Sweet Teriyaki Chicken

Another freezer meal success! Again, from this website :)

Slow Cooker Sweet Teriyaki Chicken

Ingredients:
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 onion, chopped
1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts

Directions:
Mix together soy sauce, sugar, garlic salt and chopped onion in a resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. Place chicken breasts inside the bag and zip closed.
When ready to eat, remove from freezer and thaw in fridge for 24 hours. Cook on HIGH for 3-4 hours or LOW for 7-8 hours.
Serve over rice.

So yummy! It tasted quite a bit like the teriyaki chicken rice bowls from teriyaki stix, only the chicken wasn't that yucky cheap stuff :) It was a tiny bit salty for my liking, so next time I think I might do a little less soy sauce, and I might just double the sauce in general because I like it on my rice. Overall it was delicious! 

Sweet and Tangy Meatballs

I decided to make a bunch of freezer crock pot meals last week, and rather than put them all on at once I decided to wait until we tried all of them in case there were duds. Meal #1 was wildly successful. According to Micah, they are "the best meatballs ever." I got the recipe from here.

1 package of frozen meatballs (I got turkey meatballs and they were DELISH)
1 jar of grape jelly
1 jar of chili sauce

Mix it all up, put it in a ziplock bag and stick it in the freezer. Thaw for 24 hours (I think we did it for less than that and survived) and then slow cook it for 2 hours on high or 4 hours on low. Serve over rice!

(This was a tiny bit spicy for my liking, but I am a huge spice wimp. I think I'll use more jelly and less chili sauce next time, but not by much)

6 Can Chicken Tortilla Soup

Taken straight from allrecipes.com!

Combine:
1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
1 can black beans (not drained)
2 cans chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes and green chiles
1 can chicken (I used Costco canned chicken)

Put them in a saucepan, heat it all up, and serve over tortilla chips with cheese and sour cream!

Bonus points: SO easy, SO fast, SO cheap! All good things.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup With Baked Tortilla Strips

Delightfully easy and tasty meal--made in the slow cooker!! This was the perfect meal for these frigid temperatures we are living in.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup
(Adapted from Skimpy Pantry)
Ingredients
1/2 red onion, chopped 
Generous sprinkling of garlic powder

1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped

1/2 bell pepper, chopped

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 can (4 ounces) green chilies

1 can (15 ounces) diced tomatoes

2 cans (15 ounces) black beans, drained and rinsed (I did one can black beans, one can pinto beans)

1 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

A handful of fresh cilantro

Dump all the ingredients into your slow cooker. Stir. Cook on low for 6 hours. Serve with sour cream and tortilla strips (see below!)


Baked Tortilla Strips 

Ingredients
Corn tortillas (I used four for two of us)
Olive oil
Seasoning salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using kitchen shears, cut the tortillas in half and then cut each half into strips. Lay the strips onto a cookie sheet and drizzle a small amount of olive oil on top. Toss the strips utnil they are well coated. Spread them evenly on the cookie sheet and sprinkle with seasoning salt. Bake 10-15 minutes or until crispy.  Note that you want them CRISPY and brown--but not burned. Taste test because CHEWY is not what you want. CRISPY.

And enjoy.

Crystal's Potato Broccoli Soup

I'm doing it again. I post a potato soup recipe here and then I find a better one.  Really--this one is better! And easier. My sister-in-law (CRYSTAL) bestowed this recipe on me with only a little begging on my part.

Crystal's Potato Broccoli Soup

1/2 c chopped onion
2 tbsp. butter or margarine

5 to 7 med. potatoes, peeled and diced (some smaller chunks so they'll mash up and be creamy!)

2 crowns of broccoli, chopped

2 tbsp. chicken bouillon granules (or 2 cubes)
Approx. 3 cups of water (I just put enough water to cover the potato's and the broccoli so it could be more or less then that)
1 (8oz) *cream cheese softened
1/4c flour
1/2 c. - 1 c. milk

1/4 tsp. of paprika 

In large sauce pan, saute onion in butter until tender. Add potatoes, bouillon, and enough water to cover the potatoes. Cover and cook 10 min. or until tender. Then add broccoli (and any extra water you need to cover it) and boil an additional 5 min covered. In a small bowl, blend the softened cream cheese and flour until smooth. Make sure the cream cheese is really soft and mix until creamy before adding the flour. Stir into potato mixture. Use a potato masher to squish up the broccoli and potatoes. You still want SOME chunks, but mashing will make the soup creamier/thicker. Add milk if desired--as much as you want depending on how thick you'd like it. Heat until boiling, stirring frequently. Boil 1 min. Season to taste. Garnish each serving with chives or paprika or grated cheese, serves 4 to 6.

**I used neufchatel cheese to cut down on the calorie count. It doesn't melt and blend as well as cream cheese so the soup didn't look as pretty as when Crystal makes it. BUT...it still tasted great. However, do NOT use Fat Free cream cheese! It does NOT melt. Does NOT work. You have been warned. 

Pork Chop Marinade

I used a bunch of different recipes to make one that I actually had ingredients for, and it turned out yummmmy!

Marinade:
2 Tbs. Vegetable oil
2 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce (maybe a little more)
Some lemon juice
A few good squirts of ketchup
A small handful of brown sugar

Stir it all up, put it in a zip-lock bag, stick two pork chops in there, put it in the fridge and get it out when you are ready to cook up the chops! Micah just did the pork chops on the George Foreman and it took like 10 minutes. Talk about an easy dinner! (I recommend adding applesauce and baked potatoes to the menu...)

*And in case you are like me and didn't know this, you should poke some holes in the meat before you marinate it. That would make sense, right? But yeah... I didn't. And it was still good!

Pumpkin Pancakes--low cholesterol!

Simple and tasty. That's all I ask for in a meal.

Pumpkin Pancakes
(From this website)

2 c. flour
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c. low-fat or skim milk
1 c. pumpkin puree
1 tsp. cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg and/or cloves

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix until nicely blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together your wet ingredients and spices.  Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry--whisking/blending until you've got a few lumps but its a pretty good batter.

Pour by 1/4 cups on to a hot griddle. Cook about 2 minutes and then flip. Cook until done.

We topped these with your basic maple syrup and even applesauce. Yummy!