind of made it up. i know i put in

• a couple bay leaves
• some salt
• some pepper
• some garlic powder (i didn't have any actual cloves)
• some onion powder (i didn't have any actual onions)
• some chipotle powder (because i did read that this would give it a "nice smoky flavor without adding heat" [not that i would have minded the heat]. i don't remember where i read that, so if you're the person who wrote it and you've happened to stumble across this mess, i'm sorry i coudn't cite you properly. i say again: chipotle powder was not my idea. but it was a great one.)
• some cumin (because chipotle powder went in the actual recipe for the ground beef & chickpeas, and so did cumin, i figured it wouldn't hurt to throw some in.)

i think i probably threw in a couple other things, because why not, but i don't remember what they were.

step 4: bring chickpeas to a boil with all the yummy stuff you threw in. boil about five minutes, then reduce heat and simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how mushy you want your beans. i like mine mushy. i might have pushed past the hour and a half.

step 5: drain the beans. i saved a little of this bean-water-juice to mix with my chicken stock for the aforementioned recipe, but if you're not doing this, i say throw it all out.

that's it! also, you can freeze them if you cooked more than you need. most things i read recommend drying them off as best you can and freezing them in a single layer (like in a ziploc baggie or something) so they don't clump/stick together, but i saw one suggestion i thought was genius to put them on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet, then pop that in the freezer for half an hour so they start to get frozen, then put however many you want in a ziploc baggie and since they're already partly frozen, they won't stick to each other. again. that wasn't my idea, and i don't remember where i read it. i can't tell you how the freezing worked out because i used all my chickpeas right away. the recipe turned out about a zillion times better than the time i didn't cook the chickpeas, though.

additionally, i'm fairly certain this method works for all dried beans, but i'm not 100% positive. i did it with black beans last night. turned out pretty well.

how do you cook your dried beans? what do you flavor them with? have you ever failed to cook them? don't hang your head in shame; it happens to the best of us!

♡whit

"what exactly is...'spicy chicken?'"

i heard from a very reliable source this past week that at least one person has been going through withdrawal from these little stories from my kitchen, so i made a point of bringing something delicious to the, erm, "table." (that was bad. i know.)

i've decided it's gotten too hot to have the crock pot on all day long, so instead, i spend a fair amount of time in the evening hovering over my stove and oven - a brilliant solution, don't y'all think? this week, however, had some particularly yummy results. my mother and i planned to have dinner together on wednesday night, so wednesday afternoon, i emailed her asking if she had any "special requests." i had been thinking along the lines of a particular side or dessert, but her response was "...spicy chicken." this is not the name of some chicken i've made before. i was a bit befuddled. i asked her what, exactly, is "spicy chicken?" her answer - and this is why i love my mother - was brilliantly simple: "chicken that's spicy. i've got a hankerin' [sic] for something spicy." she doesn't know this, but that was almost the exact opposite of what i'd planned for dinner that night. well, except for the chicken part. but i had definitely not been going in the spicy direction until her gentle nudge. the best spicy chicken i could think of that i had a recipe for was those crock pot chicken fajitas that we all love, but by this point, it was 4 in the afternoon. not nearly enough time for a crock pot. it was then that i remembered one of my favorite dishes from one of my favorite restaurants and used all i remember about it as inspiration for wednesday night's dinner - which was, by the way, a huge hit in both the departments of delicious and spicy.

i googled a recipe for lime pepper marinade for fajitas and, interestingly enough, none of the top 5 results included pepper. go figure. the marinade recipe i doctored is below. y'all know that i always try to give credit where credit is due, but this recipe came up on so many different sites that i wouldn't know who to thank.

ingredients:
lime-pepper marinade (recipe below)
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 fresh jalapenos, sliced
2 fresh serranos, sliced
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 large onion, sliced into rings
1 cup shredded monterrey jack cheese
salt

lime-pepper marinade:

4 garlic cloves, peeled, smashed, and minced
1/3 cup vegetable oil, plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons tequila
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (from real limes)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground black pepper

directions:
combine all ingredients for marinade. cover chicken with marinade, let marinate for 2 hours in the fridge.

preheat oven to 350.

coat a large skillet with olive oil cooking spray and heat over medium high heat. cook marinated chicken breasts until browned on both sides, 3-5 minutes per side, depending on size. remove chicken to an oven-proof dish. sautee jalapenos and serranos for about a minute in the same skillet chicken was cooked in. top the chicken with the peppers and bake for 20-30 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. meanwhile, in the same skillet, caramelize onions. sprinkle with salt and cook until they're as done (or not) as you like them. [if you're cooking for my mother, this will be quite a while.] once the chicken is cooked, turn on the broiler and top the chicken with the cilantro and cheese. broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly. (i only broiled for 2 minutes. ish.)

serve the chicken over the caramelized onions. suggested sides - black beans, cilantro lime rice

here is my finished product (well, not quite finished because i don't have it plated with the onions in this photo, but right out of the oven!):

we loved this dish. some of us could have used a little less cilantro (momma), but overall, it was a hit and took care of that "hankerin'." it's pretty spicy, so feel free to cut back on those peppers if you'd like. also, don't forget to wash your hands after handling them. if you dare to go all the way with the peppers, however, and they get the best of you, the best solutions are milk or bread - they'll do a lot more to absorb the heat than water, which will just help to spread it around.

try it out - let me know what y'all think!

♥ whit

crockpot chronicles: day 6

goodness, is it as hot where y'all are as it is where i am? i swear, we go straight from spring (for a day or so) to blazing (which seems to last forever) to a short-lived fall, maybe a cold snap, and back to the beginning. i'm living off of icy diet cokes from mc donald's, sweet iced tea, and iced coffee (made without the help of a french press). going to work is something of a relief because they run the air conditioner there - daddy always told me that when i'm paying for it, i can set the thermostat wherever i want. turns out that when i'm paying for it, i can tolerate it a bit warmer than i could in my father's house. but with the warm weather comes that much-needed and much-welcome break from the higher education. another semester down, one step closer to that wrap-around porch with the breeze that never stops.

but i digress. i left everyone hanging in the middle of getting to know and love my crockpot, but no more! i'm back, with some time on my hands, and let me tell you, dinner tonight was delicious. granted, that wasn't such a surprise - a while back i made this dish...just didn't get around to telling y'all about it. that being said, here's my crockpot take on chicken fajitas.

before it becomes an issue, i realize that this is not "fajitas" in the traditional sense if for no other reason than that the chicken is shredded. don't let that dissuade you. i promise, you won't be disappointed.

the original recipe is:

Crock Pot Chicken Fajitas – from www.stacymakescents.com

1 yellow onion, sliced

3 sweet peppers, sliced

1 ½ pounds boneless chicken breast or thighs

½ cup chicken broth

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cumin

1 ½ tablespoons chili powder

Squirt of lime juice

Tortillas

Fajita fixings

Combine sliced onion and peppers in the bottom of a greased crockpot. Lay chicken on top of veggies. Pour chicken broth over top. Sprinkle everything with cumin, salt, and chili powder. Give a nice quirt of lime juice over the top. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. When meat is done, shred with two forks and stir back into juices. Serve meat mixture with slotted spoon on tortillas with your choice of fixings.

now. the first time i made this, i followed the recipe pretty closely. today, i kind of winged it because i thought i remembered it. like i said, today's dinner was delicious, but i think i prefer the first version to the more recent. my notes are these: grease the crockpot with olive oil. with the exception of the "spicy" peppers (jalapeño, serrano, habanero - that part comes later), i put all the veggies in under the chicken, so the layering would be oil, veggies, chicken, spices, liquids, "spicy" peppers. i don't remember if i used a white onion or a yellow onion, but that probably really doesn't matter. i used green bell peppers - probably one or two, but i really can't imagine myself using three. i'm just not that wild about bell peppers. not that i don't like them, i just really don't see what the fuss is all about. today, i used two bags of a frozen 3 pepper (red, yellow, and green bells) and onion (white) mixture. great when you're in a hurry, but i would still rather the first way. i'm pretty sure i put in a poblano the first time, too, which i am pretty wild about. i used frozen chicken breasts - i'm still amazed by the fact that you can throw something frozen into a pot and have dinner when you come home. chicken broth, yes - i forgot that today. i've never really measured spices and seasonings in cooking (baking, of course, is another story), so i'll say i put a little bit of salt, a whole lot of cumin, a good bit of black pepper, and some garlic powder, and some chili powder (which i couldn't find this morning). also, instead of a squirt of lime juice, i used a generous amount. let me say this. i will always prefer fresh fill-in-the-blank to what comes in the bottle, but shoot if it doesn't save you a lot of time. and that is the point of the crockpot chronicles, is it not? i did some sliced mushrooms the first time, too, and both times (because this part, for me, is key) i sliced up a fresh jalapeño, a serrano, and a habanero. word to the wise - use a cutting board for this part, don't just slice it over the crockpot, and remember to wash your hands when you're done. speaking from painful experience here. also, if you're not a fan of the spicy but you still want the jalapeño flavor, rib and seed it before it goes in. same with the serrano, but definitely leave out the habanero. takes more time, i know, but i had a house full of runny-nosed people tonight. when it's done, just shred up the chicken. fan. tastic. the first go-round, i just put this chicken/veggie mix on tortillas and it was a big hit - with me and with my parents. today i went a little farther - sour cream, guacamole (that i bought at the store - granted, it was HEB so it was freshly made), pico de gallo (again, thanks, HEB), shredded cheese, and some black refried beans (just a can of goya that i doctored up a bit - if you're curious, let me know).

y'all should definitely try this one out. it has been by far my favorite, and quite healthy as well.

and now to the judges - hey, the olympics are coming up!

• ease of prep - 5 - throw and go. love it.
• multiple parts/same pot - 4 - the store-bought sides are super easy, but those black beans sure were good.
• cooks for 6-8 hours - 5 - set it and forget it.
• crockpot to table ease - 5 - i set everything up assembly-line style tonight and everybody did their own thing before we all sat down.
• freezer leftovers - 5 - i'm glad i made this with something like...three pounds of chicken. - i guess i forgot to add that as one of the changes - but it's great in the freezer. put it in, juice and all, and i'm telling you, the flavor only gets better.

24/25 - told y'all this was my favorite. try it out. let me know how it went for you, whether you prefer the fresh or frozen onions and peppers...all that good stuff. y'all have a great memorial day weekend! my mom and i are off on our traditional girls' trip for this weekend. we plan to eat quite well. i'll tell you all about it when we get back! be safe!

♥ whit

crockpot chronicles: day 5

okay, i know this isn't quite another day...but i owe y'all!

Crockpot Chicken and Rice – from forkinit.blogspot.com

Ingredients

2-4 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese (let sit out to soften)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 pkg. italian dressing seasoning (the dried kind in the packet)

rice

stir the cream cheese, cream of chicken, and seasoning together in the crockpot. i actually start it on low and let them sit in there for about 30 min so the cream cheese is softer to stir. (but don't forget about them like i did today!) put the frozen (because i'm lazy) chicken in and cover with the mix. cook on high 4-6 hours or until the chicken is cooked and fall-apart-tender. after the first two hours when the chicken is softer i cut it up into strips for easier eating. how easy is that!?

cook the rice in a pot (or rice cooker if you're not dumb like me and know how to use the stupid thing) and smother with chicken mixture! the italian seasoning is the secret ingredient! so yum!

the previous instructions/comments are from the blog (it's an awesome, check it out!) where i found the recipe - not my original thoughts. my original thoughts are these: this was quite yummy. i love things that are cheesy, and this totally fit the bill. it was also quite simple. i took the cream cheese straight out of the fridge and put it into the crockpot, let it sit there for the recommended 30 minutes, then i added the soup and attempted to stir them together. that's not entirely true. i attempted to whisk them together, which was a mistake. don't use a whisk. use a spoon. or something. but not a whisk. everything else was good - i shredded the chicken instead of cutting it into strips; i've become a shredded-chicken super-fan. my only complaint about this recipe is that it stuck to my crockpot like nobody's business.

this is that whole...tough cleanup i was talking about.

 i scraped as much of it as i could off, because in my family, we love the crunchy corners of the casserole, but let me tell you, it was a pain in the behind getting it out. lots of elbow grease, and the whole time i was paranoid about scratching my crockpot. (i ended up using comet, which totally did the trick, but i'm not sure i was supposed to use it on the crockpot. doesn't seem to have done any damage, and i've used the crockpot since then.) anyway, on the blog i linked to, there are lots of great comments, and even some ideas about how to help with that particular problem - like adding up to a cup of milk or water. some folks also mentioned adding veggies, which i had thought about myself - i think broccoli or mushrooms would bze fantastic! - probably not for the whole six hours, though, i guess closer to the end would be a better idea. for the rice, i did some brown rice that i had in the pantry - perfect!


judges?

  

• ease of prep - 4 - the whole...whisking thing. 
• multiple parts/same pot - 4 - the rice...but some folks suggested doing that in the crockpot, too, so maybe i'll give that a shot next time.
• cooks for 6-8 hours - 5 - enough said!
• crockpot to table ease - 5 - rice in, chicken on top - you're done!
• freezer leftovers - 4 - this is kind of a guess, because it never made it into the freezer (yummy yummy!), but i'm thinking about how you'd have to make a fresh batch of rice or pasta or whatever you want to use.

that brings us to a total of 22/25 - i loved this one. except for the cleanup. i'm definitely going to try it again with some of those suggestions i mentioned earlier. let me know what y'all think!
♥whit

crockpot chronicles: day 4

good afternoon, everyone! i know we've had a bit of silence, but between midterms and rodeo, there just hasn't been a whole lot of extra time - that's not to say i haven't been getting my money's worth out of that crockpot, though! i hope y'all are ready for a series of rapid-fire recipes, because now that it's spring break, i'm eager to let y'all know what i've been up to the last week or so. here goes!


Easy Slow Cooker Turkey – from slowandsimple.com

INGREDIENTS

2 to 3 pounds boneless turkey breast tenders or cutlets, or use chicken breast halves

4 medium potatoes, sliced

4 medium carrots, sliced

1 can (10 1/2 ounces) French onion soup, undiluted

DIRECTIONS

Put vegetables in bottom of crockpot. Add turkey breast. Pour in onion soup. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Serves 6.

this one was super easy. except for the fact that i was trying to peel the carrots and potatoes without a vegetable peeler. kind of like trying to shave your legs with a paring knife except that instead of your legs, it's carrots and potatoes, but it's just about as easy and just about as effective. (my daddy bought me a vegetable peeler this weekend, so we won't have to worry about that anymore!) the only other trouble i had was trying to find the french onion soup in the grocery store, but that's only because i didn't see it right in front of me. it was there the whole time. also, i used chicken breasts, not turkey. 3 pounds. like i said, it was super easy, but when i got it out, there was just not a whole lot of flavor. as in, like, none. i was afraid to salt it because i thought with the french onion soup being undiluted it might be way too salty, and i figured the soup would have had enough flavor on its own to flavor the chicken. i was wrong. ask my mother. since i made so much of this chicken, i have about a pound of it sitting in the freezer right now. trust me, it will be doctored before i eat it again. i'll let you know how that goes.



judges?

• ease of prep - 5 - i cannot, in good conscience, dock points here because i didn't own a vegetable peeler. who doesn't own a vegetable peeler?
• multiple parts/same pot - 4 - more carrots, more potatoes, less chicken. maybe that would help with the flavor thing, too.
• cooks for 6-8 hours - 5 - i'm tellin you, these are fantastic for school days!
• crockpot to table ease - 5 - into a bowl or onto a plate, and you're good to go.
• 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 reconfirms my previous thought about adding a "yummy" category because this one got a 24/25 and that did not account at all for the major lack of flavor. that part will be in a future update, once i work through all the leftovers in the freezer. check back, but at this present moment, this is not what's for dinner tonight.

♥whit

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!