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. 

My Motivation

Need I say more???  Probably not, But I will anyway.  These two people motivate me to be a better person.  I want to be better for them, because they are both amazing and deserve the very best!!!  Step one to a better me.....  Make yummy dinners.  It may seem like something silly to most, but this truly will be something that I will struggle with.  Logan obviously is easy to feed still, he's not exactly into eating steak and potatoes quite yet, but Tom does deserve dinner from his loving wife ever night. He is an amazing Husband and Father and deserves the best in life.  So here are my two reasons to be a better me.

Why start a blog about dinner time?

Because I need motivation. Here's a little background.... Growing up, dinner was never a sit down around the table with the whole family kind of event for my family. If there was dinner you just ate when and where you felt like eating. I never got into a good habit of eating 3 meals a day. I hated eating breakfast, because it meant waking up even earlier than I already had to for school. Lunch wasn't my favorite either, I hated school lunch, and was never to big of a fan of lunches from home either. So dinner usually was my only meal, which was completely my fault not my parents. And when I did eat dinner I was super picky and ate at weird times.

Unfortunately this is a pattern I have brought into my marriage. I am still awful at eating Breakfast and Lunch, let alone making it. And now that dinner is on me to make I rarely have dinner for Tom and I either. With Tom being the sweet man he is he never complains. He will just find something around the house when he is hungry and I do the same. Well now that we have a baby I am determined to get better at making food daily for my family. This is one thing that I struggle with, but want to get better at. My first goal is to get into the habit of making dinner everynight. it is a habit that is going to be hard for me to get into but I think if I track my progress here I will do much better.

I recently found 'CrockPot Girls' on facebook and it inspired me to start using my crockpot more often. I work everyday from 2-6 and don't get home til 6:30, and I work with children so I am exhausted when I come home. So starting dinner doesn't ever sound like a very fun thing to do. For the next two weeks I will be utilizing my crockpot and making all my dinners before I go to work. Since I am still just cooking for 2 all my meals will feed us for 2 days, so I will be making a new found yummy recipe in my crockpot every other day for the next 2 weeks.

Here are the recipes I will be trying for the next two weeks,. They are all new to me, and I am very excited to try them all.

Beef Stroganoff (Toms very favorite meal)
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Cranberry Roast
Ruby Chicken
Onion Rub Turkey Breast
Italian Chicken
Saucy Spare Ribs
Crockpot Lasagna

I will post recipes, pictures and what I think of each of these recipes as I make them. I am hoping to come out on the otherside of this with 8 new favorite easy recipes, and a new found joy in cooking for my husband. Enjoy