Returning home after work today and having my house smell like heaven was quite a little treat! I like cooking on my weekend evenings, but Friday nights are sometimes a struggle. I want home-cooked food, but I’ve been at work all day and have most likely forgotten to even defrost anything, let alone prepare something awesome for dinner. This is where my handy-dandy Crock Pot comes into play!

Nick bought me my first Crock Pot a little over a year ago, and I have used it about once a week ever since. I love it! ‘Set it and forget it’ cooking is my specialty 🙂

During my lunch hour at home today, I threw together our dinner in about 5 minutes. It may be hot outside still, but this dish is all about warmth and yummy comfort food. My fave!

Creamy Chicken & Rice Crock Pot Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4-5 large chicken breasts (mine were still frozen)
• 2 cans Cream of Chicken soup, low-sodium
• 2 cups of water
• 2 cups Baby Carrots
• 3 celery stalks, cup into chunks (not diced)
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2 ts Paprika
• 1/2 TB minced garlic
• 2 ts Garlic salt
• Black pepper, to taste
• A dash of dill weed
• 1 cup instant Brown Rice

Turn your Crock Pot onto high. Place the chicken breasts into the bottom of the crock. In a separate bowl, mix up all the other ingredients, except for the rice, to create a chunky, creamy sauce. Pour this over the chicken in the crock. Cover and leave to cook on high 4-6 hours. The chicken will become more tender the longer you let it cook!

When I got home from work today, I shredded up the tender chicken with 2 forks and stirred in the brown rice. Note: Use 1/2 cup more rice if you would like a thicker consistency. Recover the crock, leave it on high, and let it cook for about 1 more hour. Once the rice is nice and soft (and has soaked up a lot of the liquid), dinner is ready to be served!

This recipe came out to the consistency of a thick and hearty stew. Nick immediately said it reminded him of chicken pot pie. He was right! It is exactly like chicken pot pie without the crust. It was delicious and filling. We both had to have seconds tonight!

Since my lunch was completely carb filled (you’ll see below!), I opted to eat mine with extra veggies – green beans to be exact.

Nick would rather have his chest hair plucked than eat green beans, so he just ate his on it’s own. He completely loved it!

I think this will definitely be a go-to recipe for this Fall and Winter. It was a bowl full of comfort food at its best! And even better, we have enough leftovers for a few more bowlfuls. Yay for quick and easy leftover meals!

Since we both had several bowls of this hearty meal, we were in complete food-comas. So we leashed up Mac for a nice evening walk. Nick was totally game with the nicer weather we’ve been having. It’s so nice to go out for a little family walk! Plus it definitely helped my bulging food baby digest a bit. 🙂

Lunch

Backing up a bit…Lunch was rushed and all over the place since I was trying to decide what dinner would be tonight and walk Mac at the same time. I was STARVING when I walked in the door, so I won’t lie…I definitely overate at lunch today! I started with a Whole wheat Bagelthin topped in a mixture of cottage cheese and mango salsa. This mixture is completely savory and delicious!

I lightly toasted the bagel first, making this extra yummy! I then moved on to graze around the kitchen as I was putting our dinner together in the crock pot. Other food included (but is not pictured!) some Wheat Thins and cheese – which I am now regretting! – some leftover pasta with marinara, and some more carbs (ahem…more whole wheat bread…) with strawberry jelly. I think I was just needing some carbs today after my morning workout! I only wanted bread and crackers, so I indulged. Oh well, a splurge once in a while is a good thing, right?? Let’s hope so 🙂

Luckily, I think I was in need of the nourishment. Usually this meal would’ve left me sick and feeling tooooo full. But I felt like I had barely eaten anything by the time I arrived back at work today. Just call me the real life Bottomless Pit!

So it’s been a food-filled Friday! Hope it’s been a good one for you all. Tomorrow will hopefully start out with a good run and then I’m teaching a 10 AM Jazzercise class. Have a great night!