Taco soup

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, things seemed to get busy around here all of the sudden, so I have been cooking in the slow cooker, I just haven't had time to write about them!

I have a great recipe for Chicken tortilla soup that we make a lot during the winter, but I found this recipe for Taco soup and decided to give it a try.  I'm glad I did because it was FABULOUS!

It takes a bit of prep work because you have to brown the ground beef, but it was worth it.

Taco soup

Ingredients

    1 pound ground beef
    1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
    1 (1 ounce) package ranch dressing mix
    1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes and green chiles, undrained (Rotel)
    1 package frozen corn
    1 (15.5 ounce) can black beans, undrained
    1 can beef broth
    2 cups water
    1 onion, diced
    1 green bell pepper, diced
    1 cup tomato juice
    chili powder to taste

Directions

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; cook green pepper, onion and beef until evenly browned, and no longer pink. Drain and discard any excess grease. Transfer beef to a slow cooker and sprinkle with the taco seasoning mix and ranch dressing mix.

Add the tomato juice, diced tomatoes and green chiles, corn, and black beans, all with their liquid, to the slow cooker.  Cook on Low about 5 hours.

I served this with corn muffins and it was delicious!

Beef Stroganoff

A little history lesson...

Beef Stroganoff was orginally created from a competition at 'L'Art Culinaire'  in 1891 where it was presented by Charles Briére, an employee of the rich and powerful Stroganoff family. The original recipe had beef, mushrooms and sour cream, just like today's version. Legend has it that his patron Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganoff had lost all his teeth and his chef had especially prepared this recipe to overcome the Count's handicap.

This slow cooker version of beef stroganoff is guaranteed to be tender enough to eat without teeth, the Count would have love this one too!

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

2 pounds stew meat
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 onion, chopped
1 family sized can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (8 ounce) can canned mushrooms
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 can Beef Consomme
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
Extra wide egg noodles

Directions

Place the beef in the bottom of a slow cooker, and season with salt and pepper. Place onion on top of beef, and then add mushroom soup, mushrooms (with liquid), garlic and Worcestershire sauce.

In a small bowl, mix together the beef consomme with the flour. Pour over the beef. 

Cover and cook on Low for 6 to 7 hours.  After beef is tender, stir in the sour cream and continue cooking for 1 hour. 

Serve over rice or egg noodles.  I like to cook my egg noodles in water with bouillon cubes for flavor.

Sesame Chicken

We love Chinese food and I must say, my husband makes awesome stir fry at home.  We found a great recipe for General Tso's chicken, it was delicious, but it was fried and very time consuming to make at home, so I started looking for recipes I could make in the slow cooker.

I found a recipe for slow cooker sesame chicken and was skeptical, but decided to give it a try and it turned out great!  This is great served with steamed rice and broccoli.

(sorry about the pic, this is the leftovers, I forgot to take a pic of the after!)

Slow cooker sesame chicken

Ingredients

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 cup honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
4 teaspoons cornstarch (dissolved in 6 Tablespoons water)
sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions 

Season both sides of chicken with lightly with salt and pepper, put into crock pot.


In a small bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, oil, garlic and pepper flakes. Pour over chicken.


Cook on low for 3-4 hours or on high 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 hours

Remove chicken from crock pot, leave sauce.

Dissolve 4 teaspoons of cornstarch in 6 tablespoons of water and pour into crock pot. Stir to combine with sauce.

Replace lid and cook sauce on high for ten more minutes or until slightly thickened.


Cut chicken into bite size pieces, then return to pot and toss with sauce before serving.

If desired, you can sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Grab bags

Sometimes cooking with the slow cooker gives you the feeling you get when you buy a Grab Bag, you know there's something in there, but you are not sure what is going to come out when you open it up!  My sister-in-law once told me that she put pork chops in her slow cooker, left for work for the day, came home and there was nothing in the slow cooker, she swears the pork chops disintegrated!

Slow cooking is definitely one of those things that you have to use trial and error to become good at.  The first time I saw a recipe for slow cooker lasagna, I was hesitant to even try it, of all things, lasagna did not seem like a meal that would turn out good in a slow cooker and on my first try, I was right.  I built my lasagna per the recipe in my slow cooker, turned it on low and left for work for the day.  When I came home, my house smelled of burnt lasagna and that's pretty much what we had for dinner.  What I learned from that experience is that slow cooker lasagna needs to be cooked in a slow cooker that has a timer and digital settings, so that you can have the temperature lower when it is finished cooking to stay warm for dinner.  It also only needs about 4-6 hours to cook, so if you are going to be gone for an entire day, lasagna might not be your best choice that day.

Speaking of lasagna, here is the recipe that I like best in the slow cooker!

Slow cooker lasagna

    1 (1 pound) Italian sausage roll
    1 (9 ounce) package no-boil lasagna noodles, broken in halves
    12 ounces cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
    3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, reserve 1 cup
    2 (26 ounce) jars pasta sauce
    1 tablespoon dried parsley

Directions

Spray the inside of slow cooker with non-stick spray.
In medium skillet over medium heat, crumble and cook sausage until brown. Pour pasta sauce and mix with sausage.

Put a layer of sausage/sauce mixture in the bottom of slow cooker, then noodles, then ricotta/cottage cheese, then more sauce mixture, then mozzarella cheese.  Continue layering until all ingredients are used.

Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. 20 minutes before serving, top with remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese. Cover to melt cheese.

As for my grab bag, I think it was a pretty good deal this time, here's what was in the bag:

Now, I'm off to color my sidewalks with my newly acquired sidewalk chalk!

Slow cooker chicken and noodles

My husband and all four boys love noodles and they love chicken, but a few of them don't necessarily love them mixed together.  I sometimes make these separately, to keep everyone happy, but sometimes, they just have to eat what is served or don't eat at all (which one chooses to do if we all him).  I think the noodles taste better if they are cooked in the broth with the chicken!  I use to make these without the cream of chicken soup, but my Grandma Wooden says she gets compliments when she adds the can of cream of chicken soup, so I tried it and she is right (I didn't doubt it for a minute), they are delicious this way, so this is now in my recipe!  Enjoy!

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
8 cups chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup (you can use fat free)
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 (12 ounce) package frozen egg noodles


Place chicken, chicken broth, onion and salt and pepper to taste into a slow cooker. Add celery if desired. Set temperature to low and cook for 6 to 8 hours.


When chicken is tender, turn the slow cooker on High setting and add the egg noodles on top of chicken.  Cook until noodles are done, it normally takes me about 90 minutes.

After noodles are done, use a wooden spoon to break chicken into pieces and mix them into the noodles.  Add the can of cream of chicken and stir into noodles.

Welcome!

Another slow cooker blog, how boring, right?  I agree, but I am a busy wife and mom, I work full-time, I have 200 pounds worth of dogs (ok, its only two dogs, but one is a Newfoundland named Rocky and she weighs a lot!), I volunteer with Little League, Scouts and church, so I'm just busy! We recently moved from Colorado to Indiana (I know, what were we thinking, but it was for my husband's job and we have family here), several of my friends asked me to send them my recipes or even to write a cook book.  I thought about the cook book (for about 20 seconds) and decided it was too much work, so I have started this blog to post my recipes.  Most of them will be slow cooker recipes, you might get a dip recipe here and there and maybe even some desserts.

I try to cook most of our meals at home, which is time consuming, so I started using my slow cooker several times a week a few years ago.  I have accumulated lots of recipes, some great ones and some not-so-great ones over the years, so these have been tried and tested by my family.  I will only post ones that we like, hopefully you will like them too!

Super easy slow cooker french dip sandwiches

My friend Andrea posted on Facebook that she has been unsuccessful in cooking meals in her slow cooker.  She even mentioned that her husband almost begs her NOT to use her slow cooker!  So, I told her I would send her a no-fail recipe that she could try. 

Here is my first recipe to share - Super easy slow cooker french dip sandwiches!

• 4 pounds beef roast (rump roast, chuck roast, the cheaper cut the better for these)
• 2 (10.5 ounce) cans beef broth
• 2 (10.5 ounce) cans condensed French onion soup
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer
• 6 Hoagie rolls
• Butter (softened)

1. Place roast in slow cooker. Add the beef broth, onion soup and beer. Cook on Low setting for 8 hours.
   
2. Split Hoagie rolls and spread with butter. Place butter side down on a hot skillet and toast the rolls.
   
3. Shred the meat and place on the rolls. Serve the sauce from slow cooker for dipping.