Gingerbread Pudding

Another new crockpot dessert recipe! We had all the ingredients for this except the molasses, so I had Ryan pick up some molasses at the store so we could try this recipe. It's pretty good! I don't know why it's called 'pudding' though because it was more like a cake. Oh well. It's still really tasty! I think it would taste really good with a little vanilla ice cream and some caramel syrup drizzled on top. :)



Ingredients:
1/2 C. molasses
1 C. water
1/4 C. butter, softened
1/4 C. sugar
1 egg, well-beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 C. brown sugar
3/4 C. hot water
2/3 C. butter, melted

Directions:
Combine molasses and 1 C. water. In separate bowl, cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla; add to molasses mixture. Line a 6-quart oval slow-cooker with waxed paper; pour batter into slow-cooker. Mix brown sugar, hot water, and melted butter; pour over batter but do not stir. Cook on high 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until pudding is set.

Instead of using waxed paper, we just used a crockpot liner (which is pretty much the same thing, right?). I have no idea why it wasn't really 'pudding' for us, but it was still good! I recommend this dessert for anyone who loves gingerbread cookies! Tastes just the same, except in the form of a cake/pudding (we did have a tiny bit of pudding stuff on the very bottom, but it was mostly just cake).

This recipe can be found in the Slow-Cooker recipe book below!

Chocolate Molten Cake

We didn't have any dessert in the house yesterday. (Maybe that's a good thing??) :) I felt like eating something sweet... so I searched through recipe books and found a recipe that we had all the ingredients for! -- Chocolate Molten Cake ... made in the crockpot! (Wow, I sure have been using our crockpot a lot lately! And pretty much all the crockpot recipes I use come from this cookbook. You can also find it here and here. I highly recommend it!) I've never made a cake in the crockpot, so I thought we could try it since we had all the ingredients. It was DELICIOUS! If you're a chocoholic like I am, you'll LOVE this! It was kind of rich, so it's good to eat with vanilla ice cream or whipped topping. We didn't have ice cream, but we did have whipped topping! Yum, yum, YUM!!!


Ingredients:
1 C. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
6 Tbsp. butter
1/3 C. semisweet chocolate chips
1 C. sugar, divided
3 Tbsp. + 1/3 C. cocoa
Pinch baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 C. milk
1 egg yolk
1/3 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 C. hot water

Directions:
In medium bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. In separate bowl, melt butter and chocolate chips. Add 2/3 C. sugar, 3 Tbsp. cocoa, soda, salt, milk, and egg yolk. Combine with flour mixture. Pour batter into greased 5- to 6-quart slow-cooker. Mix remaining sugar, 1/3 C. cocoa, brown sugar, and hot water. Pour over cake batter. Cover and cook on high 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until edges are set and pull away from sides. Cake will be very moist and the bottom will be a layer of molten chocolate.

This was SOOOOO good! When we made it, we used a crockpot liner so we didn't have to grease it. It worked out just fine! AND... not much of a clean up to do afterwards when using a crockpot liner! Hurray! We did it for 1 1/2 hours and it seemed to be enough time for it to bake. This even tastes good cold because the molten chocolate on the bottom is less runny and more like a chocolate pudding consistency. Mmmm!!!

Beef Stroganoff

I'm back! Life has been busy with packing and moving and unpacking and getting settled in our new place, so I've been neglecting this recipe blog! We are almost all unpacked now. (Whew!)

Here's another recipe from the Slow-Cooker cookbook! We made this about 2 1/2 weeks ago for some of my family who helped us move. It was really good and easy to make!



Ingredients
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. round steak (we used petite sirloin steaks)
2 tsp. beef bouillon
1 onion, chopped (I think we just used dried minced onion)
1 C. mushrooms, sliced (I don't think we put in the mushrooms because one of my sisters doesn't like them, plus I don't think we had any at the time)
1 tsp. parsley flakes
2 10-oz. cans cream of mushroom soup
Salt and pepper
1/4 C. Worcestershire sauce
1 C. sour cream

Directions
Cut steak into 1-inch pieces; place in slow-cooker. Sprinkle bouillon, onions, mushrooms, and parsley flakes over steak. Spread soup over top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 7-8 hours. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and sour cream. Cook on high 30-60 minutes. Serve over hot cooked egg noodles.


See? Really easy! I believe we started this soon after we got up one day, then had it cooking on the low setting for 7-8 hours. We packed things, then had some of my family come over and help us move some stuff while it was cooking. Then by the time we were done with moving the load of stuff for the day, dinner was ready! All we had to do was cook some noodles. I love making dinner using the crockpot! It even tastes good as leftovers, eaten on paper plates... haha!

Enjoy!!!

Mac & Cheese (in the crockpot!)

This recipe came from the Slow-Cooker cookbook. It wasn't my favorite. If you want a really good mac & cheese recipe, try this one! I think I've just been too spoiled by that other mac & cheese recipe, so any other mac & cheese doesn't taste too good to me. Haha! I'm sure this one would taste a lot better if you added some spices!


2 C. macaroni, uncooked
1 Tbsp. butter
2 C. water
2 C. milk
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. flour
1 C. cheddar cheese, grated
3 slices bread, toasted
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 tsp. pepper

Turn slow-cooker to high. In a skillet, saute macaroni in butter until edges start to brown. Pour water and milk into slow-cooker. Add macaroni noodles and salt. Stir well. Cover and cook on high 60-90 minutes or low 2-3 hours or until macaroni is done. Sprinkle flour and grated cheese over top. Stir until cheese is melted. Cut toast into cubes. Saute in butter. Toss over macaroni. Sprinkle with pepper. Cook 30 minutes.

I don't know why you have to turn the slow-cooker to high at the very beginning. I'd suggest if you're planning to cook it on low for 2-3 hours rather than on high 60-90 minutes, turn the slow-cooker to low at the beginning. I turned it on high like the recipe said, then switched it to low so I could cook it for 2-3 hours, but the macaroni ended up getting too mushy after about 2 hours. If you try this recipe, keep checking the noodles to see when they are done so that they don't get too soft and mushy! That's just my advice! :)

Crockpot Tater-Tot Casserole

I got this cookbook for Christmas. My work gives everyone a little bit of money so we can buy ourselves a Christmas gift. This is one of the things I got for myself with the Christmas money! :) I want to use our crockpot more often, so this cookbook will give me more ideas of what to make. I saw the recipe for tater-tot casserole and it sounded good, so I decided to make it! The only other thing we've made in the crockpot is Creamy Chicken, so it was fun to do something different besides chicken.

BEEF! It's what's for dinner! (Seriously, this recipe calls for a LOT of beef!)

Ingredients:

2 lb. ground beef

16-oz. bag Tater-Tots
2 cans green beans, drained

2 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown and drain ground beef. In slow-cooker, mix 1/2 bag tater-tots with ground beef. Spread green beans over top. Pour soup and milk over green beans and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread remaining tater-tots on top. Cover and cook on high 2-3 hours.

Cheesy Tater-Tot Casserole:

Add 1 cup grated cheddar cheese before top layer of Tater-Tots.

You can see that the time on the crockpot says 2:23. We did ours for 2.5 hours. It seemed to be enough time. The thing I like about this compared to the chicken recipe we made is that we didn't have to worry if the meat was cooked all the way since it was already browned before we put it in the crockpot. Very easy meal! (But I suggest using a little less meat... maybe 1 or 1.5 lbs.) As you can see, we did the Cheesy version! We LOVE cheese! Look at all that melted cheese...

Add a salad and some rolls or bread with this meal, and you have a nice and hearty meal! (That's what Ryan called it... a hearty meal!)

We had lots of leftovers! I love leftovers because that means I don't have to cook every day! :)

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did! :)