Lazy Day Slow Cooker ideas-Tons of recipes from 2 easy steps.

So, its the Holiday Season, are you as busy as we are here at 3 Moms?  I know we have not been posting much and we apologize for that.  I don't know about the other 2 moms but in my house things have been crazy with Christmas parties, preschool Christmas programs, visiting Santa, and even a yucky 2 week long ickiness that swept through the family.  Things are slowing down as Christmas approaches so hopefully the posts will pick back up.

With all the craziness that I am sure we all are experiencing right now I thought I would share some easy ideas that I have been taking advantage of the past few weeks.  I seriously make some sort of version of the following at least 4-5 days a week.  These are so easy and so versatile, I am sure you can come up with some ways I haven't thought of to use these.  If you do please share here or on our FB wall.

What You Will Need:
a crock pot
some sort of cut of chicken or pork.  Any cut of either will work
1 jar of salsa OR 1 bottle of BBQ sauce.


Step 1: Cook meat-
Take whatever cut of meat you are using and add it into the crock pot.
Add in either 1 jar of salsa OR 1 bottle BBQ sauce depending on what you are wanting to make.
Move around a bit so that sauce is covering all sides of the meat.
Cook on low 5-7 hrs. (depending on cut-bone in and larger cuts take longer)


Step 2-Decide what dish you would like to "feature" the meat in-
This is the fun part, there are so many delicious ways to serve this up, the combinations are almost endless.  I am going to list a few of our families favorites.  Use your imagination and I am sure you can come up with many more than I have listed here.

Pork Tenderloin + BBQ Sauce-  With this I can make pulled pork sandwiches on homemade buns (click here for recipe).  Or I just shred up the pork and serve with homemade rolls (same dough recipe as buns) and mashed potatoes (made with golden Yukon potatoes YUM!).  Use the BBQ sauce as a "gravy" over the pork meat and potatoes, SO GOOD!
You can also serve over a bed of rice (any rice you like, we like Jasmine rice), I like to mix in some steamed broccoli to this.

B/S Chicken Breasts (or bone-in chicken breasts) + Salsa-  If using bone-in breasts shred meat off of bone before serving.
With this I can shred the meat up to use in a whole gamut of Mexican dishes including chicken soft tacos, chicken burritos, chicken hard shell tacos, chicken tostadas, Tanya's Potato Tacos, quesadillias, chicken enchiladas, etc etc. You can make it as easy or as hard as you want.  Mix it up with flour and corn tortillas and serve with all of your families favorite toppings.  We like more salsa, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, avocados and black beans.

Pork Chops + BBQ Sauce- Easy way to make BBQ pork chops w/o all the work, serve with you favorite sides.

B/S Chicken breasts + BBQ Sauce-  Again you can use bone in chicken breasts too, just shred meat off the bone before serving.
Like the pork tenderloin above you can serve the chicken as is with mashed potatoes and rolls, you can shred to make pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches or you can serve over rice with broccoli.
Another thing you can do is make some pizza dough (this dough recipe makes great pizza crust too).  Make sure to scoop out some sauce to use as the pizza "sauce", top with cheese and any other topping you might like.  Makes an excellent BBQ chicken pizza.

Bone-in Chicken legs, thighs, or wings + BBQ Sauce- An easy meal to make BBQ chicken, serve with your favorite sides.  If you like dark meat you can also do any of the above things for the chicken breast and BBQ sauce.

Pork tenderloin + Salsa- You can make any of the same dishes under the chicken breast and salsa.

If you can come up with some more things to make we would love to hear your ideas.  We will credit you if we add them to the list.
As always, we love for you to share pictures on our FB wall if you make any of our recipes.

I am going to start experimenting with things to make using a jar of spaghetti sauce and various meats.  I will let you know what I come up with.

Here are some pics of a few things I have made using these ideas:

Shredded Chicken and salsa inside of a jalapeno cheddar wrap-
brush with oil and bake in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes to make crisp.

Chicken and salsa paired with Tanya's mashed potato tacos

Shredded chicken and salsa made into chicken tostadas

I thought I had more pics than this, they may have been lost last month when our computer crashed.  I know I had a picture of the BBQ pork tenderloin.  That's what I am making for dinner tonight in fact so I will take a pic and upload it after dinner.

Apples and Pork Chops, the perfect Fall Dinner

Normally I would never post a blog without taste testing the food first but I ma 100% convinced this is going to be yummy.  Maybe its just my apple obsession talking here.  The recipe was given to me and I was told it is good and several wanted me to post it soon so I am taking a leap here.

The original recipe called for only 4 pork chops, we are having company tonight so I used 6.  It also only called for 1 apple and some nutmeg, I expanded upon this based on the reviews Heather gave me when she gave me the recipe.  I am using Honey Crisp Apples with this recipe, of course, you can use whatever kind of apples you like. 

What You Will Need:
4-6 Pork Chops, whatever cut you would like
4-5 good size Apples
2 Tblsp Brown Sugar
1 Tblsp Granulated (white) Sugar
1 Teasp Cinnamon
1/2 Teasp Nutmeg
3-4 Tblsp Butter
Salt and Pepper to taste

Pork Chops-fresh from the pig

Step 1: Prep The Pork-
In a medium frying pan coat bottom with oil.  Allow oil to become nice and hot over medium/high heat.  Lightly Salt and Pepper the pork on each side.  Once oil is hot brown chops on each side.  You are not trying to cook the meat here, just brown and bit and seal in the juices.  You want to cook about 1 minute per side.

Step 2: The Apples-
Peel and core apples.  When I am planning on cooking apples I like to peel them with a potato peeler.  It takes pretty much just the peel and saves all the yummy goodness inside for you to use, no apple is wasted. 
Once apples are peeled and cored chop them into slices as if you were making an apple pie.  Each apple will make about 10-12 slices.

apple slices nicely coated

In a large bowl combine Brown and Granulated Sugar, Cinnamon and Nutmeg.  Add in apple slices and toss with your hand until they are evenly coated.

Step 3: Add Everything To The Crockpot-
Layer 3 pork chops on the bottom of the crockpot, top with half of the apples.  Dot with butter.  I did not measure this part but I imagine I used 1-2 Tblsp of butter per layer.
Layer remaining chops, the rest of the apples and dot with butter again.
In order to get all of the seasoning out I added about 2 Tblsp of warm water to the bowl and splashed it around a bit so that it got almost all the seasoning left in the bowl and then poured this into the crockpot too.  Thats totally optional though, I am a cheapskate like that and want to make sure everything gets used.

Step 4: Cook and Enjoy-

in the crockpot and all ready too cook

Cook on low setting for 6-8 hrs and enjoy.  I will come add more once we have actually eaten this and will post a picture of the finished product.





















Just realized I never came back to post the final results.  Sorry, there is no picture, we were all starving and just starting eating it.
I checked everything at the 6 hr mark and decided it needed more sugar.  I am going to leave the amounts above as a starting point and you can decide for yourself if you want more.  I added another Tblsp of granulated sugar and I am not sure how much more brown sugar.  When I make this again I will most likely use 1/4 of a cup of brown sugar and 2 Tblsp of granulated sugar.

I do plan to make this again, it was very yummy although I wouldn't recommend using more than 4 pork chops.  I used 6 because we had company coming and it just seemed to be too much for the recipe.  I think it would've tasted much better with just 4.  I also plan to layer all of the apples in the middle next time as the apples on top did not cook as well as the ones in the middle did.

So there you have it, the final verdict: Good but needed much more sugar and less meat so as not to overwhelm the overall taste of the dish. 

This is a keeper though and I will be making it again.

Love,
Christy