Chicken Vegetable Soup

Original Recipe:
Slow-Cooker Cookbook by Debbie Harman

2 lb boneless chicken parts
4 cups chicken broth
1 16-oz bag frozen vegetables
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp pepper
1 Tbsp parsley flakes
2 cups small shell pasta

Combine all ingredients except pasta in slow-cooker. Cover and cook on high 4-5 hours or low 7-8 hours. Remove chicken. Cut into bite-size chunks. Cook shell pasta according to package directions. Put chicken and cooked noodles in slow-cooker. Heat through.

My Changes:

--1 1/2 lb chicken instead of 2 lb (I think this book just calls for too much meat in all the recipes)
--1/2 tsp paprika instead of 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning - didn't have poultry seasoning. So, why did I use paprika? Well, I didn't know what was in poultry seasoning, so I looked at the following recipe in the book for chicken noodle soup and saw paprika in it, so that's what I used :-).
--added about 4 chopped ribs of celery because I've never had a chicken noodle soup without carrots and celery and since there were already carrots in the frozen vegetables, I decided I would add celery.

Opinion:

Still too much chicken. I should have cut it down to one pound instead. But, when dealing with a new recipe, I don't want to change it too much the first time around. And, too many noodles. I think it would have been just fine with one cup of noodles (dry before cooking them). There just wasn't enough soup/broth to make it a soup with that many ingredients.

Husband and me ate it and enjoyed it. It didn't seem as flavorful as some of my usual chicken noodle soups, but it was still okay. The kids didn't say it was gross, so that's good. They must have had too many snacks after lunch because they weren't really in the mood for an early dinner, maybe they'll finish it within the hour since they can't have any cake until they finish their soup :-).

Weight Watchers points plus value: 1 cup = 5 ppv
If you lessen the chicken to one pound and the noodles to one cup = 3 ppv

Sunday Dinner Roast with Vegetables

This is my very first roast in the slow cooker! I have done roasts in the oven before, but no one ever showed me what to do with the slow cooker version. I guess I just pushed it off as I do other new things unless someone shows me how to do it first. Well, no one showed me this time and since I found this simple recipe in my cookbook, I decided to take a chance.

Original Recipe:
Slow-Cooker Cookbook by Debbie G. Harman

1 lb baby carrots
1 onion, chopped
8 potatoes, peeled and chopped
Salt & Pepper
3-4 lb boneless beef roast
2 tsp beef bouillon

Place vegetables in slow-cooker. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pout 1/2 cup water around sides. Place roast on vegetables. Rub bouillon on roast. Cook on high 4-5 hours or low 7-8 hours. Remove roast. Allow to cool 10 minutes. Slice roast. Serve with vegetables.

My Changes:

Carrots - didn't have baby carrots, so I chopped up about one pound of regular peeled carrots
Onion - only used 1/2 of one medium onion
Bouillon - I only had the cubed bouillon, so I chopped two up small and rubbed that around

Opinion:

Good. Husband and I both agreed that there needed to be some more flavor rubbed into the meat, possibly some pepper. Husband thinks I should have just browned the outside of the meat before putting it in the slow-cooker. That's what I usually do when I cook it in the oven because it helps hold in the flavor to the meat. Also, be careful not to do too many potatoes - they really do need to be UNDER the roast. If you have a few lingering on the sides around the roast, then they won't be within the juices at the bottom of the pot and they will be a little tougher and have a slight gray tint to them from sitting in the "air" too long before cooking.

I will probably try this one again with my few needed changes because it was simple.

Weight Watchers points plus value - just depends on how much you eat of each item. You will need to count the roast, carrots and potatoes separately for your portion sizes.