Crock Pot Chicken and Rice

This is my first recipe from Pinterest!  It sounded very easy and good so I tried it as my first recipe.  It turned out very good and was so easy that I'm sure we'll make it all the time!

Crock Pot Chicken and Rice

2-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

8 oz cream cheese (let it sit out to soften)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 packet Italian Dressing Seasoning

Rice

1. Stir the cream cheese, cream of chicken, and seasoning together in the crockpot.

2. Add chicken and spoon mixture so that it covers the chicken.

3. Cook on low for 4-6 hours (I cooked for 4.5 because that was when I was happening to put it in.  Make sure and check it about an hour before dinner to make sure that the chicken is done but that's plenty of time for thawed chicken to cook in the crock pot.)

4. Make rice before dinner.

5. Serve chicken mixture over rice.

Sweet and Sour Pork

I'm always on the look our for slow cooker recipes so when I see them in a magazine I tear them out.  Therefore, I currently have a drawer full of recipes and no time or energy to try them! But I've been trying to try more recipes out and came across this recipe for Sweet and Sour Pork so I gave it a try.  It is a pretty easy meal to throw together and came out really well.  Even Charlotte liked it!  When she tried some she looked at us surprised and said, "This is tasty!" Hope it's a hit at your house too!

Sweet and Sour Pork

Makes 6 servings

2 T vegetable oil

2 lbs pork shoulder for stew, cut into 2 x 1 inch pieces

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 large onion, peeled and sliced

1 large green pepper, cored and seeds removed, sliced

1 can (4 oz) mushroom pieces, drained

1 can (14.5 oz) tomato sauce

3 T packed brown sugar

2 T rice vinegar

2 T soy sauce

1/2 lb egg noodles, cooked

- Coat slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.

- Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Season pork with salt and pepper and add to skillet.  Saute 3 minutes per side.

- Add pork to slow cooker and layer in onion, green pepper, and mushrooms.  In a small bowl, combine tomato sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce.  Pour over pork and vegetables.

- Cover and cook on High for 6 hours or Low for 8 hours.  Serve over cooked egg noodles.

Shortcut Corn

I don't know about you but I'm pretty bad at making sides to go with meals.  I would much rather just make one casserole or something that we eat basically as our whole meal and add a salad or fruit and veggies with it.  But, I will make this corn to go with dinner because it's so easy and I almost always have corn in my pantry.  There's a good chance that you've been cooking your canned corn like this forever but I hadn't and so when I tried it out it was a miraculous discovery.  And one of the best parts is that Charlotte will eat corn when it's cooked like this so I can eat least get one veggie in her! But be forewarned, I'm guessing that this recipe is really not great for you what with the salt and margarine, but it sure is good!

Shortcut Corn

Serves 4

1 small can Shoepeg Corn

1 small can Yellow Corn

Salt

Pepper

2-3 tablespoons margarine

- Pour both cans of corn into a baking dish.

- Stir corn together until it's evenly mixed.

- Generously salt and pepper the corn and remix.  

- Cut margarine into 4 or 5 pats of butter and spread them throughout the corn (i.e. spoon out corn, put the margarine in, and put corn back on top of butter.

- Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until bubbly.