Slow Cooker Cheesecake

Bad things were discovered last night....bad, bad things.

These things being:
How EASY and stress free it is to make cheesecake in the crock pot/slow cooker
How DELICIOUS the cheesecake is

I was busy pinning some new recipes last week and I stumbled across THIS post at A Year Of Slow Cooking. I had to try it.

I bought all of the ingredients, found ramekins to fit the 2 crock pots...and BAM...last night, we ate warm cheesecake because I couldn't wait for it to cool. We are in trouble...pounds will be gained.

Here are a few pictures to show you how I had to use several small ramekins for our cheesecakes. And I had to do it in batches...I still had 2 ramekins that wouldn't fit it so they are currently coming to room temp before I put them in for their bake. Stephanie used one big casserole dish, but I am assuming she also used a 7 quart slow cooker, I don't have one that large.

If you use the small ones, it took mine about 1 1/2 hours to almost set and I just turned off the cooker at that point and let them sit in the warm water to finish up.

So go over to A Year of Slow Cooking for the RECIPE!

And I do suggest making it in individual ramekins...in hopes it will help you NOT to eat the whole casserole dish...I wanted to eat another pot for breakfast.

Easy-Peasey Meal #2 - Chili Mac (Vegetarian)

Ah...Macaroni and Cheese, the ultimate comfort food...

Even if it's the box kind, it's still a comfort food, right?

A couple of years ago, a friend introduced me to this 'recipe' I am going to post below. Very simple. Boxed Mac N Cheese with a can of chili beans in sauce. YUM. Filling. Cheap! I make this for Kevin's lunch, he can get 2 big lunches out of it. You can also add some diced up tomatoes if you want, make it a 'complete' meal...

Easy-Peasey Meal #2 - Chili Mac

1 box/bag Macaroni and Cheese kit of choice ( I think the 4 cheese Homestyle is the best)
A good shake of garlic salt or powder
1 can of chili beans in sauce

Cook Macaroni and cheese according to directions on package. If using the Homestyle kind, do the good shake of garlic during the butter melting step. If using something else, be creative, you decide. :)

Mix in beans, heat until beans are warm!


Dig in!

Old Fashioned Chicken Stew With Dumplings

Finally warming up...a bit. It's got me in an un-motivated funk. Come on warm weather!

Coop and I did spend some time outside yesterday, checked on our little tomato plant that I was sure was dead. It's been pretty neglected for 2 weeks now. BUT...we were surprised, 3 little tomatoes are growing!!

I am always behind on the starting seedlings timeline...I was supposed to start veggies last month, but I started sunflowers and morning glorys...

SO we will see how they do when I plant seeds this weekend. Florida is a funny climate, you never know. 

Anyway...on to today's recipe. Last night we had a yummy crock pot/slow cooker...whatever you call it in your house...meal. It was adapted from a Taste of Home magazine submission. 

Old Fashioned Chicken Stew with Dumplings (Who doesn't like a dumpling?)

1 pound to 1 1/2 pound cut up raw chicken (I used tenderloins)

1 medium sweet onion, chopped

1 large potato, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch hunks

2 large carrots, sliced

2 celery ribs, sliced

1 teaspoon salt (I actually ended up using more because I used low sodium chicken broth)

1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning

Pinch of ground thyme

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

32 ounces chicken broth

1/3 cup cold water

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup frozen corn kernels 

1/2 cup frozen peas

1 cup bisquick

1/3 cup milk

Put chicken, onion, potato, carrots, celery, salt, poultry seasoning, thyme, pepper and chicken broth in crock pot. Cook on low 5 to 7 hours, until veggies are tender and chicken is no longer raw. Add peas and corn to crock pot. Mix cold water and corn starch and add to crock pot. Stir. Let it simmer 20 to 30 minutes to thicken slightly. Mix bisquick and milk to form a soft dough. Drop by tablespoon full into broth. Simmer 30 minutes more, until toothpick (or steak knife in my case) inserted into dumpling comes out clean. 

Dig in!

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Mix Bread For The Bread Machine

It's STILL COLD...I know, not as cold as you Northern States are experiencing...but I can't get warm!

Tonight, I tried a couple new recipes, one was a flop (Fiesta Turkey Soup) and the other was a success!

I was given a bread machine a couple years ago by my dear friend, Michele. After a few flops ( I think I was using old yeast), I gave up for a while but broke it back out last fall and had success! I've made English Muffin bread, cinnamon bread, and a few different white sandwich breads.

I came across this recipe a few weeks ago in a copy of Bread Machines for Dummies. I am not a dummie...but I love this series of books...

You can use any muffin mix in this recipe, I plan trying blueberry next. This bed was sooo good. Would be excellent for a quick breakfast, it pretty much became our dinner after the flop soup. The bread is a perfect cross of white bread and a muffin. Holds together like a bread, but has the texture of a muffin.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Mix Bread

(For a 1 1/2 pound loaf)

1 cup + 2 tablespoons water

1 package (6 to 8 ounces) muffin mix

1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten

2 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon bread machine yeast/fast acting yeast

Place all ingredients in order listed into bread machine. 

Select fast cycle (my machine doesn't have fast cycle, so I selected the quick bread cycle and just checked it 30 minutes before the time was up...it was done. Just keep an eye on your bread!)

Let it cool on a cooking rack to prevent condensation from making bread soggy!

DIG IN!

Super Awesome Knock-Your-Socks-Off Zucchini Casserole

Happy Saturday Night!

It's cold in Florida...currently 46 degrees. But for some reason , I still want some chocolate ice cream. Last Saturday night it was warm and we were sitting at picnic tables enjoying waffle cones. Craziness.

Anyway...this recipe has been hanging out in the archives of my computer/note card stash since Thanksgiving. I should have shared it much sooner, it's MAGIC I tell ya, but lack of a good picture of it has kept me from doing so. So please, just trust me when I tell you it's amazing.

Here's a picture of it sitting on a plate....

And here's a picture of it sitting on my parent's stove with other side dish goodies...it's on the left back corner of the stove...

It's a zucchini casserole, but not the standard mixed with cream-of-something soup and bread crumb kind...this one takes A LOT of prep and it's so worth it. Take it your next family function or pot luck and people will be BEGGING you for the recipe.

Remember to allow time for prep...like at least an hour, especially if you doubled it like I did. I am lucky enough to have a food processor with a grater plate, so that saved a ton of time for me. You grate almost every ingredient in the casserole.

Anyway...the first thing you need to do is coarsely grate 1 1/2 pounds zucchini. Place in a colander and mix with some salt. I placed a plate on top of the colander, topped with some cans to squeeze out the moisture. Every once in a while I would press down on the top of them to help remove more.

Squeeze it between your hands too to help get our more moisture. Don't stress if you see a lot of water when you start mixing everything together. I did too, tried to scoop some out, but ended up just leaving it and hoping for the best. It came out great. 

While this is happening, saute your onions and mushrooms. (Notice my candle, I was trying the burn a candle to help keep onions from making your cry trick)

NOW...it's time to grate the potatoes, mix em with the eggs and seasoning. I don't have a picture of that...what I do have a picture of is some cheese...Gruyere cheese to be exact. You'll have to grate this stuff too. 

Now you'll mix together everything, minus some of the cheese to put on the top. Spread it out in a casserole dish, sprinkle with cheese and bake! Remember, mine was doubled, so yours won't need a pan this large. 

I also didn't get a picture of it out of the oven because we were LATE for lunch at that point...

So again, it's SO GOOD...make it, love it, brag about it...

Super Awesome Knock-Your-Socks-Off Zucchini Casserole

1 1/2 pounds zucchini

2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 medium onions

2 ounces baby bell mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

12 ounces baking potatoes

3 large eggs, well beaten

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Pinch of ground red pepper

1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 10x8 baking dish. 

Coarsely grate zucchini, remove to colander, stir with salt and drain for 30 minutes. Press between hands or use plate to crate a press in the colander, draining as much liquid as possible. 

Meanwhile, thinly slice onions an saute in 2 tablespoons of olive oil along with mushrooms and 1/2 teaspoon of salt until onions are soft, but not browned, about 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, peel and grate potatoes. Put potatoes in bowl and immediately stir in eggs, black and red pepper. Stir in drained zucchini, onion mixture half of the cheese and scrap into casserole dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and drizzle with olive oil. 

Cover with foil and bake until set, about 1 hour. Remove foil to brown the top. Let stand for at least 20 minutes before serving. 

Dig in, because there won't be leftovers....

Sort of Enchiladas Suizas

We still have no functioning oven, but I do have a hot plate so I can boil pasta now. Woot! We are trying to decide on saving up a bit longer or just getting one of those 100 buck mini convection oven things. We could get by for a while with it and it would cost less to use it on the energy bill!

This was one of the last things I made before the oven died. Enchiladas Suizas traditionally have olives in them, I left those out and altered a few other things. This is a great recipe and is even better served as left overs.

Sort of Enchiladas Suizas

3 cups shredded cooked chicken, white or dark meat

1 can of Rotel, drained

3/4 Salsas Verde (I used Pace Garlic and Lime)

1 can (4 oz) chopped green chilies, drained

1 teaspoon cumin

2 1/2 cups heavy cream

3/4 teaspoon salt

8 large flour tortillas

2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese 

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, combine Rotel, salsa verde, green chilies, and cumin. Stir in chicken.

In a pie pan or other shallow dish large enough to dip tortillas in, combine cream and salt. 

Dip both sides of tortillas in cream, top with about 1/2 a cup of chicken mixture. Roll up and place seam side down in a greased 13x9 inch baking dish. Pour remaining cream over top and sprinkle with cheese. 

Cover with foil and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until heated through. 

Dig in! It's SOOOO GOOD!

Blah

Long time no post, huh?

Our oven died in January so no wonderful new recipes have been created or tried. BUT that was not the end of it.

We decided to put off buying a new stove until income tax, just use crock pots, the George Forman and possibly get a toaster oven. Last Thursday, on Valentine's day...our refrigerator died. Argh. We couldn't live without a refrigerator. We got ice for the cooler to get us by until Saturday when we could go buy one and it was finally delivered last night, almost a week later. I love it. It's so shiny and pretty and new and un-smelly. Our old one was an ancient Magic Chef. We guessed it was around 30 years old.

We also got a leak in the laundry room and a completely stopped up sink over the weekend. I felt so gross in our house. My wonderful grandfather snaked the pipes for us on Monday and did something to keep the laundry room from leaking, thank the Lord. I mopped yesterday and it now feels like a new house! Woot!

I currently have the first meal in the crockpot I've cooked in over 2 weeks. Chicken Fajitas. I will share the recipe another time.

We also had a big scare with Cooper 2 weeks ago. He has asthma and when he gets sick it hits his little lungs and he is hospitalized 95% of the time. This time it was REALLY bad and he had to be air lifted to a bigger hospital in Tampa. It was the scariest night of our life buy luckily our little turned toward the better as quickly as he went to the worst. He spent a few days in ICU on oxygen but was home 4 days after he was admitted.

February has not been a good month to us. Come on March!