This changed the way I do dinner.

So I tried a new dinner idea: frozen crockpot meals. I spent Sunday evening gathering all my ingredients and had everything ready for the whole week. It took a while to package everything, but it has made the rest of the week a breeze. 

First, I gathered all the recipes I wanted to make for the week.

Then I chopped everything up and put all the ingredients for each recipe into a labeled big, ziplock bag. (I put the date, any extra instructions, like serve over rice or add a cup of this, and the cook time.)

Then I put them all in the freezer.

 labeled bag

frozen Teriyaki Chicken

 frozen Chicken Tortilla Soup

So Monday morning I pulled a bag of frozen ingredients for Mediterranean chicken out of the freezer and dumped it all straight into the crockpot, set the temp on low and when I returned 8 1/2 hrs later this was awaiting me:

Mediterranean Chicken

It was delicious!! I think I'll never use the oven again. :D

I'm excited about this because:
1. It's super easy and I'm lazy busy.
2. This will be great when Crockett leaves because it will be hard to cook for one person and I can have leftovers for a few days (I love leftovers).

Here are the recipes I tried. I've only made Mediterranean Chicken, but it was great. I'll update as I make the others. (Update: The Teriyaki Chicken was great too! Next time I will add more chicken and carrots and less pineapple and onion.)

Teriyaki Chicken

 med - large bag of carrots 

(I used fresh, whole carrots and peeled/chopped 5.)

red onion in large chunks

2 cans pineapple (undrained)

4 garlic cloves

1 cup teriyaki sauce

(I used HEB brand marinade.)

 bag instructions:

add 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce and cook low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs, serve over rice

Chicken Tortilla Soup

3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cooked chicken (cut into strips or cubes)

1/2 onion

1 cup frozen corn

2 green onions

28 ou. can tomatoes (undrained)

1 cup chopped veggies

(I used a can of mixed veggies.)

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp crushed red peppers 

(I omitted this.)

salt to taste 

(I added about 1 2 tsp.)

bag instructions:

cook on low 8-10 hrs or high 6 hrs

Mediterranean Chicken

3-4 pieces of chicken

(I always use thighs.)

1 bag of frozen artichoke hearts

1/2 jar of green olives (drained)

28 ou. can tomatoes (undrained)

bag instructions:

cook low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs, serve over rice

I also am planning on doing Savory Chicken, but will add that recipe when I get to my computer. I'll also post the links to all the awesome sites I got these recipes from because they have a lot more. The recipe for the soup was the only one not specifically designed for freezing in advance, but since it is a crockpot recipe I imagine it'll work just fine. I'll let you know!

Happy Cooking!

- B

Magical Meatloaf and Killer Cookies

Today's recipes came from my Philidelphia Cream Cheese Cookbook and The Hershey Cookbook. For dinner I made meatloaf. But this wasn't an ordinary meatloaf. It was smothered in magical mashed potatoes and had cheese on top. Anything with cheese on top is almost guaranteed to be good in my book. The secret ingredient in the potatoes was cream cheese. It sounds a little disgusting, but it made them absolutely fantastic. Meatloaf covered in mashed potatoes? Genius! (I didn't get a picture before we dug in. We were very excited and hungry.)

For dessert I let Crockett pick a recipe from the Hershey book of wonders. He picked a triple chocolate cookie. This was the first time I baked a cookie from scratch. They came out very yummy, but very very rich. I could only have one, and milk is a must have with these cookies. The recipe yielded 3 dozen cookies so we had some friends over to help polish off the goodness. It was a really great evening with really great food and friends.

Lemon Pie

Today I was craving some Thanksgiving with my wonderful family. I can't wait to get some of Mamaw's stuffin and gravy and Memaw's lemon ice box pie!! I absolutely love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. It's the one time a year I get to see all of my dad's family. It's also one of the few times a year I get to play Nertz ALL day long. We eat lunch, play, eat dessert, play, eat dinner, play, etc. It's amazing. :] So today I baked a lemon pie to satisfy my sweet tooth and prepare myself for some Thanksgiving. This was the first time I ever baked a pie. This was also the first time I made meringue. It came out great! The pie is delicious. And I got to really use my KitchenAid mixer from our wedding for the first time. It was easier than baking a cake surprisingly and took about 15 minutes. I couldn't get the meringue to brown, but it's still fantastic. Next I get to make brownies for Crockett since he doesn't like pie. More for me!

Jesus, sisters, and sushi

Tonight I had some great conversation with some beautiful girls while eating delicious sushi. I tried the crunch roll tonight and it was better than the california roll! I ate it all. :) But even better was the time to talk with some girls who I love. They made me laugh. And they made my heart so happy. It's nights like tonight where I get to see the light at the end of the tunnel. God is good and although he asks me to walk through experiences that are challenging I can always trust in him to come through on his promise. I love Jesus. I love my plegde sisters. and I love sushi.