Nacho Cheese Chicken Chowder

Back to Better Homes and Gardens' slow cooker recipes for this week's experiment.


Nacho Cheese Chicken Chowder


Ingredients:
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into small pieces (for a change I actually cubed my chicken instead of shredding it)
2 14.5oz cans Mexican stewed tomatoes (if you're not a big tomato fan I would recommend using diced tomatoes instead)
1 can Nacho Cheese soup
1 10oz package frozen kernel corn
shredded Mexican or cheddar cheese to use as a topping


Cooking Directions:
Mix together chicken, tomatoes, soup and corn in slow cooker and cook on low for 4-5 hours. Or if you're in more of a hurry, cook on high for 2.5 hours.

(Photo credit: Better Homes and Gardens)

Super easy right?? It was. However, the taste buds weren't quite as excited. It was okay but nothing special. It was actually quite bland to be totally honest. It needed a little something extra to give it more flavor. Any suggestions??


So, while not being a fiasco, it wasn't quite a success either. Time to wash out the slow cooker and try again next week.

Crockpot Potato Soup

Confession: I'm falling in love with my Crockpot! Lately I've been working the closing shift at my job - which means I don't get home until 10pm. Way too late to make supper, even in this house. Consequently I've been scrounging the internet for tasty Crockpot recipes and I'm loving what I'm finding.

I get Better Homes and Gardens weekly recipe e-mails and this past week's was ALL about my new favorite dish. That's right, tons of new recipes created just for the Crockpot.

There were so many to choose from, I have a strong feeling that I will be returning to the website frequently this season for more meal ideas. But for this week I decided to try the Smashed Potato Soup. I'm a big fan of O'Charley's loaded potato soup so I was curious to see how this home-made creation would compare.

It was delicious! The consistency was a little thick, but that was 100% my fault. I went to work and left it cooking (hence why we all love our Crockpots!) and forgot to tell the hubs to turn it off once he got home. Soo it ended up cooking for a couple of hours too long, making it thicker than planned. But it was still very tasty. Also, I added sour cream and some more cheese (you can never have too much cheese) to my bowl.

It was like eating a loaded baked potato... soup style!

(Photo credit: Better Homes and Gardens)

Smashed Potato Soup

Ingredients:
3 1/2 pounds peeled and sliced potatoes
1/2 cup yellow and/or red sweet peppers chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup half and half
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

Cooking Directions:
1. In slow cooker combine potatoes, peppers, garlic and black pepper. Cover with chicken broth. Cook on low 8-10 hours or on high for 5 hours.
2. Mash potatoes. Stir in half and half, cheese and green onions.


SO EASY and so yummy. But... I had to make the 2 steps into 1 because the hubs was going to be home before me and he likes ready to eat meals. So I added in all of my ingredients at once and let it cook on high for 5 hours and it turned out fine (until it kept cooking another 2 hours on high and all of the liquid cooked out!).

This will definitely be added to the recipe book and used again. and again. and again.

Lasagna with Garlic Toast

The hubs has been petitioning me to make lasagna for supper for weeks now. I kept putting it off. For some reason when I think of cooking lasagna I have visions of laboriously slaving over the hot stove for eons of time. I have made it only a couple of times in the past 18 months we've been married.

But, when he called me from work this morning, asking yet once again for lasagna for supper I had to give in. After all, it is one of my 2 nights off from work, the least I can do is make him a nice hot meal.

So out came my cookbooks as I searched for the easiest and least time consuming lasagna recipe available. I really didn't have to search far because the first place I looked, Taste of Georgia (a Southern Living Hall of Fame-er), held my answer.

I used the Taste of Georgia recipe as a guide and here is what I came up with:

Lasagna

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef (this was my first time making lasagna with ground beef - I've always used venison)

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 can Italian diced tomatoes (if you like your sauce a little 'saucier' I would add another can of tomatoes)
1 can tomato paste

lasagna noodles (I used 8)

1 1/2 cartons 15oz ricotta cheese (I only had 1 on hand and it wasn't quite enough)

1 bag mozzarella cheese

parmesan cheese (you know, the kind in the green canister you sprinkle on top of your spaghetti)

Cooking Directions:

1. Brown ground beef with garlic salt and drain. Add in tomatoes and tomato paste.

2. Spray a casserole pan with cooking spray to prevent sticking. Layer meat, noodles, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese and parmesan until ingredients are gone.

3. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Three steps. That's all it took. It was so easy. And tasted pretty yummy too. I didn't have quite enough ricotta cheese so the top layer of noodles were a little crunchy. Besides that, I'd say this one was a hit.

In addition, I made some garlic toast. The hubs and I both love garlic Texas Toast, but we all know how horrible that stuff is for you.

Sooo. I had an idea one night to make my own Texas Toast. And it isn't half bad.

Take sliced sandwich bread (we eat whole wheat, but any kind will work) and cover one side in butter. Sprinkle garlic salt over the butter. Toast in the toaster oven at 375 degrees for 5 minutes and you have home made Texas Toast! with way fewer calories and at a much lower cost.


Got a tried and true lasagna recipe that you love? I would love for you to share it with me in the comments below!