Slow Cooker Black Beans

May 2, 2013 by 12 Comments

IMG 4387 e1367536203245 Slow Cooker Black Beans

For someone who majored in Spanish, I have never really paid much attention to Cinco de Mayo.

I don’t think there is really any particular reason; you would think that any day that encourages drinking plenty of margaritas and eating lots of Mexican would be at the top of my list. And yet, I seem to forget about it every year.

This year, though, I did get myself organized enough to make a pot of black beans for the occasion (don’t I know how to live it up). These beans are as easy as they could possibly be: just throw everything in the slow cooker, turn it on, and come back in 8 hours. And the best part? You don’t even have to soak the beans overnight first.

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Fruit and Berry Cobbler

March 4, 2013 by 9 Comments

IMG 3364 e1362033736382 Fruit and Berry Cobbler

Guys, it’s March. I don’t know what the climate is like where you live, but around here (Chicago), things are still pretty gray. And cold. And snowy.

Why do I still live in the Midwest?

I find myself in need of summer fruit.

But until the weather warms up and the first strawberry plants start to green up, frozen fruit will have to do. And frozen fruit is exactly what makes this fruit and berry cobbler – “baked” in your slow cooker, no less – a perfect dessert this time of year. I can start getting my fruit fix in even while there is still the potential for another blizzard at any moment. I wish I was kidding.

Head on over to Food Fanatic for the recipe! And while you’re there, be sure to follow them on Facebook or Twitter – that way you’ll never miss any posts from all of the other amazing regular contributors!

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Slow Cooker Chicken & Noodles

September 16, 2012 by 10 Comments

IMG 2385 e1347900510579 Slow Cooker Chicken & Noodles

It’s a new week! Thank heavens for that.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I would say mine was relaxing…but I recently joined a new gym and, in a moment of blind insanity, signed up for personal training. After two sessions in three days, I’m doing good to be able to move enough to type this. But I know it will be good for me…right?

I seriously can’t get over all of your lovely comments on my anniversary post. It was such a wonderful reminder of why I blog: my readers. It is something I positively love to do and I love sharing my recipes with all of you. It is so heartening to know that you enjoy reading and trying them!

Also, can I share a real-life thing with you?

My biggest area of self-consciousness related to the blog is my photography. I have never taken a photography class, I do not have a DSLR camera (mine is somewhere between a point & shoot and a DSLR…it was a much better option for my budget at the time!), and I seriously drool over so many other bloggers’ photos – plus, I come from a family full of great photographers, so I never really feel like my photos pass muster. But hearing so many of you say that you enjoy my pictures? You have NO idea how much that meant to me and what a confidence booster that was.

Really guys. Each and every one of your sweet comments (on all of my posts!) is read, cherished, and appreciated.

IMG 2392 e1347900601856 Slow Cooker Chicken & Noodles

And so, in keeping with this idea, I am bringing you another easy-as-can-be slow cooker recipe today. Many of you said that you would love to see more quick and easy dinners for those weeknights when you are running low on time and energy, but still need a hearty meal to feed your family.

To those of you who said you would like to see more breads/desserts/baked goods this year: Don’t worry, I am noodling over quite a few ideas for you, too!

This recipe is one of my family’s favorite meals. It is so, so good. Yet when I really took a good look at the original recipe, it called for two cans of condensed cream-of-something soup.

Now, I’m no food snob. I totally understand that condensed cream soups are convenient and easy, and I definitely use them every now and again. But I also like to try to keep my food as free of unnecessary preservatives as possible, and I just knew that I could somehow make this recipe  without the canned soup and have it be just as quick and easy.

Guess what? I was right.

IMG 2389 e1347900557230 Slow Cooker Chicken & Noodles

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Slow Cooker Chicken & Noodles
Yield: 4 servings
 

Ingredients
  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1 cup low-fat milk
  • 3 tablespoons corn starch
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • Heaping ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper
  • ½ cup reduced-fat sour cream
  • ½ cup non-fat Greek yogurt
  • ¼ cup flour

Instructions
  1. Cut the chicken into strips or bite-size chunks. Place in the bottom of the slow cooker; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  2. Whisk together chicken broth, milk, corn starch, sugar and garlic powder. Pour over the chicken. Top with the butter.
  3. Cover and cook on high heat for 3-4 hours or low heat for 7-8 hours.
  4. In a separate bowl, combine sour cream, Greek yogurt and flour until smooth. Stir into the the cooked chicken mixture and continue cooking for an additional 15 minutes until thickened.
  5. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt as necessary. Serve hot over egg noodles.

Notes
You may use all sour cream or all Greek yogurt instead of half of each if preferred. Although my family serves this alongside vegetables, you could easily add vegetables into it. To add mushrooms, add sliced or diced mushrooms with the chicken in step 1. For other vegetables such as peas, add thawed frozen peas with the flour and sour cream mixture in step 4. This will allow them to heat through without getting mushy.

 

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Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lasagna

June 6, 2012 by 11 Comments

IMG 1637 e1339030012893 Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lasagna

Yes, you read that right. Lasagna. In the slow cooker.

We’ve already talked about my love for my Crock Pot. No need to bore you with that discussion again. So let’s just cut right to the chase, shall we?

You can make lasagna in your Crock Pot. And by using a few little shortcuts, such as utilizing your favorite jar of marinara sauce (if anyone utters the words “semi-homemade” or “Sandra Lee”, so help me…I will cut you), this really is a one-pot meal.

Plus, making the whole meal in the Crock Pot means that you don’t have to heat up your stove or turn on the oven. Perfect summer solution.

IMG 1630 Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lasagna

I made this in my 3-ish quart slow cooker (don’t judge me, I just can’t remember exactly how big it is) and it produced 4 hearty servings. Two went straight into our bellies, two went into the freezer for a night in the probably not-too-distant future when I need something comforting without having to actually cook. If you were looking to feed a larger crowd, however, you could easily double the recipe and use a 6-quart slow cooker. This would be a great option for family get-togethers, especially if you have vegetarians in your family (as I do) – the recipe is vegetarian friendly, yet hearty enough to satisfy even the meat-eaters of the group.

On a totally unrelated note…I tweeted earlier that job searching is a soul-sucking experience. If anyone was wondering, my stance on this has not changed in the last several hours. If I continue on this soul-depleting path, I may be needing BOTH of those extra pieces of lasagna earlier than anticipated. (Huh, I guess that wasn’t so unrelated at all…)

{Forgive my crummy photos today…I was really hungry. Don’t judge me…}

IMG 1640 e1339030296984 Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lasagna

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Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lasagna
Yield: 4 hearty servings
 

Adapted quite a bit from Betty Crocker
Ingredients
  • 1 28-ounce jar marinara sauce
  • 7 uncooked lasagna noodles
  • 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup mozzarella cheese, divided
  • ¼ cup Parmesan cheese
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cups sliced mushrooms
  • 1 small or medium zucchini, sliced

Instructions
  1. Spray the inside of a 3-quart slow cooker with cooking spray.
  2. In a small bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, ½ cup of the mozzarella cheese, Parmesan, parsley and several grinds of black pepper. Set aside.
  3. Spread ¼ of the marinara sauce in the bottom of the crock. Place 1½ to 2 lasagna noodles on top, breaking into pieces as needed to make them fit. Spread with ½ of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with half of the vegetables, another ¼ of the sauce and 2 more lasagna noodles. Repeat this layer, ending with the last of the noodles and topping with the remaining ¼ of the sauce.
  4. Cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours or low for 4-6 hours, until noodles and vegetables are cooked through. Turn off heat. Uncover and sprinkle the remaining ½ cup of mozzarella cheese on top; recover and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

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Balsamic Pot Roast

April 19, 2012 by 8 Comments

IMG 1260 Balsamic Pot Roast

I think I’ve discussed with y’all before that I don’t find myself cooking with meat very often. Part of this is because I simply don’t feel the need to have meat with every meal – I can subsist quite contentedly on other sources of protein 75% of the time. Another part of this is money – it’s a no-brainer that beans are far cheaper than steak or even chicken. When I do buy meat, it is when it is on sale and I stock up with as much as I feel my tiny little freezer can handle.

One of the things that Tamar Adler talks about in her book An Everlasting Meal is the cost effectiveness of tougher cuts of meat. These cuts of meat – roasts, rumps, shanks, ribs, and poultry legs and thighs – have their fat marbled throughout them (instead of sitting on the surface) and cook slowly, which present you with a number of advantages:

  1. They are forgiving when you cook them and do not dry out easily like lean cuts such as tenderloins or chicken breasts.
  2. Slowly cooking tough cuts of meat leaves you with drippings that can be turned into a sauce, gravy or soup (which, if needed, can become another meal entirely).
  3. Slow cooking methods give you the chance to impart a lot of flavor to your meat.

IMG 1253 Balsamic Pot Roast

I don’t think it is any secret that I love my slow cooker. And while I love making all sorts of dishes in it – soups, chilis, even chicken and noodles or lasagna – I really love using it to make pot roast. Without a slow cooker, pot roast becomes a weekend-only meal, since it is one that requires you to be home in the middle of the afternoon to cook. With a slow cooker, I get a pot roast started before I leave for work, and when I get home, all of the grunt work is done, leaving me with tender, flavorful meat and a rich sauce to turn into gravy or pour directly over potatoes or rice.

IMG 1256 Balsamic Pot Roast

(As a side note, making a meal like pot roast allows me to feed my meat-and-potato-lovin’ boyfriend meals like ugly tortilla española for several days after with less guilt, even though the man’s a saint and happily eats anything I make him without complaint.)

This pot roast spends the day lounging in the slow cooker with some carrots, onions, and balsamic vinegar. It ends up tender and tangy and leaves you with a great sauce that you can simply reduce or turn into a gravy.

As a further side note, just a little bit of leftover meat and onions can be turned into a delicious toasted sandwich. I know – it was my lunch. Waste not, want not.

IMG 1268 Balsamic Pot Roast

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Balsamic Pot Roast
 

Adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen
Ingredients
  • 3-4 pound boneless chuck roast
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon dried parsley
  • ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup beef stock/broth
  • 2-3 medium sweet onions, peeled and cut into thick slices
  • 1-2 cups carrots (I used very fat baby carrots, but if you can only find very small/skinny baby carrots, I would suggest peeling and cutting regular carrots into large pieces. The larger pieces or fatter carrots will help prevent your carrots from overcooking.)
  • ¼ cup water
  • ½ cup balsamic vinegar
  • ½ cup tomato sauce

Instructions
  1. In a saucepan, bring the beef stock to a simmer; allow to simmer until it has reduced to ½ cup. Set aside.
  2. Place onions and carrots in the bottom of the slow cooker.
  3. Trim as much fat as possible from the roast and trim it as necessary to fit in the slow cooker.
  4. In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper, garlic powder, parsley, cayenne and thyme. Rub each side of the roast well with the seasoning mixture. Meanwhile, heat a heavy pan with a tablespoon of oil over high heat. Brown the roast well on both sides. When thoroughly browned, remove from the pan and place in the slow cooker on top of the vegetables.
  5. Pour the ¼ cup of water into the pan to deglaze it. Add this to the beef broth, along with the balsamic vinegar and tomato sauce. Pour mixture over the beef and vegetables in the slow cooker.
  6. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or until meat is tender.
  7. Remove the meat and vegetables from the slow cooker and cover with foil to keep warm. Pour the liquid into a saucepan (if desired, use a fat separator to remove some of the fat before doing so); bring to a simmer and reduce by ⅓. Serve the sauce with meat and vegetables.
  8. If desired, you can thicken the sauce with a slurry of cornstarch and water to make a gravy.

Notes
I made this recipe using a small roast (about 1½ lb) since it was just the two of us, so if you think that looks like a small amount of meat and vegetables in the pictures, that is because it is. I kept the rest of the ingredient amounts the same, though, and would have had plenty of sauce/gravy for a much bigger roast.

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