Creamy Oatmeal with Apples

We (minus Sawyer) really like oatmeal around here.
As long as it's got a little flavor to it.

I like this version because it's done in the crock pot and I don't have to stand over a stove for the time it takes to cook the whole grain steel cut oats we like. I can just dump it all in and an hour or two later a warm, hearty, creamy, steamy breakfast (or snow day lunch) is ready for me.





Creamy Apple Oatmeal
2 cups oats
4 cups milk
4 tbsp (1/3 cup) brown sugar
2 tbsp vanilla
1 large chopped apple

Combine everything in crock pot and cook on high for 1.5 to 2 hours or low for 3-4 hours to desired consistency.
I top with a sprinkle of cinnamon in my bowl.
YUM!



Gong Show note: Sawyer picks around the oats and eats all the apples and Savannah picks around the apples eating just the oats.
Of course.

Lemony Pork and Veggies

Well, it's been awhile.
I do have a few goodies I want to get caught up on and record here. Good dinners, yummy scones and sweet desserts.

First up, one of my old favorites that was resurrected (twice) in the past week. Everyone who's had this has loved this dish, I used to make it often for dinner guests. I was looking for an easy portable meal to make for friends last week and remembered this one. I made it for us again as well, because I couldn't resist! This pork just melts in your mouth and the slight lemony juice is just perfect on everything.
>I also always make my favorite beer bread along with this dinner!!

Lemony Pork & Veggies
2 lbs boneless pork shoulder
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 16 oz package peeled baby carrots*
8 oz parsnips, cut into 1/2 inch slices*
2 medium shallots, sliced thin
1 lemon, quartered
1/4 cup thinly sliced basil**
1 14oz can chicken broth
1 1/3 cups quick cooking couscous***

-In your slow cooker, place carrots, parsnips*, shallots, lemon quarters and basil**.

-Trim excess fat from pork and cut into 1-inch pieces. Combine flour and pepper in plastic ziplock bag and add the pork, closing and shaking to coat.
In large skillet brown half of the mean in 1 tbsp of the oil about 5 min, turning to brown evenly. Remove from skillet and repeat with remaining pork in remaining 1 tbsp oil.
Place pork on top of vegetables in slow cooker.













-Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high 3 1/2-4 hours.


-Discard lemon pieces. Use slotted spoon to remove pork and vegetables to a serving dish, cover dish to keep warm, reserving 1 3/4 cups of the cooking liquid in the slow cooker. Be sure cooker is turned on high and stir couscous into liquid. Cover and cook for 5 minutes more. Fluff couscous with a fork.***

Serve pork and vegetables over couscous.

*when I very first used this recipe, I couldn't find parsnips and instead came across a bag of prewashed and prepped mixed green beans and thin carrot sticks together. I used this and it was awesome. So now that's my go-to and if I can't find that bag in the veggie section at the store (not all stores carry it) I just grab a bag of green beans and then cut a few big carrots into matchsticks to add to it.

**I rarely have fresh basil on hand. Obviously dried basil flakes sub fine... I just sprinkle a bunch in over the veggies.

***I prepared this once as directed with the couscous and didn't really care for it. I normally just throw some brown rice in my rice cooker to be done at the same time as the pork and veggies and it goes wonderfully together. Serve the meat and veggies over the rice and drizzle with the cooking liquid.

Pulled Pork

We've been using this recipe regularly for going on a year and we're not even close to tired of it yet. It was our go-to company meal over the summer and it's not turned into that even this winter. It's perfect for a big group or just when you want a really really yummy really easy meal.
I originally found this super easy tasty method on this food blog.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Here's all you need to get started:

a packet of chili seasoning mix
and a pork butt (or shoulder, but pork butt is more fun to talk about!)

Then all you have to do is rub your butt (see? told you it was more fun to talk about). Just take the seasoning packet and rub it all over, around and into your butt. The pork butt that is.
Then just stick the pork into your crockpot, turn it on low and leave it for 6-8 hours or all day long.

About 2 hours before you want to eat the pork, pull it out of the slow cooker and pull it all apart with two forks. Or your hands... once it cools a little, I find it easier with my hands. Once it's all pulled and shredded, throw it all back in the slow cooker (drain all the fatty juice) and pour a big bottle of your favorite bbq sauce all over it. Stir it up, put the lid back on and leave it for another hour or two. The longer the better, but I never can wait it smells so good!

Then just serve it up on some buns and a nice big salad... we love it with corn on the cob in the summer, or maybe some fresh seasoned green beans. Any of those summery bbq feeling foods!

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Easy crock pot comfort food recipe.
I got this from a crockpot cookbook I have, from the section of five ingredient dinners. I've tweaked it quite a bit to make it feel more "homemade"...

original ingredient list:
2 cups cooked, cubed chicken
2 cans condensed creamy chicken mushroom soup
1 10 oz package frozen mixed vegetables
1 tsp seasoned pepper or garlic pepper seasoning
1 1/2 cups dry egg noodles

my recipe:
2 cups cooked, cubed chicken
2 cans cream of chicken soup
I skip the frozen veggies and slice/chop up onion, carrots and celery
I also add way more than 1 tsp of seasonings.... usually salt, pepper and garlic powder. Plenty of it.

Stir 5 cups of water into the cans of soup in your slow cooker. Whisk until smooth.
Stir in chicken, vegetables and seasoned pepper.
Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hrs or high for 3-4 (lower for longer is preferred for soup!).
Stir in noodles for last 20-30 minutes of cooking (if using low setting, turn to high-heat setting). Cook until noodles are tender.

Like most soups, this is much much better days after preparing!

The kids like this too!

Cheesy Tilapia

I saw this recipe on a blog documenting A Year of Crockpotting. I've taken quite a few recipes from there actually, because I love using my crockpot. This is my favorite so far.

This was a recipe using the same method of wrapping the fish in foil packets as my favorite salmon recipe. The foil traps all the moisture and juices in, making a beautifully tender fish, never dried out. This recipe simply calls for a crockpot instead of an oven, and I found myself wondering which was more energy efficient; using the crock pot for 3-4 hours or using the oven for 30-40 minutes. Anyone know the answer to that?
I definitely like having it prepared and out of the way before the dinner hour though!

Here's the recipe:

Cheesy Tilapia

• 3 or 4 Tilapia filets (or any other favorite white fish)
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese (cheddar is fine, parmesan is yummy!!)
• juice of 2 lemons
• 4 chopped garlic cloves
• pinch of salt and pepper

1. mix all ingredients except for the fish in a bowl
2. lay out pieces of foil for each piece of fish
3. rub sauce mixture on both sides of each piece of fish
4. fold foil over fish to make seal packets
5. toss the packets into the crockpot and cook on high for 3-4 hours; fish should flake easily with a fork

Ryan and I really liked this fish. One discovery I made was that the sauce was extremely watery when first taken out of the crockpot... I had cut some up for the kids and when I returned to the packet to transfer the rest of the fish to my plate, the sauce had thickened up and turned "cheesier". I used parmesan cheese and the whole thing was really yummy.

Maple Jack Pork Chops

Another new recipe this week. And it earned another permanent place in my cookbook!
How could it not, with an easy 5 ingredients, less than five hour cook time (in the crock pot), and one of those lovely just throw it all together and truly forget about it until dinnertime.

I especially like these 'half-day' crockpot recipes... quite often I forget or get a late start on getting a meal in the crock pot first thing in the morning. But then I'm always around at noon or early afternoon, and thats the kids' downtime in their rooms, which means I should always have time to prep a meal!

Anyway. These pork chops. Melt in your mouth. Mmmm, Mmmm. Really.

Want to try them?
All you need is a crockpot, a few pork chops, an onion, some dijon mustard and this:

Yes, really.

Maple Jack Pork Chops
(from Recipezaar)

4 thick-cut pork loin chops
1 sweet onion peeled and sliced
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup Jack Daniels whiskey
2 tbsp Dijon mustard

Place onion slices in the bottom of your slow cooker. In small bowl, whisk together the syrup, whiskey and mustard. Season pork chops with salt and pepper and then dip each chop into syrup mixture and place in slow cooker on top of the onions. Pour remaining syrup mixture over the pork chops. Cover and cook on LOW for 4-5 hours.

Chili in the Crock

I was brainstorming for menu ideas this cool and dreary past Sunday and my husband chimed in that a big pot of chili for Monday night football would be perfect...
So chili it was!

I've never really made chili before. I know. One of the easiest dishes around and I've never even attempted it. I buy the Banquet Homestyle Bakes chili and cornbread in the box. I know, we're sad. But I just don't like chili. Actually, I've realized over the years, I do like chili, I just hate the beans. And I hate the hassle of picking them out of a good bowl of chili. So I decided to buckle down and find a good no-bean chili recipe to try out this week.

In my searching I made some discoveries...
Did you know that original, classic, true chili doesn't involve beans at all? A popular saying among self-proclaimed chili purists is "If you know beans about Chili, you know Chili ain't got no beans!". The thought that beans do not belong in chili may be further proven in the fact that most official chili cook-offs do not allow beans. In many cases the chili would be disqualified if it contained such ingredients considered "filler".
Chili is a Texas creation, a Texas invention, and a Texas tradition. It was created as a cheap food for cowboys, one that could easily be made while riding the hard trails, and that would also travel well. In other words, it was quick and easy to make, but could be made to serve lots of people over a long period of time. Following the herds across country, a group of cowboys could start a pot of chili, and continually add meat scraps and fat to the pot over the weeks as they traveled--and it only got better as the trail went on. Including beans in chili just wouldn't have happened as dry beans were heavy to travel with and involved a long soaking and cooking time.

So anyway, here was my first attempt at my own homemade "beanless" chili. I picked a simple yet interesting recipe off of Recipezaar and tweaked it just a little according to my pantry and our taste. The original recipe:

1 lb ground beef
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
2 tsp cocoa powder
2-3 tbsp chili powder
1 can tomato paste
1 can diet coke

cook on low at least 6 hours

I chose this recipe because a) it made a decently small amout... enough for 4-6 adults. I knew it would just be me and Ryan eating this and I didn't want to make a huge pot of chili for us to be eating on forever... especially if I didn't know it was a great recipe!
and b) the diet coke and the cocoa really caught my attention and intrigued me.
I love that these are ingredients I would pretty much always have on hand.

Alterations by me:
I didn't realize I didn't have any tomato paste on hand... I used tomato sauce instead
I added a can of diced basil garlic and oregano tomatoes
I added about a clove of chopped garlic and a sprinkle of onion powder

Verdict:
I thought it was really really yummy! Just the right amout of sweet and spicy. I was hesitant on the chili powder and only did about 2 tablespoons and I might go a little more on that next time. Also maybe add some real finely chopped onions. But the consistency was right on and I loved the flavor! Ryan really liked it too. I asked him if I should keep trying other chili recipes to find our favorite and he voted on keeping this one as the norm!
Of course the kids would have nothing to do with it... they pretty much only ate the accompianing corn bread!

French Dip Sandwiches... YUM!

I've been craving a good French Dip sandwich lately. I used to always order them in restaurants, but then I ran into a few too many blah ones and got tired of it. There's nothing like a really good perfectly tender juicy french dip sandwich though....
So when I found an easy yummy sounding recipe for it, I decided to try it. (First I found the recipe I wanted to try here, but ended up over here as in our house it's much more likely to find beer than a good red wine. hehe.)
So here's what we ended up with:

In the crock pot goes
1 can beef broth
1 can condensed french onion soup
dash of both garlic salt and onion powder
and 1 bottle (12 oz) of beer (I used an IPA because that's all we had in the house (well, that's not true-- we had plenty of light beers, but really I didn't need to be adding water to the broth!) but comments on the Allrecipe recipe mentioned the darker the beer the better)

Then I salt and peppered a 2+ lb sirloin tip roast and plunked that into the broth, turned the crock pot on low for 7 hours and that's it.
I had Ryan slice it up and put it back in the pot about 30 minutes before we ate to let the beef soak up more of the juices.
We piled the slices up in little french rolls, doled out the juice in individual ramekins, and French Dipped away!
It was really good. It may be just that I haven't had one of these sandwiches in so long, but I was quite impressed. I love easy recipes, I especially love easy crock pot recipes, and I loved this one! I will definitely be making this again!

Homemade Applesauce

*Edited to Add* Sawyer loved it! He ate a whole big bowl at dinner and asked for more.

I love homemade applesauce. I love anything baked with apples, but that's beside the point!

Here's my favorite Crockpot Applesauce recipe:
8-10 apples, peeled, quartered, cored, and sliced through food processor
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Put water and apples in slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours.
Add brown sugar and cinnamon and cook for 30 minutes longer.
Simple as that.
Yummy.

Here's also another version I have sitting in my cookbook along side this one. I have never tried it because I love the basic version so much, but doesn't this sound good??...
Caramel Applesauce
31/2 lbs of Granny Smith Apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 jar of caramel topping sauce
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Cook at on low for 8 hours.

Crock Pot Potatoes

I love this meal. If you can find 20 minutes at some point during the day to do some peeling, slicing and cubing, you can get it in the pot, and you're set and it'll be ready and waiting for you by dinner. I love my crock pot! I can't wait till fall and winter weather to make me want to make these warm and hearty meals again on a more regular basis...

Country Scalloped Potatoes and Ham
8 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 lb fully cooked ham, cut into 1" cubes
1 pkg (1 oz) country style gravy
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 cups water
2 cups shredded cheese

Combine potatoes, onion and ham in lightly greased crockpot. Combine gravy mix, mushroom soup and water; whisk until combined. Pour gravy mixture over potatoes. Cover and cook on Low for 8 hrs or High for 4 hours. Top with cheese during the last 20-30 minutes.
Tip: to prevent darkening of potatoes, toss sliced uncooked potatoes in a mixture of 1 cup water and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar; drain and proceed with recipe.

Sawyer didn't touch it, but Savannah actually ate some this time. I think she was just starving. After five or six bites (when she realized what she was eating) she started asking what else she could have...