Chicken Drumstick - Rice Bake

This was easy easy easy and the kids ate ate ate it.  I'll definitely make this recipe from Cooks.com again.  I used organic chicken (on sale at Henry's) and baked for 2 1/2 hours at 325 degrees.  It was delicious.
I made 10 drumsticks - all we had left was this little bit (perfect for Andrew's lunch tomorrow):

We also had broccoli and Easter eggs.  Here's our little kitty cat all smiles.

Butternut Squash Soup

Baden requested this soup tonight. I've made it a few times - it's easy to make, delicious, and looks pretty.

Plus I get to use the immersion blender!

Before:                                                                              After:

The recipe can be found here on a blog I read regularly, Pancakes and French Fries. It's not a cooking blog but this soup is good!

Chili

Super Bowl Sunday.... chili seemed like a good idea.  And it was!

Simple Chili from 101 Things To Do With A Slow Cooker
Ground beef (browned) with onion, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, green chilies, garlic, kidney beans, a bit of water and seasonings.  Not too spicy but can easily be doctored with your favorite hot sauce.  I used Frank's Red Hot.

Pork and Mushrooms

Nothing fancy this week.  We're still trying to adjust to life after the holidays.  Life is crazy busy right now but I wanted to keep this up - trying new recipes, planning meals, etc.  So I picked a simple recipe with few ingredients to kick off the new year.  Although it called for pork chops we had a pork loin in the fridge so I used that.

Pork loin, cut into pieces
2 medium onions, sliced
1 small can sliced mushrooms
1 package dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup mushroom broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup

Place meat in greased crock pot. Top with onions and mushrooms. Combine soup mix, broth, and soup and pour mixture in crock pot.  We cooked it on low for 5 hours.  It was delicious!  We ended up with about 1/3 cup of sauce in the bottom of the crock pot.  Which means I can't take a picture since I forgot earlier. Truthfully it probably tasted better than it looked anyway.

Now if I can only find time to get the tree down!

Happy New Year!

Growing up in California, the only New Year's Day tradition we had was to watch the Rose Parade.  I still watch the Rose Parade but now I also make a pot of black eyed peas.

An ex-boyfriend's mother (a True Texan Woman) always made Black Eyed Peas on New Year's Day to bring good luck.  The boyfriend is long gone but I always make black eyed peas on Jan 1.  I usually make Mississippi Caviar from the Silver Palate cookbook but in the spirit of Crockpot Wednesdays I tried a new recipe.

So, at the stroke of midnight last night I was sipping champagne and assembling this recipe from AllRecipes.com.  I started the crock pot and went to bed.  We woke up to the most delicious pot of good luck! Not exactly breakfast food but we'll enjoy this all week.  This is my new favorite way to prepare black eyed peas.  

December craziness...

We took last week off due to extra long December to do lists.  This week... who knows what day it is, right?  Well it's Wednesday and I realized as I headed off to bed, "It's Wednesday and I'm making minestrone soup in my crock pot!"  So the good news is that by using my crock pot regularly over the last two months I now use it without planning to use it.  It's no longer an event... it's cooking!

When I wake up tomorrow morning a big batch of Herby Minestrone (from Art of the Slow Cooker) will be waiting.  I'll refrigerate it and we'll enjoy it over the next few days.  Hopefully the rain will let up but if it doesn't at least we'll have some delicious homemade soup.

Week 8: Moroccan Chicken

Liz chose this week... Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken from allrecipes.com.    I usually try to follow the directions exactly the first the time I prepare a recipe.  However I only had the time and energy to go to one grocery store on Tuesday night.  I opted for Henry's even though Liz had texted me that Ralph's had fresh peaches.  Of course Henry's didn't have fresh peaches.  No slivered almonds either.  So I was uneasy from the start.  I bought canned peaches (organic) and used less apricots since canned peaches are sweeter than fresh.

Then today on my way to a meeting I realized I hadn't asked my mom to pull the crock pot out of the fridge and turn it on.  Hmm... it was 11 am so I had two hours to either reach her or get home.  Luckily she called me back just after noon and got the crock pot started.  But I forgot to tell her to add the chicken broth!  I had layered all the ingredients the night before but decided to add the chicken broth just before cooking.  I didn't realize this until much later though, in fact I didn't realize I forgot until after dinner.

So no surprise here - I skipped the cornstarch and water step because it didn't seem to need thickening.  Hmm I wonder why?  Because I left out 2 cups of liquid?  I still didn't realize I forgot the broth.  

Andrew chopped some almonds for me to substitute for "toasted slivered almonds".  We served it into bowls... we reached for the camera to take a picture... the batteries were dead.  So I used my phone which will explain the quality of this picture.

How was Murphy's Law Moroccan Chicken?  It got mixed reviews.  The kids didn't like it - "too spicy". Andrew gave it a thumbs up.  He had seconds and will have more in his lunch tomorrow.  I thought it was ok.  Actually, I did like it but I don't know that I'll make it again.  Although Andrew wants to try it again.  If I do make it again, it will be in the summer time with fresh peaches!