Crock Pot Cheesy Ham Potato Soup

I saw a recipe sort of like this and had to make some major changes. Therefore I have created my own crock pot soup recipe!

Crock Pot Cheesy Ham Potato Soup

4 cups grated potato (or 32oz bag frozen hash browns)
4 cups chicken broth (I used chicken bullion cubes with water)
1 10 oz can cream of chicken soup
1 8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 cup cubed pre-cooked ham
Salt and pepper

Put all of the ingredients into your crock pot set on medium high. After about 30 minutes whisk the ingredients. The cream cheese needs a little extra TLC to fully melt into the soup. Turn the recipe down to low-medium and let cook for 2 hours or so. You can stir it or not. It's not finicky.

I made a loaf of bread to go with it. It was delicious! There were barely any leftovers. I would have eaten more, but, I ate way too much bread.  I will be making this recipe, again!

Till next time...

Save Your Own Dill Seeds

My friend was kind enough to give me a bunch of dill weed plants.  She was cleaning up her garden and I was expanding mine.

After successfully replanting and after some time the dill started flowering.

I chopped off all of the yellow flower-y things and tied them upside down in a hole covered paper bag.  I put it in a dark closet and ignored it (well mostly ignored) for two weeks.

I was curious to find out what would happen. Especially since last year I bought a thing of dill seed, to make pickles, for about $3.00.

When I pulled the drying dill out of the bag, this is what I found:

A whole bunch of dill seeds that looked exactly like what I bought!  And I had even more!!!  I rubbed the dill plants gently onto the dish and then put them in an seed envelope. I have dried a second batch and hope to do it a third time, soon.   

Now I have to figure out what to do with a lot of dill seed. You can only eat so many pickles.

Till next time!

To Kale Or Not to Kale --> Dehydrating Kale

This summer I got the bright idea to plant kale.  This particular vegetable is not really loved. But, I love it because apparently it can grow most of the year. That sounded like a great idea, so I gave it a whirl!

I planted some in pots and sadly some hideous little green worms are eating it up. I however planted it in the yard garden where it was less damaged.  I picked some of the large leaves and put them on the dehydrator trays.

Not too long into the dehydration process the family started complaining about an awful smell. Let me just say dehydrating kale smells like @ss!! It permeated the whole house and was quite nasty.  Future batches will be done OUTside!

After about three hours this was the result.

A friend of mine saw a pint container of this stuff at the store for a whopping $6.99.  They also sell it on Amazon and it is expensive!! Kale seems to be very easy to plant and harvest (sans the stupid worms.)  No one in there right mind would pay that much for a little bit of kale. Do it yourself!

Here is my first batch. It dried up perfectly in about three hours time. It is very crunchy and you could definitely moosh it into herb or powder size.

Apparently this stuff is really good for you. My thought is I can sneak it into soup or something. The family will never know.

Till next time....

Squash Blossom Quesadilla

I got really adventurous in my gardening this year. I planted watermelons, pumpkins, squashes, etc... I currently only have one pumpkin doing its thang. All of the rest of the squash like objects have grown to about an inch and then withered up and died. The problem is that these same plants grow everywhere! They take up some major space and then they don't give me anything. Sheesh! A waste of my time and energy.

So, I googled pumpkin blossoms (aka squash.) Lo and behold you can use those. I figure if these stupid hugely growing plants are not going to give me anything I will just eat their flowers. So there! Which brings me to:

Squash Blossom Quesadilla (Makes 2 full quesadillas)

4-5 squash flower blossoms
1-2 cups shredded mild cheddar (or more depending on how cheesy you like them.)
4 flour tortillas.

Gently clean off the flowers in a bowl of cold water. Tear the flowers into pieces.  Heat up a cast iron pan. Add about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.  Once heated, place one tortilla on skillet. Spread half of the cheese on tortilla.  Arrange half of the flowers over the cheese. Place another flour tortilla on top of the flowers and press down with your hand or spatula - just to flatten it out.

Once the one side is done - it won't take long, so don't walk away! Carefully flip the tortilla - you might have to use your hand to hold it together with the spatula, so you don't lose all your goodies. Wait a minute or so - again, don't walk away. Once brown and crisp put it on a plate. Cut into quarters using a pizza cutter and eat.

The squash blossoms added a little bit of pizzazz to the quesadilla. It was very subtle.  And it makes them colorful.

Apparently, squash blossoms are very good for you. You could definitely sneak them in and no one would really know the difference - especially if you served them with sour cream and salsa.

 So there you have it ---> Not only am I taking out my revenge on the squash plants; I'm being healthy, too. Who knew?!?!?

Till next time...

Ranch Chicken

Holy smokes! It's been over a year since I've done the blog thing. Talk about major slacker!

Anywhooooo...   I had a container of ranch salad dressing to use and no one was using for salad - for shame! I needed to find a creative way to use this dressing. I was NOT going to waste it! I looked through many cookbooks and all of them used dried ranch dressing mix.

Well shoot! I guess I need to figure out a recipe of my very own. And here it is:

1/2 cup ranch salad dressing
4 strips bacon
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or skinless boneless chicken thighs or a combo of both.)
Non stick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Microwave the bacon on a plate with a wet paper towel on top for about 3 minutes. Trim and cut up the chicken breast into 4-6 pieces.  Wrap each piece of chicken with bacon and place into a greased glass casserole.

Evenly pour the dressing over all of the pieces of chicken. Place baking dish in oven for 45 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

This recipe was/is amazing! And super easy!! It was definitely a great way to use leftover ranch dressing.

Till next time... And hopefully it won't take a year.