Break Time Means Catch Up on the Blog Time

Creamy Bacon Potato Soup

So I know it has been two months since I last posted on this blog, but once again life has gotten the best of me.  Between my son's basketball schedule, my daughter's travel basketball schedule, and my teaching, I barely have had time to do much of anything.  Well, now I am snowed in and on Christmas Break.  Not only do I have time to post some recipes that I am cooking, but I also have time to actually cook!

The first item I am going to post is a Creamy Bacon Potato Soup that I found on Allrecipes.com.  I modified the recipe from its original version slightly.  Last month I made this soup for my family and I could not wait to eat it when we got home from my daughter's basketball practice. 

Apparently I was not the only mammal not able to wait for this scrumptious soup.  My dog, Roscoe, had plans of his own.  When we got home from our daughter's basketball practice, the crock pot was on the kitchen floor, cleaned out completely, and the lid dented.  Roscoe had an entire crock of creamy bacon potato soup. 

I decided to try for round two of the soup since I wasn't going anywhere today.  It was everything I hoped it would be especially on a cold winter day like today.

Ingredients:
1 medium onion finely chopped
package of bacon diced into 1-2 inch pieces
2 cans of condensed chicken broth
2 cups of water
5 large potatoes diced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried dill weed
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
2 cups half and half cream
1 1/2 can of evaporated milk
1/cup flour

1.  Place bacon and onion in a skillet.  Cook bacon and onion until bacon is browned evenly and onion is soft.
2.  Transfer the bacon and onion to the slow cooker.  Stir in chicken broth, water, potatoes, salt, pepper, dill weed, and cover.  Cook on low for 6-7 hours stirring occasionally.

3.  In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and half and half.  Stir into the soup along with the evaporated milk.  Cover and cook another 30 minutes before serving.

Fall My Second Favorite Season

While summer is my absolute favorite time of the year, fall comes in a close second.  The two main reasons for my love of the fall season are football and the comfort food that I get to start cooking.  Today was no exception.  Here in Indiana the day started out really gloomy with grey cloudy covered skies, cooler weather, and a spit spat rain.  When I stood in the hallways at school and looked out the large glass windows while doing hall duty, all I could think about were sweat pants a sweatshirt and a big pot of my favorite --White Lightening Chicken Chili.  Now this is a recipe I have been making for over ten years.  I first started making this particular recipe while my husband was wrestling in college.  He had to watch his weight and this light recipe that I found in a cookbook called "Cooking Light" was tasty, light, and packed in some protein.  All of these elements were needed for a college wrestler.  I have made this recipe and changed it over the years to our liking.  I don't even have a set recipe and for the most part, I make it to taste.  Since I started making this in 1997, there have been several other recipes created and published.  Most of the recipes I have seen are a lot heavier and include heavy whipping cream in the chili.  Therefore, if you are looking for a lighter white chili, this is the recipe for you.

Ingredients:
Two large chicken breasts
1 cup of milk or chicken broth
1 jalepeno pepper minced
1 medium onion chopped
1/2 green bell pepper chopped
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp white pepper
1-3 tsp cayenne pepper
2-3 cans great northern beans
1 carton chicken broth
shredded cheese
sour cream

1.  Poach the chicken -- cut an deep slit down the center of each chicken breast poor either the milk or chicken broth over the chicken in a shallow baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
2.  Meanwhile place the jalapeno pepper, onion, bell pepper and garlic in a medium sized stock pot.  Cook until the onions are translucent.
3.  Add all of the spices and mix with the vegetables.  Stir together until fragrant.
4.  Rinse and drain the beans and add them to the vegetables and spices.
5.  Poor the chicken broth into the stock pot.  I usually use anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 of the carton.  Add as much as you would like to get it to your preferred consistency and taste.  I usually add it to a little above the beans and then after adding the chicken, add a little more to taste.
6.  Allow the chili to come to a boil and then simmer.
7.  Once the chicken is finished, remove it from the oven and let it cool.  When it is cool enough, shred the chicken with a fork or I use my hands and put it in the stock pot with the rest of the chili.  I stir it in and let it come to a boil again and then let it simmer for about 20-30 minutes.
8.  Serve with shredded cheese and sour cream

Football Sunday = Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins and Slow Cooker Chili

http://www.bakerella.com/mini-maple-pancake-muffins/

My favorite thing about fall is NFL football!  I am in three fantasy leagues and pretty much once 1:00 comes around, I spend the rest of my day watching football with my Sunday NFL Sunday Ticket.  Because I was so excited this morning, I woke up and made some delicious mini muffins -- recipe courtesy of Bakerella.  These were absolutely delicious especially right out of the oven with some butter.  My son Lincoln and his best friend Aiden loved them.






Now for the best part of the evening while watching some Steelers vs. Denver Broncos football on TV.  This chili recipe is my own that I have come up with after following chili recipes for years.  I don't claim to be the master chili maker but this chili is my husband's favorite and when my family came for a visit, they loved it too.  Chili is perfect for a cool Sunday of football, and so this was the choice of food for us.  We use 2 lbs of meat (sausage/ground beef); you could use 1/2 lb of each if you like your chili a little soupier. Also, if you like some spice you could add some fresh jalapeno or some Cajun spice.



 Ingredients:
1 lb Ground Beef
1 lb Ground Sausage
1 onion chopped
1 tbsp of minced garlic
1 green pepper chopped
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 small cans of tomato sauce
1 small can tomato paste
2 cans of kidney beans (drained)
1 can of black beans (drained)
3 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp cumin

1.  Brown ground beef and sausage with chopped onion and garlic until beef is browned all he way through.  Drain the grease from the meat and add to the crock pot.
2.  Add the remaining ingredients o the crock pot stir and then cook on low for 6-8 hours.
3.  We add shredded cheese on the top of our chili.

Menu Planning

Now that the school year has started and our crazy schedule has begun, I have found that planning a bi-weekly menu is especially important and saves me a lot of time.  I choose to plan for two weeks because we get paid every two weeks and I only make a major grocery store trip once every two weeks that way (which also saves a lot of time).  Today I was able to plan my menu, grocery shop, and prepare and freeze three meals.  This is the best way I can think of to have home cooked meals on a time crunch. Below I will post my menu with the a couple of the recipes I will be making. 

Menu:
Cilantro Lime Pesto Chicken Tacos with Refried beans
Meatball Soup
Chicken Bacon Pasta
Olive Garden Spaghetti
Creamy Chicken Taco Stew
Stuffed Green Pepper Soup
Chili
Teriyaki Chicken
Hot Dogs in Crescent rolls w/ Mac and Cheese

Cilantro Lime Pesto Chicken Tacos with Refried Beans
I am especially excited about these.  They sound delicious and when I made them today the marinade smelled delicious. I found the recipe on Pinterest for the tacos and have attached a link to the recipe and a couple of pictures below.  I plan on making this meal tomorrow and adding some Spanish rice to it as well.
 
http://joelens.blogspot.com/2010/05/cilantro-lime-chicken-tacos.html

Refried Beans
This recipe I found on the Simple Recipes web site.  I have always wanted to make home made refried beans instead of heating them up out of a can and this recipe is very simple.

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/refried_beans/

Meatball Soup
This recipe is very simple and easy to make and utilizes the slow cooker which is even better.  This is a recipe that I just put together when trying to come up with a use for the frozen meatballs I had in my freezer.  We really enjoy and hope if you try it, you will too. 

Ingredients:
1lb. frozen Italian meatballs
1 carton of beef broth
1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables
2 tbsp Italian seasoning
Elbow Macaroni

1.  Put meatballs, beef broth, frozen vegetables, and Italian seasoning in the crock pot and cook it on low for 6-8 hours.  About thirty minutes before eating cook elbow macaroni according to package directions and add it to the soup.  Turn off the crock pot and serve.

Chicken Bacon Pasta
This is a modified recipe from Kraft recipes.  I cook the crock pot Chicken Bacon according to Kraft recipes directions and then I cook Penna pasta and add the chicken mixture to the pasta (in a large saucepan) with a little chicken broth to thin the sauce out a little and serve it all together.  I also add peas to this to make sure there is a vegetable.

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/community/recipe-exchange/UserRecipeDisplay.aspx?group_id=1&user_recipe_id=424145

I am going to post the other recipes as I make them so I can post pictures of what whey look like.  I will add pictures of some of these others as well.

Long Time Coming!

So, when I started this blog in the middle of summer, I will have to admit I was just a little ambitious.  I really thought in my mind that I would be able to post different recipes that I made for my family daily.  Unfortunately, life happened and between softball tournaments, being a mom, getting ready for the next school year as a teacher, and working my second job it just wasn't happening.  So on this slow labor day weekend I am going to update some recipes that I have made over the summer and just recently that we tried and really enjoy.  I will avoid posting the ones that just did not work out for us so well. 

One that we really like and eat ALL the time is my standard Italian Beef.  While I have to admit it isn't exactly like the Italian Beef I grew up on, I believe it is as close as I am going to get to them.  The best thing about this recipe is it is oh so very simple and delicious!

Slow Cooker Italian Beef

Ingredients:
3lbs Chuck Roast (you can use Rump Roast too, but I prefer Chuck)
1 Packet of Dried Italian Dressing mix
1 Jar of pepperchini rings (undrained)
1 carton of beef broth
Sub Buns
Provolone or Mozzarella Cheese

Put all ingredients into the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 to 9 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.  Shred the meat with a fork placing it back in the broth mixture.  Serve on sub rolls with Provolone or Mozzarella Cheese.

Another recipe we really enjoyed this summer was  Baked Garlic/Brown Sugar Chicken.  This was really yummy and I made it with a quick noodle dish that I always like to make when I cannot think of any other side dish.  I like to call it Crazy Bread pasta because it resembles Little Caesars crazy bread.  The Chicken Recipe was taken from Pinterest and the Crazy Bread Pasta is my own creation.
 
http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-garlic-chicken-5478

These are the best two recipes that we enjoyed this summer.  If you make them, I hope you enjoy them.

Monday Night Meal--Crockpot Barbecue Chicken with baked fried pickles.

http://forkinit.blogspot.com/2010/09/crockpot-barbecue-chicken.html

Like most of my friends, I have become a major fan of Pinterest and I have been fortunate to find many a recipe on this wonderful pinning site!  Tonight I am making one of our favorite recipes that we have tried.  It is easy and absolutely delicious!  It came from a blog called Stick a fork in it and was posted to Pinterest.  This is were I was lucky enough to stumble across the recipe.  My favorite part of this recipe is that it is made in the crock pot so that I can just throw in my ingredients and be on with my day only to have a wonderful meal prepared later.  The recipe keeps the chicken whole.  We like to shred the chicken with a fork after it is tender enough and eat them on buns.



 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/fried-pickles-recipe/index.html

The next item on tonight's menu is fried pickles.  I found this recipe on Food Network's Web Site and modified it so we can bake them.  We had fried pickles for the first time in Florida on spring break and they were a huge hit with the entire family.  We don't own a fryer because we don't really eat fried food so this is the perfect recipe for us.  A food we love made with a healthier method.  We preheated the oven at 350 and baked until the coating was crispy and brown. 







For our vegetable we are having a fresh salad with Romain lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, green onions, and cucumbers. This will be perfect right before my son's baseball game tonight!