Pizza week continues - Sweet potato arugula

This recipe was actually the inspiration of pizza week. I saw a recipe on thekitchn for sweet potato arugula pizza (this is their photo, I did not get a shot of mine), which just sounded SO tasty. Normally, I don't break out new recipes when I'm cooking for other people, but I decided to make this when some friends came over, not for dinner exactly but weighty nibbles.

First, let me say that the flavor combination was excellent. The sweet potato and arugula are a perfect match. Next, let me say, this recipe did not work at all. The sweet potato do not cook nearly fast enough for them to be ready before the crust is anything other than burnt and I sliced them wafer thin. I highly recommend you make this but when you do, make sure to pre-cook the sweet potato until they are at least half-way cooked either by microwaving your slices or cooking them on the stove in a little bit of water. Seriously, I had to take all of the slices off the pizza, cook them more and put them back on. A royal pain in the bum.

When the munchies were finally ready, I had some very hungry guests (including me) but we all loved this. I would definitely make it again but with pre-cooking my sweet potatoes.

Slow cooker chicken & rice - double fail!

Right about now I'm thinking why did I get a crock pot because clearly I have no idea how to use it. Or maybe I should follow the recipes more closely until I figure out what I'm doing.

So when I first got my crock pot, I was browsing around for some recipes to try it out and on mixingbowl.com I saw a recipe for lemon chicken. Looks yummy right? Well somewhere I went awry. I did not use bone-in chicken breasts but boneless, however, the chicken wasn't dry at all so I don't see why that would be an issue. I did not like flavor the rice had, it was sort of like chewing wine. It could be the wine I used, maybe I just did not like the flavor it had and reducing it in the crock pot would have concentrated the flavor in the rice.


The taste of the chicken was also a little bland. I would have expected, it to be flavorful with the lemon, wine and spices being slow cooked into it but it definitely wasn't. I also found the cooking time to be challenging - not quite long enough to be made while I'm at work!

Despite this I persevered! I tried to make chicken and rice in the same spirit of this recipe but with different flavors, that I might like more because I like chicken and rice when other people make it! A friend of mine used to make a Latin American style of chicken and rice where she would cook the rice in the stock created by cooking the chicken. So I used all the same spices but instead of wine, lemon juice and water; I used chicken broth and a bit of water. I also switched to chicken on the bone, mostly because it's what I had around.


This was if possible a larger failure! Yes, I know it looks tasty in the photo, looking at it now kinda makes me want to eat it, but trust me it was not good. Despite being cooked for 8+ hours when I got home the chicken wasn't done! Seriously? Seriously. I took the half-cooked chicken out and pan fried it for what seemed like forever before I could finally eat it and still the rice and chicken were sort of blah.

I will find a recipe for chicken and rice that works. I will successfully make dinner with my crock pot while I'm at work. I will.

Cook it slow, eat it fast!

I'm really excited, I just got a crock pot! I had a crock pot in college and used it all of about 4 times but it got broken when I moved to DC. Ever since I've been seeing all these fabulous looking crock pot recipes and thinking how nice it would be to have one waiting for me after work. So, after Christmas I headed over to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought one. Now, I have to use it.

This week I made scalloped potatoes from the recipe book that came with it - only three more times and I'll beat my old record! I changed the recipe a bit and it really did not work out so I'm going to put up the original and mine - make at your own risk.


Original Recipe

1/2 cup margarine/butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 16oz package of frozen hash browns
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cup of milk
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 small green pepper chopped
1 cup cheese cracker crumbs

Lightly grease crock pot. Stir together the margarine, onions, hash browns, soup, milk, cheese, green pepper and 1/2 cup of crack crumbs. Top with remaining cracker crumbs. Cover and cook on high 3-4 hours.

Lacey Version

1/2 cup margarine/butter
3-4 sliced potatoes
1 can of cheddar cheese soup
1 1/2 cup of milk
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 small green pepper chopped
1 cup bread crumbs

So when reading this, I thought fabulous idea - slow cooked scallop potatoes but why use frozen hash browns when I could use fresh potatoes? I don't like mushrooms, so I though hey extra cheese and I omitted the onions because I'm not a fan. I also subbed bread crumbs for cracker crumbs. I cooked it on low for about 8 hours because I wanted to make it while I was at work. What I got was a mediocre, slightly over cooked, somewhat greasy, cheesy mess. Well, it did not taste that bad really but I'm not going to make it again.

I would say using the cheddar cheese soup instead of a cream base is where I went wrong. Using something like cream of potato would probably have worked out alright. I'm also wondering if I put it on the warm setting for the entire day instead of the low if it would be cooked enough but not burnt around the edges.

It anyone tries to make the original version, let me know how it turns out! Hopefully, the next crock pot adventure will be more successful.

3 pots = mediocre dinner

Since this is my first real post, I feel the need preface it saying that this is WAY more complicated than my normal Monday-night-meal. There were 3 different pots/pans used. That is a lot, normally, I'm low dish. 1 is ideal, 2 is pushing it, 3 is almost unheard of. Ok, I'm done - to the dinner.

I had some fresh basil to use that a coworker gave me (I'm working on growing my own, more on that later), that was the impetus for this plan. So I planned to make a new sauce a creamy butter sauce. It was a failure. It was supposed to be this but I was gonna use basil, cuz I had it, instead of sage. The sauce would not thicken. I almost called tech support (mom) but instead I added some flour, more flour and finally it was edible but not fabulous by any stretch.

But the next time I make alfredo sauce, I might use some chicken broth to make it a little lighter. Food for thought.

I also made some pasta and pork chops. They were both great. Pork chops were on sale (boneless, center-cut 3.99/lb), so I got some, sounded good. It occured to me, in the middle of cooking naturally, that I was making pork and a chicken broth sauce...mmmm...bit odd but that wans't bad really. Maybe it will be better when I have serving two for lunch tomorrow.

Too bad I had to start off the new blog with a failure (or at least not a sucess), I should have made the butternut squash that will be for tomorrow - if I'm feeling motivated.

Cost: C+
Waste: B (Lots of chicken broth left, no idea what to do with it)
Taste: C-