James' First Birthday Dinner Menu

I often have a hard time coming up with complete menu's.  So I thought I'd share our menu for James' birthday dinner.  We had around 20 family members and ended up with just enough food.  Next time I'll make more because I would much rather have too much than not enough!

James' First Birthday Dinner

Two recipes of Crock Pot Barbecue

(with buns -- both slider size and regular size)
(I accidentally got beef instead of pork but Jason claimed that it tasted fine.  I would make sure that you get close to 5 lb roasts if possible, because mine were closer to 4 and we didn't have quite enough.)

Large bowl of cut fruit

One recipe of Broccoli Salad

One recipe of Mrs. Kelly's Baked Beans

One recipe of Corn Casserole

(So, so, so good! Should have had at least two recipes of this!)

One recipe of Slim Potato Casserole

(this was a little bland but at the same time too peppery -- it could have used a lot more cheese!)

One recipe of Arkansas Green Beans

(Jason said that these were the best green beans that he's ever had.  I would have to agree.  They were out of this world!)

Strawberry Birthday Cake

James' Christening Menu

On Sunday we had James' Christening and afterwards our family came over to our home to enjoy lunch.  Mom and I put together and meal and I was very happy with the way it turned out and the ease that it took to prepare everything.  We fed almost 25 people with this so I wanted to share what we had made in case you are in need of an easy menu for a lot of people!

Slow Cooker BBQ (2 recipes, cooked on Low for 13 hours) with Buns

Slow Cooker Baked Beans (recipe below)

Strawberry Spinach Salad (substituted Strawberry's for Apple's)

Cut Fruit

The Pioneer Woman's Fancy Macaroni

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

Cake

Slow Cooker Baked Beans

Baked Beans

Ketchup

Yellow Mustard

Chopped Onions

Bacon

Brown Sugar

Worcestershire Sauce

1. Mix all together in a slow cooker and cook on High for 6 hours or Low for 8.

Crock Pot Breakfast Casserole

This month is turning into the month of breakfast recipes!  This is another one from our Christmas morning brunch.  It was good to feed a crowd.  I felt like it could have used a little more salt and pepper but it was still great the way it was.

Crock Pot Breakfast Casserole

8-10 servings

6-8 Strips of Bacon

1 Onion, peeled and chopped

1 clove Garlic, peeled and minced

1 Red or Green Pepper, seeded and chopped

1 2 lb bag frozen Hash Browns

1 1/2 cups Shredded Cheese

12 Eggs

1 cup Whole Milk

1 teaspoon Dried Dill

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1/2 teaspoon Pepper

1. Spray crock pot with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Cook bacon until crisp, cool, then chop into 1/2 inch pieces.  Set aside.

3. Saute onion, garlic, and bell pepper for 5 minutes.

4. Place 1/3 of frozen hash browns in the bottom of the crock pot.

5. Add 1/3 bacon, 1/3 of the onion mixture, and 1/3 of the cheese.

6. Repeat layers, ending with cheese.

7. In a large bowl mix eggs, milk, dill, salt, and pepper. 

8. Pour over ingredients.

9. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. 

From A Latte' with Ott, A via Pinterest

Chicken Taco Chili

This great soup is not too spicy (the way I make it) and makes a ton so you can either eat half and freeze half or can eat leftovers.  It would be a great soup to mix together and then freeze as well.  I got the original recipe off of a pin from Pinterest which came from a Photo A Day blog.

Chicken Taco Chili

1 teaspoon Onion Powder

16 oz Black Beans, drained and rinsed

16 oz Red Kidney Beans, drained and rinsed

16 oz Tomato Sauce

1 pkg Frozen Corn Kernals

28 oz Diced Tomatoes (or you can use 2 cans of Rotel to up the spice factor)

1 packet Taco Seasoning

1 Tablespoon Cumin

1 Tablespoon Chili Powder

3 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

1. Mix everything except the chicken up in a slow cooker.

2. Place the chicken breasts on top of the mixture.

3. Cook on Low for 10 hours or High for 6 hours.

4. 30 minutes before you are ready to eat, open the slow cooker and shred the chicken with two forks.  Stir the chicken into the soup and continue cooking.

5. Serve with taco chips, sour cream, etc.

Bacon Ranch Chicken

This recipe came from a pin on Pinterest which linked to the Healthified Kitchen blog.

Bacon Ranch Chicken

2 Turkey Bacon Strips, cooked and chopped

1 teaspoon Minced Garlic

1 package Ranch Dressing/Seasoning Mix

1 10.75 can Fat Free Cream of Chicken Soup

1 cup Fat Free Sour Cream

16 oz Chicken Breasts (1 package)

8 oz Pasta

1. Combine the bacon, garlic, dressing mix, soup, and sour cream.

2. Place chicken in bottom of crock pot and cover with mixture.

3. Cook on high for 3.5 hours.

4. At least 30 minutes before you want to eat open the crock pot and shred the chicken.

5. Cook the pasta per instructions.

6. When you're ready to eat, stir the pasta into the chicken mixture in the crock pot and serve.

Sweet and Sour Chicken Sandwich

This sandwich recipe was so good and made juicy sandwiches.  It would be a perfect game day lunch food or a dinner.  I saw this on a pin from Pinterest and the recipe is from Baked Bree.

Sweet and Sour Chicken Sandwiches

3 Chicken Breasts

2 T Olilve Oil

1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1 14 oz Can Petit Diced tomatoes, undrained

1/4 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

1 Tablesoon Soy Sauce

1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard

1 teaspoon Pepper

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons pepper

1. Preheat a large skilled over M/H heat, add olive oil.  Season chicken breasts with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.  Add to the skillet and brown the chicken on both sides for two minutes.

2. Add the browned chicken into the slow cooker.

3. Whisk together apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, tomatoes, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and Dijon mustard.  Season with 1 teaspoon each salt and pepper.

4. Pour sauce over chicken.

5. Cover and cook on Low for 6 hours.

6. Shred chicken with fork and serve.

Ranch House Pork Chops

This is yet another crock pot recipe from Pinterest.  If you can't tell, most of my cooking these days involves the crock pot and most of my recipes are coming from Pinterest!  I just made the pork chop part of this recipe and served it with boiled potatoes and butter which is one of our favorites but I'm sure it would be just as good, if not better, with the parmesan potatoes that the original author mentions.  Another good, easy recipe that's great for cool nights.

Ranch House Pork Chops

6 Pork Chops, 1/2 inch thick

1 packet Ranch Dressing/Seasoning Mix

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

1. Place pork chops in the bottom of a slow cooker.

2. Mix soup and dressing mix.  Pour over pork chops.

3. Cook on High for 4 hours or Low for 6 hours.  

Chicken and Dumplings

It took me six weeks but I finally go back enough energy to start cooking again.  So the week James turned six weeks old I went from literally not having cooked since he was born to three crock pot recipes in one week!  I think the crock pot was a good thing to ease in to cooking again because the three recipes that I picked from Pinterest were extremely easy but also tasted good.

I can see this recipe becoming my go to recipe when anyone in our family isn't feeling good.  Soup is nice, but chicken and dumplings are better and this recipe is so easy but very yummy.  I ran out of time and wasn't able to chop up onions and so just added onion powder and I found that I didn't have parsley on hand like I thought I did, but even without those two recipe ingredients the finished product was great. I'm sure with them it would be even better.  It's a perfect "when you're sick" food and when we're not I might add some veggies to make it almost more like a chicken pot pie with dumplings.  Very easy, very good, and even Charlotte couldn't get enough of it so that means it must be good!

Chicken and Dumplings

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons Butter

2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup

1 can Chicken Broth

1 Onion, diced

1 tablespoon Dried Parsley

4 Grands Flaky Biscuits

1. Place chicken in crock pot.

2. Add butter, soup, chicken broth, onion, and parsley on top of chicken.

3. Cook on HIGH 4 hours or LOW 6 hours.

4. At the end of the cooking time use a fork to break apart the chicken.

5. Cut the biscuits into nine pieces per biscuit and add them to the crock pot.

6. Cook for another 30 minutes.

Crock Pot Barbecue Chicken

When I was making my dinner plan last week I went through Pinterest to see what recipes I had on my recipe board.  This BBQ Chicken recipe looked easy and worked well since the only chicken breasts I had were frozen.  It ended up being super easy and was very good!

Crock Pot Barbecue Chicken

4-6 pieces of boneless skinless chicken breasts, frozen

1 bottle Barbecue sauce

1/4 cup Vinegar

1 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 - 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

1. Mix Barbecue sauce with all ingredients listed below it.  

2. Place chicken in crockpot.

3. Pour sauce over it and cook on Low for 4-6 hours.

*I would do less times if the chicken isn't frozen.

Slow Cooker Enchilada's

I'm pretty sure that I've never been more thankful for my slow cooker than I have these last few weeks of pregnancy.  It's next to impossible to handle preparing dinner with my pregnant self with Charlotte's "help" these days which leaves us options of eating out, having Jason make dinner, or me making it while Charlotte's asleep.  I am so thankful that I've found some really easy slow cooker meals that I've been able to put together during nap time and have been really good for dinner!  Jason is great at helping me out, but I hate to ask him to make complicated dinners as soon as he gets home from work so this has been our life saver.

This is, yet another, recipe that I found on Pinterest.  You should definitely check out my Recipe board on there if you need some new ideas.  Please note on this recipe that I didn't use any meat.

Slow Cooker Enchilada's

1/2 yellow onion, diced small
1/2 bell pepper, diced small (any color)
1 16-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cheese, shredded and divided - we like monterey jack
2 16-ounce jars of your favorite salsa
12 6”-8” tortillas, flour or corn
Optional: 1 cup leftover meat - chicken, pork, hamburger, or shredded beef

In a medium bowl, mix together the onion, pepper, black beans, corn, spices, meat (if using), and just 1/2 cup of the cheese. Pour about a cup of salsa (half a jar) into the bottom of the slow cooker and spread it around evenly.

Scoop about 1/3 cup into one of the tortillas, roll it up, and nestle it into the bottom of the crock pot. Repeat with the half of the remaining filling, rolling tortillas until the entire bottom of of the crock pot is filled. Spread another cup of salsa over this layer and sprinkle it with another 1/2 cup of cheese.

Continue with the remaining filling and tortillas to create a second layer. Top with another cup of salsa, but reserve the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese for later. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 2-4 hours. In the last 15 minutes of cooking, sprinkle the leftover cheese over the top and let it melt.

Serve the enchiladas with the remaining salsa. Leftovers will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator.

Creamy Crock Pot Chicken

This recipe from Pinterest is very similar to the Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken that I posted a while ago.  The main differences are the addition of corn and that you put the cream cheese in the crock pot from the beginning.  This gives the dish a little more creaminess since the cheese has been in the entire time and also a little healthier feel since there is corn in the dish.  Both are great and I'll probably go back and forth on which variation I cook depending on whether I have corn in the pantry or not!

Creamy Crock Pot Chicken

One package of chicken breasts (or more)

8 oz of Cream Cheese

1 can of Black Beans, drained and rinsed

1 can of Corn, drained and rinsed

1 can of Rotel

1. Put chicken in crock pot.

2. Put cream cheese over chicken -- cutting into blocks to spread over the entire area.

3. Put in the black beans, corn, and rotel.

4. Cover and cook -- 6 hours on low, or 3 hours on high.  Stir periodically if possible.

5. Serve over rice or on tortilla's.

Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken

One of the nicest things about Pinterest is that sometimes you not only find a good recipe but a good blog.  This is one such find.  Mama and Baby Love is a blog I stumbled upon and while I haven't spent a whole lot of time browsing it, it looks like a great blog and has some good recipes!  

This one is a freezer slow cooker one that I made recently and that we really enjoyed.  Here are some of my notes on it:

- I split it into two portions like she describes, but one portion was really just enough for the three of us.  If you have more than two adult eaters and one (very small portioned) child eater I would make the entire recipe for one meal.

- As I chopped I split into a gallon bag to go in the freezer and put the rest straight into the crock pot to cook.  Because of this I only cooked the crock pot portion on low for 5ish hours and it was plenty done.

- I might substitute regular potatoes (or half regular and half sweet) next time because I'm not a big sweet potato fan and this dish is really sweet potato heavy.

- I will also probably use regular chicken breasts next time.  It was different to use the drumsticks but I prefer less bones on my plate.  :)

Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken

3 medium unpeeled  sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 large green pepper, cut into strips
1 large red pepper, cut into strips
1 zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tablespoon quick cooking tapioca
2 pounds chicken thighs or drumsticks
1 8-ounce can of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt

Dump everything into two gallon freezer bags, shake it up, seal, label and put in the freezer.

To cook, take bag out of freezer to thaw for 30 minutes then dump in slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8.  Or, simply put in the slow cooker fresh and cook for less time.

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.

Low Maintenance Lasagna

It's been forever since I has a Recipe Wednesday post but I'll just have to say that life got in the way and I reverted back to tried-and-true recipes to save time rather than making something new. But with all this snow I tried a few recipes that I had pulled from magazines and this one turned out to be a hit!


I've only made real lasagna a couple times (one being the Pioneer Woman's which was wonderful but took a sweet forever) and so when I saw this crock-pot version I figured I'd try it because there's nothing that Jason likes better than lasagna. This recipe was really easy and quick and turned out great. I'll probably add beef next time but the beauty of it is that you could add anything -- spinach, meat, different cheeses -- and it would still be really easy and good! The recipe does call for carrots which I liked and I cut them up really small to try and sneak them past Charlotte. She ate everything for a little while but by the end of the meal she was putting bites into her mouth, eating everything but the carrot pieces, and then spitting the carrot pieces out. You can definitely feel the texture of the carrots -- they don't go completely limp in the crock pot -- so if that's something that weirds you out you might want to try it without it. You could also double the recipe to make it taller if you need to feed more people, that way a serving could be smaller but have the same amount of food.

Low Maintenance Lasagna
From Jan 2011 issue of Parents magazine
Nonstick cooking spray
1 26 oz jar pasta sauce
3/4 cup water
1 15 oz carton part skim Ricotta Cheese
1/2 c Shredded Carrot
6 regular lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups part-skim Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
1. Coat a slow cooker with cooking spray. In a large microwave-safe bowl, stir together the pasta sauce and water. Cover with wax paper and microwave on high for about 3 minutes. In the meantime, in a medium bowl, stir together ricotta cheese and carrots; set aside.
2. Spook 1/2 cup of the sauce mixture into the bottom of the slow cooker. Break half of the noodles and arrange over the sauce. Spoon half of the ricotta mixture over the noodles. Continue layering in the following order: 1/2 c mozzarella, half of the remaining sauce, remaining noodles (breaking them to fit), the remaining ricotta mixture, 1/2 c mozzarella, the rest of the sauce, and the rest of the mozzarella.
3. Cover; cook on low heat for about 3 hours, until the noodles are tender. Remove slow cooker from liner; let stand, covered, for about 20 minutes so lasagna is easier to slice.

Crock Pot Cream Cheese and Black Bean Chicken

I got this recipe off of Magnolias, Marriage, and Manhattan and I made it last week. It was SO GOOD and SO EASY! I am loving my crock pot so much these days because it makes cooking a healthy meal really simple. And the good news is that we found out Charlotte's a huge fan of salsa because she was downing the salsa and black beans and when she had sucked all the salsa off she was spitting out the black beans. As a sidenote, I'm afraid my child is never going to eat any table food veggies! :) Also, I would have had a picture but I realized when I checked the picture after dinner that my memory card was in the computer and not the camera when I was taking pictures with it. Sorry!


Cream Cheese and Black Bean Chicken
4-5 chicken breasts
2 cans of rinsed and drained black beans
4 oz cream cheese
2 cups salsa (I used mild)
Spice Options: taco seasoning, chili pepper, garlic powder, crushed red peppers
Throw salsa, chicken and beans into crock pot for 6-8 hours until chicken is falling apart. At the very end, add cream cheese until it melts (about 15 minutes). Stir. Serve.
We served ours plain, but you could use it as a filling in a tortilla or over rice.

Pork with Veggies

Since we started participating with Grow Alabama in January we have been eating a lot more vegetables because we are getting them weekly. The past two weeks we have gotten squash and root vegetables and so I decided to come up with a recipe to use them. This recipe is my creation....it was very good and very, very simple. The beautiful thing is that if you don't like the seasonings that I used you can vary them to suit your tastes. This would also be a great recipe with chicken instead of pork or if you wanted to eliminate the meat and just cook this as a side it would be wonderful. I will list the recipe as I made it but feel free to substitute out veggies for ones that you like. Although, I will say, turnips are the forgotten vegetable! They taste very similar to potatoes and are very good!
Pork with Veggies
One container thin sliced pork chops (mine had 5 small chops in it)
5-6 Small to medium sized Squash
2 large Turnips
6-8 medium sized carrots
Olive Oil
One small box of chicken broth
Onion Seasoning Packet
Salt
Pepper
Italian Seasoning
Garlic Powder
1. Trim fat from pork and lay on the bottom of the slow cooker. Season meat with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder (lightly coat tops of meat).
2. Cut vegetables into bite sized pieces (peel turnips and carrots first if fresh). Throw veggies in plastic bag as you are cutting them.
3. Mix 1/2 cup olive oil with packet of onion seasoning.
4. Pour onion mix over vegetables and move around in plastic bag to coat all of them evenly.
5. Pour veggies over meat in slow cooker.
6. Add chicken broth until meat and veggies are covered.
7. Cook on high for 3 hours (or low for approximately 6 hours).

Slow Cooker Barbecue

With fall and cooler weather upon us I'm searching for any and every warm, slow cooker meal that I can find. And what defines fall more than barbecue!?!? Nothing! To me that just screams football season! I found a really great slow cooker barbecue recipe in our local hospital foundation's cookbook. I was a little unsure because I've never cooked that much pork before but it turned out so tender and really good!

Slow Cooker Barbecue
2 to 3 pounds boneless pork
1/3 cup Ketchup
1/3 cup Vinegar
1/3 cup Pineapple Juice
1/2 cup Packed Brown Sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons pepper sauce
2 (4 ounce) jars baby food peaches

Trim excess fat from pork. Pack tightly into slow cooker. Combine ketchup, vinegar, pineapple juice, brown sugar, pepper sauce, and peaches in blender container. Process until smooth. Pour sauce over pork. Chill, covered, overnight. Cook on High for 8 to 10 hours or until pork is cooked through.

*Note: I cooked this on high in my slow cooker for 8 hours and it was perfect!