Crockpot Potato Soup

This soup is so easy and delicious. The first thing my husband said after having it the first time was to definitely put this on the rotation! Although it IS a crockpot recipe, its one of the faster crockpot recipes out there. Which can be good for those days where you forget first thing in the morning to get the crockpot going!

Ingredients: 

1.5 bags frozen hashbrowns
32 oz chicken broth 
1 can cream of chicken soup
8oz light cream cheese
1 cup diced carrots
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup milk

Directions:

Dice your onion & carrots.

In a steamer add your carrots and onion until softened. You can also saute them in a little olive oil if you do not have a steamer.

Once softened add carrots, onion, garlic, chicken broth and frozen hashbrowns into the crockpot and cook on HIGH for 1 hour.

After one hour, stir, and turn your crockpot to LOW and cook for 1 hour.

Cube your cream cheese so it melts a little easier, remove lid and add to crockpot. Add your frozen peas and cook for 30-40 minutes on low.

Add your cup of milk and let cook for an additional 15 minutes and your done!

Quick & Meaningful Grandparents Day Gift!

This is Lincoln's first Grandparents Day and I wanted to make something that would be fun and meaningful for my parents from him. But with Lincoln only being 5.5 months old we were limited on what *he* could make. Louie and I brainstormed and came up with the idea of his footprints in a frame with a picture of Lincoln and my parents. We LOVED the result, and more importantly they did also.

Its so easy to do, and more than likely, you'll probably have everything you need at home! This could absolutely be a gift for anyone, any holiday also, not just grandparents day. 


Materials:
8x10 frame
Toxic Free Ink
4x6 photo 
Cardstock
Tape
Printer (optional)

So what I did first was put my cardstock in my printer and I printed out the words "Grandparents Day 2013", but you could write that out on the paper if you have lovely handwriting...which I do not. ha!

I printed out the photo of my parents with Lincoln from his 1 month photos. I felt I should have a more up to date photo of them all, but its such a good picture I couldn't resist. 

I just simply taped the picture on the cardstock underneath the words and then used the ink on the bottom of Lincolns feet and pressed them underneath the photo. Which is a feat within itself let me tell you! We did get a couple smudges but its homemade, it gives it more character right?...right? 

Make sure to let the ink dry for a few minutes before placing it in the frame. And your done!

Easy & Delicious Shepherds Pie

This is a dish I've been making for years, and even though I seem to not make it that often, its definitely a family favorite. Especially my husbands. (Its meat and potatoes, duh). For those of you who don't know my husband and I were actually vegetarian for about a year and a half not to long ago and I still made this dish! Our favorite meat substitute was Trader Joes meatless ground beef. Just an FYI ;)

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef 
1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables
1 onion
2 potatoes
About a cup of cheddar cheese give or take
Brown Gravy Packet
Heaping spoonful of sour cream
2 tablespoons butter 
Splash or two of milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large pan cook your ground beef and diced onion until cooked through. Drain fat.

In a large pot or saucepan cook your peeled and largely diced potatoes, I never time this, I just generally stick a fork in them from time to time to check. Probably about 10-15 minutes.

Add your frozen mixed vegetables to your beef, season with salt and pepper. **I usually add a few cloves of minced garlic in at this point but I didn't have any this night* 

Start to make your gravy, I usually always use the packets you can find in the spice aisle, but you can use your favorite brand of gravy. 

Once your potatoes are done add them to a large bowl with your butter, milk, sour cream and season with salt and pepper. (I always usually also sprinkle in some garlic powder and cayenne pepper to my mashed potatoes but use whatever YOU like)

And mash! Sad day in our household. My hand mixer broke! Womp Womp Wooomp. But look at me doing it all old fashioned like ;) it works just as well!

Add your gravy to your meat mixture.

Spoon mixture into a 13x9 baking dish and spread evenly.

Spread your mashed potatoes on top!

Then, add your cheese.

Add to your preheated oven, and cook uncovered for 20 minutes.

Let cool and serve! Enjoy :)

Easy Crockpot Lasagna

So remember my last post about how I mentioned that since becoming a mom, cooking lately has needed to be something quick and fairly easy? Well, my crockpot has been getting a lot of love from me lately because it does just that. Its easy and is automatically done at dinner time. Earlier in the day is when Lincoln is content playing with something for a few minutes and its an easy opportunity for me to throw together a crockpot dinner. This recipe is one of my favorites! 

Ingredients:
*1 lb ground beef (You could use ground turkey or veggie meat substitute to make this vegetarian)
*Lasagna noodles
*28oz of marinara (or your favorite jar spaghetti sauce)
*1 small onion, diced
*1 container low fat cottage cheese
*12 oz light mozzarella cheese
*Parmesan cheese & dried parsley for topping
*salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Brown ground beef with the diced onion. Drain the fat. 

Spoon 1 cup of your marinara in the bottom of your crockpot.

Mix the remaining sauce with the beef. 

Place your lasagna noodles over the sauce in the crockpot. Doesn't have to be fancy. Mine sure wasn't ;)  

Spread about 1/3 of the meat mixture over the noodles. 

Put about 3/4 cup cottage cheese evenly over the meat mixture.

Top with around 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (you guys should know by now I don't measure, these are all close estimates ha!)

Do another layer of noodles, meat mixture, cottage cheese, shredded cheese

Repeat once more and end with your shredded cheese on top. 

Sprinkle on some Parmesan and some dried parsley and cook on LOW for 3.5-4 hours. 

Serve and your done!

I made mine with some lazy garlic bread (basically just french rolls with butter, granulated garlic, parm & parsley broiled in the oven!) :) Enjoy!

Quick & Easy Pesto Pasta with Peas & Tomato!

I love cooking, love it. My love for it has developed over the years and its something I've really grown to enjoy. Now, with that being said, since becoming a mom my time has become just a tiny bit limited-as you can imagine-and I don't mind it one bit! BUT, it has put cooking on the backburner a bit. We hardly EVER go out to eat, 1-because have you taken a 5 month old to a restaurant before? Enough said. 2-Its 'spennnnsive! $$$ 3-fast food makes me want to hurl. So I have to get creative in the kitchen! Lately, I've been making really quick and easy recipes most of the time otherwise we won't eat until 9:00pm (yes, its happened before, more than once!). So tonight I threw this together and it was great! Definitely a hit, and something I will continue to make. I've TRIED making homemade pesto once in the past and wasn't a huge fan. Trader Joes has a great pesto I've found, and that's what I used tonight. 


Ingredients:

*1/2 lb pasta (so half your bag of rigatoni, or any pasta you like basically)
*Pesto- however much you like, I ended up using about two large spoonfuls of it
*Small tomato, diced
*1/2 onion, diced 
*3/4-1 cup of frozen peas (however much you like)
*Salt & Pepper to taste
*Grated Parm for topping

Directions:

Boil your water for your pasta.

Add pasta and cook according to package directions. 

In a small saute pan, cook your onions. This ingredient is absolutely optional if your not a big onion fan. I am, and I pretty much put them in everything, ha! :)

When your pasta is about 4-5 minutes from being done, here is my secret trick. I dump my frozen peas in the water with the pasta and let it finish cooking. Peas end up being perfectly done and I didn't have to dirty another pot! 

Strain pasta and put back into the pot, add your onions, tomato, pesto, salt and pepper.

Combine and your done! Enjoy!