I always sing that Billy Joel song in my head when I think of this dish. This was super easy. I just lightly browned the chicken and went with the flow. Must be before Paleo because no doubt I used a little flour to get the sauce so thick. I passed on the rotini but went for the lightly toasted rosemary bread instead.
some goodness right there
here is Lily’s plate, the meal deconstructed for higher probability of eating:
aka pasta and chicken
Another slow cooker win!
The first crock pot recipe I can remember making was a pot roast, made with Lipton onion soup mix, among other ingredients. Delicious, if I recall. This version uses some less processed stuff: beef broth, paprika, ground pepper and a lot of root vegetables. So many, actually, that we tooka bunch of the chopped carrots, parsnips and onions into the oven for separate roasting.
Delicious, again.
Thanks to Sue & fam, for the cookbook gift and countless ne recipes to try
Are you going to make the good noodles, Mommy?
Um, I hadn’t planned on it. But now that you mention it …
So, is there a co-relation between me gaining a few pounds and us digging into a slow cooker meal every week? Perhaps. I’ve definitely enjoyed more pasta lately. Maybe I’m fattening up for winter. Well, golly I hope not. But before I go off to South Beach again for the 11 days before Thanksgiving (really? Only 11?) let me indulge us with another rich meal.
I took the husband’s red sauce ingredients and made a meaty sauce in the slowcooker to top over “the good noodles” (fresh parpadelle). The husband also had bought a loaf of rosemary bread (what’s with the carbs?), and that was our meal. Oh yeah, some salad, too.
soo good, yet sooo bad.
This stuff is good. Really good, but it made us feeling pretty cruddy afterwards. I think it’s the saturated fat glut that puts our normal diets in an unbalanced state. As fun as it was to make, as amazing as it was to smell all day, as delcious asd it was over the good noodles, I don’t think we’ll be pulling this one out for a while.
Ingredients:
ground lamb and pork, equivalent to 1 lb
1 carrot, finely shredded
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
sliced sweet onion, to your preference
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
6 oz can tomato paste
garlic flakes (or real garlic. we do’nt use much of the real stuff because it doesn’t sit well, but i may as well have)
Italian Seasonings, salt, pepper
Red Wine
Brown the onions and meat in some olive oil. Deglaze the pan with some red wine and throw it all in the SC. Add the crucshed tomatoes and half of the tomato paste. Vegetables, more red wine, herbs and spices. Mix it up. Turn the SC to High and cook for 4-ish hours. At the 4 hour mark add in and mix well the rest of the tomato paste. Cover and notch it down to low for another hour or so. Served on top of fresh parpadelle noodles. Yum.
Woot! We have a winner! Lots of good words for this one. I’ve been trying to avoid SC recipes that contain cream of mushroom soup and stuff like Italian dressing, ranch dressing, etc etc. This one is sort of skirting that policy but now I’m beginning to see why everyone uses these easy ingredients. This one used “golden mushroom” soup, plus sour cream and cream cheese. At the husband’s recommendation I used fresh noodles (Parpadelle) from the refrigerated section.
This one is a keeper.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Me: how does beef with noodles sound?
Husband: as long as I don’t have to cook it, founds great to me!
That’s not quit how the conversation went, but it could have.
I varied slightly from the recipe I found. The original recipe called for adding egg noodles into the SC at the end but too many reviewers complained of the noodles turning to mush, so I jut cooked separate and spooned on top.
I also made too much pasta. I’ve really reduced the amount of pasta I’ve cooked/eaten in the past couple years, so a bit rusty on how much to cook. Oh we’ll. good thing the kid likes fusilli.
The veggies were what we had (well, I bought the mushrooms, but everything else we already had. In fact the onion & potatoes were from the previous SC meal)
2lbs beef stew meat
Beef broth
Baby carrots
Onion
Mushrooms
Potatoes
Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper
Oil for browning meat
Flour for thickening the sauce
Season then Brown meat. Place over chopped vegetables in the SC. Deglaze pan (i used the broth)and a add that in, too. Season, season. Pour in a good amount of beef broth. More vegetables. Cook on low for 8 hours.
The books mostly say to not open he lid. I always do. If only o check and stir. I want to make sure it’s all cooking ok. Never hurt nobody.
Forgot to snap a pic until I was packing up the leftovers
Result were good. Next day leftover beef was hard as a rock. Taking a break, as l’ll be in Cali this weekend. Last time I visited with my cousins we ate some amazing homemade chinese food. yay! Pics to come.
Tried an Irish Stew this week, using lamb (Icelandic lamb, if you must know). For the first time I browned the meat before adding to the slow cooker. Verdict … S’okay. I accidentally bought cilantro not flat leaf parsley. Rookie mistake, but then lost the final garnish. I also forgot to take a pic until after I put the leftovers away.
Forgot to take a pic! Whoops. There is a single piece of lamb there. See it?
I did an Irish soda bread experiment, halving the allrecipes recipe and making individual muffins instead of a loaf.
I asked the husband, who has a little Irish blood in him, if these tasted like Irish soda bread and he shrugged his shoulders. Who knows? Well, I thought they tasted really good. Lightly sweetened with a subtle tang to them.
Overall, not bad. But I hoped for more from the stew, what with the fancy meat and all…
Good recipe courtesy of the Betty Crocker app. I am choosy about slow cooker recipes. Seems the recipes I find on Pinterest or Allrecipes consist of packets of “seasonings” and other processed ingredients (I.e. ranch dressing! French onion soup mix! a cup of brown sugar!) trying to avoid that but then gave in and used half a jar of “chicken gravy” and damned if it didn’t taste good. Bisquick biscuits completed this fun meal.
Thanks, Betty. You and your app can hang with me any time.
Tasty!
I just got back from London. In a little bit I’ll blog about the running and eating I did over there. But first, let me tell you a story about the simplest meal ever. My dinner repertoire, not so good. Actually, it’s the routine cooking that I’m not so good at. Give me a recipe and a plan and usually I can make do. I was once a daring baker, you know. So, this one day, I decide to make dinner, and I decide to do stir fry. Only this time, I decide to use beef instead of chicken. I decide to use frozen vegetables instead of fresh. I decide to cook brown rice instead of white. Any one of these changes might be a doable change. But if you take all three, and you take ME, well you are signing yourself up for disaster, which I did. It was the first time I ever made stir fry, something I’ve been doing since birth, or at least should be in my blood, where it ended up inedible. Let me say. I was humilated. Or just quietly ashamed.
A couple of weeks ago (before London), I decided it was redemption time. I went for tofu. Fresh vegetables. And knowing this is a brown-rice mostly household, I opted for udon noodles instead of rice.
And I came out the victor. Oh, thank goodness.
Let me add, that stir fry had some mighty crisp vegetables. It’s something you can never, ever get from that frozen crap, I don’t care how preciously organic it is.
Never. Again.
My parents were in town, so we took it easy. Grandma & Grandpa babysat while the husband and I went to Jak’s for dinner. I overindulged on buttery goodness and alcohol and red meat … Bacon- wrapped scallop appetizer, Filet Oscar with a tasty cocktail made from tea vodka among other things. Indulgent and no regrets. Well, maybe I regret not leaving enough room for dessert …
Happy Thanksgiving!