Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Friday's Meal -- update!

I told you to stay tuned to how my crockpot meal would turn up.  WELL, of course it didn't go 100% smoothly, but it did turn out well, and JJ had lots of compliments. Woot!  Woot! 

Let me start off by saying I heart my crockpot.  JJ will do the traditional roast, but otherwise he doesn't venture too much to the crockpot.  I am ALL ABOUT IT.  I suppose since I work during the day, it just makes sense to me.  But also, I just love the ease of dump it in, turn it on, go do stuff, come back and eat.  Yup, those steps work for me.

Anyways, I woke up early (I have been to exercise!), and got out my big crockpot and small "dip" crockpot.  I decided to tackle the meat loaf first.  My Mom sent me her fabulous recipe, so I kind of combined hers and my crockpot one.  I mixed all of the ingredients and the final step was to form it into a loaf and place it in the crockpot.  Well... we have a round crockpot, so it just didn't seem like the loaf-deal was going to work.  Soooo, I just pressed it all down into the bottom of the crockpot, and guess what?  It worked PERFECTLY.  Actually, the edges were crispy burnt (just the way I like my meat!).  Yum-o.  The only minor mishap with this one, was that while I was reaching for something in the cupboard, a jar of beef broth cubes fell into the meat.  Oops!  AAAAND lid on... lesson learned!

Then, I dove right into making the carrots.  The recipe called for two pounds of carrots -- this must be for a full Thanksgiving meal or something!  I only had the dip sized crockpot left, so I put in about half a pound.  The full recipe called for half a cup of water.  I thought there was no way fourthing a half a cup would be enough, so I just kept adding water until I thought it was enough.  Then I started getting out the other ingredients - honey, apricot marmalade, parsley.  I decided not to measure.  I'm such an accomplished chef, I really can just measure by eye.... ummm.... yeah right!  More like I'm just too lazy to get out the measuring spoons!  I poured in some honey and was checking to see about how much marmalade, in comparison on the honey, I should add when I read that it was supposed to be added AFTER the carrots cooked (NINE hours!).  Oops.  It seriously didn't seem to matter.  Besides the carrots possibly being a little water logged... and the lid not fitting on (at first -- I knew the carrots would cook down though!) -- I thought they were delicious -- and they were definitely soft enough for the MVJ to enjoy as well. 

GO cooking at home!  : )

1 comment:

Tara said...

Oh my gosh Erica, I was cracking up the entire time I read this post. We are so much alike, I am about as much a chef as you are. I can't seem to make a recipe without messing it up, that's why I usually leave the cooking to Rick! But good job on the meal, you should let me know what the recipes were, maybe it's something even I can make!