Slow-Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

On Monday, I tried out a recipe for my slow cooker.  I am aiming to do one slow-cooker recipe a week, more if possible.  So this week's recipe comes from the Hyvee online Recipe Center.

Slow-Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
⅔ cup flour, divided
1 cup frozen peas
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
2-⅓ cups chicken broth, divided
Quick biscuits, optional
salt and pepper, to taste

Steps:
1. In a medium bowl, coat cubed chicken with 1/3 cup flour; place in slow cooker.
2. Add peas, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, pepper and bay leaf; stir in 2 cups chicken broth. Cover and cook on LOW 7 to 9 hours or on HIGH 4 to 5 hours.
3. Remove bay leaf and discard. Combine remaining 1/3 cup flour and 1/3 cup chicken broth, stirring until smooth. If cooking on LOW, turn heat to HIGH and stir in flour mixture. Heat an additional 15 minutes or until thickened.
4. Serve over quick biscuits and season with salt and pepper, if desired.

It turned out fantastic.  A bit on the peppery side but the hubby likes the heat.  I used Penzey's Italian Herb Mix as the seasoning and Pillsbury Buttermilk biscuits.   I cooked on low for 7 hours.  If you pop the biscuits in during step 3, you have nice warm biscuits ready when the meal is done.  Only thing I would do is add a touch more salt.

What made this meal even more fun, someone joined us at the dinner table:

No solid food just yet but hopefully soon.  I am excited about trying my hand at baby food.

MacGourmet

To help me reach my goal of creating my own family cookbook, I have been researching recipe/cookbook programs online.  I finally settled on MacGourmet.

There were a couple of things that I really liked about it:

1.  It is a breeze to start entering recipes - fill in the ingredients, then the steps, any special tools you may need, add a picture, it'll even calculate the nutritional information for you.  I was a little bummed that I couldn't import my really old Yum cookbook file - but that is what happens after years of not updating.  Thankfully, there is the good ole cut and paste.

2.  There is a built in web browser that you can scour all the great recipe sites.  Then in that same window, you can magically highlight sections of the webpage and with a little "command - 1", etc., magic you fill all the recipe fields for a new recipe.  It made life really easy when I wanted to add the slow-cooker chicken pot pie recipe to my "recipe box" in the program.  I will share in another update - never fear!

3.  You can purchase plug-ins that allow you to create meal plans, cookbooks (that's what it is all about), and do all that nutritional calculation stuff.  While I am tempted to create a cookbook using this method, I realized a few things.  I am constantly trying out new recipes - some I like, some I don't.  I need a way to preserve them that allows for addition or deletion in the long run.  It is a little hard to do if I print out one designed cookbook and bind it.  Right now I am setting up a temporary binder home for all of my recipes.  But who wants to pass down all their family recipes in a binder???  I would like to keep them in something more along these lines or maybe something like this.  Birthday idea anyone?!?!? or even anniversary gift!!

4.  It also has a wine "recipe box".  You can fill in all the info about the wine you had with dinner.  We have an actual wine journal but I think it might be getting full.  Might be nice to add all this info and any new wines to this program.

5.  It has sister apps for the iphone and ipad - which is great.  I can bring my recipes anywhere then.  No need to worry about what the heck those extra ingredients were.  All right there in one spot.

As one might well imagine, I have a load of "data" entry to do.  I am hoping to get a few recipes entered a day although that might be wishful thinking.

Next update:  Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Firsts

All of a sudden, we are starting to experience a lot of "firsts" in JT's life.  I still think of him as a tiny little guy at 3 pounds but he has more than tripled in size over the past 3 + months.  Within the past two weeks, John has:

Mastered the art of "Reflection" - in geometry, this is essentially the flipping of a closed figure.  I used to tell my students that it is exactly like looking at your reflection in the mirror.  I caveat this statement by the fact that John can only flip from tummy to back and not from back to tummy.

Mastered the art of "Rotation" - in simpler terms, turning a figure around a fixed point, or center of rotation.  Think of it - as if you went out to dinner and had your food served family style.  Your waiter might put your food on a "lazy susan".  You spin the plate of the lazy susan to move the dishes around in a circle.  John is able to perform a 0 to 180 degree turn on his belly.

Working on the art of "Translation" - I like to call it "sliding" a figure around on the plane.  John is still working out how to get the combination of foot movements and arm movements in line so that he can "translate" himself wherever he would like to go.  He has managed to gather his feet under himself and lift his butt off the floor.

My apologies for the grain-i-ness.  It is hard to catch this kid in action with my camera phone.  I think John has got himself halfway there to crawling.  Unfortunately, all this butt up in the air leads to screaming over a rug-burned face.

Kinda Standing - JT can support almost all of his weight with his feet.   He likes to play at standing up all the time.  We need only help out with that whole balancing and center of gravity thing.

Wanting to have a Conversation - John has more sound coming out of his mouth other than screaming.  Finally!!!  I usually catch a lot of "talking" in the morning before he runs out of steam in the afternoon.  Here he is talking to his jungle friends:

In just a few short days, this little guy will be 4 months old.  Watch out world!!!

Slow Cooker Attempt

My big present this Christmas from my hubby was an All-Clad Slow Cooker to update my tiny Rival CrockPot.

What is awesome about this slow cooker is that the insert is nonstick cast-aluminum.  Blah, blah, insert, blah, cast-aluminum, blah.  That means I can take the insert and move from the slow cooker to the stove without any worries.  Hurray, for having one less pan to dirty when I need to brown meat before putting it in the slow cooker.

We finally got around to moving our presents to their new respective homes around the house, so clearly it was time to test it out.  We did on New Year's Eve.  I looked around online for some beef/steak recipes.  I looked for a while - could you believe it that I just didn't have the right grouping of ingredients?!?!  I will grant you that I have not gone food shopping in over a week but we stocked up big time prior to the arrival of my family for Christmas.  So what did I do - wing it!

Attempted Slow Cooker Steak

Ingredients:

3 - 4 steaks

1 onion sliced

4 - 6 medium potatoes, halved and sliced

approximately 1 cup sliced mushrooms

10 3/4 oz can Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic

12 oz can of beer

olive oil

salt and pepper

Steps:

1.  Put the insert on the stove at medium heat.  Drizzle olive oil.

2.  Season steak with salt and pepper.  Sear steaks for approximately 2 minutes on each side.

3.  Place insert back in slow cooker.  Layer potatoes, mushrooms, and onions on top of the steaks.

4.  Mix cream of mushroom soup with beer.  Pour over vegetables making sure everything gets covered.

5.  Cook on Low for 6 hours.

How did it turn out?  Tasted a lot like a stew.  The steak did hold together because of the searing but was very easy to tear apart.  It did not turn out very garlic-ey.  Next time I think I would add some green beans to the mix, probably some minced garlic, and a bit more pepper.  Maybe a few herbs but I have not decided which ones yet.

Not a bad concoction - but could definitely be better.  I have a Chicken Pot Pie slow cooker recipe to try for later this week.

Signing Off.

New Year Resolutions: 2012

I did a bit of reflection over the past year.  Loads of people choose to make resolutions about how they will get fit in the new year, or get out of debt, or quit smoking - but I feel like that isn't big enough.  I would like to challenge myself to be a better person.  While those help the body, it does not to much to strengthen your moral fabric.  So I chose for this year to have one really big resolution to focus on.  Here it is:

Be patient and flexible.  Maybe that just seems to simple but it entails a lot.  I am a creature of habit and routine.  I have my systems - they are comforting.  To know that things are going to happen in a certain way at a certain time.  I don't have to worry.  When those routines and systems get messed up, I get impatient and angry.  My son has done to quite a bit to ease some of my anxiety but in other areas he has only heightened it.  Plus, it goes without saying that the army lifestyle requires lots of flexibility, which I am slowly taking in stride.  Believe me, I would not have chosen to live some of the places the army has sent us.

There are other things I would like to accomplish this year as well:

• Keep this blog updated
• Knit
• Cook new meals
• Create my own personal cookbook- with nice formatting, pictures, the works  (right now I just have this jumbled mess papers which bothers the living daylights out of me)
• Take more pictures to chronicle our little family

I think the bullets are doable, the italics a continuing work in progress.

Hope all of your New Year's Resolutions are attainable. 

Christmas 2011 Cooking Recap: Part 2

Or Seriously, you are going to put the bird in that?!?!?!

Christmas Day Dinner.  The Pièce de résistance!  But this year I had an idea for making it better.  Two years ago we had both sides of our families out for Christmas.  The kitchen was a bit of a minefield.  I wanted to somehow ease the burden in the kitchen.  Considering the previous night's culinary whirlwind, I was hoping to cut down on the amount of cooking/food logistics that day.  My idea - bring in a roaster oven.

So you say, roaster oven?  No big deal.  If you know me, I have no qualms about kitchen appliances.  In fact, I am the most happy oogling and obsessing over all of the cool gadgets, appliances, spices, cookware, and recipes in the William and Sonoma catalogs that I get in the mail.  I love cooking appliances.  Even though I am thinking how great of an idea it is, I still having trouble wrapping my brain around putting my cute little 14, well almost 15, pound bird in a roaster oven.  I have never seen anyone actually use a roaster oven.  Am I really going to trust the big important meal to cook in a contraption that I have never used before?

Answer:  Yes.  And from here on out - until I get to build the kitchen of my dreams (not sure if that will ever happen) - I think I will be using the roaster oven.  The bird came out so juicy.  My guide said a total of 4 hours cook time in the roaster and when that timer went off - near perfection.   Only little glitch was the very top of the bird was not a nice golden brown.  I can live with that if it leaves my regular oven open to create other yummy masterpieces, like:

Green Bean Casserole

Baked Sweet/Potatoes

Cornbread Dressing

The Cornbread Dressing is a new addition and I am very thankful a close friend gave me her family recipe.  It was absolutely delicious!!!

I was also very happy to get my father to write down his sausage stuffing recipe.  I have watched him year in and year out make this yummy stuffing.  He has done it sans recipe every time.  You would assume that I would get smart and watch him one year and write it down.  But when my dad is in the kitchen, you just sort of forget about that sort of thing and just enjoy being together.  But now I have it and I am not sure I am quite ready to let that cat out of the bag just yet.

Christmas 2011 Cooking Recap: Part 1

Having my family out over Christmas meant 2 things:  I was relieved of John duty and we got a chance to make a bunch of yummy food.  Here is a recap of the latter.

Cookies:

Aunt Dora's Love Knots

Peanut Butter Blossoms

In an unbelievable fit of mental ineptitude, I took pictures of neither of those cookies being  made.  I will blame it on the fact that I spent most of the 23rd feeling like I could well, let us leave it at I nearly was hugging the "porcelain" god.  Thank goodness Mom was there to help out.  The Love Knots are a holiday must.  The Peanut Butter Blossoms I did on a whim.  I had purchased a bag of Christmas foiled Hershey's Kisses and noticed the recipe on the back.  I had not made or eaten blossoms in years - probably back to the 3rd or 4th grade.  Clicking on the link will take you to the recipe.  I have not worked with shortening in a really long time.  Odd huh?  I think I have posted the Love Knot recipe before.  If not, let me know and I will share later.

Christmas Eve - Seven Fish Dinner:
I must thank my brother, Matthew, for coming up with a plan to attack this massive undertaking and for making several of the dishes.  Without him, we would not have made through all seven fishes.

Antipasto Platter

Shrimp, Meats, and Cheeses - An easy dish to knock out the first fish.  Now technically there shouldn't be any meat at all during the meal but we make an exception because well, who doesn't love proscuitto, soppressata, or cappocolla?!?!  The cheeses were Pecorino Romano and Sharp Provolone.

Baked Calamari

I can not take much credit for these.  Kroger has done a great job with these frozen babies.  Pop them in the oven and take them out when the timer goes off.  I will take credit for the sauce.  That is all mine.

Crab Meat

Big Secret->  Straight out of a can.  But gosh it looks like I did a bunch of work right?  Plus, it didn't taste half bad either.

Stuffed Clams

Yet another dish I can not claim as my own.  As I was perusing the Hyvee fish counter, I came across these beauties.  Stuffed with crab and scallops, I just could not pass them up.  Super tasty.  I was glad I indulged myself.

Blackened Tilapia and Caesar Salad

Light and yummy.  We only worked the Tilapia and bought a couple of bag mixes for the salad.  We snagged the blackening recipe from Paula Deen of all people.  Unfortunately, I don't think we might ever be able to reproduce it.  Matt threw together the seasonings without really paying attention to the amounts.  I can tell you what we used - Paprika (quite a bit), thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.  To blacken, dip fish in melted butter (cooled), coat in seasoning mixture, and heat in saute pan for 3 - 4 minutes until the fish becomes flaky.  Simple right?

Fettucine with Clams and Mussels

My brother found some great recipes.  While I am not a big mussels or clams sort of gal, this was totally yummy.  Even more surprising was that we bought the live clams and mussels at the Hyvee about 2 days before and managed to keep them alive for this meal.  This recipe is a Giada concoction.  Only difference here is we switched out her linguine with fettucine and shallots with some regular chopped onions.

Salmon with Puff Pastry and Pesto

Our final fish in our seven fish feast.  Another yummy Giada recipe.  I actually thought that I had messed up by purchasing to many tilapia filets and not enough Salmon.  Turned out that the small Salmon filet (small because all the other filets were huge at the counter) turned out to be just right once we cut it into 5 pieces.  By this entree we had reached out tummies' capacity.  The only differences between what you see here and the recipe, we did not add almonds and for some reason I could not find puff pastry.  So I winged it and bought some pre made pie-crust.  It didn't puff quite the same but it didn't turn out as dense as I thought it would once we compiled all the pieces.

Wow, I think I need to save the Christmas Day dinner recap for another entry.  Lessons learned: 7 entrees requires lots of dish washing.  Make sure your guests are ready to help out with that.  My brother is awesome at helping in the kitchen.  He has been given the okay to work in my kitchen anytime he likes - unsupervised.    That's huge.  I hardly let anyone in my kitchen, let alone unsupervised.  He does good yummy work.

Check back in for Part 2 or Day 2 or Seriously, you are going to put the bird in that?!?!?!

Somewhat Sleepy...

My son has been awake for what seems like eternity.  Even as I type, one-handed mind you, he is still awake, nuzzled in the crook of my left arm with his eye-lids fluttering.  He has been wide-eyed since about 2230 last night.

It seems to me that he all of a sudden realized that the world was out there - he could stuff his fists in his mouth, kick his feet, "ooh" and "aah", and guess what the world will respond to him.  Albeit, mommy does not always respond as quickly as we would like.  The pugs are amusing to him except on the rare occasions John is having tummy time and they decide to go nuts and nearly step all over him.

The big kicker I guess is that JT has started sucking his thumb.  Not only his thumb, his entire fist.  Why would anyone want one measly finger when you can have five stuck in your mouth?

Well, that was not the post I had intended on for today.  I really just wanted to write about our Christmas eating/cooking extravaganza.  Maybe I will manage it once "Daddy" gets home, so boy can sleep on him all night.

New Home

Well, not really but sort of.   I have been trying for ages to figure out how to migrate my livejournal posts here to blogger for quite some time.  Quite some time now has a new standard - just over 14 months.  I finally figured out at way and let me tell you it was not fun.  It was quite a pain in the rear end.

But it is done and I am happy to be able to access almost everything through my google account.  You should be happy as well - that means I can post with more ease and that means more procrastination for you.  

I am working on my set of New Year Resolutions - it should be a challenge to say the least.  So look forward to that in a couple of days.

In the meantime, here is a short video for you to enjoy.  My son John has finished his bottle and our not so smart pug, Walter, sat down next to us.  A kicking fest ensues and apparently Walter likes it.

Day 288

Wow what a week.  I don't even know what I should or shouldn't tell.  It's just been a whirlwind.

A big note - there is only about 10 weeks left in this whole year.  I am so excited.  But these next couple of weeks are just chock full so many different activities.  I am having a bit of trouble keeping track of things.  It might actually be stressing me out.

I pretty much have the semester planned out with the exception of finals week.  I worked out what I want to do, now all I need to do is get everything created.

I am still trying to figure out what to do for Turkey day.  No traveling for me and Silvio I think.  A few free days of nothing would be fantastic.

My apologies for not being more descriptive.  My brain is all sorts of scattered.

I did get the house all decorated for halloween.  I am happy with the results.  I don't have any plans for Halloween.  I'll probably just hand out some candy and maybe see if there is any ghost hunters on tv.