Crock Pot Potato Soup

Potato soup might be my all-time favorite kind of soup. Over the years, I've tried many different versions, and while most have been very successful, this one takes the cake, if for no other reason, because it can be made in the crockpot. And you know how I feel about crockpots.

I've tweaked the original recipe a bit, but these are the basic ingredients. The only two not pictured are green onions and dry Ranch.

-1 carton chicken broth

-1 can cream of chicken

-1 pkg frozen hash browns

-1 pkg cream cheese

- 3 celery stalks, chopped

- 4-5 green onion stalks, chopped

- bacon, cooked and chopped

- 1 t dry Ranch

Step 1: Layer in Crock Pot

Wisk together Cream of Chicken soup and a small amount of broth until smooth. Place hash browns in the crock pot and pour mixture from above over the top. 

Add celery, half the green onion, and a handful of bacon. (Reserve the rest of the onions and bacon for garnish.) Pour remaining broth over the top.

Step 2: Cook

Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Step 3: Add the cream cheese

Thirty minutes to an hour before serving, place the package of cream cheese in a cup of hot water. When softened, mix into soup and add dry Ranch.

Step 4: Add toppings

Top with green onion, bacon, and cheese. Enjoy!

Butternut Squash & Black Bean Enchiladas

Butternut squash is my new favorite food. I LOVE it. So when my friend Mandi, who is very health-conscious, suggested we make this recipe together, I was all for it. The original recipe can be found here, but I tweaked a few things to make it work better for my family. I also doubled the recipe, but what is included below is for a single batch.

STEP 1: Ingredients

• olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
• 2 1/2 butternut squash, cut into 1/2-inch squares
• 1 can Rotel
• 1 1/2 c black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 t cumin
• 1/2 t chili powder
• 1/4 c water
• 1 c enchilada sauce
• tortillas
• shredded cheese

(from the original recipe, I omitted cilantro only because I didn't have it on hand and didn't want to make a trip to the store just for that, but it would make this even more savory!)

STEP 2: Stovetop
Saute onions, garlic, and jalapeno in a small amount of olive oil until the onions begin to become translucent. Add squash, Rotel, beans, spices, and water. Cook over medium low heat or until squash is tender - 20-25 minutes.

STEP 3: Stuffing 
Place just enough enchilada sauce in the pan to cover the bottom. I was making these up to freeze, so I used a disposable pan (which, PS, I will buy from the Dollar Store from now on! They have 2 packs and I think I paid almost $4 for a 4 pack at Dillon's!).

 

The recipe says to add 1/3 c to the tortilla, but I always use a spoon until the amount looks right. I also started folding my enchiladas like enchiladas instead of like burritos, which makes for an easier fit in the pan AND less mess. Win win.

STEP 4: Oven
Place stuffed enchiladas in the pan and drizzle with enchilada sauce. Top with cheese (I skipped this step since they were going straight to the freezer, but I will add it before I bake) and bake at 400 until cheese is melted.

New Recipes...

It's starting to become fall. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE soups in the fall. I would eat them year-round if it weren't for my husband, who believes (as most people do, I think) that soup should only be consumed in cold weather.

Whatever.

First New Recipe: Egg Drop Soup
I love me a good bowl of egg drop soup and my favorite Chinese restaurant in town (which sadly closed its doors about a decade ago) had the most DELICIOUS soup. So one day I was messing around on Pinterest and thought I'd see what was out there in the way of EDS. I found this. I'm not going to do my usual step-by-step with pictures 1) because I didn't like this recipe that much and 2) because I kept forgetting to take pics.

I had all the ingredients except ginger root, which I had to ask Lindsey where to find and how to use. The soup was souper-easy (see what I did there? ha!) to make, but when it came to eating it, I was a little let down. There was WAY too much soy sauce taste for me, but Rick loved it. Next time I will tone that down a bit.

Sorry for the bad pic...the lighting in our kitchen is terrible.

I paired this with our favorite everyday home cook crab rangoon recipe, and my son was happy.

Second New Recipe: Homemade Beef Broth
We bought another quarter of a cow, and this time we split with my parents. They didn't want the beef soup bones, but since I make my own chicken broth, I thought I'd try my hand at beef broth.

I looked at recipes for a long time because, to be frank, I wanted the easiest one I could find. Apparently beef broth is a little more complicated than chicken broth. I finally settled on this recipe. I liked it because the lady said specifically in the post "You can save even more money by using the equivalent in vegetable scraps instead. Save the celery tops and carrot peelings to use in broth rather than a stalk of celery or a whole carrot. The broth will taste the same!" I am down with stuff like that. So this is what my crockpot looked like pre-bones:

The end of the celery stalk, the split top celerys, carrot tops and peelings, and the ends of my green onions. I did use an actual whole onion, but I really felt pretty good about the rest! I roasted the beef soup bones (which looked like this after they were done):

I filled the crockpot with water, turned it on, and walked away. When I came back, I discarded the vegetables, peeled the meat off the beef bones (which I wasn't expecting much of, but it was enough to make quesadillas for the whole family!), and divided the broth into containers for the fridge. I came back 48 hours later, scraped the fat off the top, and voila! Ready for the freezer and then my delicious fall soups!

It made way more than this...this is just what I'm taking to my parents.

Third New Recipe: Black Bean & Butternut Squash Enchiladas
OHMYGOODNESS! These were AMAZING.

I so wish I had taken pictures. But no matter - there will be a next time THIS WEEK, and I will be taking pictures and devoting an entire post to these. They were that good. But if you can't wait for the post, here is the recipe in the meantime. I deseeded and didn't use the entire jalapeno and omitted the cilantro, but otherwise this was how I did it. Post coming soon.

But...can we have a moment for butternut squash? I'm not sure where it's been all my life, but I am so glad to have discovered it. See this? This is steak Rick grilled from the cow (which was actually very good, despite my aversion to steak), half a baked potato (that, as you can see, is drizzled with butter and cheese), and roasted onion, zucchini, and butternut squash, seasoned with rosemary and some other spice I grabbed from the pantry that looked good. The whole meal was delish, but I ate everyone's share of the veggies.

MMMM MMMM GOOD!

Homemade Peanut Butter

Lindsey introduced me to homemade nut butters. I made almond butter and it was AMAZING. So when we had dinner at Texas Road House a few nights ago, I filled a bag with their fresh-roasted peanuts and decided to try making my own peanut butter.

Step 1: De-shell the peanuts. (This was a HUGE pain. But, they were free.)

Step 2: Pour peanuts (about 2 c worth) into the food processor. Add a small amount of EVOO and honey, and turn that puppy on high.

 Run until the PB looks like PB.

Step 3: ENJOY!
Spread on toast, on Graham crackers, or just eat the stuff with a spoon. That's what my daughter ended up doing when I gave it to her!

**Be sure to store in the refrigerator.

Crock Pot Meal Test:

Of the five crock pot meals I made up and shared a few weeks ago, we have eaten 4.  I should have taken pictures but of course, I'm not that prepared :/  I gave each a rating out of five as to how much my family liked it.

• Scalloped Potatoes & Ham - 4/5
  
   
  This meal was very good...minus the fact that my house STANK like broccoli.  I didn't think it was that bad...until a 7 year old walked in and said, "Your house stinks."  Why yes, yes it does.  So note to self - slow cooker broccoli makes your house smell.  I made this up for the freezer again but tried green beans. We'll see how that goes.

• Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki - 4/5

I made this one and served it over cous cous.  It was very good.  Again, it contained broccoli, so it was not quite as fragrant. :/

• Ravioli - 5/5

This was a serious score.  Ravioli has always been one of my favorite foods and Charlie even ate it, too.

• Crock Pot Pasta - F.A.I.L

I threw this one in before we went to church and by the time we got home it was FRIED.  Apparently it needs to cook completely frozen on low for 3-4 hours, not thawed for 6-8.  It was so bad we walked into the house and Charlie said, "Ew, Daddy, something smells gross."  Yep, he was right.  Sandwiches for lunch that day.  I still have another bag of this, so next time I will try less time in the crock pot.

Overall, though, this has been great!  It's so easy and convenient.  And I have read about crock pot liners that make clean up a cinch.  Not sure the pocketbook can handle those (I'm sure they are expensive) but I might look into it!

Crockpot Freezer Cooking

I have mentioned before that I am a recovering pessimist, and as such, I am already dreading August.  Life just gets so much harder in the fall.  So I've been thinking of things I can do now to help make my life easier then.

And one of them is crock pot freezer cooking.

I am going to start small - 5 meals.  I will prepare, freeze, and cook each meal in the coming weeks and see how I like it.  I have tried to choose meals that my son will eat and meals where I can easily pick something off or out of if need be.  Right now, I've narrowed my recipes down to the following:

• Scalloped Potatoes & Ham - my son is obsessed with ham - ham sandwiches, ham pizza, plain ham - and after the last year of him not eating FOOD, we are overjoyed.  I'm sure he will eat this.
  
  
  
• Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki - my husband LOVES teriyaki so this one looked good.

• Vegetable Beef Soup - this is my mother-in-law's recipe.  Mmmmmmmmm good.

• Ravioli - I love ravioli, and I've had a bag of it in my freezer for a while now. It needs eaten.

• Crock Pot Pasta - this is a totally new recipe, but it uses beef, which we have an abundance of, so I figured I'd try it.

I made all of these over the course of a few days, chopped, diced, cooked, and froze.  All but the ravioli made two meals, which means that these recipes yielded NINE meals for my family, and all they require is placing the bag in the refrigerator the night before and then throwing them in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours.  I tried to pick recipes where I didn't have to go to the store for much and that used lots of vegetables.  And I made some modifications...like the teriyaki chicken called for canned pineapples with the syrup, but since we always have fresh pineapple around here (my kids are obsessed), I used fresh pineapple and reserved the actual pineapple juice (which normally I pour into a juice glass and drink).  I also threw in some broccoli and mini peppers since I had them on hand.  I'm looking forward to that recipe!

If this works as well as I'm hoping it will, that means I can slowly stock my freezer this summer and have ready-made meals for the fall, and as the fall is our busiest time of year, I can use all the help I can get. :)

Cooking with Marge: Perfect White Gravy

I don't do gravy.  Why?  For the same reason I don't do watermelon, coconut, or pickles.

It's disgusting.

However, Rick's step-grandmother, Marge (who happens to be the sweetest lady on the planet) makes delicious gravy.  I tried it once because everyone at the table (except Marge, of course) was hassling me about how I won't eat gravy and found, to my surprise, that it was delicious.  So I tried to make her chicken fried chicken (which is my husband's very favorite dish) with mashed potatoes and gravy.  The chicken fried chicken was delish (sometime I'll share that recipe too - Marge had me come early to a family dinner one day and showed me all her secrets), but the gravy...well...not so much.  We ended up throwing it away, it was so bad.  I told Marge about the experience (I don't think she's ever had a mishap in the kitchen, bless her) and she again invited me to family dinner early so I could watch her - or, that's what I thought was going to happen.  She actually made me do it.  I'm a teacher so I was wise to her ways!  I documented the procedure as best I could while cooking:

 INGREDIENTS:

These are the necessary ingredients: oil, milk, water (or stock, if you have it), beef granules, and/or chicken granules (depending on what you are serving - we were doing chicken fried steak, so we used both), and flour.  A few important points about the ingredients:

• Marge says have them all out and within close reach.  The most crucial part of the process goes very fast, so you don't want to be running around the kitchen getting stuff - you want to just be able to grab and dump.
• Marge says to eyeball the amounts.  Right....

HEATING THE OIL

Cover the bottom of a skillet with CLEAN oil.  DO NOT use the drippings from the meat.  It is lumpy and not the way Marge does things.  This is a large skillet because we were making a ton, but normally you would use a smaller skillet.  Warm over medium heat.

Stay close and test the oil.  You don't want it too hot because it will scald and brown, but you don't want it to be not hot enough, because then it the flour will mush up.  To test, drop a pinch of flour into the hot oil.  If it dances and sizzles briefly, it's ready.

If you look close, you can see the sizzling

ADDING THE FLOUR AND MILK
This is where it can all go horribly wrong if you aren't watching very carefully!  Add flour to the oil in small doses, stirring rapidly as you go.  This picture is so bad, but you can see all the bubbling and that's exactly what you want.  You want to stir and eliminate clumps as quickly as possible!  Add milk, and mix some more

If there are too many lumps, remove from heat quickly, fix the lumps, and then put it back.  Nailing this step is crucial to the success of the gravy!

ADDING OTHER INGREDIENTS
Once the mixture begins to thicken, add a small amount of water.  I say small because you can always add more if you need it, but you can't take it back.

 Add some granules and stir, stir, stir.  Reduce heat and add milk and/or water until you get the desired consistency.  Marge likes it kind of in the middle - not so thick that it's like a paste, but not so thin that it drips right off the spoon - it sort of rolls off the spoon.  Perfect.

And what a pretty plate: 1 piece of chicken-fried steak, a hearty helping of green beans and carrots, and some mashed potatoes with mmm mmm gravy!  A bit of a splurge diet-wise, but sooooooo delicious!

Recipe: Meatballs with Sneaky Veggies

I made this as part of my massive freezer cooking excursion, but they were so delicious and such a good idea that I made them again over the weekend.  Please excuse the poor picture quality...anyone want to buy me an iPhone 5? :)

STEP 1: Ingredients
You will need:

I made a double recipe, so the items pictured are twice what you will need

• 1 lb ground beef, thawed (the leaner the better)
• cauliflower
• carrot
• celery (or cell-er-ee, for Lindsey :)
• for these veggies, you want approx. 1/2 c of each when blended, so eyeball it
• 1 slice whole wheat bread
• 2 egg whites
• fresh parsley

STEP 2: Mix, mix, mix!
Place the veggies and bread in a food processor.  You can really use any veggies you want.  You can see from the picture here that I used green pepper.  I didn't have any celery on hand, so I just used what I had on hand.  You could also use frozen veggies, but if you do, be sure to thaw completely before mixing.

And blend until fine and well-mixed.

Add ground beef and mix by hand...if you can bear to touch it.  I made myself, even though every grain of myself squirmed.  I suppose I could have put it in my Kitchen-aid and used the paddle attachment, but I didn't think of that until now.  And even if I had, you have to touch it in the next step anyway, so I don't know that it really matters...

Add parsley and egg whites and continue to mix until everything looks evenly distributed and there aren't big pockets of veggies or meat.

STEP THREE: Roll
Roll the mixture into balls.  If needed, put some olive oil on your fingers to help shape. Place in a muffin tin or on a cookie sheet THAT HAS AN EDGE!  (The first time I made these I put some on a edge-less pan and then had to find a pan big enough to place under it in case grease dripped down onto the heating unit, which would have caused a fire.  So...don't do that.)

STEP FOUR: Bake
Place in an oven heated to 400 degrees.  Bake for 20 minutes or so, or until meatballs are browned.  Remove from pan and cool on wire racks to get rid of any extra grease.  (Though the leaner your meat, the less grease you should have.)

I didn't take a picture of these with the veggie or whole-wheat pasta and sauce I would serve because they went straight into a bag and to the freezer.  But the first time I made them I fed them to my children.  My 1-year-old will eat anything you give her, so she gobbled these up.  The real test was going to be my uber-picky almost-4-year-old.  I chopped them up and mixed them in with his pasta and sauce...and he ate almost half of it.

Success, in my book.

Delicious Vegetarian Black Bean Soup

When I went through the Eat to Live diet, I discovered an amazing soup at Panera Bread - Vegetarian Black Bean Soup.  A few years ago, I found a recipe that resembled what I imagined went into this wonderful bowl of tasty, hearty goodness.  It could also be called "Mmmm...Yummy Soup."  I like that.  I made a few changes and here is the recipe we use now:

• 1 onion
• 4 celery ribs
• 1 bell pepper (color your preference...I had green on hand)
• 4 cloves garlic (I was out of fresh :()
• 3 c vegetable broth
• 3 cans black beans, undrained
• 1 t salt
• 1 t cumin
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• *1 pkg kielbasa (not pictured...and only if you don't want to go the vegetarian route, or in my case, have a husband to please) 

You will notice that I have beef broth instead of vegetable broth.  This is because I just made this beef and noodle recipe of Lindsey's (which was a HUGE crowd pleaser - thanks Lindsey!) and didn't have vegetable broth.  I have substituted beef broth before, so I know it works just fine.  But officially, it is no longer a vegetarian dish.  If that is important to you, take note.

STEP 1: Chop, chop, chop!
Chop up those veggies.  If you live with people who do not like large chunks (my family), then dice, dice, dice!

1 onion

1 bell pepper

Looks like I have a way lot more celery than the other veggies.  I went back and changed the ingredients list above from 6 ribs of celery (which is what this is) to 4.  Not sure what happened, but as I like celery, I used it all anyway. :)

This would probably be a way easier task with a food processor, but I don't have one, so I dice, dice, dice.

STEP 2: Throw it into the pot!
Combine your first five ingredients: onion, pepper, celery, garlic, and beef broth, and bring to a boil.  Simmer 10 minutes.

STEP 3: The beans (+ kielbasa, if you don't want to go the vegetarian route)
Puree one can of black beans.  *Side note:* In making an effort to eat as much fresh food as possible, I examined the label on the black beans.  I know nothing about beans or how to make them - I have always used canned beans.  They contain "Prepared black beans, water, salt."  I'm sure the sodium is overdone as a preservative, but beyond that this didn't sound too "dirty."  (Chelsea, can you weigh in?) *End Side Note* I use the magic bullet, which might be my second favorite kitchen appliance.  (First is the Kitchen Aid mixer in the background :)  I use it for banana bread, baby food, and all sorts of other great stuff.  If you don't have one, I'm sorry, but an immersion blender, or even just a regular blender would probably work fine.  Add it and the two other cans to the pot UNDRAINED.  Also, if your husband prefers to have meat in all his foods (ahem), chop up some kielbasa and throw it in.  I have to admit, it does add some flavor.

STEP 4: Add spices and simmer
Add salt and cumin.  Spoon out about three tablespoons of the broth and combine with 3 tablespoons of corn startch to thicken the mixture.  Add to soup and simmer until veggies are completely cooked.

STEP 5: ENJOY!
Mmmm...yummy soup.  My family likes to treat this dish like chili and add sour cream, cheese, and chips to the soup.  It is delicious, but quite unhealthy, and honestly, I don't think it needs anything else.  It is simply PERFECT!

:)