A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Slow Cooker Reuben Chowder: Corned Beef, Potatoes, & Cabbage

 

My name is Glenna and I'm a huge Reuben addict.  Love the combo of corned beef and saurkraut. There's just something deliciously sweet, salty, crunchy, cheesy wonderful about it!  Imagine my pleasure when I accidentally stumbled on a recipe for reuben chowder...and then Googled for more recipes...and then took all the things I liked out of each one and made my own--in the slow cooker!

Heaven...I'm in heaven....

Creamy Vegetable Soup for the Crock-pot/Slow Cooker

 I love soup. I particularly love cream soups, although I often feel guilty for eating them.  There's something ultimately wintery and comforting about soups with creamy heartiness that feels so good and yet so decadent.  But.  Using a trick I learned from a Pinterest recfpe for creamy chicken chili, creaminess doesn't have to equal loads of cream, flour, and butter. It's amazing what cream cheese can do in a slow cooker to transform a simple vegetable woup into a creamy feast on a cold winter's day.

Creamy Crock-pot/Slow Cooker Vegetable Soup

Recipe by Glenna Anderson Muse

Ingredients:

• 4 medium Yukon Gold (or russets or red-skinned) potatoes
• 1 cup green beans
• 1 cup carrots, julienned
• I cup celery diced
• 1 mdium onion, diced
• 1 red or green sweet pepper, cut into strips
• 1 cup broccoli florets
• 1 14.5 oz can Kidney, Pinto, or Navy Beans
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 15.5 oz can chicken broth
• 8 oz pkg light cream cheese
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes

Directions:

In heavy-bottomed skillet over mdium heat, saute garlic and onion in olive oil.  Add celery and pepper and saute for 3-3 minutes.  Add all  to crockpot along with rest of vegetables, beans, and spices.  Pour over chicken broth and lay cream cheese on top.  Cook on high for 2 hours and hten turn to low for 6-8 hours. Stir to mix cream cheese.

Makes 10 cups.

Nutrition per 1 cup serving:  Calories:    167;   Protein:    6.3;    Carbs:    16;    Fat:     6;       Fiber:     4.2;    Weight Watchers Points:      3

 

 

Good & Good For You: Ground Beef, Potato, & Veggie Chowder

 

There's something about cold, rainy nights that demand soup, isn't there?  Something warm and comforting on the inside to combat the dreariness of the outside.  This soup started out as a simple potato and milk soup but then Hubby Gene said "Can you put hamburger in it?" I thought "Why not?"  I knew I'd put lots of onion and celery in it, but on the heels of the ground beef addition, I also chopped fresh parsley, sweet red and green pepper, carrots, and fresh mushrooms so that our Yukon Gold simple potato soup became a very hearty and tasty ground beef, potato, and tons of veggies chowder, so yummy it's a pleasure to eat leftovers the rest of the weekend. 

 

 

Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken Chili over Rice

From my Pinterest board to yours....

Found this recipe from Rita's Recipes on Pinterest and it looked like the perfect no work Crockpot/slow cooker recipe for dinner tonight, on this cold and dreary rainy day in the Ozarks.  It was! 

It's  a little different style from most of the dishes I make but Gene's always game and always honest.  Not rude, but honest. If he doesn't like something, like the stuffing I made the other day, he'll be honest and and reply to my "Did you like it?" with a simple and direct "No, I did not. But thank you for making dinner tonight."  The reason why I make a point of telling that is that I was curious to see how he'd react to this new recipe.  He chose to heat up leftover mashed potatoes instead of spooning it over rice, but he cleaned his two chicken breast bowl like a big boy begging to get dessert.  He even said about halfway in, with a full mouth no less, "This is surprisingly tasty!"  (I think he assumed that creamy would mean boring but it's not)   Lots of flavor and perfect comfort food.

I made a few changes to the recipe, mainly spicing from my spice rack since I don't keep packets of ranch dressing mix on hand, more chicken for my meat-eater hubby, and I used chickpeas instead of kidney beans. It was delicious. I think any type of bean would work well in this dish.

Thank you to Rita for blogging this dish (Gene thanks you too).

The Best Ever Scalloped Potatoes Recipe

Scallopped Potatoes has always been one of our favorite dishes but as a cook it can be frustrating to make sure that the slices of potato are thin enough and get cooked long enough to make sure they're cooked through to nice and soft.  This recipe addresses so many problems with mediocre scallopped potato recipes.  The potatoes are cubed and pre-boiled on the stove top so the texture is that comforting soft, cheesy, richness that everyone loves.  Plus, by adding herbs to the mix instead of just cream and cheese, the flavor pops in a very 3-D way.  I've never served these potatoes that guests didn't ask for the recipe and tell me how much they love this dish. It is the best scallopped potato recipe I've ever made.

Indian Butter Chicken or Chicken Tikka Masala

When I knew I'd be having gall bladder surgery and not eating or cooking much for a few weeks, I put out the call to my friends and family asking for them to photograph their own dinners and send me recipes to use on the blog.  One of the great side effects of that was finding new recipes for myself and which family and friends to hit up for dinner soon.   (If only they knew they'd be called upon to reprise their menus--I'm not above begging!)

James sent me this fabulous photograph of his dinner of my friend and fellow blogger, Monica's, family recipe for Indian Butter Chicken (or Chicken Tikka Masala).  Wow!  That was my first response to both the photo and the recipe.  I'm definitely going to ask James to make this for me (we might invite Gene) and the photograph is amazing. But I would expect nothing less from James, since he is a professional.

Thanks James and Monica!

 

Folks Who Use My Recipes: Lisa's Potato, Onion, and Thyme Tart

 My friend, Lisa, of   The Cardboard Schoolhouse  sent a pic of the Potato, Onion, and Thyme Tart she made from a post I did a little while back.  How cool does that lool?  So pretty! Makes me want to make it again. Soon. So yummy!

 

Copycat Benihana Fried Rice

 Just like a kid, I love having dinner at Japanese steakhouses like Benihana but sometimes I want the rice and/or veggies without the 1 1/2 hour program and all that food in the different courses.  When I have the desire but not the patience, I make my own at home.  Chicken Fried Rice is a great one-pot meal in the style of Jambalaya or other stove-top one-potters.

Easier and faster than it looks, just think about how quickly those Japanese chefs whip up the fried rice before moving on to the steak/chicken/shrimp entree.  And the leftovers are great for lunch the next day or my work lunchbox.

 

Upside Down Potato, Thyme, & Onion Tart

 One of the best, most useful, things my wonderful cook of a mother taught me as I was growing up was how to think in substitutions. I know that sounds like an odd statement but I have learned in my adulthood that not every home cook has been given the benefit of those skills.  I know many wonderful cooks who, if they want to make a recipe and don't have certain ingredients they go to the store for those specific ingredients without any thought of "Hmmm...what do I have that would work, put my pantry or fridge supples in use, and be more economical than purchasing new items?" 

It doesn't always work but in many cases, it does.  For example, in many chicken, rice, and vegetable casseroles that call for, for example, fresh asparagus, if that's not in season, then 99% of the time, either broccoli or fresh green beans will not only work, but be delicious too.  In the example of this recipe, the red potatoes would make an excellent tart but what I had on hand were Yukon yellows, and they too were delicious.  For cheeses, this recipe calls for gruyere, feta, and mozzarella, so we need something with a bit of a tangy, something creamy, and some binding.  I had asiago (tangy), feta, and provolone (binding) available, and again, they were delicious in this recipe. I wish I had had fresh thyme available, but having only dried at the time, it's a simple matter of using half what the recipe calls for since dried herbs tend to be more intensely flavored (unless they're a million years old).

The next time I make it I may have the red potatoes in the house to use and maybe the fresh thyme too...or perhaps I'll try a little tarragon or rosemary, which would also be fabulous.  I love the combination of grilled onions, potatoes, and herbs:  the dinner trifecta!

Chicken Chow Mein: Better For You Than Mom's--Sorry Mom!

Chicken Chow Mein (my Mom's) was my childhood favorite.  We each got to request our dinner and cake for our birthday and Chicken Chow Mein was always my menu. 

Now....there's a funny family story about our cake choices as kids.  My "cake" was always my Nannie's banana bread. My brother Kenneth's choice was always Angel Food Cake with NO frosting, dad's choice was pie, and at the moment it escapes me what my other siblings' (Suzanne and Carl) choices were. I'll have get them to comment to remind me.

Nothing funny, right?  Here's the punchline. Our Mom was a cake decorator.  After making cakes for every kid in town (and us getting all the mistakes and leftovers all the time), and even telling us she'd make us any kind/design we wanted no matter how involved, we were so burned out on cake we all denied our Mom the pleasure of making our birthday cakes. Were we brats, or what?  Yes!  (Laughing) What Mom on the planet has to put up with kids who cry "Please, Mom, please! Don't make us eat cake for our birthdays! Please!"  Brats. We were cake-spoiled brats!

My Mom's Chow Mein, was great and I asked for it every year. It was also healthy. Except...when I started making it as an adult I realized that for a dish with lots of vegetables there was very little color:  water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, baby corn, and bean sprouts, are all pretty boring looking.  To dress up the aesthetic and the vitamin content, I've included many more colorful vegetables in my version.