Recipe Round-Up: Slow Cooker Favorites!

I am SOOOO proud of myself. I actually planned ahead for dinner tonight! Here's my usual weeknight cooking method... leave school around 3:00, drive to the grocery store and wander back and forth through the meat department muttering to myself that nothing sounds good, grab a few random things for lunch tomorrow, hop back in the car and end up at Boston Market/Panera/Subway OR go home and cook some really lame breakfast-for-dinner meal. Not that I don't really enjoy breakfast at dinnertime but come on - We need a real meal sometimes!

So yesterday, we finally got some cold weather and I got to wear my coat to school. Then, when I hit up Publix for my usual fruitless browse, I actually came up with a real dinner idea... beef stew! Yeah, perfect for chilly weather, right? Chili would be great too but no one at my house will eat it (crazy people!). So I quickly whipped out my ridiculously oversized iPhone (will tell more about that later) and pulled up a delicious recipe from The Pioneer Woman. She is totally awesome!

The ingredients are pretty basic - stew meat, tomato paste, onion, garlic, carrots, turnips, beef stock, olive oil, worcestershire sauce, and some seasoning. Turnips? Yes, and if you think you don't like them, you haven't cooked them right. Luckily, my dad just gave me a few out of his garden the other day.

The Pioneer Woman cooks her stew on the stove and I've always just followed her directions. But this time I wanted to use the crock pot. (I do love coming home to an already cooked meal.) Turns out that this is the perfect crock pot stew! Just look...

Is your mouth watering? This stew is so delicious! The only thing I had to do differently was add a little cornstarch-water mix at the end to thicken it up. That could be because I used less meat than the recipe called for but kept everything else the same. The only thing I might add next time is some nice crusty bread to dip in the gravy. YUM!

If you want to try this recipe out yourself, you can get it here: Sunday Night Stew. To make it in the crockpot instead, follow all of her steps for browning the meat, onion, and garlic up to where you add the Worcestershire sauce. After you do that, just dump it all in your crockpot and cook all day on low. I turned mine on at 7am and it was perfectly done by 4pm. I just turned the pot off and it stayed warm until we ate at around 5:30.

If you want to find some more crockpot favorites, hop on over to The ESOL Odyssey and check out the other bloggers who have joined this link up!

Is it fall yet?

What a busy week I've had! Meetings, testing, more meetings, more testing... you all know how it goes. I've neglected my blog but let me at least dig up this old post from my old blog. It's perfect for this time of year:

Fall is in the air...just not here in Florida. It's still around 90 degrees every day. But the humidity is down very slightly, so I'm going to pretend that fall has arrived! It's the best time of year and there are so many fun things you can do at school to celebrate the season. One thing I love to do with my class is make applesauce. It is super easy! You can make it in your crock pot and your classroom will smell delicious all day long. Here's all you need...

Peel, core, and slice about 12 apples (whatever will fit in your crock pot). Add 1/4 cup water. Turn the crock pot to low, cover, and let cook all day. Check periodically to make sure the apples aren't sticking. They will make their own water, so I've never had an issue with this. An hour before you plan to serve the applesauce, check to see how soft they are. If still firm, turn the crock pot up to high.

When the apples are soft and you're ready to eat, turn off the heat, pour off a little of the water if the apples made too much, and stir in 1/4 cup sugar. If you used tart apples, you might want to add a little more. Sprinkle in a little cinnamon, too. I never measure this. I just add it to my personal taste. I've noticed that with second graders, less cinnamon is better than more. To make the applesauce extra special, you can also add a few drops of vanilla extract. Yum!!

Looking for more fun fall activities for the classroom? Check out these...

Who wants some pie?

Yeah, I know, this is supposed to be a teacher blog. So, why am I offering up pie? Well, I am SO in love with my new little oven that I have to share. You heard that right. I'm head-over-heels for an appliance. Here's the situation... I'm sort of a lazy cook. The easier the better is my motto. I also really like gadgets that do fun things. So, when I saw this thing on Amazon and watched some of the videos, I couldn't stop myself. Isn't it pretty?

So let me just tell you... it's faaaaaaabulous! I have not used my big oven even once since I got this last month. So far I've made homemade bread and rolls, pizza, a roasted chicken, pigs in a blanket, bagels, toast, steak, chicken fingers, pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, cookies, brownies, and lasagna in this little oven. And they all turned out perfectly. Look at the apple pie I made...FROM SCRATCH...

Beautiful, huh? And delicious, I might add. (Just disregard the disposable pie plate. I did mention that I'm a lazy cook.) Here's the recipe I used. You must try it!

Grandma Ople's Apple Pie

The sauce it makes to pour over the apples is amazing, like liquid caramel! Mmm... Ok, so the oven (Breville Smart Oven) is a little pricey but so worth it. It heats up super fast, remembers your preferred settings, has convection, is easy to clean, and can bake, roast, broil, toast, warm, reheat, and a lot more! Did I say that I'm in love?

Okay, enough about that. Here's my other new baby...

This thing is ridiculously easy to use! I didn't really need a laminator but amazon has it right now for $19 and who ever runs out of things to laminate? Not me! The film pouches aren't that expensive and they're nice and thick. Plus, you can cut close to the paper and it doesn't separate which is a big deal. My school has a big laminator but it takes forever to heat up, the film is thin and cheap, and it's just a pain to use. I'm going to get a lot of use out of this little one. Look, what I did today...

Now I just need to cut them out. Have you bought something really cool for your classroom or house? If so, I'd love to hear about it!

Happy Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving week at school! Two days of fun followed by three days off. What could be better? It seems that we spend every single second of our day stuffing the kids full of knowledge, testing, remediating, retesting, and analyzing data. There's so little time left for anything fun. But Thanksgiving week is a nice reprieve from all of that work!

Here are some of the fun things we did this week..

•  made Indian pudding in the crockpot
• played a game of "Classroom Feud" with questions about Thanksgiving
• made handprint turkeys
• went on a virtual field trip to Plymouth Plantation

Want to try making Indian pudding yourself? It's super easy and really tasty! The following recipe is done in the oven instead of the crockpot. It's much better that way!

 I wish everyone a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to check out the big sale at Teachers Pay Teachers on Monday and Tuesday. Everything will be discounted!