Hurry Up and Wait Beef Roast

So titled because you do everything in a flurry of activity and then wait while the slow cooker does all the hard work.

Ingredients:

one 3-pound top round roast, cut into four large pieces
flour
one onion, cut in half and sliced
six carrots cut into one inch chunks
three cloves of garlic, minced
one or two packages of whole mushrooms cleaned
2-3 tbsps vegetable oil
1/2 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Thyme
2 Bay leaves
salt and pepper

Preparation:

Heat vegetable oil in a skillet over high heat.
Dredge the pieces of beef in the flour and brown in the oil. Do not crowd the pan, you will not get good browning that way.

Put the browned meat into your slow cooker. Add bay leaves to slow cooker.

To the same pan add your onions and carrots. Saute 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and garlic. Saute another 3 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper as desired. Add paprika and thyme. Mix all the ingredients well ensuring that you've deglazed all the pan drippings (add a bit of water if you need it) and add to the slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low heat for 8-10 hours.
Serve with buttered egg noodles or mashed potatoes.

Tortilla Chicken

Tortilla Chicken Crock Pot Recipe

1 dozen corn tortillas
3 cans cream of mushroom soup or cream of celery soup
1 (8oz) pkg. Jack cheese, grated
1 (8oz) pkg. Cheddar cheese, grated
2 cans (4oz each) chopped chilies
1 boiled deboned chicken (3 to 4 cups chopped)
1/2 med. onion, diced

Layer in a crockpot: Soup, tortillas, cheese, chicken, chilies, onion, soup; repeat, etc. until ingredients are used up. Start on high for 1/2 hour. Reduce temperature to low and cook for 6 hours.

Harvest Vegetable and Rice Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 cans vegetable broth
  
• 1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
  
• 3 med. carrots, chopped
  
• 3 small zucchini, chopped
  
• 1 med. yellow bell pepper, chopped
  
• 8 med. green onions, sliced
  
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  
• 2 c. shredded cabbage
  
• 2 t dried marjoram leaves
  
• 1 t salt
  
• 1/4 t pepper
  
• 1 c. uncooked instant rice
  
• 1/4 c chopped fresh basil leaves

Preparation:
Mix all ingredients except rice and basil in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat setting for 6 to 8 hours or vegetables are tender. Stir in rice. Cover and cook on low heat setting about 15 minutes or until rice is tender. Stir in basil.

Serves 7

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

This is my go-to, gotta make something the whole family will eat meal. It's easy and the prep time isn't too bad considering it cooks inself in the crockpot after that.
Bob requests this for his birthday and Father's Day and any other day he thinks he should get a special meal.

You need:
3-4 lb chicken, I use a whole cut up chicken, you can also use half breasts with the bones still in.
1 medium onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. oil
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of cream of chicken soup
(I use the reduced fat, sodium kind, no taste difference)
1 cup sour cream
1 - 28 oz can green enchilada sauce
1 - 4.5 oz can peeled diced green chiles
20 corn tortillas
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Prep:
Boil chicken. Shred meat and discard bones and skin. (I freeze the broth from this in ice cube trays for use later as chicken stock) You can do this step a day ahead and keep the chicken in the fridge until you're ready to whip up the sauce and assemble.

Sauce:
Saute onion in oil in saucepan until translucent. Add can of green chiles cook one more minute. Stir in soups, sour cream and enchilada sauce. Warm through.

Cut the tortillas into four wedges. I do this in a big stack rather than one at a time!

Assemble:
In your crock pot, layer sauce, chicken, tortillas and cheese, it's usually three or four layers, end with cheese then pour the remaining sauce all over the top.

Cover. Cook on low 5-6 hours or high 2-3 hours (I recommend slow!)