food. and acceptable, happy mistakes.

Okay. So, recap.

I did actually cook a meal in the crock pot. Last Wednesday. (Tonight, I did what has become a very good stand-by in my house: whole roast chicken.)

I made barbecued pork ribs.

I didn't take any pictures due to being in a MEGA-hurry. But I got the ribs, along with a large onion cut into large sections, and some random (really random) spices I had laying around in my cabinets, a bottle of Cattlemen's Barbecue Sauce, either Kansas City style or Memphis style (can't remember), and probably half a cup of water, into my pot and cooked it.

It was great. Country-style ribs are also a great stand-by in the crock pot, just like pot roast. Here is the recipe from the last time that I cooked them.

And now, pictures.

I am going to confess something to you. This year (so far), it seems like my personal photographic output has been made up of a lot of... duds.

Gaaahhh.

Soooo, I have learned, very quickly, to go back over the images I have shot and study them a little more carefully, with the objective of maybe finding something that is salvageable, or something that I actually connect with emotionally.

And yep, that was an awful sentence. It happens sometimes with me. Sigh. Back to salvageable, emotionally-connected duds.

 (For some reason, the photos in this post are showing up distorted and I do not know how to fix it. They are not appearing the way they normally do in my posts. And THIS is why I am desperately seeking a new blog design so that I can show my images full-size/full-resolution/allofthatstuff.)

crock pot wednesday: forgetting photos. and the dried basil.

Yes, it's Friday and I am just getting around to sharing what I did for dinner on Wednesday. Again. Sometimes, it just happens that way. I totally meant to write my post Wednesday night, of course, but I fell asleep way early. I don't know why, but I have felt completely wiped out the past few days.

Anyway, I also didn't take any pictures Wednesday morning, due to being in an extreme hurry. My apologies.

I revisited the Chicken Cacciatore. I noticed it was one of my most popular posts and got inspired and thought, "Hey. That was pretty good. Maybe I'll just do that again, since I have almost everything I need for it." I literally needed five small items to complete the meal.

Okay. Now that I am thinking about it, I guess I needed more than what I had on hand. Forget what I said.

This time, I remembered almost everything. Doh.

I failed to remember the dried basil. Other than that, I did everything that I did the last time, except this time I did not omit the tomato paste and I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which is what I normally use.

It still came out pretty tasty. I think I will make this one more time before the school year is out, and I will be adding the dried basil, along with crushed rosemary, minced garlic, and dried parsley. And a larger can of tomato paste.

And now, to figure out what to cook next Wednesday. Why is it getting so hard?

crock pot wednesday: the pot roast, revisited.

And it will probably be revisited at least a couple more times this season, because it's always so good.

Pot roast is an excellent standby crock pot meal. Sure, I'm always trying to think of new things or look for new recipes that I haven't tried before, but when I'm at a loss, I can always go right back to good old pot roast. That's what I did yesterday.

I started out by chopping a large, sweet onion into a few sections.

I tossed the onion in with my frozen chuck roast.

Then, I chopped a few parsnips into large chunks.

I really love parsnips, but my husband and son have decided that they are not crazy about them. 

I like that they have a texture that is much like a potato, but they are sweeter than carrots. They satisfy my sweet tooth while making me feel good about having vegetables.

I seasoned with a bunch of stuff.

Seasoned salt, hamburger seasoning, black pepper, generous helpings of Worcestershire sauce and steak sauce. Then I added (I think) five cups of water. Cooked everything for eight hours. 

Once we got home from Master's Academy, we still had an hour left for the meat to cook. So, I added these.

The purple ones are fun. Their flesh is purple. And the red ones in the bag? Very sweet, which I personally like.

The whole thing was yummy. I am always grateful for yummy meals. I also had the bestie over for dinner, as well as an additional guest, and they enjoyed it too. Being able to cook food that is enjoyable for people besides just my family makes me happy, because I do love to entertain.

I had all of the seasonings on hand, so what I had to buy was the roast, as well as the potatoes, parsnips, and onion. And, since I bought the roast at Target a couple of weeks ago, the only thing I bought this week for the meal were the vegetables. I seem to have misplaced my receipt from Publix, so I won't list the price of the onion because I cannot remember. I do, however, remember exactly how much the other food ingredients cost.

Roast: $8.58

Parsnips: $2.50

Potatoes: $3.99

TOTAL FOR (ALMOST) EVERYTHING THAT WENT INTO MY CROCK POT: $15.07

Let me just say, the last few weeks I have had people come up to me and tell me that they've either enjoyed reading my crock pot posts, or they have tried one of my crock pot meals and liked it. That really does my heart good, so thanks. (And these are people who have never commented, so I wonder if I have even more than tens of readers! haha)

And now, to decide what to cook for next week.

toomuchfood tuesday.

I had a whole chicken that was sitting in the fridge since the weekend.

I had planned to roast it then, but the weekend got busy and we ended up doing other things for dinner.

So, I made it tonight.

I roasted it on a bed of onions and parsnips.

And I had two plates.

But there is still a decent amount of leftovers, so I reckon we will go ahead and polish it off on Wednesday night in lieu of a crock pot meal.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions for what I should cook for Crock Pot Wednesday next week?

If not, I'll be making Pot Roast.

crock pot wednesday: black beans that should never have been.

I like black beans, and I had a bag on hand. I had never made them in the crock pot, so I found a recipe that looked simple enough for me to throw together in a few minutes.

I shouldn't have.

No. Really.

It wasn't inedible or anything, but it was nothing to write home about.

And what's worse, it gave me the worst stomach ache.

That has never happened to me when I eat black beans. Fail.

I am not even going to share what I did, because I don't think the recipe is worth it. I know there are lots of better black bean recipes out there, and I will find one that is good and make it. But not anytime soon. My stomach needs to recover.

crock pot wednesday: spicy beef sandwiches.

Today was just another in a series of BANNER days.

I hope you hear the sarcasm in that.

Since my Ladybug was vomiting last night, I decided that we would not go in to Master's today. Good thing I did, because although she didn't vomit today, she still wasn't well and neither was I. I coughed so hard most of the day it made my chest hurt. Yay.

But I did manage to get dinner in the crock pot.

And what did I make? Something REALLY easy. Spicy Beef Sandwiches.

My ingredients were only two. Well, three actually, including salt. One chuck roast and a jar of mild pepperoncinis.

I put the roast in the pot, seasoned it liberally with salt, dumped the entire jar of pepperoncinis in it, and then added a little bit of water, enough to cover the bottom of the pot. Cooked it on high for five hours, at which time I shredded the beef in the pot with a couple of forks. We then spooned the meat out onto our sandwich bread, covered the meat with some provolone cheese, and ate.

My son had two sandwiches. My husband also had two. We ran out of sandwich bread, and they complained, because they both wanted another sandwich. Or two. They loved it that much. My husband said I should make this often.

The meat wasn't overly spicy, but it did have some heat. Not enough to keep my (newly) three-year old daughter from eating it though. (My finicky son ate the lunch that he didn't eat earlier for dinner.) I also had two sandwiches and I must say, the meat was tasty.

It really doesn't get much simpler than this for a meal.

COST:
roast: $5.28
peppers: $1.72
TOTAL: $7.00

And thankfully, I already have the ingredients on hand for next week's crock pot meal.

crock pot wednesday: the pot of comfort resumes.

Snowmaggedon. That is how some would describe the winter storm that hit our city on Sunday night. Because of it, we are still snowed/iced in. Many have complained of cabin fever. Me? Nah. I'm very happy to have had this extra week (because all of our out-of-house school days have been cancelled) of Christmas break. Sleeping in and lazing around has felt really good, and I actually feel rested. Plus, it's given my kids the chance to get the last bit of illness out of their systems.

And, it's made me reflect on how happy I am to have plenty of food in the house.

I resumed my weekly crock pot meal schedule today, even though we didn't have Master's Academy. I just wanted to have dinner taken care of and not have to think about it later in the evening. I made a dish that I previously made in the Fall, which was pretty tasty: Peach Salsa Chicken.

You can find the recipe in that post. I will share a few things I changed up here.

First, I made sure that I had boneless chicken.

I used an actual peach salsa this time. In fact, it had mangoes and peaches in it. (Just so you know, mangoes are my absolute favorite fruit, and I have always loved peaches as well, so this was the perfect salsa for me.)

I also used one jar of peaches in 100% fruit juice, because I couldn't find a can of peaches in water at the store this time.

I also seasoned with cumin, because I like it, in addition to some seasoned salt. My only quibble is that I could have been a little more heavy-handed with the seasonings, since I did add more liquid this time. Or maybe I just should have left out the extra liquid. Maybe just enough to line the bottom of the pot.

At any rate, even though I should have seasoned it more liberally, it still came out tasty. It smelled so good, and I didn't even add the other jar of peaches toward the end like I had planned. The peaches in the dish retained a nice amount of sweetness.

Next week, I may revisit that delicious jambalaya.

If you have any good crock pot recipes, please feel free to share them with me. I don't always want to make them up on my own. I'd love to hear from you all.

december daily, day seven.

Tonight, I made this soup. A very quick Pasta e Fagioli. It was ready in about thirty minutes. I will probably make it next week since it's so easy. Also because I forgot the spinach. I will be including the recipe in today's entry.

Swirl some olive oil in the pot.
Add about a teaspoon of anchovy paste. (I used an anchovy fillet this time, but hated that there were soooo many bones. Using paste from now on.)
Add a couple of teaspoons of tomato paste, and a couple of smashed cloves of garlic. (Tonight I used minced garlic because I thought I didn't have any garlic cloves left on hand. I forgot that I actually did.)
Mash it all together, and once it is heated and mixed, add about a quart of chicken stock. Bring it to a rolling boil, then add the tortellini pasta. About five minutes into the pasta cooking, add a can of rinsed cannellini beans, along with several basil leaves torn into pieces, some dried oregano, salt, and pepper.
Right before the pasta is done (after about ten minutes), add a cup of fresh spinach (which I forgot). When the spinach has wilted, the soup is ready. Garnish with parmesan cheese, even if it's the fake kind.

crock pot wednesday: holiday hiatus.

I hope you all are having a marvelous December so far. I am.

I gave my mother a body lotion set for her birthday today, because we both have a thing for lotions and potions and creams.

I said "Merry Christmas" and "See you next year" to all of my students at the Woodstock school today. We are officially on break. One more day at the Marietta school, then one more day at Classical for my eighth-grader, and we will be officially on TOTAL break. Woohoohoohoohoo.

I am currently locked in a post-processing dungeon, finishing photos from two different shoots that I did last week. No complaints here though; I love that part of my job. But due to the time crunch I have been devoting almost every minute of my computer time to these photos, and thus have a couple of December Daily posts and Reverb '10 posts on which to catch up.

And, I haven't cooked anything in my crock pot this month.

Last Wednesday was my birthday and I had a full day from start to finish, beginning with the morning. I had planned on going out to eat with my kids that night, but that didn't even happen. At the moment, I can't remember what we ate!

Then tonight, I had no plans of cooking since I made a quick Pasta e Fagioli soup last night and reheated the rest tonight. It was yummy.

Next Wednesday we will be on the road, making what will be our last trip up to Ohio. My husband is nearing the end of his work up there, and we'll be going up to get him and our things. Needless to say, no crock pot meal will be happening.

And so, I'm thinking I will take December off from the weekly crock pot meals, since the main reason I am doing them anyway is to have something ready for dinner when we get home from Master's Academy on Wednesdays. Since we are on a break from Master's Academy, I will take a break from the Wednesday crock pot meals and resume in January.

I will still be using my crock pot, however. At the very least, it will be used to make Wassail overnight on Christmas Eve, a tradition at my house. Waking up to the smell of Wassail wafting through the house on Christmas morning is pretty heavenly.

art every day month, day twenty-five (also titled: natty's thanksgiving top ten).

It was a beautiful and festive Thanksgiving at my home. 

Last year, we did a family craft for Thanksgiving. I decided not to do that this year. Namely because I would be cooking all day and wanted to focus on that whilst my family had fun in the living room with football games on the tv and video games on the Xbox.

After five years of not having to cook for Thanksgiving (because we were always going to someone else's house), I was so excited to just get in there and cook my own Thanksgiving dinner again. And that is NUMBER ONE on my list of thankful goodness this week.

I started the morning off making the Pumpkin Pie while listening to the sounds of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade coming from the living room.

Ahhh. NUMBER TWO. Pumpkin. Pie.

Once the pie was out and cooling, I whipped up the cornbread for my Oyster Dressing.

I put together the seasoning for my turkey.

After using some of my seasoning for the cavity and buttering my turkey under the skin with sage butter, I buttered the outside of it then added the rest of the seasoning.

Once the turkey was in the oven, I was able to take a short break. I horsed around with my kids, and took a few pictures of the little tree in my backyard. I am definitely thankful for the peaceful little view outside of my kitchen window (NUMBER THREE).

After resting my feet for a little bit, I got my pot of Collard Greens on.

Ahhh. Greens.

After a few hours, I took the foil off of the breast of the turkey, and got the turkey stock for the gravy simmering. Man, that turkey looked and smelled sooooo good.

NUMBER FOUR is definitely the aroma of good food wafting through my house.

I wiped my hands on my apron a lot. My now-wrinkled apron, which has seen countless lovely meal-making sessions since I got it. NUMBER FIVE. Thank you, Anna Maria Horner.

Eventually, everything was done, including the gravy, a pot of plain stuffing, and rolls. I set some of the food on the table, but not everything because my table is not big enough.

My husband started carving.

With our mouths stuffed full of yummy food, we went around the table saying what we were thankful for this year. I am thankful for these heartwarming "money" quotes from my family.

NUMBER SIX.

From my husband:

"Man, this turkey is bangin!"

"Dang, these greens are so good I forgot all about the pepper sauce!"

NUMBER SEVEN.

From my little boy:

(Right after my husband said, "I am thankful for," he interrupted and said) "for your kids?"

"I am thankful for my family too!"

"And I am thankful for God too."

(In a great news-anchor-sounding voice) "Bobby, what are you thankful for?"

NUMBER EIGHT.

From my baby girl:

Actually, when it was her turn, she didn't say anything. She just held up her dinner roll. She was thankful for bread. haha

NUMBER NINE.

From my oldest son:

"I am thankful for God always taking care of us."

"Oh my gosh; this oyster dressing is amazing!"

And it was amazing. It didn't last long. 

Neither did the pie.

Ahhh. Pie.

And NUMBER TEN on my list is MY FAMILY. Yes, it may sound cheesy, but I love them so much. I love everything about them. I adore their beautiful God-kissed faces.

The laughter and joy in my home is even better than the food. And the food is GOOD.

I hope your Thanksgiving was just as GOOD.

This post is part of You Capture this week.

crock pot wednesday: chicken cacciatore.

I made Chicken Cacciatore today.

It was a backup plan. I decided in Publix last night that I would put off what I really wanted to cook until later. This was less work.

And when I say less work, I mean I got everything together in LESS than FIVE MINUTES.

Now, I did omit two ingredients -- one because I didn't feel I had time to open the can, and the other because I forgot -- but I got it done right under the wire before I had to be out the door.

Here were my ingredients.

Chopped onion and chopped bell pepper. I bought pre-chopped veggies again for convenience's sake.

A jar of pasta sauce. I love vodka sauce. 

And a small can of mushrooms.

Oregano and fresh basil.

Chicken.

And the omitted ingredients were minced garlic (not pictured), and the can of tomato paste.

And darnit, I did it again. Picked up the WRONG kind of chicken. Bone-in chicken thighs. I hate it when I do that. But not the end of the world.

I put the chicken in the pot, dumped the onion, peppers and mushrooms on top of that, seasoned with the oregano (I eyeballed it, but could have added more) which was supposed to be about two teaspoons worth, added the basil leaves (all of them), and dumped the jar of vodka sauce on top of that. Cooked it on high for six hours.

Got home, and cooked some penne pasta. Once it was done, we ate.

It was pretty good. I will definitely cook it again, because it's easy and quick. And I will be sure to add the omitted items, season more liberally with the oregano, and probably even add some dried basil as well as the fresh.

Here is my food bill.
chicken: $4.58
onion: $2.50
peppers: $2.99
pasta sauce: $2.78 (and it was BOGO this week!)
mushrooms: $.95
basil: $1.99
(The oregano I already had on hand, and I did not include the price of the tomato paste, since I didn't use it.)
TOTAL FOR WHAT WENT INTO MY CROCK POT: $15.79

Next week I won't be doing a crock-pot meal. I'll be preparing to cook my Thanksgiving dinner. I will resume the crock-pot-goodness next week. However, it will probably be on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, as Wednesday will be my birthday and I think I'm gonna take the kids out to eat.

[And yet again, my Crock Pot Wednesday isn't done until Friday, because I'm too stinking lazy to finish writing the darned thing. Definitely gonna get better about that, since this is indeed what I did two DAYS ago and ideally should be shared THEN.]

crock pot wednesday: a two-fer.

Well, here it is. Friday. And I'm just now getting around to telling you what I made on WEDNESDAY.

It happens like that sometimes.

I made an old stand-by that is quite popular in my house. Pot roast.

Here were my ingredients.

Liquid smoke, some lemon pepper seasoning, some cumin, and black pepper.

And, of course, the meat. A boneless beef chuck roast.

I threw the roast in the pot, added what was left of the bottle of liquid smoke, and seasoned liberally with the other spices.

Then I realized I wasn't through. I hadn't added anything that I normally add. I almost forgot the Worcestershire. So I added it. And some steak sauce. Then I added a couple of cups of RC Cherry cola. And a cup of water. And I should have taken a picture of these other ingredients (not the water... you know what that looks like.), but of course, in my haste, I did not. I apologize.

Suffice it to say, I used a generic brand of Worcestershire sauce and steak sauce that I need to finish so I can get to the good, regular stuff in my cabinet: Lea and Perrins and A-1.

I cooked that on high for six hours.

Got home and had to wolf it down so that I could get to church to lead worship. So, no picture of the finished product. Fail.

I will say that it was quite tasty. But pot roast is always tasty. It's pretty difficult to screw that up. The minute I got home I whipped up some instant garlic mashed potatoes, and had that with the roast.

Here is the food bill. The only thing I had to buy was the roast itself. (Didn't bother with vegetables this time, although I usually have them in the pot as well.)

chuck roast (AND TOTAL SPENT): $6.05

I am gonna reeeeally try and not be in such a hurry next week, so that I can manage to get some decent shots of the ingredients and whatnot.

And now, to figure out what will be on the menu next Wednesday.

crock pot wednesday. but on thursday. again.

[This post is brought to you by She Who Lets Days Get Away From Her.
No, seriously, with last weekend being pretty awful with a sick child, and never getting around to finishing this post on that Wednesday or Thursday, I just decided to post this with this week's crock pot meal. So you get a two-fer this week!]

So. As I said... Tuesday I think it was? Wednesday was just gonna be impossible. So I moved my crock pot meal to Thursday. A lot less stress, and I could actually sit down and eat some when it was done cooking. Good thing I did that too, since there was a bit of prep work that went into making it.

And what was it that I made? Jambalaya.

I adapted the recipe from this one that I found on my allrecipes.com app on my iPhone.

Here were my ingredients.

One onion, chopped, one red bell pepper, chopped, and one yellow bell pepper, chopped. Because I like colorful bell peppers.

One cup of chicken broth, two cans of diced tomatoes and their juice (only one pictured in the photo... sorry), two teaspoons of dried thyme, two teaspoons of dried parsley, two teaspoons of Cajun seasoning, one teaspoon of Cayenne pepper (though I was a tad light-handed with the Cayenne).

And some meat. One fourteen-ounce package of beef smoked sausage, sliced, and one package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into roughly one-inch pieces.

And some shrimp. Two bags of raw, peeled, deveined medium-sized shrimp, with the tails off.

I threw in my chopped vegetables.

Then I added my meat, followed by the broth and the tomatoes and spices. Once everything was in, I mixed it together and cooked it on high for four hours.

Thirty minutes before it was done, I added the shrimp. I also cooked some rice, using one cup of water and one cup of chicken broth. And I made some cornbread.

The pot smelled so good. And it looked good in my bowl.

And it was yummy. Yummy yum yum.

I will definitely be making this again.  It's probably my favorite crock pot meal I've made so far this season, along with the peach salsa chicken.

Here is the cost breakdown of everything that went into my pot.

spices: $1.64 (thyme)
            $1.64 (oregano)
            $1.99 (cayenne)
            $1.69 (parsley)
            $1.00 (Cajun)
sausage: $2.99
chicken: $4.99 (It's cheaper at Target than at Publix)
shrimp: $6.39 each
onion: $.77
red bell pepper: $1.29
yellow bell pepper: $2.54
chicken broth: $1.99
tomato: $.59 (I already had one can on hand, so I only bought one)
TOTAL FOR EVERYTHING THAT WENT INTO MY CROCK POT: $35.90

Yes, that was a lot. But we ate out of that meal for four or five days.

And since this post is actually posting THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY (Geesh Natalyn get it together ma! lol), you all will be treated to TWO crock pot posts this weekend. So, yay!

[All of these photos are SOOC, and not very good. I took them hastily. I take waaaay better SOOC photos than these on the regular. TRUST.]