Crock-Pot LOVE

I used my crock-pot TWICE last week, and in my world, that is blog worthy!

I had Thursday off, so I decided to breakout the crock-pot so dinner would be ready for Curt when he got home from work.  I found a recipe on Pinterest, and made pork tenderloin.

This is the image from the website, I don't think mine looked like this in the end.

The recipe was from allrecipes.com and was called 'Amazing Pork Tenderloin in the Slow Cooker' - seems like a winner, right!  And, it WAS!  I changed the recipe a little bit - it called for 3/4 cup of red wine, and although we had a bottle of red wine, I didn't bother opening it, I just used water.  And, although the recipe didn't call for it, I threw some potatoes and baby carrots in the pot too!

Curt ended up coming home from work early, and he commented on how good the house smelled when he walked in!  I had been smelling it all day, and hadn't had lunch, so we ended up having a late lunch/early dinner right then.  It.was.DELICIOUS!  I was so glad I had some before I went to skating.  And, we had some leftovers - now we don't usually do well with leftovers (as in, they tend to get thrown out), but not these!

And, after the great success on Thursday, I pulled the crock-pot out again on Sunday.  This time, I made Olive Garden Pasta E Fagioli Soup.  I don't really know what all of that means, but I know that the Olive Garden is a great restaurant, so I figured it was worth a try.  Plus, the picture looked delicious...

This was a recipe I had on one of my Pinterest boards, but you can find it here: http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/2012/08/olive-garden-pasta-e-fagioli-soup.html

I want to point out that under the instructions, it says 'add beef and all ingredients except the pasta into a large crock pot' - what it should say is '...into a HUGE crock pot'.  By the time I added the spaghetti sauce, I was afraid the pot was going to overflow!  It didn't, but then I was sure that adding the pasta was going to be too much.  In the end, I managed to get the pasta in too...but, it was VERY FULL!  And, it made a HUGE batch!  So, again, we had lots of leftovers - I actually filled two tupperware containers and put them in the freezer.

Now this recipe was a lot more involved than the pork tenderloin, but I enjoyed making it.  The end result was pretty tasty, but nothing special.  It ended up being pretty thick, more like a stew than a soup, not that that's a bad thing...just not what I was expecting.

And now for two random thoughts that were part of these cooking experiences:

1. Honestly, I felt kinda fancy using oregano and parsley for this recipe!  Now, my sister-in-law grows her own herbs and spices, on the other hand, I turn to the handy spice rack that I received as a wedding gift (and haven't had to restock since!).  So, in reality, I'm not that fancy.

2. I wouldn't have been able to make either of these recipes without Google.  Why is it that the unit of measurement in the recipe NEVER matches the unit of measurement on the can?!?!  What did people do before Google???  Did everyone just know how to convert ounces to milliliters, because I certainly don't!