Thursday, January 28, 2010

Day 10 - The Cobbler that never was.

In theory, making peach cobbler in the crockpot seems like a brilliant idea. In reality, it was mushy, runny and more like a peach soup with weird mini dumplings. My husband insisted that it was better with whipped cream, I agree that the whipped cream was amazing.. the runny, spicy sugary sauce that made the crunchy top into a soggy cereal like mix was not however amazing.

First the peach part.. it was a mixture of defrosted frozen peaches, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. That was tossed into the crockpot.

The second part..was the crumbly topping that was a mixture of butter, flour, cinnamon and sugar.

Now, if this had been baked, it probably would've turned out amazing. The crumbly top would've been crunchy on top and slightly soft on the bottom.

Unfortunately, the juice from the peaches and the sugar turned into a flood of liquid that made the entire top soft.

Of course, it is entirely possibly that I f'd it up somehow. But I'm not going to try it again lol

Monday, January 25, 2010

Day 9 - Gobble, Gobble



If a photo could accurately portray scent, I think you'd all be at my house right now. This by far smelled and tasted the best of all the recpies that I have tried since starting this blog. Which is saying something

The combination of sage, tarragon, butter, salt, pepper and garlic melted over a turkey breast in a crockpot smells sinfully delicious.

Ingredients:
Split Turkey Breast (3 lbs)
2 tbs butter(softened)
1 tbs sage
1 tbs tarragon
salt/pepper
2 tsp garlic powder

Mix butter and dry ingredients into a paste, rub all over Turkey Breast. Place in crockpot and cook until down and tender. About 8 hours on high or 4 hours on low.

It tasted too die for, I served it with roasted potatoes that were mixed with a butter/chive sauce.

My husband was drawn downstairs by the smells about 15 minutes before the meal was done.

We both scored it at 5 out of 5. The turkey was amazingly tender, not dry at all. The flavors were amazing for just the few spices involved.

Recipe was found in a crockpot recipe collection.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Grocery Shopping

We've been shopping at Ingles a lot lately, they tend to have a better price and yet, better quality than Krogers or Wal-mart or even Publix, which is one of my favorite grocery stores.

Like today, I managed to get a fresh split turkey breast,over 4lbs for $4.00. I got two 3 lb roasts, beautifully marbled roasts, for about $4 - 5.00 a piece, normally they are like $12.00. We also got ground sirloin for $2.00. Some sliced Ham for 50% off what it normally costs us. We definitely stocked up. I like that they have a real butcher too. The meat isn't pre-packaged like at Wal-mart. They actually will change a cut for you if needed.

We haven't really been grocery shopping for a couple weeks, so we decided to stock up again. Since we've been having fun with the $5.00 challenge which is finally coming to an end.

Coming up the next few weeks on the blog: Asian Baby Back Ribs, Herbed Turkey Breast, Peach Cobbler

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Day 8 - Easy Meatballs, and 101 uses for them.



So... we haven't been grocery shopping for meat in a while and I wanted to see what I could throw together with what we had lol

I had two half bags of Italian meatballs in the freezer, I have no idea why I have two half bags as opposed to one full bag. But well..it's my fridge, so big surprise.

I threw them in the crockpot with a mixture of the following: One can of Jellied Cranberry Sauce, a 1/4 cup of: ketchup, mustard, a cup of BBQ sauce, a dash of garlic salt, onion salt and pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp of worcsteshire sauce and soy sauce.

Yea.. it sounds gross. But it worked. It tasted like amazing bbq meatballs.

We've had them...as meatball sandwiches, meatball burritos and my husband had them over fried rice today. (he's weird)

The fried rice was yummy. I used a bag of Birds Eye Veggie Long grain White Rice, cooked it per instructions, then tossed it in a frying pan with diced ham, a little sesame oil, a little soy sauce, a dash of salt, garlic salt, onion salt and ginger(a VERY small dash of ginger). Stirred that up a bit and then added two eggs and cooked until the eggs were done.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Day 7.1 and 2 and 3...

Also known as, 101 ways to use the chili recipe I posted the other day.

1. Chili in a mug with homemade rolls

2. Chili in a bowl with broken up tortilla chips, shredded cheddar cheese and lettuce as a salad.

3. Chili with scrambled eggs.

4. Chili with Fettucini and a little melted velveeta cheese.


So..basically from a recipe that cost approximately $10.00 to make. We have gotten four different types of meals and eaten at least 8 meals in total so far.

Friday, January 8, 2010

The $5.00 Challenge -

So I've talked about the fact that for the month of January, My hubby and I are trying to see how cheaply we can eat with no one meal costing more than $5.00, and spending no more than $5.00 if we go out to eat.

So we did a little grocery shopping the other day, and we got 8 bbq chicken leg quarters for $2.00 at Ingles.

so... I calculated the cost of what we ate for FOUR meals for both my husband and I:
Chicken - $2.00
Homemade Rolls - $.50(probably actually cost less to make)
Cheese - $.50
Chips - $.40
BBQ Sauce - $.10
Soda - $.50


--- Total cost for four meals for both : $4.00.

Day 7 - Annette's Cupboard Curry Chili Hodge Podge














This was...amazingly yummy.. my husband's score: 4.8 out of 5(the .2 was that he likes his chili thicker than I do lol.

I decided since it was about 5 degrees this morning when we woke up that this would be a chili day. I accidentally used curry powder instead of chili and I am soooooo happy that I did.. so here is my hodge podge mixture of a chili recipe.

My score: 5 out of 5
Annette's Cupboard Curry Chili Recipe

2 lbs Lean Ground Beef
1 onion, chopped
2 cans kidney beans(light red) drained and rinsed
1 can of rotel tomatoes/green chilis (mild)
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can hormel chili without beans
1 can of chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp sugar
dash of pepper
garlic salt to taste


- brown onion & ground beef, drain
- mix ground beef, onion and remaining ingredients in crockpot, cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Buns, Burgers and the $5.00 challenge..


No crockpot news today, though I'm making crockpot chili tomorrow, I think. I made homemade rolls using my bread machine to make the dough. The recipe I used was the dinner roll recipe from Betty Crocker's Bread Machine Cookbook

Then we decided to make homemade burgers, ground beef, dash of salt and pepper along with a dash of worcestershire sauce. Cooked on our little inside grill. and served with cheese, tomato and BBQ Sauce on a homemade roll. AMAZING!

On to the $5.00 challenge, so my hubby and I have decided to see if for the month of January we can eat meals whether in the house or at restaurants for no more than $5.00 for both our meals. Mostly that has involved eating in, and fast food lol. It's amazing what you can get on a dollar menu, even salads and fruit/yoghurt parfaits. We tried a buck a scoop Chinese, which doesn't tasted as horrid as I thought it sounded. =) For $4.47, we got rice, potatoes and two different types of chicken. I think the chicken was honey chicken and sesame chicken.

Aside from seeing how much money we'll save, we also want to see if its possible to stick to that sort of price range and lose weight.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Day 6 - Super Easy Porkchops


1 cup of baby carrots, Four pork chops(decent size chops, not thin), a jar of Apricot preserves(next time I'll use Peach), and 8 hours on low or four hours on high in the crockpot or until done.

Salt & Pepper the pork chops, then layer in the order ingredients were listed.

The chops were cooked perfectly, the carrots were done just right not too soft but the sauce left a little something to be desired, next time, I'll use peach preserves and maybe a 1/4 cup of bbq sauce or mustard or something to punch the flavor up a little.

I served it with a light alfredo sauced penne pasta with mixed veggies.

Tomorrow I'm going to take the 2 left over chops, dice them up and toss them in some already cooked rice with peas and corn into a wok, mix it all up with soy sauce, sesame oil and a couple eggs until the eggs are cooked. mmmm hankering for it already.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Days 4, 5 & I didn't do it..

So...for the holidays, I made a few dishes in the crockpot. One was a scalloped potato with cheddar and ham. It was..eh *shrugs* Not very exciting.

Then I tried a bread pudding in the crockpot recipe. Now... usually, when I make substitutions in a recipe, they turn out fabulous. This was...not...fabulous. It basically turned into what looked like mushy baby food. It was supposed to be a Cozy Cherry Bread Pudding made with a can of cherry pie filling, eggs, sugar, cinnamon raisin bread and a few other items that I can't remember. I do not know what happened, but it wasn't pretty and the entire batch ended up down the disposal.

I was not impressed or pleased.

In other news, I did try a crockpot Italian Sausage dish that was awesome. The camera isn't cooperating so I'll just tell you how AMAZING it was lol.

I took 5 Mild Italian Sausage links, a jar of pasta sauce, a 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar, some Italian seasoning, onion salt and one diced green pepper and mixed it all up and let it simmer in the crockpot on high for 5 hours.

Once it was done, I served it over a baked potato. It sounds odd, but it tasted amazing. My hubby had his over pasta. lol