Crock Pot Italian Chicken

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

In honor of Labor Day, I'm bringing you a dish--not for a picnic--but for a nice low-labor dinner for a high-labor day. It's great for anything in the world (Sunday dinner, soccer days, lazy days, hot days, cold days, weekdays), including bringing to friends who need a nice meal. 

If you'd like to read the initial post, which I just think is hil-a-ri-ous. Because of course, I'm just hil-a-ri-ous, you can find it HERE. 

Also, if you forget to crock pot it, and still want this, I'd bet you could put it all in a 9x13 inch pan and bake for about 40 minutes, and come out with a win.

Crock Pot Italian Chicken
Serves 6
Prep time: 3-10 minutes
Cook time: 6 hours in crock pot
Cost: $4.85
(chicken: 4.00, cream cheese: I got mine for .50, but a more normal yet still cheap price is a little over a dollar, white sauce: .30, Italian dressing packet: homemade: .05; I don't know how much it is to buy it.)

4 chicken breasts--about 2 lb.
8 oz. package cream cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup (or 2 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp flour, 1 C milk, 1 tsp bouillon granules)
1 packet Italian dressing mix (or 2 Tbsp homemade Italian dressing mix)

2 handfuls spinach (optional, but this does make you feel like you're winning at life)

Put chicken in crock pot. Add cream cheese in chunks. Add cream of chicken soup and sprinkle with Italian dressing mix. Cook on low for 6 hours (my chicken was frozen; if yours is thawed, this will take less time) or whenever dinner is [Note: It is possible to overcook this. I mean, it's still good, but your chicken can get a little mushy, so be warned.]. 

If using spinach, toss it in the crock pot, 15 minutes before serving. 

When ready to eat, shred chicken and mix chicken with cream cheese, sauce, and seasoning. Serve over rice or starch of your choice. We had a salad on the side the first day and broccoli the next day. I also thought it would be really good with a few lovely seasonal tomatoes sliced up on the side.

If making a white sauce instead of using cream of chicken soup:

Melt butter in a pot. Whisk in flour and bouillon. Let bubble for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Whisk in milk. Stir until boiling. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened (should take 1-3 minutes).

Crockpot Greek Yogurt for Dummies

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE 

I mean, really. It's so easy it will change your life forever. 

Before I begin with this INCREDIBLY LONG post, let me say that this is super easy. In a nutshell, this is what you do. 

1. Heat 1 gallon milk in crock pot to 180 degrees.

2. Let cool to 120 degrees. 

3. Whisk in 1/2 C yogurt. 

4. Put lid on crock pot and put crock pot in oven (an oven that is OFF). 

5. Let sit for 6-10 hours in oven. 

6. Strain through tea towel to desired thickness. 

But below I've detailed all those steps and tried to trouble shoot and everything. 

(Note: If you want something EVEN EASIER that doesn't involve actually making yogurt, scroll to the bottom for a trick to make normal store bought yogurt into Greek yogurt.) 

Now on to the post. 
Besides being life-changing in every way, this yogurt will save you a stinking butt load of money if you like Greek yogurt. For $2 (TWO DOLLARS!) I got no less than 10 cups (TEN CUPS!) Greek yogurt--that's $.20/cup if you're math impaired (don't worry--math unnecessary for this recipe; brains in general unnecessary for this recipe). Twenty cents for creamy, perfect Greek yogurt.

You can eat it with anything. I like it for breakfast with some jam mixed it. My kids like it best blended with jam and put into popsicle molds and frozen. My friend serves it as a dessert. She mixes it with jam and then adds a squirt of whipped cream to the top. But don't think it can only be served sweet. This thick Greek yogurt can be used as a substitute for sour cream and cream cheese. It can be used in savory dips, for ranch dressing, with tacos.

And in case you missed the whole Greek yogurt bandwagon (or were maybe too poor to buy a ticket), Greek yogurt is awesome and loveable because it is a) delicious and creamy, b) higher in protein, lower in sugar (lactose), and lower than sodium than regular yogurt. And did I mention creamy awesomeness? It's also just way versatile--it can really be subbed for a lot of things.

Let me say that making yogurt is not entirely new to me. I even have a yogurt maker (which I may now sell) that has cute little cups with lids. I used it faithfully when we lived in California, but when we moved here, it became cost INeffective. I couldn't find small amounts of plain yogurt and after I'd bought 32 oz of plain yogurt, well then it seemed silly to bother making little cupfuls of yogurt. And my homemade yogurt always came out somewhat runny. This is true of yogurt. Most (if not all) of what we find in the store has been artificially thickened--cornstarch and gluten are both in Dannon. Homemade yogurt tends to be thinner. Real Greek yogurt, on the other hand, is thick because much of the whey has been strained out of it. But because of that, it is often very expensive. Thus, for the last several years I haven't made my yogurt; I've just bought it. Until the fateful day when my friend (the dessert yogurt making one) brought over some yogurt with raspberry jam in it. It was better than ice cream. Oh, yes, it was. Thick, creamy, and beautiful. And it had cost her almost nothing. And it had been stupidly easy. Now that's what I'm talking about. Because many of the other homemade yogurt recipes I knew of (the ones without the handy yogurt-maker) seemed hard. There seemed to be lots of variables that could cause it to fail. Some required you to double boil your milk (I double boil nothing, people, nothing). Some gave detailed instructions for putting it in a cooler or oven and then keeping it consistently warm but not hot. If you got too cool or too hot, you'd wind up with curdled, runny nasties instead of yogurt. Yes, it was all too frightening. I needed fail proof. I needed dummy proof. I needed distracted mom proof. My friend provided that. 

She had used a pot to make the yogurt. You can too if you don't have a crock pot. A regular pot works great, but it requires more of your attention. A crock pot, on the other hand, requires only a one-minute attention span and perhaps and IQ of 32 or so.

Now, what do you do? Let me pull back the curtain so you can be amazed.

1. Put 1 gallon whole milk into your crock pot. Put lid on. Heat until 180 degrees. (Note: I recommend heating it on low. You can heat it on high, but sometimes that means the bottom will get a little too hot, which is--honestly--fine, but sometimes it makes your yogurt come out browner in color.) This should take between two and four hours (depending on your crock pot). If you don't have a thermometer (though one is useful), it will be bubbly/foamy all over on top without actually boiling.) Note: If you get this too hot, it's okay. It does turn into a browner colored yogurt, but tastes normal, unless you were to actually burn the bottom, which I never have in a crock pot.)
2. Remove lid and let cool to 110-120 degrees (if you don't have a thermometer, this will feel warm when you stick your finger in, but not hot--this is the temperature you'd kind of want to get baby formula to--warm, but nothing that would scald a baby's throat). Note: It will sometimes form a skin. My kids hate this because they claim it makes chunky bits in the finished product, so I take a slotted spoon and scoop it off. 
3. Add 1/2 C PLAIN yogurt and whisk it in. (I add yogurt to a small amount of milk in a bowl and whisk in order to keep it from lumping up. Then I put that into the big pot of milk and whisk.)
4. Put lid back on.
5. Put crock pot in oven for 6-10 hours. You don't have to heat your oven or leave the oven light on (though you can and it makes for a steady, warm temperature). You don't have to do ANYTHING. The crock pot provides natural insulation, so it doesn't cool too quickly and the oven provides a space to trap the necessary warmth for your yogurt to yogurtify (it should be kept at a fairly stable 110 degrees; it does this naturally in a crock pot in the oven, so don't worry). That said, I would not recommend you put it into a cold oven (not a problem for us in the summer, but in winter it gets chilly around here). If your oven is cold, turn it on for 1 minute BEFORE you put the yogurt in. Then turn it off. Then put the yogurt in. (Ah, now the IQ requirements have moved up to 45). It will need 6-10 hours to yogurtify. It's nice if you can time this overnight. If you do it during the day, you may want to put a little post it note on your oven that says, "Do not turn on." I do this (yes, I do) because if you or someone you love comes in and decides to make cookies and pre-heats the oven before realizing there's yogurt in there, your yogurt will be ruined and you will be sad. 

A few notes: 

Note #1: Since the original post, I have legit turned the oven on and forgotten I had yogurt in there. Guess what? It was still okay. The yogurt didn't have enough time to get too hot in the preheat stage. Just get it out of there as soon as you remember. 

Note #2: Occasionally, for reasons only the universe understands, my yogurt comes out either very thin, or a little clumpy. Who knows... Imprecise temperature, atmospheric shifts, unhappy yogurt gods. But the great thing is that once strained, this yogurt is still delicious. If it's extra thin, you'll have a little more whey and less yogurt--but still a lot). And the clumps won't matter once it thickens.) 
6. When you take it out, you'll have regular yogurt. Reserve 1/2 C of this for your next batch of yogurt and put that 1/2 C in the fridge.

 (It will look like this.)

7. Now: You can eat the rest of the yogurt regular-style if you want (it was actually a little thicker than that which my yogurt maker used to make). But I HIGHLY recommend straining it and making Greek yogurt (because it's awesome, that's why). Get a tea towel. Put it over a colander, and strain your yogurt. You can do this in the sink if you don't want the whey. Or you can strain it over a pan or large pot/bowl if you want the whey (Note: Whey can be used as a milk or buttermilk substitute in some recipes. It works well in muffins and things like that. It's also good in smoothies. I usually save a cup or two because that's all I use. And I throw it away in a week if I haven't used it by then. Straining will take between two and six hours depending on how thick you want your yogurt. I like mine thick. You might give it a stir after 2 hours to get it to strain more quickly. 

I really love mine thick (almost as thick as cream cheese), but the great thing about this recipe is that you can get it to any thickness you like. Here are some pictures from another post on cheater Greek yogurt I did (with a much smaller amount of yogurt). 

 

(Before)

(After)

(See how super thick it CAN get if you want it to.)

Leave it for 8-24 hours and it will get super thick--to the consistency of a soft cheese. You can then use it as a substitute for cream cheese (it has more protein and more healthy bacterial cultures.)

And you're done. You will have a TON of Greek yogurt. In Evansville, we can currently get milk for $.99 at Aldi. And then you'll need a bit of plain yogurt as a starter. Greek yogurt from the store occasionally goes on sale for $1.00/6 oz., but is usually much more. The nice brands can cost as much as $5.00(ish) for 16 oz. or so.

Now to answer some questions:

1. Do I need an instant read thermometer? No, but it is helpful; it takes any and all guesswork away from the process. And you will pretty much earn back the cost of your $9 thermometer in the first yogurt making, so it's a reasonable purchase. Still you don't have to have one. You just might need an IQ slightly higher than 32.
2. What will I do with all that yogurt? The sky is the limit. If you make this stuff, you can stop buying yogurt, sour cream, and (in some cases) cream cheese. You can make amazing smoothies and popsicles. You can do tons of stuff with it. 
3. Do I have to use whole milk? Probably not, but I always do. Still, I'm pretty sure you can make it with any type of cow's milk . However, I won't vouch for taste. True Greek yogurt is whole fat. It's only us Americans who've freaked out about that and developed lower fat versions. It is my opinion that skim Greek yogurt isn't really Greek yogurt at all. It is skim, strained yogurt. Eat it if you want. But my other opinion is that fat (without a lot of sugar) is NOT the enemy. I think natural fats are healthy and filling and great.
4. Why do I heat it and then let it cool? I don't have a complete scientific answer for you. All I know is that if you heat it to 180 you wind up with thicker yogurt than if you don't. I imagine you don't have to heat it that much. I know there are even raw yogurt recipes out there. You'll just likely end up with thinner yogurt. Of course, you'll be straining it, so will still end up with thick Greek yogurt--you'll just have a bit less of it because more will have strained out. Note: Since the original post, I've tried making this recipe "raw" meaning that you only heat it to 110 degrees and then just add the yogurt. It is thinner, but it works. 
5. How do I make it on the stove top? Let's say you don't have a crock pot. You can still make this stove top. It's best to do when you have other jobs to do in the kitchen because it takes a while to heat and needs to be stirred occasionally so you don't want to burn on the bottom. (You can cook it faster, but you'll have to stir frequently or even constantly so it doesn't burn on the bottom.) Also, you'll want to make it in a heavy pot. The time I made it on the stove top, I used a porcelain-covered Dutch oven pot (WITH A LID). You need to do this because when you put it in the oven, it needs a sort of heat-holding pot. Otherwise it will cool too quickly and not set properly. I suppose you could use a normal pot and insulate it with towels or something, but for me the IQ requirements and fail factor get too high with that.
6. Can I make less? Probably. The problem you're going to come up against with this no fail method is that if you only have a little milk/yogurt in your pot, it will cool off faster. If it cools off too fast in your oven, you'll wind up with runny, curdled mess, not yogurt. If you really really want to make less, I recommend putting it in a small cooler instead of an oven. Or you might just have to babysit your oven a bit more and turn it on here or there throughout the setting process to ensure that your yogurt doesn't get too cool. Anyway, I'd really encourage you to make more simply because yogurt lasts a long time, which leads to...
7. How long does it last? I don't know. Ha. Because it's never gone bad on us and we've kept it in the fridge for upwards of two weeks. I imagine it would last a good month, maybe two, but can't promise that. I will try to do a little experiment next time I make yogurt and set some aside and see how long it takes for it to go bad.

Did you get discouraged with all those steps? Do you want something even easier, albeit not quite as cheap (but still cheap). Here's a method for making regular plain yogurt into Greek yogurt. It's not quite as cheap, but still much cheaper than buying it from the store (where it often has various thickeners mixed in). Also this post has handy-dandy pictures about how it will look as it strains. 

Want to take this to a level of unrighteous decadence. Try this Almond Joy variation. 

Or you could use cashews, which is my absolute favorite.

Three Favorite Crock Pot Recipes

I really love making dinner. I love the ritual, the smell and sound and sizzle. But lately, as I've been spending some time promoting my book at various events (and let's not even talk about marketing and figuring out computers and learning not to be an idiot with social media). Anyway, lately there have been days when I've been gone and known I wouldn't get back home until dinnertime. And let me tell you that pulling out the crock pot has made me feel like kinda the super star of the world. It is so amazing to come home to a hot, yummy dinner. It's so much better than swinging by and picking up a pizza. And while we're talking about swinging by and picking up a pizza, let me say that that takes time too. And sometimes, if you want to eat as a family, there just isn't time for it. Like Saturday, when I spent the afternoon at Tri-con being out-geeked by pretty much everyone; and Kip was leaving to go to work at 5:30 and I buzzed in just after 5:00. There's no way we could have all eaten together if a meal hadn't been at my house and ready to go. Which it was (see super star comment above). And while we're talking super stars, let me say that my kids have been a bit super starry in their own way--making rice, setting the table, cleaning the kitchen. Here's to a family working and eating together.

1. Crock Pot Italian Chicken. This one is so simple--even if made completely from scratch (though you don't have to do that if you don't want to; this time I bought me that packet of Italian dressing, and I didn't look back).

2. Ranch Roast. Another dry dressing-inspired crock recipe. And our all-time favorite. What I love about this is if you throw in carrots and potatoes, it's a full on meal when you get home. None of your kids even has to learn how to make a pot of rice because it's all there in the crock pot.

3. Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup. And to move away from the hunk of meat in the crock...

Secret Recipe Club: BalsamicBeef Roast

It's been busy and comfort-food-y around here. Which is why when I saw this recipe for Balsamic Roast on my Secret Recipe Club blog: I'm Hungry: Words of Growing Boys, I knew it was the one for me. And it was. Dead simple. But also flavorful, tender, and delicious. It uses a crock pot in the way I like to best use crock pots (the dump and forget method).

I can't tell you how amazing this was to come home to at the end of a busy day when it felt a little bit like I was drowning, and maybe even a little bit like I was failing (you guys know that feeling, right?) But I came home to this, and then all the sudden, I was a little bit of awesome. Amazing home cooked meal, check. Never mind that it took me less than three minutes to put together (less than three minutes people). Throw a 1/2 bag of baby carrots in there (time commitment: 9 extra seconds) and you've even got a vegetable to go with this.

Balsamic Beef Roast
from I'm Hungry
Serves 4-6
Prep time: 3 minutes
Cook time: 6-8 hours
Cost: $6.25
roast: $6, other stuff: .25

2 lb beef chuck roast (or any other similar hunk of beef)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 C beef broth
1/2 C balsamic
salt and pepper

Put the roast in the pot. Add garlic powder and then sprinkle on salt, and pepper. Pour broth around it. Pour balsamic vinegar over it. (I'll confess I wish I'd thrown in a couple handfuls of baby carrots to go with this when we ate. Do so if you wish to live without regret of any kind.)

Cook on high for 6 hours (low for 8).

Told you. Dead simple.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

An InLinkz Link-up

Dumb Easy Dinner: Savory Crock Pot Pork Roast

It might be almost April (I may even have some spinach sprouting up in my garden), but I'm not ready to ditch the comfort foods quite yet. I mean, it might get cold at night. Are spinach smoothies going to help me with that? I think not. 

Which is why all of us still need a few good roast recipes in our back pockets. This is a very good recipe. Sometimes crock pot recipes come out a little more bland than their roasted counterparts, but this was packed with flavor and very tender. And I don't know about you, but I always appreciate a good dump-in-and-leave-it crock pot recipe. Five minute assembly, check.

Savory Crock Pot Pork Roast
adapted from Poor Amy
feeds 6-8 people unless you're big teenager man people, then maybe less
prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 6 hours in crock pot
Cost: $8.10 (this is $1-2/per meal for fantastic, top-notch food)
pork: $8, dry onion soup: .70, beef stock: .20, soy sauce: .10, other stuff: .10

Note: I did use the dry onion soup packet, which felt like cheating, but I tried not to feel too sorry since I did just make my family a fantabulous meal of meat and potatoes for freaking out's sake. However, if making food not from complete scratch is offensive to you, then use some good quality beef broth with an onion sliced into it instead of the dry onion soup/water in this recipe.

1 pork roast (mine was about 4 pounds)
1 (1-ounce) envelope dry onion soup
1 C water
3/4 C beef stock
3 Tbsp soy sauce
black pepper
1-2 Tbsp minced garlic

Dump that roast in the crock. Put the dry onion soup on top, then pour on water, beef stock, and soy sauce (pour this over the top so it mixes with the onion soup). Kind of mix everything together with a spoon. Top meat with black pepper and minced garlic.

Cook on high for 6-ish hours.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Crock Pot Carne Asada--SRC

This month for Secret Recipe Club, I had The Hobo Kitchen. It's written by Ellie. I actually had her blog (with a different name) a while ago. I loved it. The funny thing is that at first I didn't realize I had the same person, but I was like "Oh my gosh; I want to make all these recipes." In fact, I ended up making two of her recipes for dinner one night. And then I went to read Ellie's profile and there she was--the same blogger I'd enjoyed so much when I secret-recipe'd her last blog. Apparently, she's still got it. Thank you, Ellie, for the fabulous recipes.

I made the Carne Asada. It was delicious and super easy and a crock pot recipe and just win win all around. The leftovers were even better. (Note: As a side dish, I also made a cinnamon sugar version of her Tostones (plantains) that were beyond delicious. I'd never made plantains before and I'm a total convert. But the pictures I took for that were ug-ly.)

Crock Pot Carne Asada
adapted from The Hobo Kitchen
Serves 6
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 6-8 hours (in crock)
Cost:$10.00-ish (this is a really rough estimate; sorry)
meat: mine was $5, but it was clearanced and was less than 2 lb, seasonings: .10, peppers (mine were free from a fabulous friend), but I'm guessing 1.50-2.00, toppings: 2.00

Note: I'm slightly red meat impaired. If it's not ground beef or some kind of chuck roast, I'm a little lost. This recipe called for flank steak, which I couldn't find at my store. So I just bought the clearance cheap steak and all was well, but if you can get flank steak, use it.

Another note: I followed this recipe as Ellie had it. However, I bet that if you had taco seasoning and wanted to use that instead of individual spices, that would work and save you a couple minutes. No guarantees because I haven't tried it, but especially if it didn't have thickening agents (such as cornstarch), I bet it'd be just fine.

2 lb flank steak
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 yellow onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 jalepeno, minced
For toppings:
cheese
sour cream
avocado

Combine dry spices. Sprinkle or rub these on the flank steak. Put that in the crock.

Add diced onion, peppers, and jalepeno.

Cook on low in the crock pot for 6-8 hours. Note: I recommend this low setting. I forgot to get mine into the crock and tried to cheat and do this for 3-4 hours on high. It tasted delicious, but wasn't fall-apart-fork-shreddable. I left the stuff we didn't eat in the crock for several more hours and it was perfect, so try not to short-change the cooking times.

Before eating, shred steak with two forks.

Serve over rice, tortillas, or corn chips.

Top with cheese, sour cream, and avocado.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

An InLinkz Link-up

Chicken de la Gaynor

(another night-time picture--please forgive)

Gloria Gaynor (as in "I Will Survive") has just released a new book that is a compilation of essays of people who have survived various struggles. I happen to have written one of those essays. My essay is about seeing my mother a few months before she died of a brain tumor.

So if you're looking for an inspirational read, check it out. It's called We Will Survive. You can find it here.

The publicist for Ms. Gaynor's book asked the contributors if they had any blogs, etc. where they could promote the book. I'd be happy to, I said, but I just have a food blog. Well, lo and behold Gloria Gaynor eats; she even cooks. They sent me this recipe for me to include in the blog. I thought that was pretty cool.

The even better thing was that the recipe was yummy and easy. It can be made whole food style or pantry staples style. It can be made in the oven or in the crock pot. It is very adaptable, as I learned by having not quite the right ingredients for one thing and accidentally forgetting to add something else (that's how dinner rolls around here).

It's a perfect little recipe for putting dinner on the table through the craziness that can be December.

Chicken de la Gaynor
from Gloria Gaynor
serves 6
prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30-40 minutes
Cost: $5.90
chicken: 4.00, cream of chicken soup: .50, mushrooms: .60, sour cream: .50, other: .30

2 lb chicken (Gloria recommends wings; I only had breasts, so that's what I used)
10 oz cream of chicken soup (I made my own chicken white sauce)
3 oz can sliced mushrooms, drained (I had regular mushrooms, which I cooked in a bit of butter)
8 oz sour cream (okay--I managed to get that one right)
1/4 C whole milk
1/4 C cooking sherry (forgot; it was still delicious)

I cut my large chicken breasts into strips. You can just leave it at that and throw them in the oven with salt and pepper, but I like to brown mine in some olive oil or butter first. To do this: Heat olive oil in skillet, add breasts (with salt and pepper), and cook the breasts until they're browned. They don't need to be cooked through. They're going in the oven. (Note: You can totally skip all this browning and throw them in the oven, but I like to do this with chicken breasts because I think it adds more flavor).

Heat oven to 425. Throw breasts in the oven (you know in a pan and stuff).

While the chicken bakes, you're going to pour cream of chicken soup and sour cream in a pan and heat it. Then you'll add the milk, sherry, and mushrooms. When the chicken is just barely cooked through (20-40 minutes depending on how big your chunks of chicken are--I always just cut into the fattest one to check it). Pour soup mixture over chicken, return to oven, and cook fifteen more minutes.

We served it over rice with broccoli on the side and it was delicious. We ate all the chicken and the next day I just had sauce and mushrooms over rice, which was also delicious.

Potential adaptations:

Crock Pot: I have not done this, but I am 99.9% sure it will work. Just throw everything in the crock. Eight hours on low; 4 on high. Done.

Homemade: You'll notice above that I was missing several canned ingredients. It wasn't a problem. For the cream of chicken soup, I made a simple white sauce. Here's how: Melt 2 Tbsp butter. Whisk in 2 Tbsp flour. Cook one minute. Whisk in 1 C milk and 1 tsp chicken granules (one cube bullion). Stir until it just starts to boil and thicken.
-For the mushrooms, just slice and cook in butter until they're lightly browned.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Homemade Greek Yogurt for Dummies (Crock Pot)

I mean, really. It's so easy it will change your life forever.

And it will save you a stinking butt load of money if you like Greek yogurt. For $2 (TWO DOLLARS!) I got no less than 10 cups (TEN CUPS!) Greek yogurt--that's $.20/cup if you're math impaired (don't worry--math unnecessary for this recipe; brains in general unnecessary for this recipe). Twenty cents for creamy, perfect Greek yogurt.

You can eat it with anything. I like it for breakfast with some jam mixed it. My kids like it best blended with jam and put into popsicle molds and frozen. My friend serves it as a dessert. She mixes it with jam and then adds a squirt of whipped cream to the top. But don't think it can only be served sweet. This thick Greek yogurt can be used as a substitute for sour cream and cream cheese. It can be used in savory dips, for ranch dressing, with tacos.

And in case you missed the whole Greek yogurt bandwagon (or were maybe too poor to buy a ticket), Greek yogurt is awesome and loveable because it is a) delicious and creamy, b) higher in protein, lower in sugar (lactose), and lower than sodium than regular yogurt. And did I mention creamy awesomeness? It's also just way versatile--it can really be subbed for a lot of things.

Let me say that making yogurt is not entirely new to me. I even have a yogurt maker (which I may now sell) that has cute little cups with lids. I used it faithfully when we lived in California, but when we moved here, it became cost INeffective. I couldn't find small amounts of plain yogurt and after I'd bought 32 oz of plain yogurt, well then it seemed silly to bother making little cupfuls of yogurt. And my homemade yogurt always came out somewhat runny. This is true of yogurt. Most (if not all) of what we find in the store has been artificially thickened--cornstarch and gluten are both in Dannon. Homemade yogurt tends to be thinner. Real Greek yogurt, on the other hand, is thick because much of the whey has been strained out of it. But because of that, it is often very expensive. Thus, for the last several years I haven't made my yogurt; I've just bought it. Until the fateful day when my friend (the dessert yogurt making one) brought over some yogurt with raspberry jam in it. It was better than ice cream. Oh, yes, it was. Thick, creamy, and beautiful. And it had cost her almost nothing. And it had been stupidly easy. Now that's what I'm talking about. Because many of the other homemade yogurt recipes I knew of (the ones without the handy yogurt-maker) seemed hard. There seemed to be lots of variables that could cause it to fail. Some required you to double boil your milk (I double boil nothing, people, nothing). Some gave detailed instructions for putting it in a cooler or oven and then keeping it consistently warm but not hot. If you got too cool or too hot, you'd wind up with curdled, runny nasties instead of yogurt. Yes, it was all too frightening. I needed fail proof. I needed dummy proof. I needed distracted mom proof. My friend provided that.

She had used a pot to make the yogurt. You can too if you don't have a crock pot. A regular pot works great, but it requires more of your attention. A crock pot, on the other hand, requires only a one-minute attention span and perhaps and IQ of 32 or so.

Now, what do you do? Let me pull back the curtain so you can be amazed.

1. Put 1 gallon whole milk into your crock pot. Put lid on. Heat until 180 degrees. This should take between two and four hours (depending on your crock pot). If you don't have a thermometer (though one is useful), it will be bubbly/foamy all over on top without actually boiling.
2. Remove lid and let cool to 110-115 degrees (if you don't have a thermometer, this will feel warm when you stick your finger in, but not hot--this is the temperature you'd kind of want to get baby formula to--warm, but nothing that would scald a baby's throat).
3. Add 1/2 C PLAIN yogurt and whisk it in. (I add yogurt to a small amount of milk and whisk in order to keep it from lumping up. Then I put that into the big pot of milk and whisk.)
4. Put lid back on.
5. Put crock pot in oven for 6-8 hours. You don't have to heat your oven or leave the oven light on. You don't have to do ANYTHING. The crock pot provides natural insulation, so it doesn't cool too quickly and the oven provides a space to trap the necessary warmth for your yogurt to yogurtify (it should be kept at a fairly stable 110 degrees; it does this naturally in a crock pot in the oven, so don't worry). That said, I would not recommend you put it into a cold oven (not a problem for us in the summer, but in winter it gets chilly around here). If your oven is cold, turn it on for 1 minute BEFORE you put the yogurt in. Then turn it off. Then put the yogurt in. (Ah, now the IQ requirements have moved up to 45). It will need 6-8 hours to yogurtify. It's nice if you can time this overnight. If you do it during the day, you may want to put a little post it note on your oven that says, "Do not turn on." I do this (yes, I do) because if you or someone you love comes in and decides to make cookies and pre-heats the oven before realizing there's yogurt in there, your yogurt will be ruined and you will be sad.
6. When you take it out, you'll have regular yogurt. Reserve 1/2 C of this for your next batch of yogurt and put that 1/2 C in the fridge.

 (It will look like this.)

7. Now: You can eat the rest of the yogurt regular-style if you want (it was actually a little thicker than that which my yogurt maker used to make). But I HIGHLY recommend straining it and making Greek yogurt (because it's awesome, that's why). Get a tea towel. Put it over a colander, and strain your yogurt. You can do this in the sink if you don't want the whey. Or you can strain it over a pan or large pot/bowl if you want the whey (Note: Whey can be used as a milk or buttermilk substitute in some recipes. It works well in muffins and things like that. That said, I throw my whey away most of the time (unless I know I'm making muffins or something soon). Lazy, I know. Straining will take between two and six hours depending on how thick you want your yogurt. I like mine thick. You might give it a stir after 2 hours to get it to strain more quickly.

And you're done. You will have a TON of Greek yogurt. In Evansville, we can currently get milk for $1.69 at Aldi. And then you'll need a bit of plain yogurt as a starter. Greek yogurt from the store occasionally goes on sale for $1.00/6 oz., but is usually much more. The nice brands can cost as much as $5.00(ish) for 16 oz. or so.

Now to answer some questions:

1. Do I need an instant read thermometer? No, but it is helpful; it takes any and all guesswork away from the process. And you will pretty much earn back the cost of your $9 thermometer in the first yogurt making, so it's a reasonable purchase. Still you don't have to have one. You just might need an IQ slightly higher than 32.
2. What will I do with all that yogurt? The sky is the limit. If you make this stuff, you can stop buying yogurt, sour cream, and (in some cases) cream cheese. You can make amazing smoothies and popsicles. You can do tons of stuff with it. 
3. Do I have to use whole milk? Probably not, but I always do. Still, I'm pretty sure you can make it with any type of cow's milk . However, I won't vouch for taste. True Greek yogurt is whole fat. It's only us Americans who've freaked out about that and developed lower fat versions. It is my opinion that skim Greek yogurt isn't really Greek yogurt at all. It is skim, strained yogurt. Eat it if you want. But my other opinion is that fat (without a lot of sugar) is NOT the enemy. I think natural fats are healthy and filling and great.
4. Why do I heat it and then let it cool? I don't have a complete scientific answer for you. All I know is that if you heat it to 180 you wind up with thicker yogurt than if you don't. I imagine you don't have to heat it that much. I know there are even raw yogurt recipes out there. You'll just likely end up with thinner yogurt. Of course, you'll be straining it, so will still end up with thick Greek yogurt--you'll just have a bit less of it because more will have strained out.
5. How do I make it on the stove top? Let's say you don't have a crock pot. You can still make this stove top. It's best to do when you have other jobs to do in the kitchen because it takes a while to heat and needs to be stirred occasionally so you don't want to burn on the bottom. (You can cook it faster, but you'll have to stir frequently or even constantly so it doesn't burn on the bottom.) Also, you'll want to make it in a heavy pot. The time I made it on the stove top, I used a porcelain-covered Dutch oven pot (WITH A LID). You need to do this because when you put it in the oven, it needs a sort of heat-holding pot. Otherwise it will cool too quickly and not set properly. I suppose you could use a normal pot and insulate it with towels or something, but for me the IQ requirements and fail factor get too high with that.
6. Can I make less? Probably. The problem you're going to come up against with this no fail method is that if you only have a little milk/yogurt in your pot, it will cool off faster. If it cools off too fast in your oven, you'll wind up with runny, curdled mess, not yogurt. If you really really want to make less, I recommend putting it in a small cooler instead of an oven. Or you might just have to babysit your oven a bit more and turn it on here or there throughout the setting process to ensure that your yogurt doesn't get too cool. Anyway, I'd really encourage you to make more simply because yogurt lasts a long time, which leads to...
7. How long does it last? I don't know. Ha. Because it's never gone bad on us and we've kept it in the fridge for upwards of two weeks. I imagine it would last a good month, maybe two, but can't promise that. I will try to do a little experiment next time I make yogurt and set some aside and see how long it takes for it to go bad.

Crock Pot Chicken Curry

Lately I've logged a little time thinking about mothers and food. (Warning: Politically incorrect comments to ensue.) Ever since marriage and motherhood, I've given some thought to this topic, but this spring when our ducks birthed babies, I started thinking about it a lot more. Those ducks knew their mission. They snuggled the babies; they led the babies to water; they taught the babies to eat and drink; and they shielded the babies from any perceived dangers. It was a truly beautiful thing to watch if you want to know. And I realized that almost all mammals and birds do this. The mothers are wired to know that one of their main purposes in life is to teach their children to eat. In some species, the fathers help out. But in most (if not all) species, the mothers are either the sole feeders or are there sharing the duty. If not, the babies die. The end. 

It kind of got me thinking about us human mothers (and, yes, the fathers too because we're definitely one of those species that can share the load, but since I'm a mother, I thought more about them). Our babies won't quite die. At least not immediately. First they'll raid the snack drawer, right.

Now let me say before I go any further, that I have made lots and lots and did I mention LOTS of mistakes in teaching my children to eat. My son, as you know if you follow this blog at all, is the world's pickiest eater and I--as his pushover mother--am at least partly to blame for this. My other children eat okay (and Mark is very very very slowly kind of sort of some days improving), but I still feel terrible every time I read some kind of natural mothering blog or a book about feeding children or hear a comment about how so and so made a kale and egg and squash rice bowl that their kids just inhaled. Um, yeah.

But I do--even in my sometimes misguided, sometimes error-filled way--try to feed my kids. Usually with healthy, homemade foods.

However, I also recognize that this is not always easy to do. Especially in the American, mid-western culture in which I live. There's junk food everywhere. People are busy. Not everybody loves to cook. Food costs money. Food takes time. And in the summer, cooking food will heat up your kitchen.

I've tried to address several of these topics on this blog from time to time, especially as I continue to try to do a better job myself with the feeding/teaching of my own young.

But one area has been woefully underexplored: The Crock Pot. This summer, I hope to rectify that a bit. Because the crock pot deserves more space than it's gotten in a blog about food, cheapskatery, and people without all the time in the world.

Also, it's rising up again in popularity. As well it ought. It's a quick solution for busy and/or working mothers/fathers the country over. It's a way to have dinner and soccer night. It's a way to not have to slave over the hot stove all evening (yup, it's summer). It's a solution, people. And we should welcome it. 

Now there are--as I see it--a few types of crock pot recipes.

1. One is a type where you still have to spend 30 minutes prepping and cooking your stuff before it goes into the crock. This could still be useful if you have some time in the morning, but won't at night, but for an at-home mom like me, it seems a little pointless since I could just prep that meal in the evening (unless it needs to sit and simmer and be amazing, but even then I don't consider it a time-saver per se). These are, it seems to me, a new thing--a response to the rising popularity of the crock as people adapt their normal recipes to a slow cooker.

2. And then there's the ubiquitous can of whatever soup crock pot recipe. Meat + cream of whatever soup + potatoes. I think this can be useful in a pinch, but I also think it's what put the crock pot out of style in the first place.

3. Then there's the "cook 2 hours" crock pot recipe. To me, these are the least helpful (though again if ultra-tasty, maybe worth it). I mean, you can't come home to it; you can't get it over with in the morning. But it might be helpful if you have some piano lessons to attend to in the afternoon.

4. Finally there's the 5-minute, whole food, let-it-sit-however-long-and-it-tastes-good crock pot recipe. This, people, this is what I'm talking about. These recipes are AWESOME. And I hope to get you more of them this summer.

Today--if you've managed to make it this far in this post, I present to you a delicious one. Five minutes of your day and dinner is served. (Although I do recommend a pot of rice thereby, which will take another 15 minutes.) This was a delicious curry that wasn't too spicy/crazy. Kip liked it even though he doesn't usually like curry recipes. And I loved it and I like curry recipes. So it's a good crowd pleaser curry. And have I mentioned it takes 5 minutes. Now, my friends, now you can be a proud mother duck.

Crock Pot Chicken Curry
adapted from The Lemon Bowl
Serves 4-6 (if over rice)
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 4-8 hours
Cost: $5.75-6.00 (without peas)
chicken: 4.00, coconut milk: .50, chicken stock: .25, tomato sauce: 1.00,

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (mine were frozen)
good sprinkle onion powder or 1 medium onion, sliced
1/2 C coconut milk (we used the kind from the can)
1/2 C chicken stock
15 oz can tomato sauce
2 Tbsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne (we used just a dash 'cause we're wimpy)
1 C peas (optional and, yes, I skipped it, but I thought it would have been awesome)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
cilantro for garnish

In bottom of crock pot, stir, coconut milk, chicken stock, tomato sauce, curry, salt, and cayenne.

Add chicken and turn it a time or two so it's coated in the sauce.

Cook for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low (we did the high option).

Just before serving, stir in peas and lemon juice and heat through.

Serve with cilantro if it's your thing (it's my thing, but definitely not Kip's).

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Crock Pot Creamy Chicken and Ranch Chili

This is what I like to think of as a true crock pot recipe--meaning that you take a bunch of things, dump them into a crock pot, and turn it on. It takes 5 minutes. I realize that there are other crock pot recipes where you cook things first or prepare things first and then leave it to slow cook in the crock pot. It's not that I hate these recipes. I even have one or two on this site. But for me the 5-minute crock pot recipe is what really made crock pot cooking great. It's what most of us think of when we think of crock pot cooking. Of course, it's partly also what's given crock pot cooking a bad name because often what you're dumping is a few cans of cream of whatever soup or maybe one of those packets of dried onion soup. Yeah--you know the recipes. They're not evil incarnate or anything, but they remind us of our grandmothers' cooking (for better or for worse). And yet. The new, young, trendy crockpot cooking often involves 15 steps and 25 minutes (or more) before anything actually makes it into the crock pot.

This recipe combines the best of all worlds--no cream of anything soup (and it can be made pretty whole-foodsy if you wish), but it's a five-minute time commitment.

This is also a chili for people who don't like chili. That's helpful in this house. It's creamy, chickeny, and the white beans are more mild tasting and less offensive to bean-haters than kidney, pinto, or black beans. Kip really liked it.

It's also delicious--possibly my new favorite chili.

Crock Pot Creamy Chicken and Ranch Chili
adapted from Rita's Recipes
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 6-8 hours
Cost: $5.50 for 6-8 servings
chicken: 1.50, tomatoes: 1.00, beans: .50, corn: .50, ranch powder: .50-1.00, cream cheese: 1.00

2 small breasts chicken (they can totally be frozen)
1 small can Rotel (or just a 15 oz can of diced tomatoes would work with juice)
1 15-oz can corn (with liquid)
1 15-oz can Great Northern white beans (drained and rinsed)
1 package Ranch dressing (or 3 Tbsp ranch powder or a homemade recipe like this one--just use the dry ingredients)
1 Tbsp cumin
1/4-1 tsp chili powder (we used 1/2 and that was plenty of heat for us)
1 tsp onion powder
1 8-oz package of cream cheese

Throw it all in the crock pot and cook on high for 6-8 hours. [Note: My crock pot is an older model (probably 11 years old) and my 'high' setting is not as high as many newer crock pots. If yours cooks hot, you might want to set it to low.]

This would be great served over rice or farrow, but we just ate it as a chili with cornbread.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Crock Pot Pumpkin Chili

I have been meaning to try pumpkin chili for a very long time. What has kept me from it? The fact that pumpkin, tomatoes, beans, and nearly everything else in chili is a hard sell for most of the people in this family. So, seriously, why not combine them all together in one large pot? What have I got to lose anyway?

I finally got around to it. It was excellent. Mark liked the tomato-y broth. The girls liked the meat. Kip liked all of it, but the beans were not his favorite. Everyone had a little (though for some, this meant a very very little).

A few important notes:

1. For super cheapskates: Since this is done in the crock pot, it's easy to use dried beans and reconstitute them the night before. Just put them in the crock pot the night before, cover them with water, so that it's an inch or two above the beans, and set it to low. Cook all night. In the morning, drain the water off and rinse the beans. They're ready for this recipe. (Note: 1 C dried beans equals about 2 1/2-3 C reconstituted beans, so for this recipe, you'll want about 1 C dry black beans and 1/2 C dry kidney beans.)

2. For super picky eaters: Picky eaters don't often love beans. Kip actually really liked the flavor of this chili, but he disliked the texture of the beans. If you've got one (or five) like that, you could double the meat and omit or significantly reduce the beans. I bet it would work and there's still plenty of good stuff in here to make it worth your love.

3. Peppers. The original recipe called for hottish ones. I, um, pretty much left them all out. What can I say? I'm weak. If you're not, you can add diced Anaheim chile peppers (2-4 oz) and more chili pepper.

4. I halved this and cooked it for about 5 hours starting on high and then moving to low. I feel like it would be really hard to overcook--possible, but difficult.

5. Let's talk Spike seasoning. I didn't really know what it was and figured I could buy it or make a sort of copycat recipe. Nope and nope. Evansville does not seem to carry it (anybody know of a place here that does?). And when I looked online I found that it contained 39 ingredients (pretty much every spice and/or powder you've ever heard of whether or not they seem odd together plopped into a spice blend) and that no one was brave enough to really copy it. So I tried it without the Spike (which, incidentally, is supposed to be one of those amazing spices you can't do without). It was actually pretty good, although admittedly a bit bland. To remedy this, I added a bit of better than bullion (1/4-1/2 tsp) and then just a small dash of every random spice that I happened to have that happened to be included in Spike (dill, curry, celery salt, basil, oregano, mustard powder, tumeric, cumin, ginger) plus a generous sprinkling of salt. It worked and turned out really well. Would it be even better with the Spike? Maybe, though I can say with confidence that a little salt and some random seasonings go a long way if you don't have it.

6. Let's talk pumpkin. Just about a week before I tried this, a friend told me she'd tried a pumpkin chili and it hadn't been great. So I was a little nervous. Then I tasted this before it had cooked--right when I threw it into the crock pot. It was not good. It tasted very pumpkin-y and I was sad because I was sure that I now had a big pot of food my family would reject and that I wouldn't even want to eat for lunches. Have faith, people. After 4 hours of simmering, I could not in any way tell that there was pumpkin in this at all. It was delicious and just like chili. But you know what? I bet it'd be even better with butternut squash or sweet potato puree. I don't know this; I haven't tried it. But I'm betting that the bit of sweetness in either of those vegetables would play beautifully against the salty savoriness of this chili without screaming "There's a random orange vegetable in here." 

Crock Pot Pumpkin Chili
adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen
Serves 10-15
Prep time: 20-30 minutes
Cook time: 4-8 hours (in crock pot)
Cost: $8.50, but this makes a LOT. Also, dried beans will save you about 1.50
beef: 3.00, onion: .10, pepper: .50, beans: 2.00 (only about .50 if using dry), tomatoes: 1.50, pumpkin: 1.00, stock: .30, seasonings: .10

1 lb ground beef
salt and pepper
1 medium onion, diced
1 pepper (I used a few banana peppers, but think I really would have enjoyed a red bell pepper)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
2 tsp dried cilantro or 2-3 Tbsp fresh (I used fresh)
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp Spike seasoning
2-4 oz diced green Anahiem chile peppers if that's your thing (It's not mine, so I skipped this)
3 C beef stock (I used homemade)
1 Can red kidney beans, rinsed
2 cans black beans, rinsed
1 15 oz pumpkin puree
2 cans diced tomatoes with juice
sour cream and cheese for garnishing if you wish

Brown the beef. Add onion and pepper and cook about 3 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, oregano, cilantro and Spkie seasoning. Add hot chiles if using. Saute a few more minutes.

Put this into the crock pot. Use the beef broth to deglaze the pan if necessary and add that to the crock. Add the beans, tomatoes, and pumpkin puree.

Stir it all up and cook on high for 4-6 hours or on low for 8-10. (Crock pots are really different so know if yours cooks crazy hot or not, though as I said, I think this is a bit hard to overcook.)

Serve with cheese and sour cream if you want.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Work-a-Day Wednesday: Rotisserie Chicken in a Crock Pot

Wow. It has been a busy week. I'm enjoying a lovely tension back ache as I write this. What better day to post about super easy chicken (with any luck, I'll get to a Mother's Day recipe and my birthday cake later on in the week). Also, I really wanted to post a picture of the whole chicken, but the pic's I had--well, they looked like a chicken had just walked into my crock pot, given itself a good plucking and sat down. In other words, they were not exactly perfectly appetizing.

Today's post is more of a method than a recipe. I got the idea from Busy Mommy (and if you want to see some non-lame pictures you should look there, although I should warn you that even at its best, my bird never looked quite that good. But then I have food posing laziness issues). Also, although the chicken turned out quite well, the rub wasn't my favorite.

Here's what you do:

1. Get yourself a thawed chicken that's between 3 and 4 pounds.

2. Rub it with salt. I recommend using 1/2 tsp. This will add flavor, but that's not all it will do. It will also sort of act as a bit of a brine and allow your chicken to hold more moisture. Rub the salt all over, inside and out.

3. Rub it with whatever other rub you want. The link above gives a paprika rub. Next time, I'll do a lemon/garlic rub (zest of a lemon and 3-4 garlic cloves, minced or mashed, and then a good squeeze from the lemon). To make a rub you put a bunch of your favorite herbs together and rub them all over the chicken. If you'd like, you can add a few teaspoons water (or lemon juice in my case) to your rub to make it into a paste. You'll want to rub the bird inside and out. I even loosen the skin from the breasts and rub some rub between the breast skin and meat (clearly I have no issues with invading others' space).

4. Put the bird in the crock pot WITHOUT ANY WATER. The recipe I used said to do this breast side up, although next time I'm going to do it breast side down because my chicken's breasts were just a wee bit dry (poor bird--what a way to go) and by cooking them on bottom, they'll eventually be soaked in the juices/fats from the bird.

5. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-7 hours.  The thickest part of the bird should read at least 165-170 degrees (though if you take it's temp, it may well read higher than that. Know that by the end of cooking, your bird will be in plenty of juices/fat.

6. That's it. You'll have meat for a meal or two and then even more leftovers to boot.

Crock Pot Spinach Lasagna

It's time for another Secret Recipe Club posting. This month I got Mostly Food and Crafts, which I was pretty happy about because I've actually pinned several things from this blog already. Also, I've wanted to try lasagna in the crock pot for a long time now, but have been afraid of serving it several hours later only to find that my lasagna has been replaced with red gloppy glop from Glop. If you know what I mean. It helped to have Danielle to mentor me through.

The lasagna was excellent and super easy. The other thing I really loved about it is that with normal lasagna you're supposed to take it out of the oven (and it still takes an hour in there) and then let it set for 15 minutes or so so that it doesn't ooze out all over the place. This wasn't necessary with this lasagna. It was a little oozy, but not much. And the noodles were perfect--not mushy at all.

A few notes:

1. One thing I always forget about lasagna is that the putting together takes longer than I expect. This is a very fast meal to put in the crock, but not a five minute one. Plan for at least 10 minutes and 15-20 if you're making your own quick sauce.
2. This is very very spinachy. Which is as a spinach lasagna should be. However, if you only sort of like spinach or you're worried that people in your posse will object to so much, reduce the spinach by half. It will still taste great and you'll please a bigger crowd. In fact, if  you're a little shy about the spinach, you could also use 10 oz of baby spinach, chopped and steamed in place of the frozen spinach. Frozen spinach comes with all the stems and everything. Again, no big deal if you're a spinach lover or veteran, but if you're not, or you're worried about people liking it, then chopped, steamed baby spinach is the way to go. You'll barely notice you're eating green leafy things.
3. Danielle recommends 3-4 hours on low. I did mine for 2 hours on high. Totally worked! Hurray. So if you don't get to this until you're kids are walking in the door from school, don't fret. It can still totally work and it is nice to be doing dinner while they do their after school chores/homework and then to relax during the normally rushed pre-dinner thing.

Crock Pot Spinach Lasagna
adapted from Mostly Food and Crafts
makes 6-8 servings
Prep time: 10-20 minutes
Cook time: 2-4 hours
Cost: $7.25
noodles: .40, ricotta: 1.00. mozzarella: 1.00, Parm: .75, spinach: 2.50, marinara: 1.60

6-7 regular lasagna noodles (not no-boil)
20 oz. spinach, thawed (if you think this will be too much for your family, see note above)
1 C ricotta cheese
3/4 C grated Parmesan cheese
3 C marinara sauce (we added some cooked ground beef to ours)
1/2 C water
1 1/2 C mozzarella cheese

If using ground beef, brown with salt and pepper or a bit of pesto (yum). Add this to your marinara sauce. Add 1/2 C water to it all.

While beef is browning, combine spinach ricotta cheese, and 1/2 C Parmesan cheese.

Ladle about 3/4 C marinara sauce into bottom of crock pot. Add 2 lasagna noodles, breaking if necessary to make them fit. Top with 3/4 C marinara sauce, 1/2 spinach mixture and 1/2 C mozzarella.

Repeat (noodles, sauce, spinach, mozzarella).

Top with final 2 noodles. Add remaining sauce and remaining Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.

Cook in crock pot for 3-4 hours on low or 2 hours on high.

PRINTABLE RECIPE