5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo

Thank you all for the well wishes.  I’m mending.  Never as fast as I want because I am not used to being still, but I am grateful none the less.  I’m relying quite heavily on the crockpot for my meals.  I’m aiming for cooking supper and eating leftovers midday on the next day.  It is a cycle I prefer anyway.  It also works well because I wake up feeling refreshed and at my strongest.  My daughter, who still declines to be on camera, helped me film this one.  It was actually good enough that we will keep sauce hidden in the pantry just for this.  (I’m sure you could easily use homemade sauce and perhaps I’ll test it in the future.)

Chinese Pot Roast -- Crockpot Recipe

This is a family favorite -- even my pickiest loves it.  As always it is a versatile recipe and you can alter the veggies to suit personal preference.  You can use almost any cut of beef because of the slow cooking.  You can also use the same concept with a pork loin.

Easiest Roast Ever

My daughter rarely raves about any food that isn't sweet, but she loves this roast.  Kind of amusing to me, because she is even willing to pick the pieces of onion off....(any of you, who read here, know she has texture issues with onions).

 I'm trying to continue the "fall in love with your cookbooks again" project.  I hadn't made this particular dish since last summer.  I'm not sure why.  However, finding a piece of beef on mark down was the perfect excuse.  This recipe is super easy and uses very few ingredients.  Also, I like that it uses ingredients I pretty much always have on hand.

 The only substitution I make is to use Braggs Liquid Aminoes, because I cannot use soy sauce.  That runs my cost up a little bit, but I offset it by buying in bulk.  I keep the huge bottle hidden in my pantry away from the light, and it lasts me quite some time.

 This recipe is from the Fix It and Forget It Big Cookbook.  (I bought my copy used -- hence the name written down the side..lol. I love reading it for inspiration, even if I don't follow the recipes exactly.)

I use whole wheat flour to coat my roast with.  

This evening, when I serve it, I will thicken the sauce a touch if it needs it. 

Most of the time it doesn't require much, if any.

My daughter has requested rice and veggies with it.

We haven't decided on the veggie, but it will be whatever we have on hand.

Chicken Chili

 

As part of the loving your cookbooks challenge, I am trying to make a point to justify having all these cookbooks around.

Last night, just before bed time I settled in to look for some recipes.

We had chicken and rice on the menu, but after talking about it we decided we didn't really want chicken and rice.

I had the chicken thawing in the refrigerator, and I knew I wanted to do a slow cooker meal today.

I pulled out my giant crockpot cookbook and started flipping through chicken recipes.

After some back and forth, we agreed upon chicken chili.

I put just under 2 cups of navy beans in water to soak overnight.

This morning, I cubed my chicken, drained the beans, and tossed in all the ingredients.

I forgot to photograph the peppers and I also added a heaping teaspoon of chicken bouillon. 

We did not add jalapeño peppers or onion.

I used onion powder.

I also won't add my salt until the beans are tender.

Playing with the Menu

Last night before bed, I noticed I had some pain behind my eyes.  No big deal since I had been crocheting, but then it turned into a night of tossing and turning until after 3:00 this morning. Today it is a full on sinus headache.  I don't know if I have picked up something or if it is thanks to the pressure front coming in.  Either way the end result was a change in menu plans for tonight.

 

I already had the roast thawing in the refrigerator.  Yesterday I watched a YouTube video by Shelly and she shared an easy crockpot pulled pork recipe.  It isn't one I've tried before, but by fluke I had everything on hand.  (My sister is trying to lose weight and I think this will help cut some of the calories to make the meal more in line with her diet.)

 

 

 

The recipe is super simple:

1 onion

1 (3 or 4 lbs.) boneless pork loin

12 ounces of Diet Coke 

1/2 bottle of barbecue sauce

Lawry's seasoning salt

Pepper

 

Cook on low for about 8 hours.  Fork shred and add back to the sauce and cook for another half hour.

 

My notes:

1.  I had Diet Coke on hand by fluke.  My husband brought one home from a meeting.

2.  Daughter won't do onions, so I added onion powder when I seasoned the roast.

3.  I had 1/2 of a bottle of bold and spicy BBQ sauce in the refrigerator.  (Aldi organics)

4.  Serve on sandwich thins I had in freezer.

 

As the day progressed I felt worse instead of better.  Sides quickly became easy.  Annie's Organic boxed mac and cheese and canned string beans.

Honey "Baked" Chicken

One of the "you tubers" I like to watch, Kimmy of She's in Her 

Apron, issued a cookbook challenge encouraging her viewers to pull out some of their cookbooks they don't use a lot and pick a recipe or two to try each week. The goal is to fall in love with them all over again.

 

I love to use my slow cooker and I don't know why I don't branch out more from the same old recipes.

I guess I just fall back into the familiar. 

 

This week I decided to slow cook a whole chicken and I pulled out my "big cookbook" of slow cooker recipes.

This recipe is my adaptation of Honey Baked Chicken.

 

I had a partial bottle -- a couple of tablespoons of Dijon mustard I wanted to use up.

I added a teaspoon of paprika.

There was just a touch over 2 tablespoons of honey in my bottle I wanted to use up, too.

I added a bit of salt and pepper and brushed it over my cleaned chicken.

 

 

 

I let it cook on high until the chicken was fall apart tender.

 

The results:

 

 

I picked all the meat off the bones.

I'm dividing it into three meals' portions.

1 portion for risotto with peas

1 portion for chicken tacos

1 portion for a stir fry

 

I know that is chicken three meals in a row, but the seasonings will give it totally different tastes each time and I think we will be fine with it.

 

Girls' Day In

I managed to get a lot of the items on my list accomplished yesterday.  I didn't get the voting done, but I have scheduled for Saturday morning.   I also didn't get the dog bathed.  Not too bad.

Mama and my sister are spending the day with me and we will be doing a girls' day in.  Lunch is going to be  simple meal of pancakes and fruit.  For supper my daughter has requested beef and broccoli over rice.  Since both of them are meat eaters as well this will work out.  I will either make myself a baked potato with broccoli or perhaps a salad or maybe both.

For simplicities sake I am baking vegan chocolate cupcakes and I have a variety of crackers and things like that for snacking on.  Lunch will use things I have on hand.  Supper will be using freezer assets cooked in the crockpot and rice from the pantry, which I will cook in the pressure cooker.  Aiming for ease and maximum time visiting.  The plus for me -- I am only using items on hand so I do not have to do any mad dashes or expensive shopping.

Trying to get in Extra Veggies

I'm trying to get in extra veggies today.  I ate well yesterday, but woke up with a slight sore throat.  Sadly it is that time of year.  I'm hoping the extra veggies will help naturally boost my immune system.

I started out the morning with a cup of pumpkin coffee with soy milk.  Then I made myself scrambled tofu for breakfast. A yummy mix of carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and spinach to round it out.  This is such an easy meal to prepare and is really quite tasty.

For mid morning snack I went with an apple.  Easy to grab and go.
Lunch had to be a quick grab and go kind of thing, too.  Daughter requested Boca Chick'n Patties and we went with that.  Not as good for me, but I still feel like it is better than grabbing something out.

I planned supper to maximize time savings and up the veggie count.  I used the crockpot to continue with my theme of cook once and eat twice.  I put on an Italian pasta sauce to go over zucchini noodles.  I went heavy on the tomatoes -- 1 can of fire roasted tomatoes, 1 can of diced, and 1 can of sauce.  I added in sautéed onion, bell pepper, and garlic.  A tablespoon or so of dried Italian seasoning blend and a drop of olive oil finished it off.  Spiralizing the noodles and lightly cooking them won't take long at all.

My daughter got up this morning and announced that today was National Dessert Day.  Who comes up with these things?  LOL. Anyway, we decided to bake some muffins in honor of the day....because any excuse will do.

Pumpkin Chili (Recipe Linked)

My first day of school happened to coincide with what I consider to be our first day that truly felt like autumn.  Nothing says autumn like pumpkin and chili to me.  Since my daughter and I had already invited my sister and her boyfriend over for dinner pumpkin chili seemed to be in order.  (My sister loves pumpkin chili!). Of course, since it was the first day of school I wanted something I could put in the crockpot.  

In the past, my go to pumpkin chili has used a jarred sauce.  However, it contains milk and is definitely not vegan.  This would never do for this fall, so I began a search for a vegan version.  I found this great recipe.  Healthy Pumpkin Chili found on The Glowing Fridge.

I used Aldi products to make it and only made one change.  I used 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika for a portion of the paprika.  I sautéed the onions and bell peppers for just a few minutes.  Then I put it all in the crockpot, stirred it, and cooked it on high for about four hours. 

This was my sampling to see if the seasonings were right.  It was perfect as was.

I let it cook while I worked on school work and near time for our meal I cooked a second (double) batch of brown rice in the pressure cooker.  I served the chili over brown rice with assorted toppings and a simple side salad made of spinach and veggies.

The meal was a success and I still have a quart jar leftover to use this week.  I think perhaps with cornbread to vary my whole grains.   This is a recipe I recommend trying.  Even the non vegetarians liked it.

Corn Chowder

I'm fighting a cold.  It's going around.  First my daughter and then my husband -- so I am assuming I am next given that I now have a runny nose and slight sore throat.

I turned to the slow cooker for a simple meal that I knew both mama and I would like.

My pithy directions:

1/2 or so of a large white onion, diced

1 pint of home canned sweet corn

2 or 3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced 

veggie broth to cover over the potatoes

salt and black pepper to taste

That's it. I cooked it on low for about 6 hours. Took a cup or so out and whizzed with the stick blender.  (That's why I peeled the potatoes, which I normally don't do for soups.)  I served it with cornbread while we were on the corn kick because it was just easy.  We ended up with two bowls of soup each.

Now this soup is versatile -- add peppers, carrots, or whatever you like. 

My goals were simple:

1.  use up items on hand

2.  an easy meal so that I had time to visit

3.  warmth for my throat

4.  creamy without dairy

This was actually quite delicious and it is one I will make again.  (Oh, if you don't have home canned corn, just use a couple of cups of frozen corn kernels.)

Freezer Assets -- Dump and Go

A quick browse through of the cabinet where I keep bits and pieces of things reminded me I had some opened lentils I wanted to use up.  I did a quick online search and found a lentil chili that called for butternut squash so that I could also use the butternut squash I had in the refrigerator.

I quickly assembled the ingredients for three batches.  One went straight into the crockpot while the other two went into freezer bags.  I was able to use all on hand ingredients so that was nice.  The double bonus was I'll have to dump and go meals available for busy days. I'll serve it over cooked rice from my food storage for a complete meal and possibly for the second batch I will make cornbread.  The third is anyone's guess.

Slow Cooker Veg Lasagna

I am really enjoying the new crockpot.  I absolutely crave tomatoes some days and I was having one of those.  I pulled together a vegan lasagna and ended up with enough for two meals, plus leftovers for my husband's lunches for the week.

My cost wasn't too bad.  The biggest expense was the 3/4 package of vegan cheese substitute I used, but it gave it that mouth feel I was looking for.

Dollar Tree no boil noodles, a jar of Aldi Marinara sauce, a few mushrooms, a bag of Aldi frozen spinach, part of a diced onion, two shredded carrots, tofu,  and the vegan cheese.  It cost me approximately $12 to make and about $4 of that was the cheese.  We had 9 generously sized portions at less than $1.40 per serving.

Anniversary Dinner

The time had come for me to downsize my crockpot.  It was a tough choice, but 7 quarts was just too large for only two or three people.  We picked a casserole style one that was 3.5 quarts.

Today we celebrate 24 years together.  I can't believe how the time has flown.  While to some a crockpot may not be a romantic gift, I can tell you it shows he truly knows me.  

Tonight's dinner will be all vegan and a little fancier than I usually make.

Pumpkin pie with a tofu base....he loves pumpkin pie!

Greek Potatoes slow cooker style recipe is here and I simply used vegan butter substitute 

Vegan Fish Fillets (the most expensive part of our meal) with chunky homemade tartar sauce

Green beans (Aldi frozen foods)