Ham Happiness

For those of you who have read past posts regarding my slow cooker adventures, you will not be surprised to hear that it was with great trepidation that I served tonight's dinner.  As I prepared tonight's foray into the world of slow cooking, I realized, "this may not go well."  You may know one of the rules to slow cooking food is: always add liquid.  This recipe lacked liquid.  I was apprehensive. 
Let me give you the rundown for the evening.  We invited Ken and Conni (Drew's parents) and Stacie and Morgan over for dinner.  Sometime this afternoon I put together the recipe from Fix it and Forget It: Ham and Scalloped Potatoes.  The worst part of the preparation (don't hate me PC) was the slicing of the potatoes.  I used my new and improved, much safer mandoline from PC.  It took quite a while to slice all nine potatoes required for this recipe, so long in fact that I didn't slice the last two.  I gave up.  This mandoline does not seem to work as easily as the last incarnation.  Granted the last incarnation nearly cut my thumb off twice.  This one seems to require much more force behind it and I had to cut each poato in half and then put it on the little food pusher thing, then get it all lined up.  This process took a good 20 minutes.  Not my idea of fun, but I could also blame this on my stubborness.  I had a knife that works and I could have just as easily sliced the potatoes thin, but then I could not rant about the mandoline.  (Remember, I told you PC, you can't hate).   All that said, I got the whole thing together and then checked the recipe for the third or fourth time to try to see where I had missed the liquid.  Alas, there was no liquid and I began to fret.
I moved on to dessert next.  I made Ultimate Chocolate Pudding from Christmas with Southern Living 2009.  I enjoyed the process of making pudding from scratch because, I confess, I have never done this.  I used Ghiradelli cocoa for this attempt and I was very pleased with the results.  I tried a little bit off the spatula, then I tried a little more, and I little more.  Then I had to put the bowl in the sink and run water over it to make sure I did not lick the whole bowl.  If you have never made chocolate pudding from scratch, I highly recommend it.  It was good even whilst warm.  I put it in individual serving bowls and chilled it until after dinner.

So, the reckoning came and I was still very nervous.  I had forewarned our dinner guests that if it was awful, we would order pizza.  AND...It turned out o.k.  In fact, it was better than o.k., it was good, even great.  Everyone really liked it and Ken even got seconds (not a normal thing for him since the stroke).  It was a hit!  It don't know what you are doing to me slow cooker, but you get me every time.  Someday, I will understand your whims and ways.  Tonight, I was just happy that it worked!  Oh, I must add that this does not photograph well, so you will just have to imagine a wonderfully constructed, yet somewhat ugly dish with all the comfort of home.  We served this with crescent rolls and green beans.  A pretty well rounded meal.

Then we had coffee (well a couple of us did) and dessert. The pudding was wonderful!  Mmmm!  The biggest fan was Connil.  I can add this one to the list of her favorites.  She would like for me to consider making her a pudding sandwich.  I will consider this at some future date, after I have gotten over the shuddering. 

Slow Cooker Success!

It has finally happened!  My slow cooker has produced an edible and enjoyable meal!  I have been doing some soul searching in regards to the slow cooker and I came up with a solution to the problems I have been experiencing.  The solution: fill the slow cooker at least two thirds full and make sure there is plenty of liquid for the food.  Applying this newfound strategy to tonight's dinner produced a success!!! Yea!

The recipe from Fix it and Forget It Slow Cooker Magic: Cream of Broccoli soup.  I served this, as you can see, in a bread bowl for two.  We are large fans of the soup/bread bowl combo.  This soup was no exception.  I would say I followed this recipe as a guide rather than following it verbatim.  I changed almost every ingredient in the list.  The changes included using different soups (I mean they are really mostly the same), different cheese, and different milk (fat-free milk...are you kidding me?).  In the future, I would blend the final result so the broccoli is much smaller a la Panera Bread.  Overall, a pretty foolproof recipe.   As always, I was happy to cook while doing other things around the house.  Gotta love the slow cooker...when it is good, it is oh so good; when it is is bad...well, lets not revisit that.

It all depends on the tools you use.

Anyone who gets in the kitchen on a regular basis knows (for the most part) success depends on the tools used in making or baking what you desire.  I have come to understand this in my 5 years of cooking and have subsequently thrown out some of the lesser tools of my trade in favor of tools of higher quality.  I think women should not register for the bulk of their wedding gifts until they have spent some time in the kitchen, figuring out their style and needs.  I know this is true in our own marriage.  We registered for and recieved an immense amount of stuff (all of which were good and perfect gifts)...then we got married and started using them.  Some of them have faired better over the years than others.
We have also thought long and hard about certain purchases and have had mixed results in that area.  If you ever are searching for THE perfect blender, look no further than a Breville.  On the other hand, be very careful and cautious about the purchase of a slow cooker.  We were given, very generously, our first slow cooker and I have always enjoyed it.  I messed all that up last year by deciding I needed a bigger one for other recipes.  I could not have been more wrong.  Each time I use our new one, I am left frustrated with the results and regretting its creation in some far-off factory.  Remember, when I said some of the tools have been thrown out?  Large slow cooker, you are on notice!!
All that to say tonight's dinner was a slow cooker recipe from Fix it and Forget It: Ham and Hash Browns. Maybe I am using said slow cooker in an improper manner, but I thought they had plug-and-play capabilities.  Well, this one heats up WAAAY too fast and ends up burning the entire "crust" of whatever I am cooking (Note: this was the same slow cooker that served up the worst tomato soup known to man!).  Thus, after cooking for less than half the cook time, the edges are brown working on black and the center is mushy/soupy.  I honestly don't think it is the recipe's fault.  This post just turned into a review for our slow cooker, instead of the recipe.  Another reason its the tools that matter in the kitchen. 
So here's the rundown on the actual recipe: The flavors were ok if a little bland and I would definitely try this in another slow cooker.  It would be good paired with some scrambled eggs for a quick meal.  I don't think Drew liked this. He mentioned, whilst eating this dinner, another similar slow cooker recipe which he did like (we had that over a year ago...I think I am turning him into an encyclopedia of successful meals).  You know you are eating something that is not that enjoyable when, in mid bite, you are thinking of other better food you would rather be eating. 

Fix it and FORGET it

If you thought my Pampered Chef review from a week ago was scathing, wait until you read the comments on tonight's dinner.  Let me preface this discussion by saying we have an unspoken, spoken rule in this house.  When you make something new every time you cook, you are going to hit those recipes that are just...off.  After lots of practice, you can get a good sense, while cooking, which recipes are going to be questionable.  They could go either way and you are really hoping for GOOD (sometimes, even the best hopes fail).  On these nights are rule is: If this is horrible, we will go out and get something else that tastes good.  I know this is not the most frugal way to live, but it is better than eating the inedible.  Just so you know, this does not happen very often!
Well tonight I did a slow cooker menu Fix it and Forget it.  It was Simple Soup Supper including Fresh Tomato Soup and Broccoli Corn Bread.  As mentioned before, I love cooking while doing other things, so you can imagine my happiness when all day, whilst cleaning the house, the smell coming from the kitchen was heavenly.  I was so excited to try this soup that smelled like the best beef vegatable stew I have ever smelled.  It was the Broccoli Corn Bread that concerned me.  It too was a slow cooker thing and I was slightly disturbed by the fact that you could chose to cook it at differing cooking times depending on the texture you were looking for (obviously not disturbed enough not to try it).  Well, imagine my surprise when we sit down to dinner, with Morgan, and I try the broccoli corn bread first while Morgan and Drew take a spoonful apiece of their respective soups.  I look up from my broccoli corn bread and say, "this tastes good."  To which Morgan responds, "it tastes like blood, " referring to the soup.  Drew takes another bite and nods his agreement and then I taste half a bite of mine.  To my horror, it DOES!  Each of us moved our bowls toward the kitchen sink and moved our plates of broccoli corn bread toward ourselves.  We immediately began discussing where we would be getting food for dinner.  IT WAS FORGETABLE.  The sad thing in this house is that forgetable is actually memorable because it happens so infrequently.  Oh well, now Drew needs two hands to count the amount of dinners that were, in his word, FAIL. 
Thank God I get a break from cooking for the next couple of days as we go out of town to celebrate our anniversary.  Have a great weekend, back on Sunday night!

China in the Meantime

Dinner tonight was wonderful for a couple of reasons: 1. Slow-cooker, microwave, George Foreman Grill, and 2. Short prep time. I did a menu ("Takeout at Home") out of the Fix It and Forget It Slow Cooker Magic cookbook: Asian-Grilled Pork Tenderloins and Chinese Vegetables.  It always makes me happy to be able to do any number of things (shopping, napping, Guitar Hero) while my dinner is being prepared for me.  Tonight's required me to marinate the pork tenderloins for 8 hours, so after I did that I went to lunch with my dad (not good sushi - our regular place was closed), went to the bank, came home, watched tv and waited for Drew to come home so we could play Guitar Hero.  I also was able to throw the veggies in the slow cooker.  Here's the rundown:
Loved the veggie recipe.  Really easy to throw together and very tasty.  Rounded out the meal with brown rice, prepared in the microwave via the Pampered Chef rice cooker (a wonder in its own right).  Heated up the George Foreman and put the tenderloins on for the last bit of the rice cooking time.  Oh, I modified the recipe a little bit by adding some of the Pampered Chef Asian seasonings (love the spices from PC).  Drew asked what I marinated the pork in. That was the feeback I got.  Overall, a great dinner at the Hudson household.