3 Ingredient BBQ Meatballs

Although I have struggled in the past with recipes involving meat, I was not ready to give up on trying to make myself better! I tried a super easy meatball recipe in the crockpot over the weekend and it only involved three ingredients. The first of course, was meatballs. I didn’t know what would be best, so I purchased a bag of frozen meatballs at the store which was what the original recipe called for. This made preparation extremely quick and simple but to be honest the smell of frozen meatballs when I opened the bag was gross. It was so bad that I questioned if the frozen meatballs had gone bad, which I wouldn’t have known anyway so I did some research and found this helpful article about how long you can keep meat in the freezer. Luckily, after adding them to the crockpot along with BBQ sauce and grape jelly, the whole house started to smell really good.

To make my meatballs into more of a meal, I made asparagus and garlic bread to serve with them. I think if I were to make meatballs again, I would want to either get french bread to make meatball subs, or follow a recipe for homemade meatballs to go over spaghetti. I found a recipe for slow cooker italian meatballs that sound like they could be really good served over noodles or on bread.

 My friends really enjoyed the meatballs, especially after coming home from a night out at the bars. I personally liked the taste of the sauce but the texture of the meatballs bothered me. I think I should have looked into the best and worst frozen meatballs before trying this recipe.

Is there a brand of frozen meatballs that you would recommend, or it is better to prepare the meatballs yourself? I am always looking for time-saving suggestions when I’m in the kitchen!

Root Beer Pulled Pork

Once again, I attempted to cook with meat. Similar to my chicken fajita soup recipe, I had a few struggles. First of all, I have no idea how to pick out meat at the store. It took me a long time, and I finally found a boneless pork roast. There was only one on the shelf so I don’t know if it was in the wrong spot or if it was the only one left but that limited my choices so that’s the one I bought. If you’re similar to me, in that you have no idea what you’re doing when picking out meat, this article will give you more information about picking a pork roast than you probably ever wanted to know.

I tried transferring the pork roast from the container it came in to the crockpot without touching it, but unfortunately I had to touch it which grossed me out. I also didn’t know if I needed to try and trim the fat off of my pork roast so naturally, I consulted my mom for help. Another helpful resource is this article that breaks it down based on the type of pork you are working with.

A few hours into the cooking process, I opened the crockpot to check on my food, and the partially-cooked meat made me feel like gagging but hopefully after more experience working with uncooked meat, this will go away… stay tuned. After six hours, I had to shred the pork. The meat was really easy to pull apart with two forks but I initially tried to do the shredding while the pork was still sitting in the hot root beer which was a bad idea; some root beer sprayed on my leg and I got a tiny burn. So if you try the recipe, take the meat out and shred it on a plate.

Besides the trauma caused by the uncooked meat, this recipe was extremely easy and turned out great. It was a really convenient meal for people who are eating at different times; my roommates each had some and throughout the night it still tasted fresh.

Have some tips on picking a good pork roast or a future recipe suggestion? Let me know!

Berry Good Crockpot Cobbler

I found this recipe for slow cooker berry cobbler and it caught my attention. I have never made cobbler before (without or without a crockpot) and I wanted to try doing something that was more in the “baking category.” It turned out awesome and was a big hit.

However, I have a complaint that’s unrelated to the recipe; why don’t grocery stores have smaller packages of things like flour and sugar? I realize that the average house probably bakes more things and doesn’t mind buying them in large quantities, but as a college student living with other college students, these aren’t things we tend to use. This recipe only called for one cup of flour and I had to purchase a five pound bag. Maybe some stores do have smaller quantities available and I’m unaware, if you know of some that do please share.

This recipe made the house smell so good, that my roommates and I literally stood around the crockpot in our kitchen for about the last 45 minutes that it cooked. I made a mistake in that, the recipe says it needs to cook on high, and I had the crockpot on low. Once I realized the mistake, I turned the crockpot to high and it seemed to turn out as good as it was supposed to. This article is helpful incase you’re ever wondering about cook time conversions in the crockpot. We added vanilla ice cream to our cobbler and loved it. The recipe will probably be made again in the near future, after all, I have all that flour I need to use.

The steps were easy to follow and the most time consuming part was just getting everything measured and mixed together before it went in the crockpot. After a while, I started to get impatient preparing it, but I found an interesting article that talks about how baking can make you happier. The man in the article has manic depression and explains that measuring ingredients gives him a sense of control, which helps to lift his depression. Knowing this, maybe during stressful times I’ll turn to baking to see if that helps.

If you prefer to make your cobbler in the oven, I found a recipe that is almost identical to the one I used.

Have an awesome cobbler recipe? Share it with me!

Stick to the Classic Cinnamon Rolls

I LOVE cinnamon rolls; they’re easy to make and they always taste good. I was scrolling through Pinterest and I found a recipe for cinnamon roll casserole in the crockpot. Naturally, with my cinnamon roll admiration, I was pretty excited to make this recipe but unfortunately it fell short. However, I may have been the reason it didn’t meet my high expectations..

I woke up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning to get everything prepared and in the crockpot. The preparation wasn’t bad, I only had one minor altercation when one of the tubes of cinnamon rolls wouldn’t pop open with the press of my spoon, but a big knife did the trick. I had to wake up early to get everything cooking because the recipe said it needed 2 hours and 30 minutes to cook and I needed to leave the house by 10:30 to work on group project. I was actually going to bring the casserole to my classmates but it smelled so good while it was cooking that it didn’t make it by my boyfriend and roommates.

My boyfriend will eat anything, so he was pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I think I discovered why I didn’t like it though; the recipe is supposed to cook on low for 2 hours and 30 minutes and we got impatient so I turned it to high for 30 minutes at the end to try and speed up the process. This resulted in burnt edges and an uncooked center. We still ate the casserole but we picked out the pieces that looked the best.

Overall, it wasn’t bad but due to my lack of patience, I think sticking to cinnamon rolls the way they come makes more sense. However, I did find a recipe very similar to this one that gets cooked in the oven and the author of this blog seems very pleased with the way it turned out, so that’s something I could try in the future!

Have you ever ruined a recipe because you weren’t patient enough to wait for it to cook on its own? Tell me about it!

Chicken Fajita Soup- A Fantastic Fiasco

Alright I’m about to blow your mind. If you’re reading and you’re like me in the way that you have very little to no experience with cooking with meat, this might come as a shock to you as it did to me… a rotisserie chicken looks like a chicken! That’s right, perfectly still in chicken form just without the head and this was a little too much for me to handle when I started to prepare my ingredients in the crock pot at 8am on a Monday morning.

So, I did what any 22-year-old girl would do, and I called my parents for help. Now, just to clear something up, my mom was the one who told me a rotisserie chicken would taste better and be easier for me to prepare, so I was happy when my dad picked up the phone to console me and my new chicken discovery. He laughed but patiently explained to me how I needed to remove the skin and cut the chicken so I could get the breast meat out. Naturally, this was also too much for me to handle but luckily a friend of mine was coming to take me to the gym and she came in to help me cut up the meat.  The preparation time for this recipe is supposed to be 10 minutes and due to my shocking discovery of how a chicken looks before being cooked, it took me about 40. However, this was still a really easy recipe despite the meat fiasco.

The traumatic experience was worth it because this recipe is awesome! It was a really cold day and this soup hit the spot. It made plenty for me to share as well. I chose to add broken tortilla chips, cheese, sour cream, and sliced avocado to top mine off and for more flavor, but the soup is great even on its own.

Here is the original recipe. I chose to follow it directly. If you need help like me, here’s an article on preparing a rotisserie chicken.

Have you ever had a traumatic experience in the kitchen? Tell me about it!

A Classic Comfort Food

For my first crockpot creation, I decided to attempt a food that everyone loves… macaroni and cheese! Now I know that you may be thinking, macaroni and cheese is such an easy thing to make on the stove and doing it any other way sounds like a lot of work, but this was actually really simple. Like most crockpot recipes, all I had to do was combine my ingredients and turn the pot on low for a few hours. Not a lot of preparation was needed, and it only took about 2 hours to fully cook.

As you can tell from the photo above, the macaroni wasn’t the most appealing when I first put all the ingredients in. Luckily, it started to look more appetizing as it cooked.

Once it was cooked and ready to be eaten, I shared with my roommates and a few friends because the recipe feeds a lot of people. After feeding everyone who wanted to try it, there were even leftovers. The final verdict was that it was good macaroni and cheese but was a little plain. To make it better, a few of us added salt and pepper but another idea I had for someone feeling adventurous was to make some meatballs to pair it with. Overall, the recipe was simple, it didn’t call for expensive ingredients, and it made a lot!

Here is the link to the original recipe.