Year: 2017

Tonight’s attempt? Buttery Baked Chicken. The recipe itself is pretty simple. Toss chicken in pan, there’s some butter, evaporated milk, salt & pepper, cream of chicken soup. Not too many ingredients.

I wasn’t really standing on my head when I took these pictures.

Verdict: Like a lot of the other simple baked chicken recipes, it’s kind of bland. It does stay moist, but with the water, soup, milk, and butter, it’s easy to see how.

It’s a good building block though. Even I can make stuff like this and have it come out sort of like the recipe looks. The green beans? Just put some butter and italian seasoning on them and put them in the oven too. cook for 40 minutes. They came out good.

I love ham, and it was around easter. I saw a recipe for Crock Pot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham and wanted to give it a try. Seems simple enough.

Layer of brown sugar on the bottom of the crock pot. Add sliced ham, open up a bit with your fingers. Dump honey all over it, and a can or two of chunk pineapple.

Then add more brown sugar. A bunch more. Turn on Low and…..

…… don’t do what I did, which was fall asleep on the couch. It says to cook on Low for 3.5-4.0 hours. I fell asleep for about 8-9 hours. Oops.

Verdict: Actually, it was still delicious. Definitely overcooked but it wasn’t dry at all. I ended up chopping it up into small pieces and adding some barbecue sauce and having sandwiches with it.

Lesson learned: Carefully read the recipe. And don’t fall asleep. Or, set an alarm.

Edit: This crock pot ham idea sounds really good too. I might have to try that one in a couple weeks.

Ever try that “Taco Bell dinner kit?” Just in case you were curious how it was but too afraid to try it, don’t worry. I tried it for you. It was on sale for $2 and I wanted some tacos.

The photos on the box sure look delicious, don’t they?

Opening the box reveals the truth: You have to add more stuff.

It was supposed to have 12 shells, but I only got 11.5 shells. The 1/2 shell made a great tortilla chip, which I covered in salsa. Anyway, you toss them all on a pan and heat them up at 300F for about 5 minutes.

Brown some ground beef. This isn’t too hard. I should have picked more lean ground beef, though.

Pour the packet of taco seasoning onto the browned & drained ground beef, and add 2/3 cup water. Mix everything up.

Simmer for about 15 minutes on low, stirring occasionally.

This is where you start adding stuff. For some reason, a bag of already shredded lettuce was cheaper than a fresh head of lettuce, and laziness prevailed. Toss some shredded lettuce and cheese on, and pour on some taco sauce. The taco sauce just comes in a big packet. Tastes just like what you’d get at a retail location.

The 4 cheese blend was on sale as well.

Verdict: It turned out quite well. Easy to make, tasted like what you’d get at a regular Taco Bell, and I didn’t even have to put on shoes or leave the house.

Total cost for 12 tacos, which fed the 3 of us and one other random kid that came over was less than $10. The ground beef was the most expensive part of the meal.