Crockpot Mania

In a desperate effort to spend less time in the kitchen, I've found myself using my crockpot to make dinners a lot more often. Before the past few months, the only thing I knew how to make in the crockpot was beef roast, cheese dip, and waissal. Now I'm expanding my repertoire as quickly as possible, especially since I discovered the new slow cooker bags that mean I don't have to spend days cleaning up my crockpot after cooking with it. Those things are awesome!!!!

But I digress. The joy of coming home to a dinner that is at least 80% ready to serve has me hooked. Luckily for me, the ladies that I work with are excellent cooks, making a variety of quick and easy meals after years of cooking while they were raising families. Here's one of my family's new favorites:

Chicken Tacos

(or nachos, burritos, whatever you want to do with it)

3 to 5 chicken breasts (if frozen, thaw before putting in the cooker)
¾ of a jar of Walmart brand black bean and corn salsa (other brands may work too, but this is the one I like)

Layer the meat and salsa in the crockpot and, after the pot is heated, cook on low. I usually cook it from 7:30am to 5pm, but I'm sure its ready way before then. Shred the chicken and use it for any of the above Mexican options with your choice of sour cream, cheese, refried beans, various veggies (I roast onions and red peppers in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes), and/or guacamole. My kids like tacos, but I like nachos.

Here's another recipe that I've put on the Must Try list. My family loves chicken, and anything with bacon and ranch (that's how hubby makes meatloaf!). I found it at a site Playground Monitor recommended to me called Crocking Girls.

Bacon Ranch Chicken

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp real bacon bits
1 tsp minced garlic
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
cooked egg noodles

Directions:
1. Combine bacon, garlic, ranch dressing mix, soup, and sour cream; mix well.
2. Pour over chicken in the slow cooker.
3. Cook on high 3-4 hours.
4. Shred the chicken and put back in the pot and then add the egg noodles; mix together.


What are your favorite crockpot recipes? I'm always on the lookout for more!

Angel

Guest Blogger - Louisa George

Romance in the kitchen

Hi Writing Playground! Thanks for having me here! As I’m hijacking What’s Cooking Wednesday this week I thought I’d talk about romance and food.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
- Virginia Woolf

Boy, do I love food. I own 85 recipe books and have stacks of cooking magazines. Every Sunday evening I troll through these recipes and plan the week’s menu. (Yep, I’m pathologically organized, but I also LOVE to know what I’m going to eat each day so I can imagine it. I have Italian ancestry, what can I say?) My mom taught me how to bake, but my husband taught me how to cook. In the early part of our courtship we spent hours together in the kitchen, planning, cooking and eating. Food formed an important part of our lives- so much so that when we had our first child I started writing recipes for an organic vegetable delivery company to supplement our income (I got paid in vegetables!).

There’s something immensely sexy about a guy providing food for his woman- maybe it’s the hunter-gatherer thing, or just that it’s romantic (at least to me), when a man thinks ahead and plans a meal. After a hard day’s work I like nothing better than to sit down and be looked after. The day we brought our first baby home my husband cooked a particular meal…and every single time we eat that dish (15 years later) I remember how excited I felt with my brand new baby, my life turned upside down and my husband putting food on my plate. Now my baby is getting grown-up I’ve started to teach him a few things in the kitchen too- hopefully one day his wife will thank me!


So it’s no surprise that food figures in my books. And usually, it’s the hero providing something for the heroine. As a writer this is a great tool to forge a connection between the reader and the characters. We all have to eat, to some it’s a chore, to others it’s a labour of love. To all of us it’s a necessity. As a reader I like to have my senses stimulated and what better way than by delicious cooking aromas? In my debut book One Month to Become a Mum, Luke cooks a divine hot hummus and garlic prawns. As they eat, sparks fly and what begins as a semi-innocent picnic ends in a sizzling night of passion.

In book two, Waking Up with His Runaway Bride, (due out July 2012) heroine Mim’s heart begins to soften as she sees Connor working at a breakfast club providing food to impoverished kids. And in book three (as yet untitled) I indulged my food obsession further by having brooding hero Adam provide two meals for heroine Skye, carefully picking out ingredients he knew would have a meaning for her – an action which, she realizes, means much more than words.

So I’ll be looking forward to reading the What’s Cooking Wednesday blog and taking note of the recipes! What about you, do you find men in the kitchen sexy, do you have a particular meal you and your partner like to share? Or do you cringe at the thought of your man/son/brother being let loose with a spatula?

You can visit Louisa online at her website.

Guest Blogger Donna Alward (Returns!)

The Playfriends are tickled to welcome Donna Alward back to the blog today. (Note to self: ask Donna what she's blogging about before posting to be sure you won't be starving afterward...)

But back to the fabulous Donna... this award-winning author for Harlequin Romance is also a hoot to hang out with, and I'm so glad she's back today, because her topic is one that's a fave around here...

Cooking it up between the pages

If any of you have read any of my books, you’ll find that no matter what, there’s food in there. Even when the heroine can’t cook (Hired By The Cowboy, Montana, Mistletoe, Marriage) there’s food. Even when they eat in fancy restaurants (Hired: The Italian’s Bride) or leave it up to someone else (The Rancher’s Runaway Princess) you’ll find scrummy food. And sometimes it IS the heroine whipping up a gastronomical delight.

Cuz I love food. I love to eat it, I love to cook it. I hate to do dishes. That’s why you’ll hardly ever (don’t want to say never) see one of my heroines toiling away lamenting her dishpan hands. She probably won’t be seen cleaning toilets either. Not just because it’s not romantic. But because I hate cleaning the bathroom and I hate doing dishes.

Anyway *ahem* back to the food.

I’ve got another book out this month and the heroine is a secondary character from The Rancher’s Runaway Princess. Jen O’Keefe runs the local bakery. I know. Not just food but CHOCOLATE. Her signature item is chocolate brownies. Brownies based on my favourite brownie recipe ever. Brownies that have caused some people to raise their eyebrows at me and say “No, you can’t possibly mean that much butter, sugar and eggs!”. Not only that, but Jen is making a change. No more Snickerdoodles Bakery – she’s upgrading to a catering business too! And she’s catering Andrew Laramie’s party at the Lazy L Ranch.

That meant I could think of all kinds of things for her to make. For her business – things like Italian sausage penne. Spinach and pecan salad with poppyseed dressing. For Andrew’s party, the Alberta rodeo staple – Beef on a Bun. I get hungry just thinking about the shredded beef in a rich sauce on a chewy Kaiser roll…

You won’t find a lot of fancy foods in my book, because while I love to eat’ em, I usually keep to good ol’ comfort food. Then again, you never know when I’m going to throw in homemade Veal Parmigiana or a stir fry pan of spicy hot Kung Pao…

So…what’s for dinner at your house?


You can check out the recipes for foods found in my books on my Recipe Corner page of my site.

In the meantime, you can read about Jen and Snickerdoodles Bakery in One Dance With The Cowboy, out this month from Harlequin Romance and book 1 in my Cowboys and Confetti duet.


Visit Donna's page at www.donnaalward.com







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Win An Amazon Gift Card!!!

The Playfriends are celebrating the new look of our website for 2010 by giving out a big prize this week – a $50 gift card to Amazon.com . The catch? You must answer a question about the website from the blog to be entered to win. www.writingplayground.com

Check in each day of this week and answer the question found at the bottom of the blog post by sending the answer to webmaster@writingplayground.com . Each question you answer gives you 1 chance to win, up to 5 entries for the week. Additional entries may be earned by reporting any broken links you find on the website to the same email address. The more you play, the bigger your chance to win!

The winner will be announced on Saturday, so be sure to check in then too. If the prize is not claimed within 7 days, we’ll be awarding it to someone else. Okay? Let’s play!

Monday’s question: From “Roll Call”, who dubbed us “The Children”?

Email your answer to webmaster@writingplayground.com to enter!


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P.S. Winners from Free Book Friday’s very challenging post. :)

Becky J. Heath wins the 3 Presents book pack for her creative post.
Mariska wins last month's Holiday FBF prize featuring Linda Winstead Jones and Rhonda Nelson's Christmas Novellas.
Virginia wins the copy of An Affair Before Christmas by Eloisa James.
Please send your snail mail address to smartypants@writingplayground.com

Martha M is the winner of the Revenge contest against SP. Kimberly chose her because "she is sick and twisted and I love her." Martha, send your snail mail address to problemchild@writingplayground.com

Bon Appetit!

On Sunday afternoon, my sister and I went to see the new movie Julie & Julia. The movie is based on two books, and the screenplay was done by Nora Ephron of Sleepless in Seattle fame. So I settled into my seat expecting a great movie about French cooking.

Boy was I ever wrong!

This was a great movie about writing. It's a study in comparisons and contrasts about Julia Child in post-war Paris, struggling to figure out her identity and what she wanted to do with her life, and Julie Powell, a temp employee in post- 9/11 New York City, struggling to figure out her identity and what she wanted to do with her life.

Julia attended the Cordon Bleu cooking school and then taught French cooking to American women. Later she joined forces with two other women to write a French cookbook for Americans. In the movie we see her struggle to complete the book and then get it published. In the scene where she boxes up her manuscript to send it off to a New York publisher, I felt every emotion she felt too.

Julie graduated from Amherst with a degree in theater and creative writing. Her one attempt at a novel was rejected and in the movie she declared you weren't a writer if no one published your book. The Julie/Julia Project was a blog where she chronicled her effort to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 325 days.

The movie's dialogue is brilliant and filled with innuendo that makes the task of boning a duck both a culinary coup and a dirty joke. Some of you will remember Dan Ackroyd's famous Julia Child skit on SNL, and that skit appears in the film.

Mostly, it's a movie about persistence. When Julia Child receives a letter telling her a prospective publisher is declining to go ahead with her book, she reacts with, "Eight years of my life. It just turned out to be something to do, so I wouldn't have nothing to do. Oh, well. Boo-hoo. Now what?"

She was obviously heartbroken but she was also part of the Depression and World War II era and simply met bad times straight on. And like the writers we all know, she took her book seriously and was hurt when passed over for publication and then later for awards.

When Julie Powell learned that Julia didn't like her blog and thought she wasn't being serious in her cooking attempt, she had a meltdown too. But she picked herself up, dusted herself off and cooked the rest of the recipes by her one-year deadline.

In case you aren't familiar with Julia Child, here's a short clip of her explaining about chickens. The voice is for real and she was as imposing a figure in real life as she appears on screen -- six feet, two inches tall.

Have you seen the movie yet? Do you share my enthusiasm? What's your dream and are you working toward it?

Where'd That Apple Fall? - UPDATED

I've talked about my girls quite a bit over the last couple of years. I hope everyone knows by now that I'm very proud of both of them. They're very different but so strong in each of their own unique ways. However, Sweet Pea has recently taken up a hobby that has me scratching my head. Not because of the hobby itself, but rather the inclination that brought it on.

Recently she's been cooking. That's right, my seven year old has taken up cooking. And I don't mean Kraft Mac N Cheese in the microwave. If given the chance she will watch Food Network before the Disney Channel. She knows the website addresses for not only FN but also Paula Dean, Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee and Alton Brown. She's even hand written recipes from each of these sites that she wants to try.

I'm amazed.

I admit to a small heart attack when I walked into my mother's kitchen and saw her with a very sharp knife cutting a tomato, whipping the blade around like it was nothing. I ended up with stitches from cutting an apple when I was about 12...I could just see her hand spurting blood. But she doesn't have any fear and she seems very confident in what she's doing (and my mother was right there). She's started cooking dinner for the entire family at my mother's house every Thursday. She picks out the menu, my mom buys the ingredients and they cook together. And she does most of it.

When I was growing up cooking was the chore I took on only if the alternative was starvation. Yes, I know HOW to cook...I just don't. Zilla is fantastic and does all the cooking for our family. But even he isn't exactly gourmet. He does a fantastic job but has no desire to aspire to Paula Dean recipes. I just don't know where she gets the excitement. But I'm very glad she's found something she really enjoys. And the fact that her passion could turn into a very nice career later on in life also doesn't hurt. And then there's the fact that in five or ten years she'll be able to make us gourmet meals for dinner. I have no problem what-so-ever being her guinea pig. Even at seven she's darn good.

Do you like cooking? Or is it more of a chore?

Instigator

P.S. Congratulations to Sally Problem Child's winner of The Secret Mistress Arrangement and to Jane for winning The Millionaire's Misbehaving Mistress from Tuesday! Please email her at problemchild@writingplayground.com to claim your prize.

And Congratulations to Virginia my winner from last week's blog! Please email me at instigator@writingplayground.com to claim your prize.

Please include your snail mail address. And as always, prizes not claimed within 7 days will be re-awarded.