Pot Roast and Veggies

This only looks greasy, runny and disgusting. It's actually quite tasty. Quite tasty. Now that it's fall, I love making recipes like this. They sit in my crockpot all day, seeping in flavor and juices. Then we enjoy them at night, with a chill in the air and the food warming us up! This is such a fix it and forget it, toss it in and get on with your day type of meal. Yes, meal. It has everything. The meat. The veggies. The starch. Delish. Just whip up some sort of a quick fruit and you have a tasty meal in minutes (of your own effort).

Ingredients...

Sorry, no pic!

...1 two to three pound beef roast

...1 can cream of mushroom soup

...1 packet dry onion soup mix

...carrots (I used 4)

...potatoes (I used 1 per person)

Directions...

Thaw and place roast in crockpot with potatoes and carrots. Pour in onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-6.

Brown Sugar Chicken

I love chicken. Probably too much. Because my stockpile is almost out. And I have a deep freezer FULL of other meats...but yet I'm still planning on going out and buying more chicken this week since it's on good sale, when in reality I should wait until next time and eat up some of that other meat...Anyways. I digress. This chicken will make you think that you've tasted a bit of heaven. And then you'll feel guilty about all of the sugar and immediately want to go brush your teeth. But it will all be worth it. Because this chicken is goo-ood! It kind of reminded me of when I toss chicken in the crockpot with BBQ sauce, but it was better! And it didn't taste quite as sugary as I was expecting it to, which was a definite plus!

The Ingredients...

...6 chicken breast halves

...1 cup of brown sugar (I told you that you'd feel guilty...)

...1/4 cup lemon lime pop (I used 7UP)

...2/3 cup of vinegar (I used white)

...3/8 tsp. garlic powder

...2 tbs. soy sauce

...1 tsp. ground black pepper

Directions...

Place chicken breasts in crockpot. Cover with the brown sugar, pepper, garlic powder and soy sauce. Pour in the vinegar and then add the pop (yes. it is supposed to bubble like that!). Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4-6. The longer you cook it the more tender the chicken will be.

Berry Oatmeal Muffins

I bought a bag of fresh berries at Aldi two weeks ago or so, with the intent to make delicious berry muffins with them. When I found this recipe, I knew it was a winner because it called for wheat germ...which is the first recipe in a while that I've came across calling for that. And beings that I bought a pretty big bag of wheat germ at the local Bulk Foods Amish store this past spring, I've been anxious to use it. This is a healthy to boot recipe which is great for those watching what they eat and their health. Overall, this was a pretty good recipe. I was disappointed with the lack of rising that the individual muffins did, but otherwise it's a great alternative to cold cereal for breakfast!

Ingredients...

...3/4 cup cooking oats
...1/4 cup wheat germ
...1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
...1/2 cup white sugar
...1 tbs. baking powder
...3/4 cup milk
...1/2 cup plain yogurt (you can substitute butter, oil or applesauce)
...1 egg
...1 cup fresh berries (I used fresh frozen)

Topping...

...1/4 cup cooking oats
...1/4 cup brown sugar
...1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Directions...

In a large bowl, combine the oats, wheat germ, flour, sugar and baking powder. Stir in milk, yogurt and egg until dry ingredients are moist and all is well combined. Fold in fresh berries. Scoop into prepared muffin cups. In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients until well mixed and sprinkle on top of muffin batter. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Let's talk cookies. Still-warm-from-the-oven, moist, soft, chewy cookies. Are you salivating yet? Good, because you are going to want to run to the kitchen, pull out all the ingredients for this fab peanut butter cookie and whip up a batch! They are just that delish! Not quite as good as my grandma made when I was a kid...but darn close. Ever since I went on that peanut butter stockpiling spree last week, it seems all I have been craving is peanut butter cookies. So when I finally had time to do a little baking on Saturday, they were the first thing I whipped up!

Ingredients...

...1 cup plain yogurt (to cut fat. Or else you can use 1 cup of butter, oil or applesauce)
...1 1/2 cups peanut butter (chunky or creamy. It's up to you. I used creamy.)
...3 cups flour
...1 cup white sugar
...1 cup packed brown sugar
...2 eggs
...1 tsp. baking powder
...1 1/2 tsp. baking soda


Directions...


In a medium bowl, cream together yogurt, peanut butter, eggs and sugars. In a larger, seperate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda. Stir in wet mixture from medium bowl until well combined. Form into 1" balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Flatten out balls with your palm or a fork. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Egg Drop Soup

One of the random boxes of stuff that I'm trying to use up in my pantry was a Wanchai Ferry Sweet and Sour Chicken dinner kit (soooo not good, by the way!). So I decided that the only way to compliment a Chinese dinner kit, was to whip up a pot of egg drop soup! Because what is a chinese meal without some of this soup? I'm glad I made the soup, because the dinner kit was nasty! So at least we had something else to fill our tummies! This was good, and the only changes I would like to see made next time is to add some carrots, because that's what our local chinese resturant does, and I love it! This was way easier than I thought it would be, which was great because I'm going to be making it a lot from now on!

Ingredients...

...2 (14 oz.) cans Chicken Broth (or 4 cups if you use boullion cubes or make your own!)
...2 eggs
...1 egg yolk
...1/8 tsp. ground ginger
...2 tbs. chopped chives
...1 1/2 tbs. cornstarch

Directions...

Reserve 3/4 cup chicken broth in a bowl and set aside. Place remaining broth in a pot over medium-high heat. Stir in ginger and chives and bring to a rolling boil. Meanwhile, stir cornstarch into reserved chicken broth until smooth. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk. Drizzle egg a little at a time from a fork into the boiling broth. Egg should cook immediately. Once the eggs have been dropped, stir in the cornstarch mixture until desired consistency is reached.

Caramel Brownies

Chocolate and Caramel. Together. In a (semi)homebaked dish. It doesn't get much better than that! In my recent attempt to clean out the singles boxes of randomness from my pantry, I discovered I had two boxes of brownie mix. I typically make brownies from scratch, so I don't really know what I was thinking when I bought these. I do remember it involved a sale at Walgreens, but I also remember they weren't free or anything, so I don't know. But at any rate, they're in my pantry now, and since there was only two boxes to use up, they were added to the "must use soon" pile (by the way, by clearing out all the single boxes of randomness from my pantry, I have cleaned out an entire shelf to be devoted to stockpile! yay!). I originally wanted to make S'mores brownies with these...but I didn't have any graham crackers. So those will have to wait until another day. I decided to make up my own recipe with these, since I found a bag of caramels that I bought last weekend when I was cleaning out my freezer.

Ingredients...

...1 package of brownie mix (you can also make your own. I'm just trying to get all the random boxes of convenience food out of my pantry. You also need the ingredients in the recipe (or listed on the box), that is why I have eggs and yogurt (which I used in place of the oil called for) pictured)
...Individually wrapped caramels
...Caramel ice cream topping

Directions...

Mix brownie batter according to package (or recipe) directions. Stir in as many or as few unwrapped caramels as you wish. Pour into a 8x8 baking dish and bake according to directions on package (or in recipe). When the brownies are finished baking, allow to cool and then top with caramel ice cream topping before serving.

Bacon Cheeseburger Pasta

so excited to try this recipe out! Boy, was I ever disappointed. It came out tasting like bacon flavored goulash. And I do not like goulash. Hubs loved it, and while I ate it (and thought it was just okay) I'll probably never make it again. If only I didn't have such a distaste for goulash maybe it wouldn't have been so bad...I do have a funny story to go along with this recipe however :) A few weeks back I was at Fareway, and in their mark down cart, there were several cans of veggies, fruits and soups all marked down for 19 cents a can. I grabbed up what was left, and then saw that one of the cans was without label. I shook it and figured that there was either tomato soup or cream of (something) soup in there. So I grabbed it too, figuring that it would be an interesting adventure. And there it sat in my pantry for close to two months. Last night when I went to make this, I realized that I didn't have any tomato soup like I thought I did, so I opened the mystery can, praying the whole time that it would be tomato soup so I could finish this recipe! As fate would have it, it was! I just thought it was kind of humurous :)

Ingredients...

...1 lb. ground beef
...6 slices bacon
...8 oz. pasta
...1 can tomato soup
...1 handful of cheese

Directions...

Brown ground beef in a skillet. At the same time, cook pasta according to package directions until tender in a seperate pot. Cook bacon until crisp, and cut into strips. Drain pasta, and add to ground beef in skillet. Stir in tomato soup and bacon and then top with cheese. Cover and let simmer until warmed through and cheese is melted.

Simple White Bread

There is nothing better on a chilly fall day than a steaming bowl of tasty soup and a slice or two of still warm from the oven bread. My body warms up just at the thought of it! I've already shared the recipe that I use for Amish White Bread...but this white bread is just a really simple no-one-can-screw-it-up white bread. This is also the white bread that my youngest sister has dubbed as the.best.homemade.bread.ever. I must admit, for how simple this is to make, it is surprisingly tasty! It's so easy to whip up a loaf of this to go with supper. Or just to fufill a craving.

Ingredients...

...1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
...2 1/4 cups flour
...4 tsp. white sugar
...1 tsp. salt
...4 tsp. dry milk
...4 tsp. oil
...3/4 cup + 1 tbs. water

Directions...

Place ingredients in bread machine in order listed. Run on dough cycle. Remove dough from machine and place in a greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Tortilla Soup

In the chilly months, I try to make a big (crock)pot full of soup about once per week. Last week I whipped up some crockpot chili. This week I decided to try something new and make Tortilla Soup. We've never had a soup like this before, so it was really fun to try! It is a pretty spicy soup though, so if you have littles in your house (or just a low spicy tolerance) you might want to tone things down a bit. Otherwise, it was greatly tasty! I served it alongside some homemade bread (which I thought I had shared my recipe for, but apparently not...watch for that to come! My sister has dubbed it the best homemade bread. ever.) and it was just a delicious and complete meal, all from scratch...and all made before I went into work today, so it was all ready when we got home!

Ingredients...

...3 cups chicken broth

...28 oz. diced tomatoes (you can use canned or fresh. I used fresh)

...1 chicken breast, cooked and shredded

...1 onion, diced

...1/2 cup corn (I used frozen. You can use canned, fresh, frozen...doesn't matter!)

...1 cup chopped veggies (I used leftover Green Giant Steamers from a few nights agos supper)

...1/2 tsp. garlic powder

...1/4 tsp. chili powder

...1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

... 1 tsp. cumin

Directions...

Toss all ingredients into slow cooker and stir well. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 6-ish.

End of Summer Harvest Soup

I was wandering around over at A Year of Slowcooking the other day, and I found that Stephanie had just made this recipe a few weeks back. I had some leftover produce in my refrigerator from various farmers market trips and family members garden overflow, so I figured there was no better way to use it up than by making this recipe. I did change up the recipe from what she had written to fit what I had on hand. So this recipe I am posting is my version. If you want to see the orginial recipe, you can find it here.

Ingredients...

...4 cups chicken broth

...1 cup pasta sauce

...1 cup water

...1 yellow onion, diced

...2 cucumbers, diced

...2(ish) Yellow Summer Squash, cut into rounds

...2 cups tomatoes, diced
...2 cups cooked beans

...1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning

...1/2 cup dry pasta

Directions...

Toss all ingredients but pasta into slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours. In the last 20 minutes of cooking time, stir in dry pasta and let cook until pasta is tender.

My Thoughts...

This was just okay to me. It came out more goulash-y than soup-y. Which disappointed me tremendously, because we all know how much I like goulash. Hubs liked it, but he (of course) complained right away that there was no meat. He at most of it. I put the rest in the freezer for a chilly winter day. Odds are, I won't make this again. But it was a great way to use up that extra garden produce that was otherwise going to rot, and it's packed to boot with nutrients!