Italian Crock Pot Chicken

Mmmm... Dinner smells so good.

Italian Crock Pot Chicken, with carrots and potatoes from Crock-A-Doodle-Do (cute name, no?). 

I stumbled upon this recipe when I was looking for easy frozen chicken crock pot recipes, and I'm so glad I did. Let me say this again, it smells so good. 

Here is what you will need:

Pam

One bottle of Italian dressing 

Frozen chicken breasts (I used 4, for leftovers)

Bag of baby carrots

6ish red potatoes, cut in quarters

Parmesan cheese

Oregano, rosemary, thyme and marjoram (or Italian seasoning for those of you who like it easy)

So here's what I did. First I sprayed down my crock with Pam, and put in a little squirt of Italian dressing. then I squirted more Italian dressing on the chicken and added a bit of each of the array of spices and a little bit of Parmesan cheese. Then I threw in my bag of carrots and added more seasoning, dressing and cheese. Last, I piled on the potatoes, more seasoning, the rest of the dressing and some more cheese. I turned the crock pot on low for 6 hours and I can't wait to try it!

Let me know what you think!

**Update**
Dinner was delicious and we will definitely be making it again! If I were to change anything it would be the kind of dressing I used, I would use one with less oil.

Fast Facts Friday

I thought I posted this yesterday, but I didn't!

5 Fast Facts, every Friday.

1. My mouse pad has an image of a beautiful beach.

2. One of my favorite author is Janet Evanovich.

3. I am now hooked on Lost

4. Lil' Red has an Alfalfa hair-do today

5. When I was attending a University I thought I might minor in Art

Lazy Day

Today Lil' Red and I have absolutely no plans. Besides making dinner, and even that plan isn't nailed down yet. First I though Hamburger Helper with some potatoes, then I decided on spaghetti, and now I'm thinking tortellini. 

Here's Lil' Red relaxing in front of the TV, watching Word World.

Mr. Red is getting ready to do some errands before he heads up to the business, and I'm just sitting here watching season 3 of The Good Wife. I love it. I've watched the first two seasons this week. Have any of you seen it? What were your opinions? 

I think the first season was pretty slow, but season 2 was great, and I'm only an episode or two into season 3, but so far it's got a good story line.

What shows are you addicted to? I love getting into a new series. Let me know what's good!

Hope your day is super fantastic and that you get to take a moment to relax.

My Spidey Sence

Let me start with this:

I can spot a spider from a mile away.

Now let me get to this:

Our house is crawling with them.

No pun intended. Here are some very recent photos of the spiders I've found in my house. 

 Here is one on my Wildtree bag in the living room.

Here is one next to one of Lil' Red's giant LEGO's.

 Here is one watching me in the shower.

Here is one in the kitchen watching me cook.

Here is one (about an hour ago) that I saw skitter across the floor into Lil' Red's blankets.

I swear. I can't eat, I can't shower and I can't even sit down and watch TV without getting bombarded by a spider. Not just a spider, but a very large spider. 

The worst part about this spider business is that I can't bring myself to kill these things! Listen here, if I were to attempt to kill him, say, by throwing a shoe at him (I can't get close enough to step on it, couldn't imagine feeling it squish under a paper towel I was holding...) and if I was to miss in my attempt... Don't you think that it would be quite simple, being a sneaky, little big, 8 legged, furry creepy crawly critter to just bite you when you were asleep? Or say I were to get him with my shoe, what if his little brother, or mother or some relative of this spider wanted revenge?! A sleeping target is an easy target.

That being the reason I contract Mr. Red for all of my spider hits.

I have a bottle of spider killer I'm going to spray when Lil' Red goes to bed tonight. Hopefully this will solve the problem!

Dump Chops Review

I love dinner. I really do.

I mean, really, what's not to love? Most of the time I make a delicious meal and I get to sit down with at least my man, and at most the entire family. 

As you may know, I made Ranch Pork Chops, or "Dump Chops" as I liked to call them. They were good, they weren't fantastic. I think this might of been the chef's fault. They didn't taste anything like ranch. Next time I would use two packets of ranch. They were extremely tender and easy to cut, but like I said, no ranch flavor. It was kind of disappointing.

I would definitely make them again, though. I'd just alter the recipe.

Ranch Pork Chops

So, Mr. Red informs me this morning that the pork chops I bought yesterday have a slit in the wrapping and I need to use them very quickly. I wasn't planning on that. I'm not going to be here for a while this afternoon, I have a standing appointment on Sunday's at an adult foster home for pedicures and haircuts. I needed something I could throw in my crock pot to be ready when Mr. Red gets home (early tonight!). 

So, I called up my good friend Google, we're pretty tight, and asked her (I mean really, no way a man could be that smart, all of the time), "pork chop crock pot recipe" and found this lovely blog post by Renee over at Living Laughing & Loving for Crock Pot Ranch Pork Chops... and apparently they are "Finger Lickin' Good". 

I'm pumped. Not only because I love crock pot recipes, but because if there is one thing I love more than crock pot recipes, it would be 3 ingredient crock pot recipes. That's right, 3 ingredients. And get this, I had all three on hand, chances are, you will have them all on hand, too.

1 (or two) can(s) of cream of chicken soup

1 packet of ranch seasoning

pork chops

Easy, peasy lemon squeezey.

I dumped 2 cans of cream of chicken soup into the crock pot, rinsed out my cans and dumped about 1/3 of a can of water in there, dumped the ranch dressing packet, mixed it up and covered the pork chops in the mixture.

I think if I were to name this recipe myself I would call it "Pork Chop Dump" because I find myself saying dump (I know I will get all kinds of jokes from Mr. Red tonight for saying that word) quite often when explaining it. 

I turned my crock pot onto 6 hrs. high and now I'm just waiting.

1,050 Calories

So I maybe may have had dessert before dinner tonight.

Lil' Red and I ate the whole container. No, really we and I shared it. You know, she had 3 bites and I had the rest. 

Do I even need to tell you how delicious - actually, a little side note.

Every time I hear that word, "delicious", I hear Fergie in my head singing:

"To the D, to the E to the L-I-C-I-O-U-S"

And because of this, I would like to take a moment to thank her for never letting me forget how to spell the word. Now, back to me being fat.

This ice cream is fantastic. Want to know what makes it even more fantastic? Mr. Red is allergic to almonds. What does this mean? All 1,050 calories were mine. All freaking mine. And they were great.

On another side note, Mr. Red doesn't actually have red hair. I just couldn't think of a better nickname for him. I told him to think of a better one and he quoted The Big Bang Theory:

"You can't just make up a nickname, it has to be given to you..."

So I dubbed him "Mr. Red".

Although this post is all over, I think it is very informative. 

Dinner is now cooking on the stove (it's 10:38pm), and it smells delicious. I'd love to post the recipe, but I fear it's not that impressive. I found a box of Zataran's Spanish rice in the cupboard, along with a can of diced tomatoes and green chilies (needed for the rice), and I got some water from the tap.

I had bought some chicken at the store and figured it would go along nicely. But I had to make it Mexican, right? So I basically threw as many spicy seasonings as I could find (chili powder, caijun seasoning, fajita seasoning), some Roasted Garlic Grapeseed Oil in the pan, and then some Scampi Blend (both Wildtree products). 

I know what you're thinking... why are you cooking dinner at (now) 10:44 at night? Simple. Mr. Red has been working all day and hasn't had a day off in 3 weeks. I figure the least I could do is make sure his dinner is hot and ready when he closes the business at 11:00pm. 

So anyways, I'll let you know how it turns out. With some pictures, of course!