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

cardinal nation

today's not about crockpots or crochet hooks or knitting needles - it's about a very happy girl and what made her that way.

this is how i felt when i heard the news

after that horrible day earlier this year when my beloved albert pujols saw fit to move on to other things and leave behind the team and city that have loved him since no one knew who he was, i am so, so relieved to see yadier molina staying around for at least five more years! here's the article that made my heart swell up real big like the grinch in the end of that movie - i didn't ruin that for anyone, did i? a great big thanks to yadi, melvin roman, john mozeliak, and everyone else involved for not breaking my heart for a second time this off-season. i must admit, i wasn't always a yadi-lover like i am now. i tended to get quite frustrated with him when he was a younger player, but after he pulled it out for us in the series in '06, he has had my heart, and i could not be happier that i don't have to take it back! (*ahem* albert, this could have been written about you.)

my two favorite parts of the story are quotes from cards gm john mozeliak and from yadi himself:

"I really admire what Yadi was willing to do. You certainly don't know what the free-agent market might have looked like for him. His willingness to really want to be here and stay here really says a lot about his commitment to the organization." - john mozeliak

 "I was still thinking [about] it [being] a business, but my idea was to stay here. My commitment was to stay here with the organization. It's everything. I grew up here [as a player]. I feel good here. It was my first choice to stay here, and I'm glad we got it done." - yadier molina

thanks, #4, for reminding me that loyalty still matters to some people, and thanks, john mozeliak, for appreciating what you have.

i love my team. i love its fans. i love when it all falls into place.

mike matheny, this year is going to rock. you hear me? go cards!

♥ whit

photo of yadi from http://buenojoe.com/2011/06/senor-yad/

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!