It always makes me happy when I can bring you another ground beef recipe because I know a lot of families rely on Ground beef as a staple on their dinner table – mine certainly does!

What makes you happy? I think for most of us, it takes a lot less than we realize. A sunny day, the smell of daffodils or cinnamon or apples. We find tiny little happy moments all day long and all it takes is just that split second to stop and pay attention to them.

I’ve known a lot of people who really hold back on feeling happy though. They save it for something big, pinning their happiness on a huge paycheck sometime in the future, a house as big as their neighbors, or their name in lights. Rather than take delight in the little things, the constant influx of opportunities to be happy that appear before us each day, they hold off and keep joy at a distance, holding it up as something to strive to reach one day when Perfect Plan A comes to fruition and the stars align or some other such nonsense. As my grandmama would say, God love ‘em.

Me, I’ll take happiness and joy over a hundred little things a day rather than one big thing every decade. Today, this recipe makes me happy . I love stuffed bell peppers. I love Ketchup. I love ground beef. This combines them all into a one dish meal – which I also love.

Happy happy, joy joy!

Let’s Eat!

You’ll need: Ground beef, saltine crackers, onion, ketchup, bell pepper, egg, and italian seasoning.

You’ll also need a slow cooker. I’m using my Hamilton Beach Set and Forget .

Now crush your saltines and place them in a  bowl with your egg.

Add your ground beef and mix it up well with your hands.

Shape meat into patties and place in the bottom of your slow cooker.

Take your ketchup and water and add a tablespoon Italian seasoning. mix that up really well in a cup or bowl.

You know, if dry Italian seasoning was the only seasoning I had in my cabinet, I could live happily the rest of my life.

Alright, I would also need some cinnamon, allspice, garlic powder, and cumin. But beyond those, I’m pretty well set. It drives me nigh on bat crazy to see a recipe that calls for 1/8 of a teaspoon each of twenty different spices. As my friend Terri Leverett says, K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple Sweetie!

Pour your sauce over the patties.

Chop up your onions and bell pepper and add those in.

Cover and cook on low, 7-8 hours, or high 3-4 hours.

When it is done it’ll look like this and your house will smell like stuffed bell peppers deluxe

If you want at this point, you can add a little more ketchup to the mixture to thicken your sauce but I like it just like this.

Serve over rice and enjoy!

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Now tell me what makes you happy in the comments below!

You might also enjoy 20 Recipes For Ground Beef. 

“What you do makes a difference,

and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

– Jane Goodall

Thank you Jenny for submitting this! Add your quote to our ever growing collection by clicking here. Lift someone up today!

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Today begins Apple Week on SouthernPlate.com!

I have over TWENTY apple recipes to share with you this week so be sure and Subscribe by email and join us on Facebook so you don’t miss a single recipe!

My Grandma Lucy just loves baked apples. of course we all do but they have always been such a treat for her. Growing up, it was a rare occasion to get them and she often tells us a story of the one day she got one for dessert. They were sharecropping in a field at a nearby farm and Grandmama and her family had walked over there in the morning to work. It was customary that when you worked the field for a family, they provided a mid day meal for you. It got to be lunchtime and they were cold and tired as they headed up to the main house. As they walked in the door, the smell of baked apples filled the air. “Those apples smelled so good. I’ll never forget that, never.”

They all sat down to eat their meal but Grandmama said all she could think about was those apples and she sat there trying to eat and hoping so bad the lady had made some for them. When they finished eating the lady who owned the house came to the table with two big old pans of baked apples, one for everyone.

Grandmama said “There was a lot of workers there so you know that woman musta put a good bit of time into coring all those apples for us, but they sure were good! We didn’t hardly ever get baked apples and we sure did enjoy those. They were the best things!”

I remember asking her, just a few years back, “Grandmama, why didn’t y’all ever get baked apples?” and her answer was so obvious that you and I would likely never think of it, but it made perfect sense when she replied “Because we didn’t have no apple tree!”

So today I’m going to show you the simple way to make baked apples, and how to do it in your slow cooker (or crock pot, as most folks call it). This is a simple recipe, prepared like they did it in the old days where you just core your apple, stuff it with some good stuff, and bake away! But now the bonus is that you can do it in the morning and come home to that same smell my Grandmama walked into all those years ago.

Now, I doubt I’ve ever made these the same way twice. It’s just one of those recipes you can throw together and customize to your liking or based on what you have on hand.

Today, I’m keeping it simple but I’m going to give you lots ideas to personalize it and make it your own and I want to hear your ideas in the comments on this post, too!

For starters you’ll need: 

• Apples (about five fit into my slow cooker)
• Dried Cranberries (or raisins, or leave these out entirely)
• Brown sugar (I’m using dark but light is fine. You can also use white sugar if that’s what you have)
• Butter (or margarine)
• Cinnamon & Allspice (you can leave the allspice out if you like but I love how it enhances the cinnamon. Also, if you are a nutmeg lover you can add that as well. I’ve never been a nutmeg fan so I avoid it)

You can also add: Pecans, walnuts, oats, or anything else you come up with! 

Place your brown sugar, cinnamon, and allspice (or whatever spices you are using) in a small bowl and stir them up really well.

Add in your dried cranberries or raisins and stir those up as well.

Usually when I cook with raisins or dried cranberries I like to soak them in really hot water for a few minutes to plump them up a bit before adding them to the recipe but these will be slow cooking with plenty of steam in there so there isn’t any need to do that here.

Core your apples.

I’m not a big fan of kitchen gadgets, mainly because I am unorganized and so I either lose them or can’t find a place to keep them, but I did break down and buy one of those apple corer thingiemabobbers. It is about the size of a vegetable peeler and it sure is neat! I like that thing.

After you core your apples peel off just a little strip around the top.

This is supposed to keep the apples from splitting as they cook but I mostly just do it because Mama told me to….

Now place them in the bottom of your slow cooker and use a spoon to fill each apple with your sugar mixture.

Then, take your finger and push the filling down in there and fill it up some more!

Top each one with a pat of butter.

You can also cut the butter into your sugar mixture but this works just as well and is less work.

You work hard enough as it is, it’s okay to take an easy pass.

Cover with lid and cook on low 6-8 hours or on high 3-4, or until tender.

My husband loves these served with a scoop of ice cream.

Leftovers are great heated up the next day and served with oatmeal!

Remember to add nuts, oats, spices you like, and anything else to really make this recipe your own!

Oooh, how about serving it with ice cream and caramel sauce?

“When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the

best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach,

while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.”

~Vera Nazarian

Submitted by Jenny (thanks, Jenny!). I’d love for you to submit your positive or uplifting quotes to use in future Southern Plate posts. To do so, please visit my Give A Penny page by clicking here.

 MORE APPLE RECIPES !

If you’re an email subscriber, check your inbox tomorrow for an email

with at least three more apple recipes in it!

 I’ll post links on our Facebook page, too!

If you are on FB, please click the little like button above. Thanks!

I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend! We decided to hit the road and spend the extra few days with the Georgia Jordans and just got back in last night. The kids really enjoyed playing with cousins and grandparents and the hubs and I enjoyed sitting around visiting. Okay, so I might have gotten a wee little bit of shopping in, too, but the North Georgia Premium Outlets just say my name so sweetly that whenever I am near it is hard to refuse.

We left out on Friday around lunch and decided to take backroads in order to avoid the perpetual traffic jam just outside of Chattanooga. Note: We love everything about Chattanooga. It is one of THE most family friendly places on earth and we dearly love to visit there every chance we get. But seriously, there is almost always a traffic jam just outside of it. So you can either hang on to your bladders and hope you get through in an hour or so, or you can go through Mentone .

We had gone through Mentone a few months ago and discovered the cutest little place called the Wildflower Cafe. We actually passed it the first go around but turned around to go back and have lunch there. It was so good that we stopped again on this trip. If you are ever in Mentone and have any room at all for some good food in your stomach, go to the Wildflower. Order anything at all on the menu and you’ll be happy, but you simply must try the tomato pie. It is to die for. While we were sitting there I told hubs that if I ever had a restaurant, I’d want it to be just like this one, but with a little less descriptive naming on the menu. Don’t get me wrong, the menu is divine and very well written. I think I’d just got a bit more common sense and down to earth because that is more my style. If I had a restaurant (which I definitely do not have time for) my menu would read something like this:

• Filet Mignon- The way we cook this steak makes the cow’s death a more noble cause than anyone could have ever thought possible.
• Rolls – Just like grandma made and served hot enough that the butter will be half melted just by sitting on the same tray on the way to the table.
• Tea – Iced. Sweet. Good. Required with every meal.

As we headed out of Mentone on the little winding mountain road, our road trip bliss was interrupted with a very sudden WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP. You got it folks, we have us a flat.

This is how our tire looked. When we get a flat, we don't halfway do it!

Thank goodness there was no one behind us as we pulled over to the side of the road. It was far too busy a road to be able to change the tire on but we were able to move into a nearby driveway and safely get started. I went up to the house in hopes of apologizing and explaining what had happened, and also to assure the owner that we’d be gone as soon as we possibly could. As I knocked I heard some noise inside but no one answered so I went back to the car to help change it. We both immediately got on our phones to look up where the jack was, how to get the tire down from under the car, etc. By the time he had the tire released I knew exactly where to safely insert the jack to raise up the car and we were off to the races. Isn’t internet a wonderful thing? (Our car didn’t come with an owner’s manual, but we have google)

About that time two teenage boys appeared from inside the house and stood staring at us from a distance so I smiled and approached them to explain what had happened. They leaned on their father’s tow truck (which I had previously viewed as a sign Ricky might have more help than me with the tire) and said “Yeah, thats what our dad said probably happened.” I apologized for us being in their driveway and they said “Well, good luck with the tire” and turned to disappear back into the house.

Looks like Ricky had me as his trusty assistant after all. That lucky dog…

It took us about 45 minutes to get the tire off and the spare on before we were on our way again but I couldn’t help but be grateful that Ricky’s head was just where mine was when I said “There is no telling what us having that flat tire just protected us from” he replied “Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”

Sure, it could have just been a flat tire. But it could have been the one thing keeping us off the road when an eighteen wheeler veered a little too far to the left..or when a deer ran across our path, or when someone who was dozing off turned onto the road without checking traffic beforehand.
True, it could have just been a flat tire but it could have just as easily been a small event orchestrated to protect us from a devastating event. Nothing wrong with being grateful..just in case

Oh, wanna see what it was we ran over? Here ya go…

Whooooweeee Dawgie! See what I mean about not halfway doing it?

Most folks would be content to run over a nail or screw or something. We had this entire thing embedded in the tire except for the last inch or so. Call us overachievers

Now let’s make some Italian Beef Sandwiches. These are SUPER easy and I took them to our tailgate last week. They stayed nice and warm in the slow cooker until everyone was ready to eat and we really enjoyed them. But they’d also make a great weeknight supper or game day meal at the house and leftovers heat up like a dream

You hungry yet? Lets get on in that kitchen and cook us up some grub!

I get bored taking ingredient photos in the same places all the time so today I took my ingredients into the living room. This is what my mantle looks like now. Okay, so I don’t really have a *real* fireplace but I’ve always wanted one so a few years back I saved up and we got an electric fireplace. It still puts out heat and has a beautiful fire look to it, but it’s not real. I’m cool with that though, I have a good imagination and someplace to hang the kid’s stockings on Christmas Eve .

I had it all decorated at one time and it was actually pretty, too, but time and kids tend to redecorate your house and that isn’t always a bad thing. Ours is much more colorful now . So here is my beef roast and can of beef gravy posing on my makeshift mantle with some painted picture frames, crayons, and a hello kitty hair barrette.

Woo, I’m feeling chatty today! Okay, I’ll try to actually get through this post now.

You’ll need: Beef Roast, can of beef gravy….AND

1-2 bottles of Zesty Italian Dressing.

You’re also going to need 1-2 Bell Peppers and 1 Onion.

Pretend you see those here. You’ll see them in a few pictures but they were kinda camera shy so I couldn’t really get a photo of them until I had cut them up and removed their will

I say “1-2″ bottles of dressing and “1-2 bell peppers” because it really depends on how much you like them and how much flavor you want from them. Me? I could drink a bottle of Italian dressing and eat every bell pepper you put in front of me. I only used one bottle in this but I sometimes add another half bottle or so just to up the zingy flavor.

Place your beef roast in a slow cooker (my favorite kitchen appliance!) and cover with can of beef gravy.

Put lid on and cook on low 7-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.

* Note that you are not using your Italian Dressing now. 

After it has cooked all day, remove the roast, drain off and discard all juices, shred the meat and return to the slow cooker.

Add in entire bottle of Zesty Italian Dressing and give it a good stir.

 Chop up your onion and bell pepper and place in a skillet over medium high heat to brown slightly, until your onions are caramelized and your bell pepper is tender. 

I don’t add anything to this but if your skillets tend to stick, you might want to add a tablespoon or so of cooking oil before adding in your veggies.

Now like I said, cook until that gets tender or do like me

and cook it until you get tired of fooling with them and want to get on with things.

Add them in with your beef and give it a good stir.

Place slow cooker on warm setting until ready to serve.

Serve on buns, topped with mozzarella cheese.

 Special thanks to my friend, Tammy, for modeling the sandwich for me! 

Add this recipe to ZipList!

Italian Beef Sandwiches

Ingredients

• Beef Roast (Pot roast, chuck roast, sirloin roast, top roast, etc. Whatever kind you have, just not eye of round)
• 1 can beef gravy
• 1 bottle Zesty Italian Dressing
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 1-2 bell peppers, chopped

Instructions

1. Place roast in slow cooker and pour can of beef gravy over. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.
2. Remove roast from slow cooker and discard juices. Shred meat and return to slow cooker. Pour bottle of dressing over meat and stir.
3. In large skillet, place onion and bell pepper. Sauté over medium high heat until tender. Stir into beef mixture.
4. Cover and place on warm until ready to serve. Serve on buns and top with mozzarella cheese.

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Great News! 

Another local business in my area has signed on to be a drop off point for our Nursing Home Project. Special thanks goes out to Suzanne’s Bakery and Eatery in Athens, Alabama. Anyone living in that area who would like to help can drop off bottles of Suave Bottle Wash at Suzanne’s and we’ll use them to help adopt more nursing homes this Christmas.

For more details on how the project works (and how you can do something similar in your neighborhood), please click here.

If you have time, head on over and become part of our Southern Plate Facebook Family and while you’re there, visit Suzanne’s on Facebook as well and tell her thanks for helping us out in such a big way!

I like to start each day with a positive or uplifting message on our Facebook page each morning – and I sure do hope you’ll join us over there if you haven’t already! Today’s message bears repeating so I’m adding it here, too!

‎”When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself.”
~Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian Chief

If you’re on Facebook,I’d love it if you could click the little “like” button up there! 

What’s not to love about coming home at the end of the day and having supper waiting?

That is exactly why my slow cooker is the single most useful countertop appliance I own. Today I thought I’d bring you a collection of slow cooker recipes that I’ve posted here on SouthernPlate.com. I hope you enjoy them! 

Slow Cooker Chicken and Wild Rice

This is my go-to Sunday dinner. I make the rice in the morning and put it in the fridge, then put the chicken on high before we leave for church.

Tender Roast And Veggies

Ever make a pot roast and have it turn out dry? Dry roasts will be forever behind you now!

(this was what we had for supper last night)

One Slow Cooker Recipe: 2 Different Meals

This is a great way to cook a roast and get two nights worth of suppers out of it!

Ricky’s Favorite Slow Cooker Pork Roast and Veggies

I can get ANYTHING I want just by offering to make this for my husband! This post includes the entire menu pictured.

Rustic Tomato-less Beef Stew

I just love a good and hearty stew!

Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki 

Love this stuff and so easy – way better than takeout!

Slow Cooker Fiesta Chicken and Rice

Customize this for your family by setting up a selection of your favorite taco toppings on the table!

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork BBQ

This is the type of BBQ we have in North Alabama with a tender and flavorful pork and a nice clear sauce to pour over it. YUM!

Steak Tips over Rice (and the importance of a doughnut shop)

The story on this post is very close to my heart and the meal (made with surprisingly inexpensive cuts of meat) is close to my husband’s heart!

Cheesy Chicken And Rice

I think this one is my personal favorite

Crock Pot Lasagna

This post is as old as the hills and the photos are horrible, but it sure is good! A family and company favorite.

Crock Pot Chili

I love this stuff. Nice and mild (but can be made hotter) with the perfect blend of flavors.

Slow Cooker Apple Butter

A Southern classic at it’s finest. This post also has a link to my tutorial on how to can it with no special equipment needed.

A little video chat, which I filmed this past Monday

Where to find Southern Plate (all the places I mentioned in the video above)

• Our Facebook Page
• Our Front Porch (the forum with over 20,000 posts already!)
• SouthernPlate.com (this is it. you’re here!)

Subscribe to SouthernPlate by email 

This is the beginning of a new day.You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind… let it be something good.

Author Unknown

Submit your quote to our collection by clicking here. Don’t worry if it has been submitted already, that just means it bears repeating

It wasn’t until a phone call I had with someone in New York last week that I realized most people consider slow cookers to be for fall and winter dishes. From reading my Facebook page, though, I know that most of us (you and I) LOVE our slow cooker in the summer time. There is nothing like having supper ready on a day when it’s 100+ degrees outside and not having to turn on your oven. A slow cooker sure does keep your kitchen a whole lot cooler!

So today I’m bringing you my latest slow cooker recipe that I dreamed up last week. I love chicken teriyaki and I also love cashew chicken so a combination of my favorite ingredients turned out to be a supper that I loved so much, we’re having it again tonight .

Before we go into that though, lets talk about your weekend. Did you have a good one? Ours involved a trip to Sam’s club, a drive through the car wash, and taking the kids to play in the fountains at a local shopping center. On Sunday we went to church and then participated in our church’s first family fun night last night where we all got to watch the premier of the Princess and the Pop Star, the latest VeggieTales movie. After that we had an ice cream social in the church’s gym. I thought our weekend was fun, of course, but since we didn’t travel anywhere or do anything specifically planned it seemed low key to me (I’m used to planning these big Hallmark moment weekend adventures, I can’t help it).

I realized I was very wrong this morning when Katy got up and said “Mama, wasn’t this weekend a blast? It was more fun than playing on a rainbow!”.

Wow! More fun than playing on a rainbow? Now THAT is some kind of fun!

Now keep in mind that the main money we spent this weekend was on groceries. Other than that and the gas we used just piddling around, we may have handed over a whopping $20 total. So to anyone who thinks great time together as a family has to cost a lot of money, here is a recap:

Folks, Katy is right, this is the life!

Check out today’s quote at the bottom of the page for another dose of perspective but in the meantime, I suppose we gotta eat…

You’ll need: Chicken tenderloins, Teriyaki marinade and sauce, cashews…

and rice.

This is my favorite rice. You can get it near the Asian foods section, it usually isn’t near the regular rice. It’s kind of almond shaped and a friend of mine who is from Korea refers to it as “sticky rice”.

My Mama (and consequently myself) was raised eating rice for breakfast. We like to take hot rice and stir some butter and sugar into it for a quick breakfast, lunch, or even a sweet evening treat. I call it sweet rice and this brand makes the best on earth!

You’ll also need some type of veggie to toss in there towards the end. Go with what your family likes. I just used these.

I put them in the microwave for about two minutes, just enough to thaw them out a bit, then poured them in the slow cooker. One box was plenty and they are so good!  You can also use fresh sugar snap peas if you like or any other vegetable that cranks your tractor.

Place your chicken in your slow cooker.

Pour in one cup of teriyaki sauce and add in your cashews if you want them to be cooked and tender.

*If you prefer your cashews to stay crunchy, add them in the next step.

Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.

Lots of folks might prefer water chestnuts or even peanuts to cashews. If that is you then go for it!

Water chestnuts make me cringe every time I bite into one so I try to avoid them and really only use them in my cooking when I make Chicken lettuce wraps(click here for that recipe), but they’re diced pretty fine for that so they aren’t as noticeable.

After your chicken is fully cooked, add in some sugar snap peas if you like, or other vegetables.

Stir that up and cover again until your veggies are tender.

Serve over rice and enjoy!

This supper is easy, delicious, and easily customizable for your family.

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Slow Cooker Cashew Chicken Teriyaki

Ingredients

• Chicken (4 boneless skinless breasts or 8-10 chicken tenders)
• 9 ounce package frozen sugar snap peas (or veggie of your choice), thawed
• 1 Cup Teriyaki Marinade and Sauce (I used low sodium - because it is what I grabbed first)
• 1 Cup Cashews (can substitute water chestnuts or peanuts)

Instructions

1. Place chicken in slow cooker. Add sauce. Add in nuts if you prefer them tender but if you want them crunchy wait until step #3.
2. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or on high 3-4
3. Thirty minutes before serving add in thawed vegetables and nuts (if you didn't in step #1). Cover and cook another thirty minutes.
4. Serve over rice and enjoy!

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Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Enjoy this moment, for this moment is your life.

~Omar Khayyam

Submitted by Jenny

Speaking Engagement in Huntsville, Alabama

I’ll be speaking at the Huntsville Public Library on August 27th. Please click here to visit my facebook page for that event and rsvp if you can come so I can be looking for ya (I love to recognize faces!).

I’d love to be able to travel more to meet all of you but my personal budget and family time with all that I have going on right now just doesn’t allow for that. In the meantime though, my grateful heart is with you and I sure do appreciate you visiting with me here on Southern Plate!

What did you do this weekend that seemed simple,

but ended up being more fun than playing on a rainbow?

I’ve been on a roll lately with slow cooker chicken and rice dishes but I couldn’t resist bringing you just one more today. Being in a mood for Mexican food, I worked up a slow cooker fiesta chicken that’ll have you doing the Mexican hat dance – if you know the Mexican hat dance. Umm, which I don’t.

I’ve been to Mexico more times than I can count. I love the food, atmosphere, sounds, and sights. I especially love that Donald Duck is such a big supporter of the whole country, lending his name and talents so that folks everywhere can know what a wonderful place Mexico is. I suppose at this point I should clarify that the Mexico I go to is more of a kiosk version of the original, located in Disney World’s Epcot. It’s still lots of fun though…

and the kids sure do like it.

Unlike me, my brother has actually been to the real version of Mexico, twice as  matter of fact.

Traveling there had a huge impact on his life : He now knows how to order a steak in Spanish.

The coolness of my family just never ends…

So lets get cracking! You’ll need: Cream of Chicken (use fat free if you like), corn, black beans, salsa*, and taco seasoning mix. *You’re also going to need two cups of cooked rice but we won’t need that til later.* OH! And some chicken… Don’t worry, it’s all in the little handy dandy recipe at the bottom of this post.

I just got the reduced sodium black beans because we were in the middle of Snowlapalooza 2011 here in Bama and apparently black beans are in high demand when Southern folks get snowed in so that was all that was left.

*I always use mild salsa but you can spice this up by using hot if you prefer

I’m using homemade salsa from my friend, Jyl. Oh my goodness it is so good. Tastes fresh from the garden. I know what I’ll be making next summer! (the recipe is here but I’ll try to remember to remind you when tomatoes start coming in).

Place your chicken in the bottom of your slow cooker.

I really wanna say crock pot here but that is a trademarked name owned by Rival and my “slow cooker” is made by Hamilton Beach, therefore it is not a crock pot. Sick with me, I’ll teach ya thangs.

Now as far as chicken goes, you can use anywhere from one chicken breast to five or six, totally up to you and depends what you have on hand and what your budget is. I had these three I needed to do something with so I put them all in. Normally I would just put two and that is plenty for my whole family because we’re going to break them up a bit after they are done cooking. That is the thing I love about meals like this, they really allow you to stretch your meat budget. A little chicken or a lot, no one will ever know.

On top of your chicken pour your:

• cream soup
• tomatoes (juice and all)
• undrained black beans
• drained corn
• and taco seasoning.

Stir that up a little but don’t worry about being thorough here and don’t feel that you have to spread the cream soup evenly or anything.

Now cover that up and cook it on low for 7-8 hours

or on high for 3-4.

When that is done, right before serving, stir in your cooked rice.

Give that a good stir. By now your chicken is really tender and will just break up perfectly when you stir it.

Top with cheese, if you like.

(sour cream and fresh tomatoes would be good, too!)

Feed the bears

Add this recipe to ZipList!

Slow Cooker Fiesta Chicken & Rice

Ingredients

• 2-4 Chicken breasts (whatever you have on hand and however much meat you want to use)
• 1 can cream of chicken soup (can use fat free)
• 1 can corn, drained
• 1 can black beans
• 1 cup salsa
• 2 tablespoons taco seasoning
• 2 cups cooked rice
• cheese or other desired toppings

Instructions

1. Place chicken breasts in bottom of slow cooker. Top with cream soup. On top of that add corn, black beans, salsa, and taco seasoning. Stir lightly. Cover with lid and cook on low 7-8 hours or on high 3-4 hours. When ready to serve, stir in your cooked rice. Serve with favorite toppings and enjoy! This heats up really well.

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Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Want more Slow Cooking Wonder dishes?

Visit 7 Recipes for Slow Cookers, Even Ricky Can Make!

“I don’t really care if my glass is half full or half empty-

I’m just happy to have a glass.”

~Joe Farrell

Special thanks to Valerie Cuff for sharing this one. To submit your quote, please click here.

I read another book for the kids! Click here to watch Green Eggs and Ham.

Thanksgiving is coming faster than ever this year and I have some recipes I’m going to do my best to get up here while we still have time. Next week I’ll also post my full menu of Thanksgiving suggestions complete with tutorials but today I’m going to show you how easy it is to make moist and delicous cornbread dressing.

Yesterday as I chatted away about Thanksgiving on the Southern Plate Family Facebook Page, Laurie Sawyer Johnson chimed in with a comment that just about summed it all up when she said. “Everyday is Thanksgiving at my house. We all have so much to be thankful for these days.” Amen Laurie, you are a wise woman. We all do have so very much to be thankful for and these days are ones in which I think we are better able to see just what it is we hold of true value in our lives.

Yesterday I was talking to Mama about how lucky we are that we don’t come from money, that we come from financially poor ancestors and how this has shaped our view of what really matters in life. I would like to say that I’d be the same person if I was brought up in a financially wealthy family but I really don’t believe I would be. If anyone could raise kids amidst money and have them walk a straight line though, it would have been my parents.

But you know, we never had much and so Mama and Daddy compensated by spending time with us, making things from scratch, recycling household items into toys and overall investing time in their kids when they couldn’t invest money. That taught me integrity, values, and created in me a thankful heart while keeping my eyes ever open to the richness of relationships.

Every time I look around me now, I can’t help but be humbled and amazed at how much I have to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving to you, for the next 365 days.

You’ll need: cream of chicken soup (two cans), stick of margarine or butter (whatever you have), ground sage, turkey, onion, and broth.

Now I’m using my broth from cooking the turkey but you can use canned broth if you like (just go by the measurements in the ingredients list below).

You can also omit the meat if you like, or even use a rotisserie chicken in place of having to cook it.

Are you looking at this and thinking “Well my Mama always added chopped celery” or “My mama never used onion…” then go ahead and add celery or leave out the onion. Make it your own!

You’re going to need some cornbread, about two quarts worth which is pretty much a double recipe (get Terri’s recipe by clicking here).

I just cook mine in a 9×13 pan and then I know I’ll have enough. Don’t worry about cooking it in cast iron or anything like that because we’re going to saturate it with broth and lots of good stuff anyway so a crispy crust isn’t going to do you much good. Special thanks to Debbie Strum for my fine white corn meal that I used in this!

You’re also going to need some chopped, boiled eggs.

Mine were camera shy at first so I had to cut them up a bit and force them on camera. Don’t worry, I am much more understanding of people who are camera shy than I am of eggs. Muwahaha!

Okay so here we go…

Crumble up your cornbread. This is in a really really big bowl (I think four quarts).

Chop up your onion and add that in

add in eggs

and sage

pour in melted butter or margarine

(whatever you have on hand)

pour in broth

Man that makes the sage look ugly…

and one can of cream of chicken soup

stir that up really well

Take a bite just to taste it

Now take that other can of cream of chicken and spread half of it in the bottom of your slow cooker

Top with 1/3 of the dressing mixture

and 1/2 of the turkey

then another 1/3 of the dressing

the remainder of the turkey

and the rest of the dressing

Spread half of the cream of chiken soup over the dressing

Cover and cook on low 3 hours and it’s ready to serve!

Okay so I totally forgot to take a photo of this. I made the plate to take a photo of and in the process kind of forgot about the camera and started eating. So the final photograph is of a plate I made the next day with the leftovers

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Cornbread Dressing

Ingredients

• 3-4 Cups Shredded Turkey (can substitute chicken or omit entire)
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup
• 2 quarts cornbread
• 2 tablespoons dried sage
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
• 1/2 cup (one stick) margarine, melted
• 3-4 cups broth (from your turkey or canned)

Instructions

1. Set aside one can cream of chicken soup and the turkey (or chicken). In large bowl, crumble cornbread and add all other ingredients. Stir until well mixed. In bottom of 6 quart slow cooker, spread half the remaining can of cream of chicken soup. Top with 1/3 of the dressing mixture and 1/2 of the meat. Add another 1/3 of the dressing and remaining meat, then the remaining dressing. Spread the rest of the cream of chicken soup over top. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours. Serve hot.

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*This recipe is on SouthernPlate.com using cooked chicken breasts and canned broth, you can find that post by clicking here. This recipe is also listed in the cookbook on page 128 using a cooked whole chicken as well. It is easily adaptable either way you go so I just thought I’d bring you another full tutorial for those of you who may be using turkey and broth from cooking the turkey.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was

“thank you”

that would suffice.

~Meister Eckhart. Submit your positive or uplifting quote (or read some more!) by clicking here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you again for all of your support of the book! They’ve lowered the price again on Amazon.com so if you’d like to get it at a discount you can click here to beebop on over there and save a little money! Check out my Tour page for details on my upcoming appearances on The 700 Club and The Today Show!

This is going to be a semi-crazy and very fun week for me. I’m heading out for a week filled with book signings. I’ll be beginning tonight in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, and then going to Oxford, Jackson, and Memphis. Click here for more information about where I’ll be traveling over the next few weeks. I’d love to meet you! *A lot of stores are selling out of our book.If you are planning on attending a book signing, you might want to go ahead and visit that store to pick up your copy of the book to ensure they have enough. You can also help ensure they have enough by clicking on the city names above of the ones you plan on attending to RSVP on FB.

My AMAZING Mother in Law has come to stay and take my place this week so the kids will be well taken care of but I’ve been trying to teach Ricky how to make a few slow cooker meals so supper won’t be a hassle for any of them. Let me tell you a little about my husband – he is an Engineer. He is one of the most intelligent people I know, can design entire space stations and such on his own, but when it comes to cooking his intelligence kinda gets in the way a bit. Just to show you how smart he is, below is something he designed from start to finish in CAD program called SolidWorks (we are sooooooo a SolidWorks Family. Even my eleven year old has been learning the software).

See? Takes a smart fella to make that. Can he cook supper though? We’ll be finding out this week!

His past cooking ventures have been kind of interesting. The perfect example of this is shortly after we were married. He said he was going to cook a special dish for me, a recipe he made up in college called “Beef Rice”. Beef Rice consists of beef flavored Rice-A-Roni and cooked ground beef stirred together. Now, don’t get me wrong, we still eat Beef Rice to this day, but it was how he went about cooking it that made me realize I was destined to be the cook in this family.

Apparently, he had always cooked the beef first and then washed and dried that pan before getting out a pot for the rice and cooking it next. Well, on this fateful day he had a brilliant idea!

What if he cooked the Beef in the skillet AND the rice in a pot AT THE SAME TIME!?

As this groundbreaking idea hit him he called me into the kitchen by yelling “Baby come here!  You aren’t going to believe this!” I came into the kitchen half expecting to see the image of Jesus on his toast by the tone in his voice only to find him beaming like a school kid from the stove as he declared “I’m cooking SIMULTANEOUSLY!”

~blinks~

I had to wonder if he thought we started cooking our suppers first thing in the morning in order to have all of it done by dinner time but didn’t say anything. Instead, I congratulated him on his new found skill, went into the bedroom, and called Mama to tell her.

We still get a giggle out of that today. So in my attempt to expand Ricky’s cooking repertoire beyond PB&J and Beef Rice, here are some slow cooker recipes I’ve been trying to teach him.

P.S. There is no earthly way I could have spelled “repertoire” without spell check. I’m jes sayin…

Slow Cooker Chicken and Wild Rice

Ricky has been having cow fits over this stuff lately and has assured me he WILL be making it this week.

Tender Roast And Veggies

Ever make a pot roast and have it turn out dry? Dry roasts will be forever behind you now!

One Slow Cooker Recipe: 2 Different Meals

This is a great way to cook a roast and get two nights worth of suppers out of it!

Ricky’s Favorite Slow Cooker Pork Roast and Veggies

I can get ANYTHING I want just by offering to make this for my husband! This post includes the entire menu pictured.

Rustic Tomato-less Beef Stew

I just love a good and hearty stew!

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork BBQ

This is the type of BBQ we have in North Alabama with a tender and flavorful pork and a nice clear sauce to pour over it. YUM!

Cheesy Chicken And Rice

I think this one is my personal favorite

Valerie, thank you so much for today’s quote! I just love it!!!

If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch,

you must first invent the universe.

~Carl Sagan

Submit your quote to our collection by clicking here. Don’t worry if it has been submitted already, that just means it bears repeating

I have a firmly held belief that the most important lessons in life are learned in Kindergarten. For this reason (and many others) when my five year old speaks, I listen. Oftentimes she’ll say something that has me stifling a giggle (Katy Rose does not like for folks to laugh at anything she says right now unless she clearly states that it is a joke beforehand), but others she’ll speak something truly profound and in her innocence has no idea that she has just opened her mama’s eyes to wisdom once again.

Yesterday, we were sitting in the living room together. Katy Rose was watching the Swan Princess while I worked on my laptop. The movie came to a part where the “evil guy” (as Katy Rose put it) was trying to keep the Swan Princess  prisoner and Katy watched for a few moments before turning to me in absolute frustration.

“You see that, Mama? See that stuff right there? That is why I’ve decided I don’t want to be a princess when I grow up anymore – because you have to deal with that evil stuff.” She huffed and looked back for a moment, clearly disappointed in the downside of her now former dream before adding, “So here is what I’m going to do. If I have kids, I’ll just be a Mama. If I don’t have kids, I’m just going to live with you forever, okay?”

“Okay Katy Rose, that works for me”

Bless her heart, at five years old she just really feels compelled to have her entire life plotted out and realizing there was a downside to royalty threw her for a loop.

Fact is, there is a downside to every dream no matter how big or small it is. Look at people whose lives you dare to envy. Actors and actresses appear to have it all but can you imagine the frustration of not being able to run to the grocery store or go to lunch with a friend without folks stalking you with cameras and such? The hours they spend memorizing lines, being berated by directors for improper delivery, pressure of keeping up appearances.  Reading glowing praise about yourself one day and scathing criticism the next. Sure, they may have a lot of money but they have a whole heap more bills than us that go with that. Staff, security, etc. There is a downside to it all and although we may hold them at arm’s length as if they are somehow a different class from us, they are just people beneath it all, same as we are.

I don’t reckon a lot of us think on the downside of our dreams and that is a good thing, because the upside of things is infinitely more inviting anyway. The funny thing that struck me most though, is that out of Katy’s two fallback dreams, both of them revolve around family.

With that in mind, how many of us are living the  dream right now? You may look at starring in a movie as the “dream” but I packed two lunches this morning and watched two beautiful little blonde heads  bob to the car as they headed off to school.

There may be a big reserved room for someone in a fancy restaurant with patrons dressed in formal attire but tonight I’m going to sit down to dinner with my husband and kids at an old oak dinner table and I doubt a single one of us will even be wearing shoes.

When I lay my head down at some point after the sun sets today I won’t be in a luxury suite, but I will be in our warm house, safely sheltered with a peacefully sleeping family and a big old dog snoring at the foot of my bed.

When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll have a big grin on my face and a song in my heart.

Living the dream, folks. Living the dream.

Now for the food….

You talk, I listen. Well, I listen whenever I can, of course! Folks have been asking for more slow cooker recipes for a multitude of reasons. Who doesn’t like to come home and have supper all cooked and waiting for them? I know I sure do! This is a recipe I modified for the slow cooker and some of you will be happy to know I also removed the entire stick of margarine it called for. Others, like myself, will shrug and go on with things. Because, in the grand scheme of the world, there are more important things to concern myself with than whether or not I’m ingesting a tablespoon of margarine with my chicken and rice ~winks~.

Alright, lets get cooking!

~revs up the engine~

Hello easy!

You’ll need: Yellow Rice*, Cream of Chicken, Whole kernel corn, onion, chicken breasts, and shredded cheddar cheese.

I love Zatarain’s rice, one of my favorite meal helpers. If you want to use the lower fat cream soup that’s fine in this. A lot of folks have been making my Slow Cooker Chicken and Wild Rice with cream of chicken because they don’t care for cream of mushroom and that is great, too! Make it your own and tweak these recipes however they work best for your family.

Place your chicken breasts in the bottom of your slow cooker. Chop up onion and toss on the top.

Getting ready for my book tour, I made Ricky watch me do this. I kept telling him “Now you can do a slow cooker, its easy to cook supper if you just throw it all in and then finish it up when you get home from work. See how I’m doing this? See how simple this is?” He nods and feigns interest but who are we kidding? It’ll be pizza and happy meals the whole time I’m gone…

Spoon or glob your cream soup over that.

Y’all don’t be fooled by me using name brand soup here. I got it on sale. I’d use Timbuktoo brand if it saved me ten cents.

Now cover this and cook it according to the following:

Low – 7-8 hours

High 3-4 hours.

This is great to put on in the morning on the weekends if you cook it on high and then have a nice meal at lunchtime.

When it is done cooking, drain your corn and toss that in along with your cooked rice and cheddar.

You’ll need to cook your rice before this step. What I like to do is cook my rice the night before and just stick it in the fridge. Then you can dump it in and stir it up and give it a minute or two to get heated. You can also cook your rice soon as you get home, though. It’s still an easy and delicious supper!

Stir all of that up and give it a few minutes to get all heated and warm (this won’t take long)

This stuff is to die for. Prepare for a happy landing in  your stomach!

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Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken And Rice

Ingredients

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 large onion, chopped (I use Vidalia)
• 1 -8 ounce box Zatarain's Yellow Rice Mix, cooked according to directions
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1 - 10.5 ounce can cream of chicken soup (regular or fat free)
• 1 -15 ounce can whole kernel corn, drained

Instructions

1. Place chicken in bottom of slow cooker. Scatter chopped onion over top. Spoon cream soup over top of that. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or on high 3-4 hours. A few minutes before serving, add in cooked rice, corn, and cheese. Stir to combine. Serve hot.

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Are you living the dream?

Tell us how each day is a dream come true in the comments

section below!

I updated my Tales from the Tour section with the latest goings on. Click here to read that section of Southern Plate if you’d like. I don’t send those updates out to my email subscribers (don’t wanna bog down your inbox) so you might have missed a few posts. Right now we’re just gearing up over there but it will get more lively as I start to travel more!

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today.

It’s already tomorrow in Australia.”

~giggle~

~Charles Schultz. Submitted by Amy.  Submit your quote by clicking  here.

The book is already showing up in some stores!

SIX days until the official debut and we’re still the #1 Southern Book on Amazon right now thanks to you!

I worked up this recipe especially for my Aunt Sue, who makes the worlds best pound cake but can’t eat tomatoes. How are those two related? Well, beyond me just putting them in a sentence together I reckon that’s about it, but you can get her pound cake recipe in my cookbook ~winks~.

Doesn't he look blissfully unaware?

Y’all, I’m nesting. As we get ready for the book tour, I’m having little minor moments of panic. The good news is that they are minor moments of panic as opposed to significant episodes. While I should be focused on the book and the tour, I’m a mother and so with that, you know full well what I’m thinking about. My poor husband is gonna have his work cut out for him. Y’all might wanna pray for this man, he has no idea what he is getting himself into…

His mother (that sainted woman) is going to be over some to help but there will be times in which he is completely on his own- so I’ve set to fretting at warp speed.

Since I can’t run the house and take care of the kids long distance, I’ve taken to worrying about the little things that I can manage ahead of time. Last night I got to thinking about juice boxes. Sometimes we use as many as four a day, one for each lunch and one for each snack (I think it is cool that my kid’s school has snack time).

So I got to fretting over what would happen if Ricky ran out of juice boxes in the morning. With getting two kids ready, he’d hardly have time to go out and buy any and still get the kids to school on time. Even if he did, he might get the ones with sugar in them and then the kids might end up getting in trouble because they were too hyper. Next thing you know my kids are spending time in prison as opposed to college and the shrink eventually traces it all back to their mother going on a book tour and their father introducing additional sugar into their lives to compensate for her absence..this is how my thought process works.

No worries though, I put that fear to rest right away. Bought fifteen cases of juice boxes.

~exhales~

Then, I passed the paper aisle and got to thinking of all of the possible scenarios of us running out of bathroom tissue while I was away – I’ll spare you those, but let me now put your mind at ease by letting you know that we are the proud owners of 100 double rolls of bathroom tissue.

We also have a fully stocked medicine cabinet, each child has new socks, and enough ground beef is cooked and in the freezer to feed an army. Since nothing I send for snacks has to be refrigerated, this afternoon I’m going to go ahead and make sixty snack bags and put them in a laundry basket so they’ll just have to grab and go while I’m away. I’ve even made up treat bags for their Halloween parties at school. Of course, I am supposed to be home then and I’m not sure if they will even have Halloween parties this year but hey - just in case.

These little things are making me feel a little better about leaving them, something that I could never truly feel good about. Still, I’m making headway, getting a few trivial things done to help me rest a bit easier at night and know that I’ve done what I could to look after my babies when I’m not here. I know it will be a lot easier than I expect it to be and once I get on the road time will pass quickly and everyone will be alright. I also know that in the end we’ll even have more appreciation for one another. This is just part of the journey.

I can’t tell you how much it helps to know that I’ll be spending time with some of you, in person, each day that I am gone.

But now the real challenge awaits me: To teach an engineer how to fix ponytails for a five year old….

To make this stew you’re gonna need: Stew meat,  carrots, potatoes, pearl onions (you can use regular), Dale’s Sauce* (substitution below), and beef broth.

You’re also gonna need a little flour, some black pepper, Thyme, and salt if you use my substitution for Dale’s Sauce.

If you don’t have thyme, don’t sweat it. Just use Italian Seasoning in it’s place and your stew will have a bit different flavor but still be wonderful. If you are new here you may not realize that I pretty much think you could save the world with a $1 bottle of dry Italian seasoning. I love that stuff. Oh, also, if you are new here, welcome! We sure are glad to have  you as part of our family!

~watches as everyone scoots down to make room for another place~

Dale’s Sauce is a marinade available in my neck of the woods but a lot of y’all may not have it near you. If you can get Moore’s Marinade, that’ll work, too. I use the two interchangeably depending on which one is cheapest and I’ve never been able to tell the difference (although I’m sure the Dale’s and Moore’s folks will disagree with that). However, if you can’t get either of them, you can easily whip up my homemade version by using the recipe here.

If you use my recipe, you’ll need to salt your stew a little to taste,because my homemade version isn’t nearly as salty as Dale’s and Moore’s. They give new meaning to the term “salty” so most folks think that is a good thing.

Place your stew meat in a bowl and pour about a cup of flour over it.

Stir it well to coat.

Now place this in a large skillet with a tablespoon or two of oil and cook over medium heat until lightly browned a bit.

We’re not trying to get the meat completely cooked here, just browned. The flour will act as a thickener to our stew as well.

If you decide you want your stew to be even thicker, you can add a few tablespoons of instant potato flakes, one of my favorite thickeners.

There ya go! all ready.

Wash your potatoes and chop them up in whatever way you’re in the mood to.

Cooking is very often about what I’m in the mood for at my house.

Here is where the stew gets it’s “rustic” name. I wasn’t in the mood to peel my potatoes when I did up this recipe so we just leave the skins on, call it rustic, and if we were serving this in a fancy restaurant we could charge double for it just by doing that alone!

This is proof that the world is crazy. Except for Southern Plate folks that is. We just got good horse sense.

Pour your pearl onions over that.

The bag I used had about a cup and a half of them. If you don’t have pearl onions don’t worry about going out and buying them. I make this a lot using just a chopped up vidalia. Whatever you have on hand is fine.

Peel and chop up your carrots a bit and add those.

Add your stew meat and pour in your beef broth.

Pour in your marinade (Dale’s, Moore’s, Christy’s

and thyme.

Bless it’s heart, this is an ugly little herb. As my grandmother would say “God love it”.

and your pepper.

Now cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.

Every time I see the end shot of a good meal I go all Doctor Seuss..

Yum diddy dum dum yum yum YUM!

I like this best with Jordan Rolls but it goes great with cornbread, too!

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Tomato-less Rustic Beef Stew

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup Dales (or my recipe, plus salt to taste if you use mine)
• 1 tablespoon thyme (can use Italian seasoning instead)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 32 ounces beef broth
• 1-2 pounds stew meat
• 5-6 medium potatoes, unpeeled and chopped
• 4 large carrots
• 1-1/2 cups frozen pearl onions or 1 large onion, chopped

Instructions

1. Place stew meat in a bowl, pouring flour over. Stir to coat. Please a tablespoon of oil in large skillet and heat on medium heat. Add coated meat and cook, stirring often, just until browned. Place meat and all other ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or high 3-4.

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“I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

~Augusten Burroughs. Submitted by Sandy (thank you Sandy!). Submit your quote to our page by clicking here.

Thank you SO MUCH for your pre-orders! We’re at day six of being the #1 Southern book on Amazon.com!

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