Slow Cooker Creamy Turkey Dinner Recipe

Q: Can you make a creamy turkey dinner with mushrooms without using a can of condensed soup?

A: Absolutely.

I haven't bought condensed cream of something soup for about 10 years. I know this because I've been married 11 years, and I know that during that first year of marriage I used this "wonder soup" a lot.

lots and lots. quite often, even.

I stocked up when the cans were on sale, and I gave myself a pat on the back when I saw them all lined up in the cupboard.

There is nothing wrong with using canned condensed soup.

Once in a while.

I don't personally buy or use it anymore because of our gluten allergy, and I although I've learned there are non-glutenized soups now on the market, I still don't buy it because I've gotten used to cooking without.

I'm pretty much the furthest thing from a food snob. I figure whatever gets food on your table at the end of a busy day is good, whether that's Taco Bell, a frozen lasagna, gloppy condensed soup, or 365 (366) days of food from a crockpot. It's your choice.

This recipe was inspired from one of my early condensed soup crockpot meals I made (OFTEN) as a newlywed. This is a good dinner to eat in front of the TV while balancing a paper plate on your lap, sprawled out in an inflatable chair.

I miss our inflatable chairs!

The Ingredients.
serves 4-6


2 pounds turkey breast, cut in chunks
1/2 cup beef broth
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 onion, thinly sliced
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon dried parsley (unless you have fresh, then use about 1/4 cup at the very end)
1/2 cup half and half or heavy cream
1 cup frozen green beans (I like the long thin ones, not the thick weird ones they give you in the school cafeteria)

The Directions.

Use a 4 quart slow cooker. Put the turkey into the bottom of your cooker, and pour on the beef broth and balsamic vinegar. Add onion, mushrooms, and dried parsley. Stir a bit to combine. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours, or on high for about 4. If you only have a 6-quart slow cooker, this will cook much faster, unless you increase the quantities. Remember that slow cookers work the best when they're at least 2/3 of the way full.
If you are going to use a 6-quart, check after 4-5 hours on low, or 2-3 on high.
If you'd like the turkey super tender and shreddy, cook for a longer period of time on low.

Stir in the heavy cream and green beans. Cover and cook on high for another 30 minutes, or until beans are thawed and heated through. Serve over cooked pasta.

The Verdict.

My kids wanted me to call this "Winner Winner Turkey Dinner" (they've watched a bit too much of Guy Fieri, lately). I liked the combo of beef broth with the touch of vinegar when paired with the mushrooms. It's tasty, and you don't end up feeling like you ingested a week's worth of sodium.
Adam ate two plates, and took the leftovers to work for the next day's lunch.

I'm going to keep my eyes open for an inflatable arm chair.

Slow Cooker Smoked Sausage and Bean Stew

One of the best things about playing around with a slow cooker is the way you can literally "throw together" dinner without much effort or planning. I had great intentions of going to the store for a chicken, but the baby was sound asleep and her sisters were busy playing school.

and they weren't arguing.

Instead, I picked up the phone, dialed a friend, and started throwing stuff I already had in the pantry and freezer into the pot.

The only problem?

I was so busy chatting, I forgot to take an ingredients picture. I did jot down what I tossed in, though!

The Ingredients.
serves 6

1 pound smoked sausage, casings removed, and crumbled
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped celery
2 brown potatoes, diced (no need to peel)
1/2 cup dried lima beans (no need to presoak lima beans)
1 tablespoon A-1 steak sauce (the secret ingredient!)
4 cups beef broth

The Directions.

I used a 6-quart slow cooker. My sausage was pretty frozen solid, so while I chopped the vegetables, I soaked the package in a sink full of hot water. When they softened enough to handle, I simply used a knife to cut off the casings, and crumbled the meat into the cooker. Add the lima beans, A-1, and beef broth.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the lima beans and carrots have reached desired tenderness.

Serve with a green salad and rolls. I made drop-biscuits from Pamela's Baking Mix.

The Verdict.

Easy and delicious! My sausage was mild in spices---it provided a smokey flavor infused with sage. If you use spicy sausage, your stew will be spicy. The A-1 gives the broth a fantastic color and a bit of a vinegary twang. mmm. Lima beans swell tremendously while they're cooked; 1/2 cup is plenty.

Book Club Discussion: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Good Morning!

I LOVED THIS BOOK.

This was the first book I've read in a very long time (maybe since college?) that I could tell was actual literature. I read quickly, and can fly through pop fiction rather quickly, but I found myself taking the time to absorb each page, paragraph, and sentence while reading.

This book was not just well-written, it was crafted. I have no doubt that it will live on for generations to come, and become assigned reading.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in suggesting The Help. If you haven't yet had the opportunity to finish the book, you might want to steer clear of the discussion. I'd hate to inadvertently spoil anything for you.

Tonight at 5pm Pacific, I'll be leading a live Twitter discussion @stephanieodea under the hashtag #thehelp. I hope to see you!

in the mean time, here are a few thoughts to get your brain buzzing:

1) I usually don't like books where the point of view shifts. I get distracted easily while reading and quickly get lost. This was not the case with this book, and I loved how Stockett stuck with the same point of view for a few chapters at a time before switching. I had no trouble following along, and marveled at how well the story unfolded through each character.

2) I sometimes get bogged down with dialect. I have skimmed pages before, waiting for the dialect to end so I could just "get back to the story." Not here. I don't know if this is an authentic interpretation of southern dialect in the fifties (some cranky Amazon reviewers said it isn't) or not, and I honestly don't care. It was perfect to me. I could read and understand it and I could hear the voices in my head. That's good enough for me!

3) I found that I could relate to all of the main characters, and rooted for them in different ways.

I related to Skeeter the most. I know what it's like to gnaw at your fingernails waiting for weeks to hear back from faceless NY publishers, I understood her relationship with her mother, I often have the "I don't fit in here" feeling she does in social situations, and I loved the way she handled the Miss Myrna job of faking her way through it.

What about you? What were your impressions of the book, and which character resonated the most with you?

new recipe: Boston (book club) Tea Punch

Slow Cooker Boston Tea (book club) Punch Recipe

My friend Barbara wrote right away after I posted that I was interested in starting a book club. She told me that I must make her "famous" Boston Tea that she always serves to her book club.

Now this is a hot drink, which sounds weird in the middle of July, but I found it quite refreshing to sip on out in the yard after dinner.

Be careful.

this is um, powerful stuff.

The Ingredients.
serves 4

2 cups water
2 black tea bags
1/2 cup rum
2 ounces Triple Sec
2 tablespoons sugar
8 lemon slices (about 2 lemons)

The Directions.

Use a 2 quart slow cooker. Put water into your slow cooker, and add the tea bags. Pour in the rum and triple sec. Stir in the sugar. Wash lemons well, slice, and float the slices on top. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours, or on high for about 2 hours. When thoroughly hot, remove tea bags (you can squeeze them just a bit to get out more tea flavor, if you'd like) and discard. Ladle into pretty mugs and serve.

The Verdict.

Barbara, thank you for sharing your book club tea punch! I'm thinking that the book clubs I've attended in the past have been kind of boring, but maybe the problem was that we never had anything like this to sip on!

My friends loved this. Maybe even a bit too much.

book club reminder!

good morning!

This is a friendly reminder that we have a Book Club date for this Thursday, July 15.

The book is The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

It's a quick read---if you don't have all that much to do the next two days, you can most certainly knock it out.

and it's worth it.

this is one. very. good. book.

Hey Steph, what kind of snacks pair well with reading?
oh, I'm so glad you asked!

spinach artichoke dip
brie with apricot topping
apple dumplings
cheesecake
chocolate mousse
chex mix
mulled wine
nuts and bolts
tomatoes and goat cheese with balsamic cranberry syrup
chocolate covered strawberries
chocolate fondue

and last up, always a crowd favorite, even though I admit the ingredients sound terribly odd:
mommy crack, AKA Rotel Dip

See you Thursday!!
xxoxo

Orange Honey Tilapia Slow Cooker Recipe

Fish! It's what's for dinner.

I love making fish in the crockpot. I love making pretty much anything in the crockpot, but the ease of making fish is just so wonderful, I'm surprised everyone doesn't cook fish this way.
It's easy.
It's moist and flavorful.
It doesn't heat up the house on a hot day.
it doesn't stink up the kitchen.
and clean up is practically non-existent.

SCORE!

I had a bunch of frozen tilapia in the house that I bought in bulk, and needed a new recipe. My kids hands-down favorite tialpia is Parmesan Tilapia, but I wanted a super low-fat dinner to counteract the gobs of Cheesy Creamed Corn I ate the other day.

The Ingredients.
serves 4

4 tilapia filets (frozen is just fine)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 (10-ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained
aluminum foil
salt and pepper to taste at the table

The Directions.

Use a 6-quart slow cooker. Lay a length of foil on your countertop and place the fish directly in the middle. Dribble balsamic vinegar and honey over the top of each fillet, and place a handful of drained mandarin oranges on top (my kids like to drink the juice!).

Fold over foil and crimp the edges to form a packet. Put the foil packet into your slow cooker, and put the lid on (if you'd prefer to have one fish fillet per packet for serving, divide the sauce and the oranges). Cook on high for two hours, or until fish flakes easily with a fork. If your fish was frozen, it may take another 30 minutes or so, but you should still check it after two hours. Season to taste with some salt and pepper at the table.

The Verdict.

We all loved this, and I was able to share my grandfather's story about mandarin oranges really being boneless baby goldfish. It's a bit odd---but the kids loved the story the same way I did when I was growing up!

more fish in foil:
fillet of sole with pesto
salmon with a sweet and spicy rub

and more on the way!

ps: my friend Sean started a new endeavor called Punk Domestics. If you liked the idea of making homemade yogurt, I think you'll get a bunch of great ideas. He's also looking for submissions, if you're interested!

Slow Cooker Cheesy Creamed Corn Recipe

Happy 6th of July!

that's got to be a holiday somewhere, I'm thinking...
or we should make one up.

so you can eat corn with cheese.
or is it cheese with corn?

It probably doesn't really matter.

If you're on a diet, look the other way. This is some heavy corn, and it's stick-to-your-ribs comfort food. I ate too much, but I'm so happy I did, because I enjoyed every last bit--- including the two lonely niblets left stuck that I picked off before loading the plate into the washer.

The Ingredients.
serves 8

2 (16-ounce) packages frozen corn (no need to thaw)
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons water
4 slices American cheese, crumbled

The Directions.

Use a 4 to 6 quart slow cooker. Empty the corn packages into your slow cooker. Unwrap the cream cheese and put the blocks on top. Add sugar and water, and fold the American cheese slices a few times, then crumble it in on top.
Cover and cook on low until everything is all melty---about six hours on low in my 4-quart. If you're using a big cooker, it'll cook a bit faster---check after 4 hours on low.

Stir well before serving.

That's it?
yup!!

The Verdict.

I fed this to my 2 big kids, the neighbor's kids, and my grandma. It's a winner, and I plan on making it again for a backyard barbecue party next week.

you should make this.

and then go to the gym. :-)

for a lighter and less-cheesy version, you can make this one that I did back during my challenge.

ps: I finished The Help last night, and loved it. You've still got plenty of time to read before our July 15 book club party. It's a fast read!