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Slow Cooker Garlic Chicken Farfalle

Slow Cooker Garlic Chicken Farfalle – slow cooker chicken shredded and tossed with pasta, bacon, cream, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper.

Slow Cooker Garlic Chicken Farfalle - slow cooker chicken shredded and tossed with pasta, bacon, cream, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper.

Originally published January 28, 2014. Updated June 15, 2020.

This is one of the first recipes I ever found on the internet after I became a stay-at-home mom. So I’ve been making it for years and years and years. And no, I won’t tell you how many years ago that was.

The chicken cooks all day in the slow cooker in a tasty marinade until it’s practically falling apart. Then you shred that and add it to cooked pasta, crispy bacon, lots of black pepper, and a creamy Parmesan sauce. 

My kids love it and it makes a ton so we always have plenty for dinner and leftovers for the next day.

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White Chocolate Crockpot Candy

White Chocolate Crockpot Candy – easy 4 ingredient white chocolate peanut clusters! Made completely in the slow cooker. Perfect for holidays!

White Chocolate Crockpot Candy - easy 4 ingredient white chocolate peanut clusters! Made completely in the slow cooker. Perfect for holidays!

My most popular recipe I’ve ever shared is my Crockpot Candy recipe. It is also my personal favorite and I make it for every holiday. I think I made 7 batches this past holiday season. 

So it’s about time that I made a White Chocolate Crockpot Candy! 

I’m a white chocolate person so I almost prefer this version to the original. It is only 4 ingredients and made in the slow cooker. It’s just so easy! 

Plus, you can change up the sprinkles you use for the holidays. How cute are they for Valentine’s Day with little heart sprinkles? It would also be cute around Halloween with black and orange spooky sprinkles on top. Or 4th of July red and blue star sprinkles?! Adorable. 

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Crockpot Candy VIDEO – Crockpot Chocolate Peanut Clusters

 

Crockpot Candy is a must make for the holiday season! It’s like chocolate covered peanuts but better! Only 4 ingredients and made completely in the slow cooker. It makes a ton so it is perfect for cookie tins or holiday parties!

Crockpot Candy is a must make for the holiday season! It's like chocolate covered peanuts but better! Only 4 ingredients and made completely in the slow cooker. It makes a ton so it is perfect for cookie tins or holiday parties!

This is my ultimate, most favorite recipe ever.

If I had to pick a signature recipe, this would be it.

And it’s not even mine.

My best friend Megan and her mom gave me this recipe years and years ago.

They make it every Christmas and every Christmas I would beg her to bring me some. I honestly had no idea it was so easy until she showed up at my house with all the ingredients on year and threw it all in the slow cooker.

Now I make at least 2 batches every holiday season to fill Christmas cookie tins and send as teacher gifts. It is so delicious, practically addictive, everyone loves it, and everyone you gift it to will be asking for the recipe! 

I also love to fill Christmas cookie tins with my Cranberry Orange Cookies, Eggnog Fudge, and Pistachio Thumbprint Cookies.

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Pulled Pork Fries

 

This post has been sponsored by McCain Foods USA, Inc.©. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Pulled Pork Fries – crispy fries piled high with barbecue pulled pork, 2 kinds of cheeses, diced red onion, and jalapenos. Perfect for tailgating!

Pulled Pork Fries - crispy fries piled high with barbecue pulled pork, 2 kinds of cheeses, diced red onion, and jalapenos. Perfect for tailgating!

Hi guys!

Okay, I have to admit that I’m starting to get a little excited about fall. I started thinking about all the fun food that comes along with football season, and I am ready to wrap everything in bacon and cover everything in cheese.

Today, I’ve got a recipe that is perfect right now for barbecue season and will also be perfect in the fall when you need something that’s not going to pull you away from your favorite football team for too long. The pork is slow cooked and the rest of the work is really just piling everything on top of everything else. You’re going to love it!

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Slow Cooker Beer and Brown Sugar Kielbasa

Crockpot Beer and Brown Sugar Kielbasa – kielbasa and sauerkraut cooked all day in the slow cooker in beer and brown sugar! It’s sweet and sour and delicious! Perfect for Superbowl parties!

Crockpot Beer and Brown Sugar Kielbasa - kielbasa and sauerkraut cooked all day in the slow cooker in beer and brown sugar! It's sweet and sour and delicious! Perfect for Superbowl parties!

Originally published December 11, 2011 which is WILD because how have I been posting recipes online for this long?

Hi guys!

I’m bringing back a super old recipe today. Because, for some reason, it was the most popular recipe on my blog for New Years Eve and New Years Day even though the only photo it had was small and horizontal and pretty terrible.

But seeing everyone else make it made me want to make it again.

I mean, I’d named it my number 1 most favorite recipe in my 2011 wrap up post and then I never made it again.

If there’s a good way to photograph kielbasa in a slow cooker, I haven’t found it.

This is one of the easiest things you could possibly make for, say, the Superbowl. Or any party. Or a Wednesday dinner like we did this week.

I know it sounds weird and you probably don’t even like sauerkraut but just trust me on this one. It’s sour and sweet and my original blog post talked about how me and the person I lived with at the time argued over the leftovers. We were obsessed with it.

As far as the beer, use what you like, I guess? I… umm… bought the cans I thought were the cutest so don’t take my advice on beer.

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Slow Cooker Coca-Cola BBQ Meatballs

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and The Coca-Cola Company. All opinions are mine alone. #KickoffWithGreatTaste #CollectiveBias

Slow Cooker Coca-Cola BBQ Meatballs – 3 ingredient sweet and spicy meatballs made in the slow cooker! Perfect for tailgating or a weeknight dinner!

Slow Cooker Coca-Cola BBQ Meatballs - 3 ingredient sweet and spicy meatballs made in the slow cooker! Perfect for tailgating or a weeknight dinner!

Hi guys! Are you ready to start talking football watching snacks?

Homegating snacks?

Yeah?

This is my favorite favorite favorite time of year for food.

Give me all the cheesy dips, all the tiny hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls, and a slow cooker full of meatballs in a  sweet sticky sauce.

Plus, hosting friends is always fun, even if all your friends have terrible taste of football.

Ahem.
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Slow Cooker Butternut Squash and Turkey Chili

Butternut Squash and Turkey Chili – serious comfort food! Turkey chili filled with butternut squash, black beans, tomatoes, and lots of spices.

Is everyone obsessed with squash right now or is it just me?

I feel like every post I’ve put up this month has been squash.

I have 5 varieties in my pantry right now. And as soon as I cook one, I run to the store to replace it. Just in case I have an emergency and need a sweet dumpling squash right now.

I can’t get enough.

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Slow Cooker Pork and Butternut Squash Stew

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SmithfieldCares #CollectiveBias

Slow Cooker Pork and Butternut Squash Stew - a bowl of comfort! Quickly brown the pork and then toss everything in the slow cooker!

Okay guys, real talk.

I broke the driver’s side window of my car.

“How’d you manage that one, Amanda?”

Well, it’s a Wrangler so the windows unzip and the zipper broke.

Okay, fine, I broke both zippers. Which is okay most of the time since I normally have at least the back windows off anyway. But y’all, it’s cold in the mornings and at night in central Texas now. I was shivering on my way back from Austin last week.

An hour and a half at 75 MPH with the window down at 10 pm?

It was cold.

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Slow Cooker Apple Kielbasa Bites

Slow Cooker Apple Kielbasa Bites – sliced kielbasa in a delicious sweet and spicy sauce. Only 5 ingredients and cooked in the crockpot! Perfect for a weeknight dinner or an party snack.

Slow Cooker Apple Kielbasa Bites - sliced kielbasa in a sweet and spicy sauce. Only 5 ingredients and cooked in the crockpot! Perfect for a weeknight dinner or an easy appetizer.

This recipe originally posted on August 7, 2014. Updated on March 14, 2019.

It’s that time of year!

Time to transition from Thursday margarita posts to Thursday football snack posts! Wooo! I know we have a few weeks left before football actually starts but I cannot wait any longer!

I have decided, after months of deliberation, that I am going to become the world’s biggest Broncos fan. I know, that sounds crazy.

But since I’ve also decided that I’m never leaving Colorado, I might as well be one of those people walking around in a Broncos jersey every Sunday. Yeah, I already bought one. I bought one for all the kids, too. And I guarantee the dogs will both have one before the season starts. We are all in.

As much as I love the games, my number one favorite thing about football will always be the food. One of my favorite are my Slow Cooker Cranberry Meatballs, which are like those grape jelly meatballs everyone loves but made with cranberry sauce!

Why is food such an important part of football? Who knows. But for whatever reason, football season gives you an excuse to snack from Thursday night to Monday night.

And I like any excuse to have snacks for every meal.

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Secret Recipe Club – Slow Cooked Oatmeal

Last month I found this fun new blogging club to join: Secret Recipe Club. Each month our lovely organizer, Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin‘ sends us a top secret email with the name of a blog and then it’s our job to go through that blog and pick a recipe that we want to recreate. I’m pretty excited to be participating this month and I hope to continue on with the group!

This month, my top secret email told me to head over to Never Enough Thyme and I knew immediately that it was a perfect match. She’s a southern girl like me and her recipes really reflect that. I set my heart on making Lana’s boiled peanuts but I never found any raw peanuts! Anyone know where to get them?! So I went with my second choice: slow cooked oatmeal.

I’ve had a bag of steel cut oats in my pantry for who knows how long. I won them (along with about 20 tons of other oat products) in a photography contest awhile back and just never got around to opening them since they take so long to cook on the stove. This was the perfect solution.

I have a weird relationship with my crockpot – I like to be able to check on it throughout the day, which kind of defeats the purpose of the crockpot, right? But anyway, I worried that the oats would run out of water and start burning or there would be too much water, etc, etc, etc. but everything worked out perfectly!

One warning: the raisins kind of melt into the oatmeal during cooking and creates and very strong raisin syrup. If you aren’t that into raisins, you might want to hold off adding them until after the oats are cooked.

If you want to join us for next month’s Secret Recipe Club, go here and fill out the form.

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Secret Recipe Club – Slow Cooked Oatmeal
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
8 hrs
 
Ingredients
  • cooking spray
  • 2 cups steel cut oats
  • 6 cups water
  • dash of salt
  • 1/4 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup pecans or walnuts chopped
Instructions
  1. Spray the inside of the crockpot with the cooking spray. Add all ingredients and stir. Turn on the crockpot to its lowest setting. Cover and leave it overnight.
  2. The next morning, give it a quick stir and then top with whatever you want. Cream, maple syrup, brown sugar, nuts, dried fruit, and granola are all great ideas!

French Dip

If you follow me on Twitter, this is probably old news to you but I thought I would share on the good ol’ blog too. My husband recently came home after being gone since January. I didn’t tell you guys because I’m paranoid cautious, but don’t feel bad because I didn’t even tell my Facebook friends. But like I said: old news. The best thing about having him home is that I have a reason to cook things besides pasta and eggs! I’m taking full advantage of that and kicked off this week with something I’ve been wanting to try forever. The French dip!

So this sandwich, which I don’t think I’ve ever had before, is just beef that’s slow cooked in a flavorful broth (or jus, if you’re fancy) and then put on crusty bread with cheese. Then you get the dip the entire sandwich in the broth that you cooked the beef in!

Fantastic does not describe how good these are! We had these for an early dinner and then a few hours later when my husband went to workout, I snuck into the kitchen to have another. Then when he came home, I caught him in the kitchen having another one! This is a definite keeper and I see myself making it frequently once winter hits.

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French Dip
Ingredients
  • 1 medium yellow onion
  • 1 10- ounce can beef broth
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Creole mustard
  • 2 cloves garlic roughly chopped
  • 3 pound chuck roast
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 6-8 sandwich rolls split
  • 6-8 slices of provolone or Swiss cheese
Instructions
  1. Slice the onion into ~1/4-inch rounds. Keeping the rounds intact, place them in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add beef broth, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and garlic to the slow cooker. Salt and pepper both sides of the roast and place on top of the onions. Cook on low 6-7 hours until beef is fall-apart tender.
  2. Transfer the roast to a cutting board and shred using two forks. Remove the onions and set aside. Use a spoon (or fancy instrument if you have one) to remove the fat from the broth. Return the roast, juice, and onions to the slow cooker for up to an hour before serving.
  3. Heat the broiler. Place the split sandwich rolls on a lined baking sheet and toast for 1 minute or just until the bread begins to brown. Remove the tops from the pan. Scoop the beef onto the bottom of the rolls and top with cheese. Return to the oven just until cheese is melted. Top with sandwich halves and serve with small bowls of jus.

Bourbon Chicken

So it turns out that I had Bourbon Chicken planned for the night of the Superbowl. Coincidence? Nah, a gift from the blogging gods. I think this is supposed to be a take off of a Chinese dish but were going to pretend it’s Bourbon Street Chicken for this post.

I slow cooked it because I’ve recently found myself with no time for cooking, baking, blogging etc. and the chicken turned out so tender. I just love chicken done in the crockpot. The sauce was a bit on the sweet side so I’ve changed the recipe to make it not-so-sweet but you still may have to play around with it. I found some parsley and crushed red pepper flakes sprinkled on top really helped counteract the sweet and make it extra delicious, of course.

3.67 from 3 votes
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Bourbon Chicken
Ingredients
  • 2 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 garlic clove minced
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 cup apple juice
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
Instructions
  1. Put chicken in bottom of large slow cooker. Cover with other ingredients. Let cook 6 – 8 hours on low; remove chicken and shred or cut into chunks. Return to slow cooker and stir to combine. Serve over rice with more crushed red pepper flakes on top.

Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken

This Salsa Chicken recipe has made the blog rounds more times than I can count and every time I’ve seen it I’ve thought, “Eww, how can cream of mushroom soup and salsa be good together?!” It wasn’t until one of my favorite bakers raved about it that I finally caved and gave it a try. That was just a couple months ago and I’ve made it at least 4 times since then.

It’s easy, I almost always have the ingredients on hand, and it’s delicious. It’s also easily adaptable which is very important to me. One day I found myself without taco seasoning (or cumin!) so I threw in some jerk seasoning and it may have been even better than the original recipe. Also, I’ve seen people serve the chicken as whole breasts but I prefer it shredded. It gives it a nice texture.

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Crockpot Salsa Chicken
Ingredients
  • 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 can cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
  • 1 cup salsa
  • 1 package taco seasoning
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • cilantro for serving (optional)
Instructions
  1. Put chicken, soup, and salsa in slow cooker. Sprinkle taco seasoning over everything. Cook on low for 6 hours. If shredding the chicken, pull the breasts out and shred; return back to slow cooker. Stir in sour cream and heat just until everything is combined.


Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

With 2 months left in this pregnancy I’ve become increasingly dependent on my slow cooker. Yesterday I no lie had 2 slow cookers going. Sure, I could have roasted that chicken in the oven but that would involve getting up and checking on it. Or you know, pulling it out before it burned. It’s much easier to just throw something in the slow cooker and know that even if I don’t get around to pulling it out until 8 hours later, it won’t be burnt!

Anyway, that has nothing to do with this dish. This dish was good. I live in the land of no Panda Express so I’ve never had the orange chicken that everyone raves about. Awful, isn’t it? I’ve saved many a orange chicken recipes to my bookmarks but never got around to making them because they usually call for an ingredient that I’d use once and then throw the rest of the jar away. This recipe calls for very few ingredients, most of which you probably already have in your house!

My husband said it was too orangey so I’d probably cut back on the orange concentrate next time or even use regular orange juice. I thought it was good as written and even had leftovers the next day which I rarely do.

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Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Ingredients
  • 1 pound boneless chicken cut in 2-inch chunks
  • 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 6 ounces 1/2 can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons ketchup
Instructions
  1. Put the chicken pieces into your slow cooker. In a small mixing bowl, combine the orange juice concentrate, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, salt, and ketchup. Pour sauce mixture evenly over the chicken, and toss gingerly to coat.
  2. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3 to 4. Serve over white or brown rice.