Crock Pot Adventures

When Andy and I got married, we were given a huge, stainless steel fancy crock pot. At the age of 22, neither of us had ever used a crock pot, had any idea what you could make with one or how one was supposed to work. I have made several things in this bad boy, but never religiously since it tended to cook things pretty fast. Little did I know...

One morning a few years ago, Andy's parents were staying over and we had planned to have a roast for lunch the next day. I arose from bed around 8 and found Peggy in my kitchen running warm water over the rock hard frozen roast furiously trying to thaw it. She made a comment to me that there was no way the roast would be done in four hours. I told her to trust me, and we put the rock hard roast in the pot with all the fixins, set it to high and let it cook. I could tell she was nervous (I didn't really care, if it wasn't done, we could just order pizza.) Four hours later, the roast was ready, totally cooked and perfect--even a little dry in some sections. We came to the conclusion that the heating element on my slow cooker must be out, considering a ten pound roast should not cook from frozen in four hours. Who knew?

So tonight I am going to buy another. Considering the one we have can boil water in 30 minutes, I am willing to try something that cooks..well..slow. I am going to post pics of my meals- successes and hopefully no failures. I cooked sloppy joes last night in our old one, and thank God we turned it off in time. Good recipe though. Here it is:

Ingredients:

1lb ground beef
1/4 cup of Onion (I used dehydrated and only 1/8 of a cup)
1/8 cup of green pepper (I skipped these)
1/2 cup of ketchup
2 tsp of yellow mustard
3 tsp of brown sugar
2tsp of Worchestershire sauce
A few shakes of garlic powder
Salt
Pepper

Brown hamburger with onion and pepper until done.
Drain grease.
Combine all ingredients (add a little water if it is too thick) and put in slow cooker
Cook for 2-3 hours on high (or if you have mine about 30 minutes)

I served them on Hawaiian style hamburger buns (they come in packs of 4--so no stale buns at the end of the week) and Alexia sweet potato waffle fries. The sloppy joes turned out wonderfully, MUCH better than Manwich. This recipe serves about 4 sandwiches.

More tomorrow!

Lots of changes in the Bentley house!

Hello! A Year LATER!

Hello everyone! So my last post was (0ver) a year ago, and while that is incredibly pathetic I suppose the best way to remedy the situation is to post again!

A lot has changed for us in the last year, including job changes, the birth of a new little niece Kate and all of the changes that come with having a now four year old boy!

Andy is gearing up to make a change from working as a relationship manager for Bank of the West, to a well, I'm not exactly sure what his title will be, for Market One. Market One does primarily commodities trading, and Andy will act as a financial guru for them. Wow, I sounded way informed, huh? (sigh) We all know how little information I typically get from Andy, and I have accepted that! :)

I have taken a new position with Ankeny Schools as an Instructional Coach at Prairie Ridge Middle School. I am super excited to be a partner with teachers in their classrooms and lead the professional development as we move into our third year of content literacy work. Prairie Ridge is one of two 6-7 buildings in the district. My job is very different than what I have been doing my entire career, but is a welcome change. This is the first "Sunday before the first day of school" where I haven't been stressed about meeting my students and preparing my classroom. A weird feeling, and a little sad--but welcome!! I am sure this year will be full of growing pains and new adventures.

Carter began his new daycare/preschool a few weeks ago and has had a rough time settling in. He is usually very go with the flow, but after having been in an in home where he was the king of the hill, adapting to kids his own age has been a challenge.

He had a wonderful first week, but then last week--a rough Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday- but Thursday and Friday were great. He even got his monkey in the tree. (Not sure what that means, but I think it is good-- I could have never been an elementary teacher!) So, here's to hoping week three goes well- and his monkey gets real comfortable in the tree.

Well that's it for now, I have a few ideas of how I would like to transform this blog to include a bit more interesting topics than updates on our family. Because, let's face it, we are not that exciting! Here's to a new start on the blog!