Loaded Baked Potato Soup on our first cold snowy day of the season.

Today was the first day of real snow on the ground for the season.  Today also was a sick day around our house.  Poor Logan is super sick, and Tom and I are getting over colds, so soup sounded like the perfect choice for today.   I have never made soup before today so I was a bit worried if it would turn out or not, but due to my amazing crockpot friend it of course turned out awesome!!!!!  Here's the recipe.....

Put the following ingredients in your crockpot ( you don't even need to mix it together, just put it all in.)
6 large Potatoes cubed and peeled ( I only had small ones so I did 10 small ones.)
1 onion chopped
1 quart chicken broth
3 garlic cloves minced ( I did 4 because I LOVE garlic.)
1/4 cup butter
Salt and pepper to taste

~Cover and cook on High for 4 hours or Low for 8 hours
~Once potatoes are nice and tender mash all of your ingredients.  ( I used my hand mixer and left it a little lumpy.)
~After you have mashed everything add 1 cup of half and half and 1 cup of cheddar cheese to the mixture to help thicken the soup. (I added more cheese than it asked for because cheese is awesome!)

Now the soup is all ready to go.  I put the soup on warm in the crockpot while I got some toppings ready. And also to warm it up after the cold half and half and the cheese was added.  For my toppings I did the following..

Cooked a few strips of bacon and crumbled it
Shredded cheese
Cut up some red onion
Cut up some chives
Sour Cream

This was Super Yummy!  Not exactly a healthy meal, but a yummy one anyway! :-)  Tom and I both gave this recipe 4 stars.  I will be making this again for sure!!!

Yummy Yummy Crockpot Lasagna

I made the best lasagna the other night! I was very very proud of myself!  I'm sure you are starting to see a trend here that a lot of recipes scare me and look and sound way to complicated for me to try.  Well lasagna has always definitely been on that list, but once again with my new found love of crockpot cooking when I saw this recipe I thought it might be worth a shot.  I id not have very high expectations for this meal, but it was actually really really good!!!!!

Crockpot Lasagna
1 pound ground beef
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 chopped onion
1 tsp. dried basil
2 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 package lasagna noodles
2 29 oz. cans tomato sauce
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
1  1/2 tsp. salt
8 oz. ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesean
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions
In a skillet cook ground beef, onion and garlic until brown.
Add the tomato sauce and paste, salt, oregano, and basil.
Stir well and cook until heated through.
In a bowl mix the cheeses.(make sure the ricotta is at room temp. so it will mix well with the other 2 cheeses)
Spoon 1/2 the meat mixture in the bottom of the crockpot. (it will feel like a lot but just do it, it will work)
Add a double layer of lasagna noodles ontop of meat mixture. (Break them in half to fit if needed.)
Top with hal of the cheese mixture.
Repeat, sauce, noodles, and cheese.
Cook on low for 4 hours.
When it was done cooking it looked fairly runny, so I let it sit for about 15 minutes and it fixed the problem.
To serve I cut through the noodles with a spatula, then scooped it out of the crockpot with a big serving spoon.


This was enough for about 8 servings.  Infact we are still eating leftovers, and loving them everytime!I was very surprised with how good this turned out!  I will for sure make this one again.  Tom and I both gave it 4 stars. I was so pleasantly surprised with my lasagna that I may even one day try a lasagna in the oven....... maybe.  Happy cooking everybody! :)

Crockpot Turkey

Turkey is another one of those meals I have never attempted, because it intimidates me honestly!  But with my new found love for Crockpot cooking I decided to give it a try, and it was a success!!!  And Super Easy!!!

Recipe as is...
1 large thawed turkey breast
1 package of onion soup mix
1/2 cup water
baby carrots

My changes to the recipe...
I put in a cup of water to make sure it didn't burn
And I added a chopped onion as well

Directions..
Rub Turkey in butter then rub in onion soup mix
Pour your water into the crockpot and put in a bed of baby carrots
Put Turkey and chopped onion into crockpot
Cook on High 1 hour, then Low for 7 hours
Then my Turkey came with a gravy mix, so when my turkey was cooked I scooped out the drippings from the bottom of the crockpot to make a gravy for my mashed potatoes.

This was a super easy way to cook a Turkey, and was fool proof! Tom gave it 4 stars and I gave it 3.  I thought it was good and juicy, the only reason why it only got 3 stars is because it wasn't anything really special or anything, it just tasted like a regular turkey, and the carrots didn't have a good flavor. I tink next time I will season the carrots before I start cooking the turkey. For sure this will be the only way I will ever dare cook a turkey though.  Crockpot Turkey is Super easy and stress-free!

Canberry Roast!

Tonight  made the best dinner I have ever made in my entire life!!!!!!!  I made a super duper yummy, tender, fall apart, juicy, flavorful Cranberry Roast!! I am very proud of myself!!!!  I have always been afraid to dare try cooking a roast or a turkey or anything like that.  It's big and easy to mess up in my opinion.  But I did it!!

Recipe as written
Any Roast
2 cans of whole cranberry sauce
1 packet of onion soup mix (powder)

Recipe how I made it
A Roast
2 cans of whole cranberry sauce
About 2 cans of water
1 packet of onion dip mix (powder)
Half a bag of baby carrots
Half an onion chopped into large pieces
4 Red potatoes chopped into large pieces

Directions as written
Mix powder and berries and pour over the roast in the crockpot.
Cook on Low 12 hours or High 8 hours
30 minutes before serving break meat up with a fork
Can be done with a Chicken or a Turkey as well, if you do it with a chicken or turkey add a Catalina Dressing to it. (Not sure if that is addded to the cranberries or in place of)

My Directions
I of course started with my crock pot liner in the crockpot.
Then I poured about half a bag of baby carrots in the bottom of the crockpot to make sure the roast didn't burn on the bottom.
I put the Roast on top of the carrots.
I chopped up half an onion and 4 red potatoes into large pieces and put them all around and on top of the roast.
Poured about 2 cups of water into the bottom of the crockpot to help make sure there was enough liquid. I'm still not sure if this was needed or not, but it certainly didn't hurt anything.
Then I mixed the Onion dip mix and the cranberry sauce cans together and poured that over the roast.
I cooked it on High for 8 hours. (next time I would like to try it on low for 12 hours but I didn't have that kind of time today.)
When it was all done I put the roast and all the veggies into a pyrex dish to make it easier to serve and to get rid of all the liquid in the crockpot. 
Instead of breaking it up with a fork I just cut it into slices.

This was SO SO SO good!!! And SO SO SO EASY!!!!!!!!!!!  If I can cook a Roast you can to!
I am So glad that I cooked the veggies in with the Roast for a couple reasons...
1. I didn't have to cook any sides when I got home from work. They were already cooking with the meat.
2. The potatos sucked up the cranberry sauce and were honestly the BEST potatoes I have ever had!  They were SO yummy!  And the carrots didn't get mushy, which I usually end up cooking them to mush accidentally.  They were still kind of hard. SO GOOD!!!!

Tom's first bite, his eyes got very big and he said, "WOW Dear this is AMAZING!!!!!!!"  I've never had such a big reaction from him before. (Gold star for me!)  We both gave it 5 stars, and cannot wait for leftovers tomorrow!

Chicken Cordon Bleu Wednesday!

So whether this looks appetizing or not (I'm not working on my presentation of food, just the making of food!) this was AMAZING!!!!!  For tonights dinner I made Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu.  And it was the best Chicken Cordon Bleu I have ever had!  Here is the recipe.....

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup mixed with 1 can of Milk ( I did a bit more milk than it called for so the chicken was covered.)

2 large Chicken Breasts

4 thin slices of ham  ( I did 2 thick pieces of ham instead of what it calls for and I liked it a lot!)

4 slices of swiss cheese

~Slice the chicken breasts in half and lay them in the bottom of the crockpot

~Fill with the cheese and Ham. I layered chese, ham, cheese.

~Close the chicken breats

~Top with the soup and milk mixture

~Cook 4-5 hours on low. (I did 5 hours and it was perfect!)

Tom gave this recipe 4 stars.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars!  I loved it!  Very juicy and yummy!  I served it over mashed potatoes, but you could serve it over noodles or rice as well.  so far I am absolutely loving this crockpot cooking!  I have served dinner 3 nights in a row before 7pm, and I don't even get home til 6:30.  It is now 8:00 and dinner has been eaten, and cleaned up after, and now I get to spend the rest of the evening with my two favorite people. 

Tip of the week

My new favorite thing ever are Crockpot liners!!  They are super cheap, and make clean up so easy!  You find them where you find ziplock bags.  When dinner is over all you do is take the bag out of the crockpot and tie it off.  No more scrubbing gross messy crockpots! Woo Hoo! 

Happy Cooking!

Crockpot beef Strogonaff

MMM MMM MMM!!! Tonights dinner was a success!!!  My first meal in the crockpot was Beef Strogonaff and it was yummy!! 

Here is the Real Recipe                 
1 pound stew meat                           
1 can cream of mushroom soup       
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs. Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 Cup water
4 oz. cream cheese
~Mix all ingredients except cream cheese and cook on low for 8 hours.  Stir in Cream cheese right before serving.

Here is how I changed the recipe
1.25 pounds stir fry meat (I'm assuming it's the same thing, correct me if I'm wrong.)
1 can cream of mushroom soup with garlic
1/4 of a yellow onion
1 Tbs. Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 cup water
8 oz. cream cheese
~ I cooked it on low for about 6 1/2 hours. 8 would have been way to long!  If I hadn't thawed the meat beforehand then 8 hours would have been fine probably.  I added the cream cheese and turned it onto warm while I cooked the noodles and rice.
My Review
Tom and I both really enjoyed this!  Tom gives it 4 stars, and I give it 3 stars.
The only thing I did not like about it was that it was to thick.  I already did double the amount of water but I think it needs to be doubled again, if not more.  It was very tasty but a bit to thick.  Which also may have to do with the fact that I doubled the cream cheese.  But I liked the creaminess of it being doubled and would double the water again.  Once I get the consistency to what I want then I will also be giving this recipe 4 stars. 

I served the strogonaff over rice and noodles, with a side salad and raspberry lemonade to drink.  I'm pretty proud of myself for serving dinner by 7! Hooray go me!!!!!  Tomorrow will be leftover strogonaff and I will be back on Wednesday with another new recipe! :)

Mondays menu

Tomorrow I will be starting my crockpot experiment.  On the menu for tomorrow is my husbands all time favorite meal...... Strogonaff!!!  He LOVES strogonaff! When his mom asks him what he wants for his birthday dinner that is always what he chooses.  I have "made" it for him a couple times since being married, but when I make it, it's from a box.  Just add water and cook the meat.  Definitely no where near as good as Tom's mom's homemade strogonaff.  So tomorrow I am very excited to make him his favorite meal.  Hopefully he will approve!  Wish me luck!  Tomorrow I will post the recipe and my review.