Dukan Puerto Rican Fricassee de Pollo

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Ok, a little dry.
SHE SAID: This was ok, we will stick to Cuban Fricassee and chicken thighs in the crock pot.

Crock Pot Puerto Rican Fricassee de Pollo - the sauce
actually looks greener but the photo doesn't show it

The first time we had Fricassee de Pollo was at Soul de Cuba here in Downtown Honolulu.   It was SO delicious.  We've tried to make Cuban Fricassee and have gotten fairly close, but not the same.  The not so great thing about going to Soul de Cuba is you get a couple pieces of fabulous chicken, then 2/3's of your plate is beans, rice and plantains..which are all just as fabulous, but carbs, carbs, carbs!

We'll be making our Cuban Fricassee once we get to Consolidation, but since we're in Cruise, we decided to try the Puerto Rican version which doesn't call for orange juice.  Most recipes we found called for potato which we omitted and bell peppers (we omitted since it's our Pure Protein day).  After trying this, which wasn't terrible, but if you've had Cuban Fricassee, this isn't nearly as delicious.  We'll be sticking to chicken thighs with the skin and fat removed for the crock pot.  Tenderloins are moist grilled and pan fried, but too dry in the crock pot.   Perhaps not using the bell peppers made a big difference.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
4 qt. crock pot
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Cook Time: 5-6 hours

1 1/2 pounds chicken tenderloins (we recommend boneless, skinless, fat removed chicken thighs)
1 T. adobo seasoning
1 packet sazon seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large red onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic
1 bunch fresh cilantro, leaves only
a few drops of olive oil
1/2 c. dry red wine
1 t. ground cumin
1 t. dried oregano
2 dried bay leaves

Wash chicken and pat dry, then place in the crock pot.  Season with adobo seasoning, sazon and salt.  Puree the onions, garlic, cilantro, olive oil, wine, cumin, and oregano in blender (if you're using bell peppers, add 1 large red bell and 1 large green bell).  Pour over chicken and add the bay leaves.  Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.

Enjoy!

Dukan Crock Pot Chicken Artichoke Pasta

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Very good (he had seconds)
SHE SAID: Yes, agreed.

Crock Pot Chicken Artichoke Pasta

We tried this recipe before using heavy whipping cream and both enjoyed it.  Decided to Dukan the recipe since it looked simple enough.  Also, we use crushed tomatoes since the male half of this couple doesn't like tomatoes but will eat tomato sauce.  We recommend using Italian style diced tomatoes for this recipe.

This is a nice, light dish and went nicely on the House Brand Angel Hair Tofu Shirataki Angel Hair Noodles although you can really serve on any of the Tofu Shirataki noodles.  We did add some of our Rustica sauce from our lunch dish to add flavor.  If you prefer a thicker sauce, add a cornstarch paste made with 1 t of cornstarch and just a little bit of water.  Our original recipe calls for 1/2 c. pimento stuffed olives which doesn't seem to be allowed on the Dukan Diet.

RECIPE
Serves 2-3 (depending on how much you eat)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 5-6 hours
4 qt. crock pot

1 - 28 oz. can Italian tomatoes (diced, stewed, etc)
1 - 13 or 14 oz. can of artichokes hearts in water, drained and lightly chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c. non-fat half-and-half
1/2 c. Rustica sauce from leftovers (recipe here)
2 packages of House Brand Tofu Shirataki Angel Hair Pasta

Cut chicken into bit size pieces and put into crock pot.  Pour tomatoes into crock pot.  Lightly chop the drained artichoke hearts and toss those in.  Add garlic.  Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours on low or until chicken is no longer pink.  Just before the meal is done cooking, boil noodles in salty water for at least 5 minutes, drain (do not rinse after boiling).  Before serving, mix in the non-fat half-and-half, Rustica sauce and pasta.

This tastes great with the stuffed olives, so we're looking forward to having the full recipe during Consolidation and Stabilization.

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Chicken Adobo for Two

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, moist but a bit salty
SHE SAID: Same, salty, but good.

Chicken Adobo, before

Happy May Day!  May Day is known as Lei Day in Hawaii.  We both were really busy, so no Lei Day festivities for us.  Decided we needed something lighter to eat and we've been on a vinegar kick (both food and cleaning!).  Didn't take the time to find the female half of this couple's recipe which came from a Filipina friend's grandmother (her recipe calls for more vinegar versus shoyu).  Instead, we decided to pull one off allrecipes.com which is often times a great resource.  Generally what we do is what many other posters do, take the recipe and tweak it with our own additions/changes as well as suggestions by other reviewers of the recipe.  Most have turned our fabulous...this one was a bit too salty for the one with high blood pressure.  Plus, we prefer our adobo more on the "vinegary" side.

For those who don't like a strong vinegar taste, this recipe may work for you!  As mentioned in other posts, the female half of this couple is on a lower carb diet, so we make more than 2 servings.  The crock pot worked well for this recipe.  We normally simmer the chicken in the adobo sauce for about an hour on the stove, it's still good on the stove, but not as tender as when done in the crock pot.

Since the female half is on a lower carb diet and we've been reading about vinegar's greatness, we will definitely use our own adobo recipe very soon (and we may marinate the chicken first)!

RECIPE:

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low
2 qt crock pot

6-8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2/3 c. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
1/3 c. white vinegar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. ground ginger
2 bay leaves
1/2 T. black peppercorns
1/2 to 1 t. truvia (or sugar)
1 T. garlic powder

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Place chicken in crock pot.  Layer in ingredients (we usually start with the dry ingredients first).   Give it a quick stir.  Cover and cook on low for 6 - 8 hours.  Serve with white rice.

We didn't need rice this week, so we bought the male half of this couple a kaiser roll, toasted it and served the chicken shredded with sauce on the roll.  We prefer adobo with rice.

Enjoy!

P.S.  Forgot to take a pic of the finished product!

Crock Pot Pollo In Potacchio for two MEALS

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Very good!
SHE SAID:  Loved it, but it's not the same as Cafe VIII 1/2's

As mentioned in a previous post, Cafe VIII 1/2 here in Honolulu produces a great Pollo in Potacchio.  We haven't seen this dish on any other Honolulu Italian Restaurant yet.  What a treat!  The chicken just falls off the bone and the sauce is yummy (everything cooked in wine is yummy).

Before

We decided to make a large batch of this for a couple of reasons - the female half of this couple is trying to lower her carb intake, trying to save money by taking "home lunch" to work and wanted to use some of it for a lasagna the next night.

Cafe VIII 1/2 serves this dish with either rice or mashed potatoes.  There are several variations of this recipe online.

RECIPE:

Prep Time:
Cook Time: 6 -8 hours on low
4 qt crock pot

2 1/2 lbs boneless skinless thighs
2 T. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed (we used minced since we have the big pre-minced Costco jar)
1 lg. onion sliced (the male half doesn't care for onions, so next time we will use a small onion or half)
3/4 T. red chili pepper flakes
1 can tomato paste (small can)
salt and pepper to taste
1 c. dry wine
1 c. chicken broth
1 T. dried rosemary

The end product, yum!

We put everything in the pot, but you can season your chicken with salt and pepper, sear the chicken, then transfer to the crock pot.  Here's how we did it and it still tasted great.  Put oil into crock pot.  Wash, dry and place chicken into pot.  Mix tomato paste with wine, pour over chicken.  Put the rest of the ingredients into the pot.  Cover and cook for 6-8 hours on low.

We served this with homemade garlic mashed potatoes and corn.  Yes, we love corn!  We had some for dinner and kept the rest for the lasagna we made the next night.

Next time we'll amend this recipe to use less tomato paste, it tasted too "tomatoey" compared to Cafe VIII 1/2's dish.

Enjoy, we sure did!

Crock Pot Poached Salmon in Wine for two

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Very good (he ate leftovers too)
SHE SAID: Yum!

The lower carb plate, this was quite filling.

Here's our second fish recipe from this past weekend.    This was much better...first of all, salmon is fattier which equals moister fish.   Secondly, we cut the fillet into 2 inch wide pieces and added a packet of sazon.  Oh and we love cooking with wine.  Wine makes everything so yummy!

We love salmon...prefer it raw as sushi and spicy salmon bowls, the fattier, the better.  We're tempted to buy the huge slab of salmon at Costco, but that's way too much for the two of us to eat and we prefer not to  freeze the fish.

This fits nicely into a 2-qt crock pot.  Served with Japanese rice and we stir fried some bean sprouts with chinese peas in a little bit of sesame oil and Bragg's Liquid Amino instead of shoyu (soy sauce).

Note: the reason for the leftovers - trying to save money and eat healthier at work during lunch.  To make just two servings, cut down the fish to 3/4 to 1 lb. - depending on how much each of you like to eat and if you're going lower carb like we are, you'll need a little more fish.

Before

Here's our recipe:

Serves 2 (plus leftovers)
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 3-4 hours on low

1 - 1 1/2 lbs. fresh salmon fillet (pick the fattiest looking piece)
3/4 c. dry white wine
1 lemon, juiced (ok to use some of the rind if you wish)
5 olives (stuffed with pimentos), sliced
1/4 t. kosher salt
pepper (to taste)
1 pkg. sazon
1 - 1 1/2 T. olive oil

Grease crock pot with olive oil.  Cut salmon fillet into 2 inch wide pieces and place in crock pot.  Add wine, olives, salt, pepper, lemon juice and sazon.  Cover and cook for 3-4 hours on low.

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Shoyu-Wine Marinated Chicken Wings for Two

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: They taste great, but next time make thighs.
SHE SAID: Yum!

Wings, Japanese rice and white corn

We made these wings for Super Bowl Sunday last week and loved them.  Had 9 wing pieces ("flats" and "drums") left so we decided to make more wings.  We knew we'd be out for a couple of hours trying to get in a sunset photo shoot and with the cook time for these wings set at 3-4 hours, the wings would be ready as we returned.

We really could have gone with just 7 wings since we only ate 3 each...Safeway's wings are HUGE!  The sauce can accommodate up to probably 12 wings, depending on how large your wing pieces are.  Prep time is about 5 minutes, but we highly recommend marinating the wings for at least 4 hours.

RECIPE:

Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours on low

Serves 2, 2-qt crock pot

6-8 wing pieces ("flats" and "drums") - depending on how many wings you want to eat
1 c. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
1/2 c. dry white wine
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 T. sugar (we use truvia)
1 t. ground ginger

Mix all ingredients except chicken in a bowl.  Put chicken in a gallon size ziploc (we put our ziploc into a foil pan just in case).  Pour half of the marinade into the ziploc bag and refrigerate wings for at least 4 hours.  Refrigerate the remaining marinade.  Flip ziploc bag several times, maybe every hour or so.

Drain marinade from bag, pour wings into a 2 qt crock pot, cover with remaining marinade.  Cover pot and cook on low for 3 hours or until chicken is cooked all the way.

We had our wings with Japanese rice and corn.

Enjoy, we did!

Crock Pot Spanish Braised Chicken for Two (plus leftovers)

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Thought it was dry and agreed not as tasty as other dishes we've tried.
SHE SAID: This was ok.  Not as tasty as our Chicken Fricassee (Cuban style).

Finished product

This week has been a busy week for us...no time to cook in the crock pot...but we definitely had time this weekend!  Here's another recipe we saved from Stephanie O'Dea's blog, but we tweaked the recipe a bit since we had white wine already in the house.  Wanted some leftovers too for work lunches, so we made enough for dinner for two and one day of leftovers.

Reading Stephanie's recipe reminded us of one of our favorite Cuban dishes "Chicken Fricassee".  There are many versions of this dish, including a Puerto Rican one which we've made also, but our favorite is still the Cuban style.  We were tempted to turn the Spanish Braised Chicken into Fricassee, but decided we should try something new.  Mmm..we'll have to make Chicken Fricassee in the crock pot soon!  So many recipes to try, so little time!

Before

The cook forgot to follow Stephanie's suggestion of cutting the chicken in half to help with the dryness.  Our chicken came out dry.  The leftovers were cut in half and sat in the crock pot for an hour in the juices...hope this helps.  We had thighs in our hands at the market, wished we stuck with thighs.


Here's our tweaked recipe...it's almost the same as Stephanie's.

RECIPE:

Serves 2-3, 4-qt crock pot

1 T. butter
4-6 chicken breasts (cut in half)
1/2 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t. dried thyme
1-2 bell peppers, sliced (used one since it was a large bell pepper)
1 medium red onion (sliced into rings)
1/2 c. white wine (original recipe called for brandy)
1/2 an orange, juiced
12 lg. green olives, chopped (stuffed with pimentos)

After 7 hours

Plug in crock pot and turn on low before you chop veggies.  Add butter and spread around pot.  Add chicken.  Add all dried spices on chicken.  Cut bell peppers and onions, mince garlic (we use the already minced garlic from Costco), add to chicken.  Top off with wine and orange juice.  Chop olives and sprinkle on top.  Cover and cook 7-8 hours on low.

We served this with Japanese (short grain) rice and white corn.  As mentioned earlier, it didn't wow us, but it was still good.  Perhaps it would come out better with thighs and the brandy.

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Marinated Chicken Wings - party sized

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: very good.
SHE SAID: yum!  Will make again, but will use chicken thighs instead - easier to eat, to which he replied "yeah!"

Super Bowl Sunday was coming up and of course the female part of this couple had to use the crock pot to make our potluck contribution.  Wish we photographed the wings, we didn't realize how darn delicious they would be!  The chicken becomes very moist and oh so tasty!  Since we will be making this again soon, a pic will be posted then.

We found this recipe under the name "Marinated Slow Cooker Wings" on allrecipes.com and made some adjustments to our taste and blood pressure needs.  Here's our recipe:

RECIPE:

4 - 6 qt crock pot

20 chicken wings (not wing tips)
2 c low sodium shoyu (soy sauce) - we watered down the shoyu a bit
1 3/4 c white wine
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T sugar
2 t ground ginger

Place chicken in a gallon sized baggie (we also place the baggie in a foil pan just in case).  In a bowl, combine remaining ingredients.  Pour half the marinade on the chicken, keep the other half for cooking (refrigerate).  Seal bag up, coat chicken with sauce and refrigerate overnight.  We turned the bag of chicken a few times before going to bed to ensure even coating.  When ready to cook, discard marinade from bag, place chicken and the reserved marinade into your crock pot, cook on low for 4 hours.

After we adjust this recipe for thighs and a party of two, we will post the new recipe!  We're thinking of serving the thigh style recipe with Japanese rice and stir fried veggies.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Crock Pot Chicken Parmesan

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: it was ok (keep in mind he loves pasta and ordered this on our third date).
SHE SAID: not bad for a crock pot recipe, but nothing beats the real thing

Photo from Stephanie O'Dea's site.

We are still tweaking this recipe, but we rate it a 10 for easy recipe with a great taste.  We almost used our homemade marinara sauce (well, our friend Pam's recipe for marinara sauce) and hindsight, we should have went with our first instinct.  Also, we had 5 pieces of chicken thighs which came out very moist and tender...a little too moist and tender for Chicken Parmesan.  We thought we adjusted the time correctly for the 5 pieces of chicken, but our cheese was overcooked - we didn't even recognize it when it came out of the crock pot!

We used our 4-qt crock pot for this recipe and it was a bit overfilled.  Next time we will use the 6-qt crock pot which we haven't used yet!  Our chicken didn't look anywhere near as nice as Stephanie O'Dea's looked!   We used some gemelli and rotini pasta since we had 1/3 of a bag of each waiting to be boiled.

RECIPE:

serves 2 (plus one leftover meal), 4-qt crock pot

2-4 boneless chicken breasts (we used boneless skinless thighs, stick with breasts)
1/2 c Italian bread crumbs
1/4 c shredded parmesan cheese
1/2 t Italian seasoning
1/4 t black pepper
1/4 t kosher salt
1 T olive oil
1 beaten egg
sliced mozzarella cheese (we used fresh - it was on sale)
favorite jarred marinara (we used an organic one, we wished we used homemade)
your choice of pasta

Spread olive oil into the bottom of the crock pot.  Whip the egg in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients including the shredded parmesan cheese.  Dip the chicken into the egg, the coat with the dry mix.  Place chicken into crock pot.  Layer 2-3 slices of mozzarella on the chicken - we covered the chicken with the mozzarella.  Pour entire jar of marinara on chicken/cheese.  Cover crock pot and cook on low for 6-7 hours.  Serve over pasta...and some Luccio Moscasto d'Asti!

We cooked our chicken parmesan for 7 hours, will try 6 hours next time, hopefully that will help the mozzarella.  Again, we like the recipe, just need to tweak it a bit and use the homemade marinara!

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Foil Packet Fish for Two

RECIPE RATING:

HE SAID: Good! Didn't care for the fish we chose.

SHE SAID: Good..ditto!

During our quarterly Costco run (we go more than that, but the quarterly trip is the big one) we decided to pick up a bag of frozen fish. Costco has those individually wrapped fish that are supposed to be great. We wanted Tilapia since we were trying out Stephanie O'Dea's Foil Packet Fish recipe. Couldn't find any Tilapia, so we chose another white flakey fish, Pacific Cod...being from Hawaii where fresh fish is always available, we were quite disappointed with the Pacific Cod from Costco.

Photo from Stephanie O'Dea's site.

We were however pleased with the recipe. For the two of us we used 3 small pieces of fish in our 2-quart crock pot. Not too much adjusting from the recipe. We served with Japanese rice and probably could have cooked the fish the entire 4 hours since the cheese wasn't melted all the way.

We too made it with cheddar cheese since we still had some left from the Skyline Cincinnati Chili we made. We also prefer parmesan cheese in the mix.

We tried this recipe again with swordfish from the local market but altered the recipe..instead of lemon, we added chili oil (lots of it - to taste - we like our food spicy) instead. We really liked the fish this way. Served it with Japanese rice and stir fried chinese cabbage (won bok) or Napa Cabbage.

Will be trying other fish with this recipe and probably various spices. We're thinking even shoyu (soy) and ginger or shoyu and white wine sauces.  For now, here is our Foil Packet Spicy Fish Recipe...

RECIPE (2-qt crock pot):

3-4 fillets of tilapia (or other white fish)
1/4 c mayonnaise (we used Cupie - Japanese mayo)
1/2 c shredded parmesan cheese
4 cloves of garlic, minced
chili oil - to taste (we used 2-3 tablespoons)
pinch of kosher salt
pinch of pepper (we recommend a pepper grinder)

Mix all ingredients except the fish in a bowl.  Lay out a piece of foil for each fish (enough to fold over into a sealed packet).  Place a piece of fish on the foil, coat in the mayonnaise mix on all sides, fold up the foil into a sealed packet - be sure all folds are facing up.  Put all packets in a 2-qt crock pot, cover and cook on low for 2-4 hours.   Fish is done when it flakes easily.  We usually cook for at least 3 hours - ours has never dried out.  Careful when opening the packets, steam will come out of your packets when opening.

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Salsa Chicken for Two

Yum!

RECIPE RATING:

HE SAID: Pretty good, could be spicier, would eat it again

SHE SAID: Yum and soooo easy!, great as leftovers

What to make, what to make? That's always the question! Here's another great recipe we found on Stephanie O'Dea's blog. We chose it for it's simplicity since one of us had to work and the other ran household errands - wow, what an easy recipe, but it's so flavorful!

Photo from Stephanie O'Dea's site

Salsa Chicken...mmm. We went with 8 small chicken thighs (which looks more like 6 regular sized thighs) and used the 2-quart crock pot for this recipe. We're not into beans, so next time we'll be using half the beans. It was great and so tender!

Another way to serve this...we did this with our leftovers (and wished we served more of the sauce with the chicken the first night!)...make "pulled chicken" open faced sandwiches. For our starch we made homemade guacamole (the better way to go) since avocados were on sales $1 a piece. We've also made something similar to what Stephanie O'Dea suggested..creamy sauce. We usually add in cream of mushroom soup with the salsa...we've only tried this in the oven, but will try it in the crock pot soon!

Enjoy! We sure did! All 8 thighs were gone after two meals!

Breakfast in the crock pot

We tried two recipes from Stephanie O'Dea's blog, reducing the recipes to only feed the two of us...we didn't care for either since both were either over or undercooked. We're not sure if these recipes just come out better making a big batch or if we didn't adjust the cooking time enough. In any case, waking up to your breakfast ready in the crock pot sounds wonderful.

The two recipes we tried are Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole and French Toast Bake Recipe. We made some adjustments to the Hash Brown Casserole since we stay away from sausage (used left over chicken) and left out the bell pepper since we didn't have any. Made half the recipe, cut the cook time in half and the casserole was dry and hard. We're not giving up on this recipe...we may try it again in the future. We (well, the female half of this couple) was pretty excited about the French Toast Bake and had high hopes for it since the male half enjoys French Toast. The top two pieces came out decent, the underneath was hard and overcooked, the middle was spongy and wet. Tried Stephanie's suggestion on leaving the crock pot open (still cooking) for 30 minutes...didn't help our batch. Again, we reduced the recipe by half. This could be one of the reasons the recipe didn't come out well.

As mentioned, we're not ready to give up on breakfast in the crock pot recipes but last weekend we made French Toast on the stove!

Our first crock pot meal - part 2 of 2

RECIPE RATING:

HE SAID: Not exactly the same as Skyline, but pretty close. Enjoyed it!

SHE SAID: Like it! Will make again!

The female part of this couple was born and raised in Hawaii...in Hawaii, Chili is always served with rice...actually most dishes were served with rice, but with the variety of restaurants in this State, the changing demographics and health conscious diners, most restaurants here now offer a variety of starches or veggie substitutes.

Cincinnati Chili is ordered several ways (none with rice). The male part of this couple said he always had it three-way: chili on top of spaghetti topped with cheddar cheese. The chili is a bit spicy, so if you're not into spicy, cut back on the chili powder. This recipe was just right for us, although the male part of this couple said it's pretty close to Skyline, but not quite the same. Next time I'm trying the boiling of the ground beef.

The photo to the right was borrowed from Allrecipes.com. Our chili looked similar minus the onions and with more cheese.

We used our 4-quart crock pot for this. The pot fed two of for dinner (generous servings), the male part of this couple had one serving of leftovers and we stored away two containers (each would feed both of us) in the freezer. We wouldn't cut down the recipe to feed two people just one meal...save time..make the whole crock pot! The female part loves this chili...no beans. We made some whole wheat spaghetti for the chili. Next time we may try the chili on soy dogs for chili dogs!

We actually took from a couple recipes...here's what we tried.

RECIPE:

Seves 6, used a 4-quart crock pot

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 4-6 hours on low

Ingredients:

1 quart cold water

2 lbs lean ground beef

2 c crushed tomatoes

1 red onion, diced (you can use two, we prefer less onions)

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1 T unsweetened cocoa

1/4 c chili powder

1 t cayenne

1 tsp ground cumin

2 T cider vinegar

1 whole bay leaf

1/4 t ground cloves

1 t cinnamon

1 1/2 t kosher salt

cooked whole wheat spaghetti

shredded cheddar cheese (as much as you like)

In a frying pan, fry ground beef with onions and garlic. Drain fat. Pour beef mixture into crock pot, add the rest of the ingredients (except for the pasta and cheese), cook on low for 4-6 hours. Pour chili over spaghetti and top with cheese to serve this dish "three-way".

Enjoy!

Welcome to our blog!

We recently purchased a crock pot after being inspired by an article written by Betty Shimabukuro in the Star Advertiser on January 5, 2011...well ok, the female half of the couple was inspired :-) It's been a cold and wet winter in Hawaii and envisioning warm stew-like meals cooking in our kitchen sounded wonderful. We checked out Stephanie O'Dea's blog mentioned in Betty's article and saw how easy some of the recipes were...not to mention how healthy some of there were! FYI - we signed up for Stephanie O'Dea's blog and she's still posting recipes, but is doing it once a week instead of daily.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

After reading many articles on how to select a crock pot and many, many reviews, we settled on the Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 Crock Pot since most times we really only needed the 2 or 4 quart, but what about the times we wanted to have family or friends over for dinner...or of course as was the case today, we needed to cook up some chicken wings for a Super Bowl party? We made the purchase through Amazon only because we saw "free shipping". Usually "free shipping" on Amazon means free shipping to the Continental U.S....which means Hawaii and Alaska are excluded. We added the crock pot to our "cart" continued through the purchase steps and whaddya know? We got the crock pot on Amazon WITH FREE SHIPPING! Woo hoo!

The Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 Crock Pot arrived on time on our doorstep and we (well, the female half of this couple) was anxious to try the crock pot out. FYI - as mentioned in some of the reviews, the first time we used the crock pot, there was a "burning wire" smell, but it only happened the first time.

More on what our first recipe was, how it turned out and the other recipes we've tried since!