Slow Cooker Mushroom Swiss Steak and Gravy

Recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – April 28, 2011

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Recipe originally published by Betty Crocker via e-mail on Sunday, April 24, 2011.

Maybe it’s time I tell everyone how I come up with blog posts and dishes. 

I have literally thousands of recipes to choose from.  I try to pick recipes from the most current magazines I have and then will dig through my recipe archives if I can’t find anything that tickles my fancy.  Honestly, I go a lot by what sounds good to me at the moment I’m creating my menu for the week.  I’ve tried to keep track of everything I’ve made recently, but that just adds a lot of time to the process… time I’d rather spend writing and cooking.

When I cook, I follow my rules: clean my cabinets, empty the sink, pull out the ingredients and equipment.  Then I take pictures of everything (and now take pictures of all the nutritional information labels as well) and write down any changes to ingredients and any supplemental equipment I need (or feel I need) for the recipe.  Finally, I break down the recipe on a marker board so I can take notes and pictures while I’m cooking.  When I’m all done, I take pictures of the finished product, write down all of the notes from the marker board and make detailed notes about the mess I’ve created, taste of the dish and what I would change, if anything.

The reason I felt the need to point this out to all of you is because I realized I’ve made this particular dish, I don’t know, probably 5 or 6 times this year.  It is from different sources and the recipes all have their own little tweak, but the Swiss steak / beef stew / creamy beef and noodles seems to be ever present in my cooking rotation.  I sat down and really thought about why and it is probably for the following reasons:

• Slow cooking rules… minimal cooking and perfectly cooked beef.
• Tomatoes and mushrooms are abundant in these recipes and this girl LOVES her tomatoes and mushrooms.
• I can serve it with noodles or potatoes to mix up the leftovers.

I guess it just looks tasty and I get drawn to the stewed beef like a bug to a light.

© You Want Me to Cook?
Slow Cooker Mushroom Swiss Steak and Gravy

I’m torn by my finished product.  On one hand, it is so gravy-licious and you can tell the meat is perfectly cooked (meaning falling apart) but is also looks very messy and like it is missing something.  Of course it is – egg noodles.  One day I will learn to compare the picture with the recipe to the ingredient listing.

Slow-Cooked Praline Apple Crisp

Recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – April 14, 2011

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Recipe originally published by Pillsbury via e-mail on Thursday, September 25, 2008.

I love using my slow cooker, but only when I’m at home.  Here is some of my reasoning:

• I hate having food cooking while I’m not at home.  Having 3 dogs, I am terrified of something burning or an appliance catching fire when I’m not there to get my furry babies out of my house.
• One of the best parts of cooking is the smell.  I love going upstairs to get something and coming back down to an intoxicating aroma of my dinner cooking.
• I’m afraid of losing track of time.  I very easily can turn running a simple errand into a several hour excursion.  When I cook, I need to be focused and that includes alarms being set.

But like I said, I do enjoy using my slow cooker.  It gives me the ability to throw something in for dinner and do housework or work on the blog.  
 

When I found this recipe for a slow cooker dessert, I jumped right on it. My husband loves apples and apple crisp, so it was perfect for us.

© You Want Me to Cook?
Slow-Cooked Praline Apple Crisp

This looks really good, but it probably would look “prettier” if I had ice cream or whipped topping on it.  It’s interesting because the ingredient listing says “ice cream optional” but the directions say to “serve it with ice cream.”  There’s no optional about it.  I’m not sure why I didn’t do it, other than to save money and calories/fat/cholesterol.

Beef Stroganoff

Recipe modified by Gretchen Wilson – October 27, 2010

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Recipe originally published in myRecipe.com daily e-zine “Dinner Tonight”.

Slow cooker meals ROCK!  Now I’ve said it before, but I’m a little scared of turning on my slow cooker and leaving the house all day, so even though I own several different sizes of slow cookers, I rarely make anything in them.  One day, I had some heavy cleaning and laundry to accomplish and knew I wasn’t going to be in the mood to cook (or probably find the time) when I was done, so I decided to go the slow cooker route.  It was just before Halloween and we had suffered a major storm (anyone remember those winds) that brought in the first true cold weather of the season.  I found this recipe from MyRecipes.com to be the perfect blend of comfort and cold weather food.

My finished product:

Picture published with recipe: © MyRecipes.com

It tasted as good as it looks.  My meat shredded when I scooped it out, but that was because it was so tender.  My stroganoff also had more gravy on it, but I can’t say that I was disappointed about that.  I had a happy accident while cooking that probably changed the flavor a little bit, but more on that later.  Even though you can’t tell from the pictures, there was one major issue I encountered while cooking this recipe.  The original recipe doesn’t include egg noodles in the ingredient listing.  I know how difficult it is for recipe writers to get every little detail correct, but this is what you would call a MAJOR COMPONENT of the dish.

Beef Roast with Gravy

Recipe modified by Gretchen Wilson – September 2010

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Recipe originally published in Taste of Home, June/July 2010.

I have a problem with cooking roast beef.  I can never get it cooked and juicy enough for my taste.  I decided to try a slow-cooker version with gravy.  I will say one thing – I hate the thought of leaving my slow cooker on all day when I’m not around, so I tend to do slow cooking when I’m going to be home. 

My finished product:

Picture published with recipe: ©Taste of Home

My gravy doesn’t look as rich and dark as Taste of Home’s gravy.  I’m guessing it is because I tried to lighten it up a little with no-fat gravy and reduced-fat soup.  Still, it tasted great and was as thick as it needed to be.