I've been having trouble lately getting a healthy dinner prepared for everyone. Now, it is not completely my fault though. Usually there is no one home during dinner time. I know I mentioned in a previous blog about starting to use my crock pot more. Well, that works when I can actually get it all ready in the morning before I leave for work. That is the thing about crock potting... you have to do it in advance.
I think I would be apt to try it more frequently if the meals all turned out good. The last new recipe I tried didn't come out so well. It was called Italian Chicken and Potatoes. It sounded really good. And easy. Boneless chicken breast, Italian spices, Italian dressing, potatoes, and Parmesan cheese layered and then cooked for 6-7 hours. Yeah, well it sounded good. After 7 hours in the crock pot, the potatoes were still hard. I think the chicken was done, and if I had been thinking, I would have removed the chicken, but no, I was not thinking. I continued to cook it for another 2 hours. Still the potatoes were hard. By this time, the chicken had to be removed with a spoon. The problem was even though it was going to pieces in the dressing, it was really, really dry. I ended up throwing out the entire contents. I haven't had a mishap like that in quite few years. It reminds me of a crock pot meal I made about 8 years ago. I don't remember what it was called, but it had chicken, a cream soup, broccoli, and rice. All good foods that actually taste good together, but as soon as they joined together in my crock pot... well, some sort of chemical reaction happened. First of all, it looked like baby food. The broccoli turned that grayish green color and turned to mush. The chicken was so moist it shredded into minuscule pieces and the rice? Well, you would have thought I put cream of wheat in the crock pot instead of rice! Anyway, as gross as it looked, I had a hard time getting my kids to even try it. My husband being the good man that he is, scooped an enormous portion to put on his plate (just to encourage the kids I think) and he ate it. Amy took a small amount and gagged it down, and Will? Well, Will refused to eat at all, he wasn't having any of it. I think he may have asked for a peanut butter sandwich at this point, but I am not a short order cook. My kids eat what I prepare, or they don't eat at all. I put some on my plate, and if a person can get past the texture of their food, they might have thought it was OK, but I am not one of those people. So it was very surprising to me when my husband asked for seconds. "Really?" I asked him, "OK...." I scooped up another serving as the kids were excused from the table. As I put the plate down in front of my wonderful, supportive husband, he stared at the plate for a full thirty seconds and then he said, "I can't do it." At that point we both just started laughing, it really was awful. The remaining contents of that crock pot meal went in the garbage as well.
I like to make different things for dinner, but days like these only serve to keep me relying on the old tried and true recipes. Well, those recipes and a delivered pizza every now and then!
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