Monday Meal Madness

This week I'm posting one of my favorite crock pot recipes that a friend gave me. Just the other day while I was perusing the pages at A Year of Slow Cooking, I saw the recipe and fell in love again!   Stephanie's recipe varies a little from mine but not much at all.  :)
This will be going on my menu next week,  I have enough food for this week and would switch out a meal but it's birthday week around here and when it's your birthday, I make you your favorite dinner.  We've already had stromboli and  beef stroganoff. and next on the menu is spaghetti.

Peperoncini Beef in the Crock Pot

Beef Pot Roast (any size)
16oz beef broth
one package dry onion soup mix  (I've started skipping this part and using real onion instead)
2 cloves of garlic (I love garlic so I probably use more!)
1 jar peperoncini peppers


Let cook all day in the crock pot until it's falling apart.  We serve this on toasted french bread with provolone cheese melted on top.  Yummy!  You can use the broth left over in the crock pot as an au jus for dipping.

I'd love for you to link up below with one of your favorite recipes!  I'm always looking for new recipes to try!  I'm also linking up at :

and:

Thanks and Happy  Monday!

Peperoncini Beef in the Crock Pot

Peperoncini Beef in the Crock Pot

Beef Pot Roast (any size)

16oz beef broth

one package dry onion soup mix (I've started skipping this part and using real onion instead)

2 cloves of garlic (I love garlic so I probably use more!)

1 jar peperoncini peppers

Loaf of french bread or hoagie rolls

Slices of provolone or swiss cheese

Let cook all day in the crock pot until it's falling apart. We serve this on toasted french bread with provolone cheese melted on top. Yummy! You can use the broth left over in the crock pot as an au jus for dipping.

Cooking in the crockot - Lasagna

I was hoping to have a new meal to share earlier in the week but this week has just been flying by! Maybe the birth of my niece on Monday threw things out the door, not really sure but what a great reason to have your week go haywire! Anyways, this wasn't on my menu plan but I have all the ingredients for it and I thought I'd give it a whirl. So today I'm making crock pot lasagna! I even remembered to take some pictures, woo hoo! I got the recipe from Stephanie at A Year of Slow Cooking. and if you haven't been over there to check out her blog yet, what are you waiting for!?! 

I based my meal off of Stephanie's recipe but varied mine a little bit.  I used 9 lasagna noodles, you want the regular noodles not the oven ready.  I used one jar of spaghetti sauce but added some tomato sauce to it, I was hoping to add some diced tomatoes but I didn't have any on hand.  I added some crushed garlic to the spaghetti sauce as well.  I used about 9 meatballs chopped up and threw those in the spaghetti sauce.  I used a larger container of cottage cheese, mixed in two eggs and some parmesan cheese. 
I used my oval shaped crock pot and this worked out well.  I could do 3 noodles across but I had to break off some of the sides of the noodles to make them fit.  I added meat to my lasagna, I had some frozen meatballs that I chopped up and threw in with my spaghetti sauce.  I didn't get a picture of it but start with a layer of meat/spaghetti sauce in the bottom of your crock pot.  Then place the noodles on top.  I had already started putting this together in the crock pot before I thought about taking pictures.  So this is already a layer or two in but you get the idea.  Like my jagged broken noodle?

 Next I put my layer of cottage cheese or ricotta (whatever you perfer)  over the noodles.

Then I put the mozzarella over the top of the cottage cheese.  My cheese looks funny because I was trying to be all frugal and thought I could shred my own mozzarella.  I am saving you from pain and ugly cheese clumps by telling you to just by the shredded cheese, it's not worth it! 

Finally, top with your  meat/spaghetti sauce mixture.  I also ended my layers with this and it worked out well.  I also put 1/4 cup of water in my spaghetti sauce jar and shook it up and poured it over the top.  This also could be why the lasagna was really lwatery but not sure.

Then I sprinkled some real shredded cheese and some parsley flakes on top. 

This is what it looked like after cooking on high for 4 hours.

My camera doesn't take the best pictures but here it is, ready to be devoured served.

Another picture, maybe not the prettiest lasagna but it was yummy and that's all that really counts in my book. 

Mine was a bit watery but that could be from my scary chunky shredded myself mozzarella that came from the freezer.  My kids really liked this, well at least 3 out of 4 did which is a rarity in this house.  In fact, the eldest child asked if we could have this for dinner every week.  I will be making this again, I liked throwing it all together in the crock  pot and then walking away for 4 hours.  I let it sit for another hour after it was done on the warm setting and it was still hot and yummy.  If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.  If you try this, I'd love to know what you thought so please feel free to come and leave a comment!  Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Mondays

Here at our crazy house Mondays are a bit more hectic than any other day of the week. All 3 girls have dance or gymnastics at the same time on Monday nights. I actually like it this way, it's one night of craziness and then we're done for the rest of the week. We need to eat dinner a bit earlier than normal to get out the door on time so I've decided that Mondays are my slow cooker/crock pot days.  Mondays are always a hard day and I feel like you are catching up from the weekend and doing  a lot of cleaning.
Today I'm featuring a new recipe I tried last week, it wasn't on the meal plan but our dinner plans fell through so I needed another meal anyways. I was craving something with pineapple and came across this recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/hawaiian-ribs-86057.   I put them in the slow cooker frozen at about 8am and the ribs were falling off the bone by 4pm.  It was pretty yummy, I served it over white rice. Next time I might try this recipe instead: Hawaiian ribs slow cooker recipe.

If you are dusting off your slow cooker, or don't use it very often because you don't know what to make in it, check out this awesome blog:  http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ She used her slow cooker for an entire year, even making breakfast and desserts in it! There are tons of great recipes on her blog and her recipes are gluten free.   Next Monday I'll feature another slow cooker recipe and we'll have a link party so you can post your favorite recipe here too!

Slow Cooker Chicken Stroganoff

This is another great recipe that a friend gave to me.

Slow Cooker Chicken Stroganoff


Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed
1/8 cup margarine
1 (.7 ounce) package dry Italian-style salad dressing mix
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
Directions

Put chicken, margarine and dressing mix in slow cooker; mix together and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.
Add cream cheese and soup, mix together and cook on high for another 1/2 hour or until heated through and warm. Serve over egg noodles, brown rice or mashed potatoes.

I think I will only be using half of the amount of cream cheese next time I make this.