Crock Pot Cycle 1: Recipe Review

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I pinned a great set of recipes plus a shopping list for the Crock Pot that made 8 dinners, here. Well, I loved it so much that I am ambitiously planning on doing my own! I've only got 2 meals left in the freezer, so it's time to start planning a new cycle of meals. Before I do that, though, I wanted to review the ones I made already. I'll preface my thoughts with this: all the meals were pretty good and I would make them again with a few minor modifications. The recipes were also all low fat and heavy on the veggies, which I LOVE. Each recipe made 2 freezer bags that fed me, the girls and my husband, with leftovers for lunch or dinner for the girls the next night.

8 (16, really) times I don't need to worry about dinner!

Savory Vegetable Beef Soup
This was a nice, hearty soup. It was tomato based with tons of veggies. The recipe called for pre-browning ground beef, but I used ground turkey. I think beef would have been better, or even uncooked beef cubes instead of ground. The potatoes and carrots were also not soft after 8 hours. I left them on for another few hours (total 10) and they were fine.

Next time: use the ground beef the original recipe calls for, or sub out beef stew cubes.

Teriyaki Chicken
Super yum! I had this once with egg noodles and once with rice. The rice was definitely better! The sauce turned out a little thin, and there was a lot of it, so the rice was nice to soak it up. The pineapple was a little much, maybe because the chunks I used were so big.

Next time: sub crushed pineapple for pineapple chunks, and pour off some of the liquid before adding to the freezer bag. The onion was a little much, too. I needed to cut my pieces up smaller, and maybe fine one more veggie to add for variety. Maybe yellow or orange peppers?

Healthy Barbeque Chicken
Another outstanding recipe. The green peppers turned out a little bitter for some reason, so the girls picked them all out. It's ok, like I mentioned earlier, all of the recipes were heavy on the veggies so there was plenty for them to eat. The original recipe mentions that you can use sweet potatoes instead of regular, so next time I make this I'll give that a try.

Next time: sub red, orange or yellow peppers for the green and try sweet potatoes. And don't call it barbeque chicken. It has nothing to do with barbeque.

Stephanie's Goulash
I saved the best for last. This recipe cooked up with a thick stew-like consistency. The beef cubes pulled apart nicely and weren't tough at all. I used low fat sour cream instead of regular, and I honestly don't think it made any difference. This was by far my favorite out of the bunch.

Next time: double the recipe! It only makes about half as much as the others, and it was sooo good that I missed the left overs.

If anyone is interested in the recipes, they're from The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis. This week, I'll find four new recipes and create a shopping list for them. I'm so excited! Aren't you? ;)