Tag Archives: Slow cooker

Fence Staining Project Rain Delay and Minestrone


First, the recipe – yes, it was good enough to share! Added to the Main Meal Page too.

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Slow Cooker Minestrone

Origin unknown – this basic recipe serves 6 – I didn’t want a bunch of leftover open containers of ingredients so I doubled it froze 1/2

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1/2 onion chopped
  • 1 & 1/2 carrots, chopped
  • 2 stalks celery
  • 1 28oz can of tomatoes, undrained
  • 1 8 oz can of red kidney beans – drained
  • 1 8 oz can of white kidney beans – drained
  • 15oz of beef stock
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
  • 1 1/12 teaspoons pepper
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons parsley
  • 1o oz of spaghetti sauce
  • 4 ounces pasta (I used mini pinwheels)
  • salt to taste – start with 1/2 tsp

Brown beef in a skillet & drain. Add all ingredients into the crock pot except pasta. Cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 4-5 hours. In the last 45 minutes add pasta.

Per my tips above – the ingredient sizes are odd – I honestly don’t know where this recipe came from yet it is a fairly new one I printed out. But really – 10 oz of jar spaghetti sauce? 15oz beef stock? 1/2 an onion? And of course I couldn’t find an exactly measured 1lb package of ground beef either. Hence the doubling and NO leftover items :-) The recipe itself doesn’t call for salt, but we found it did need it. Otherwise – YUM! Fabulous winter day meal!

Day Two of The Great Fence Staining Project of 2012!

I *thought* I had another clear, dry day ahead of me to complete the fence, right? Wrong! Woke up at 7am and watching Up and thankfully I read twitter a bit and saw updates from LA friends about THUNDER and RAIN! Shit.

Checked San Diego and yep – now it was a 60% chance of rain TODAY! Argh! So I loaded up the local radar and it looked like I had until about noon to stain. That would make sure that whatever I did stain would be well dry before the first showers hit around 1pm. All right, then let’s DO THIS:

First hour - slow going because I had to get behind/around the planter again.

First hour – slow going because I had to get behind/around the planter again.

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This was around 11am – I had to also stain the top of the fence up to this point because the neighbor behind me on that section has left hers without paint or stain so far. I didn’t want to leave any part “raw” like that because I was already seeing mold in this section – which is the darkest corner of the yard. Also, I swear that the side I share with my next door neighbor was done with wood that was better treated to begin with. As soon as I transitioned this morning to this back part, the wood seemed more porous and already showed some wear :-( I’ve done my part – now I just have to hope since her side gets more sun that it’s not so bad over there. Thankfully the other backyard neighbor who I share the majority of the fence with did have hers stained right away. Still, since they used the same person for the entire section, I am still seeing some of the same mildew patterns at the bottom already. Even some bits of the wood splintering off on one post. And of course, I cannot say anything since they both took on this project out of their own pockets and have graciously allowed me to pay them back over time. Anyhoo…

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Just to give a feel for the time it takes – I’m covering every surface – including up under those cross beams.

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So, here is what I had left to do at 11am – that next section being more out in the open meant I figured I could get it done and have it dry before the rain (at this point the earlier section behind the planter that I started on at 9:15 was plenty dry. So, check the radar:

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Gonna be close!

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Noon! Mission Accomplished! No sign yet of rain – trouble is, my stomach was growling. I knew the rain would be there once I ate lunch (leftover minestrone of course). So then my strategy was to clear out the plumbago after I ate because it didn’t matter if I did that during a little rain:

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That bush really grew in thick since the fence was put up! So, I knew it would recover after another hacking – especially with all this rain we are getting.

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All clear! Left a small spray of the bush that is growing out about a foot clear of the fence – will be plenty easy to work around that – certainly easier that it was getting around the peach tree and planter box! So this was taken at 1:30 and the rain had just started spritzing a bit.

It’s now rained for almost 2.5 hours – all just light showers, but there is no way I will be hitting that last bit today. It needs to dry out first and right now there are these off and on showers predicted through tomorrow morning.

Grumble.

Crock Pot Lasagna


Crock Pot Lasagna before cooking

Crock Pot Lasagna before cooking

 

Courtesy of Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza – a recipe a saved back in January and finally remembered to pull out this week when I wanted to do some crock pot cooking.

Crock Pot Lasagna

Author: Unknown

: Entree, Italian, Crock Pot

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  5 hours

Total time:  5 hours 15 mins

Serves: 6

 

Ingredients

  • 1.5 lb ground turkey (or ground sausage or ground beef)
  • 1 lg chopped onion
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • 1 lb mozzarella, shredded
  • 12 oz cottage cheese (I used 16 ounces)
  • 1 t. Italian seasoning
  • 8 oz no-cook lasagna noodles
  • 29 oz tomato sauce (I used spaghetti sauce)
  • 6 oz tomato paste
  • Parmesan (shredded or powdered, up to you)

Instructions

  1. Cook turkey (sausage/ beef), onion & garlic over medium heat (drain and rinse if you are using a particularly fatty meat).
  2. Add spices and tomato sauce and paste (if it’s too thick, add water to thin).
  3. Mix the two cheeses together in a bowl.
  4. In the crock pot, put about ¼ of meat sauce, layer of noodles, layer of cheese. Repeat layering twice, topping off with remaining meat sauce.
  5. Sprinkle with parmesan and cook on low 4 – 5 hours.

 

** Tip from a twitter friend after I bitched about the mismatched noodle shape/crock pot shape – soften the noodles a bit by soaking in hot water for a few minutes (perhaps while booking meat mixture). My haphazard breaking off of bits to fill in the curved corners was fine of course. It’s all the same flavor no matter how messy! But it’s less aggravating I assume & I will try that next time **

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It is YUM YUM YUMMY! The boys gave it two thumbs up as well. I went home at lunch to prepare this and it was as quick as promised on the recipe. I used ground turkey because it was on sale this weekend and because I happen to like it a lot more with Italian food. I was afraid that there wasn’t enough rinsing in the world I could do to prevent ground beef from greasing things up too much and with all that cheese it was already plenty gooey!

The one other thing I will try next time in addition to softening the noodles it to substitute ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese. Robyn did that when she posted the recipe and I just didn’t read through entirely to see that. I am more used to Ricotta being used in lasagna. Mind you – we all still liked it plenty fine with the cottage cheese!!

Oct 8 – Another Recipe and all football weekend fun


First, the recipe which was a huge hit and super easy to make:

The original source is the Ultimate Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef recipe found and shared by an August Mom who also has to feed a house full of hungry boys!

My house was full because one of 16′s teammates stayed with us Sat night so I got up and put this in the crock pot Sunday morning to be ready for lunch. Our guest ate 2 large sandwiches so I gather this has been approved :-)

I mentioned previously that this weekend was potentially going to be weird and melancholy since I was missing my mom friend’s annual gathering. Well, Thursday night we took advantage of technology and used Face Time so that I could join in on the post dinner nighttime conversation session. Two hours later I was feeling pretty filled up with the sounds of laughter and friendship – enough to carry me through this weekend without feeling too down at all! Which is good since I subsequently didn’t have time to hang out with them virtually the other nights.

The Friday Night game was bad..the team lost 35-0. Sat night I took the boys down to the SDSU Aztecs football game which was a lot more fun to watch. We left early with the Aztecs leading by a ton, but didn’t want to risk the big fireworks show bugging 16′s concussion. Plus, the boys wanted to play video games for awhile and I had ordered a midnight cutoff so that he could get some much needed sleep and keep healing.

Meanwhile I had volunteered to handle the varsity team’s participation in a fundraiser requiring me to mail out forms. Those were delivered to me Saturday so I spent the morning on Sunday stuffing envelopes and then I had the boys label and stamp them. We did all this while watching morning NFL games.

Yes, that’s high school, college and NFL games that we watched over the weekend. While stuffing envelopes for a football fundraiser.

You think we like football just a tad?

So my fear of a being sad all weekend was unfounded. Technology, football and time spent with the boys cleared all that up nicely :-)

May 17th – AP test day and a new slow cooker recipe


Amber knows where her food is and she’s keeping a sharp eye on it Just In Case!

One of the new routines thanks to Chip’s bladder issues is that instead of leaving dry food out for them all day, I fill their bowls twice a day. This is not a big deal for Chip, but for Amber it is utter hell. I tried to ease her into it while Chip was at the vet, but she’s still in protest mode over the whole indignity of it. One of the OTHER things I need to do is keep their food seperated because I really don’t want Chip eating hers. And heck, I would ditch hers but that’s a large container of not inexpensive Royal Canan cat food and there is no way I am throwing all that $$ out! So, I moved her food bowl around the corner and away from Chip’s eyes and smell. I put his food down in the old spot and as he chows down I move over to the dining area and scoop some food for Amber. When she’s done, I wash her bowl and put it back in the container.

It took her a grand total of ONE day to figure it all out. When she is hungry – that is what she does. Plops herself down in front of the container an stairs hopefully at the top, just sure that the power of her kitty cat sad eyes will cause the container to gush out food for her poor starving self. Pathetic.

Anyhow, while I am happy with the eating arrangements and Chip is eating more wet food I now see that he is not drinking as much as he used to. So, a water fountain will be purchased this weekend and maybe some clam juice to flavor that water for him. He’s fine. Much calmer and not vocalizing as much and (thankfully) not peeing on the floor voluntarily or not and also NOT fussing with his hind end (sorry).

So yes – the title – AP test day!! 15 had to be down there at 7am so he was up at 6am and was actually ready to go on time. Even mildly awake! When I picked him up, he seemed pretty upbeat stating that the multiple choice was so easy that it made his teacher’s questions seem like they were from Harvard. 1 essay was easy, 1 was so so and 1 was hard so he had to do a lot of pulling of information out of his ass  - which we know he is good at – hopefully good enough to get a decent score ;-)

I dropped him at school for the last period of the day after getting him a sandwich and then I came home to listen to a webinar and to some more ebook research. I also started a new crock pot recipe that has been getting rave reviews:

Slow Cooker Creamy Ranch Pork Chops and Potatoes 

I don’t have their handy dandy plug in to display recipes, so I took a screen shot – You really need to click on that link and read their post. They are so damn funny!

I cooked it on high since I was home and could start it later. I have to wonder if cooking it on low would have been better? One pork chop was tender and fell apart fabulously, the other one was tough and seemed overcooked. Same uneven results with the potatoes. It’s a pretty new cooker not used all that much and the last time it cooked perfectly but we almost always use low vs high. 15 cleaned his plate (I gave him the the tender chop) and I came to the conclusion that I just don’t like pork chops. I know – as much as I love bacon I am just not terribly thrilled with any other parts other than a truly perfectly cooked tenderloin. I’m not a huge fan of the pork roast or chop. Sigh…..the sauce was damn good and the well cooked potatoes were quite yummy.

Back at some more technical writing. Oh hey – a little it of what I do has risen all the up to the Wall Street Journal this week. They wrote about the recent Google search update that knocked a bunch of folks off their results pages. Ours was one of those :-( Our traffic has tanked since April 24th. And it was at an all time high plus ebooks were selling steadily until then. I find it funny that Google names their algorithm adjustments after animals. I keep saying that I am a “sad panda about Google Penguin” Heh. Because, you know, we survived the Panda updates but couldn’t get past that damn Penguin!! Anyway, I know, your eyes just glossed over if they didn’t already from the never ending cat/bladder talk. Sorry – documenting this for historical purposes and all that.

Cya

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and all through the house….


…not a creature was stirring….

 

wait..wait…wrong holiday.

 

I gotta say though, it kinda feels like that other holiday-eve. The house is pretty clean. There are a few lights around the windows.

There’s food filling the fridge ready to be roasted/tossed together/crock potted:

Those are fresh, chopped green beans above the turkey – ready to be created into a green bean casserole that will be slow cooking in the crock pot for six hours tomorrow. I saw the recipe for this essentially from scratch version of the classic side dish and couldn’t resist trying it.  The turkey is brining in this:

Using a recipe from Skinny Taste I prepared the brine omitting the salt. I did use apple cider for part of the liquid. While this was boiling and then cooling down this afternoon the kitchen smelled SO FABULOUS! I did get the brining bags from Williams Sonoma as the recipe recommends and they are pretty damn thick and up to the task. Of course I still put a pan down just in case of any leaking. We will have to turn the turkey over once to coat it evenly. Tomorrow it will roast in this:

My mom gave me this years ago and while we have used it a few times, just by virtue of it’s size, it needs to be stored in an upper cabinet out of the way which means….it’s out of the way and we forget we have it! But it’s perfect for tomorrow. It will cook the turkey in almost half the time (it will be done faster than the green beans!) and it frees up the oven for other goodies. And since I only have one oven (grumble), I am very happy that I can use this, the crock pot for the beans, the stove for mashed potatoes and keep everything spread out nicely around the kitchen.

Because I’ve got all the more laborious prep work done today, tomorrow will move about in nice stages from one dish to another without very much hassle at all. Alex is here, but..well…you can imagine the kind of help a 15 year old will be! If I can get him to clean a pot or two I’ll be lucky.

The tables are not entirely set, but they are in place:

Seating for 10, all set!

The cats are ready in their own way – Chip is as confused as ever and will most likely spend the whole day in my room under the bed though he did inspect things down here for a little while:

Amber is getting herself pretty for the camera and the extra attention she will receive:

..and we heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight: Happy Turkey Day to all, and to all a good night!

Please please tell me now


Sometimes, you just need to ask:

While I can easily check out every website on the planet for crock pot recipes (and, believe me, I will!) – if my dear readers could please share ones they know have worked really well for them, that would be awesome. I am much more likely to try something that comes with personal recommendations first. It’s a 6 qt pot so I can handle some of the larger recipes. Please share!

Next – any advice on how to stop my cuticles from drying out/splitting and getting the skin around my fingertips back to normal? Ever since I had the acrylic nails removed (after having them for over 20 years!), my fingertips are just a mess! I guess the fake nails protected them in some way? I have no idea but I read on another site that someone else experienced this too so I am hoping someone knows what to do? My nails themselves are healthy and strong, but its the cuticles and skin around them that are still thrashed.  Lotion isn’t enough. Baby oil has helped a tad, but not enough. Any ideas?

Oh and just so I am not just all take and no give – check out this Beef Barley Soup recipe from my August mom friend. I made it Monday night and it was YUMMY x3 – declared a hit by SportsBoy too who actually ate most of it on his own :-)

Also – here’s the new bed picture I promised: