Creamy Ham and Potatoes

Yes...I know...it's been almost another month. It's been busy on the home front! Ya'll are beginning to think I never cook, aren't you? Well I do...I just never type. I mean to, honest. I thought I was going to have an awesome ham and bean soup recipe a few days ago. But, well, it was so NOT awesome we had mac & cheese instead. Big "F" for Failure there.
But we're not here to talk about the failures, we're here to talk about the successes. And this one was definitely a success, and will be added to my tried and true list.
This is another plan-ahead, use the crockpot recipe.
Here is your list of ingredients:

• 4 medium red potatoes, thinly sliced
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped (I just used one big one)
• 1 1/2 cups cubed fully cooked ham - great way to use up leftover ham!
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon ground mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed cream of celery soup, undiluted (and it was good with the celery soup, but I think next time I'll try the mushroom)
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese, optional (which I totally forgot to do, but it was fine without)

Night before:

Slice the potatoes, chop the onions. Mix together & store in the fridge. Cube ham.

In the morning:

Layer potatoes, onions and ham in crock pot. Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour, mustard, salt and pepper until smooth. Combine soup and water. Gradually stir into flour mixture. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until bubbly and thick (You might be able to do this the night before as well, I wasn't sure how much it would thicken up even more overnight in the fridge. But if you want to try it, go for it!). Pour over ham. Cover and cook on low 8-9 hours (or until potatoes are tender). Sprinkle with cheese before serving, if you remember.

This was a great dish and it was great for heating up for lunch the next day at work.

Enjoy!

Hamburger Vegetable Soup

I like a good crock pot meal. Monday's are exceptionally hectic, with the boys having Boy Scouts that night, so crock pots are a good thing on those nights. This particular recipe is very easy to throw together. I found that for me, the best thing is to brown the burger the night before. And so, let us begin....

Your ingredient list:
1 pound ground beef (the leaner, the better)
1 medium onion, chopped (I had a great big onion, and I used maybe about a third. I don't buy small onions)
2 garlic cloves, minced (or the equivalent in dried minced garlic. That's what I use. I never buy cloves.)
4 cups vegetable juice (V8 or something similar. I used the cheap WalMart brand and it was fine. And cheap.)
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) stewed tomatoes
2 cups coleslow mix (this is really just shredded cabbage. I don't know why they don't just call it that.)
2 cups frozen green beans (or, if you're like me and completely skip this line when making your grocery list, use one can of green beans, drained. Add 1/2 hour before serving. I called my son and made him do it.)
2 cups frozen corn
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (let me just say, I've used this for years, and never known until now what was actually in it. That's a good thing. Had I known then, what I know now, I would probably have steered clear. Now, I made the mistake of reading the ingredients list. Ew.)
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Seems like a lot of stuff, but it's really very easy to throw it all together. Here is what you do with it all:

In a saucepan, cook beef, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is browned. Like I said, I did this the night before so it was waiting in the fridge this morning.
If you're not using a handy dandy crock pot liner, you simply throw all the ingredients in the crock pot together and stir them up. If you are using a liner, put it all in a big bowl, stir it up, and then pour it in to the crock pot. It's just easier to stir it all up when you don't have to worry about messing up the liner. At least for me it is.
Cover and cook on low for 8 to 9 hours.
Now, the recipe says it makes 10 servings. I don't think so - the Princess really didn't like it (too much tomato flavor for her), so the boys and I are the only 3 that ate it, and there was just enough left for one lunch.

Roast Beef with Gravy

Last night's dinner was made with our trusty crockpot. Let me first say that if you've never used those new crockpot liners, you don't know what you're missing - cleanup is a BREEZE with them. I use my crockpot a lot more now than I did before I discovered them. Or I should say, when someone directed me to a free sample. I'm all about free samples. And once I used the sample I was hooked like a fish.
Now the trick with this particular crockpot recipe is that it doesn't take all day - so a crockpot with delay start is helpful. I don't have that, but I do have a hubby who works second shift who is more than happy to plug in the crockpot for me before he leaves for work. Of course he is - he gets the leftovers from all my attempts.
Here we go...

Ingredients you will need:

* 1 boneless beef sirloin tip roast (about 4 pounds) <-- per the recipe. I used one about 2 1/2 pounds because that's what we were given when we bought 1/4 of a cow last year. It was a good size for us, with plenty left for hubby's lunch and the stew I plan on making tonight.
* 1/2 cup flour, divided (a word I missed yesterday morning when I threw it together - but no worries, it all worked out in the end)
* 1 envelope onion soup mix
* 1 envelope brown gravy mix
* 2 cups cold water

And this is what you do with it all:

Cut your roast in half. Rub it with 1/4 cup flour. (Or, if you want to be like me - and I know you do - rub it with all the flour, and watch some of it fall onto the cutting board. After it falls off the roast, dump the fallen flour into the garbage.) Place roast in crockpot. I used my small one (3-ish qts.) but if you use a 4 lb. roast you may need a bigger one. In a bowl, combine the soup & gravy mix, and the other 1/4 cup flour (unless you're doing it my way, in that case, just dump some flour in, estimating what you threw away. No, it never occurred to me that I should just put in 1/4 cup flour until today. What can I say, but OOPS.). Add the water, and mix until blended. Pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours (I did 6 since it was a smaller roast - which is why I needed hubby to plug it in for me) or until meat is tender. Slice roast, serve with mashed potatoes. Instant is great. I also made corn. Now, the gravy was a little runny when I took the roast out of the crockpot; that was probably because I guessed on the flour (it all makes sense now...). I simply added some flour and whisked it in there and it was perfect.
It was a plate full of pure goodness.
Pure goodness I tell you.