Slow Cooker Salisbury Steak

I just loooooooooooove my crockpot. Though some of these 4-5 hour recipes are a little more challenging during working hours - if I start it before I leave for work, it's done before 3 pm, which is a little early for dinner, if I start it after work, it's done by 8:30 - either way is a little bit off for dinner time! This was a good one, but DEFINITELY use a higher quality, VERY lean hamburger. I was worried it would be a little bland, but it really wasn't.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds lean ground beef
• 1 (1 ounce) envelope dry onion soup mix
• 1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 (1 ounce) packet dry au jus mix
• 3/4 cup water

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, onion soup mix, bread crumbs, and milk using your hands. Shape into 8 patties.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Dredge the patties in flour just to coat, and quickly brown on both sides in the hot skillet. Place browned patties into the slow cooker stacking alternately like a pyramid. In a medium bowl, mix together the cream of chicken soup, au jus mix, and water. Pour over the meat. Cook on the Low setting for 4 or 5 hours, until ground beef is well done.

I actually made this recipe as directed, with no changes. Ok, wait - there was one change. Dang it, and here I thought I was about to publish this as is! I did substitute the cream of chicken for Cream of Chicken and Mushroom. I like Cream of Mushroom (Brean does not), so I figured this would be a good compromise. There ended up being a large coating of grease on the top, which I was able to skim off (mostly). I believe that it was due to the quality of hamburger I used (I hope!). All in all, it was pretty easy, and while the gravy was not quite as good as the Swedish Meatball recipe, it was more than adequate. Served over mashed potatoes, and it was a dinner well worth the effort!

Today is our monthly Dr. Who night with Brean's family. I think Dr. Who is pretty entertaining....in that I entertain myself with useful things while it plays in the background. This is my once a month time to go through my AllRecipe daily e-mails, play Zuma, catch up on blogging (obviously :p), and do whatever interweb putzing I've been putting off. I love the monthly time that is set aside to spend time with family, and I do have to say, I am starting to watch more Dr. Who as we meander our way through the 1970's.
We started Dr. Who night over 2 years ago! Hard to believe it's been that long! But we came about with this after watching the movie Julie/Julia. What does that have to do with Dr. Who you might ask? Well, Mom2 and I after watching that movie decided that we should get together once a month and try recipes that we had never tried before. After getting some familial input on this idea, it was decided that we should watch something on the days that we did it, and as some of us had never seen Dr. Who, either at all, or all the way through, it was decided. And Dr. Who night was born. We started at the VERY beginning, and have been working our way through all of the different "seasons" that we can, as some of them have been destroyed over the years. I think when we first were figuring out how long it would take us to catch up to the current season, our estimate was 10 years. However, after 2+ years, we are almost half way done (!!!!!), based on the fact that we haven't been able to access large chunks of seasons. We are currently on Tom Baker as the Dr., who happens to be Brean's favorite. I'm starting to enjoy them more as they finally seem to have plots that A) make sense (sort of...) and B) better acting, and C) better special effects. Up until this point, and it still happens sometimes, we view Dr. Who through MST3K glasses, full of commentary and a ton of laughter.
For the most part, we have stuck with our "bring-a-dish-that-has-never-been-tried" rule, with occasional divergence. Sometimes Mom2 and I will text/e-mail the week before and say "ahhh! It's Dr. Who night! I don't feel like cooking...how does pizza sound?" I think my favorite new dish was one that Josh made called Cucumber Chicken - it sounded weird, but it was amazing! Truthfully, I think it was during this Dr. Who time that my blog idea really got planted. I started trying all kinds of new recipes and needed some way to keep track of it.
And there you have the history of Dr. Who night!