Crock pot roast beef and... cupcakes? well, kind of...

The soup I made last night was amazing! As a matter of fact it was so good that I took the last of it and poured it over the roast that I had seasoned and was waiting to get tossed into the crock pot (which is by far my favorite kitchen gadget) Lemme just tell y'all that I left that thing to cook overnight (I don't like to leave the crock pot on when I'm not home, a fear instilled in me by my grandmother "You'll burn the whole house down!!!") Well.. it smelled so amazing that it woke me up in the middle of the night!

I took 1- 3 pound roast and seasoned it with salt and pepper and seared it in a hot pan just until it was browned on all sides (about 2-3 minutes per side), chopped up 3 cloves of garlic and roughly cut 4 carrots, those went into the bottom of my crock pot (that as always, was lined with a Reynolds Crock pot liner because I HATE doing dishes and the less cleaning up I have to do, the better) I put the seared roast on top of the carrots and garlic and poured the remainder of my French onion soup on top of the roast. Put the cover on, turned it on low and left it all night to cook (from about 9pm-6:30am) when I got up this morning i turned it off and took the crock out of the electric cooker to cool and into the fridge it went until P. got home and then he put it back in the cooker and turned it onto warm so by the time I got home from work I just had to make some rice and dinner was ready.. YUMMMMY!!

Now.. for the cupcake:


Oh come on.. I had to buy it! I was So hoping they had it in black.. but for $2.99 I wasn't going to be picky

It's too hot to cook... So I'm baking a cake in my Crock Pot!

No, I'm not insane (really, I swear!) But I have been craving some good fudgie chocolate cake for days and tonight I went and did it.. I've been waiting to get Crock pot liners (because I refuse to use the dang thing without them, I hate washing dishes (no dishwasher here) and that crock pot can be a total nightmare to clean) and I grabbed them at Target the last time I was there.

Now, this has got to be one of the easiest recipes that I've ever made because essentially you just toss it all in the crock, turn it on and walk away.. Way easier said than done though because as soon as you smell it 'baking' up you want to tear into it.. but it's So worth it! I don't even remember where I got this recipe since it's hand written on a piece of notebook paper (!) But it's one of my absolute favorites!

Crock pot chocolate fudge pudding cake

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cocoa
2 tsp. baking powder
dash salt
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1-3/4 cups hot water

Directions:

1. Spray 4 quart crockpot with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In large bowl, combine first 5 ingredients and stir to combine.
3. Add milk, cooking oil and vanilla and stir well.
4. Pour into prepared crockpot.
5. In a medium bowl, stir second amount of brown sugar and second amount of cocoa together.
6. Add hot water and mix well until blended.
7. Pour over batter in crockpot; do not stir!
8. Cover crockpot and cook on high about 2 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 8-10 servings