All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Category Archives: Slow Cooker

Tasty Thursday: Easy Stew

This is a recipe that doesn’t take any time at all to get started in the morning when you do not want to take much time out of your daily schedule. And it’s tasty in the evening when you get home from work so I thought it would be perfect for this week’s Tasty Thursday post.  While it does cook for quite a while (6 to 8 hours), it is fast to fix before you head out for work in the mornings and fast to put in bowls for dinner when you arrive home.  It’s one of my favorite winter meals.  Hope you enjoy.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. boneless stew meat (cut up)
  • 1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup (10 3/4 oz)
  • 3 Potatoes (Cut up and Cubed)
  • 2 Carrots (Diced – I just chunk some baby carrots in there)
  • 1 Chopped Onion (Optional, we don’t put this on ours)
  • 2 Cups Water

Directions:

  1. Brown the stew meat on all sides.
  2. Place meat in the slow cooker.
  3. Add all the remaining ingredients.
  4. Stir well.
  5. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
  6. Stir Occasionally (I don’t do usually get to do this since I’m at work and it turns out fine.)

This is one of my favorites because it’s so easy. I usually brown the meat the night before and just store it in the refrigerator overnight so that all I have to do in the morning (they are always hectic at our house) is throw it in the crock pot and go.  We tend to eat ours with crackers.
Use Buzzfuse* to easily rate, review, and share this item

Tasty Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by MomDot, a site for mom bloggers. Head over to find more amazing recipes.

A Seafood Recipe

I LOVE seafood – absolutely love it, but I’m usually leery to cook it.  I don’t know why, but I just don’t have a lot of luck when it comes to seafood, but I do have a couple favorites that I’ve learned to cook over the years. My favorites (for me to cook) are my slow cooker seafood recipes.  I’m a big lover of pasta and seafood so this is probably my favorite crock pot seafood recipe. I call it Seafood Pasta and makes enough for the three of us to eat it and then have leftovers for lunches the next day so probably about 5 servings.

Seafood Pasta

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 lb. crab meat (If I can’t get my hands on this I have used the imitation crab meat sold at all grocery stores and it turned out fine)
  • 1/2 pound bay scallops, already lightly sauteed
  • 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and also cooked
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 3 cups Monterrey Jack Cheese, shredded
  • 2 Tbsp. melted butter (if no butter is on hand margarine is ok)
  • Touch of pepper

As I mentioned, your seafood should actually already be cooked. I usually saute everything, and I’ve also just boiled the shrimp too.

Directions:

  1. Combine sour cream, butter, and cheese in the slow cooker
  2. Slowly stir in each remaining ingredient.
  3. Cover and cook on low for one to two hours.
  4. When you are almost ready to eat, boil linguine to package instructions and then pour your sauce out of the crock pot onto the dishes of linguine.

Accompaniments: I accompany this with sauteed veggies particularly yellow squash and zucchini.

Do you have any favorite seafood meals? I’d love to hear about them, and if you try this recipe, please come back and let me know how your family like its. Do you think this would be worthy of the Great American Seafood Cook off? Or even better yet, do you have any recipes that you think are worthy of the cook off?  If so, let’s link up and create a great seafood recipe selection.

If you aren’t familiar with the Great American Seafood Cook Off, this is an annual contest for great recipes for domestic seafood. The contest will be held in New Orleans this weekend and the price of admission is really cheap ($10).  How cool would it be to watch the 5th Annual Cook Off that is showing us great ways to utilize local and fresh seafood.

CrockPot Favorite: Super Simple Stew

Another one of my fastest and easiest recipes. It does not require long to cook so it’s one I do on a weekend or if we get out of school early. It really shouldn’t cook all day long.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 chopped onion (again I just use onion powder as I don’t like the texture of onions)
  • 2 cans of vegetable soup

Directions:

  • Brown the ground beef and drain. 
  • Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker
  • Cover and cook on low 2 – 3 hours.

We serve over crackers.
Use Buzzfuse* to easily rate, review, and share this item

CrockPot Favorite: Venison Chili

This is another of my favorite chili recipes. The difference is that I use this one when we have deer meat.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 pounds of cubed Venison  (I suppose you could use beef stew meat if you wanted)
  • 1 chopped up onion. (I actually just use onion powder)
  • 1 8 oz can of tomato sauce (2 if you like your chili to be thinner)
  • 1 envelope of chili seasoning

Directions: 

  1. Place all ingredients in the slow cooker.
  2. Mix well.
  3. Cover and cook on high 4 – 5 hours or low 6 – 9 hours (until the meat is tender)

The original recipe called for a can of drained kidney beans, but I do not like kidney beans so I leave those out.
Use Buzzfuse* to easily rate, review, and share this item

CrockPot Favorite: Ten Minute Chili

This is one of my favorites for cold winter days. We love chilis and stews during the winter, and this is one that is super easy and the family eats every drop at dinner and for leftovers.

Ingredients:

  • Ground Beef or Turkey (1 pound, uncooked)
  • 1 Package dry chili seasoning
  • 1 16 oz can chili beans in sauce
  • 2 28 oz cans crushed or diced tomatoes

Directions:

  1. Crumble meat in bottom of slow cooker.
  2. Add chili mix, beans, and tomatoes
  3. Cover. Cook on high 4 – 6 hours or low 6 – 8 hours.
  4. Stir halfway through cooking times (I never do this, but I do stir it when I first arrive home).

We eat our chili over rice or crackers. Some of us like to add shredded cheese also. This makes about 6 servings.
Use Buzzfuse* to easily rate, review, and share this item