Easy Mushroom Pizza Pie

This past week I've started doing something I've heard about but never done. I've started to "celebrate" Meatless Mondays. Every Monday I'll be a vegetarian for one day. I'm hoping it will help me make better choices of what I eat, plus it makes me eat my fruits and veggies rather than starches and meat.

So yesterday I made a recipe which I have done before but haven't shared on here. It's called Easy Mushroom Pizza Pie. It's very easy to put together, although I may tweak a few things the next time I make it. Here we go!

Ingredients

• 1 (4 oz) can mushroom pieces and stems, drained
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup Original Bisquick mix
• 1/2 cup pizza sauce
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (4 to 6 oz)

Directions

• Heat oven to 425°F. Spray 10-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray. Sprinkle mushrooms, and 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese in pie plate.

•  In medium bowl, stir milk, eggs, and Biquick mix with fork or wire whisk until blended. Pour over vegetable mixture in pie plate.

• Bake 20 minutes. Spread pizza sauce over top. Top with remaining ingredients. Bake 15 to 20 minutes longer or until cheese is light brown. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.

My Take

What I love most about how this turns out is the egginess of it. Reminds me of a souffle, but a lot quicker and easier. The original recipe called for onions both on the bottom and top, but since I don't like onions, I just took them out. If you would like to add them back in, then for the bottom, add 2/3 cup chopped and for the top put 1/3 cup cup. You can also add 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper for the top as well.

I think next time I make this, I'm going to use fresh mushrooms and sauté them before putting them into the pie plate. I think that will give it more flavor than just using the canned mushrooms.

So, have you ever done a Meatless Monday, or anything like that? How did it work out for you. Was there any recipes you turned to?

Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

I recently had a couple of boneless skinless chicken breasts hanging out in my freezer that I wanted to use up. I know chicken is healthy for me, but I get burned out on it super fast, and I don't like eating just a chicken breast. So, I scoured the Internet, searching for something I could make with the few ingredients I had on hand (didn't do a good job this week on thinking ahead grocery-wise).

What I came up with was a slow cooker chicken and dumplings. I found a few recipes, and then I noticed some of them added veggies, so to me, it seemed more like a slow cooker chicken pot pie. I thought, "Hey, I have some canned veggies that have been lounging around my pantry for a long time. This'll be a good time to use them! There's also some baby carrots which need to be used up too!" So I did some more digging. I found a recipe that seemed good to me, but I decided to change it to suit what I had on hand. So the following is what I put in mine. In the "My Take" section, I'll let you know what I liked, didn't like, and what I would change next time I make it.

A few of the ingredients you'll need

Ingredients 

• 2 large skinless boneless chicken breasts
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 (10.5 oz) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
• Garlic salt
• Celery salt
• Ground black pepper
• Mrs. Dash's no-salt original recipe
• Onion poweder
• 1/2 can sweet peas
• 1/2 can green beans
• 1 1/3 cup Bisquick mix
• 6 tablespoons milk

Directions

Throw everything except for the Bisquick mix and milk into the crock pot, just sprinkling the garlic salt, celery salt, ground black pepper, Mrs. Dash's, and onion powder onto the chicken breasts to season them. Cook on Low for 5 hours. After 5 hours, shred the chicken in the crock pot. Cook for 1 more hour on Low. Mix the Bisquick and milk together to make dumplings. Drop the dumplings, spoonful by spoonful, into the crock pot. Cook on High for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Dish is done when the dumplings are cooked all the way through.

After the chicken has been shredded

My Take

I was pretty unsure as to how this was going to turn out, but my fears were proved wrong. This was amazing! I was worried that it would be too salty or the dumplings wouldn't cook right, but nope! I was pretty amazed that the dumplings cooked so well in the slow cooker.

I initially made the dumpling recipe as listed on the Bisquick box, but it didn't look like enough, so I doubled it. I'm glad I did.

People have also used canned biscuits, but since I didn't have any on hand, I just did the dumplings. It's also said that you should cut the chicken into chunks before you put it in the crock pot, but I've found that if you leave the breasts whole, they hold their juices better and stay more moist.

If you love home made chicken pot pie, I highly encourage you to make this. Feel free to substitute your own veggies and add some more. I think next time I make it I may add a bit of water, as I wanted it a bit more soupy. The biscuits/dumplings tend to suck up the moisture once added.

In conclusion, this will be added to my crock pot recipes and I will definitely make this during the winter months. Especially when the temperatures are as cold as they are today: 1 with a windchill of  -2!

Spicy Chicken Taco Soup

I love chicken tortilla soup and recently I've been craving a bowl. So I jumped online to check out a few recipes. I knew I wanted to cook it in the slow cooker, as Lucy screaming through the baby gate makes it difficult to spend a lot of time cooking in the kitchen. Because I was looking for a specific flavor, I took different ideas from several different recipes. I had bought a smoked chicken from which I made a stock from and used the meat in this recipe. The meat added a very delicious flavor to the whole soup.

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
• 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes with green chilies
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans
• 1 (16 oz) can chili beans
• 1 can kernel corn (I used about a cup of frozen)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 tablespoons homemade taco seasoning
• Cilantro to taste
• Sour cream, yellow corn tortilla chips, shredded cheese, avocado, etc. for garnishing

Directions

Dump everything expect for the cilantro into the slow cooker and mix well. Cook on Low for 5 hours. Shred the chicken and add the cilantro. Cook for another 30 minutes. Serve topped with whatever garnishes you wish.

My Take

I called this "spicy" because to me, all I could taste was heat unless I dumped quite a bit of sour cream into it. I'm not quite sure where it came from, so I'm going to make some tweaks to it and make it more tame for me. I'm also not sure if the cilantro being cooked into the soup really added anything, so next time I may just save it for a garnish.

Because I used pre-cooked chicken, the cooking time may have to be extended if you're using raw chicken breasts.

Have you been craving any soups this winter? Have you done any experimenting with recipes you've found? Do you have a favorite taco/tortilla soup you make every time? Let me know in the comments. I love hearing from you guys. :)

Passing of a Modem

So sorry for no recipes. This past weekend our modem died, so no Internet at the moment. Also, my daughter and husband both succumbed to a nasty 24 hour bug.

But fear not! I have been experimenting with recipes and actually have 3 that I'm currently working on. 2 of them just need to be written down, while the other one is currently cooking away in my slow cooker. All of them are slow cooker recipes, which I'm currently loving.

Be looking forward to those, and I'll get them up as quickly as I can (once we get internet back)

Taco Seasoning

I know I said I would have a post up on Friday, but I'm finding it hard to come up with writing something on Fridays, so I may just have to say "I'll post something once a week". We'll see.

Anywho, onto the recipe. I can't remember if it was when I got my first apartment (about 5 years ago) or if it was when Dylan and I got our first apartment (just over 2 years ago), but we got one of those huge jugs of taco seasoning. You know, the kind you can get from Sam's Club and the like. At the end of last year, we finally used it all up. (We make a lot of tacos and stuff with taco seasoning in it...)

I've been doing some research and trying to eat healthier, so instead of buying pre-made seasoning to replace ours, I decided to make my own. That way I could control the sodium content (which is great considering my family's heart history) and I would know exactly what went into it. And, once I scoured online for taco seasoning recipes, I realized that I always have these ingredients on hand! Fantastic!

The taco recipe I'm sharing with you guys today is adapted from Forkful of Comfort's recipe. I didn't have any ground coriander on hand, and I didn't think I needed corn starch, as I usually don't make saucy taco meat.

 Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix well. Makes enough seasoning for 1 pound of ground beef.

My Take

I think this tastes way better than the kind we originally had. On the plus side, I can control how spicy it is and the saltiness as well. And, as I said before, I pretty much always have these ingredients on hand, so if we do run out of taco seasoning, it's not too hard to whip up a batch. One thing I did notice, though, was that even though it says it makes enough for a pound of beef (or turkey), I didn't actually have to use that much. So for me, it goes a lot further than what it says. Yay!

All ready to use

Oops....

Well, I forgot to put a post last Friday.

Ok, I didn't forget, I just couldn't think of anything to write. I do have one in my drafts folder, but I'm having a hard time writing it. I'm thinking I just need to write another recipe and let that one lie for a bit.

So, sorry. No recipe for last week. But I'm hoping to have one this week. Not sure what, exactly, but we'll see. I'm thinking of trying a chicken tortilla soup in the slow cooker, so we'll see how that goes. That could be the winner this week.

So again, sorry. But come back Friday for a new recipe. :)

Chile Colorado Burritos

Find the original here

 I found this recipe via Pintrest, and it just looked too good to pass up.I knew this was going to be one of those Pins that I just *had* to try. And so, the other night, I did. It didn't turn out quite like I thought it would, but I have some ideas to make it better next time.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds stew meat or other beef cubed
• 1 large can mild (red) enchilada sauce (at least 19 oz.)
• 2 beef bouillon cubes
• 1/2 can refried beans (optional)
• 5-7 burrito size flour tortillas
• 1 cup or so of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions 

Place the beef, enchilada sauce, and bouillon cubes in a large heavy sauce pan. Bring it to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer. Let it simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the meat is very tender (flakes off when you stir it). 

Heat up the refried beans and spread them out over the tortilla. Then, using a slotted spoon, dip out some beef and place it into the tortilla. Wrap it up like a burrito. Place it onto a cookie sheet or an oven-safe plate. Cover the burrito with the enchilada sauce and some cheese. Put it in your broiler, and broil until the cheese is nice and bubbly, about 2-4 minutes.

I also added some extra toppings

My Take
  
There were several ways on the original blog of how to cook this, but I chose the stove top way as I don't have a Dutch oven, and I thought of making it too late to cook it in the slow cooker. Next time, though, I'll be trying it in the slow cooker with a different kind of meat.

I'll admit, I forgot to set a timer while letting it simmer, but I'm nearly positive that I let it cook long enough. Even so, the meat (I used 2 pounds of stew meat) never really got that super tender. I'm not sure if it was because of the cooking time or because of the meat. The meat itself was tender, but it never got to the "flaking" stage. Next time, I may attempt to do something like my pulled pork and cook it for awhile in the crock pot, shred it, then cook it for a bit longer in the sauce. 

The original blog also said something about tasting it after it was done cooking and adding salt if needed. Mine did not need any salt, and it even tasted a bit too salty. I used the low-sodium beef bouillon cubes, so I don't completely understand where the salty taste came from. Probably because I used canned enchilada sauce instead of making my own. I'll probably do that next time. I also added a bit of homemade taco seasoning because in the comments, people were saying they couldn't taste the enchilada sauce, so I was hoping this would help. 

Also, if you don't feel like turning the oven on, you can also just melt the cheese in the microwave. However, the tortilla will be a little mushy, as it can get a little bit crispy when broiled. But the taste is all the same.

Ooey gooey goodness

Overall, this was a very good dish, and something I'll definitely make in the future.