Food food and more food.

The crock pot meals went fairly well.  There was one that straight up turned out badly for me.  I’m going to try again, but on a day when either Officer or I are home because there’s a lot of sugar (honey) in it and I think it needs to be stirred.  Also 4 hours on low is plenty for it I think. My pot switches to the warm setting once cooking is complete which is normally awesome but the chicken dish was just bad.

Other than that our favorite so far was the Thai Chicken Wings with Spicy Peanut Sauce.  SO yummy. I’ve got meatloaf cooking today and 4 more crock-pot meals.  I’d say it worked well for me, again even though you really don’t have to make them in advance and free them it just helps in the morning trying to get Vivien and myself ready to not have to think about starting dinner.

It was also nice to arrive home around 6:30, eat. Clean up and be relaxing by 8:00pm.  SO much better.

Here’s the blog that has the crock pot meals I used.  There are 4 or 5 posts, all linked in each one, with lots of options.  Most meals served us, plus at least 2 lunches so I’d say 4 adult servings and one toddler.  Some made more than that.  But most are fairly easy ingredients to source too so I could do my shopping at the cheap grocery store, which is always a plus.  As I made each meal I wrote the cooking time and side dish on each baggie.  That way even Officer would know what to do with it for the days he’s home as those are typically when I do the meals that take less than 6 hours too cook.

Crock-Pot Cooking

Years ago when I worked at the shelter a lovely lady used to make Mexican Oatmeal for us.  I make it from time to time when it’s cooler out and it’s a great way to start the day, I actually made a pot one morning and ate it for breakfast  few times.  So good!  Plus it’s more like a beverage than a bowl or oatmeal so you can totally put it in a travel mug and enjoy it on your commute.  I never had the foresight to get the receipe from the lady at work so here’s a really good version I found online a while back.

Mexican Oatmeal.  
 
I also made some homemade granola last weekend. Holy cow was it good.  I put a small scoop (about one and a half tablespoons) in a cupcake liner then set it on top of some yogurt that I put in a small jelly jar (I used 8oz mason jars) and closed the lid (Obviously). This made it easy to throw in  my lunch bag at the last minute but kept the granola crunchy.  Not only was I able to save a bit of calories, this is a fairly authentic homemade version of what I was getting at Starbucks and I’m sure I not only saved a few calories, but since the Starbucks version was over $3 I’m sure I saved some cash. I had (and I bet most people do) all the stuff for the granola except the maple syrup on hand and just bought a big container of fat free yogurt then used local honey to sweeten it up.  Officer and Vivien enjoyed just snacking on it or bowls of it with milk.  It’s something I’ll be making fairly often I think. You should try it.  The person who came up with this stuff took lots of photos.  I don’t blame her, this stuff is super easy to make and really would make a lovely gift if you tend to give baked goods as gifts at Christmas or whenever.

Coconut Vanilla Granola One tip, I didn’t bother with the vanilla paste.  It’s fairly hard to find and fairly pricey, I used 2 vanilla bean pods that I scrapped the seeds out of. So if you don’t have it, don’t worry.

Finally I made something super easy and wasn’t able to take a decent photo of it.  I took 4 vanilla beans, scraped them and stirred the seeds into a pound of sugar that I kept in a canister with a tight fitting lid that was also big enough to stir it easily and shake once a day or so.  Yesterday I tried some of it in my coffee.  I think it will be better next week but OMG.  So simple and so good. I think I’ll make a bigger batch and give it as neighbor/coworker gifts this Christmas.  I had some leftover pie crust from some turnovers I made yesterday for lunches this week and really thought about just basting them with butter, sprinkling the sugar on and then cutting squares and baking it like that.  But I restrained myself.  However it does sound awesome.

It feels so much better to be cooking for myself again.  This week I’ll be pulling together a more advanced menu that includes some slow cooked desserts and side dishes.  I’ve got two crock pots so why not?  But this seems like a great option for me, it took a few hours to throw everything together, make granola etc last weekend and got about 2 weeks worth of meals out of it so I think it’s a winner!

Happy Monday!