The Baby Learns to Cook

 Guys! Our baby boy Epifanio has learned to cook, good for him. 

He's so proud of himself, it makes me cry with happiness haha. 

Copycat Nuggets

Ok, I tried a new recipe tonight, trying to make copycat Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets. I should have looked at the recipe a little closer before getting started, because I was supposed to do a step for between 2 hours and overnight, and I only did it for about 20 minutes, but they still turned out okay, so I don’t know how necessary that is. If I try it again, I’ll try it for longer. But here’s the recipe I used!

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 1/2 cups milk, divided
1/2 cup dill pickle juice
1 cup peanut oil (I used Canola oil, apparently I didn’t have peanut)
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
Salt and black pepper

In a large bowl, combine chicken, 1/2 cup milk and pickle juice. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to overnight; drain well (keep in mind, I didn’t do this, I just did this for maybe a half hour). Heat peanut/canola oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. In a large bowl, whisk together remaining 1 cup milk and egg. Stir in chicken and gently toss to combine; drain excess milk mixture. In a gallon size Ziploc bag, combine chicken, flour and powdered sugar; season with salt and pepper. Working in batches, add chicken to the skillet and cook until evenly golden and crispy, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.

Ok, and then, I made the two sauces we usually get at Chick-Fil-A, the Polynesian, and the honey mustard. Recipes for both:

Honey Mustard:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon mustard
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Mix together all ingredients and let hang out in the fridge, chillin’.

Polynesian Sauce:
1 cup California French Dressing
3 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
6 tablespoons honey

Whisk together and let chill in the fridge until ready.

Ok on the Polynesian sauce, it was…interesting. There was WAY too much vinegar, so I would either cut back way way lots on that, or maybe do regular vinegar, instead of apple cider. I don’t know what would make it better, so I am just guessing on that.

Other than that, this was good! It didn’t taste EXACTLY like Chick-Fil-A, but it was pretty dang close. I think it’s the pickle juice, I never realized that was what I was tasting there. But I recommend this, guys, it’s really good!

A Day of Cookery

Today, I had an idea of dinner, and definitely took advantage of the free time I had today to do them. First of all, I made a pie, using the peaches from the peach tree in my own backyard!

Here are the ingredients to get the party started:

Filling:
10 ripe but firm peaches
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon or pinch ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg

Step one: Use a store bought pie crust, because making your own is hard work. I just used a regular one, that we had to roll out, so it almost was like homemade. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Then, peel and cut the peaches (Use about 9 or 10) into 1/4-inch thick slices (you should have about 7 cups) and toss with the lemon juice and almond extract in a large bowl. Whisk the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in another bowl, making sure there are no lumps. Stir the flour mixture into the peaches and mix well.

Pour the peaches into the pie crust. Scatter with the pieces of butter. Top with the lattice strips. Brush away any flour underneath the lattice to make sure it seals well. Crimp the edges to seal. Beat the egg with 1 teaspoon water and brush the lattice and edges with the egg water.

Ahhh…looks good. And then,

Pop in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, and then lower the heat to 350 degrees and bake until the crust gets brown, about 50 minutes more. Then, let cool, which will take the better part of a year, since mine was still warm, eating it at 8:00, after having taken it out at like, 4:00.

Ta-daaa!

And then, for the actual dinner, I made some balsamic steak rolls, ended up looking like this:

And they were AWESOME. At the risk of being lazy, I’m going to link you to the blog where I got it from, because this post is long enough already, and this would make it super super long.

http://picturetherecipe.com/index.php/recipes/balsamic-glazed-steak-rolls/

Find them there, and they were SUPER delicious, if not a little time consuming. But otherwise, I had a pretty good Sunday, food-wise! Hope you did as well!

Day 6–Dinner

My happiness of day 6 is making dinner. Husband and I are lazy creatures. After working all day, when we come home, we just want to eat an easy dinner, so we go out most of the time. Occasionally. we’ll be craving something specific, and cook a dinner, but honestly, we usually just get something to go. Tonight, though, we got to make an easy dinner, and it was really good.

Homemade pizza! It’s not totally homemade, it’s a Pillsbury crust, but otherwise, those things were made by these hands. I didn’t know what came first, the toppings or the cheese, so I guessed toppings. It worked out.

Maybe I should do them both, under the veggies and on top of, so I’ll keep that in mind for next time. Otherwise, it was pretty good.

Twice-Baked Potato Casserole

I found this recipe on Pinterest a while ago, and only now am I finally getting around to making it. I made it on Sunday, actually. Lets break down the recipe:

8 medium baking potatoes (I used 4 large)
1 8-oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick butter (1/2 cup), softened
1 pint sour cream (turns out, I was out, and used plain Greek yogurt)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
6 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pierce potatoes and place on baking pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until very soft. Peel and mash potatoes in large bowl. Add cream cheese, butter, sour cream and 1 cup of cheddar. Stir well. Add garlic, salt and pepper and stir again. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Place potato mixture in dish, bake for 30-35 minutes. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top and bake for 5 more minutes. Garnish with crumbled bacon.

I added broccoli, just for funsies. It was really good, I really liked this. I recommend it. It tastes exactly like a twice baked potatoes, of course, and it was pretty awesome.

Cowboy Casserole

After scouring the Pinterest boards for a dinner for Sunday night, I landed on this – a Cowboy Casserole. I accidentally forgot to take any pictures of the dinner, but I’ll give you the recipe nonetheless.

¼ cup diced onion
½ Tsp pepper
1 Tsp salt
½ Tsp Mrs. Dash
1 Lbs small red potatoes, sliced (about 4-5 potatoes)
1 can diced tomatoes with liquid
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 LB ground beef browned and drained (or, like me, just put it in raw, whatever)
1 cup canned corn
1 can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Put all ingredients into a crockpot and stir well. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 7-8 hours. Sprinkle cheese on top for the last 30 minutes of cooking.

This was really delicious! I really liked it. It was really easy, too, which is always a plus on Sunday dinners. I wish I had taken a picture, but by the time I was getting my food, I was just so hungry, so I just ate instead of taking pictures. Make it for yourself, see how good it is for yourself.

Crockpot Orange Chicken

Sunday again, which means making something in the ol’ crockpot. I found this recipe a few days ago on Pinterest, of course, and after I looked through it, I decided to change it right up. It’s for Orange Chicken. See, the recipe has you combine the ingredients for the sauce, then cook the chicken, and in the last 30 minutes of baking, then you put the sauce in there, so that your food has a slight flavor, I guess? I don’t exactly know. So I made it my own. I started with these ingredients only:

Just like the recipe calls for. But after putting the chicken in the pot, I just put the sauce right on, to make it really orangey. So you put your chicken in the bottom of the crockpot, and combine 3/4 cup orange marmalade and 3/4 cup of the BBQ sauce, and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Stir well to combine, and put them on top of the chicken. The recipe called for letting the chicken cook for 4-6 hours on low, but I accidentally got started way too late, so I cooked it for 2 hours on high. Then I removed the chicken, let it cool down a bit, cut the chicken into pieces, dipped them in egg and then a flour/cornstarch mixture, and fried them for a minute to make them breaded. Then I returned them to the crockpot, the setting warm, so they could soak in some sauce. I wish I had had my wits about me to take pictures of everything, but I was trying to also make some lo mein, and some fried rice, I accidentally had WAY too many things going on to take them, and I regret that.

But! The end product was good, I really liked it. I’m sure it’s also good the original way, but in my head, Orange Chicken is a breaded chicken, so I wanted to make that change. This recipe was also ridiculously easy, in case anyone needs to make some good food with minimal effort.

Tex-Mex Casserole

With my new goal of eating more meals at home, today was no exception. I found this on Pinterest, and it turned out pretty good, I think. Recipe:

1 can 10.75 ounce Campbell's Healthy Request Cheddar Cheese Soup
1 can 10.75 ounce Campbell's Healthy Request Tomato Soup
1 cup chopped onion
1 lb lean ground beef
1 10 ounce can Rotel Mild tomatoes
1 15 ounce can Black Beans, rinsed and drained
1 15 ounce can Sweet Corn, drained
2 cups cooked whole wheat penne pasta
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
½ tsp onion
1 tsp garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large skillet, add garlic, onion and hamburger meat. Brown hamburger meat, garlic, and onion until cooked through and the meat is no longer pink. Drain any liquid out of meat and return to low heat. Add Campbell's Healthy Request Cheddar Cheese Soup, green chillies, and Rotel Tomatoes to cooked onion, garlic, and hamburger. Add in 1tablespoon of chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. Stir on low heat for 3-5 minutes. In a medium sized bowl, add Campbell's Healthy Request Tomato Soup and ½ cup of water. Whisk together until well mixed. In a large stock pan (I used the same pan that I cooked penne pasta) mix together cooked pasta, Campbell's Healthy Request Tomato Soup with water. Stir until mixed. In a small bowl combine black beans and corn. Add 1 tsp chili powder and gently toss to mix. Pour pasta into the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with hamburger meat mixture and then add corn and black beans mixture to top. Bake casserole in oven for 15 minutes until heated through.  Add ½ cup reduced fat cheddar cheese on top before baking.

This was pretty easy, I won’t lie. I am a fan of this dish. It was pretty spicy, due to the cumin and so much chili powder, and the Rotel, but I think I handled like a champ. I recommend this, and I’m sure it’s really easy to take the spice out. Happy cooking!

Slow Cooker Quesadillas, Lasagna Jars

This past Sunday, I did a bunch of cooking. There was my dinner, of course, which I got off of Pinterest, for Slow Cooker Chipotle Steak Quesadillas. I’d like to say that I took pictures of it, and made it all look amazing, but to be honest, I was cooking two things at once, so I didn’t get anything. They were awesome though. The recipe:

1 ½ pound flank steak
4 chipotle peppers
3-4 Tbsp. adobo sauce (from the can with the peppers)
4 scallions, diced
About a cup of cilantro, divided
Juice of one lime
3 Tbsp. salsa
½ red bell pepper, diced
2 cups Mexi-blend shredded cheese
8 tortillas
Salt and pepper

In a slow cooker, place the flank steak, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, scallions, ½ cup cilantro, lime juice, salsa and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on medium high for 4-5 hours, flipping the steak every hour or so. Shred the meat right in the cooker, and taste it. Add more salt if needed, more pepper. If it’s on the dry side, add some more salsa, and cook for a bit longer. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add a tortilla to the pan. On one half, arrange some shredded cheese, then layer with the shredded meat, red bell pepper, and more cheese. Fold the tortilla over and sauté until the quesadilla is golden brown on both sides and the cheese has melted.

Ok, so I wasn’t sure where to find the chipotle peppers, so instead, I used a red and a green pepper, and just added chipotle powder, and I think I got about the desired effect. For juice, I used the juice from a can of Rotel. Then, when it was time to make the quesadilla, I just drained out the juice, and put the red/green peppers into my quesadilla, sort of reused them. They were delicious! Honestly, these were so good. I dipped them into salsa, yummy. I dipped them into sour cream, delicious. I really recommend these all around. While that was slow-cooking, I made some lasagna-in-jars. We’ve been having the salad-in-jars for a while now, and just needed a change. So while perusing Pinterest, I found a recipe for lasagna, and wanted to give it a shot. The recipe:

12 oz wide egg noodles (I used the whole 16oz bag)
1 pound ricotta
1 egg
Parmesan cheese
½ Tsp. kosher salt
2 cups mozzarella cheese
3 cups marinara sauce (your favorite kind)
4-5 Wide-mouth Mason Jars

Boil noodles according to package. Drain and add back to pot. Mix in 2 cups of sauce. In a separate bowl, mix together ricotta, egg, a handful of parmesan cheese, salt, and mozzarella. Fold cheese mixture gently into the noodles, do not over stir. Place in greased jars or greased 9x13 pan and top with remaining sauce, and sprinkle more parmesan cheese on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

I threw some ground beef into the mixture with the noodles and sauce; I thought that was a good idea. I really liked this. And then the next day, when I finally got to eat it, it was awesome! I really recommend this to people. It’s easy to make a bunch of them at once, and then I can throw it in my bag to take to work the next day, so easy.

Now, I’ve given you two meals that you can make, and enjoy, for many meals at a time. Get cooking!

A Grilled Cheese Sandwich…Differently Done

These past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying some salads with Chelle at work. Here’s a link to her stuff, so you can see what kind of stuff she’s doing, and the deliciousness factor. I’ve been contributing by bringing grilled cheese sandwiches to accompany our salads. Now, I know what you’re thinking. If you make a grilled cheese sandwich in the morning, it’s not good by the afternoon, right? It’s all soggy, or just cold, and really, you can’t heat up a grilled cheese sandwich in the microwave either, so this is what we do: We have a toaster oven at work. We all pitched in a few months (maybe even a year now, wow) and we all use it all the time, its genius. So to make the grilled cheese sandwich, here’s what you do:
Step one: Toast the bread on one side in the toaster
Step two: After it’s been toasted to your personal preference, flip the toast over, and let it toast the other side.
Step three: After both sides are toasted appropriately, put two slices of cheese on your bread, one on each slice, and place back in oven.
Step four: Watch the cheese carefully! When it gets melted, quickly remove the slices of bread, and put them together, making your sandwich.
Step five: Put the sandwich back in the oven, just for a few seconds, to make sure they all melt together.
Ta-daaaa! That’s it, that’s all you need to do to make your sandwich. Here’s a pic of one of ours:

Doesn’t that look awesome? And it is, it’s so good and delicious, and now, you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich if you don’t happen to have a stovetop!

Chicken & Dumplings

After having been in Germany for a week, and eating out every night, I was ready for some home cooking. I scoured recipes to see what I wanted, and finally landed on making chicken and dumplings. I found a good recipe on Pinterest, and went to work on it. First of all, I’ve never made chicken and dumplings before, but they were always a favorite during childhood. So I was psyched to see if I could recreate. I’ll share the recipe and pics, naturally.

Chicken:
I large fryer chicken (4-5 lbs), neck and gizzards removed. (I just used chicken breasts here…I don’t know where to find a whole chicken. Just at the store? I don’t know)
1 Large onion, peeled and cut in half
3 Carrots, cut into large pieces
3 Stalks of celery, cut into large pieces
Kosher salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Dumplings:
3 cups cake flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
4 1/2 Tbsp shortening
1 Cup milk

Place the chicken, onions, carrots, and celery in a large stock pot and cover with water

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat so water maintains a gentle simmer. Cook chicken for 1 hour or until cooked through (about 165 degrees). About 30 minutes after you start cooking chicken, get started on the dumplings, or you can wait until the chicken is fully cooked.

Once chicken is done, remove from broth and let cool. Remove chicken from the bone, and shred into medium-sized pieces, discarding bone and skin.

Pour the chicken broth through a fine mesh sieve (I’ll be honest, I used a clean, thin dish towel) lined with cheese cloth, discarding vegetables. Reserve 6 cups of the broth for the dumplings. Refrigerate or freeze the rest to use in another recipe.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. Cut shortening into flour mixture with your fingertips until it resembles small peas.

Add milk – 1/4 cup at a time, you may not need the full cup (I did) – and stir until a ball of dough just begins to form, being careful not to over mix. Roll out the dough onto floured surface that you don’t mind cutting on. Roll about 1/4 inch thick. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut dough into rectangles about 1 inch by 3 inches long. Place strips on wax paper and allow to harden up a bit, about 30 minutes.

In a large pot or dutch oven over medium-low heat, bring broth to a gentle simmer and drop in dumplings. Cover and allow to cook for 6-7 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add chicken. Allow to cook until thickened, about 15-20 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.

This was actually really delicious – I recommend to everyone! Make sure to leave plenty of time, though – because it does take a while.

Pizza Rolls and RB Cookies...a classic combination

These are just a few recipes I’ve made lately. Of course, they all come from Pinterest, as all of mine do now. What did I ever do without Pinterest? I made one of these for dinner the other day, Pizza Rolls. I took a picture of them while I was assembling them, but not of the finished product. These are ridiculously easy to make. Get a tube of crescent rolls, pepperoni, and string cheese. Unroll the rolls, and place 5 pepperoni slices on the larger end, and place a half of string cheese on those, and roll it up. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. You can dip them into marinara sauce if you’d like. I didn’t, I found them delicious on their own.

Next, I made Root Beer Float cookies. Yesterday, at work all day, I really wanted to bake something. I kept thinking all day, but it wasn’t until the end of the day that I figured out what to make. I figured it would be easy, and that I’d have all the ingredients in my house. I came home, looked in the cupboard to make sure I had root beer extract. I have vanilla, almond, mint, but no root beer extracts. Dang it! So I went to my local Target to get it. I looked high and low there, even asked an employee (who kinda refused to help me, that was irritating) and finally, had to give up. I went over to Smiths, and found it there, huzzah! I don’t know how much root beer extract usually goes for, but I bought a small bottle there for 8 freaking dollars. That seems excessive, but what could I do, I now had my heart set on these? So I bought my things and went home to make them.

As I was making them, I was getting my brown sugar, and found that I didn’t even have enough! I had to borrow from my brother, a neighbor. Sheesh, I shouldn’t have been making cookies, it seems! They were really easy to make, which is always a plus in cookies. I let them cool, and put the root beer frosting on top, and holy cow, they are soooo good. So root beery too. I recommend them. Here’s the recipe, in case you want it:

Ingredients:

(Cookie)

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp root beer extract

4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

(Frosting)

4 cups powdered sugar

¾ cup butter, softened

3 Tbsp milk

1 tsp root beer extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and brown sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in buttermilk and root beer extract. Combine dry ingredients, gradually add to creamed mixture. Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool. For frosting, mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Beat until smooth. Frost cooled cookies…enjoy!

Now, the cookies in the photo from the site I got them on showed big, smooth cookies, perfectly frosted, yada yada yada. But when I spooned mine onto my cookie sheets, they were just lumpy little buggers, not really taking a shape. So my cookies are taller than they are wide, really. They still are good, they’re just not very pretty. But they are tasty, I recommend them to everyone

Cookies and Buttons and Hot Dogs, oh my!

I had a very productive food – related weekend. I’m having a fiesta type thing on Wednesday evening. I’ll be having several peoples over to my house for a jewelry party. If anyone that’s reading this wants to come, please do so, I don’t discriminate! This week is going to be a busy one for me, and don’t worry folks, I’ll be blogging the whole thing for your excitement. So because I don’t have that much time this week to be making the treats for the night, I decided to get a jump on things and make them today. Also, I’m telling you about the food we made for Sunday dinner – a great accomplishment! Here we go.

On my beloved Pinterest, I found a recipe recently to make the JDawgs secret sauce. So, finally on Sunday, I decided to make it. I had all the ingredients, and it was so simple to make! Here’s the recipe:

¾ Cup ketchup
¾ Cup brown sugar
¼ Cup honey
1 tsp cider vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce
½ tsp onion powder
Combine ingredients in a saucepan

Heat to just boiling on medium heat.

Drizzle over your favorite grilled hot dogs.

Enjoy!

Yum! It’s actually really good! It’s not quite exactly the recipe, it’s a little thicker, but it tastes just like it and its super good and sticky, like the sauce is. So good.

I made cookies for my Wednesday shindig. I tried one and it was hard, though, so I don’t know if I’ll be using them.

I made Kiss buttons. When I found the recipe for this, they said to use Hugs instead of Kisses, but I don’t like Hugs, so I just used what I liked.
Recipe:
You’ll need: Square pretzels, Hershey’s Hugs or Kisses (depending on your preference) plain M&M’s. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place the pretzels on there, top them with the Kisses.

Bake for 4-6 minutes until the chocolate is shiny and soft but not melting – they need to still hold their shape. Carefully place the M&M in the center of each hug and press down to spread the chocolate. Allow to cool completely. Enjoy!

So I had a pretty busy day, food-wise. But thank goodness, I only have about 1 more thing to bake, and then I’ll be totally ready. I’ll blog about those later!

Night o' Chinese

Yesterday, I really wanted Chinese food. During work, Chelle and I kept talking about how delish it would be to get some – specifically to get some sweet & sour chicken. We couldn’t think of a place we could go, so I figured I’d eat some for dinner. But I’m always displeased with the greasiness of take-out Chinese, so I decided to make homemade food. I was nervous to do this (I’ve never made it by myself, I’ve usually had someone make it as I sit in the kitchen and talk to them) but I felt up to the challenge. I got some recipes, and then to Target to get the ingredients. I swear, if I could live at Target, I would. I love that store. But that has nothing to do with this, so we’ll move on.

First off, I made lo mein. I had a recipe sent to me by my dad that I was going to use, but then at the last minute, I found a different recipe that I found that looked a little easier. Plus, I thought I had spaghetti noodles, but when we returned from the store, I discovered I didn’t actually have any. And since I wasn’t going to go back to the store, I had to make do with what I had. So I used 2 packages of Ramen noodles instead, and it actually worked a little better, I think. After adding various ingredients, this is what the lo mein ended up looking like:

It was actually pretty delicious! I was pleased with myself.

Husband made the ham fried rice whilst I made the lo mein. We used a pretty basic recipe for that one, and here’s what that one looks like: I really liked the rice, it was so delish. You’re supposed to use like, day-old rice when making it, but since I only had the craving this morning, it was fresh made rice, so it was probably not how it was “supposed” to be, but I still liked it.

And now, to the infamous sweet & sour chicken - the whole reason I wanted to eat the food. When we went to Target, they didn’t have my usual sweet & sour suce that I get. They did have another brand, so I assumed they’d probably taste the same, so I got it. I also used a different kind of chicken than I usually use – I used like a popcorn chicken kind, so it was pre-breaded. I cooked those in the oven for a bit, then let them baste in the sauce for a while, and cooked them a little longer on the stove. They looked ok..ish, but then when I took a bite, they were absolutely awful. I didn’t get a picture of those by themselves, just on my plate with the other food, so you can see it here.

I also had wonton strips that I made, that was easy, I just bought the wontons, cut them into strips, and fried them in a pan until brown, which was like, seconds.

So there it is, my Chinese food dinner. It was half good, since the dumb sweet & sour chicken didn’t really pan out for me. Unfortunately, I still really want that chicken. I guess I’ll have to go somewhere to get it, since I can’t seem to make it myself. But at least this was a learning experience, and now I know I don’t know how to make it.

Slow Cookin’

Well, I finally did it. I broke down and bought a Crock Pot. I’ve wanted one for as long as I can remember, after reading recipes that called for it, trying others’ meals that they’ve done in one, and just hearing about the awesomeness. Finally, yesterday, I caved in, and bought one.

*Note: this is not the actual Crock Pot, just an image I got from the web*

I then bought all the ingredients to make a slow-cooked roast (I got the recipe off the internet, of course) and was excited to make it. So Sunday morning, we chopped up the veggies, concocted a juice of beef broth and spices, and turned it on. Throughout all the day, the house has been smelling delicious. I was really psyched to eat it. Finally, church let me out at 5, we came home, and ate pretty much right away.

It was delicious! It was all soft and tender, and the veggies were delish. There was an attempt to make gravy from juices, etc., but holy cow that did not go well. When I tried it, I couldn’t believe how bad it tasted, so I quickly threw it out. But the meal was good besides that. And now, I’m so excited to try other things. I’ve always wanted to try to make a slow-cooker chili, and so many other things. And now, I finally get the chance, huzzah!