WOW! My Happy Chili was perfect last week and I even had some left over for the next day when the outside temperature dipped to 34* F here! Was I lucky!
I figured since you had the dust off of your crock pot ( I found mine dusty and in its original wedding gift box, in the attic while cleaning up after my divorce), that you might want another couple recipes for your family to try.
Meatballs in Gravy
Serves 4
Can be refrigerated and consumed within 3 days after the initial cooking
Ingredients
1 pound ground meat ( lean beef, chicken or turkey)
1 small onion diced small and chopped fine
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup egg beaters
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp olive or canola oil
2 tbsp Italian seasoning
2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp 3 sprigs, fresh parsley or dry
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 jar 32 ounces of jarred sauce or gravy (Your choice of sauce, tomato,pizza, marinara, meat, Alfredo. Your choice of gravy, beef, turkey, chicken, mushroom)
1 small can or 1 cup vegetable broth, low sodium
1 eight ounces of your favorite pasta or if making meatballs with a gravy, substitute no-yolk egg noodles
Preparation
Parent or Child over age 12 : open jars and cans of the vegetable stock and sauce or gravy. Place a long handled spoon inside your crock pot and slowly pour your liquid against the spoon face into your pot. Stir liquid and leave spoon inside for now.
Parent: Plug in crock pot and set to high
Parent: Dice your onion to a small dice. Then watching out for your non-knife hand, and focusing on the onion, begin to chop the small diced pieces into smaller pieces. Hold the knife and from the wrist, as if you were hammering a nail, chop the onions. Put the knife down, then move the onions back into a pile. Resume chopping. Repeat this safe process three times more. This should yield safely chopped onions. The smaller the onions get, the less will be clumped inside your meatballs. :)
Child: measure and slowly pour the olive oil into a bowl that is large enough for you and your parent to place their hand inside. Keep this oil on the side until later. DO NOT add this to your meatball mix or sauce/gravy.
Child: measure all your ingredients and add to a large mixing bowl. Wash hands with soapy warm water after handling meat.
Child and Parent, taking turns: wearing gloves or using a spoon, mix the ingredients thoroughly and completely. The goal is not to have one section of product in your bowl being all pepper and another section being clumps of bread crumbs. Your goal is to mix all ingredients around alot, and squeeze the product through your fingers and rip pieces up and then smoosh them back together so all the flavors mix and blend. The final product will be the consistency of modeling clay or "Play-doh".
Parent: Remove and throw away gloves. Wash spoon with warm soapy water and rinse before placing to be washed in a dishwasher or by hand at the end of food preparation.
Child: Get a cooking sheet pan and over your sink, spray the cookie sheet with a non-stick cooking spray
Parent: Pre-heat oven to 350*F
Parent: Help your child place their hands into the olive oil to coat their hands, then coat yours also.
Parent and Child/Children: Reach into the bowl of meatball mixture and gather up a small amount of mixture, the size of an egg ( or use a 2 ounce ice cream scoop). Roll the mixture between the palms of your hands in an attempt to make a round meat ball. REMEMBER!!! Perfection is not important, the fun and memories are. Plus you are building self confidence in this step.
Parent and Child: Place your round meatballs, about a 1/4 inch apart from each other on your cookie sheet and continue to make the rest of your meat mixture into meatballs. You might have to re-dip your hands into the olive oil to reduce the amount of meat that might stick to your hands.
TIP: You can use plastic or latex gloves when fashioning meatballs, but still use the olive oil dip method so the meat doesn't stick to the gloves.
Parent or Child over 12: Place the cookie sheet with meatballs into your oven on the center rack.
Child: Set timer for 20 minutes
Parent: When 20 minutes cooking time has ended. Turn off the oven. Open the oven and place the hot pan on a heat resistant kitchen counter surface.
TIP: If you are cooking beef or mushroom gravy and adding beef meatballs, you can add 4 ounces of sour cream with chives to the crock pot now and stir to mix. This will provide you with a Swedish meatballs style dinner upon completion.
Parent or Child over 12: Using a fork, stab each meatball and then let it roll off the fork onto the spoon inside your crock pot, slowly to prevent splashing. Once all the meatballs are inside the crock pot, remove spoon and cover. The goal is to have all meatballs submerged into the crock pot liquid without the meatballs breaking apart. No worries! If a few break apart the meal will still be awesome and sooo much better than fast food or a frozen TV dinner!
Child: Set timer for 1 hour.
Parent: Turn off the crock pot and unplug it after the hour of crock pot cooking.
Child: In your sink, filling half way, pour water into a 5 qt. stock pot
Parent: Place the stock pot of water on the stove
Child: Pour the rest of the unused oil and sprinkle salt into the water
Parent: Turn the stove top under the water pot on high and cover. Bring to a boil.
Parent or child over 12: Add the correct amount of pasta or noodles into boiling water from a high distance as not to burn your hands or arms on the top of the pot of water.
Parent or child over 12: Stir the boiling water in the figure 8 method, to prevent starch from sticking pasta or noodles together. Cook per package instructions, less 2 minutes.
Child: Place a colander in your clean kitchen sink
Parent: Wearing hot gloves of protective covers on your hands to prevent burning or scalding, pour the pasta or noodles into your colander. Wearing gloves, gently swirl colander around and lift up the colander to allow hot water to escape through the colander holes.
Parent: Open crock pot lid and stir meatballs. Then pour the cooked pasta or noodles into the crock pot.
Child: Gently stir the pasta or noodles in the crock pot to try to cover all noodles with sauce/gravy
Child: Cover crock pot and help your parent to set the table for dinner
Parent: Serve into bowls or plates using a pasta spork or tongs. Pasta/noodles first, then meatballs on the top.
Remove leftover product from crock pot into a refrigerator safe seal-able container. Allow to cool at room temperature for 20 minutes(set the timer). Then place, covered into the refrigerator. You can also freeze this product covered for 2 weeks, yet must be eaten within 15 days of freezing it, so mark your calendar.
BONUS: One last quick recipe. One that was made by accident, that my kids and I loved! I was shopping before picking up my children from their mom's house and saw a Boston Butt on sale for around 60 cents per pound! CHEAP! I was so proud of my deal that I finshed shopping and continued on to pick up my children. The next morning I realized I didn't have a recipe for the pork. I found rice and a couple cans of red chili sauce and an onion and half of a green bell pepper. So I tossed all of it inside the crock pot and with the kids, headed off to church. By dinner time it was a surprise hit!
Mexican Pork
Serves 4-6 portions
Refrigerate leftovers. Can be kept refrigerated for 4 days.
Ingredients
2 pounds Pork, "Boston butt" or boneless pork shoulder
32 ounces "medium heat/spice" canned red chili sauce (Las Palmas, found in the International Food Aisle)
1 medium onion, diced medium
1 sweet green pepper, diced medium
1 sweet red pepper, diced medium
1 cup uncooked brown or whole grain rice
4 flour tortillas, optional
Preparation
Parent: Plug crock pot into wall outlet and set on low heat
Parent: Remove your pork from the retail packaging and cut into four equal sized chunks to allow for even cooking.
Parent or child: Place the four pork sections into the crock pot.
Parent: Wash knife, cutting surface and hands or people who touched the raw port with hot soapy water and rinse.
Child over 12: Open cans of red chili sauce
Child: Place a long handled spoon inside the crock pot, spoon face down, then pour in chili sauce slowly.
Parent or child over 12: Cut the vegetables
Child: Add cut vegetables to crock pot. Stir with long handled spoon, then remove spoon and cover crock pot.
Child: Set timer for 4 hours
Parent: At the end of 4 hours, remove lid from crock pot and add rice. Stir and recover. Cook for an additional 45 minutes.
Parent or child over 12: Remove crock pot lid and with tongs, "fish" out the 4 pork sections and place on a cutting board. Cut into small cubes. This should be easy and the pork might even "shred" with a fork.
Child or parent: Stir rice in the crock pot in a figure 8 two times.
Parent: Add cut up pork back into crock pot, stir once then serve.
TIP: Garnish with fresh slices of tomato, tortilllas or corn chips, or low fat shredded cheese
Things you have learned:
How to dice a vegetable, then reduce it to chopped form
The knife technique, like a "hammer" to work your knife in a chopping motion
How to properly make a meat mixture
Setting a timer, helps keep you on schedule and reduces the chance of burning foods
How to coat your hands with food oil to avoid food stickiness
Cleaning up during food prep, especially with chicken or pork is critical to prevent cross contamination
Five recipes and variations to use the same cooking method, a crock pot, while keeping the flavors different
I hope this weekend with your children will be a blast! Please take time to plan ahead so you don't have any stress. Have a terrific time preparing meals, talking and building your relationship. Keep things positive and I'll check back with you next week. I think you are ready for some Thanksgiving Recipes! Don't sweat it, you will be a superstar!
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