![\"0115000847\"](\"http:\/\/grimmfamilytales.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/0115000847-1024x768.jpg\" "\\"0115000847\\"")
<\/p>\nI got four cookbooks for Christmas and you have no idea how incredibly happy that made Dave.\u00a0 I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was pretty psyched, but Dave really likes food and really really likes the idea of me trying new recipes.\u00a0 He’s a good guinea pig.<\/p>\n
3 of the 4 books are slow cooker books, which is fantastic as far as I’m concerned.\u00a0 I love my crock-pot (not to be confused with\u00a0 Crock-Pot\u00ae which is a brand name, but is often used regardless of the slow cooker’s maker.\u00a0 It’s like Kleenex\u00ae, and Band-Aid\u00ae, and Rollerblade\u00ae).\u00a0 It makes things so much easier to be able to toss everything in when the little dude is napping, or happily entertaining himself gnawing on a spatula,\u00a0 instead of trying to get everything done an hour before when we want to eat.\u00a0 Especially since the crystal ball I use to predict what sort of mood his highness will be in is on the fritz.<\/p>\n
I spent some time last weekend going through them and marking recipes I want to try.\u00a0 I even poked around on the internet to see what I could find.\u00a0 There’s a website out there where a lady made something different in her crock-pot, every day for a full year.\u00a0 Insane.\u00a0 I don’t really want to be that lady, but I have no problems stealing recipes from her.<\/p>\n
Last night we had Cheddar Cheese Soup and Chicken Caesar Salad (I did not cook the salad in the crock-pot (not Crock-Pot\u00ae since ours is made by Hamilton Beach).\u00a0 Dinner was a huge success and incredibly simple.\u00a0 So simple that some people might not even call it cooking – they might call it just making soup and putting together a salad, but I call it cooking because it makes me feel more domesticated.<\/p>\n
I bought a bagged salad, caesar dressing, croutons, and precooked sliced chicken.\u00a0 Mixed the lettuce and dressing together in a bowl, heated up the chicken in a skillet, tossed it and some croutons on top and it was done.\u00a0 I know, I know, precooked chicken?!\u00a0 Here’s a little known secret about me.\u00a0 I hate, hate, hate touching raw chicken.\u00a0 It gives me the heebie jeebies.\u00a0 And here’s a little known secret about that – it’s not really “little known” a lot of people know and my sister is the same way.\u00a0 I am working on getting over this phobia.\u00a0 I actually did cut up and cook raw chicken for tonight’s dinner (and I only had to stop to wash my hands like 5 times during the process – but more on that later).\u00a0\u00a0 If I ever win the lotto I am going to buy all of my chicken precooked, or even better hire someone to do all the cooking for me!\u00a0 But that probably will never happen since I don’t play the lotto.<\/p>\n
The soup was slightly more complicated.\u00a0 It started with 1 pint of hot water and 2 chicken bouillon cubes.\u00a0 I had to put them in the crock-pot and stir until the cubes dissolved.\u00a0 Then the recipe said to add two cans of cheddar cheese soup.\u00a0 This is where I ran in to difficulties.\u00a0 See, I didn’t have two cans of soup, because I didn’t read the recipe (all 3 ingredients, 4 if you count the water) closely enough.\u00a0 I had one can.\u00a0 Dave stopped at the store on his way home from work to help me out there (we needed milk anyway and he’s a good egg).<\/p>\n
So anyway, you stir it all up and set the slow cooker to low for 1.5 to 2 hours.\u00a0 The important thing is not to let the soup boil.\u00a0 If the soup boils a pixie dies.\u00a0 Or maybe that’s every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies”.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 I’m sure if the soup had boiled something equally tragic would have occurred.\u00a0 So I didn’t let that happen, not on my watch (you know what they say, a watched crock-pot never boils, ha ha ha – I am cracking myself up tonight).\u00a0 Right before we ate I added 3 tablespoons of cooking sherry and stirred it all up.\u00a0 It was really good.\u00a0 Definitely something we’ll have again.\u00a0 I think next time we’re going to experiment a little and add some potatoes or maybe some broccoli (probably not on the broccoli).<\/p>\n
After my rousing success last night I decided to try making Orange Chicken tonight.\u00a0 The prep work came together nicely – and there were 8 ingredients involved! I was so proud of myself.\u00a0 I even “dredged” the chicken (which was raw and slimely and cut into bitesize pieces by none other than yours truly).\u00a0 And yes, I had to google “dredge” to see what the heck the recipe was talking about. \u00a0\u00a0 Sadly, the end result was not that great.\u00a0 It was a little too orange-y for us.\u00a0 The first couple of bites weren’t bad but we liked it less and less the more we ate.\u00a0 So Dave ended up with leftover salad and soup and I had cheerios.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 You win some, you lose some.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow night I’ll be attempting another new recipe: Baked Ravioli (again in the slow cooker).\u00a0 Hopefully we’ll have better luck there.\u00a0 Then on Friday night I’ll be tackling Chicken Wing Soup.\u00a0 It has 12 ingredients! Wish me luck.<\/p>\n
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This post is little dude approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got four cookbooks for Christmas and you have no idea how incredibly happy that made Dave.\u00a0 I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was pretty psyched, but Dave really likes food and really really likes the idea of me … Continue reading