Crock-Pot Chicken Cacciatore

I put this in the crock-pot this morning for dinner tonight. I will serve it over whole wheat pasta. I think I will also serve a cucumber salad and if I have time, I will make garlic-cheese bread. It's a big batch. I'll either freeze the leftovers or maybe I'll call daughter and her husband to come over for supper. =)

Changes I made:
Used boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Left out the crushed red pepper flakes/husband doesn't like too spicy
Added 1 T. brown sugar
Only used a splash of olive oil
Left out celery powder
Used Italian Seasoning in place of oregano & basil

Crock-Pot Chicken Cacciatore
Recipe from www.recipezaar.com (#41685)

Ingredients
3 lbs chicken, cut up in pieces
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
6 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 green pepper, finely chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon celery powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional
Directions
1 Place onions in bottom of crock pot.
2 Add chicken pieces.
3 Stir all the other ingredients together.
4 Pour over chicken.
5 Cook on low heat 7 to 9 hours or high heat for about 3 to 4 hours.
6 Serve over pasta or rice

OAMC, Freezer Cooking, Bulk Cooking----What Recipes to use?

Where do you find recipes when planning a freezer cooking session? Tried-and-true family favorites are great to make ahead and freeze. I, however love to look for new recipes. It's funny, I've been cooking since I was around 15 years old and now I tend to search for new recipes for ideas and then completely "tweak" them to our preferences.

There is a plethora of recipes on the web as well as the postings of people who kindly share their recipes, meal plans, and OAMC & Freezer Cooking plans on their blogs and websites. Many thanks to those who share their recipes and techniques! =) I also hope you find helpful hints here on my blog too!

A few of my favorite blogs & websites:
http://www.recipezaar.com/
http://allrecipes.com/
http://thepioneerwoman.com/
http://hoosierhomemade.com/
http://onceamonthmom.com/
http://lotsofinfo.tripod.com/index.html - Large Quantity Recipes, Growlies for Groups

I'll add more to my list of favorites soon! If YOU kindly share Recipes, OAMC & Freezer Cooking tips/plans or related content on your blog or website, please comment here with your link so I can visit you and others can too.

Freezer Cooking in Individual Portions

Our household consists of my husband, 21 year old daughter, and myself. I'm sure you can imagine that our schedules differ. With that in mind, I like to keep some individually portioned meals in the freezer for the days we are like ships passing in the night. Between work, meetings, etc, this does happen often. Those frozen individual portions are also nice for me to take to work for my lunch---saves money too by not going out for lunch.

Soup is great to freeze in individual portions. Super Easy: Fill the crock-pot with your favorite soup recipe. Let it cook away and then freeze in portions or as meals. (Keep in mind that milk based soups do not freeze as well.)

Recipe: Kelley's Easy Crock-Pot Vegetable Beef Soup

Night before: Place 1 pound beef roast, beef cubes, or beef of choice in crock-pot, season with salt and pepper, and add 1 cup water or beef broth. Cook on low overnight.
In the morning before work or activities for the day: Break beef apart into bite sized peices right in the crock-pot with a fork. Add vegetables of choice. (I use a 2 lb. family sized bag of mixed vegetables along with 1/2 cup chopped onions.) Add 1 can of diced tomatoes or equal amount of chopped fresh tomatoes. Pour in a 1 quart can of tomato juice and season with 1T. each dried basil & dried parsley flakes. Stir in 1 cup water and 1 cup of red wine such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon (the wine adds a very nice flavor, but if you do not want to use wine, substitute beef broth or vegetable broth) Add 2 beef or vegetable boullion cubes and 2 T. brown sugar. Cook 8 hours on low. Divide the soup into individual portion freezer containers, label & freeze.

Chopped potatoes or beans are also good additions to this recipe.

The key to this soup is cooking the beef first. The beef becomes very tender and brings a real depth of flavor to the soup.

I make my Mom a big batch of this soup every year for Christmas and give it to her in individually potioned freezer containers. For many months, I'll be talking to her on the phone and she'll say, "I just had some delicious vegetable soup for dinner." =) I guess I'll just have to keep this on her Christmas list!

Recipe - Low-Fat Banana Muffins

I substituted an equal amount of unsweeted applesauce for the butter in my Banana Muffin recipe. It resulted in well-raised, tender muffins with great banana flavor. We liked them better than the regular recipe with butter.

Low-Fat Banana Muffins

4 large bananas
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mash bananas, add sugar and the eggs. Stir in applesauce.
Stir in dry ingredients. Spoon batter into muffin pan that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F degrees.

Meal Planning

I love to cook & I admit that I am a Food Network Junkie! In addition to that, I collect cookbooks and am always on the look-out for new recipes! So, you might be wondering..so?...what's wrong with that? Well, I am a good cook (or so I am told), but I am lacking in the "Meal Planning" department and when I don't plan well, I end up spending and wasting more. Anyone in this situation too? With the new year, I am going to try to combine my interest in trying new recipes & love of cooking with some real meal planning. I am going to select recipes each week to build my meal plan and shopping list around. Now, I don't plan on cooking 7 dinners a week since it's just my hubby and I at home most evenings now. We usually have leftovers from whatever I make and thank goodness he likes them. I'm going to start by planning 3-4 meals a week, allowing for a couple of evenings out and making planned use of leftovers and/or freezing meals. Flexibility is the key here. On the weekends, we may have our family or friends in or we may take food to a friend's house for an evening of euchre. After I prepare a new recipe, I'll try to post our "review" of it!