Crockpot Hutspot

I am so excited! Last night, I successfully converted one of my husband's favorite (time-consuming!) recipes into a crockpot recipe. Hello, crockpot hutspot! If you don't have a crockpot, you can still make this traditional Dutch dish the old-fashioned way).

I've written about hutspot before, but I'm so happy to be able to make it without standing in the kitchen for an hour and a half.

Ingredients:

• 6 onions (3 cups)
• 6 carrots (2 cups)
• 8 potatoes (5 cups)
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• salt to taste (I actually like to use garlic salt)
• pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Dice onions, carrots and potatoes and place in crockpot. This is still the most time-consuming part. If you really like this recipe, you could chop twice the amount and freeze the extra in a bag for the future.

2. Add butter, condensed milk, salt and pepper.

3. Cook on low for 3.5 - 4 hours.

 4. Vegetables should be very soft, and mashable with a fork when done.

 5. Use a potato masher to mash the vegetables. If you have an immersion blender, that would give your hutspot a smoother texture. 

6. Serve in bowl.

Many people like to enjoy hutspot with sausage. The Hubs doesn't care for it as much, so we often eat it plain. If you do want to include sausage, just puncture it with a fork and then place it on top of the vegetables before starting the crockpot.

Eet smakelijk!

Crockpot Jerk Chicken

One of the easiest recipes in my arsenal is Money Saving Mom's Crockpot Italian Chicken. When I'm under the weather, or busy, or don't really feel like cooking, this is the recipe I use. A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out my frig and looking at all the marinades and dressings we have, and got the idea to experiment. And so, Crock Pot Jerk Chicken was born.

Crock Pot Jerk Chicken

Ingredients:

• 5-6 chicken breasts (enough to fill up the bottom of your crockpot)
• 1 bottle of your favorite jerk chicken marinade (in the future, I have aspirations to learn how to make the marinade myself. (I found a recipe here).

Instructions:

1. Place chicken breasts in crock pot.
2. Cover with marinade.
3. Cook on high for 4-6 hours.

That's all, folks!

Now, it's not really a balanced meal, but you can easily shred the chicken when it's done and serve on buns with some veggies.

Or, after a little websurfing, I might try this recipe for Island Rice next time.

***Update**

I found a new recipe for Jerk Chicken, that's a million times better. Check it out here.

Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken

I got this super easy recipe from a mommy friend, whose name sadly has slipped my mind. (Maybe she'll see this and take proper credit). It's a pretty casual recipe so you can play with it a bit until you figure out what you prefer. One thing I really like about this recipe is that the crock pot doesn't need all day, so as long as you have all the basic ingredients, you can still start at noon and have dinner ready on time.

Ingredients:

• 4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (enough to fill up the bottom of the crock pot)
• 1 bottle of your favorite teriyaki sauce or marinade
• 1 can crushed pineapple
• handful of dried apricots
• 1 bag frozen broccoli

Instructions:

• Put chicken in crock pot and coat with teriyaki sauce.

• Pour entire can of pineapples--including juice--over the chicken. Then add dried apricots.

• Make sure the chicken is covered with sauce and juice to keep it tender. Then cover the crock pot and cook on high for 2- hours or low for 4-6 hours.

• I throw the broccoli in for the last 30 minutes.

• Serve with brown rice.