Baked Potato Soup

This is a great baked potato soup made in the crock pot. The recipie came from one of my favorite blogs "A Year of Slow Cooking". If you enjoy using your slow cooker you should check this site out for some great recipes.

5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced in 1 to 2-inch chunks
1 teeny onion, diced (I used dried minced onion)
4 cloves garlic, minced (I used garlic powder)
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper
2 quarts chicken broth
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, to add at the end
crumbled bacon and green onion or chives as garnish (optional)

The Directions.

Use a 6 quart or larger slow cooker. Peel and dice the potatoes, and put them into the stoneware. Add onion and garlic. Sprinkle in the seasonings, and pour in the broth. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4. The potatoes should be fork-tender. You can use a potato masher to mash the potatoes in the soup, or a hand-held immersible blender. I suppose you can also leave the potatoes in chunks, if you really wanted, but I wanted a smooth soup.

After smashing the potatoes, crumble in both packages of cream cheese, and put the lid back on. Cook on high for about 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is completely dissolved. Stir a few times during the 30 minutes.

Garnish with crumbled bacon, green onion or chives, and I'd assume cheddar cheese would be just delightful.

I used my blender to smooth out the soup and it was a little too smooth. I think next time I'll just use the potato masher and maybe blend 1/2 of it. I think this would also be good if you left some of the skins on the potatoes.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

This is a family standard. I made the fist batch of the season yesterday and the boys are having it for dinner tonight. I look forward to leftovers. This soup makes A LOT, but it freezes well.

2 Tbl butter
3/4 cup chopped onion
Sauté onion in butter until translucent
Add 5 cups water and bring to a boil
Add 5 chicken bullion cubes and stir to dissolve (you could also just use 5 cups chicken broth)
Add 8oz package of egg noodles, crushed (I like the thin noodles)
1/8 tsp garlic powder
Bring to a boil until noodles are tender
Add 2 pks chopped broccoli thawed and drained well
Cook for 4 minutes
Add 5 cups milk and 2lb cubed Velveeta cheese
Heat over low until cheese is melted.

Baked Potatoes and Roasted Chicken

This recipie is really good and honestly couldn't be easier.

Scrub 3-4 baking potatoes (how ever many will fit in the bottom of your crock pot) and poke a few holes in each one to release steam. Cover potatoes tightly with foil and place in bottom of crock pot. Season 4 bone in, skin on, chicken breasts and place on top of poatoes. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours, until chicken is done.

I used a parmesean spice blend/rub that I had on hand but you could use any rub you want or just salt and pepper. The chicken was very moist and the potatoes were cooked just right. I ate after it had been in the crock pot about 10 hours, the chicken was starting to get a bit dry, but was still moist.

Menu for the Week of October 10

Sunday-Leftovers
Monday-Roast Chicken, baked potatoes, steamed carrots, biscuits
Tuesday-Broccoli Cheese Soup
Wednesday-Whatever Chad and I decide
Thursday-Parmesan and Potato Crusted Chicken Fingers, brussel sprouts, rice or potatoes or whatever I can find in the cabinet
Friday-Tacos

Salad

I just had an amazing salad for lunch so I thought I would share what made it so good. It was just a basic iceburg lettuce salad with a few carrots, cauliflower, and a few spare pieces of celery in it. I also added some leftover hamsteak and usd honey mustard dressing. The party that was really good was the trail mix I threw on top. It is a mix that is crasins, soynuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds. It was great! It added some nice flavor and crunchyness while still being pretty healthy. I highly recommend topping your salad with trail mix.

Dips!

I thought I would add a couple bonus recipes since it has been awhile. We made these dips to take to some friends' house to have during the Iowa/Iowa State game. The dips and company were great, the game...not so much.

Chicken Enchillada Dip
Cook chicken in crock pot in red enchillada sauce.
Shred chicken.
Mix cubed velveeta cheese, chicken, 2 cans Rotel and 1 new can enchillada sauce. Heat in crock pot until hot and dippy. It was very good. You could totally spice it up or change it however you would like.

Spinach Dip
(adapted from this recipe http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/blog/2009/11/08/spanakopita-dip-big-wow-with-little-effort/

Ok, so pretty much I made this dip without the feta or nutmeg. I also didn't use fresh garlic I used garlic garlic dip from Tastefully Simple. It was very good. I think it needed more garlic. OH, and I added some finely chopped water chestnuts to add a bit of crunch. It was very good with Wheat Thins, tortilla chips, and I'm sure it woudl be good with veggies.

Crock Pot Pork Chops

Ok, so this is a really easy recipe and I probably shouldn't even post it, but they were really good.

A while back we bought some bone in pork chops that we just weren't that impressed with. We tried grilling and baking them and they just didn't work. Then I tried them in the crock pot and they were tender and flavorful. So, last night I did them in the crock pot again and they were a hit. Even Connor liked them.

Pork chops with a bone (mine were VERY frozen)
2 cans cream of chicken soup (really you could use any, mushroom would be good)
Salt, pepper, and I added some Mrs. Dash of some sort.

I put the pork chops in the crock pot, dumped the soup on, added about 1/2 a can of water (probably don't need this) and the seasoning. Cooked on low for about 10-11 hours and then put on warm until we ate about 2 hours later. They just fell apart. The sauce was pretty tasty too.