Taco Casserole Dish Recipe

This was adjusted from a recipe I found on Pinterest. Sorry I didn't get a picture before we devoured half of it. Lol.

Taco Casserole Dish Recipe

1/2 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

^ Cook up the meat with all that stuff.

1 tablespoon taco seasoning
1 can tomato sauce
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 pkg cream cheese

^ Add this stuff to the meat and simmer 15 minutes, make sure the cream cheese is all nice and melted and the mixture is smooth.

1 can corn
1 can beans (I used Brooks Hot Chili Beans)

^ Add those to the meat mixture. Put this meat/corn/bean mixture into a greased casserole dish.

3-4 medium potatoes shredded (then boiled for about 5-7 minutes, strained, cooled) (you can also just use frozen hashbrowns)
1 cup shredded cheddar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

^ Mix that stuff together and put on top of meat mixture in casserole dish.

Cook at 350 for 35 minutes.

Makes 6-8 large servings.

I hope you enjoy!

Love,
Alaina

Crockpot Chicken & Corn Chili

Hey beauties!

Here's another fall appropriate crock-pot meal that is ready when you get home from a long day at work! As you can probably tell from the couple of posts I've made lately, I love to use the crock-pot, and as the weather has finally started to break, creating an almost fall-like atmosphere for now, chili is a great seasonal meal. I love traditional chili, but I also like to try new recipes, so I thought I'd give this one a go. Once again, I just pulled a bunch of info from Pinterest and threw together what I thought sounded good. If you want to see any other recipes, just check out my random recipe blog posts here. I'm just getting started with the whole recipes thing here on my blog, so please bear with me and my short list for now. I try to make a real meal most nights and it usually ends up being 2-3 meals in the crock-pot weekly. And some days I get really tired of having what seems to be the same thing all the time, so here's a chili that's a little bit different.

This recipe is pretty similar to my Taco Chili Crockpot recipe, not gonna lie, but I do think the cream of chicken soup and the chicken itself gives it a distinct flavor compared to regular ground beef chili.

As for the chicken chili, let's get started here...

Ingredients:
1 frozen chicken breast
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cans of water (I just refill the cream of chicken soup can)
1 cup dry pinto beans
1/4 cup dry black beans (both beans soaked overnight)
1 small can green chilies
1 large jalapeno chopped (I only used half for fear of it being too hot, but looking back, I think a full one would be just fine)
1 large clove of garlic minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne 1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 can corn (added about 15 minutes before serving, so it stays crisp, but has enough time to warm up)

Shred up the chicken before serving. After 10+ hours in the crock-pot, it shouldn't take much effort. I just grabbed the chicken out with some tongs, shredded it up with two forks, and put it right back in the chili.

Cook in crock-pot on low 11 hours.
You probably don't need to let it cook that long, that's just how long we're out of the house during the day and so we are always looking for recipes that can be in the crock-pot for a long time. I find that simple chilies and soups are really easy to do in the crock-pot. My struggle lies in trying to find recipes that won't just turn to mush in 10+ hours on low. If you have any suggestions please let me know!

Thanks for reading!
Love,
Alaina

Taco Chili Recipe : Using Leftover Taco Meat

While thinking of a way to use up our leftover taco meat from the weekend without having to have tacos twice in the coming week, I started thinking of ideas and remembered some recipes I found on Pinterest for taco chili. Once again, I just gathered some ideas from different recipes and threw this little dish together in the hopes that it would all work out.

I love crock pot recipes. It allows so much flavor to build up throughout the day, plus it's super easy and dinner is ready as soon as you walk in the door from a long day of work. Plus this sort of dish is perfect as we begin approaching the fall season! If you'd like to see another great autumn crockpot recipe, just click here.

___________________________________________________

Ingredients:
Leftover beef taco meat (we probably had two cups worth)
1 large can of tomato sauce
1 large can of water (just filled up the empty tomato sauce can)
1 small can green chilies
2 cups dry beans assorted (we used 1 cup red kidney, 3/4 cup pinto, 1/4 cup black beans) (soaked overnight)

1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon of the following
paprika
cayenne pepper
salt
pepper
1/2 teaspoon of the following
taco seasoning
chili powder
onion powder
garlic powder

1 can of whole kernel corn, water drained (added to crockpot 15 minutes before serving)

_________________________________________________

I soaked the beans overnight.
Cooked on low in crock pot for 12 hours.
When we came home, I just added the corn and let it warm up in the chili for about 15 minutes.

My husband was skeptical about the corn, but he actually liked it. I thought it was great because the corn added a little extra crunch of crispiness to the otherwise somewhat squishy chili.

I would definitely recommend soaking the beans overnight even if you are going to be cooking in the crock pot all day. We tried another chili recipe a couple of weekends ago and even though it was in the crock pot on high 3 hours and low 3 more hours, the beans were still not as soft as I would like.

We used leftover taco meat, but of course you could just make your own taco meat and add it fresh to the crockpot.

This recipe yields at least 8 generous servings. It's just the two of us, so we are going to have leftovers for awhile.

I hope you enjoy!
Love,
Alaina

Creamy Potato Soup in the Crock Pot Recipe

Instagram @lainamarie91

I just made this soup last night after searching through some Pinterest posts. I gathered my newfound knowledge about potato soup and just threw some stuff together that sounded like it would work. So here you have it, my creamy potato soup in a crock pot recipe.

I chopped up a bunch of potatos, maybe a dozen or so small red round ones. I could have chopped them up even smaller but I was running low on time in the morning heading out for work. I just left the skins on because I wasn't about to peel all of these little potatoes, I just rinsed and scrubbed them before chopping them up. 

Creamy Potato Soup in the Crock Pot 

Ingredients:

12 Baby Red Potatoes

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

2 can-fulls of Water

1 Chicken Bouillon cube

8 oz package Cream Cheese

1/4 T salt 

1/8 T pepper

1/4 Tablespoon Onion Powder

2 cloves minced Garlic

2 Tablespoons Cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 Cup Water 

Bacon 

& Cheddar cheese

I threw all of the stuff into the crock pot on low for 11 hours (because that's how long I'm gone during the day). When I came home, it still looked too watery, so I stirred it up a little bit and it got a little better. It looked like there were still chunks of the cream cheese floating around. It still wasn't as creamy as I wanted it, so I added the cornstarch and water, turned the heat on high for a few minutes, and it thickened up really nicely.

I just fried up 4 pieces of bacon (which turned out to be the perfect amount) when I got home to make sure it was nice and crisp, then added some cheddar cheese and it was awesome!

I was skeptical about this soup, but my lovely husband requested it. I didn't think I was a fan of potato soup, it sounded kind of boring to me. I also didn't like that I kept seeing cream cheese as a main ingredient in all of the recipes I saw. I'm not a huge cream cheese fan. Luckily, it really didn't have a strong cream cheese flavor. The cheese and bacon on top were an excellent addition too.

Let me know if you try it out!

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Alaina