Moroccan Carrot Soup

Once again, another delicious soup recipe from my oldest sister.
(That pumpkin one was hers too)
Ingredients:
2 T butter
1 cup chopped white onion
1 pound large carrots, peeled, cut into 1 inch chunks
2 1/2 cups veggie or chicken broth
1 1/2 t ground cumin
1 T honey
1 t lemon juice
1/8 t ground allspice
1/2 cup plain yogurt or milk

Directions:
Saute onion in butter or oil until translucent. Mix in carrots and broth and bring to boil. Simmer until carrots are very tender, about 20 minutes. Remove soup from heat and puree in blender until smooth. Return to pan and whisk in honey, lemon juice, allspice, cumin, and yogurt or milk. Sean with salt and pepper to taste. Can serve over rice.

Crock Pot Version: Saute onion in butter over stove. When translucent, transfer to crock pot with carrots and broth and leave on low for 5-6 hours or on high 3-4 hours. When ready puree in blender and return to crock pot to add honey, lemon juice, allspice, cumin and yogurt/milk. Season with salt and pepper and serve!
I served it with bread from our breadmaker this time... YUM!

Number Of Servings:4 lg servings (155 cals/bowl) or 6 small ones

Once again.. Orange soup is really hard to make appealing- looking in pictures... but trust me... Its delicious!

Cafe Rio Shredded Chicken Recipe

This was such a super easy and absolutely delicious meal! I highly recommend it to MOST of you... I wouldn't recommend nursing mothers eat this. It was a little spicy and my little one was VERY upset the day after I ate this. But it was absolutely delicious and I can't wait to make it again... in 9 months when I'm done nursing... **sigh**
Okay.. onto the recipe:

1 small bottle of Zesty Italian dressing
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. cumin
3 cloves minced garlic
2 lbs. chicken breast

Place chicken breast in crockpot covered with water and sprinkle with onion (I always use dried onion). Cook on low for 5-6 hours until cooked. Drain the water, shred the chicken with a fork and add the dressing and spices about 1 hour before you want to eat it.

Serve on tortillas with cheese and mexican rice and any other toppings you want. YUM! We ate this without the rice because I didn't have time to make it before heading to work and it was still absolutely delicious. But... if you want it to be more like Cafe Rio, then make some rice to add to your burrito. Serious deliciousness!

Grandma Stott's Stew

Okay, so I don't have a Grandma Stott, but this is a recipe that I got from a good friend of mine and she has a Grandma Stott!. I have featured a couple other recipes of hers on here... Super easy and VERY delicious! We LOVED this. I have to warn you- My house smelled very strong like onion while this was cooking, but the onion wasn't overpowering when you eat it. It was delish- and my house had that "stew" smell for a few days after, but totally worth it!

I am going to give you the whole recipe, but I only made half of this- and you can see in the pictures how much only half makes!
3-4 lb. pork roast
4 medium onions chopped
4 cups carrots cubed
1 cup celery chopped (unfortunately, I only had celery flakes, but real celery would have definitely been better!)
2 cans tomato soup
2-3 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 cans water

Place thawed roast in roasting pan (or 9x13 if you don't have a roasting pan, like me!). Sprinkle veggies on top and around roast. (I cut my roast up into smaller pieces because I was a little short on time to cook it. If you only have 4 hours instead of the 5-6, just cut your meat up into smaller pieces!)Mix soup, sugar, salt and water and pour over roast. Sprinkle with garlic and cover with roasting pan lid or just with foil (like me!). Bake 5-6 hours at 300. When done, shred pork and mix really well. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Cheesy Velveeta Potatoes

This is a recipe I got from Josh's Grandma Shaw and I made it for the first time when we had a friend over for dinner when his wife and kids were out of town (It was Andrew....Ashley!) I didn't have high hopes for these because I thought they would taste too much like that fake Velveeta taste, but they actually don't. We really enjoy these and they are so simple and easy. I think they go great with grilled chicken and fresh veggies! Enjoy!Ingredients:

Potatoes (enough to fill a small crockpot)
Small package Velveeta
Diced onion
1 cube butter

Peel and dice potatoes into bite sized pieces (I never completely peel my potatoes... I like a little skin). Fill crockpot 1/2 full then layer with onion and add more potatoes and fill to the top leaving a 1 inch headspace. (You can see that I didn't actually fill my crockpot with potatoes. That would make WAY too much for us!) Sprinkle with salt. Set on high and cook 2-3 hours until fork tender. Cooking time may vary depending on the size of the crockpot. Mine cooked much faster than this. When tender, drain thoroughly. Dice 1/2-3/4 package velveeta (I used like 3-4 ounces) and place on top of potatoes. Slice up butter and add to the cheese (I reduced my butter to 1/2 cube). Let butter and cheese melt (approx. 10 minutes) and gently stir. Delicious!

Honey Glazed Chicken

This is a recipe that we tried last week from my crock pot cookbook... and I have to be honest... Josh loved it and I'm still trying to decide if I liked it.

I think the flavor of the red pepper flakes was a little too much for me... so I will decrease the amount in the recipe here on the blog. But here's the recipe. Try it and tell me if you like it as much as Josh did (maybe he was just being nice!)

• 3 -4 Chicken Breasts
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/8 cup chopped onion (or 1/16 cup onion flakes)
• 1/8 cup ketchup
• 1 Tbs. vegetable oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
  

Put chicken in crock pot (I put it in frozen) and salt and pepper it. If your chicken is frozen like mine is, just add the salt and pepper to the sauce. Make the sauce and pour over the chicken. Let cook on Low in crockpot for 3-4 hours. You can also do this in the oven if you didn't think to do this earlier in the day in the crockpot. I haven't done it, but I imagine you could just cook it for about 45 minutes on 350 (with thawed chicken) and you would have yourself a yummy dinner.

Cut into smaller pieces and return to sauce for a few more minutes. Serve over rice and drizzle sauce over the top.

Meatball Soup

This yummy recipe came from my friend Ashley. We tried it last night and it was great! It hit 3pm yesterday and I hadn't even thought of dinner and Josh said he'd be on his way home in a couple hours and was starving... So I threw this in my crock pot and away we went! I halved this recipe and we still had TONS left over! (so... plan according to your family size! I might even third this next time for us!)

6 cups water
4 cubes chicken bouillon
1 jar spaghetti sauce
meatballs
egg noodles

Mix first 4 ingredients in a crock pot on high heat. Most crock pots should take 3-4 hours, but mine is super fast (and I boiled the water in the microwave before I added it... Because I needed it to hurry!)

20-30 minutes before serving, add egg noodles and they should be perfect when you serve it. Serve topped with a little bit of mozzarella cheese. We also had fresh Parmesan cheese, so we threw some of that on too! This was delicious and even the little B-man approved (who went straight into the bath after dinner!)

Crock Pot Lemon Chicken

I found this recipe just yesterday on Facebook on one of my old friends notes she had written. It looked easy, I had all the ingredients, so I made it for dinner. And it was GOOD!! (and Josh like it a lot.. But shh... Don't tell him it has sour cream in it...) I really really liked it. And its a crock pot... so it doesn't get much easier than that!
1 tsp. dried oregano1/2 tsp seasoned salt1/4 tsp pepper6 boneless skinless chicken breasts2 tsp chicken bouillon granules1/4 cup boiling water3 Tbsp. lemon juice1 1/2 tsp minced garlic1 1/2 cups sour cream2 tsp minced fresh parsely (i used dried.. its all i have!)
Combine oregano, salt and pepper and rub over chicken (I just sprinkled it because I used frozen chicken breasts). Place in a 3 qt. slow cooker. In a small bowl dissolve bouillon in boiling water. Stir in lemon juice and garlic. Pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours (or if you have a meat thermometer, until it reads 170)
Remove chicken and keep warm (SEE TIP below). Stir in sour cream and parsely. cover and cook for 15 minutes or until heated through. Serve with chicken and sauce. Tip: I just removed the chicken while I stirred in the sour cream/parsely mixture, but returned it to the crock pot to keep it warm and moist after it was all mixed together.

I served it with the Rice pilaf recipe (below) and yummy fresh brocolli. It was such an easy meal and so delicious!! Enjoy!!

Pepper Steak

I love this dinner (Do I say that every time??) What I especially love about this one is the peppers!! I love bell peppers, especially yellow and red. YUMMY!

First: If you are going to make this, you probably need to start your rice first! My rice takes 20 minutes in the microwave and this meal only takes 25 minutes to prepare.. so you have to start both at the same time!

1 1/2 lbs. top round steak (or any cheap cut of steak you can find!)

6 Tbs. vegetable oil

3/4 tsp. salt

6 medium green peppers, cut into 1 inch pieces1 1/2 c. sliced celery (optional, and I always leave this out)6 Tbsp. finely chopped onion1 clove garlic, minced1 1/2 cups beef bouillon6 Tbsp. water1 Tbsp corn starch1 Tbsp soy sauceSlice steak diagonally into thin slices, then cut into 2 inch pieces. Preheat 12 inch fry pan with oil. Brown meat in hot oil, sprinkling with salt. Add green peppers, celery, onion, garlic and bouillon. Cover with lid and simmer until vegetables are tender crisp, about 10 minutes. Blend water, soy sauce and corn starch together. Add to meat mixture. Cook and stir until thickened, about 5 minutes. Serve with hot rice. Makes 6-8 servings.
This could be left in a crockpot on low all day after the initial browning of the meat. Add everything (including veggies and sauce to crockpot to sit all day!)My changes: 1. I always half this recipe, but keep the sauce the same amount because I like it SAUCY! 2. I also never use green peppers- I always use my favorite, red, yellow and orange! 3. I use dried onion and minced garlic from the bottle... and if I do use celery, its just celery flakes. Enjoy!

Chicken Crockpot Fiesta

This recipe is another one of Josh's favorites. It is my oldest sister Carol's recipe that she gave me back when I was headed to college. It never really had a name until Josh came up with one. He loves this dish, and it is SO EASY!!

Here are all the ingredients you need to make this:
1 frozen chicken breast
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 cup salsaTortillas, grated cheese, sour cream... whatever else you want to top your tortilla with!
And that really is it!!
Put the frozen chicken breast, corn, black beans and salsa in the crockpot and give it a quick stir. You can drain the cans if you want... I never do, but then I have to use a slotted spoon to get the yummies out. I think it is easier to just throw in the cans without draining, but you do whatever floats your boat. I turn mine on high for 3-4 hours and it is done, but you could put it on low for 5-6 and I think it would be about right. Just do whatever you think for your crockpot, because if I know anything about crockpots, its that every single one cooks differently.Then, take 2 forks and shred the chicken and mix it around. Serve on a warmed tortilla with whatever you like on it- My favorite is cheese, sour cream and more fresh salsa. It is yummy and is something you can throw in the crockpot before you run out the door...
Oh... and if you haven't tried the "clog your arteries" breadsticks below, they are to die for and only take about 40 minutes from start to finish!