Scrumptious Crock Pot Pork Chops and Apples

Here's another super simple main dish recipe made in the crock pot. If you like home cooked food, the crock pot has to be the best invention ever! We'd been eating a lot of creamy sauces so I tried this one with a chicken broth base and it was outstanding. The chili powder spices gave it a nice flavor but didn't make it spicy by any stretch.

Pork Chops and Homemade Applesauce
2 lbs. boneless pork chops (use whatever you have really - this is just what I made)
2 apples quartered
1 14 oz. can chicken broth (or enough to cover pork)
1 cup apple juice
1T chili powder
1 T Emeril's Southwest Essence (includes salt, paprika, chili poweder, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper)

Combine in crock pot. Cook 8 hours on low (or 5 on high). Serve with the apples on the side - awesome.

Tip: crock pot meat is generally not that attractive. If you are serving to guests, take the extra couple minutes to brown the meat in a frying pan before putting it into the crock pot.

I like a lot of the spice mixtures that are combined like the Emeril one above. If you don't have it, just put a bit more chili powder in or one of the other Emeril ingredients like paprika or cumin. My motto is don't ever make a special trip to the store for one silly ingredient - just experiment with alternatives!

A fun girls 7th birthday party if you like High School Musical

As always, we have a blast with birthday parties around here and I'm usually in charge when it's a girl's birthday party. My daughter picks the theme based on what she loves that year. This year we had a high school musical party theme even though it was a few months after HSM2 came out. It ended up being a beautiful day so we were able to mix things up with some outside and some inside activities. Always a bonus with first grade girls. A fun time was had by all and we did some great activities. Hoping you may find a few good party tips in this overview:

Games and activities: Really anything that either uses High School Musical music or involves cheerleading or sports is fair game. Since it was a 7 year old girls birthday party, we did the following:
- decorate a megaphone craft (orientaltrading.com) Great while you wait for everyone to arrive
- musical chairs with HSM music (actually did it outside with placemats on the ground instead of chairs - MUCH easier)
- scavenger hunt using HSM clues and/or searching for HSM items
- freeze game with HSM music (they dance around until the music stops and then need to freeze in their spot)
- yearbook questions - this was definitely the highlight - and it was also the prize for them to take home. See details below. The girls spent the last hour filling out their yearbooks and getting autographs from each other.

Prize/giveaway: a homemade HSM yearbook. We used a blank journal and wrote East High Wildcats on the cover. Then we decorated the first 6 pages with characters from HSM and wrote a few simple Q&As. (downloaded their pictures from internet and taped into the yearbook). We then took a picture of each girl that game to the party, color copied them, and cut/pasted them into the next 10 pages of the book. We had written their names in advance as well as the couple questions. For these first graders who are just learning to read and write, they were pretty basic. Birthday, Favorite Color and Nickname. They wrote the answers to the questions themselves and had a great friendship keepsake to take home.

Time: 1pm - 4pm (avoids lunch!)

Where: our house. We have a boathouse so we were able to set up the party in there. Any toy room, garage or good sized living room would also work well. Or outside if you live in a better climate than I do!

Decorations: 2 high school musical posters (can then be put in her room), streamers in red and white (wildcat colors) and HSM themed paper goods from CelebrateExpress.com

Food: Snacks set out the whole time for them to munch. Veggie tray, pretzels and goldfish tray, drink yogurts, and meat and cheese tray. (we use cut up turkey meat sticks). Cookies for dessert.

Simple chicken recipe and simple beef recipe all in one week!

This was a banner week for experimenting with simplifying recipes. The result was the easiest sherpherds pie ever and fabulous baked chicken breast with a cheesy sauce. Both were prepared in 5 minutes or less - no joke. As is often the case with this simplified cooking, having the right ingredients on hand is half the battle. So without further ado, here's the recipes:



5 Minute Simple Shepherds Pie

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 package dried onion soup mix
2 jars beef gravy (I like Boston Market)
1 package prepared mashed potatoes (you'll find them refrigerated at grocers)

Brown ground beef in a frying pan. Add in onion soup mix. Transfer beef mixture into 9 x 13 pan. Pour on the gravy and then drop on the mashed potatoes. Cook 400 for 30 minutes.
(We like it sauce-y but you can substitute one jar of gravy if you're conserving calories or don't like as much sauce.)

5 Minute Easy Cheese-y Baked Chicken

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 package dried taco seasoning mix
1 4 oz. can chopped green chilis
8 oz. monterrey jack cheese

Combine all ingredients with cheese sprinkled on top. Bake at 375 for 1 hour.

(I didn't even mix the ingredients in a separate bowl - I just threw it all in a 9 x 13 and stirred a bit with a fork. It was THAT easy.)

Give them a try and let me know what you think. I know they were a hit in my house - even with the kids.

Simple meatloaf recipe and fun kids birthday gift

Mmmm meatloaf the whole family can enjoy
I've always loved meatloaf and have found great joy in experimenting with all sorts of creative ingredient combinations. Since my kids are not the most adventurous eaters, I have settled down to a standard simple recipe that is enjoyed by all. As with any recipe, substitutions can be made according to what's in your pantry that day but I would recommend proactively buying V8 juice so you have that ingredient available. It is a great addition to a lot of recipes and is pretty nutritious. It has a mellower tomato flavor than using ketchup, tomato paste or tomato sauce. And remember this helpful tip for cooking meatloaf. Fill a shallow pan with 1 inch of water and put the meatloaf pan in the shallow pan. That keeps the sides of the meatloaf from overcooking and allows for MUCH easier cleanup.

Meatloaf Recipe -great for novice cooks
1 lb. ground beef
1 package Lipton onion soup mix
1 small can V8 juice (about 6 oz.)
2 eggs
1 package oatmeal (the little pouches)
coupla squirts worcesterchire sauce
Mix all ingredients and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Remember to put that meatloaf pan into a shallow pan containing about an inch of water to keep the meatloaf from overcooking around the sides. Super simple recipe with super easy cleanup.

Great girl birthday gift idea
We had a fun time yesterday with little Claudia. For her birthday, my 7 year old had given her a homemade gift certificate that entitled Claudia to a playdate including a manicure and pedicure. The nice part of this gift is that it is the gift of a good time together instead of just more stuff. We wrapped up a couple dollar nail polish set so that she had something to open on her birthday and then called her a week after her big day to set up the date for their mutual pampering. We have a salon nearby that does both the little toesies and hands plus a pretty flower painted on big toes and thumbs for just $15. Ask around near you and I'm sure there's something comparable. An added fun bonus for the girls at this outing was that the salon had a karaoke machine so they were able to sing to their hearts content while waiting for their toes to dry. Fortunately for all involved, the salon was not busy during that time! (I recommend calling ahead to see when their slower times are.) Now when they look at their pretty polish, they'll remember their fun time together.

What's cookin' this week?

So simple baked pork tenderloin
We had one of our all-time favorite dishes this weekend. It's a baked pork tenderloin (or any cut of pork like roast, loin, chops. Your cook times would just vary depending on the size.) The key is the amazing sauce that it cooks in. It's almost one of those "guess what is in this" type concoctions because it really doesn't taste like what I'm about to describe.

We served it with the 90 second Uncle Bens rice that I always talk about and some lightly fried asparagus. The asparagus was leftover from the night before when we'd served it steamed (whole bunch only takes 7 minutes in the micro if you put just an inch of water at the bottom of a covered microwavable container.) Since we like our aspragus a little crunchy, it still had enough umph after that first day to allow it to be fried the second day. The aspragus was stored in a ziploc bag so I just tossed in some breadcrumbs, salt and pepper and then fried them on the stove top in a little bit of olive oil. Yummy!

Here is the recipe for the baked pork tenderloin:
1 1/2 lbs. pork tenderloin
1 can cream of chicken soup (can be cream of anything really - mushroom, celery, etc.)
coupla squirts catsup (say 2T)
coupla squirts worcestershire sauce (say 2T)
(I've made this a bunch of times with no measurement tool available and coupla squirts worked just fine.)
Bake in a covered baking pan for almost 2 hours at 325. I took the cover off for the last half hour.

I know it doesn't sound good but trust me when I tell you this one is a real crowd pleaser and as simple as can be.

Today in my Crock Pot - Southwest style chicken
We're switching to chicken since we had pork the last two nights. I have great luck throwing all sorts of pantry items into a crock pot for something different each time. Some staples that work well with crock pots are the cream of (anything) soups, chicken and beef broth soups, french onion and golden mushroom soups, cheddar cheese soup, tomatoes (either soup or diced), roasted red peppers, and crushed green chilis. The dried soups or soup mixes like beef bouillon, chicken bouillon, onion soup and taco seasoning are also handy. Of course, your tastes may differ from ours but these are what we keep around and use every week. Today's crock pot chicken is going to have a bit of a southwest flair to it. This is what I'm cooking as we speak:
- 2 large chicken breasts
- 1 can cream of mushroom
- 1 can cheddar cheese soup
- about 2/3 of a 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
- 1 can crushed green chilis
Cook 8 hours on low, or in my case, 2 hours on high and 4 hours on low since I didn't put them in early this morning.

Party in the Planning
Just a few short days after our New Years fun, we're in the process of whipping up more festivities. This time for Kristin who is turning 40 at the end of the month (but SO doesn't look it). She had no desire to have a party but requested a girlfriend weekend with just a couple close friends with the preference of somewhere warm. Since the whole gang won't be able to attend the getaway, we're going to have a fun pseudo-spa night first so everyone can toast one of our youngest friends finally joining our ranks. We're going to follow Kelly's lead and request that one of our local nail places hold evening hours for our group of about 10. We can bring in a couple little simple munchies and some adult beverages (in plastic cups) while sitting around getting manicured and pedicured together. The real bonus in our case is that the salon is right next door to one of our nicer restaurants so we could tie in appetizers or dinner if the group chooses. A fun time should be had by all.

Then a week later, it'll be off to sunny (hopefully) Sanibel Island for a couple days in the sand with our new beach toes. Doesn't get much better than that. Thanks to all the hubbies for watching the kids so we can enjoy this girlfriend time.

If you try any of our party ideas or recipes, let us know what you think.

Family New Years Eve Party

This year we decided to try something new for new years eve. Since we all have a limited time left where our children would want to be with us, we invited families. Instead of destroying our house like we've done in years past, we opted to rent a party room at a local Hampton Inn. All the families rented a room there so we were safe and snug for the night. As it happened, we had a GIANT snowstorm that dumped about 12 inches of snow that evening. We were glad that no one risked driving on that dangerous night.

We invited all the families that our kids hang with because we made it BYO everything. The more people that came, the more food and drinks were brought. We figured the more the merrier and ended up with about 15 families. As for the food, there was everything from a ham from pams-hams (of course that was my contribution) to homemade cookies, to cheese and sausage trays to fruit and veggies. It is amazing how those potlucks always work out to have the perfect mix of foods.

One thing I love about new years parties is how cheap and easy they are to decorate. We've done the colorful theme and the silver/gold theme before and had some leftover decorations from both so we just mixed it all together for this one. 50 balloons tied to the backs of chairs and a few dollar store table clothes made the room look festive for all. The throw in the blowers, cheap (6 for a dollar) bead necklaces and popper packs in the middle of the tables and you've got yourself a party. When we had it at our house, we put the balloons in a giant plastic holder (from any party supply) and dropped them from the upstairs bridge at midnight for a festive touch.

The hotel had a pool so that was a big event for the night - especially since it was snowing outside. Linda brought a karaoke machine which ended up being one of the other big hits with the little ones. I think we've all heard enough High School Musical for a while. Connor also brought a guitar and quietly strummed away in the background. It was especially fun when one of the dads started giving him some tips - wow was he talented. Next year we may get dueling guitars! At midnight we watched the ball drop and made big noise and messes with poppers and cheap new years noisemakers.

We joined efforts and had the room cleaned up in a flash (which set a great example for the kids because believe me, those poppers left a mess). I'm not sure what we'll do next year but I would recommend this option to anyone who wants to have a family party without concern for the size of your house.