Hello crock potters! Pot Crockers? Crock Pottery works best, I think! Thoughts?

So, in my first blog on Crock Pottering, I tackled my first big cook of freezer meals.  I used a lot of Six Sisters  recipes and they came out great.  They really do an awesome job putting together wholesome and also delicious meals.  We made their Cilantro Lime Chicken with Black Beans and Corn, Black Bean Taco Soup, Hearty Beef Stew, and then I combined recipes for Pulled Pork Carnitas and Teriyaki Chicken from several different sources.  That is right, we!  Hubs and I did this as a team effort.  He chops and I assemble. I also cook all the stuff that needs a little warming before it’s off to freezer land.  Great outcome, bonding time, and healthy meals to boot.

Take #2 was a fun cook that didn’t take much time at all.  This was a veggie heavy cook so we hit up the farmer’s market and grocery store and again spent less than $200.  Sweet deal.  For this cook, I used a ton of recipes and combined them for some dishes.  I want to give credit where credit is due though so some were based on recipes from people.

This was our cook:

*Chicken Tortilla Soup from Lovin’ My Nest

*Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff based on the recipe from Mommy’s Fabulous Finds

*Balsamic Chicken, a creation of my own

*Asian Beef based on the recipe from Crockin’ Girls

*Peanut Chicken based on 5 different sources

*Beef with Broccoli, a compilation of these recipes and flavors we like

*Italian Wedding Soup from Crockin’ Girls

I was pretty proud of how it all went!  (We were going to also make Mongolian Beef based on the recipe from Who Needs a Cape? but we didn’t remember until the end of our cook! Make it though it sounds yummy!)

Chicken Tortilla Soup was great.  We always leave out anything too, too spicy as we are old and our stomachs just can’t handle it.  Add a little cheddar and some tortilla chips on top and it was dynamite.

Stroganoff was definitely a hit with Hubs.  I would like to add more juice next time.  I love my egg noodles smothered in saucy stuff but the meat and taste were rockin’.

Balsamic Chicken hit the spot.  I basically had extra chicken and threw in some balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, bay leaves, cherry tomatoes, a little olive oil, and then served it on rice.  It pulled apart beautifully and was super tasty.

Asian Beef was definitely great but again the sauce ended up skimpier than I would have liked.  The crock pot is a magical thing but it does steal the liquid if you leave it on too long.

Peanut chicken was a disaster.  The consistency was all wrong, the coconut milk we added ruined the dish and we never got that true peanutty taste.  Rogue recipe was an epic fail.

Beef with Broccoli was awesome. I combined some elements from a Thai Beef and Asian Beef recipe and also the above mentioned Mongolian Beef for this recipe.  Since I’ve made this twice now, I learned one big thing— freeze that broccoli separately.  The first take I put it in to cook with the meat and it was watery and soggy. Gross. Second try I had crisp and delicious broccoli. Freeze broccoli separately and add it at the end.

Italian Wedding Soup was the out-and-out winner of this cook.  I actually cooked it in a pot for dinner and then froze it.  The only thing I changed from this recipe was that I used ground turkey instead of ground meat.  Keepin’ it healthy!

Overall Hubs and I have learned a lot from these cooks and from testing our crock pot. You can never add rice to a meal because it just eats up all of the sauces in these dishes.  Certain veggies just do not fare well in the crock pot like peppers and broccoli. Give them a time out and add them in later. The biggest lesson learned was that if you work long, hard hours like we do, you might overcook your delicious crock pot meal.  We have started leaving ours on WARM when we know we will be gone 12 + hours and we are only supposed to cook it for 8.

Another successful cook to keep our bellies filled with yummy food. We need to keep this up!

Check out some gorgeous food porn pics!  🙂 Why do we all love food pics?  Get ready to get hungry.

  Full freezer gorgeousness!

 

 

 

A quick update on cook #3!

We used some repeats of Teriyaki Chicken, Beef Stroganoff, and Beef with Broccoli. If it ain’t broke, right? Then I also incorporated these glorious finds:

*Tater Tot Casserole from Sidetracked Sarah— it was epic. That Duggar family knows what they are talking about!  Hubs would have licked the pot.

*Sloppy Tamale Pie from Allergy Free Cooking— this was very good and similar to a chili. I eliminated the olives and zucchini. (Zucchini does not hold up well in the crock pot either.)  Serving it with corn bread made for a full meal.

*Corn Casserole from I don’t know where (oops!) but I’m about to see how good it is in 12 more minutes!

*Cheeseburger Paradise Pie from Crockin’ Girls— I love corn bread and meat and cheese and ketchup.

This cook was not our healthiest but it definitely was nice to have some delicious and different kinds of meals for us.  We needed a little comfort food these past couple of months and these recipes served it up right.

Stay tuned for Cook #4!  I need some new recipes to try out.  Any suggestions?  I take requests and will provide food porn pics for your pleasure.  Everyone likes some good food porn pics. Til next time!