Crockpot Freezer Meals!

With Baby coming in less than two weeks, my mind has been on freezer meals!  I want to be sure that we have quick, easy meals & foods on hand because I have NO idea what our life will be like with a newborn. The only thing that I DO know is that we still need to eat! :-)

So far in the freezer we have:
Waffles
Banana Crumb Muffins
Chicken Taquitos
Chicken Burritos
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Frozen pizzas
Steaks

I wanted to add a couple crock pot freezer meals and when I found this post on Six Sister's Stuff I thought it would be perfect.  We purchased the ingredients from Aldi since they're pretty cheap and we were running errands near one.

I've now added Hearty Beef Stew, Taco Soup & Chicken Cacciatore to our freezer stash and to be honest, we're really excited to cook them up! I'll be sure to update this blog post or create a new post with our feedback on each dish.

The beef stew was good, but I think I would have much preferred fresh beef stew.  I'm not complaining though, it was a warm meal. :)

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Recently, Matt wanted soup for dinner.  It was a cold, snowy day and I figured that I could make us a homemade soup rather than buying a pre-packaged soup that you just add water to.  We make those soups occasionally but they're so full of sodium! 

I've seen this recipe on Josie's blog before but have just never made it.  I was somewhat intimidated by having to make a roux, but I was successful and am no longer intimidated!  The soup came together in about 30 minutes which makes it a great option for a weeknight meal.  This even included chopping up the carrot and broccoli! 

Overall, we were slightly disappointed by this soup.  I think I would reduce the amount of broccoli next time, probably going with 3-4 cups instead of the recommended 4-5. I used my immersion blender as Josie suggested and it just felt too chunky and I'd prefer a creamier soup.  Or maybe I need to blend it more next time? I'm not sure but I'd definitely make this again. 

It was filling, quick and served with fresh from the oven bread, made a perfect weeknight meal!

Broccoli-Cheddar Soup

Recipe from: Pink Parsley

Originally from: Annie's Eats

Ingredients:

6 tblsp butter, divided

3/4 cup onion, chopped

1 large carrot, peeled and shredded (I used a small handful of baby carrots that we had)

4-5 cups small broccoli florets

2 cups low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth (I used chicken)

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

pinch of red pepper flakes

4 Tblsp flour

1 cup milk

1 cup half-and-half or heavy ream

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

salt and pepper, to taste

In a large pot, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat.  Add the onion and carrots to the pan and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes.  Stir in the broccoli, chicken broth, onion powder, red pepper flakes and garlic powder. Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmering. 

As the broccoli simmers, melt the remaining butter in a medium saucepan.  Add the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes until golden brown, whisking continuously.  Whisk in the milk and cream and cook until the mixture thickens and bubbles.  This will take about 5-7 minutes.  I felt like it would never thicken and just when I was planning to give up, it started to thicken! Remove from the heat, stir in the shredded cheese until its melted and season with salt and pepper. It's going to look so cheesy, gooey and good you're going to have to resist eating it with a spoon!

If you want, use an immersion blender to puree most of the broccoli mixture.  Stir the cheese and milk mixture into the broccoli and cook, stirring occasionally until heated through.  Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.  Serve warm. 

Ranch Mushrooms

This is a recipe from my Husband's coworker.  It's not a recipe that I absolutely love, but they are good.  I'm not a lover of mushrooms in plain form.  I'd much rather have my mushrooms sliced and cooked IN a dish than eat them plain.

This is a nice crockpot recipe that you can quick throw together before needing to head out to a party or event, or let cook while you get other dishes prepared for a dinner party or gathering.

Ranch Mushrooms
Recipe from: friend/coworker
2 pkgs whole mushrooms
1/2 stick of butter, cut into tablespoon chunks
1 pkt dry ranch mix

Place the mushrooms, butter pieces and then the ranch dressing into your crockpot.  You can definitely use more mushrooms if you're needing to feed a crowd, just adjust the ingredients accordingly. Cook on low until the mushrooms are fully cooked and butter is melted, approximately 1-2 hrs.

Serve & enjoy!

Baked Oven Fries

 Baked Oven Fries
Recipe from: Annie's Eats
3 russet potatoes, cut into wedges
5 tblsp vegetable oil
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Preheat your oven to 475*. Place wedges in large mixing bowl.  Cover with hot water, soaking the wedges for 10-30 minutes.  Put 4 tblsp oil onto heavy, rimmed baking sheet.  Tilt the sheet side to side to evenly coat the pan with oil.  Sprinkle the pan evenly with the salt and pepper.  You could even add some additional seasonings if you'd like. (cajun, herbs etc...)

Drain the potatoes onto paper towels.  Wipe out the now empty bowl so that it is dry. Return to the bowl and toss with the remaining 1 tblsp oil.

Arrange the wedges onto the baking sheet in a single layer.  Cover with foil and bake for 5 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake until the wedges are spotty brown in color, about 15-20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet after 10 minutes. Take the pan out of the oven, flip each wedge using a tongs.  Bake for another 5-15 minutes until the wedges are golden brown and crisp.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

This is a recipe that I've made over and over again.  However, I've just never blogged it.  This is great for tailgating, potlucks, or to just munch on while you're hanging around the house on a Saturday afternoon. 

It's great with celery on the side, chicken in a biscuit crackers or as pictured, with tostito chips! 

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Recipe from: a friend (this recipe is everywhere on the internet and has various ways to prepare it)

1lb shredded, cooked chicken breast

1 (8oz) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup ranch dressing

1 cup Franks Hot sauce

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

This recipe is really flexible because you can make as much or as little as you want.  The measurements can vary depending on how many people you'd like to feed, how spicy you want it or how mild you want it. 

Sometimes I combine everything into a large saucepan and prepare it on the stove.  For this particular day, I softened the cream cheese so that it was really easy to stir, combined it with the chicken, cheese, ranch and hot sauce and put it in a baking dish. I baked it in a 350 oven for about 20-25 minutes until the cheese was melted, and everything was warmed thoroughly.  I took it out of the oven, stirred it and put it back in for another 15 minutes or so.  Also, this particular time I put crushed ritz crackers on top.  That's not necessary and actually next time I would leave them out. 

I've also heard of adding some chopped celery when you combine all of the ingredients.  It's really good and adds a nice little crunch.  Plus, who doesn't love celery with buffalo chicken/chicken wings! :-) 

Coconut Chicken with Orange Marmalade Sauce

Chicken is such an easy and fairly cheap protein.  It makes for a great, quick weeknight meal but can be so boring at times. 

I was happy to find this recipe on a blog that I love reading, Good Thymes and Good Food.  I love that her recipes are always easy and I usually have the ingredients on hand.  I also love that she's expecting her second child around the same time that I'm due so I know that her recipes aren't too labor intensive and she likely plans her meals and preps her food while doing a million other 'Mom things' during the day/evening. 

This recipe was really good.  I don't love coconut but will eat it if its baked (desserts or used in a breading such as this). The one thing that really bummed me out was how soggy the bottom of the chicken got while baking.  I don't know if it was because I used milk instead of egg for my egg coating.  We were out of eggs and I figured milk would be a fine substitute. 

I also did not have the apricot preserves that it called for and only had orange marmalade available.  It worked, but I would definitely try this recipe again using apricot preserves to see if it's better or different. 

Coconut Chicken with Orange Marmalade Sauce
Recipe from: Good Thymes and Good Food 

Ingredients
1 egg
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup apricot preserves (or an apricot blend such as peach-apricot)
2 tblsp dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 400 and line a baking sheet with foil.

In a medium, shallow dish, lightly beat the egg.  In another medium, shallow dish stir together the coconut, flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Taking one piece of chicken at a time, dip into the egg and then into the coconut mixture. Pat the coconut mixture onto the chicken to make sure that it sticks. Place dipped chicken breast onto the baking sheet.  Continue with the remaining pieces of chicken.

Drizzle the melted butter over the chicken pieces.  Bake in your preheated oven 30-40 minutes until chicken is cooked through. If the chicken does not brown, place under the broil for a couple of minutes but be sure to watch it carefully!  I did not put mine under the broiler and you can see that some bits of coconut got a little dark!

For the sauce mixture, combine the preserves and the dijon mustard. Serve the sauce at room temperature.

Venison Stroganoff

This year, my Husband got his first deer while out hunting with my Dad.  He was pretty excited since it was his first deer ever.  We shared the meat with my Parents and have a supply of venison in our freezer.  He's made some jerky with it already which was so good. 

This was a really good meal and it came together rather quickly.  My Husband put it in the crockpot today while he was home from work, we took a quick nap after I came home and then ate dinner.  

Venison Stroganoff
1-2lbs of venison roast, cubed into bite size pieces
2 onions, chopped
1/4 cup chicken stock
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
Prepared egg noodles


Line bottom of crockpot with chopped onions.  Add the chopped venison roast.  Add 1/4 cup chicken stock. Cook on low for 6 hours.

Remove from crockpot.  Add meat to a medium sized saucepan.  Turn to medium-high heat and add two cans of cream of mushroom soup. Stir to combine the soup and venison meat.  Let cook at medium-high heat until well combined and no lumps are present, about 10 minutes.

Serve over prepared egg noodles.

Pumpkin Roll

I was in charge of bringing a dessert to my Husband's Grandma's for Thanksgiving last Saturday.  I was going to make a cheesecake but didn't have all of the ingredients on hand and didn't want to make a trip to the store. Not to mention, by the time I read the recipe I realized that I wouldn't have had enough time to bake the cheesecake.

This looked incredibly daunting to make but I had all of the ingredients, needed to bring a dessert and didn't have a back up plan.  It's not as intimidating as it looks, I promise.  I wish I would have remembered to take a picture of the final product, but I didn't. This isn't even that great of a picture.  When I make it again, I'll be sure to get some better pictures.

I'm actually going to bring two of these to my Mom and Dad's house for Thanksgiving on Thursday.  If you need a quick and easy dessert to bring somewhere this Thanksgiving, I'd definitely recommend this recipe.  The cake is light and moist, the filling is creamy and smooth and together, they provide a very decadent dessert.

Libby's Pumpkin Roll
Recipe from: Libby's
1/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin

For the filling:
1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
6 tblsp butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 tblsp whipping cream

Preheat oven to 375*.  Grease a 15x10 jelly roll pan, line with wax paper and then grease and flour the waxed paper. Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with the 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Set aside.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until combined and thick. Beat the pumpkin into the egg and sugar mixture.  Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.  Mix until combined. Pour batter into the prepared pan.  Bake at 375* for 13-15 minutes. The top of the cake should spring back when touched lightly.

Immediately loosen the cake and turn onto the prepared towel. Give it a minute or two to start to cool off and then start removing the paper. I immediately started removing the paper as soon as I flipped the cake onto the towel but was having trouble.  I let it cool a little bit and the paper came off much easier.  The paper did not come off super smoothly, but it wasn't completely ruined either.

Roll up the cake and towel together.  Place on a wire rack to cool completely.

While the cake cools, mix up your filling.  Beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, softened butter and vanilla together in a stand mixer until smooth. The original recipe doesn't call for whipping cream, but I added it because I was concerned that the filling was going to be too thick and not very light.  I'm very happy that I decided to add the whipping cream.

Carefully unroll the cake.  Spread the cream cheese mixture onto the cooled cake. Re-roll the cake.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour. Before serving, sprinkle the outside of the roll with the powdered sugar.

Note: I chose to cut off the ends of the cake because they were jagged and not very nice looking.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

I first saw these pancakes when I first joined Pinterest.

They were such a good treat to have on a casual, Saturday morning. We actually haven't made them since we originally made them awhile ago.  Definitely not something that you'd want to indulge in too often but they're so worth it!

These were a little more time consuming than regular pancakes but odds are, if you're spending time to make pancakes, you probably have a little extra time to spare.

You can make the pancake batter from scratch or use a prepared pancake mix like Bisquick if you're in a hurry.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Recipe from: Recipe Girl

Cinnamon Fillings:

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted 

1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Cream Cheese Glaze:

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

2oz cream cheese, at room temperature

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Pancakes:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon vegetable oil 

The first step is to prepare the cinnamon filling. In a medium bowl, stir together the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Set aside. 

Next, you'll want to prepare the cream cheese glaze. In a small pan, heat the butter over low heat until melted.  Turn off the heat and whisk in the cream cheese until it is almost smooth. Sift the powdered sugar into the pan, stir and add in vanilla extract. Set the pan aside while you make the pancakes. {You could probably do this in the microwave too. I didn't try it but I'm sure you could softened the cream cheese, stir it together by itself, then add the melted butter and the rest of the ingredients.}

Finally, prepare the pancake batter. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Whisk in the milk, egg and oil, just until the batter is moistened.  You'll have a few small lumps, which is fine. 

Heat a large, nonstick skillet over medium-heat and spray with nonstick spray. (I used a griddle so that all the pancakes were done at the same time)  Using a small measuring cup (I think I used 1/3 cup or something similar) scoop the batter onto the skillet.  Reduce the heat to medium low. 

When the pancakes begin to form bubbles, swirl your cinnamon filling into a circular pattern onto the pancake.  Cook the pancake 2 to 3 minutes or until the bubbles begin popping on the top of the pancake and it's golden brown on the bottom. 

Gently, but quickly flip the pancake over.  Cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes until the other side is golden brown as well. 

Right before serving the pancakes, drizzle with some of the cream cheese glaze. 

Gender Reveal Cupcakes!!

This was the most fun I've had making cupcakes in a LONG time.  My Chiropractor and his Wife are expecting their first child in March.  I'm due in January and it's been so fun to have someone else to chat about pregnancy with.  Granted, I see more of him than I do of her but ... it's still fun.  She and I have had very, very similar pregnancies.  We've both felt great, mild nausea, no morning sickness.

Recently, she messaged me on Facebook and asked if I could make them a dozen cupcakes for a gender reveal dinner that they were having with his Family.  I was elated!  I've seen this on Pinterest before but had never thought I'd do something like this.

{Side note: I now wish we would have done something fun like this when we found out we were having a Girl.  The way the ultrasound tech told us was pretty lackluster and looking back on it, it's probably just a ho-hum, every day experience for her. Having a little more excitement around it would have been fun! Maybe for the next kiddo.}

She sent me the Pinterest link for the cupcake that she liked.  It was a simple chocolate cupcake with what looked like a chocolate ganache on top and then a question mark on top of the cupcake piped in a white frosting.  I knew right away what I wanted the cupcakes to look like and I couldn't wait to practice before the big day!

They had their 20wk ultrasound and her Husband found out what they were having and she decided to wait for the cupcakes.  He text me early afternoon after their appointment and told me which cupcakes to give her. I was so excited I could hardly stand to sit at work the rest of the afternoon.  I was so nervous on the drive home that I'd either a.) spill the beans or b.) give her the wrong dozen cupcakes.  {Even though I had labeled them for myself with a post-it note}

I know a few people who are pregnant right now who are due after me.  It would be so fun to make these again or to even make a gender reveal cake.

I realized today that I put the second row, far right cupcake in the carrier crooked and I really am fighting some OCD urges with wanting it to be fixed! 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Filling and Ganache

Cupcakes

Recipe from: Hershey's 

Makes approximately 30 cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extraxt

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350.  Place cupcake liners in each well of a cupcake pan.

Stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for about two minutes. Stir in your boiling water.  Mix until the water is combined thoroughly.  The batter will be very thin.  This is ok. 

Pour batter into prepared, lined cupcake pan, filling each liner about 2/3 full.  Bake 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean.  Cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream Filling

Recipe from: The Girl Who Ate Everything

3 sticks butter at room temperature

6 cups powdered sugar

5 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract dash of salt

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, add the butter and powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla and salt.  Mix until combined.  Gradually add the milk and beat for 2-3 minutes until fluffy.  You may not need all of the milk.  Add a tablespoon at a time until it becomes the consistency you desire.

Ganache

Recipe from: Annie's Eats

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup light corn syrup

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the heavy cream and light corn syrup in a medium saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.  Remove from the heat, add the chocolate chips, cover and let sit for 8 minutes.  After 8 minutes, if the chips aren't completely melted, return to medium heat and stir frequently until all the chips are melted.  Stir in the vanilla extract until combined and the chocolate mixture is smooth.  Cool the glaze until it is lukewarm at which point if you were to pour a spoonful back into the rest of the glaze it would mound slightly.