Slow Cooker Dinners for Busy Weeknights

So, the school year has started. We have two days under our belt. It's been a bit of an adjustment for me. Not only because it means I have to drive the whole way across town and back every morning, but the doors to school open 15 minutes later this year. This is a problem for me and made me have to adjust my workday. I no longer get off work at 4:30 every day :-( which means I don't have as much time after work to cook dinner and have it ready for TC, who now gets home about 5-10 minutes after I do. 

I've decided that the slow cooker will become my new best friend! The only problem I'm having with the recipes I'm finding is that most of them have cream of something soup in them. Here's the thing, I love cream of sodium soup as much as the next gal, but it's definitely not considered to be "cleanse-friendly."  I'm gearing up for another cleanse the end of the month and am prepared to have nothing but success! So, what I've done is put together these recipes to have in one convenient place to refer to once the meal planning and prep start for that cleanse.

Some of these might need to be slightly modified or I will make my own homemade version of an ingredient, but I think they can all fit in with the cleanse.

Seasoned Chicken with Potatoes and Green Beans from The Magical Slow Cooker

Crockpot Chicken Fajitas from Southern Living Yankee

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken from Gimme Some Oven

Easy Slow Cooker Beef Stew from Southern Living Yankee

Red Beans and Rice in the Slow Cooker from A Pinch of Healthy

Slow Cooker Mongolian Chicken from Carlsbad Cravings

Slow Cooker Jambalaya from Southern Living Yankee

Healthy Slow Cooker Roasted Red Pepper Chicken Chili from A Spicy Perspective

This is a pretty good start. I'm going to continue looking so I have a good lost to work with and choose from. We don't want those picky eaters getting bored with dinners!

So long for today...

Slow Cooker Beef & Broccoli

We made it to the weekend my friends! I couldn't be happier about this. Even though this week went pretty fast for me, I'm still so glad that the weekend is finally here! I know I make a pretty big deal about the weekends, but isn't that what we all work for? We are going to dinner tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday. Other than that, I have no definite plans. I have a lot of de-cluttering/organizing that I would like to do around the house, but nothing planned other than that.

I have had a request from Leila to post this one soon. So here you go...

When I was getting ready to come back to work, I was trying to find some slow cooker recipes that would make good freezer meals, too. I found this one and thought that it would be pretty good. I prepped all of the meat and threw it in a bag. When I was ready to cook it, I pulled the meat out of the freezer and put it in the slow cooker, then I mixed up the sauce the night before, poured it over the beef, added it to the slow cooker and then put it in the fridge overnight. I like that this helps to marinate the meat a little bit, too. I pulled it out of the fridge at lunch and let it cook all afternoon. Then I finished it up after I got home. It was really pretty easy and I will definitely make this one again. I might try to make the sauce ahead of time and freeze it with the meat, just to save a little more time. Here's the recipe:

SLOW COOKER BEEF & BROCCOLI
adapted from Emily Bites
Points+: 8
Servings: 4

1 lb uncooked lean & trimmed boneless top round roast of beef, sliced thin and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 cup fat free beef broth
½ cup low sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 t sesame oil )
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T cornstarch
2 cups frozen broccoli florets/pieces, unthawed

Combine the broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil and garlic in your slow cooker and stir together to combine. Add the uncooked beef pieces and mix until the beef is covered by the liquid.

Cover slow cooker and cooke on low for 4 - 6 hours, until the beef is cooked through.

Remove 4 tablespoons of the liquid from your slow cooker to a bowl and stir in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Once combined, add the cornstarch mixture back into the slow cooker and mix in thoroughly. Add the frozen broccoli and stir in. Re-cover the slow cooker and cook on low for another half hour.

I rounded out our meal with some rice, but you can use whatever you would like. Enjoy!

I hope you all have a great weekend! Find me on Instagram to keep up with our shenanigans.

So long for today...

Crockpot Chicken Fajitas

Well, today is National Sticky Bun day. I made a batch of them to take into work today, but I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of them to do a blog post to share with you all. I hope you will forgive me. What this does mean is that I will have to make another batch of them to share with you all very soon. If not, I will make something equally delicious that I know you will all love. How does that sound? Deal?

What I am sharing with you is another easy peasy recipe using the Crockpot. I have been trying to find some new crockpot recipes to make for after the baby is born. Ideally, I would love to find some freezer meals that I can portion out ahead of time and then just throw in the crockpot in the morning and have a delicious meal ready for dinner in the evening. This is a recipe that was really good and really easy. I absolutely love fajitas and having a way to make them in the crockpot is even better. These aren't the most beautiful things when they're cooked, but then once you shred up the chicken and stir them around a bit, no one will ever know! This one will definitely be added to my list to make after baby arrives. Here's the recipe:

CROCKPOT CHICKEN FAJITAS
adapted from Stacy Makes Cents
Servings: 6
Points+: 5



1 yellow onion, sliced
3 sweet peppers, sliced
1 ½ pounds boneless chicken breast
1/4 to ½ cup chicken broth, depending on preference (leave this out if you prefer a drier fajita filling)
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cumin
1 ½ tablespoons chili powder
Squirt of lime juice
Tortillas
Fajita fixings

Combine sliced onion and peppers in the bottom of a greased crockpot. Lay chicken on top of veggies. Pour chicken broth over top. Sprinkle everything with cumin, salt, and chili powder. Give a nice quirt of lime juice over the top. Cover and cook on low for 4-8 hours (or on High for 4 hours) or until meat is shreddable. When meat is done, shred with two forks and stir back into juices. Serve meat mixture with slotted spoon on tortillas with your choice of fixings.



EXERCISE:
In an effort to spend more time with my family, I have been trying to get some of my exercise in during my lunch breaks. It's times like this that it's really nice to live close to the office! During lunch yesterday, I got in my 2 mile Walk Away the Pounds video. At was nice to know that I already had worked out and didn't have to try to fit it in during the evening routine. It also gave me a little extra time to work on the sticky buns :-)

So long for today...

Slow Cooker Jambalaya

Happy Friday everyone! Well, we made it through another week! This one has been pretty challenging for me, but I made it through! Now it's a long weekend with a holiday on Monday and I'm going to try my best to relax. Ha!!

So today's recipe is another slow cooker recipe. It comes together so fast and is pretty good. When we had it, TC said that he thought it was his new favorite meal. If you wanted to change up the flavors in this you could. I didn't use the cayenne pepper that it called for, but that's because we don't like a lot of heat in our food, but if you do, you could even increase it!

Here's the recipe:

SLOW COOKER JAMBALAYA
adapted from Plain Chicken
Servings: 6
Points+: 9

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch cubes
1 pound smoked turkey sausage, sliced
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
3 Tbsp dried minced onion flakes
1 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried parsley
2 tsp minced garlic
2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
3 c. cooked white rice or instant rice

In a slow cooker, mix the chicken, sausage, tomatoes with juice, onion, garlic, and broth. Season with oregano, parsley, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, and thyme.

Cover, and cook 7 to 8 hours on Low, or 3 to 4 hours on High. Mix in cooked rice cook for about 15 minutes to warm through.

EXERCISE:
I'm still getinng in my exercise pretty regularly. I think this is part of what is helping me to keep my weight gain under control at this point. Plus, after spending my first trimester being so sedentary, it feels so good to be active. Last night I did a Denise Austin video. I did her Personal Training Sysytem moderate cardio and upper body work out. I earned just under 2 APs, but I might just have to round that up! Ha!

So long for today...

Slow Cooker Balsamic Roast Beef

Hey there! Hope your week is going well. It's another long one for me. 5 whole days of work. But it's supposed to warm up for the next few days. Hopefully, I will get a chance to get out and get some walking done outside. Also helps to get some Vitamin D from the Sun!!

I tried another Emily Bites recipe over the weekend. Actually, I tried a couple of them, but let me tell you about this roast. It was absolutely delicious. It made the house smell incredible all day. My mouth was definitely watering by the time dinner time came. Then when I tasted it, oh my gosh! So good! It was so easy to throw together and defintely didn't disappoint when it came time to try it. Here's the recipe:

SLOW COOKER BALSAMIC ROAST BEEF
adapted from Emily Bites
Servings: 8
Points+: 6

3 lb round raw, boneless round beef roast, lean and trimmed of visible fat
1 cup beef broth
¼ cup Balsamic vinegar
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T reduced sodium soy sauce
1 T honey
½ t crushed red pepper flakes (I didn't use)
4 cloves garlic, minced

Place the meat in the slow cooker. In a medium bowl, mix the remaining ingredients and pour over the meat.

Cover and cook on low for 6 – 8 hours.

After cooked, break it apart using a fork (the meat should fall apart easily). Ladle about ¼ - ½ cup of juice over the roast beef when you serve it.

EXERCISE:
Last night, I did the Floor Work portion of my Long & Lean Prenatal video. This was only the second time that I've done this. I thought I remembered it being pretty easy, but apparently I remembered wrong! Ha! It felt good to challenge my muscles and I plan to keep this one in the rotation more often!

So long for today...