Slow Cooker Coconut Milk Overnight Oats

Oh, man, am I loving on this recipe!

I shared with you my Slow Cooker Overnight Steel Cut Oats recipe back in 2012.  It has the basics you'd expect to find in an oatmeal recipe -  milk, water, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and a little butter.  I've been making it on a regular basis since then.  The family loves it.

But, I decided to try swapping out the regular whole milk for a can of coconut milk recently and scaling down on the list of ingredients.  And, let me just tell you that I could kick myself for not doing so sooner.

The premise of the concept of cooking oatmeal in the slow cooker is that you toss your ingredients in just before heading off to dreamland and wake up to breakfast ready in the morning.  It's genius.  It works so well for our family since all of our wake-up times are staggered throughout a ninety-minute period.   Having a hot breakfast waiting for each of us is awesome.  I just turn the slow cooker down to the warm setting when I wake up, then breakfast stays hot as each person trickles in to chow down.

I have been digging coconut milk these days and have been experimenting with it in different types of recipes.  This one did not disappoint.

I use some organic cane sugar in this recipe, but you could substitute white sugar, brown sugar, honey or agave.  This doesn't come out super sweet, so you'll want to allow for each person to sweeten their bowl as desired.

And, you can go bonkers on the toppings or mix-ins you use - fresh berries (I'd wait to add them after cooking or you'll end up with mushy berries and discolored oats), nuts, seeds, coconut or dried fruit.

Yields 8 servings. (You can refrigerate leftovers for another morning.)

Simple & Quick Baked Chicken Nuggets

 

Say goodbye to the chicken nuggets that you've come to know at your local fast food joint!  Yes, I know that it is super fast and convenient to speed through the drive thru once and awhile.  But, if you take the time to make chicken nuggets at home, you can rest assured that you are controlling the ingredients, you are spending less money and the best part - they taste so much better.  You can even plan a little in advance to save some time by having your chicken cut up into chunks earlier in the day or the night before.  I even get mine all "breaded" and prepped a few hours prior to dinner, so that the only work I have to do is pop these into the oven.

 

My kids and Steve go nuts for these.  While they do have a little less breading than traditional nuggets, they don't seem to miss it at all!  And, while I serve these to my children with ketchup (their preferred dipping condiment of choice), I think these rock dipped in honey.  And, I like to serve these up with some homemade baked fries on the side - another wallet-friendly alternative to fast food.

 

The prep time is only about 10 - 15 minutes, so it's a pretty simple dinner option for a busy weeknight.

Yields about 4 dozen nuggets.

Bacon Drippings Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

 

Bacon grease.

Not the healthiest of topics - especially during the time of year when many are focusing on resolutions of health and wellness.  I apologize.

I grew up with grandmothers who always saved the grease after frying up bacon.  It was like, liquid gold to them.  They used it to flavor green beans later in the week or as the base for country gravy.  My Kentucky-raised granny would buy bacon sometimes just for the purpose of using the leftover drippings that week for a specific dish.

My husband is a bacon fanatic.  Whenever he grocery shops with me, I know it's inevitable that he'll wind up browsing the bacon section and throwing some in the cart.  We have bacon with our weekend breakfasts - thanks to him - a couple of times a month.  I always save the leftover grease.  (Blame it on my upbringing.)

So, when I was working recently on a scalloped potatoes and ham recipe using leftover Christmas ham, I had this insanely crazy idea to toss in a few dollops of our solidified bacon grease.  The idea wasn't so crazy to me at the time - I always top my scalloped potatoes with some pats of real butter.  Butter is fat.  Bacon grease is fat.  But, bacon grease equals tons of flavor.  It all made perfect sense. 

The result was the tastiest scalloped potatoes I've ever had.  I've tested the recipe twice since then and I have simply come to adore it.  The bacon grease not only imparts flavor, but it creates almost a velvety texture when it comes to the "mouth-feel" of the sauce. 

Obviously, this isn't "diet food."  Besides testing for the blog's sake, this isn't something I'd make repeatedly in a short period of time.  But, the next time you're craving classic scalloped potatoes and ham or needing something to take to a potluck, I urge you to give this recipe a whirl.

This makes enough to feed an army.  If you're not serving an army, that's okay.  In my household of five, we make sure we have leftovers of this.  The leftovers may even be better actually.  Just spoon some into a large coffee mug or ceramic bowl the next day, splash in a little milk and heat until bubbly in the microwave.  There is nothing better.  I pinky swear!

Chicken & Vegetable Dumpling Soup

 

We are in the midst of Winter Storm Ion here in Southern Michigan.  The kids are home from school today (and we've received confirmation of the same for tomorrow) and Steve is home from work.  Our last twenty-four hours have consisted of an insane amount of snow shoveling, driveway plowing, stockpiling wood inside of the house for our wood stove, curling up under blankets watching t.v. in the living room and listening to the wind howl outside of our windows.  We did our grocery shopping three days ago - in preparation for possibly being home bound for several days.

I picked up everything needed to try out this Chicken & Vegetable Dumpling Soup recipe.  We love Chicken and Dumplings in our house.  I wanted to use those same flavors and ingredients, but turn the recipe into a soup. 

I adore this recipe because sour cream is used in the dumplings.  It brings such a wonderful tanginess to the biscuits.  Also, they cook up especially light and fluffy.  Know, however, that these are not your typical, traditional dumplings - they are definitely different in texture.  If you have a dumpling recipe that you prefer, I'm sure you could substitute it for these if you don't like or don't have sour cream on hand. 

This totally warmed our bellies (and souls) today as we endure wind chill temps hovering in the negative twenties.  I used homemade chicken stock, but a good-quality store-bought stock/broth would be fine.  And, this is a great recipe for taking advantage of leftover chicken or even a store-bought rotisserie chicken.

2013 Recap - What A Year!


I pray that you all have had a wonderful and beautiful Christmas.  It's hard to believe that we are rounding the corner into a new year.  My, how time certainly does seem to pass so quickly.

Joyously Domestic is now one year and six months old this month.  It is so hard to believe that so much time has passed since I published my very first post.  Blogging has been a joy and a dream job me.  I'm so thrilled that so many of you have been a part of this journey with me.  I am so incredibly grateful and humbled that you follow along with my posts, read my stories, make some of my recipes, provide me with your feedback, share my content and encourage me in so many ways.  Thank you to YOU!

I was just reading through my blog post from last December that recapped 2012 here on Joyously Domestic.  Here we are twelve months later and the very same recipe that was number one last year is still holding strong as our most-popular post - my Roasted Ranch Potatoes with Bacon and Cheese.  A couple of recipes have knocked it to number two throughout the year, but usually only for a day or two.  What is with you people when it comes to bacon, cheese and taters?  I joke.  It's a fabulous recipe.  I find it all over numerous recipe-sharing sites, Pinterest and Facebook.  My heart is so happy that so many people have enjoyed it.  It has now been viewed almost 800,000 times here.  Holy smokes!

The Top Thirteen Blog Posts in 2013 on Joyously Domestic

What a fun year it has been here on the blog!  I posted almost one hundred new recipes along with some party, DIY, craft and homemade gift posts.  I thought it'd be cool to take a look back through our thirteen most-popular recipe posts during the year.  I'll soon be posting a 2013 recap that will include some other topics related to Joyously Domestic during the past year.  For now, however, I wanted to share with you the opportunity to take a look back at the posts that were visited the most.

P.S.  You all have great taste ... these all are some of my personal favorites, as well!

Chocolate-Dipped Festive Fudge Pops (The Tale of An Accidental Fun Dessert)

This is a little story about a recipe in the kitchen going from failure to fabulous.  We've all had those "flops" when we're baking or cooking - the ones that sometimes bring tears to our eyes (and bruises to our culinary egos).  Those moments when we realize that we're staring at a disaster-of-a-result sitting on the counter.  We're sure that the garbage is the destination for our failure, but we rack our brains on how to salvage this mess-of-a-recipe that we've created.

Is it too burnt?  What if I scrape off the bad part(s)?  Can I transform this into something else? 

Well, my dear mother, Dawn, had a new recipe to try for chocolate fudge.  It was on one of those recipe cards that you sometimes see on display at the grocery store.  Now know that my mother is a fabulous cook and baker - and a stickler for following recipes precisely.  She made the fudge recipe, but it never quite set up correctly.  The flavor was outstanding, however.  But, once "set," it was still a bit too um, gooey.  She had been in the midst of a baking frenzy - preparing a huge holiday platter of goodies to take to her company Christmas party.  She refused to use this fudge for her platter since its appearance was well, less-than-stellar. 

She was ready to pitch the fudge into the trash.  But, who just happened to stop by?  Yours truly.

I tasted it.  Loved it.  Stole it.

That fudge and I had a date with destiny.  I knew exactly what to do with it.

Thus, these Chocolate Fudge Pops were born.  Now, I was concerned that another fudge recipe wouldn't work like this one did for making fudge pops.  So, I whipped up a batch of a tried-and-true chocolate fudge recipe that I've used (it is from Nestle and can be found HERE.)

You can add in nuts or omit them.  Dried fruit can be added in, too.  (My mother's fudge had dried cherries in it.)  You could make it studded with crushed candy canes for the holidays as I did for the second batch I tried this method with.  These fudge pops would probably work fabulously with peanut butter, eggnog or vanilla fudge, as well.

The number of servings will depend on the fudge recipe you use and the size you make the balls.  Mine yielded around 20 fudge pops.

Individual Party Cheese Balls

It's such a busy time of the year for us all, isn't it?  And, in the midst of the Christmas shopping, decorating, baking and planning, most of us are racking our brains for recipe ideas for all of those holiday parties we are hosting or attending.

Here's a great appetizer recipe ... one that I plan on making for New Year's Eve and maybe a couple of other Christmas parties we are attending.

The idea is that each guest can take an individual cheese ball along with some crackers.  It allows everyone to have their very own to use on their own plate and it, also, allows people to take those with ingredients they prefer.

What I love about this idea is that there are so many flavor combination options ... especially when it comes to the coatings on these little, adorable orbs.  I've chosen fresh dill, parsley, crushed red pepper flakes and sesame seeds for these.  But, you could use chopped nuts, other herb combinations, shredded cheese or even chopped dried fruit.  (I did try chopped dried cranberries and chopped sun-dried tomatoes.  Note that they make the cheese balls a lot larger than ones coated in herbs or sesame seeds, for example, so the sizes were not quite the same.)

If you already have a cream-cheese based cheese ball recipe that you love, you can simply use that as your base.  Then, just roll the balls into whatever coatings you like.  You could, also, add in some horseradish, pimentos, dried chipped beef, cooked bacon, cayenne or other ingredients. 

I placed a cute party pick in each cheese ball for easier service.  I, also, find that they make a convenient "spreader" for guests to spread their cheese onto their crackers.

Yields 20 - 24 mini cheese balls.

"Old-School" Creamed Chipped Beef

Let's face it. This is about as old school as it gets. Creamed Chipped Beef over Toast. You know it. And, you either love it or hate it. {I happen to love it.} It's about as simple as it gets, too, with regards to preparation. The ingredient list is a very basic one and it takes like, maybe fifteen minutes from start to finish. If you recall this fondly from your childhood, you know just how comforting and awesome it can be.

 

 

Even growing up in a pretty conservative, religious home, I still recall this recipe being {affectionately} referred to as "S**t on A Shingle." I'm always surprised that so many people have never heard of this.  This was a common meal in our household ... probably because it was so inexpensive to make. But, I absolutely loved it. Still to this day, it takes me back to my childhood and those comforts of home when I make this.  It's not particularly healthy, but it is super delicious.

The gravy can be served over toast or mashed potatoes.

Serves 4 - 6.

Candy Cane Crunch Peppermint Puppy Chow

 

Holy moly, friends, this stuff is totally addicting and oh, so yummy!  I've made traditional Peanut Butter and Chocolate Puppy Chow for years.  And, I made (and admittedly devoured) Cake Batter Puppy Chow for the holidays last year.  But, this version just screams Christmas to me!  I am a peppermint junkie, so this is right up my alley.

I use melted white chocolate chips that I flavor with peppermint oil for this recipe, but I am wondering about simply using the Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips that I've seen recently in stores for my next batch.  Alternately, if you're not a fan of white chocolate (or, you're an even bigger fan of regular chocolate), these would be great with milk or semi-sweet chocolate flavored with peppermint oil.  The mix just wouldn't be totally white, however, and would more-resemble traditional puppy chow in appearance.

This would be so fun to package up for coworkers, neighbors or teachers.  But, I'm not quite sure that your batch will last long enough to give away!  I know mine sure didn't!