Crockpot cheesy chicken & rice

This is my crockpot version of chicken and rice casserole. We love this and it re-heats well for leftovers! Enjoy :)




Ingredients:
1 1/2  California organic jasmine rice(this is the best rice, but you can use brown rice or regular minute rice if you want) follow directions on package for cooking rice.
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breast(or 6-7 tenderloins)
Dash of seasoning for chicken (I used mrs.dash garlic and herb)
1 cup organic low sodium chicken broth
1 batch of my home made cream of chicken (see earlier post for recipe) or 2 cans of cream of chicken if you don't want to make home made, but it tastes much better with the home made!
2% milk (or fat free)
2 cups frozen broccoli florets(or 1 bag)
1-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese


Directions:
Place chicken in crockpot and sprinkle with seasoning
Add 1 cup broth, cream of chicken and broccoli and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours depending on how thick your chicken is)


When chicken is cooked pull it apart and shred or dice it into junks. Return to the crockpot.

30mins prior to serving make your rice, add your cooked rice to the crockpot and stir until blended. Add a dash of milk if its too thick and stir. Add cheese stir, let it set 15 mins or until cheese is melted.

I serve mine with biscuits and green beans! You can add salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Crockpot ranch style beans

Here is my favorite recipe for home made ranch style beans. I got this from the Coupon Closets website a long time ago. Click here to visit her site . It tastes very close to canned(only better) and I freeze mine in small freezer bags. So when im ready for a can of ranch beans I have some home made frozen and ready to use. It saves you a lot of money and really isnt that time consuming since you can make a large batch at once. Just thought I would share, enjoy!

Crock Pot Ranch Beans 

Ingredients

1 pound dried pinto beans

6 ounces tomato paste

1/2 cup chopped onions

1 clove minced garlic

1 tablespoon chili powder

dash crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

7 cups water

Directions:

Place all of the ingredients in the crock pot in order. 

Water goes in last

(you can substitute 3-4 teaspoons of bottled minced garlic if you don't have fresh )

Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Place left overs in small freezer bags and freeze for later! When you have a recipe that calls for canned ranch beans, use your frozen ones instead. I set mine in hot water(in the bag)and let them thaw a little while before I add them to my dishes.

Italian herb and cheese biscuits

In my family we love bread! We love to eat bread with our soups, chicken and dumplings and pastas. A couple years ago I started making biscuits out of bisquick when I made chicken and dumplings, I basically just followed the biscuit recipe on the box and then topped them with 
cheese. We liked it and it paired well with the dumplings. 

Then one day I made pasta and didn't have garlic bread, so I made canned biscuits and added 
garlic salt and cheese to the top, they were also good. I eventually quit buying garlic bread and just doing this method.

 So over the course of two years I have evolved those two quick biscuit recipes and created my own Italian herb and cheese biscuits from scratch. They are amazing!! Everyone who eats them loves them and always asks me for the recipe. We eat them with chicken and dumplings, soup, pasta, spaghetti, they go good with a lot of meals!
 I also have a second version that I call cheddar biscuits and they are very similar but without the herbs and I put more cheese in those. They both taste different even though they have almost the same ingredients. Both are equally excellent! So I thought I would share my famous biscuit recipes with ya"ll(don't you feel special?).  I usually double the recipe because my family of five inhales these things fast! 


Italian herb and cheese biscuits:

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose WHITE flour(I use hodgson mills all natural)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoon of sugar
1/4 cup butter (stick butter, salted)
1 Tablespoon of Extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup of 2% milk
1 Tablespoon of Italian seasoning blend
1/2 Teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 cup of thick shredded cheddar cheese(I use mild cheddar)
Pinch of parsley (for top)

Directions:

Combine all dry ingredient and and cheese and blend well with whisk.

Cut butter into cubes and cut in butter until resembles coarse bread crumbs(leaving small chunks of butter in the dough, this is important)

Slowly stir in milk and oil until all of it comes together to form a dough ball.

Turn out dough ball onto a heavily floured surface.

 Let rest for a couple of minutes and then knead for about a minute 

re-flour surface and roll out to about 1/2″ thick.

 Cut biscuits with floured biscuit cutter (I use a drinking glass)and place onto a buttered baking pan.

Form remaining dough into ball and repeat until all dough is made into biscuits. 

 Bake on 375 degrees in the oven for 15 minutes or so, or until the top is golden brown.

Home made cream of chicken soup

A while back a stumbled across a recipe for home made cream of chicken soup(like the canned stuff you buy to add to a lot of crockpot meals and casseroles). I could not wait to try it because I had stopped buying the canned cream of chicken, which cut out a lot of our favorite meals :(

I didn't like how much sodium was in the canned stuff and also the ingredient list is Looooooong and full of mystery ingredients that I don't really care to eat. I never even thought about what was in it until I started trying to cut certain chemicals out of our diet. So with that said, I was thrilled to see a home made version. I tried it today and It was AMAZING! Very VERY simple, and only took a total time of 15minutes to make. I added it to my cheesy crock pot chicken and rice and it tasted much better than the canned stuff, and it also made it more creamy, which I liked.

So here is the recipe I used. It's not my own recipe, and I can't remember the website I got it from, but I didn't change much. I made my own seasoning mix to add to it and the recipe for that is at the bottom. This makes enough to equal about 2 small cans of cream of chicken.
Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2½ cups chicken broth 
• 1½ cups 2% milk
• ¾ cup white all purpose  flour
•  seasoning mix(recipe below)

Direction

Combine the chicken broth and ½ cup of the milk in a saucepan. 

Bring to a low boil.

 Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the flour and seasonings into the remaining 1 cup milk until a smooth, thick mixture forms. 

Pour the flour and milk mixture into the saucepan with the broth mixture over low heat and stir continuously, whisking as the mixture simmers. Continue to simmer and stir/whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick.The mixture will thicken a bit as it cools. 

That's it! Easy huh? It tastes great and you can add different seasonings for different flavors. I will be doing a cream of mushroom soup soon! Not sure if this will freeze or not, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I will post my recipe for cheesy crockpot chicken and rice next!

Seasoning mix recipe:

2 Tsp onion powder, 1/4 Tsp garlic powder, 1/4tsp black pepper, 2 Tsp sea salt, 1/2 Tsp oregano. This equals 1 "packet" of seasoning to add to the cream of chicken. If you make this in bulk add 2 tablespoons of it to the cream of chicken.

Blueberry buttermilk biscuits

I love blueberries!
I like  blueberries in muffins and scones, I also always put them in my smoothies. So today I decided to try them in my home made biscuits. They turned out really good!
So here is the recipe,  Enjoy!



Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 TBSP baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 TBSP sugar

1/4 cup real butter

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup fresh blueberries

If you want lemon blueberry biscuits then add 1/2 Tsp lemon juice and a little lemon zest(I didn't do this but they would also taste good this way)

Directions:

Combine all dry ingredient and whisk together.
Cut in butter until resembles coarse bread crumbs. 
Add blueberries (I used frozen)
Stir in buttermilk until all comes together to form a dough ball
Turn out dough onto a heavily floured surface .
 Let it rest for a couple minutes.
knead for about a minute and then re-flour surface and pat out to about 1/2″ thick.
 Cut out circles with a glass cup or cookie cutter, place onto ungreased baking pan.
Form remaining dough into ball and repeat until all dough is made into biscuits. 
Should yield about 12 biscuits

Bake in 375 degree oven for 15minutes or until slightly golden brown on top.


note: If you want regular buttermilk biscuits just leave out the blueberries and lemon!

A birthday and the best chocolate sheet cake!

Today was my daughters 5th birthday. I bought(yes, I bought them because I failed a attempt at making home made vanilla cupcakes at midnight the night before I needed them, I think lack of sleep contributed to the failed cupcakes and I need to get better at baking)  a couple dozen cute bumblebee cupcakes for my daughter to take to her pre-K class this morning. She was so excited (and so were all her friends) because there usual snacks are fruit,cheese and crackers. So sugar filled cupcakes were a huge hit.

She enjoyed being the center of attention today while at school, and also she enjoyed having a special day that was all about her. We had lunch with daddy, she went on a special shopping trip with her grandma, and then I cooked a pineapple ham, with the works.

Even though she had cupcakes at school she requested a chocolate birthday cake. So I told her I would make her a chocolate cake.

 We(really I mean "I") are not too big on sweets, but I'm not opposed to occasionally indulging in chocolate and sugar! Sometimes you just need a little chocolate!

 Although I like to try to eat healthy and I like for my kids to eat healthy, I don't want to be one of those mothers that has a panic attack if my kid eats a sucker every once in a while or drinks a juice box(I just might cringe a little more now thinking about whats IN the sucker and juice box)And also I really love things like apple pie, brownies and milk and Oreos(okay I lied, I may be a little bigger on sweets than I originally stated,but I do now make all those things home made to avoid strange ingredients that I can't pronounce.)

So tonight I made a chocolate sheet cake, I used a recipe from the Pioneer woman's website because I've never made a homemade chocolate cake before. This one was definitely by far the best recipe for chocolate sheet cake. It was a little hard for me to get past eating all that butter and sugar though....But after I took a bite I quickly got over it. If you don't mind something super sweet then I would suggest this. I just wouldn't suggest this recipe being a everyday kind of snack, although I wish it could be.
I would also say to stop at two pieces to avoid going into a sugar coma, but just be warned that it is really hard to stop at just two pieces. The left overs probably won't last long around here! My children loved it of course, and so did I! I added hot pink sparkly sprinkles to top it off. So here is the link to the recipe!

NOTE: I did not put nuts in mine and it turned out wonderful!
Enjoy!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/the_best_chocol/

1st baby food recipe!

Having a 7month month old daughter is a fun stage. I like to make my own baby food.  I have a lot of new mothers ask me how to make your own babyfood, it sounds like it might be complicated so a lot of them just decided to go the easy route and do jar food(with is totally fine, everyone has to do what's best for them. So I'm passing no judgement if you don't make everything home made. I have used jar food sometimes, my kids just liked the home made much better)

 I wanted to make this post so that new mommies(or any mommies that don't know) will see how simple making baby food really is. Its cheaper, healthier, tastes better(I've tasted the jar stuff and it was pretty gross) I will say I would eat any of the baby food I make for my daughter myself.

At 4months I start baby rice cereal twice a day(ask pediatrician first). I used organic whole grain brown rice in a box. I have always wanted to try making my own rice cereal, just haven't got around to it. I like the Earths best brand. When they start fruit (after 6months old)I will mix the fruit with the cereal, I also mix veggies with the rice cereal and my daughter likes it.

At 6months old I start veggies, starting with the yellow/orange veggies like different kinds of Squash, carrots,potatoes and yams, then green veggies like broccoli, peas, green beans etc,then on to fruits, then later meats and pastas(no dairy, wheat, honey or nuts until after 12months of age)

Each  week I introduce a new veggie(I wait a week because its easier to pinpoint a food allergy if you know they had only had one new food that week). Right now we have had carrots, sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Here are a couple ways I prepare my home made baby food


Fresh organic carrots:

Wash, Peel and dice the carrots and place in a pot, cover with water and boil until tender.
After cooked scoop out carrots and place into food processor(or blender, but the processor works best to purée the veggies)
Add some of the juice from the pot to the carrots(replaces some of the vitamins that were lost while boiling them) purée the carrots and add more juice if its too thick.

The first time you feed your baby real food you will want it to be pretty thin because they won't know how to chew yet and if its too thick they may gag a lot.
(As they get bigger and learn to make the chewing motions with their mouth you can make the food more thick and even chunky as they develop more teeth, eventually you will work your way up to just boiling and mashing it with a fork, and then dicing it up as they get bigger and want to start using their fingers to pick up the food and feed themselves.)

After you purée the carrots, using a spoon, scoop out spoonfuls and place in ice cue trays. Cover and place in the freezer. After frozen,  pop out the cubes and place in a ziplock freezer bag, label and date the bag and store in the freezer. When you are ready to use the carrots place 2cubes(more or less depending on how hungry they are) in a bowl and microwave until heated. Stir and serve (add water if necessary)

That's it! Pretty simple huh? You can make a whole months worth in under an hour!

I don't add seasonings to my baby food and definitely no butter. Starting off with bland foods are best so you don't spoil them to salty foods, as they get older they will know no different and won't need a lot of seasonings on their foods. I wish I never ate salty foods! It would make transitioning over to sodium free or low sodium much easier. :)  salt also makes you retain water and bloat. I lost 5 lbs when I cut salt down in my diet(I gotta have a little though, sea salt is the best option)

Chocolate chip pancakes (gluten free)

Lately I've been playing around with home made pancakes. First I made the pioneer woman's blueberry lemon pancakes(only without the lemon). They were pretty good, but my husband is not a fan of blueberries. The next time I made her regular pancakes. Again they turned out pretty good. So the third time I decided to put my own spin on regular ones and add chocolate chips, I also wanted to try gluten free. I changed a few other ingredients and this is what I came up with, they turned out wonderful! So here is my version of chocolate chip pancakes. 
Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 cups gluten free all purpose flour(use cake flour if you want regular, or regular all purpose. Each will come out with a different texture)

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

3 Tablespoons gluten free Baking Powder

2 1/4 Tablespoons Sugar

2 cups 2% Milk

2 whole Large brown Eggs(or regular, either works fine)

3 teaspoons organic Vanilla

4 Tablespoons stick Butter(melted)(mine said gluten free)

extra butter for the pan

1/2 cup organic semi sweet cocoa chips. (Also gluten free)

Directions:

Mix flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder together in a bowl until blended.

In a separate bowl mix vanilla, milk, eggs, melted butter together, whisk until well blended. 

Slowly mix in liquid into the flour mixture. 

Add chocolate chips and give it a quick stir

Now your ready to cook!

Butter your griddle and poor 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup size portions onto griddle. Cook on medium heat. When the pancake starts to bubble on top then flip over. Cook until golden brown. Serve with maple syrup!

Organic Cinnamon raisin granola

I love granola! I eat it a lot for breakfast, I also like to snack on it during the day. I recently bought a box of organic cinnamon raisin granola and it was SO good, I ate nearly the whole box in a week! However, it was kinda pricey (about $5 for one box). So I decided to try making it myself to save a little money and because I'm kind of on a eat healthier-ish kick. So I came up with this recipe that tastes very similar to the box kind, only way better! I added organic semi sweet chocolate chips to it to give it a little extra sweetness, the mixture of raisins and chocolate is my favorite! I don't eat nuts and I HATE coconut so my recipe is very simple, but you can add to it all the extras your heart desires. 

I made mine organic, but that is optional. You don't have to have organic on the label for it to be healthy. I will make a post soon on the things I stay away from and some brands I like that aren't organic :) 

Here ya go!

Ingredients:
4 cups organic old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 Tsp organic sea salt
1 Tsp organic cinnamon 
1/4 cup organic brown sugar
1 Tsp organic vanilla extract
1/4 cup organic Honey
1/8 cup water
1/8 Cup Extra virgin olive oil(or sunflower oil)
1 cup organic California raisins
1/2 cup organic semi sweet cocoa chips

Directions:
Mix rolled oats and salt in a large bowl. Set to the side 

In a sauce pan add brown sugar, cinnamon, water, honey and oil and bring to a boil. 
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Slowly pour sauce mixture over oats and stir. 
Pour onto a baking sheet(I don't ever use cooking spray, I always rub stick butter onto the pan instead) and bake on 350 for about 5-10 minutes. 
Remove from oven, add raisins and bake another 5-10 minutes.
 When granola is slightly golden brown it is done. Place on a cooling tray and let cool completely. Add cocoa chips once it is cooled and then store in a air tight container or mason jar. 

Eat as cereal for breakfast or a quick snack! 
Enjoy :)



Yuuuummy!!

Crockpot pinto beans

My husband loves my pinto beans! It's a super cheap meal, and super easy! I prefer cooking it with the crockpot, but I also have a quick stove top version for a last minute meal. I recently created a good seasoning to give the beans a lot of flavor, I've included that recipe at the bottom!

Ingredients:

1 bag(small) dried pinto beans

Bean seasoning mix (recipe below)

1 package of bacon, cooked and diced into bits(optional)

Directions:

Wash and soak your beans overnight

Rinse your beans, place in your crockpot.

add seasoning mix(all of it, recipe below)cover beans with water.

Cook on low 6-8hours, add additional water if beans start drying out (you want to keep them completely covered in liquid)

Now about the bacon. I've made it without and it tastes great! But it also tastes great with the bacon and my husband prefers it that way. You can cook your bacon bits in a pan and add it to the beans from the start(grease and all), but the bacon with get pretty mushy by the end of the day. So I like to add it about 1hour before we are ready to eat. I add the grease and all to give it flavor. So it's up to you, and either way tastes good! You can also use leftover ham instead of bacon, or we have even used turkey sausage and it also tastes good! Just add it about 1hour before your ready to eat and make sure it's cooked Before adding it. We serve our beans with cornbread and home made baked potato fries! 

See my last post for my sweet cornbread recipe. 

Enjoy!

Directions for bean seasoning mix

2 Teaspoons onion powder

1 Teaspoons paprika

1 Teaspoons ground cumin

2 Teaspoons sea salt

1 Teaspoons ground black pepper

1 Teaspoons oregano

1 Teaspoons minced garlic

Mix together and store in a air tight container or use right away. This equals 1 packet of season and you want to use all this in one pot of beans. I will work the measurements out to make a batch in bulk and update you with those measurements. you can add extra to taste if you want, but this measurement was plenty for us :)



If you do not want to use the crockpot, and you forgot to soak your beans(I do this all the time) then I do have a quick stove top recipe. It's all the same ingredients and measurements.

Rinse your beans and add to a pot, cover with Plenty of water. Boil beans on Med-high heat for a good 30minutes, watch beans so they don't dry out and add more water as the beans absorb a lot of the water. Reduce heat to Med-low heat and simmer. Add more water if necessary, add seasoning and cooked bacon bits. Simmer until beans are cooked (about a hour or so) serve! 

Yuuuuuummy!!!! This batch didn't have any meat in it and it still tasted great!

Sweet cornbread recipe

My husbands favorite meal is pinto beans and cornbread. He really loves his cornbread sweet. I used to buy the packaged corn muffin mix and just add a little sugar to it, it was pretty good. Then one day I decided to try a home made cornbread. I didn't have a recipe but I knew I wanted it to be thick, fluffy and sweet. After trying four or five different batches of cornbread I finally got one he loved and so did the rest of my family.
 I did not use all organic ingredients, but everything I picked was non GMO, no msg and a very low amount of perservatives. I would say if you could at least use organic corn meal that would be the most important part(around 90% of corn and soy produced in America is genetically modified. So make sure on the label is says NON GMO) you also want to stay away from MSG, so just read the labels before you buy :) this recipe is not dairy free, and it is not gluten free, however you can easily make it gluten free by buying gluten free flour and cornmeal, all my other ingredients were gluten free.

Serving size 1 round pie pan
You can split the batter into two pans to make a thin cornbread. If you do that you won't have to bake it near as long so keep an eye on it so it doesn't get too done

Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups of cornmeal
1/3 Cups Flour (all purpose)
1 1/4 Tsp sea salt
4 Tsp baking powder
1 Cup of 2% milk
1 brown egg
2 Tablespoons of sugar
2 Tablespoons of butter(UN salted) melted
1 pinch of sugar(for top)

Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees

Butter a round glass pie pan and set aside



Mix together all the dry ingredients in a bowl(accept for the pinch of sugar)
Add egg and milk and stir until blended
Melt your butter, and add to the batter, mix until blended
Pour batter into the pie pan and sprinkle a pinch of sugar over top

Bake at 400 degrees on middle or bottom rack  until edges and top of cornbread are slightly brown and crisp and a toothpick comes out clean when stuck in the center (I am bad about timing when I bake, next time I will set a timer to give you a idea of about how long, so for now just watch it very closely!)  the corn bread will puff up and separate a little, this is okay!

If you do not like your cornbread sweet then you can leave out the sugar and just add the pinch of sugar to it :) but its the best with the sugar!

Enjoy!

Crockpot salsa chicken

One of my favorite meals to cook in the crock pot is salsa chicken. It is SO easy, quick and tastes yummy! My family loves it. Here is the recipe I use and I also included changes in my ingredients.


Ingredients:
4-5 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I now use organic, but the organic is waaay more expensive so I'm looking for a alternate/cheaper chicken that is free range and chemical free, ill update when I find something!)
1 jar of mild picante sauce(I'm now using my home made salsa instead, I'll post the recipe soon!)
2 TBSP of home made taco seasoning(look in my earlier posts for recipe)
1 can of organic black beans(I'm also now using home made black beans I made in my crockpot and froze, they are better than the canned!)
1 bag frozen organic corn(OPTIONAL)This tastes good mixed in, or you can serve it on the side. I've made it both ways and we like it either way.

Directions:
Place everything in the crockpot and cook on low for 6-8hrs. Serve over rice. I use organic jasmine rice. It is gluten free and NO GMO. you can find it at homeland or the local health food store. you can also shred the chicken and serve on tortillas like a taco!

Enjoy!