Easy Crock Pot Chicken

This is one of my favorites on busy days. Put chicken tenders or chicken breasts into crockpot (I put them in frozen), pour favorite salad dressing on top, and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.


Just before dinner steam some veggies, make some rice or a salad, and voila! Dinner's ready!

We change up the salad dressing to make different flavors, but Newman's Own Sesame Ginger is one of our favorites.

Meatballs in Sweet-and-Sour Sauce

For our family Super Bowl party I made meatballs in the crockpot and tried this new cranberry sweet-and-sour sauce. It was really easy and tasted great! I found the recipe on the Country Living website.


This time I did it the easy way and bought a bag of frozen pre-made meatballs, but I have made them from scratch too.

Meatballs

2 slices bread, shredded
1 pound ground beef, raw
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 T oil - for saucepan

Mix all ingredients and form into 1 and a 1/2 inch meatballs. Heat oil in skillet and brown meatballs, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain any oil and add sauce (recipe below). Cover and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through.

Sweet-and-Sour Sauce

2 cans whole berry cranberry sauce
2 T cider vinegar (I didn't have this so left it out)
3 T brown sugar
2 T soy sauce

Mix sauce ingredients and pour over meatballs, either in skillet (as above), or in crockpot. If using crockpot and cooking meatballs from frozen, cook on high 4-5 hours or on low 8-9 hours.

Verdict: easy and yummy! The whole family enjoyed them and I will definitely make again!

Ham, Black Bean, and Potato Soup

I originally found this recipe on my friend Jennifer's blog. She was trying it for some variety in using up ham. It was delicious! You could easily leave out the ham for a vegetarian soup.


Ham, Black Bean, and Potato Soup

6 cups broth (I used homemade chicken broth - leftover water from boiling a chicken carcass. Use vegetable broth if making this a vegetarian meal)
1 can black beans, drained
2 potatoes, diced
1/2 pound cooked ham, diced
can of stewed or diced tomatoes (the kind with green chili peppers if you want more zing)
1/3 cup onion, chopped (I just used half an onion)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/8 tsp ground cloves

Sour cream, chopped olives, grated cheese, tortilla chips, etc for garnish.

Add all ingredients except garnish items to crockpot and cook on low for 8-1o hours, or high for 4-5 hours. Serve with garnish ingredients.

This was a hit and I will definitely make it again!

Tortilla Stack

I found this recipe at creative homemaking, and since my family loves mexican food, I figured it would be a hit. It's also a crockpot meal, and you know how I love my crockpot!

Tortilla Stack

1 lb ground beef
corn or flour tortillas (your preference), cut into 6 wedges
2/3 can undiluted cheddar cheese soup (I didn't have this so substituted with shredded cheese and some salsa for liquid)
1 pkg taco seasoning mix
2 medium tomatoes, chopped

Brown hamburger and drain grease. Layer hamburger in bottom of crockpot. Top with tortilla wedges.


Recipe then calls for you to mix the cheddar cheese soup and taco seasoning in a small bowl and layer some of it on top of the tortilla wedges. Since I was substituting, I sprinkled cheese on top of the tortilla wedges, sprinkled some of the taco seasoning on, and then poured a thin layer of salsa on top of that. Sprinkle some of the chopped tomatoes on top (I skipped this step since there were tomatoes in the salsa).

Repeat layers until all ingredients are used up. Cover and cook on low 4-5 hours. Serve with sour cream, shredded lettuce, olives, or other condiments.

Verdict: all the family loved it, it was super easy, and I will definitely make again!

Crockpot Beans and Rice

This is another recipe from Stephanie at crockpot365. It looked pretty good on her blog, and since we have lots of beans and brown rice in the house, I decided to give it a try. No offense to Stephanie, but it was a flop at my house. Not bad tasting, just really, really bland. My sweet husband and children, however, are totally on board with my experimentation and with eating whatever is set before them, so they all bravely ate it. C was the only one who LOVED it, telling me enthusiastically, "Mommy! You should make this again!" (well sweetie, you are welcome to all the leftovers!) I share it in hopes that you will get better mileage from it at your house, and because I said in my sidebar that I'd share flops too. :-)

Crockpot Beans and Rice

1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
1 cup brown rice
1 T olive oil
1/2 tsp salt (I would add more)
1 tsp Italian seasoning (I would add more)
1/2 T dried onion flakes (I would add a full T)

Put the 1 T olive oil in the bottom of your crockpot and add the rice. Swirl the rice around in the olive oil until it is coated nicely. Drain and rinse the beans, then add them. Drain the tomatoes, saving the juice. Add them to your pot. You will need 2 cups of liquid, so add water to whatever amount of tomato juice you reserved so that you have 2 cups total of liquid. Add to pot. Add seasonings, stir well, and cover. Cook on low for about 6 hours or on high for 3-4. If you use white rice rather than brown it will be done faster, so be sure to check.

Verdict: If I am desperate for a meal sometime I will venture to make this again with LOTS more seasonings!

Moroccan Lentil Soup

This is a crockpot recipe from Stephanie at crockpot365. I will tell you right up front to click on the link and go to her blog and see the way it is supposed to look, because I had to substitute a few key ingredients and mine looks like some slightly soggy kidney beans and veggies. But I will also tell you right up front that man was this good! It had quite a kick to it, which my husband LOVED. He has lived all our married life with slightly toned down food, bless his heart, and this was a chance for his taste buds to really have a party! I was not aware that Moroccan food, like Thai food, is generally quite spicey hot (as opposed to temperature hot, a distinction our children like to make). The leftovers were even better the next day!

Morrocan Lentil Soup

1 cup dried lentils (I used red)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (I didn't have so left this out)
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed (I didn't have pinto so used kidney)
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 chopped carrots
28 oz can of diced tomatoes, with juice
4 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 tsp garam masala (had no idea what this was so left it out)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 inch ginger, peeled and grated (I used 1 tsp ground ginger instead)

Use at least a 5 qt crockpot for this, it makes alot. Chop up all veggies and put them in the crockpot first. Drain and rinse beans, add them to the pot. Add spices and then broth and tomatoes. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours (I cooked on high for 6 hours). Soup tastes best the longer you cook it. Stephanie suggests taking an immersible blender and pulsing to blend the veggies and beans together before serving. I don't have an immersible blender so did not do this, and it was great without it.



Verdict: 4 of the children were forced to eat this under duress because of the spicyness. But because my husband loved it so much, I plan to make it again (with the right beans this time!). I will probably use a tad less cayenne pepper for the children's sake, and let my hubby add more to his bowl.

Rotisserie Style Crockpot Chicken

This is another of Stephanie's crockpot recipes that I've been waiting to try. It was FANTASTIC. The meat was falling off the bone tender, and the flavor was just delicious. Every member of the family loved this chicken - hubby and all 5 children!! A winner!

Rotisserie Style Crockpot Chicken

1 whole chicken, skinned (4-5 pounds)
2 tsp kosher salt (if you'd like it as salty as the ones in the store, add another 1 tsp.)
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder (didn't have any so I left this out)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp Italian seasoning (I substituted with my favorite brand of all purpose seasoning)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch of chili pepper (Stephanie said it was "probably not necessary" but I used it anyway!)

--4 whole garlic cloves (optional - I did not use)
--1 yellow onion, quartered (optional - I did not use)

De-skin and wash the chicken. This makes your sink really gross, but it's a good excuse to clean it reeeeeally well afterwards. :-)

Combine spices and rub on chicken, both inside and outside. If desired, stuff cavity with optional garlic cloves and onion. Set in crockpot, breast down. Do not add water.



Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours or on low for 8. I cooked a 3-4 pound chicken and it fit perfectly in my 5 qt crock. I was using my other crockpot for something else at the time, so it had to. (I am so thankful I have two! I often have them both going nowadays). I have never liked the look of crockpot cooked chicken ~ it's just so pale compared to rotisserie chicken at restaurants. But I forced myself to look past the color and concentrate on the taste, and this tasted SO good! It was very tender and moist and flavorful.


I saute'd some peppers, zucchini, onion and mushrooms in spices and a bit of olive oil to eat with the chicken. Delicious! (the children also had applesauce and slices of bread). The chicken portion of this meal cost less than $4 and we all ate until we were satisfied!

Creamy White Bean and Apple Chili

This was delicious! A different take on chili. We ate it without meat, but if you wanted to add chicken or turkey, they would both work well in this recipe. I got it from the crockpot lady over at crockpot365.


2 cans of white beans, drained and rinsed (I cooked a whole crockpot of black eyed peas last weekend and then froze them in ziploc sandwich bags. If you do this, just pull out one bag full. They can be any kind of white bean, I just happened to have black eyed peas so that's what I used.)
1 onion, chopped
2 apples, cut in tiny chunks, no need to peel
3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
3 T butter (first time I've ever put butter in my crockpot!)
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 cups vegetable or chicken broth, depending on whether or not you want this to be a vegetarian meal (I used vegetable, and I added a bit more because 3 cups didn't look like enough)
1/2 cup plain non fat yogurt
shredded cheese (optional ~ add after cooking, while serving)

The crockpot lady suggests using any crockpot over 4 quarts. I used a 6 quart crockpot and wish that I had doubled this recipe. It made enough to feed our whole family, but just barely. My husband loved this and was disappointed there were no leftovers to eat for lunch this week.

Put the butter in the bottom of your crockpot. Dump in the drained and rinsed beans. Chop up the onion and apple and add to pot. Add the spices and pour in the broth. Stir in the yogurt (be sure to stir this in well! there were little globs of yogurt floating in my broth because I didn't stir this in good enough. it didn't affect the flavor, but they looked strange). Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4-5 (mine was done in 4). This is done when the onion has reached desired tenderness and the flavors have melded. Stir in the cheddar cheese before serving (I sprinkled a little cheese on the tops of the individual bowls). We ate some of my homemade bread with this chili, but any hearty bread or muffin would work great. The spices gave this just enough "kick" to taste really good, but not too spicy that the kids wouldn't eat it. And the cooked apple pieces were a nice texture. No-one knew they were apples until I told them!

Verdict: My husband, myself, and 3 of the children loved this. Two of the children tolerated it. I will definitely make this again!

Aztec Chicken

This recipe for Aztec chicken has been floating around the internet for at least a couple of years and I honestly don't know who to attribute it to, but I first got it from a homeschool mom named Melanie off the Sonlight Curriculum forums. Aztec chicken is a mexican dish, and it is truly easy. If you have the ingredients on hand ahead of time, all you do is layer them and turn the crockpot on. No chopping, slicing or dicing! Leftovers are wonderful either by themselves or rolled into a warmed tortilla shell.

Layer the following ingredients in your crockpot:

2 cans of black beans, undrained (or if you make your own beans, about 2 cups)
large bag of frozen corn
about 3-4 cups of cooked chicken strips or cubes
medium sized jar of salsa

Turn on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6. During the last half hour of cook time, add an 8 oz package of cream cheese. Cut the cream cheese in chunks, and push them slightly under the surface of the salsa. When cook time is finished, stir all ingredients together well.

Serve over rice and sprinkle cheese on top. Voila!

Turkey/Barley/Vegetable Soup

1 pound browned ground turkey (can use hamburger instead)
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
3 or 4 carrots, cut in medallions (I use half a big bag of baby carrots instead)
can of chunk tomatoes or stewed tomatoes, including juice
enough water to fill your crockpot (or however much soup you want)
3 tsp beef soup base, or 3 beef bouillion cubes

Throw everything into the crockpot and turn on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours. During the last half hour of cooktime, add in 1/2 cup of barley and whatever leftover vegetables you've accumulated from the previous week. Today I'll be adding leftover corn.

I love that you can add just about anything to this soup and it tastes great. Plus the whole grain from the barley makes me feel like a good mom!

We'll add bread or muffins to this menu and be good to go!