Italian Crock Pot Roast

3# beef roast
Salt and pepper

1 small bag baby carrots
5 potatoes, medium cubed (about 1")
1 large onion, sliced vertically in large wedges
1 can diced tomatoes, Italian style
1/2 can dry red wine
Package of Italian salad dressing mix
Italian seasoning


6 ounces red wine
2 tsp. flour

Buy any type of roast that suits your fancy, usually I buy whatever is on sale. Cheaper cuts of meats do especially well cooking low and slow so it won't matter. Trim the roast of any excess fat, some fat at this point is okay, just gristle and large amounts hanging on the meat need to be removed. Once the roast is prepped, heat a skillet over medium high heat. Drizzle a little bit of oil in the bottom of the pan, salt and pepper the roast. Sear all sides of the roast until a nice brown crust develops. The roast doesn't need to be cooked all the way, you are just trying to brown the outside.

Put potatoes in the bottom of a LARGE crock pot. Then layer carrots and onions. Nestle the seared roast in the vegetables, leaving the potatoes touching the bottom of crock pot. Vegetables should be touching the sides of the crock pot and the roast should be surrounded by vegetables. Pour can of tomatoes over the roast and vegetables. In tomato can, pour in wine, add Italian salad dressing mix and stir. Pour into crock pot. (At this point, it's also okay to add a little water or wine back to the can to make sure you get all the seasonings out).

Cook on high for 6-8 hours or low overnight. About halfway through, taste gravy and add Italian seasoning to taste. You may need to add more liquid depending on the size of your pot and how much liquid develops. I did not need to add any, but I certainly would not have complained with more gravy.

Thirty minutes before serving, pour wine into a coffee cup (that's how I estimated 6 ounces, clever, no?) and add flour. Whisk until no flour lumps are present. Add to crock pot and turn heat to high. Gravy will thicken and be ready to serve with roast and veggies.

Roast should fall apart when you are ready to eat. Serve in a bowl with some nice hearty multi-grain bread. It's a meal in a bowl!

**Forgive me for the lack of pictures. There wasn't really any time for pictures before it got eaten up. I would assume that roast really doesn't photograph that well. But I guess that just means I'll have to make it again to test that theory!

Hawaiian Chicken Crock Pot Style

Back in the days of college, my two best friends from high school and one of their boyfriends (now husband) had a dinner club. We took turns rotating each week by cooking dinner. That was five years ago and one of the dishes that stands out was one that Kevin made. He put chicken, pineapple, peppers and onions in a foil pouch and baked it in the oven. After an hour, he just emptied everything out over rice. It was ingenious and SO delicious. I have been craving this for a while, so I decided to adapt it for the crock pot. It turned out delicious. It didn't taste as sweet as I can remember, I think it has to do with using terrayki marinade instead of sauce. Possibly, or I could just be delusional. So before serving, I took the juice in the crock pot, mixed leftover juice drained from the fruit with a few tablespoons of flour, brought it to a boil and reduced it while I was cooking the rice. It was an excellent idea. It enhanced the sweetness that I thought was lacking in the straight-from-the-crock pot version.



1/2 bag frozen pearl onions
1 red bell pepper, sliced
4 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin removed
1 can pineapple chunks (including juice)
1 can mandarian oranges, juice drained and reserved
1/2 bottle terrayki sauce

flour, if needed
brown sugar, if needed

Layer the ingredients in the crock pot as listed, with the veggies on the bottom, fruit on top. Cook on low for 4 hours. Before serving, transfer liquid from crock pot into saucepan. Mix reserved orange juice with a few tablespoons of flour and pour into crock pot liquid. Bring to a boil on the stovetop. Taste for sweetness. If needed, added a few tablespoons on brown sugar. Simmer while preparing rice.



Serve over white or brown rice with reduction sauce on top! Aloha!

Crock Pot BBQ Beef Ribs & Sausage

Sweet and melt in your mouth good without all the fuss. Need I say more?

2(ish) lbs beef ribs
Tex-Joy BBQ Seasoning

1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. coarse grain mustard
3T. liquid smoke
3 cloves garlic, chopped
salt/pepper

1 onion, sliced

1/2 c. Dr. Pepper

1 lb. sausage, sliced on the bias

Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce

Trim ribs of skin and excess fat. Sprinkle on seasoning of your choice. Mix next group of ingredients together. Coat ribs with glaze. Layer ribs and onions in crock pot. Pour Dr. Pepper over the top. (I accidentally forgot to pull in my crock pot and it sat for an hour. I think it might have helped.) After that I realized I wasn't smelling my food like I should have, I went to check on it and then plugged in it. :D Let this cook on high for three hours.

After three hours, I pulled the ribs out and poured on BBQ sauce on the ribs and added the sausage. I then cooked for another two hours on low.

Next time, I would cook the sausage a little to lessen the fat. (And be more cautious when I trim the fat too). Either that or cook it the day before I wanted it, stick it in the refrigerator and then remove the fat and reheat the next day. I would also drain about half of the first liquid off before I added the BBQ sauce. I am assuming this would result in a thicker sauce that could top the BBQ. Don't get me wrong, the flavor was awesome! I will definitely make this again!

Chicken Spaghetti

Valentine's Day was coming this year and I wanted something a little indulgent. We had lots of leftover chicken lying around and me being the frugal one I couldn't let it go to waste. Add cheese to anything and you have the perfect dish. So this might be a little odd, but this blog recipe will have two parts. The first part I made it in the crock pot. Then it wasn't cheesy enough so I tweeked it for leftovers. I'm crazy, I know.

2(ish) cups cooked chicken
1 (ish) cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can diced tomatoes (I used garlic and onion), undrained

1 pound (1/2 loaf velveeta)

cooked spaghetti noodles

Place the chicken in the crock pot. Add tomatoes, cream of mushroom soup and enough chicken broth to make it soupy. (This part makes it very adaptable to however much chicken you have left!) Then thickly slice the velveeta and lay it on top. Simmer on low for 5-6 hours. Serve over cooked noodles.

It turned out okay, not anything spectacular. It didn't become the oozy cheesy that I had expected it to. I think because I let it go for that long in the crock pot (I left the house to teach) the chicken stock boiled and didn't let the velveeta do it's magic. To fix, I would just cook it until it's reheated and all gooey.

Chicken Spaghetti, Redux

To maximize the cheesyness, (I like to add -y to words because I can!) I decided to make a cheese sauce to add to it. To do this, I took about 3/4 pound of velveeta, cut it into cubes and added chicken stock to think it out. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say I used about 1/3 cup of chicken stock. (Psst, I actually warmed this in the microwave until it became smooth and creamy.) Once smooth, I folded it into crock pot chicken spaghetti. This was DELISH!!! This was exactly the way I had planned it.

Next time, I would make this when I was at home so I could monitor and allow it to become creamy because I really think it would. Or if I had the time, I would just make the sauce, throw it in a casserole dish, top with cheese and brown it in the oven. Either way, the second go around was super tastey!!!

Crock Pot Carnitas

Nothing beats authentic and simple Mexican food. These carnitas are super easy to make and with the simplest condiments make a fabulous meal. The best thing is you can use the leftover meat for quesadillas or enchilada casserole.

4 lb pork (shoulder, roast, carnita meat)
1 bottle Miller Chill beer
1/2 fresh orange juice
1/2 bunch cilantro
4 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and pepper

Rub the pork with salt, pepper and garlic. Place in crock pot and pour OJ and beer in crock pot and place cilantro around pork. Let simmer on low for 6 hours.

Serve on corn tortillas with lime wedges, pico, fresh avocado, and crumbled queso fresco. Keep it simple! It's so tasty.

Next time, I would add 2 limes (cut into wedges) to the crock pot while simmering. I was afraid that the Miller Chill would be too limey but it wasn't at all. I would also use a different kind of beer. The Miller Chill just didn't do it for me. I don't know what exactly I'd use, but I'd try something different. I'd also just go ahead and add a whole bunch of cilantro (minus some for the pico). Why the heck not? :D

Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu

Okay, so I can't let you think that everything I make is good. This recipe was an epic fail. I'm not even going to lie. I don't know how it went wrong, it sounded so good in my head. I am determined to revisit this and try it again. But here's what I did so you will know what NOT to do...

In a crockpot, layer:

Chicken Breasts
Ham
Canned Mushrooms
Swiss Cheese

Mix 1 can of cream of chicken and 1 can of cream of broccoli cheese soup and pour over layers. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

I think where I went wrong was with real cheese. I believe cooking it for an extended period of time melted it too much changing the texture and integrity of the dish. I also would stick with cream of mushroom soups. I particularly care for the cream of chicken and broccoli cheese soup, but that's just me. I haven't figured out exactly how to redo this, but I'm gonna find a way!

Crockpot Gumbo

3/4 c. oil
3/4 c. flour

1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced (including leaves)
1 bunch green onion, chopped (roots removed, including green tops)
4 cloves garlic, chopped

2# chicken breasts
1# sausage, sliced
4-6 c. chicken stock

red pepper
pepper
salt

*I still don't have a camera, I might insert a stock photo later. Sorry!*

Chop all your veggies first! I did not use bell peppers because I frankly don't care for them. I instead used a whole bunch of green onions and included all the tops as well.

Heat oil in a skillet until hot. Slowly whisk in flour until blended. Brown flour to a dark brown, not black. (I've heard this can only take ten minutes, but I was too afraid of burning it so it took me upwards of forty five minutes.) As soon as it reaches the correct color, remove from heat and throw in the veggies. Stir around, cover the veggies with the roux and sautee with the residual heat left in the pan.

Dump the roux and veggies in the crock pot. Add chicken (I prefer dark meat because it takes to longer cooking in the crock pot, white meat has a tendency to dry out) and sausage. Add enough chicken broth (I actually used chicken and beef because I had some open from the last time I cooked) to cover the chicken and sausage. Add salt, pepper and red pepper to taste. Cook on low allllllllll day. Seriously, I put mine on a 10:00 in the morning and we ate it at 5:30 in the evening.

Gumbo is one of those amazing things that you can simmer forever and the better it gets. If your chicken hasn't fallen apart, use a fork and gently shred it before you serve. Serve over cooked rice with some file, Tony's and Tabasco. This stuff is so simple, but sooo good! I made a whole 4 quart full and it was all gone after one sitting!

Crock Pot BBQ Pork

Ugh, this was so stinking good and I can't remember the recipe now. I thought I had saved it, but I guess not. And of course, I can't find whatever website I used for my inspiration. So here's what I *think* I did:

3-4 lb. pork roast
1 bottle BBQ sauce (Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce)
2 c. (ish?) beef broth
3T liquid smoke
1/4 c. dried chopped onion
salt, pepper

Season the pork roast with salt and pepper. Place in bottom of crock pot. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over. I know 1/4 cup of dried onion sounds like a lot but I know that I seriously used 1/2 bottle of dried chopped onion. I guess you could use real onion, but I didn't have any on hand. I also can't remember if I used 3T. of liquid smoke or 1/4 cup. I know, I suck. I guess I'll have to make it again. Either way, this is the basis and if you make it, I promise it'll be good. I mean, just look at the picture!