Crock Pot Potato Cheese Soup

I've been so annoyed because I cannot find where I originally found this recipe :-( 

I hate not giving credit to the original chef because I certainly cannot do anything more than follow directions. 
I'll keep searching. 
In the meantime, you must enjoy this recipe for 3 reasons. 
1. It's delicious. 2. It's a crock pot meal so it's super easy 3. It's WINTER!

You will need:

• 6 slices bacon

• 1 1/2 cups diced onions

• 5 cups peeled diced russet potatoes

• 3/4 cup diced celery

• 4 cups chicken broth

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

• 1/2 cup flour

• 1 1/2 cup half and half

• 2 cups shredded cheese

Directions:

1. Fry bacon in skillet till crisp, remove from pan and drain. Crumble bacon and refrigerate. In the same skillet saute onions for 3 or 4 minutes. Put onions, celery and potatoes in slow cooker, add chicken broth, salt and pepper. Cook on low heat for 6-7 hours. 
*I actually bake my bacon. I find that it's easier for me to pop it in the oven and not have to think about it for 20 minutes. Just lay your strips of bacon on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Pop it in the oven while it's cold. Turn it on to 350 for about 20 minutes (maybe less depending on your oven).*

2. 6-7 hours later (about 30 minutes before you are ready to eat) stir together flour and half and half, mix well with wire whisk. 

3. Add mixture to soup, increase slow cooker to high and cook for 30 minutes until thick.

4. Add cheese and stir until melted. 

5. I topped ours with green onions and bacon. I swear the crunchy, salty bacon MAKES the soup. Don't skip the bacon!

Enjoy!

Mini Chicken Pot Pies

The other day I was desperate for a new recipe. I actually went through my blog to see if there were any favorites of ours that I had forgotten about. Ah, behold, Turkey Pot Pie. It's been rainy the last few days and this seemed like the perfect fall meal. I didn't have left-over turkey, but I did have chicken. And I didn't have pie crust, but I did have Pillsbury Biscuits. Improvise! I basically followed the same recipe as my Turkey Pot Pie, I just rolled out each biscuit and pressed it in a cupcake tin. 
The roll of Pillsbury dough makes 8 biscuits, so this recipe made 8 mini chicken pot pies.

Ingredients: 

-Cooked chicken or turkey

-Vegetables of your choice (fresh, frozen or canned)

-Little Potatoes

-Trader Joe's Turkey Gravy (or any other gravy)

 -Pillsbury Biscuit Dough

Directions:

1. In a bowl mix veggies, chicken (cooked), potatoes (boiled for 5 minutes) and gravy.

2. Roll out each biscuit until flat and press one into each cup of cupcake tin.

3. Fill each cup with veggie, chicken, gravy mix.

4. Cook at 350 for 14-16 minutes.

Makes 8 mini pot pies.

3 Ingredient Pancakes

Okay, I'm sure we've all seen these on pinterest. Pancakes made with only three healthy ingredients (Banana, Egg, Baking Powder). My curiosity finally got the best of me. I made them for Brandon and myself this morning. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not a huge egg eater...or banana eater. Yet somehow together I was impressed with the taste and texture. And I liked the ones I added cinnamon to so much better. I think what I like about these are that the options are endless, but you're at least starting with a fairly healthy base. I can imagine chocolate chips being amazing, or adding some oatmeal...or topped with butter and syrup, mmmmm. I also saw quite a few recipes that added peanut butter!

The recipe I followed is this one from Eugenie's Kitchen. 

Ingredients:
1.5 bananas
2 eggs
1/8 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:
-Whisk the two eggs together. 
-In a separate bowl I mashed 1.5 bananas making sure I left a good amount of chunks. 
-Pour the eggs on top of the bananas, add the baking powder and mix. 
-I used a spoon to spoon the mixture into a pan on medium heat. The pancakes are little (maybe 2-3 spoonfuls). 
-They cook for about 3 minutes and then when the edges seem to stay together when you try and lift them, I flipped them over. 
-After trying the first one, I added cinnamon to the batter and I also put a few blueberries in the batter.  

It made about 8-9 small pancakes.

Enjoy friends!

Chicken Curry Sandwiches

Not pictured: chopped chicken (it was cooking when I took these pics)

My husband has been asking me to make these Curry Chicken Sandwiches for weeks. It's a recipe we got from his sister and he loves them. I love how easy they are to make. I'm not the biggest fan of super "mayonnaise-y" dishes (I don't even really like mayo on my sandwiches) but I do like this recipe. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup mayo but I think you might even be able to do 1/2 cup. We were also thinking about maybe trying greek yogurt next time? 

Ingredients: 

3/4 cup mayo

2 tsp lime juice

3/4 tsp curry powder

1 medium green apple, chopped

3/4 cup cranraisins 

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped pecans

2 tblsp chopped green onion

2 cups chopped cooked chicken (I think you could also do shredded chicken)

Mini croissants (we used Hawaiian rolls because that's what we had) 

Directions:

Combine mayo, lime juice and curry powder into a large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and chill. Make sandwiches when ready. 

See? So easy!

Baby food making

Avery is almost six months and is now eating solids once a day. She eats about an ounce of food. We've tried avocado, squash, carrots and green beans, and she's pretty much devoured everything we've given her. Here's hoping she's a good eater as she gets older too. Since I'm able to stay home with her, I decided part of my new job would be to make her baby food. I use the Beaba Babycook which makes it SO easy. And I love knowing exactly what's in her food. Plus it's way cheaper (10 green beans were .24 and it made 3 meals!)

Juice Fast?

Lately, I've felt kinda crappy. I'm tired, cranky, overwhelmed with school, tired {did I say that already?} and it has left me wondering why. A part of me thinks it could be attributed to my diet. Those of you that know me well, know that I love my Del Taco. Not only do I find it delicious, but Brandon and I can eat dinner together for under $5. I understand this isn't the most nutritious of foods. And if we're being honest, my daily choices in food probably aren't the healthiest either. What? You mean peanut butter crackers and diet coke every single morning for breakfast isn't the best thing I could be putting in my body? Hmph.

Brandon and I have talked about doing a three day juice fast, simply to detox and rid our bodies of 28+ years worth of toxins. But I don't really know where to start. I've scoured the internet and there is almost too much information out there, and a lot of it conflicts with each other. Have any of you done a juice fast? What was your experience? What combinations are actually tasty? I worry that the green smoothies I see are going to taste like grass. We don't have a juicer, can I use a blender? Do I need to stay home from work? Haha, I'm picturing major stomach troubles if you catch my drift, aaaand we only have one bathroom.

This was actually delicious with some drizzled olive oil and black pepper

I've decided I'm also going to try and eat more whole, unprocessed foods. And as much as I love brown rice, veggies and grilled chicken, I certainly cannot eat this for dinner every night or I'd burn out. Do any of you ladies have simple, whole food recipes you want to share with this clueless, pop-tart eating beginner?

HELP!

P.S. I'd never fully be able to give up Del Taco.

One Winner and One Loser

Brandon went camping this weekend with the guys, so Kandi came over for the weekend for some girly time. Friday evening I decided I'd be a cute wife and bake Brandon a batch of peanut butter cookies to take camping with him the next morning. I envisioned all of his friends eating the cookies around the campfire and raving about Brandon's wife and her amazing baking skills. Kandi and I got to work baking, and right before we were about to start rolling the dough into balls, I realized we forgot the brown sugar. Oops. So I mixed it in at the end and then we rolled it in sugar like instructed.

Waiting patiently for them to cool...

Let's just say the cookies were a disaster. I picked one up after it was done cooling, and it crumbled in my hands. Needless to say, he didn't take them camping, and I didn't win any wife awards. 

 

Saturday morning Kandi, Kelly and I went to the Shine Beach Clean Up (pics to come tomorrow!) and then yesterday Brandon and I were finally going to see The Hunger Games. Thirty minutes into the movie, the power went out and all 500 of us had to leave. I was CRUSHED. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying homemade chili at home while it poured rain outside. We're gonna try again to go this evening. Wish us luck.

In better news, Melissa from PB&J won the My Memories Suite Giveaway. Lucky comment #10 :-) Email me girl, and I'll send you the info for your new software!

Hope Monday goes easy on everyone, it can be such a bully.

Pesto Chicken

So I stumbled upon this SUPER easy/healthy recipe on where else but Pinterest. We've made it three times already because it takes minimal effort, tastes great and doesn't make me feel guilty afterwards! You can find the original recipe on Kalyn's Kitchen but since I've been practicing with my camera I figured I would share my experience making this recipe here.

Pesto Chicken Bake

You'll Need: 

Boneless, skinless chicken

1/2 cup Pesto (I used half of a container of the store bought stuff)

Mozzarella Cheese

White Rice

Directions: 

1. Spray casserole dish with Pam and spread a layer of pesto at the bottom and add chicken. The second time I made this I remembered to sprinkle the chicken with garlic salt and pepper but it tasted fantastic without it also.

 2. Spread a second layer (about 1/4 cup) of the pesto on top of the chicken

 3. Place foil on the dish and put in the oven at 375 for about 25-30 minutes depending on your oven.

 4. After the timer goes off, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and place in the oven for another 5 minutes. If you'd like the cheese slightly browned, Kalyn recommends putting it in the broiler after the 5 minutes is up, for another 5 minutes. *The first time I didn't brown the cheese, and the second time I did. Both times were delicious.

 5. While my chicken was baking, I used my rice cooker to make white, fluffy rice. I served the pesto chicken on top,  with some grated black pepper,  mmmmm.

And that's all she wrote folks. Simple enough yeah?

Shamrock Shake

I've yet to have a Shamrock Shake from McDonald's but I looked up a few recipes online and they are one of the easiest things in the world to make! Just mix mint chocolate chip ice cream and milk until it's the consistency that you want and top with whipped cream.

De.li.cious.

Kandi and I thoroughly enjoyed them. 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Mancakes

I'm not here today.

I'm actually in two places today :-)

I'm here at Britt's sharing a recipe for mini apple pies.

Aaaand, I'm over here at Emily's sharing a recipe for Brandon's homemade bread.

They're both pretty delicious so if you aren't too hypnotized by Emily's recipe maybe you'll head over there and check them both out.

I gave you guys a little glimpse into Mancakes over the weekend. 

I'm so sorry that I made you wait three whole days for the recipe.

When I told Brandon the ingredients in Emily's recipe,

his eyes got really big.

Yours will too when you read the recipe.

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Hey y'all, I'm Emily from DashboardDiary!

I don't get to cook all that often, but when I do the odds are good that it is something terribly sugar loaded.

. . . but aren't the unhealthiest things the greatest??

My boyfriend just so happens to be a huge fan of breakfast, bacon, and beer.

(What true American boy isn't?)

It would only make sense to combine them all into one delightful little concoction, right?

So I present to you the most magical breakfast meal in America:

Mancakes!

Pancakes + beer + caramelized bacon

We had a few bottles of Dogfish Head Festina Peche beer sitting around, so we figured it would be the perfect substitution for plain 'ol boring beer!

Feel free to use any type of beer you wish, and if you find a good beer that works great with the recipe, let me know, I'd love to try something new!

I once came across a maple beer, which has a lot of potential!

The first (and truthfully, the only step that matters) is the bacon.

The recipe calls for 8 strips, but who's really counting. 

We did a fewwww extra.

You know, some extra to taste test, in case any come out a little funny looking. 

Heat the oven to 350, lay the strips out on a foil covered cookie sheet, bake for 10 minutes, flip the bacon, sprinkle with brown sugar, bake for 10 more minutes, flip, sprinkle, bake 10 more mins.

. . . and voila.

Magical sugary heavenly crunchy bacon.

There's truly nothing better than that.

In the universe.

The funny looking ones tasted FANTASTIC.

We were kinda tempted to just skip the whole pancake thing and just eat the bacon.

It was that good.

I recently learned brown sugar coated bacon is called pig candy.

Appropriately so.

Anyways, back to the cakes!

To make the batter you blend 2 eggs, 2 cups pancake mix, and 1 cup of beer.

Break the bacon up into small pieces and

then stir whatever you didn't eat during preparation into the batter.

Then just cook them like normal 'ol pancakes.

. . . and then stack them up so they look super awesome and professional and pretty for their picture.

Then feed them to your starving man (with Steen's syrup of course!)

. . . and then your man becomes a realllllly happy man, requiring lots and lots of insulin!

Feel free to come visit me here for more recipes and things and things!

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Our attempt:

Brandon absolutely loved these bad boys, and so did I. Emily was not kidding about making sure to make extra slices of bacon. We only had 9 in the fridge so that's all we could make, but Brandon ate at least two of them before I could pry the rest out of his hands and put them in the batter. We almost just ate the bacon and said screw the pancake part (yes, it really is that good). But I'm so glad we didn't. The mancakes were delicious, and I loved getting crunchy/salty pieces of bacon in each bite of the fluffy pancake. The beer also really added another dimension of heavenly taste. (We ended up adding a bit more than a cup because our batter seemed to be pretty thick.)

Thank you so much Emily for the delicious recipe!