Chip Chop Flip Flop

Post by Rachel

So Erin came to visit me this weekend and insisted that I cook for her. A very demanding house guest she is. So after an entire day of supply shopping I then slaved away in the kitchen for her while she rattled off ingredients to me.

We created 25 meals for future crockpot laziness. We copied the recipes from two different websites and doubled the recipe so we each could have the frozen meal.

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/09/slow-cooker-freezer-meals-make-8-meals.html

and

http://www.savingyoudinero.com/2012/06/12/1-hour-1-mess-5-crock-pot-meals/

On the teriyaki pork chops recipe we used chicken instead. We also did not try the barbeque spare ribs and we bought huge onions and decided to half the amount in most recipes.

The entire process took us about 4 hours and we are really excited about the cilantro lime chicken. It seemed like an easy process for the two of us to do this. Erin wrote on the ziplock bags (our name, the meal name, and any additional directions needed.) I sliced and cleaned all the meat which by the end of it I was a little grossed out. We had 10lbs of beef and 24lbs of chicken.
I also had to chop all the onions because Erin is a pansy.
Our cost was about $100 per person, the biggest expense being the meat, however we did have a lot of the canned goods already at home.

We used gallon size ziplocks and put them in beer pitchers to keep them upright.

We packed my freezer full of our ziplocks (and if you really have to know why I keep my OxiClean in my freezer it is actually my veggie scraps for compost that I am too lazy to take outside but don't want to attract fruit flys.)

Clean up always sucks but we didn't make a lot of dishes, a couple cutting boards, one pan and measuring utensils and thats it. All in all we had a great day.

Pizza Rolls

Posted by: Erin

So after spending all day on Pintrest and looking at amazing food I found myself famished- why can't the pretty pictures just show up on my dinner table?

After looking around my kitchen ( I haven't been home much, which also means not much food choices..) I realized I had what was needed to make Pizza Rolls!

Ingredients needed:
Pizza sauce
Crescent rolls
Cheese
Peperoni

  

I have been baking much more with parchment paper but this is totally up to you- I put a piece of parchment down on the baking pan.

Next roll out your rolls, spoon some pizza sauce onto the widest part of your roll. Add a few peperoni ( I personally used 4 but could do more next time. Then add some cheese and roll up! Bake as directed.

Super simple and quick!

  

 

I put some extra sauce into a small bowl to use for dipping and there was dinner!

My Illegal Habit

Posted by Rachel

Yes it really is illegal in case you were calling my bluff on the title. My illegal habit is collecting soil of places I have been. And as a person that is very aware and sympathetic the environment I think it is very wrong and I encourage you NOT TO DO THIS. I of course just. can't. help. myself.

The collection so far:

It may not seem like much but when you are stuffing hotel shampoo bottles full of sand into your socks before going through customs it feels like a mountain.

Where are they from you ask? I will tell you.

Orient Bay, St. Maarten

Newnan, Georgia USA

Bete Grise, MI USA

Magens Bay, St. Thomas

San Juan, Puerto Rico

I am not even close to done collecting, even though I should kick this nasty habit while I can still hide it.

Baked Potato Soup

Posted by Rachel

Hands down this is the easiest recipe ever. Kinda messy though... however I am a messy cook. So the recipe is from Mama Loves Food. Her website is www.mamalovesfood.com and I think she is brilliant.

Here is her picture, we will see how close mine is to that.


Instructions are as follows:

Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup Ingredients:

• 5 pounds russet potatoes, washed. (the original recipe says don't peel, I peeled half.)
• 1 medium/large yellow onion, diced
• 10 cloves of garlic, minced (if you use jarred, it's a 5 teaspoon equivalent)
• 64 ounces (8 cups) chicken stock or broth (I used beef bouillon instead.)
• 16 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 tablespoon seasoned salt
• optional garnishes: crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, green onions

Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup Directions:

1. Add potatoes, onion, garlic, seasoning, and chicken stock to slow cooker. I have a Hamilton Beach 7 qt slow cooker. I recommend a BIGGER one.

Looks like this without the stock:



The picture does not give a good representation of how much soup you are making.

2. Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 10 hours. I had a 12hr work day when I made this and it was fine letting it go longer on low.

3. Add the softened cream cheese and puree soup with an immersion blender until the cheese is incorporated and about half the soup is blended. (Alternately you could remove half the soup and the cream cheese to an upright blender, then re-incorporate). YOU CANNOT TAKE PICTURES AND BLEND SOUP AT THE SAME TIME. This was the messy step for me because I don't have an immersion blender and I had to do a couple of rounds in the blender to get half of the crockpot blended. whew.

4. Stir well, top with your choice of garnishes & enjoy!

 This is what my finished product looks like. I did not add onions and use white cheese (mozzerella maybe??) with mine.

Yields 10-12 servings which is about right unless you are dating a bottomless pit.

 Freezes GREAT!

Magnets not just for the fridge!

Post by Rachel

So I had to remember something really important this morning and wrote myself a note last night to make sure of it. In my genious state I hung the note on the door to the garage with magnets!

Obviously I knew they would stick, but I never thought to put them there.

What was so important to not forget and make me think of this brilliant idea? I needed to bring butter in for a fish fry at work...

(My idea's are way better than Erin's.)

Refrigerator Oatmeal

www.theyyummylife.com

So all over Pinterest I was seeing overnight refrigerator oatmeal, so I figured what the heck I might as well try it. After looking over the ingredients I realized I had most of what I needed but would need to run to Whole Foods to pick up some more greek yogurt and the Chia seeds.

So after said run to the store on my way home from work last week I came home and was excited to give this a try. However this is where problem one came in. I got all of the ingredients into my canning jar and it was ready to over flow and I had yet to add my bananas... but I figured what the heck gave it another good shake put it in the fridge to sit over night and I would add more banana in the morning. Well morning came which turned out to be quit hectic. So I grab my oatmeal and head for the car. As I am on my way to work I open my oatmeal up only to find that there is still a lot of liquid. Dreams of breakfast now crashed as I'm racking my mind to think of anything I may of have tossed into my bag earlier in the week. So when I arrive at work I put my oatmeal back into the fridge thinking that maybe by lunch it will be good to go. Not so much....

So that got me thinking- the oats I used I have had for awhile so was that the reason they weren't able to soak up all the liquid? So I guess the only way to find out is to buy more oats and try this again!

 Update to come soon of the second go around!