Let's SLOW this ride.

I enjoy using my slow cooker {or crock pot interchangeably}. I think it's a great invention. The cooker is so simple to use that even I can use and believe me that's saying a lot.  =)  At any rate, I like to make a slow cooker meal if I know I am going to be super busy that day or if I am coming home too late to make a healthy meal.  The other day I was going through one of my favorite magazines {Muscle Fitness HERS} and saw an amazing recipe for crock pot lasagna. Hmm... I know my family loves pasta and this would be so simple.  So, I added to the weeks menu.  Fabulous!!!


As usual, I don't follow the recipe exactly...in fact this time I hardly followed the recipe at all.  The recipe calls for  cooking ground turkey with some onions & garlic.  Well, even though I had ground turkey available to me, I decided to use the grilled {Did you get that??, ALREADY COOKED} chicken breast from the night before since we had several and I wanted to ensure that they get eaten. 

So, I cut up the chicken. One ingredient done!!  Then the recipe calls for making my sauce with some tomato sauce & paste and blah blah...well, lucky for me I had made a HUGE batch of homemade sauce a couple of weeks ago, froze it and have it ready to go!! FABULOUS, another ingredient done!!

The next step talks about cheese.   It states to mix cottage cheese, ricotta cheese & mozzarella shreds to make the cheesy layer that goes into lasagna. Well, I had a mix of cottage & ricotta sitting in my freezer from a meal I made last week so that step was just ready to be defrosted!!  WOO HOO!!

So, the 3 main ingredients....Meat, Sauce & Cheese. Done within 5 minutes...See, why I love crock pot cooking {wink}.  Next, combine the meat & sauce. Then, combine the cheese mixture to the mozzarella shreds.  So, of course the next step is not rocket science {or maybe it was} layer your thing.  Meaty sauce, noodles {oh and guess what no need to pre-cook the noodles SCORE}, cheese. Repeat.

Cook on Low for 7-8 hours. I cooked on 6 hours high and then reduced it to low after so many hours.

Not the layered gorgeous look you see in the magazines, but close enough. HA HA!!

This was AMAZING!!!    I was very unsure how crock pot lasagna would taste but man was it fabulous. I was a little uneasy about using uncooked noodles but the steam and the heat cooked those suckers good!!

This is definitely going into the recipe files and maybe just maybe I'll follow the real recipe next time. 

Have you made a crock pot lasagna? Or what is your favorite CP recipe?

Have a foodilicous day!!

Pour me a hot one....

It's time for another edition of coffee lover.  I have to admit I have a lot of coffee bags sitting in my freezer waiting {begging} for me to make that I decided to create coffee-the mini series.

I am going to have fun with this little series.  Today, I bring you Gevalia Kaffee

Gevalia

Thus far I have tried the Espresso Roast & the House Blend.  

Let's start with the Espresso Roast. 

Espresso Roast

I choose espresso roast because well I love strong coffee and the word espresso sounds so sophisticated and conossieur like {ha ha, yes I am a dork and I freely admit it} however, do not let this name fool you. It was not strong nor was it tasty, in fact since this flavor was the first one I tried we actually {almost} decided not to pursue this brand further.  

So glad that I didn't do that because well first of all, I had Gevalia coupons...HELLO!!  And we ventured into the next flavor house blend {medium/dark}....D-lish!!  It's aroma is amazing, it's flavor is so bold and bursting with character. I, mean this is an amazing blend.  And yes, I just went to the cupboard, pulled out and took another whiff. LOVE!!!

Pictured shown is Decaf, however, I go for the lethal stuff. :)

Do you have any coffee flavors you think I should give a try? Let me know!!!