Sweet and Savory Chicken or Turkey Meatballs in the crockpot

This was super good. I tried it out on Husband and best friend, too. They agreed.

Here is the original source I used. I modified a few things.

Ingredients:

-1 lb ground chicken or turkey
-1 egg
-1 tsp kosher salt
-1 tsp ground black pepper
-1 green apple, peeled and shredded
-1/2 c shredded sharp cheddar
-1/2 c dried cranberries
-1/4-1/2 c panko bread crumbs
-1/2 onion, sliced or diced

1. Put the ground meat in the bottom of a large-ish bowl. Since you will soon be mixing this with your hands, I recommend you leave it at room temperature for a bit so you don't have icy meat hands.

2. Put everything on top of the meat EXCEPT the onions. 

3. Get in there with your hands and mix it all together. 

4. Make ping-pong sized balls and layer them sort of staggered in your crock pot. 

5. Throw the sliced onions on top. 

6. Turn on the crockpot and wait, excitedly. Wait, though, until they have browned, which they will. 

Okay so the original recipe uses onion salt instead of fresh onion, but I didn't have any onion salt and I did have fresh onion, so that's what I did. Also the original recipe doesn't include panko bread crumbs, but I just felt like adding them so I did. I also used plain Craisins because that's what I had and they weren't too sweet. The original recipe says she was able to pull the meatballs apart and mine were more stuck together, but no one cared. I think I might have let mine cook longer than the person from the blog above, but really it was awesome. I mean maybe not ideal for sophisticated company but you could easily use this same recipe and cook them on a baking sheet if you want them to look like actual meatballs. 

Husband thinks they need some sort of tangy sauce, even though they were really good. He is like that, rarely eats meat without some moist component. If I find one, I will add it here. 

Here are my raw meatballs in the crockpot: 

Cheesy bacon chicken and potatoes in a crockpot

This recipe is awesome.

I adapted it from here - fantastic website. I love the writing style of the author as well as her recipes.

Ingredients:

-Some potatoes (I used two russet potatoes and sliced them into small circular slices and then quartered those)
-Some chicken (I used about 6 strips, but honestly breasts or thighs would work, too. I recommend using a portion that does not have bones)
-1/2 c Ranch dressing
-1/4 c Teriyaki sauce
-A hearty serving of bacon, cooked extra crispy, crumbled
-Enough shredded cheddar to cover the entire concoction

1.Wash and slice the potatoes however you'd like, toss in the bottom of the crockpot.

2. Lay the raw chicken on top

3. In a separate bowl, combine the Ranch and Teriyaki sauce. It's good, trust me. I thought it would be weird but it wasn't. Then pour it over the chicken.

4. You can put the bacon in now, or you can wait until later. It will be less crispy if you add it now, but it will give you the sensation of "hey I just put everything in the crockpot and left it and came home and it was perfection. Sweet." So, whatever suits your fancy.

5. Definitely put some cheese in at the beginning, but I would also maybe just top the finished product with some extra cheese, or throw a bit more in about 30 minutes before serving, especially if you add the bacon later, too. Either way, deliciousness is sure to ensue.

Then you just leave it, because that's the beauty of cooking in a crockpot. It's the typical high for 4-6 hours, low for 8-9 cooking time. Perfect for leftovers.

So the original recipe cited above does not include potatoes, but I'm all about a one-stop shop when it comes to the crockpot.

I can't tell you how delicious it was. I mean, the chicken tenders can be weird to cook stove-top, but they were perfect here. And the weird sauce was just tasty, just plain tasty. The potatoes I thought were perfect thinly sliced, but again, you could do whatever. You could probably even use frozen hashbrowns or maybe even frozen chicken (!!!) but I haven't tried that yet so I am unaware of the effects the extra moisture might have.

Here are some kind of gross pictures because everything is raw. Enjoy!

Re-motivated

Well, it's been forever since I've made a post but the time has come, and I have returned. So here are two easy things I've made recently and then I'll tell you what has been going on.

1. Muffcakes. Pa-muffins. Whatever.

So here's what you do, you make pancake mix (I had some Bisquick so I used that but whatever your batter is will work, I'm sure)  and then you pour it into muffin tins. One Bisquick batch made 12 muffcakes. Then you can just bake them like that, or you can add stuff. I added thawed frozen blueberries, but bacon would be a good idea, or any other fruit, or brown sugar, or whatever. Mmm, bananas? Whatever. Just put it on top, maybe push it down a bit, if you feel creative and like you have extra time you could half fill the holes, put your fun stuff, and then cover it with the rest of the batter and sprinkle some more on top, whatever. They freeze well, stay good in the fridge for several days, basically a no lose situation.

2. Chicken (and probably most meats) with any marinade and any potatoes.

I defrosted 4 chicken thighs and tossed them in the crockpot. Then I washed and cut two small-ish russet potatoes into bite size pieces and threw them in the crockpot, too. Then I threw in about 1/4-1/3 a bottle of Lawry's marinade on top and let it cook. The husband smelled it and was like WHOA, awesome. Then we both tasted it and were like, WHOAAAAA AWESOME!!!!! It was ready after 5 hours but was totally fine after 9, I cooked it on low for a while and then left it on "simmer."


Okay so here are some accompanying thoughts:

You might recall a time when I was extremely domestic and picky about what I fed my family. Well, then I left the country for 3 weeks and came back realizing we had a bit of a budget issue. Once we figured out our food budget for the month, I was like OH CRAP and so we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and PBJ's a lot for a while. Well of course that led to eating out more than necessary which obviously is bad for the budget, right? So finally I was like, OKAY ENOUGH, back to being domestic. However I realized I had to make some choices: I can't fully devote myself to all of the following: God, my husband, my music, my fitness, my house, and my cooking. There must be balance, no one can do 100% to all things or something will suffer. My relationship with God and my husband trump everything, but my house, fitness, and cooking are certainly not disconnected from God and Husband, and my music is my music, it's my calling and my service (not to mention my job) so I certainly can't just totally neglect that. So I worked some things out:

Get up and be with God first thing.

By doing this, all things in my life went better (Matthew 6:33). I had strength and motivation again to be a good care-taker of my husband and household. I desired to be a good steward of money, it wasn't a burden.

Nurture your talent.

I'm ridden with guilt when I don't have make time for my music. Obviously I teach and perform, but what about actively listening and practicing and spending time finding God's path for my music? It's important and it needs SOME time, not all the time, some time. I wrote a long thing about practicing and balance and gave it to my students. Little did they know I was speaking directly to myself as well. Holding them accountable for their practicing impacts my practicing in a positive way.

Make some realistic choices.

At this current time, I am choosing NOT to go fully unprocessed, organic, etc. Sometimes we will eat Velveeta Shells and Cheese. Sometimes (obviously, you read above) I will use Bisquick and Lawry's overly-salted marinades. Sometimes we will have to order a pizza. I will not choose homemade tortillas over sleep or practice time (obviously I wouldn't choose it over time with Husband but I am rarely in a situation where that is the case). I WILL however make wise decisions about how we spend our grocery money and making sure we have portable food. (I commute 3 hours to and from work once day a week and I take food to the Husband 4 nights a week for dinner and send him with lunch three days a week. There are 0 nights a week when he and I sit down to an evening meal together and only one day a week when we have lunch together. We hope to have one morning a week where we can have coffee together…so you see how this is weird.) I have accepted that it is okay when I eat alone to have hummus, celery, and a fried egg and to make something for Husband that grosses me out (hamburger helper, Lord forbid) for me to take him at work. This doesn't mean I think processed food is acceptable or good, it just means I have to buy groceries and not go out to eat all the time, and right now that occasionally means getting Chef Boyardee if they are on sale for $.75/can. It also means printing the Food Lion $X off of $Y spent on produce coupons like it's my job. BUT IT ISN'T MY JOB, I HAVE A JOB, and so I can't do that all the time, AND THAT'S OKAY!!!!

But the crockpot…oh, the crockpot is going to help me. I generally have time to cook, it just isn't at times that make sense. The best solution to that is the crockpot. I can even prepare something the night before, stick the whole pot part in the fridge, take it out when I get up and leave it until it reaches room temperature, and then turn the thing on and leave it so that when I get home from teaching 6 lessons in 3 different locations or whatever, I can rush some over to Husband and then come home and eat some, myself, without having to microwave or whatever. HA! YES!!! So here are two sites I'll be exploring and sharing from:

Crockpot 365

Get Crocked

I am also on Pinterest and have this board for you to see the recipes I've pinned, but I'll generally post the recipes I've actually tried on this blog. 

Blessings!

CPK