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)