Cooking Fun- (Without an Oven) ;)

Hi All! This is Stella and I wanted to share with you some pictures and recipes. You might be reading this, curious about the title... This has been a challenge, but it has been kind of fun to see what we could conjure up for meals without an oven! We have even managed to do a few Regional Cooking Meals, like the Southwestern Dinner. (See Older Posts)

First-we would like to thank our Grandmas for the yummy cookies and muffins from Grandma Z. and the DELICIOUS cake from Grandma P. when she came to visit us!
We got to craving some desserts that we could make (cookies or brownies took 30-35 minutes instead of 5-10 and turned out rather off...)
Now we LOVE our crock pot and can make so many amazing meals in it!
The above book is in a series and gives gluten-free (or you can use regular flour) meals that are sure to be a huge hit. (Stephanie O'Dea has a website: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com if you want to check it out)
Anyway, while Mom was making supper, she was flipping through the pages and found this recipe:

Brownies in a Mug [in the Slow Cooker!]
We all were thrilled! Not quite sure how they were going to turn out, but eager to give it try, bought:

1 Brownie Mix (Pick your favorite, but we used Ghiradelli Double Chocolate)
And pulled out...
Mugs (the kind that you can throw into the dishwasher or microwave without worrying... :P)

Then we prepared the brownie mix, just as if we were going to put it in the pan (usually you have to put in vegetable oil, water, and eggs or something along those lines.)
Spray mugs with TONS OF PAM SPRAY! (Or your favorite non-stick cooking spray)
Now, her recipe says to put four mugs in the slow cooker, but since we have seven people in this family we tried to make five mugs fit. We succeeded, but some people have trouble with that in their particular slow cooker. This recipe needs some experimenting!
We cooked the brownies for 2 hours and 15 minutes and cooled them for half an hour in the slow cooker. If you make this recipe though, keep an eye on them or the brownies will start to get really crispy edges... :)

So- that's about it! The brownies are awesome plain, but AMAZING!!! when turned into sundaes with hot fudge sauce, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, or your favorite toppings!

Here's the brownies baking in the slowcooker. MMM! Let us know in a comment on this post if you decide to try it out or if you have any questions ;)


Next I found a recipe in the coupon section from the newspaper: DELICIOUS!
It is a yummy cake:
Do you like fruit, but aren't quite sure how to add a little something to it?
Then make this cake!

Ingredients:
1 Angel Cake (you can make it yourself, or to make it a 'without an oven meal' buy one at the store) :P
1 can crushed pineapple
1 container of Cool Whip (you don't need a huge one, the smaller container will do)
1 Vanilla Pudding Mix
Your Favorite fruit to top (we used raspberries and strawberries-my favorite!)

Take the pineapple and UNDRAINED!!! mix it with the pudding mix very well. Then gently (gently! so the Cool Whip doesn't lose its texture) stir in the Cool Whip. Take the cake and cut it into thirds, or halves, depending on how big your cake is. Take the pineapple frosting and spread it on the cake. Now this is the trickier part-you have to use your own judgement depending on how big your cake is to spread the whole thing with frosting, or just in between the layers and on the top. Just see how much frosting you have! If you have a huge cake you might want to get two cans of pineapple, 2 containers of Cool Whip and 2 pudding mixes.
Top with your favorite fruit! Since the angel cake was so light (and we had 7 people eating it) we ate the whole thing, so I'll spare you serving sizes. :)


Well, that's all the recipes for today, folks! And if you have any ideas for cooking without an oven, whether dessert or supper, LET US KNOW!

By: Stella