Mystery Meat Meal?

I've told you about our mystery noodles before, well this is all about the meat! Now when I say mystery meat, I don't mean the package of stuff you pulled out of the freezer but have no clue what it is because you forgot to mark it or it's so freezer burnt it's not recognizable.  I've found stuff like that before, trust me it's just best to toss that stuff!  But have you every had a package of meat in the fridge or freezer and you're wondering what should I make out of this?  Any time I have that, I use this recipe.  Oh and the other thing I love about this recipe, it's a crock pot meal!  I love my crock pot. I dump all the stuff in it in the morning, and by dinner I have a cooked meal with very little work.   This is perfect for a busy day or one that you don't feel like cooking.  It saves us from heading out for pizza or fast food too!

Country (mystery meat) crock pot dinner:
1 package of meat- this time I used pork chops
1 can cream of something soup- I used mushroom
1 soup can of water
1/4 cup chopped onion
4-5 med peeled, cut carrots
3-4 med cut up potatoes
1 tsp season salt
1/4 tsp pepper

In medium or large crock pot place soup, water and seasoning.  Mix well.  Add in your meat.  This can be anything. This time around I used pork.  But I've made it with thin beef steaks, ground burger, chicken or even turkey.  They all work.  If I'm making chicken or turkey I use cream of chicken soup in stead of mushroom soup.

Next chop some onions and toss them into the soup and meat mix. 

Do you hate chopping onions? This one was really bad and made even Bacon Jr cry while he was sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework. But what I really hate is when my hands smell like onions for DAYS afterward.  Want to know a trick to get rid of the smell?  When you are done cutting, wash your hands with a spoon. I put some soap on my hands, grab a spoon and scrub away. Then rinse like normal.  Takes the smell away every time. This works with a lot of things, I wash my hands like this after I use peppers or garlic too. 

Cover and turn the crock pot on high.  This recipe calls to cook this on high for 4-5 hours or low for 7-8 hours. So adjust your time as needed.  When I'm about 2-3 hours out from when I want to eat I add the veggies.  You can add this right away if you are cooking it on low too. 

I cut my peeled carrots into little carrot coins and toss them in. 

Potatoes get chopped as well. It's up to you if you'd like to peel them, I don't since that's where all the good stuff is and the kids eat the peels and don't even know it's good for them!  You can add other veggies if you'd like, use up what ever you have so it doesn't go to waste. 

Toss them all in and give it a good mix around.  Then put the lid back on.  Let it cook until the meat and veggies are both done.

Yes sometimes I let it go long enough and everything is falling apart!   It turns it more into a stew that way.  Serve it with some fresh baked biscuits, toast or just buttered bread.  Dinner is ready!

Whats for lunch? What's for dinner?

Some days I just DREAD those questions.  I don't know, let me find my menu list...humm.. nope that doesn't sound good. What else is in the cupboards?  Sound familiar?  But for once, I had it all planned out. I had a super cute idea for the kids lunch which I knew they would love.  And dinner I was actually looking forward to what I had planned. Mainly because it was one of those delicious bacon wrapped pork loins I told you about here. 


Lets start with lunch.  Since schools been out for three weeks now (yes I've survived 3 weeks so far, and I haven't started counting when they go back yet, so that's a good sign that we are having a lot of fun!) I wanted to do something fun for lunch time.  I've seen this idea a lot of places that involve muffin tins.  You fill up each cup with a different item and VIOLA! easy lunch!  My kids love the idea of 'snacks' for lunch  or dinner so I knew they would gobble up this idea and they did.  I had fun finding different things to put in each cup too.  We have decided to try to make this a once a week lunch adventure too. If you are wondering there are PB crackers, cheese, skittles, pepperoni, strawberries and apples.  Little Miss Bacon had yogurt in her's since she doesn't eat cheese. I know, who would have thought there were kids out there that don't like cheese!

So we have lunch covered, one down, one to go!   I relaxed all afternoon with the relief of knowing what I was making for dinner.  It was nice. So about 4 pm I went and dug out the pork loin from the freezer so I could start on dinner.  Ok so it was kinda late to get started, we got busy playing and the day slipped away from me so I had to thaw the pork in the microwave.  I tossed the package of frozen pork in the micro and started in dicing my potatoes.  BEEP, BEEP. Meat's thawed.  Took the package out of the microwave and learned a good lesson the hard way!  I didn't defrost pork loin, I defrosted pork CHOPS. UGH.  There is a very good reason why when you buy foods in bulk and food save them and stick them in the freezer you should label them.  Why we didn't write on them like we always do I don't know.  I blame it on lack of sleep and mommy brain!

So now what am I going to do. I could attempt to do bacon wrapped chops, sounds good, but not as good as loin.  I decided barbecued chops sounded good.  Mr. Bacon wasn't to be home from work for a while yet, and lets face it my grilling skills are no where near what my baking skills are so grilling was out of the question.  I decided to bake them in BBQ sauce.

The pork chops were the easy part- place some BBQ sauce on the bottom of my pan, lay in the chops, cover with sauce.  Place in 350* oven.  

  There that wasn't hard!  Now what do I do with these potatoes I already diced up?

  

Honestly I was thinking that twice baked potatoes sound awesome to have with these chops.  But that takes along time to make.  And I already have a bunch of cut up potatoes.  Then the light bulb went off!   Why not make the diced potatoes with the twice baked ingredients on them?!  Yes sometimes the brain works, it just takes some time. 

 

 I dug though the fridge and pulled out what I normally place in a twice baked potato.  Milk, sour cream, ranch dressing, butter (melted), cheese and bacon.  Well I didn't have cooked up, crumbled bacon so I improvised with some 'Bacon,Bacon' from tastefully simple I had in my cupboard.  I will tell you I didn't measure anything. I just dumped and poured until it looked good. I was pressed on time to get these in the oven and have them done in time to have with dinner.  So if you are going to try this, you'll just have to wing it and use your best guess.  I poured  all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed well until everything was coated.  Then I tossed it in a well greased 9x13 pan and placed it in the oven too. 

 Oh and because I'm a super awesome good mom, I put some potatoes in a separate baking dish and put my usual spices on them with some oil since I knew Little Miss Bacon wouldn't come near my others!  She was very happy and ate everything in her 'special' dish! Which I was happy with since it was a whole potato cut up in there!

  

 I let everything bake for about an hour and a half.  How did it turn out?  DELICIOUS!  It was a great dinner.  Not bad for having to improvise last minute.  Goes to show you not everything goes as planned, but it wasn't hard to save the day! (or err.. dinner!)

 

Soups on! and a cheap treat

It's COLD outside! Temps on Friday here were -29 with wind chills in the -40's! Needless to say I'm ready for spring to come. The only thing that warms me up on those days is a nice bowl of soup. One of my favorites is potato bacon soup. Delicious, creamy goodness in a bowl! Does it look wonderful! Serve it up with a nice warm biscuit and you've got dinner.

Like my last soup post, it's defiantly a meal Mr. Bacon and I liked the.. ahem... older we get. But even our picky eaters will gobble this one up. Bacon Jr. is actually quite the soup lover and will request it from time to time, right after asking for tacos!

Like all great recipes I was happy when this one was passed on to me, and I want to pass it on to you. One of my favorite things about this recipe besides being a cheap meal, it goes in the slow cooker!

Potato Bacon Soup:
8 cups course peeled potatoes chopped (I use reds and leave the skins on instead of peeling)
1 small onion chopped (about 1/3 cup)
1/2lb crisp bacon- crumbled
1-8oz cream cheese
3 cans (14.5 oz) chicken broth
1/4 tsp pepper
1 can (10 oz) cream of chicken soup

In 4qt or larger crock pot, combine cream cheese, soup, broth and pepper. Add in onion, bacon and potatoes. Cook 4-5 hrs on high or 7-8hrs on low. When done, mash with potato masher until desired consistency, a little for more liquid soup, mash lots for more of a 'chowder'.

Like always, I make my own broth from bouillon, I put in 5 cups hot water and enough bouillon to match cups worth according to directions. I love to top mine with some shredded cheese and a little more crumbled bacon.

Yesterday we treated the kids to pizza at our local dine in pizza place. We love this little restaurant. It's warm and cozy and run by some wonderful people. Of course the kids thought after they had pizza in their tummies, they needed some ice cream to go with. Little Miss Bacon suggested her favorite Dairy Queen as the place of choice! Lucky for my pocket book, DQ is closed in the frozen tundra of MN by us during the winter. Instead we made our own fun treats at home. The kids had a blast making their own sundaes. A few years ago I was at Goodwill and found these dessert cups (6 of them for under $2!), they are perfect for making a treat extra special. A sundae cup + ice cream +chocolate sauce + whip cream + sprinkles = Happy kids for under $1. SUCCESS!