Slow Cooker Pork Chops

I bought some pork on sale awhile ago, and decided to use it for dinner a few nights ago. My mom had just had hand surgery, so she wasn't in much of a position to do much cooking, and it fell upon me. With this in mind, I pulled out my trusty crockpot and got cooking.

2 Tbsp. Shortening
4 Pork Chops
1 Egg, Beaten
1/2 C. Flour
1 Large Onion, Sliced
2 Cans Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
2 Cups Milk

Many pork chop recipes call for you to brown the pork before putting it in the crockpot, and this recipe was no exception. I began by melting the shortening in a skillet over medium heat.

Next, I whisked the egg up in a small bowl, and measured the flour into another small bowl.

I defrosted the pork chops and, dipping them first in the egg, then in the flour, laid them in the skillet to cook.

While they sizzled away merrily, I sliced up the onion.

I didn't end up using quite the whole onion. Maybe about half of it. I'll save the rest for later and maybe make some onion rings out of them or something.
Once the pork chops were done on one side, and flipped, and done on the other side, I took them out of the pan.

Then I greased the crock pot, laid the pork chops in the bottom, and covered them with the onions.

Then, I mixed up up the other ingredients: the milk and the soup.

I poured the mixture on top of the onions, and set it on low to cook for a few hours.

After about 8 hours of simmering (recipe calls for 8-10) I made some rice and turned the crock pot onto low. The sauce was sizzling. :D

I dished out some of the pork, and then spooned the sauce over some rice.

Yum yum yum yum yum! Delicioso!

Creamy Shredded Crockpot Chicken

This recipe has no official name, so I made one up.

It all started when my dad brought home a couple coupons for a new product. Phillidelphia, that company that makes cream cheese, had just come out with a new thing called "cooking cream". It's basically like an extra creamy cream cheese stuff that is flavored. It sounded delicious, and I decided to try something with it. It was basically like cream cheese, so I figured I'd find a recipe that called for such and then substitute the new cooking cream. We carefully clipped the coupons and headed to the store to pick up the ingredients. There were several flavors, and I chose the Italian Cheese and Herb flavor and, once purchased, we headed back home. It was once home we realized we'd completely forgotten to even use the coupons that prompted our purchase in the first place. *blonde*

Here's the recipe I used:

6 Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast Halves

1 (8 ounce) bottle Italian-style Salad Dressing

1 (10.75 oz) Can Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

1 Cup Chicken Broth

1 (8 oz) Package Cream Cheese

1/2 tsp. Dried Basil

1/2 tsp. Dried Thyme

Salt and Pepper to taste

I started with the chicken. I greased the bottom of the crock pot and put them in. i didn't make six, just five, cause I figured it would make the sauce creamier, and because it saves on chicken. ^_^

Next, I poured the dressing on top. We didn't have a lot of it, and not nearly as much as the recipe called for, but it worked. I put it in the crockpot and started it cooking on low. Then, before leaving for work, I made the chicken broth using bouillon, and added the other ingredients. I didn't use quite all of the cream cheese stuff, since it's a 10 ounce container, and the recipe only called for 8 ounces. I stuck the rest back in the fridge for a later time. (Although I don't think I ever used it... hmm... it's probably still in the back of the fridge somewhere. :P)

Once those were all mixed, I stuck them in the fridge to be added later, and went off to work. 

Thankfully, I have family members at home, so I asked my mother to please add the cream mixture at about 4:30. Also, she shredded the chicken up for me when she added the cream sauce. It was pretty easy, since the chicken had been cooking all day and was extremely tender.

Once the cream mixture had been added, the crockpot was left to simmer another hour on low. Meanwhile, I got home and made some rice. When the rice was done, I spooned some of the shredded chicken over it. 

I really liked it. I think it probably would have been just as good if made with regular cream cheese, but I liked the extra flavor the special stuff added. Definitely something I'd make again.

Crockpot: Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli

I've been rather relaxed about blogging here, of late, but the time has come to once again begin posting recipes. I have actually made quite a few things recently, and hope to upload them soon.
The first recipe is, once again, a crockpot recipe. In case you haven't noticed, I really like crock pot recipes. This particular one I pulled off of the internet. I was looking for a good recipe to make with the ingredients I had on hand. Namely, frozen chicken, several cream soups, and broccoli.
I love broccoli, but I had recently purchased a lot, and was afraid I wouldn't get around to eating it before it went bad, so i decided to use it up. A good looking recipe popped up almost immediately, and I proceeded to put it together.

I started with the cream soups. The recipe called for Cream of Broccoli (although the recipe said any basic cream soup, such as Cream of Chicken, or Cream of Celery, could be substituted. This was good, since I hadn't any cream of broccoli. I substituted the Cream of Celery and moved on. The other thing it called for was a can of Cream of Cheddar Cheese.
Now, this is a particular kind of soup that, as far as I know, is only made my Campbells. It's very good, and I knew I had bought a can recently, so I began to search through the cabinets to find it. No such luck. I searched more and still could not find it. Time was ticking, and I knew I'd have to leave for work soon, so I quickly googled a solution to my problem. (I later discovered that my brother had used the soup to make himself some cheese fondue sauce)

Luckily, Cream of Cheddar Cheese soup seems to not only be just a Campbells thing, but also only a North American thing. Several substitutions were suggested, including a mixture of evaporated milk and shredded cheddar cheese, cooked on the stove until the cheese melted. I tried this and the result was delicious. :D

So I took this cheese mixture, plus the celery soup, and poured it on top of several frozen chicken breasts, and then set it to cook for about 6 hours on low.

When it was about 2 hours away from being done, the broccoli got added.

Rice was made a few hours later. I love rice. ^_^

It looks pretty good!

Now, I have to say, this was not my favorite recipe. However, it's not because it's a bad recipe. It's mostly because I'm not a huge fan of cooked broccoli. It was hailed as a success by my taste-testers, though, so I imagine if you like broccoli, you'd probably like this very much. :D

Crock Pot: Chicken Curry

Once more I turned on my wonderful crockpot to make a meal. I happen to love cooking with chicken, (since it's a whole lot cheaper then beef or pork!) and I also had a good looking recipe.
I got from a friend a little booklet full of crockpot recipes. It was meant to be one of those one-a-day calendar type things, but it was for 2010, so I figured I'd just use the pages as recipe cards if I liked the recipe. This particular one was from April.

I started out with sweet potatoes and onions. I chopped up just over half of a large onion and about four medium sized potatoes.


















Then I put them on top of my chicken. I had previously put several frozen chicken breasts into the crockpot. Frozen because, as I stated in a previous post, it tends to make the chicken more tender.


















The next step was to mix a cup and a third of orange juice with eight teaspoons of curry powder, two minced clove of garlic, and two teaspoons of granulated chicken bouillon.


















I whisked it all together and poured it on top of the chicken mixture.


















I cooked it for about 7 hours on low. The recipe said 4-5 hours, but I find that if I start it in the morning and then turn it down to low somewhere around early afternoon, it cooks nicely. That evening, I pulled the meat and veggies out of the crockpot. Then I dissolved four Tablespoons of cornstarch in the same amount of cold water and mixed it into the sauce. I cooked it another 15 minutes and it thickened up nicely. Then I made rice. I usually prefer rice to noodles.

















I poured the gravy over the chicken, veggies and rice.
Plate full of goodness. :)


















I think next time I will not use sweet potatoes. Firstly because several members of my family don't care for them, and secondly because, even though I usually like sweet potatoes, I don't consider them to be their best when made with curry. Perhaps I'll use regular potatoes next time... or even other veggies.

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. :)

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