For these two meals there requires some stove top cooking which I do in the morning when it is still relatively cool and I can open a window. We do not have an oven fan in our kitchen so it gets pretty warm whenever I cook anything. This also allows me to be busy at home or outside while our food cooks so that I can make the most of these long summer days. Food is ready to eat whenever my husband gets home and all the planning and cooking has been done for hours.
1. I like to hide lots of veggies in everything {one time I made lasagna without extra veggies and my husband said, “this is really good! what did you do differently? wait, there aren’t any veggies in this, huh?”}. For onions I use my pampered chef chopper to get it cut up nice and small very quickly.
2. I cook the meat {usually ground turkey} with tomatoes, bell peppers, onions…whatever I have around.
3. The key to making this super easy is to not cook the lasagna noodles {I buy whole wheat}. The trick is to add enough water to your dish so that the noodles will cook as the whole meal cooks {thanks to my MIL who taught me this!}. You can do this when you cook it in the oven as well. For the slow cooker {since it is taller than the usual lasagna dish cooked in the oven} I added about 2 cups of water. I just add enough to where I see the water is just almost covering the top layer. The longer it cooks, the better the water is absorbed…no extra juices lying around!
For the enchiladas, it is a similar system. Layer and cook. I use the following ingredients:
-Flour tortillas
-Enchilada sauce {from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook—my favorite go-to cookbook, uses canned tomatoes, onions, and spices so I don’t have to add more veggies!}
-Black beans
-Ground turkey
-Cheese
…
*You always want to make sure your dry layers {i.e. lasagna noodles/tortillas} each are topped with sauce. This guarantees they because deliciously soft and infused with flavor!
What do you make in the crock pot?
