CrockPot Lasagna

Morning everyone! This being a Monday I hope your weekend went well, ours was busy as always. Saturday was spent with running errands and trying to get caught up on things and then of course the husband had a shift at the fire station. And with the storm that broke yesterday morning I figured he wouldn't make it to church. I was right of course, he spent the afternoon running back and forth between accidents and when he finally made it home had time to shovel (again). We have such awesome neighbors they knew I was alone and came and shoveled the driveway for me!  Just in time to take two bites of dinner he got called out again.

So as you can see I didn't get much done over the weekend. So this morning as I tripped through the mess of toys, dropped shoes, and the mass of dishes I just couldn't look in the eye last night, I knew today was going to be spent cleaning.

But you see, when I spend my day cleaning I rarely have the energy to spend the evening cooking and then cleaning it all up. Especially if laundry was involved earlier, (which it is BTW).  Now I mentioned in an earlier post my goal of feeding my family on $200 a month. Yeah, I'm still working on it. But because I've planned all of our meals in advance I looked at the calendar and realized I was gonna have to cook tonight. So with some switching around I decided that we were going to have lasagna from the crockpot.

I had found a pin several months ago for crockpot lasagna but when I followed the link it was linked to spam. So with no instructions, and just a couple pictures (which really? Is it that hard to imagine how they made lasagna?) I set out once again to re-create this recipe into my own.

I didn't take any pictures while making it because I figured if you know what lasagna is you know the basics of making it.
But even if you're not a connoiseur of lasagna the steps are relatively simple. Cheese, meat sauce, noodles right?

Okay so here we go:

Crockpot Lasagna

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup diced onion
2-3 cloves of garlic minced
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 shakes of the Worcestershire sauce
2 cans Hunts spaghetti sauce (this isn't the best sauce if you're having spaghetti but as I just needed a base and it has all the spices it works)
16 oz low fat cottage cheese
15 oz skim ricotta
 8 oz mozzarella shredded
8 oz Kraft Italian 5 cheese blend
2 TBSP Italian seasoning
1 box lasagna noodles

Brown hamburger (you could sub turkey) with onions, garlic, salt and pepper and worcestershire. Once cooked through drain the excess fat and add 1 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce. Stir and set to simmer.

Next in a seperate bowl stir together cottage cheese, ricotta, half of the shredded mozzarella, and the italian seasoning. 

Once you've got your cheese and meat sauce ready it's time to layer it all together.  Spray the crock with Pam or whatever non-stick spray you have.  Start by adding a thin layer of meat sauce to the bottom of the crock. About 1/3 of a cup.  Next break your lasagna noodles to fit the crock and put a layer of noodles on top of the meat followed by the cheese mixture, then noodles, meat, cheese, five cheese blend, noodles, meat and so on and so forth.  Layer your mixture till the top layer is just noodles. You need to leave some space at the top of your crock for the lasagna to expand. If you don't it will spill over. And who really wants to clean that mess up? Then pour the remaining spaghetti sauce in making sure that you get it down the sides too.

Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. Now my crockpot even on low cooks very high. So if yours doesn't get as hot as mine you might want to had some extra time to let it cook, an hour two more. But you know you're pot the best and judge accordingly.  About twenty minutes before you're ready to serve turn the broiler on your oven on low. Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella on top and putting JUST the ceramic crock in the oven broil the cheese till it's golden and bubbly. About 5 minutes. You'll want to keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn. Once cheese is golden remove it and let it set for a few minutes to allow everything to settle. Slice and serve. We had ours with a green salad and homemade rolls.

Perfect!!

I always seem to have the energry earlier in the day to cook rather than at night. That's what I love about my crockpot so much! I can start it when I have the time and don't have to worry about the big mess later! I'll have to start coming up with more recipes to use that thing with!

Cheesecake Jello Salad

Once again I've gotten  lost in the boards of Pinterest and stumbled on a blog post about feeding your family on $200 a month! So needless to say I had to try it. I've set a goal to feed my family of 5 for $200 a month. Crazy I know, but somehow I'm making it work. I've included the link to her blog here.  Bacon in my Pocket.  So far, I've gone over my budget but only by $35 and I have one week of meals to go. I can't be too hard on myself though, a large portion of that money has gone into food storage and non food supplies. I plan on posting about that later with a breakdown of what I've bought and spent.

So on to the topic of this post. While looking over the menu this last weekend and contemplating what else I could serve with Sunday dinner (my green salad went bad on me faster than I anticipated so I was left with having to come up with a quick side dish), I got thinking about what was in the storage downstairs. A lot of my menu planning focus' on what I already have on hand. Thus using my food storage and building it at the same time.

 Running downstairs I checked the shelves. Didn't come up with much (we've depleted our storage as of late) but I did have some Jello and pudding. Lightbulb! I knew I had a pin somewhere for Zupas jello salad.
I knew that I didn't have everything I needed but I could improvise!
 Here's a link to the original BTW.

 

Zupas Layered- Jello

So this being the salad I wanted, but didn't have the ingredients for I set out to make my own version

 Thus we have Cheesecake Jello Salad

In my pantry I found three packets of gelatin and a small box of cheesecake pudding.

 Following the basic intructions for Zupas' salad I created my version. 

 First, place your pan in the fridge to chill while you make the jello. This helps the jello to set faster and helps you to not have to spend hours making this salad. Start to finish I was about just over an hour in the kitchen. 

 Make the pudding according to package directions and set aside.

 I had strawberry, lime, and raspberry flavored gelatin. You can choose whatever flavors you like best. Each packet was 6 oz each,  3 packets this big filled my 9X13 pan I was using. Zupas uses 8 of the smaller 3 oz  boxes I believe.

So back to the recipe. I boiled two cups of water per packet of jello. Working with one flavor at a time I mixed two cups of water with the jello and stirred until the gelatin was dissolved. Then I separated it in half into two bowls.  About a cup of jello in each bowl. To one of the bowls I added 1/2 c of ice and stirred till the ice was dissolved.  Then I poured the cooled jello into the pan and making sure it was level put it back in the fridge to chill.  It needs to chill about 15-20 minutes or until set.

In the meantime, allow your remaining jello to cool on the counter. I like using a metal bowl for this because it helps keep some of the heat in the jello so it doesn't start to set on me, especially since it's winter and my house runs a little on the cool side. Even with the temp up to 70! Anyways, you don't want it too hot either cuz it'll cook the pudding and it'll curdle.   After your jello in the fridge has set, add 1/3 of your pudding to your remaining jello on the counter. Mix it well making sure that there are no lumps. Then pour this jello on top of what's set in the pan. 

Put it back in the fridge for a few minutes just enough time to set. This layer sets fairly fast because of the pudding mixed in.  

Repeat this process with your remaining jello flavors. Make sure that you leave enough room in your pan after your last layer to add cool whip for your topping. Using the amount of jello I did I have just enough room to add a thick layer of cool whip as a topping to my salad. If you prefer the cans of ready whip you could add another layer of jello.  Just make sure to use the larger box of pudding so you have enough to mix with each flavor of jello.

This is the end result of my salad in the pan. 

 I had the ready whip in the cans so instead of filling that in with cool whip, I just let my kids go a little wild with it on their plates. They loved it!

Mine was a little prettier then theirs. 

Tasted pretty good too. Next time I'll be sure to plan ahead and buy a few different things to play around with the recipe. But for now, a quick and FAST Jello is too good to pass up for me. Besides when do fast and Jello go together in the same sentence. Enjoy everyone! 

-Michelle

Consistency and change

Wow I can't believe how long I've been away again! The holidays kinda snuck up on us. And considering that we have three out of the five birthday's in our family in October, November, AND December plus ALL of the holiday's we get a little busy.

But our holiday's were good, I hope yours were too.  I finally got my house back in order these last couple weeks and with it I swear I got started too early on the spring cleaning too. I always get a little antsy after the holidays. And decide (probably not very wisely) that we need change in our lives. So furniture gets rearranged and routines changed. Change is always a good thing, well probably not always. Especially for my Boo.

But with the new year I made some resolutions too. Some more personal and I won't share but others are more for the betterment of my family. So taking a chance I opened an Etsy store. I figured, I might as well try to make what I enjoy so much doing more profitable for me. Here's a link if you're interested in checking it out www.etsy.com/shop/mylittleetsystore As of today I only have three things listed for sale but I'm working on more!

 It was more of a homemade Christmas around here. I spent weeks making all kinds of gifts for family. I didn't think about it till later but I should have taken pictures of everything I made to share here. Oh well, next time!

I will however start posting pics of all the fun goodies I make on here. I call them goodies because to me they are! I love chocolate and candy and all that other stuff. But sometimes you don't need chocolate to make you feel better. Sometimes retail therapy is what we women need! And if it makes me feel better it's a goody!


Here's just one of the things I listed yesterday.

I call them SweetHeart Conversations. Inspired by the sweetheart candies and some ideas from Pinterest. (That place is a bottomless pit of inspiration for me) I took an idea and created my own. Valentines is coming up so I'm focusing more on that holiday right now. But I've also got some projects in mind and started for more home decor and stuff for the kiddos.

Here's one more for St Patty's day!

A fun wreath to hang on the door..

Well that's my ad for the day. Just wanted to do a quick blog and update everyone on where we've been and what's new around here.  I'm still working on some new recipes and as I perfect them I'll post them.

 Remember that you don't have to be perfect like Cinderella to be considered perfect by your loved ones!