Gotta love a crockpot

If you're pressed for time and love to make your family yummy, home-cooked meals and you AREN'T using your crockpot... well, you're just making your life much harder than it has to be! I'm working every morning now and usually don't get home until at least 12:30 - and that's if I was able to keep my afternoon free to be home. Yes, there have been a few more nights of corn dogs and even a take-out pizza here and there. But I am trying to think ahead and I found myself needing a few more recipes for the crockpot. I tried 2 last week and we really liked both of them.

Slow Cooked Mac and Cheese (call me terrible, but I got this out of a cookbook I bought as a wedding gift for someone. I had to look through it and write a few down before I gave it to her!)

1 pkg macaroni
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
1 can condensed cheese soup
1 cup milk
4 cups shredded cheese
1/8 tsp paprika

Cook macaroni and place in crockpot and add butter. Combine eggs, evap. milk, soup, milk, and 3 cups of cheese. Pour milk mixture over macaroni and stir. Cook on low for 4 hours and add rest of cheese; cook until melted.
*I didn't claim this to be a light dinner! You could lighten it with skim milk and the low fat evap. milk. I used cheddar cheese, but I think it would be yummy with pepper jack, too.


Slow Cooker Chicken Stroganoff
I got this idea from a random stranger. She suggested I look up a recipe for a crockpot chicken stroganoff. I finally tried it last week and it was really good!!

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cubed but not cooked

1/8 cup margarine

1 (.7 oz) package of dry italian dressing mix

1 (8oz) package of cream cheese

1 can of cream of chicken soup

Cook cubed chicken with butter and dressing mix in crockpot on low for 5-6 hours. It sounds kinda weird with no liquid, but it worked well. Add cream cheese and soup and mix well (let it heat up a bit before you try to mix it too much). Continue cooking for another 1/2 hour or so, until all heated through. Serve over egg noodles.
*I got that off of allrecipes.com, but it's not letting me post the link. There were some good suggestions for variations for this recipe. I think it's a winner!