Salsa Chicken in the Crockpot

I have heard a lot about how good this recipe was so I thought I’d give it a try. It was very easy to put together in the morning before I left for work. I let the chicken sit out overnight and just poured on the other ingredients in the crockpot before I left. When I got home, the house smelled great!

Pulling the chicken with a fork was very easy and I let it sit and warm while I made some black beans to go with the meal. We just spooned this chicken into some whole wheat tortillas with some toppings and we were good to go. The only change I would make is to use frozen chicken instead of thawed, the chicken was a bit burnt after 10 hours in the slow cooker.

I will definitely be making this again.

Ingredients

3 boneless, skinless frozen chicken breasts
1 cup Medium Salsa
1 package taco seasoning
1 can reduced fat condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream


Directions:

1. Add chicken to the bottom of the slow cooker.

2. Sprinkle taco seasoning over chicken.

3. Mix salsa, sour cream, and cream of chicken soup; pour over chicken.

4. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

5. Shred Chicken with two forks and mix back in with all the sauce.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew with Chestnuts

Beef stew has always been one of my favorite foods. It’s wonderful on a cold night after a long day out shopping or running errands on the weekends. I have tried a lot of different recipes but I have stuck with this one for several years just because the whole family loves it so much. My Mother-in-law made this for us years ago, it can be found on Williams-Sonoma.com, I have been making it ever since.

I unfortunately did not have any chestnuts this time, they are not available in the stores yet, but I wanted to include them because when you can get them, they really add so much to this recipe. They have a slightly meaty, salty taste and they give the stew a great texture. The stew by itself is very good if you cannot find chestnuts. Browning the beef and then stewing it all day in wine gives the broth a very velvety texture.

I live in Florida, so I don’t get to experience a lot of cozy winter nights, but this stew makes me think of cold winter nights and holidays with my family, it’s one of my favorites.

Ingredients:
3 lb. boneless stewing beef, cut into small
cubes
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp Salt and freshly ground pepper (or seasoning salt)
3 Tbs. olive oil
1 large yellow onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
8 oz. new potatoes, cut into small pieces
1 cup steamed chestnuts
1 Tbs. tomato paste
1 1/2 – 2 cups beef stock
1 1/2 – 2 cups red wine

Directions:

1. In a Ziploc bag, toss the beef with the flour, salt and pepper to coat evenly.



2.In a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm half the olive oil until just smoking. Add half the beef and brown on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes total. Transfer to a slow cooker. Repeat with the remaining oil and beef.

3.Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes, chestnuts, tomato paste to the slow cooker.



4.Pour the wine into the sauté pan, stirring with a wooden spoon to scrape up the browned bits from the pan bottom. Add the wine to the slow cooker.

5.Add stock to the slow cooker, enough so that the liquid can be seen just beneath the vegetables and meat.



6.Stir all ingredients to combine

7.Cover and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 8-10 hours.

Meatball Sandwiches

I am always looking for ways to save money lately and I started noticing a while ago how much it is costing for our family to pick up lunch at a restaurant on the weekends. It costs about $20 per meal depending on where we go. I decided this weekend to cook up meatballs in the crockpot while we go out, and then we'll have lunch ready for us when we get home.

This worked out great, I made the meatballs at 8am and by lunch time they were perfect. It only costs about $10 for the ingredients and we have a ton of leftovers to have for lunch tomorrow and probably a meal that we can freeze. A comparable meatball sandwich would cost about $5-10 per person, so we saved some cash by doing this. I will definitely try this again.

Sauce

•1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
•1 (28 ounce) can tomato puree
•1 (14 ounce) can chopped tomatoes
•1 (8 ounce) can tomato paste
•2 teaspoons olive oil
•3 garlic cloves, minced
•1/2 sweet onion, chopped
•1 teaspoon salt
•Italian seasoning

Meatballs

•4-5 lbs meatloaf mixture (ground beef and pork)
•1 cup breadcrumbs
•2 slices bread, cubed and soaked in milk
•3 eggs
•1/2 cup parmesan cheese
•2 garlic cloves, minced
•1 teaspoon salt
•1 teaspoon pepper
•Italian seasoning

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix breadcubes soaked in milk, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, eggs, salt, garlic, pepper, and seasoning in the bottom of a large bowl.



3.Add meatloaf mix and combine with other ingredients using your hands. Don’t mix too much, just make sure all ingredients are well blended.

4.Roll mixture into balls using your hands and arrange meatballs on a cookie pan (with sides, not the flat kind).

5.Bake meatballs for 30 minutes. You can brown them under the broiler for a few minutes if you like a crunchier meatball.



6.In the meantime, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil on low heat until translucent, do not burn.

7.Combine the sautéed onion and garlic to the rest of the sauce ingredients in a large crock pot or stock pot. Turn crock pot on high (if using a stock pot, bring contents to a boil).

8.When meatballs are done in the oven, mix into the sauce mixture. Cook in crock pot for 4-6 hours on high heat. If using a stock pot, reduce heat and simmer meatballs for 4 hours or until ready to serve. (I serve them on rolls with some Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top)