Chicken, vegetable and rice soup

It's been a while since I've posted about food, so I thought I should mention last night's dinner.  I made a pretty thick soup/chowder and everyone seemed to like it...

Here's what I used, though I wish I had used more chicken and maybe added some garlic to the crockpot, along with some pepper at the end...

1 whole onion
4 celery stalks
2 chicken breasts cut into half dollar sized pieces
some leftover frozen carrots and corn - we had more corn than carrots due to a Boog-sized rabbit ;)

I let all that cook in the crockpot with some chicken broth all day.

When I got home at the end of the day, I used this cream base that I found on Allrecipes.com.  We didn't have any pepper apparently, so I couldn't use that...but I did add a tablespoon of minced garlic and let the cream base heat a bit more.

Anyway, once the cream base was done, I added it to the crockpot, including the extra chicken broth, which made it a little less thick - I wasn't sure if it was going to be too thin, but it was actually thicker than I would have liked since I served it over rice for me and The Boy...Boog decided he didn't want rice with his "soupa" but ended up eating a big bowl of it.

My sister and her friend also had some and said it was good...Surprisingly enough, there was enough for all 4 adults, Boog, The Boy had a second bowl and there's some left in the fridge...

Food post: Chicken and dumplings

I have been getting TONS of free books from amazon recently. One of the ones I found was a simple crock pot cook book...it had a recipe for easy chicken and dumplings...i've been sick for a few days so having this cook all day yesterday for dinner was great...

Of course I didn't quite follow the recipe exactly but it was still good...

i used just over a cup of sliced mushrooms - and i cut them a bit smaller...
2 stalks of celery chopped - and i don't like celery but it could have even used more...
an entire chopped up onion...
2 cans of condensed cream of chicken soup - and a half a can of milk would have been good too...
i didn't have the carrots to add and i think that would have made it even better...
the recipe calls for three pounds of chicken but i have no idea the actual weight of what i used...
and a can of refridgerator biscuits...

Throw it all in the crock pot except the biscuits...it says to shred the chicken after 7 hours but i just cut mine into small pieces before i put it in...let it cook on low for 7 hours or so...i think mine ended up being just over 8...cut the biscuits into quarters depending on the size...i ended up cutting mine in half and then into thirds...throw the biscuits in for the last hour and turn up to high...

yuuummmmmy!

Beef Stew

I made beef stew in the crock pot last night and it turned out pretty good...Even Boog ate a bunch, which is awesome since he hasn't really eaten a real meal since he got sick on Thursday.

It was really easy too. My dad had made roast beef and didn't eat all of it, so I confiscated it lol. Cut it into pieces and added a can of sliced carrots and about 3 medium sized potatoes, unpeeled but sliced. To that I added 2 cans of beef gravy and a can of water and then about a tablespoon (give or take) of A-1 steak sauce...Threw it in the crock pot all day on low, about 8 - 81/2 hours, then on high for another hour just to make sure the potatoes were done and soft...Made some rice and tossed that into a bowl with some of the beef stew over it...Turned out to be a damn good dinner...

The Boy ate a big bowl, Boog ate a small bowl and I had a medium bowl...Boog ate his by himself on the floor with his stool. Once he finished his, he asked for more so I gave him some from my bowl and he finished that! Then asked for more! I was out of rice, but gave him some of the stew and he ate about half of it...And we have enough left for another dinner this week and maybe a lunch too. Just add rice...Or mashed potatoes might be good too.

Pizza/Spaghetti Rice

So recently I've been trying to do more with the crockpot...The easier the better as far as I'm concerned...so to have something that will cook all day and be ready for me to eat when I get home is AUTUMN* in my book...

So far I've done broccoli cheese chicken, beanies and weenies and something I can't decide what to call it lol...it's Pizza Rice or Spaghetti Rice...

I took 1 can of spaghetti sauce, 2 cans of petite diced tomatoes with garlic and tossed in 4 chicken breasts...let it cook on low all day...The Boy came home before me and stirred it for me and when he did, the chicken fell apart - not what I wanted to happen, but it worked out in the end...We cooked some rice and served the chicken/sauce mixture over the rice and mixed it together...and it was awesome...the only improvements I would make would be to throw in some cheese near the end...I'm thinking some of the grated parmesan cheese would make it more like spaghetti...but some mozzarella would add more of a pizza flavor...

And J Boogie even liked it once we made him take that first bite...all I heard after that was "Bite Mommy!"


*AUTUMN = AWESOME in J Boogie speak