Slow Cooker Chicken and Apples

6 oz. can frozen orange concentrate, thawed
1/2 tsp dried marjoram leaves
dash ground nutmeg
dash garlic powder (I used 2 fresh cloves)
1 onion, chopped
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3 Granny Smith apples, cored and sliced
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1. In a small bowl, combine orange juice concentrate, marjoram, nutmeg, and garlic.
2. Place onions in bottom of slow cooker ( I use the slow cooker bags)
3. Dip each chicken breast into the orange mixture to coat.  Then place in slow cooker over onions.
4. Pour any remaining orange juice concentrate mixture over the chicken.
5. Cover. Cook on low 6-7 hours.
6. Add apples and cook on low 1 hour.
7. Remove chicken, apples, and onions to a serving platter (pyrex worked great)
8. Pour the sauce that remains into a medium saucepan.
9. Mix together water and cornstarch.  Stir into the juices.
10. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the sauce is thick and bubbly.
11. Serve the sauce over the chicken.

This was pretty easy to put together the night before.  We put the ingredients in the crockpot bowl the night before and put in the fridge.  Then just popped it in the slow cooker in the morning and set the time.

This was GREAT!!  We really loved it.  And guess what....it is Gluten Free!!  Which is really important at our house.  

Apples and Marmelade.

This Summer I put up lots of apples which is great for a quick side with Dinner. Last night I wanted to try something different than brown sugar and butter since it's not my husbands favorite. So I put the apples (about 5) in a small dish and added about 2 pats of butter, a little sugar over the top and about 2 tablespoons of Orange Marmelade over the top. Then I cooked them about 30 mins on 350. They were a huge hit. I had a small helping and Matt ate the rest. It was a nice change to the normal baked apple we ate used to and Super easy!!!

Healthy Chicken

Ok so today I decided to start doing more crockpot cooking due to our bust schedules. Here was the first recipe.

Healthy Chicken. I altered the recipe some and will note the differences

3 1/2 lbs chicken. (I used boneless skinless chicken breasts.

2 cups skim milk. ( I used coconut milk vanilla flavored because my daughter has a dairy allergy). I do think this added to the flavor

5 cups rice or corn cereal finely crushed. (I used rice chex because they are gluten free and I had them)

1tsp salt (I used garlic salt)

1/2 tap black pepper

1. Remove skin from chicken. Dip in milk

2. Put crumbs in a plastic bag (I also added the garlic salt and pepper here). Drop chicken into bag to coat with cereal. Shake well.

3. Place chicken pieces in slow cooker. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. (again I added to cereal so I didn't duplicate)

4. Cover. Cook 3 1/2-4 hours

I tried this because I thought it would be quick and easy. It was. But it dried out. If I ever try again I will make sure it comes out right at 3.5 hours. I turned to warm after 3 1/2 hours and this I'm sure is where I went wrong. The flavor was OK but not stellar. I doubt I try again as I would rather try the thousands of other recipes out there.

Below pics after I put in the crockpot and a pic of the book it came from

Dan's Favorite Meatloaf

Dan's Favorite Meatloaf

1 1/2 pounds ground chuck
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 egg
4 Tbls ketchup
Salt and Pepper to taste ( I added a little garlic salt because we like it)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine meat, bread crumbs, milk, eggs, onion, ketchup, salt & peppe.  Placed in greased loaf pan.

Topping

4 Tbls vinegar
4 Tbls brown sugar
2 Tbls Worstershire
1/2 cup ketchup

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil (very important...do not skip this step or do in microwave....it will not taste right)
Pour over the meatloaf and bake 1 1/2 hours
I poke holes in the meat so the sauce will go down in the meatloaf. 

A good friend of mine gave me this recipe recently.  I know at least 4 people that have made it and it is wonderful.  We all really like it.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!!!!

Chocolate chip cookie brownies

Take any brownie mix. Mix as directed. Put in greased pan. Make chocolate chip cookie dough. Do not use pre-made dough. You can get a packet in the baking aisle and use that. Works perfect. After mixing cookie dough as directed. Drop it on top of the brownie mix. Bake until brownies and cookie dough done. Enjoy!!


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Doctored Brownies

Make any brownie mix you like. Add chocolate chips and Hershey's syrup. Bake as directed. Walaaa!!


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Watergate Salad

Watergate salad is a refreshing treat.  I love to take this to church suppers because I can prepare it the night before instead of in the morning before church.

1 cup mini marshmellows
1 pkg (3.4oz) Jello Pistachio Flavor Instant Pudding
1 can Dole crushed Pinnapple in juice - undrained
1/2 cup chopped Planters Pecans
1 1/2 cups thawed cool whip

Combine marshmellows, dry pudding mix, pinnapple, and nuts in a large bowl.

Stir in cool whip

Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.

This is a super easy and quick dish.

Let me know how it goes!!

Pizza Experiment

I was in the mood for pizza. I didn't want an ol' frozen pizza or boring pizza so I decided to try something a little different. First I got a Pillsbury pizza crust and rolled it out on a pan.

I sprayed it with Olive Oil and Then I partially baked it.

Next I found what cheese I had in the fridge. Mozzarella, Parmesan, and some of that new Italian Herb cooking creme made by Philadelphia Cream Cheese. YUMMY STUFF!!

I found a pizza sauce in the pantry and had just enough ground beef to sprinkle over the top.

After I partially baked the crust I spread a layer of the Italian Herb Cooking Creme over the crust.

Then I spread a layer of the pizza sauce over the cooking creme.

Then I sprinkled mozzarella cheese over the pizza. Next the hamburger meat (seasoned with garlic salt, basil, and a touch of oregano when cooked)and about 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan over the very top.

After cooking it looked yummy!! We like our pizza a little done but you could cook less.

It was really tasty. The cooking creme added a lot of flavor without being overwhelming. I bet if I hadn't known it was there I would have just thought the crust was flavorful. VERY TASTEY!!

Location:My kitchen

Sausage Ball left overs

We had lots of left over sausage balls after Christmas.  I was hungry for lunch one day and started to eat sausage balls, then I thought maybe I will make something with these.  So I took some crescent rolls, shredded velvetta cheese, and 2 sausage balls.  They were pretty big so I cut them into 4 pieces.  I laid out the crescent rolls in the 8 pieces they are meant to make rolls with.  I then put a little shredded velvetta on each triangle and put 1/4 of the sausage ball on each triangle.  Rolled them up and sprayed a little spray butter on the top of each.  I cooked them for about 10 minutes and tada....a creative leftover lunch.  It was pretty yummy too.  My husband agreed when he had a couple.

Easy cupcake and cake decorating

That new Betty Crocker cake Icing is Awesome!!!  I put the icing on these and it looks like I used a real cake decorating kit.  The can comes with 4 different tips to make different designs with the icing.  It couldn't be easier.  I don't really have the patience for real cake decorating so this is perfect for me.  Looks like I put so much effort in these.  Took me about 5 minutes total. 

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This is the finished product.Zaylei decorated these for my grandmother.  Pretty cute huh.  Just had to share them. 

Don't try this at Home....Chocolate Sprinkles....A true treat

Chocolate Sprinkles from Holland are something I LOVE.  I had my first taste when I was 17 and went to Holland as a Summer Exchange Student.  The way you are supposed to eat it is a piece of light bread with butter spread on it and chocolate sprinkles covering the butter.  Trust me, you do not want to try this with chocolate sprinkles made in the USA.  It is not even close to the same thing.  The sprinkles I had in Holland are REAL CHOCOLATE.  The ones here are just fake flavored stuff.  They don't smell or taste like real chocolate.  I barely got the box open before I could smell the Chocolate Sprinkles from Holland.  Unless you are willing to order this wonderful treat or try some at my house, don't try this.  You will be disappointed.  You probably think it is crazy anyway.  My husband did.  He looked at me like I was crazy the first time I ate this in front of him.  It's OK to think it is a crazy combination.  Maybe one day I can prove you wrong.


You can see I am not crazy as the picture on the box shows the same thing I eat.  I found these on Amazon. You can't imagine how excited I was!!!! I will continue to order these until they quit selling them.

Fancy Potatoes

I like this FANCY POTATO recipe because you can make it ahead of time and bake when you are ready to use.

Fancy Potatoes

10 medium potatoes
1 pkg cream cheese (small pkg)
1 carton sour cream (small)
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped chives
Salt and Pepper to taste

Sometimes I add shredded cheese to the top.

Boil potatoes, beat sour cream & cream cheese together and add to hot cooked potatoes and beat until smooth, add remaining ingredients. Pour into a greased 2 qt casserole dish. Dot the top with the butter.

Put into a 350degree oven for 25 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

Let me know how it goes!!!!! Great for left overs too!

EASY Banana Bread

This Banana Bread is about the easiest Banana Bread you can make.....and it is GOOD!!

OK, Here it is. 

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 large ripe bananas, mashed (sometimes i will freeze bananas as they are about to go bad...those are perfect)
1 3/4 cups, self-rising flour, (unsifted or sifted)
2 eggs
nuts optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream sugar and melted margarine.  Add eggs and mashed bananas.  Mix.  Add flour and nuts (if using nuts).  Pour into greased pan.  Recipe can be used for:
4 small mini loaf pans (bake 30 minutes)
or
18 miniature muffins (bake25 minutes)
or
Regular loaf pan (cook until you think done)  I start with 30 minutes and then start checking.

If your oven is gas these times may be shorter.

The verdict on this is IT IS AWESOME!!!!  and EASY!!!. 

Let me know what you think. 

Simple Sides

Here are a couple of sides I like to make that are Super Simple.

Baked Carrots and Apples

2 cups of baby carrots
1 green apple, peeled and sliced (I used yellow apples because that is what I like.  Red aren't as great for something like this because they tend to fall apart.
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup margarine

Boil (10 minutes) and drain carrots
Combine carrots and apples in sprayed 8x8 pan.  Combine remaining ingredients and pour over the apples and carrots.  Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

To be so simple this is really yummy!!




Brown Sugar Apple Halves

Use 1 apple for each family member or 1/2 apple for each family member depending on how hungry your family is.

Cut the apples in half so that you cut from the top to the bottom of the apple through the middle of the core.  Remove all seeds and core.  This should leave you a little dip in the center.  I use a melon baller to make this easier.  Again I use yellow apples because they are my favorite. 

Place the apples with the meat of the apple facing up in a baking dish.  Place a pat of butter on each apple half.  Then top each half with a tablespoon of brown sugar.  Add a dash of cinnamon.

Bake for 25-28 minutes at 350 degrees. 

These apples are quick and easy and scrumptious. My family was begging for the recipe. 

No pics of either of these but I will add them the next time I bake them.  These are just a couple of good recipes from my archive that made it to "THE RECIPE BOOK"

Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies

I got this recipe from a website and I just couldn't resist the picture.  It looked so great I had to try them.

Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies

Filling

4 oz cream cheese, softened (from 8 oz package)
1 egg
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Brownies

1 Box Betty Crocker Original Supreme Premium brownie mix.  (this is the one with the hershey's syrap in the box that gets added to the mix)
Make brownie mix as called for on the box
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Grease the bottom of  9" square pan

In a small bowl beat filling ingredients and set aside

Make brownie batter in seperate bowl as directed.  Put 3/4 batter in the pan

Spoon filling over the top of the brownie mix evenly

Spoon remaining brownie over top of the filling.

Cut through with knife to make marbled design

Sprinkle with chocolate chips

Bake 40-44 minutes

Cool completely (1-1 1/2 hours)

Store covered in refrigerator.

OK...results are in.  First I will let you know I forgot to add the chocolate chips.  I'm sure they would have been a bonus but these brownies were awesome without them anyway.  They were so great this recipe is definately going in my favorites book!!

Sloppy Joe Squares

Today I decided to organize the recipes I collected over the last year since we moved.  Then I decided to make a something for myself for dinner even though no one else was here to eat with me.  So here is the recipe that won out over all the rest.  Mostly because I had the ingredients and could have leftovers tomorrow for dinner and share some with my husband for lunch.  So here it is....

Sloppy Joe Squares

Ingredients
1 lb lean ground beef
1 can (16oz) sloppy joe sauce
2 cans big and buttery crescent rolls
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 tbs sesame seed

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In 10-inch skillet, cook beef over medium heat until thoroughly cooked; drain.  Stir in sauce.  Heat to boiling.

Unroll 1 can of the dough; place in ungreased 13x9 inch (3 inches up sides of dish) Spread beef mixture over dough; sprinkle cheese over beef mixture; place rest of crescent rolls over cheese.  Sprinkle with sesame seed.

Bake 30-35 minutes or until mixture is bubble and dough is golden

High Altitude (3500-6500 ft) Bake 35-40 minutes

I would say I took the picture after we cut some because I wanted you to see the center but the truth is I completely forgot.  

OK.....Here is the scoop.

I did a couple of things different.  There is no way 1 lb of meat is sufficient for a 13x9 pan.  I used a 9x9 dish and it worked great.  This cut out the 2nd package of crescent rolls.  If you have a bigger family (4 or more) you should use 2 lbs of meat and use the 13x9 pan.  I also added some garlic salt to the beef when i was browning it.  It is just something my husband and I almost always do.  It added a little flavor.  I used the Manwich brand sloppy joe sauce.  I used the regular but I bet if you like the bold it would be great too.

In the 9x9 pan it cooked a little quicker than 30 minutes.  Probably 28 minutes.  It was very golden brown.

I absolutely loved this recipe!!!!  I am actually sitting here about 5 hours later wishing I had more right now.  It is a quick easy meal which makes it even better!

Let me know what you think if you try it.

Coconut Caramel Pie

This Pie has 2 versions....Both of which we will be voting on.  Since the recipe makes 2 pies and half of my family likes coconut while the other won't touch it I did 2 slightly different versions.

1 PIE has Coconut

1 PIE has None

Recipe is exactly the same (as it is for 2 pies) until the very end.

Crust
1 1/2 Cups Flour ( I used All-Purpose)
1 Stick Butter (melted)
1 Cup Finely Chopped Pecans ( I put them in my Cuisinart Chopper and Ground them to very small pieces)

Mix and Press into 2 pie pans
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees

Filling
1 can eagle brand milk
8 oz Cream Cheese
16 oz Cool Whip

Mix together and pour into crust - half in each pie pan

Topping

7 oz coconut (I used about half of this since I only put it on 1 pie)
1 cup chopped nuts (again I ground them up in the Cuisinart)
1/2 stick melted butter

The first pie got the coconut, nuts, butter mixture
Pie # 2 got nuts and butter

So mix the ingredients together as you wish.  Make sure if you are making 2 different pies like I did not to cross contaminate mixing bowls or spoons.

After mixing, put on a cookie sheet and toast at 350 degrees.  Very important to stir often while toasting.  The coconut will burn quickly with all that butter.  You basically toast until it turns a lovely brown color...not burnt looking

Spread over the pies.

Take a 12 oz jar of caramel sauce and pour over the top (half a jar on each pie) 

Freeze for a bit before serving.

Results are as follows:

Everyone LOVES the pie.  It is definately a keeper recipe.  It taste just like Pecan Pie.  So Yummy.  Most people can't talk about how good it is because they are shoving in the next bite before they have swallowed the first.

Try it and let me know how your friends and family react. 

This is the pie with coconut.  It turned out much prettier than the pie without coconut.  The coconut, nuts, and butter make up a thicker topping and don't soak through the cool whip mixture.

This is the pie without the coconut.  It pie taste great, but the nuts soak into the cool whip and make it look a little crazy. 

The Kraze Begins

I have been thinking about doing this blog for a while and today when I decided to cook something new I decided I would take the plunge and begin so here it is the first of what I hope to be many entries.

Mexican Meatloaf

Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
1 1/2 cup mexican cheese
1 cup salsa
1 egg
12 saltine crackers

Mix all in a large mixing bowl.  Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.  I used a muffin tin that held 6 large muffins and it made 5.  This made a nice portion size...for me.  My husband ate 3.  Obviously if you have a large family you need to double the recipe.  Press the mixture into the muffin tins with a spoon and press down in the middle to make an indention.  Place the muffin tin on an aluminum foil covered cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.  After removing from the oven add some salsa and cheese atop the mini meatloafs in the indention you made before cooking. 

Obviously your recipe will vary depending on the flavor and brand of salsa you use.  Keep that in mind as you select your salsa.  If only 1 person in your family likes HOT salsa, you better use mild or medium for the recipe and let that person add their own heat. 

This meal would have been great with some chips and mexican cheese and rice.  

We voted this recipe  A KEEPER!!!!



OK, I had 2 friends that I know of try this and both of their families really liked it.  So even though they didn't put comments on here I thought you should know there were 2 brave souls. 

Cooking with a Cause

I have always had a love of recipes and recipe books. If I see a recipe book I almost always have to have it.  I get it from my mother.  Then I married a chef and expanded my love of food and recipes even more.  Am I a chef?  NO, not by any means.  Just your average mother and housewife making dinner for the family.  But I do love to experiment in the kitchen.  My great love is baking but all recipes hold an interest for me.  I even find myself wanting to make things I don't like because they sound interesting.  So I use my family and co-workers as guinea pigs for my recipes.  Some turn out...some don't.  That is the point of this blog.  You will travel with me through my Kitchen Kraze Experiements. 

Here is how it works.  I find a recipe I want to try - I make it - My family rates it - And I tell you about it.  The rating system is extremely simple.

We don't like it...recipe goes in the trash never to be seen again.

It's OK...We may keep it and change it next time or we just throw it out.

We LOVE it....It goes in the family cookbook (my cookbook which is pretty much a binder with recipe slots) 

The idea is to build a book of recipes we LOVE as a family and pass it down one day to my daughter.

You may wonder where I get all these recipes.  As I mentioned before I have tons of recipe books but I also get recipe emails which I read and print interesting recipes from.  I then take the printed recipes and file them in catagorized folders.  When I need a casserole, or a dessert, or a side dish I just start searching through my folders and presto...I almost always have a recipe to try.  I have hundreds of recipes and there is no way I will ever make all of them in my lifetime.  Well, maybe if I stopped collecting recipes today but the fact is, I will continue to collect recipes forever.  So I will just have to do the best I can. 

I won't be adding a new recipe everyday because I don't cook everyday.  However, I may add some I have tried in the past as I go. 

So Enjoy my Kitchen Kraze and leave your comments.  I'd love to know if you try a recipe, love it, hate it, change it, etc.