Crockpot: Cream Cheese Chicken

I've made several crockpot meals lately that I haven't blogged about, usually because I make the meals at the last minute right before work in the morning.
Anyway, I decided to actually take pictures this time and blog about it. I shall try to be better about it in the future, as well.

So I bought a brick of cream cheese the other day and wanted to use it in dinner. Actually, it's Neufchatel cheese, which has less fat, and a much cooler name, so I usually buy it instead of boring old cream cheese.

I knew we had quite a bit of frozen chicken in the basement, so I looked up my favorite recipe website and typed in 'chicken' and 'cream cheese'. Cream Cheese Chicken popped up. Voila!
I began to look around and see what other variations of the recipe I could find. Some of them called for Italian Dressing, and some for Italian Dressing Mix. I had none of the Mix, and the last time I used straight Italian Dressing, my dad said it wasn't his favorite.

I poked around a bit more, and found a recipe for Italian Dressing Mix. Just a bunch of spices thrown together. I didn't have all the spices it called for in pure form, but I substituted Italian Seasoning and hoped for the best.


















After mixing up the seasoning, I turned to the chicken. The chicken was still frozen, but since that usually makes the chicken cook slower, and be more tender, I usually cook it from frozen. I put the frozen chicken pieces in the bottom.



















I sprinkled a few tablespoons on top. Next, I poured four tablespoons of melted butter over it. The recipe called for only two tablespoons, but a bit extra butter is always good.




















The recipe did not call for any water, but I figured if I didn't add water, the seasoning mix would end up baked on the bottom of the crockpot and be terrible to clean off later. I added just enough to cover the bottom of the crockpot and set it to low to cook.

Next, I mixed up one can of cream of chicken soup, an eight ounce package of cream cheese, and half a cup of chicken broth. I made the chicken broth by boiling half a cup of water with half a bouillon cube. Once mixed, I put it in the fridge to be added later.

















I had to go to work, then, so come evening, my mom sauteed the onions and added them, and the chicken soup/cream cheese mixture to the crockpot, after draining out most of the water I'd added earlier.



















I made a pot of rice, waited about 45 minutes for the chicken to be completely done, (you're supposed to wait a full hour, but I was in a hurry, so just turned the crockpot up to high so it would heat up faster.)
I love rice, so much better than noodles. The chicken was poured over the rice, and voila! A delicious meal. :)

My First Quilt

I love to sew. It relaxes me. Most of the time. The only stressful part about sewing is cutting out a pattern. You have to first find a large enough place; usually the floor. Then you lay out the fabric, smooth it out, lay out the patter on top, finagle it to make sure it fits, pin it in place, and cut it all out.
It's takes a long time, and I usually end up with a backache by the time I'm done. ^_^

This is not so, with quilting. With quilting, you use a rotary cutter, and you only cut straight lines. And it can be done in a relatively small area. Aka, a tabletop. This pleased me, so I decided to make a quilt.

Now, I have been meaning to make a quilt for years. I am a ridiculously nostalgic person and I thought it would be very cool to make a quilt out of bits and pieces of clothes that I had worn or made over the years. Clothes that meant something to me, but that I wouldn't, or couldn't wear anymore. I think I first got this idea when reading a Little-House-On-The-Prairie type book, where a character had a similar type quilt.

People said I'd never finish it. Actually, people said I'd never begin it. I set out to prove them wrong.

First things first. I had to gather the fabric. I raided my closet, and the attic, and found myself a nice assortment of old clothes. Dresses I'd worn as a little girl, the first outfit I'd ever made on my own, favorite skirts and blouses, and even some old t-shirts I had loved, but due to things like stains on the front and holes in the collars, would never wear again. Then I had to plan it out. I got out some graph paper and, while my kids at work were taking a nap, I designed the quilt. I decided to make it King Size, to accommodate my bed, which is a Queen, and then some. This would take twenty-five 20 inch square quilt blocks. I designed them into 10 different designs. My papers looked rather complicated, but they all made perfect sense to me.

















Next, I had to cut out my patches. I had bought a rotary cutter just for this occasion and it sliced that fabric beautifully. It was love at first cut.

















Once I had all the patches cut out, I folded them into neat little packages, all arranged according the the number I had assigned each fabric. This made it much easier to pull the correct patch out and match it with the rest of the patches for each block to be with the fabrics I'd designed it to have. There was much method to my madness!

















Some of my fabric was stretchy. The t-shirts, especially, and some of the others as well. This made it twice as difficult to sew together, so I bought some fusible interfacing, ironed it to the back, and voila! Stiff fabric. :D

















The next thing to do, of course, was actually start sewing the blocks together. This is where it became evident that I had not only never quilted before, but that I really had no idea what I was doing. I had cut out some patches with corners. Anyone who has quilted knows that you don't do that. Especially not on your first quilt. Undaunted, I cut apart the corners, and sewed the block together as straight pieces.


















And now, once again, I realized a blunder. A rather significant one. Remember how I mentioned earlier that I would need my blocks to be 20 inches square? Well, I had failed to factor in the 1/2 inch I would need to actually sew the patches together into my blocks. Each block came up several inches short. Often in strange ways. I had some that were 16" by 18", others that were 18" by 16". Some were 17" square, and one was even 15" square! Somehow, this had to be fixed. I ended up carefully calculating how many strips of fabric I'd need, and what length and width (figuring in that 1/2 inch margin this time!) to make each block and even 20" by 20". This took me a very long time. I think I worked on this part of the quilt for nearly 2 weeks. Not steady, or course, but if I'd been more careful the first time, I'd have been done with this quilt two weeks ago. Ah well, I guarantee I won't make that mistake next quilt!

















Finally, finally, my blocks were all done. Next thing to do was sew them into strips.
























Once the strips were done, I could sew them together to make the entirety of the front of the quilt. I got both these steps done in about an hour. I felt very accomplished when I was done.
Here's the quilt, all laid out.

















And the back of the quilt; not nearly so pretty.

















Once these steps were done, all that was left was to add the batting and the back! I bought a sheet for the back and began to think of a place large enough to lay the whole thing out. There was no such place at my house, but the house I work at had a perfectly sized living room! And so, while the kids were napping one day, I opened up the sheet in the middle of their floor.



















Then I rolled out the batting on top.



















And began the process of unfolding my quilt top onto it.



















It took much straightening and fixing and smoothing and more straightening, but finally it looked like this:



















Next, I folded over the edge of the sheet and pinned it in place. It looks finished, but you wouldn't want to sleep under it, yet!



















Sewing the edge was a painstaking process, as i was determined to do it by hand. I got about halfway down the side and had little to show for it except the knowledge that I was 1/8th of the way done, a bad backache, and nearly 2 hours gone. That's when I decided to use the machine for this part. 10 minutes later and it was finished! All I had to do was the actual quilting part! This seemed, again, extremely daunting, so I made the decision to turn it into a tied quilt. I added a tie at the corner of each block, and in the middle of each block. That's 37 ties in all.



















Oh happy day when it was finally done! I spread it out on my bed and it looked beautiful. You may think it looks rather odd, colorful, and perhaps a bit discombobulated, but I love it very much. Each patterned piece reminds me of something, and for that reason it's special. It took me two and a half months from start to finish. I am very pleased with it.

Apple Muffins

I was going to enter these apple muffins into the baking contest at our local harvest festival, but got some information messed up and missed out. Oh well... more for my family. :)

I started with a basic muffin recipe.
1 3/4 cups of flour,
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil (I use olive oil)
1/4 tsp salt

Then, I added about 1/4 cup of applesauce, a chopped up medium apple, and a couple dashes of cinnamon.
Of course, I forgot to take pictures until the end.... I have a bad habit of doing that. :P
I baked them at 400 degrees. The recipe said 20 minutes, but I pulled them out after about 17, and they were nice and golden brown.

Next, I mixed up the apple filling. I chopped up two medium apples and mixed them with about a cup or so of applesauce, and a couple teaspoons of cinnamon and sugar. Then I scooped out the center of each muffin, and spooned the apple filling in.

















I filled all the muffins up, and replaced the tops, ready for icing!

















I thought maple would be pretty good on top, so I mixed some powdered sugar with a splash of heavy cream, and added maple syrup and granulate maple sugar. I can not tell you the portions, as it was pure guess work. Mostly, I just kept adding ingredients until it had the right consistency and taste. :P















I poured the icing into a plastic bag and piped it onto the muffins. Then we sprinkled the top with a pinch of granulated maple sugar.

















Aside from a couple lumps of baking powder; that made certain bites taste rather nasty; they came out quite delicious. Next year, perhaps, I'll get that blue ribbon. ^_^

Oreo Truffles

I first ate Oreo Truffles last year, in February, when a friend of mine made them for a get-together I attended. They were an immediate hit with my family, and since then they have been enjoyed many times, and as gifts from various people. They can be made in many different forms. I've had them made with Regular Oreos, Peanut Butter Oreos, and Mint Oreos. Hard to say which were my favorite, but mint and peanut butter are close ties.
And yet, I have never made any, myself. A shipping address for my collegiate brother, who happens to love Oreo Truffles, seemed the perfect time to make them.

I decided on Peanut Butter, and Golden Oreo Truffles. First up, of course, was to get the ingrediants. I purchased the Oreos and cream cheese the evening before I planned on making them, and having still three hungry siblings in the house, I decided to mark them so there was no doubt as to their availability for general consumption. ^_^


















I measured out about 2/3 of the Oreos and put them in a bag to be crushed. The recipe calls for 3 cups to mix with one box of cream cheese, and since a whole package of Oreos is about 4 1/2 cups, I figured this should be about right. It was. :)


















Crushing them with a rolling pin was not the best way to do it, I found out. I pounded them with a wooden mallet. That worked better. ^_^


















Next up, I mixed in the cream cheese. It made for a rather gooey mess, and I had to refrigerate them before rolling them into balls.


















Then, I rolled them into balls, and popped them back into the refrigerator before dipping them in chocolate.



















Rolling them in chocolate proved a bit harder than I thought. I think it might have had something to do with the fact that I used chocolate chips, instead of real baking chocolate, since it was cheaper. ^_^ You're supposed to use 8 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate. I used a large handful of chocolate chips. :P


















I covered the Golden truffles with white chocolate, and the Peanut Butter truffles with milk chocolate. Then I drizzled the opposite color on top to make them more decorative. :P



















Jake, they're on their way to Virginia! :D

Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup

I have often heard of Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup. I have friends who have made it and said it was surprisingly delicious, but I have never actually done it myself. Well, I have this thing for doing things right. It's a bit of a perfectionist streak I have. If I'm not going to do it right, why do it at all. Therefore, when I make a meal, I like to go all out, and make it a nice meal. This usually includes dessert. :P

I had planned Beef Stroganoff for dinner (see previous post) and it was bubbling delightfully in the crockpot when I decided I really ought to have something for dessert. Into my head popped the idea of Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup. I quickly looked it up online and found several recipes for it. Very common recipe, I discovered, but thankfully they all pretty much listed the same ingredients.
4 Tablespoons each of flour and sugar, 2 Tablespoons of cocoa, an egg, and 3 Tablespoons each of milk and oil. Some recipes also listed an optional 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and a small handful of chocolate chips. We were out of chocolate chips, but I did use the splash of vanilla.

Since there were four people in the house for dinner that night, I got out four mugs.



















I put in the first three, dry ingredients first, and mixed them together.




















Then I added the egg. The recipe said to mix it after the egg, but i found that that just made it pasty and sticky, so I waited until I'd added the other wet ingredients before trying to stir it.

















I added the milk and oil, and a tiny splash of vanilla (emphasis on tiny... one of the cups I added a bit too much to, and the taste was a bit off. Not bad, just not as good as it could have been >_<)

















I put the mugs on a plate and microwaved them on high for 3 minutes. I did each mug separately, since that's what the recipe called for, and I didn't want to mess with trying to do more than one at once.


























Once I got them out of the microwave, I let them sit for a minute, to cool off, then dumped them out of the mug. Add a bit of whipped heavy cream and voila! Insta-dessert!



















They tasted really good! Perhaps not as good as traditional chocolate cake, but for what they were, they were delicious. I did wish I'd had chocolate chips to put in them, or some chocolate sauce to drizzle on top, but ah well. I also am not sure they'd taste nearly as good if they weren't fresh and hot.
All in all, it was a success, and I'd definitely make it again. :)

Crockpot: Stroganoff!

When I was young, there was little in this world more repulsive to me than the mushroom. As I once told a friend "I do not favor fungi". If any of you have ever made Beef Stroganoff, you know what one of the essential ingredients is. Mushrooms. :P Because of this fact, there were few dishes I hated more than Beef Stroganoff. It literally turned my stomach.

I was a strange child. Today, Beef Stroganoff is one of my favorite foods. I still strongly dislike mushrooms, but I simply don't eat that part. The rest of it is amazing.

Therefore, I decided to make Stroganoff for dinner tonight. My mom is away for the week, and that leaves the cooking to me. I haven't done any, so far this week, since my dad works odd hours such that he is often asleep in the evening. I don't usually go through the effort to cook for just myself. Tonight he was around, however, and I planned supper. I was going to work all day, so I decided to make something with the crockpot. I love my crockpot. It was a Christmas present, and I'm very proud of it, and the various concoctions I can make with it.
So this morning, about an hour before I had to leave for work, (and being the procrastinator that I am) I began to look up some recipes for good crock-pot recipes. I didn't really know what I wanted to make, but I plugged in a couple ingredients and hoped for the best. Stroganoff was one of the first things that popped up, and I thought we probably had all the ingredients. I was right. :D

Due to my time constraints, I did not take any pictures this morning, during prep. But I shall proceed to tell you all what I did, anyway. :P

I first dug in the freezer for some beef. I knew I had seen some there, just a day or two ago, and after a bit of searching, came up with two ziploc bags full of cooked beef pieces. There was a lot of fat still on it, but after cutting it up, I came out with just over a full pound of good beef. Then I added a couple tablespoons of olive oil and tossed the meat in some flour. Then I searched the pantry for cream of mushroom soup. We had no whole mushrooms (a fact which did not disappoint me in the least. :D) so the soup would have to do. The recipe called for two cans, and we only had one. Undaunted, I kept searching and came up with cream of chicken soup, and cream of celery. After a brief moment of deliberation, I decided on the cream of chicken and put the contents of both cans on top of the beef.

Next were 3 1/2 cups of water, and 3 cubes of beef bouillon. I actually didn't have any beef bouillon, but we had dried beef granules, a teaspoon of which is equal to a cube of bouillon. In it went, with a bit of extra to compensate for the chicken soup. Then I mixed it up a bit, set the crockpot to low, and raced out the door for work.

Fast-forward to this evening, when I arrived home. Delicious smells greeted me when I opened the door (one of my favorite parts of the crockpot, by the way. ^_^) and I went in to check on it.

It looked a bit oily, due in part, no doubt, to the olive oil. :P


















I then added a pint of sour cream. I meant to add more, but we didn't have more, so a pint was all it got. Turned out a pint was enough. It looked much tastier with the sour cream in it. ^_^


















Back into the crockpot it went to keep warm while I cooked the noodles.




















I opened the bag of egg noodles and poured about half a pound into the boiling water. Egg noodles are a must, when it comes to stroganoff. *nods*


















Once the noodles were done, I dished them out, and poured the crockpot's contents on it. It looked (and tasted!) delicious. ^_^




















Next up, Dessert! :D

Pizza!

I have a pizza recipe, given to me by a friend, and further modified to suit my family's taste.


















It is a favorite with my family, and when we celebrated my brother's birthday this past week, he requested pizza for his birthday dinner. He also asked that I make a couple extra crusts and some sauce for him to take to a party he was going to the next day, and then he would assemble it there.

I started with the yeast, setting it to dissolve in the warm water and honey.

















Then I started on the flour mixture, adding olive oil and various spices and cheeses. We were out of cheddar cheese, so I had to make due with just the parmesan.


















I took the towel off of the yeast, to find it bubbling over the top of the mixing bowl. The number of pizza crusts I intended to make called for a quadrupling of the recipe, when previously I'd only tripled it. Looking at the full bowl of flour, and the full bowl of yeast/water, I wasn't sure both would fit when I added them together!


















Thankfully, they did fit, and after kneading the dough for a while, and adding a bit of flour to get it to the correct consistency, I set it to rise on the counter.


















While the dough rose, I floured 6 pizza pans. I wasn't sure how many pizzas the dough would make, but I knew it would make at least 6.


















Then I floured the rolling pin, and put flour on the table, so I could roll out the dough.


















I love rolling out pizza dough. ^_^

















Some like thick crust and some (me!) like thin crust. :P


















When all was said and done, it turned out there was enough dough for seven pizzas. Having only six round pans, I used a cookie sheet for the seventh. Then I set aside two to give to my brother, put the sheet pizza in the freezer to make later, and packaged up the remaining four to assemble the next day, when we would need them.


















Next I had to make the sauce. Sauce completely makes the pizza, in my opinion, and I use a special recipe that my mom taught me to make the sauce. Using a basic tomato sauce base, I add various spices and seasonings until it's just right. Mmmm! :)


















Then I grated up some mozzarella cheese, and a bit of cheddar cheese to put on top. In my opinion, vegetables have no business being on a pizza, and we were out of any sort of meat to put on. Plain cheese is the preferred topping in my house, anyway, so once the cheese was grated, the pizzas were all ready to put together the next day!


















Next day came, and I pulled the crusts, sauce and cheese out of the fridge to put together. First the sauce. Slather it on, it's oh so good!


















Then add the cheese. Lots of cheese, but not too, too much. Cheese is amazing, but don't want it to overwhelm! ;)























Bon Appétit!