Lessons Learned

All well intentions don’t always mean great results, as Molly and Michelle both found out. 

 

Yesterday my family and I went to a friend’s house for dinner, so I didn’t make a crockpot recipe.  Today I plan on making two recipes, Creamy Farmhouse Chicken and Garden Soup for lunch and spaghetti sauce for dinner.  It’s the second chance for these recipes because Michelle and Molly didn’t have very good luck with them.

Molly made the Creamy Farmhouse Chicken and Garden Soup for dinner last night, but it didn’t turn out very well.  Molly had this to say about it, “It was late so I let it cook for 10 hours over night. I used frozen chicken thighs so I figured it would be fine. The meat dissolved a ton.”

 

Molly also said, “I do not recommend cooking it for more than eight hours and I would use chicken breasts instead next time.” 

 

It just so happens I have this weird chicken bone thing.  It’s one of the very few things that creeps me out, but I can’t do chicken bones or chicken skin.  That being said, I used chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs in my recipes. 

 

 

 

Since I planned on having the soup for lunch I cooked it on high.  I also planned on cooking it for four hours, but the soup smelled so good, I kept checking on it.  After about three and a half hours it was done.  I pulled the chicken breasts out and shredded them with two forks, then added the meat back to the soup. 

 

 

I happened to have a bunch of one-quart organic vegetable broths in my cupboard, so instead of the can of broth that the recipe called for, I used a whole quart.  Then I left out the noodles, and added some Ritz crackers.  To be honest, it didn’t even need the crackers.  SO delicious! 

 

 

 

 

Michelle made spaghetti!  She said this, “I used Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom for the base, which is what we normally get.  We usually add veggies too.  But, I hadn't thought of zucchini, which was good.”

 

 

 

 

 

I say that I’m kind of apprehensive to use all of the veggies in the spaghetti sauce.  Don’t get me wrong. I love veggies, but I have never thought about putting that many in my spaghetti sauce.

 
Back to Michelle, she said this too, “We used whole wheat spaghetti as the pasta.  Overall, we both agreed it was a little bland.  We added pepper and Parmesan cheese to the top, which helped some.  I think adding Italian seasoning to the meat when cooking it would have also been helpful to give it more zing.  Also, since you're boiling the noodles you could add everything together for the sauce at that point and just make it at the same time vs. freezing it ahead. It would get done about the same time.  Not bad, but not a winner for us. We will have to be more creative with the second bag.  We also didn't have much for leftovers.  Oh well!” 

 

I’m going to try this recipe tonight, so I will post my results tomorrow!  Happy cooking! 

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All of these recipes can be found on Loving My Nest!