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Slow Cooker/Crock Pot: Recipes and Techniques


Wilfrid

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Oooh, that Indian cookbook looks promising.

I have, in the past, done crockpot apple butter and then canned it. It was great, but now everyone wants more of it!

Ok, I looked at my freezer inventory and there's some things in there that seem like promising crock pot candidates (these are what's left of trying to eat through my meat share from a local farm - I took a break from it because my freezer was getting full and have been trying to eat what's in there):

A 3 lb bone-in leg of lamb

A 4 lb whole chicken

A 4 lb ham

6 big hunks of grass fed beef - 2 2.5 lb beef arm roasts, 2 3-4 lb beef chuck roasts, a 1.5 lb pikes peak roast, and a 3.5 lb sirloin tip roast

Random google searches yeild crock pot recipes for any/all of these, but I trust eG's recommendations more. Like I said, I've only done hunks of pork/beef so far, so recommendations and tips for the chicken/ham/lamb leg would be awesome.

"Nothing you could cook will ever be as good as the $2.99 all-you-can-eat pizza buffet." - my EX (wonder why he's an ex?)

My eGfoodblog: My corner of the Midwest

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We love that Indian slow cooker cookbook. The saag paneer recipe is a winner; the only tough part was getting all the spinach to fit into the cooker. I finally wound up wilting most of it on the stovetop, at which point the rest of the recipe was—er—cake.

The author also has an Indian vegan slow cooker cookbook out now. We don't have that one, but I have taken a quick peek through it, and think that if you don't have an issue with dairy and do have a source of paneer, you could pretty readily swap out the tofu in many of the recipes for a different take.

Deborah Schneider has a Mexican slow cooker cookbook that doesn't look wimpy. My chief complaint about so many of the slow cooker cookbooks is that they're "dumbed down", especially with respect to spicy foods and overtly ethnic ingredients.

MelissaH

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

foodblog1 | kitchen reno | foodblog2

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Katie, do try looking at A Year of SlowCooking

here

Scroll down nearly to the bottom of the page and check out the Best Brussels Sprouts ever.

I made the recipe and they are wonderful. I do like the little cabbages, but these are better than any I have prepared in the past and I have been handling them for many years.

Reading back over this thread, I realized that I had never thanked you for that link to "Year of Slow Cooking." I have now made three recipes from the site, and find it a very valuable resource. Thanks so much for taking the time to direct me there!

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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Never a day without learning. Looked up Khymos.org and TGRWT. Not my thing, but interesting. I'm still learning how to boil water I fear.

This is what I did with my crock pot apple butter for TGRWT (the theme was raisins)...

raisin2.jpg

tempura bacon - pickled raisins with garlic and jalapeno - toasted walnuts tossed with toasted walnut oil and smoked salt - apple butter - fresh thyme - cracked black pepper

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Beef stroganoff is what I use the crock pot for usually. I can start with the crock on the stovetop, so I can brown everything first. Huge improvement over my first hand-me-down crockpot the lacked that capability!

I also love to put in a package of chicken thighs, can of coconut milk, cup or so of chicken stock, and a couple heaping tablespoons of Thai red curry paste (Mae Ploy is what I have now, but prefer the small tins - brand name escapes me). Throw in a head of cauliflower towards the end while rice steams, then serve with chopped cilantro and slices of lime. One of my favorite meals, but too spicy for some, which I learned when I served it to my parents, who could only eat the rice. Oops!

Kate

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That Thai style chicken thigh dish sounds like a winner kate. I do not use mine often but a couple of years ago I did veal shanks for my dad's birthday in the crock. My kitchen was not useable so no browning possible. Yes there was a lack of flavor because of that but the overall taste and texture were great. He still tells his wife that only I am allowed to make the dish for him.

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Never a day without learning. Looked up Khymos.org and TGRWT. Not my thing, but interesting. I'm still learning how to boil water I fear.

This is what I did with my crock pot apple butter for TGRWT (the theme was raisins)...

raisin2.jpg

tempura bacon - pickled raisins with garlic and jalapeno - toasted walnuts tossed with toasted walnut oil and smoked salt - apple butter - fresh thyme - cracked black pepper

Looks delicious. What was it's taste like?

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Beef stroganoff is what I use the crock pot for usually. I can start with the crock on the stovetop, so I can brown everything first. Huge improvement over my first hand-me-down crockpot the lacked that capability!

I also love to put in a package of chicken thighs, can of coconut milk, cup or so of chicken stock, and a couple heaping tablespoons of Thai red curry paste (Mae Ploy is what I have now, but prefer the small tins - brand name escapes me). Throw in a head of cauliflower towards the end while rice steams, then serve with chopped cilantro and slices of lime. One of my favorite meals, but too spicy for some, which I learned when I served it to my parents, who could only eat the rice. Oops!

I'm going to try that Thai recipe soon. It sounds like a winner for sure. Thanks, kate.

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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In addition to big chunks o' meat, I "bake" potatoes and sweet potatoes and cook meatloaf in my crockpot. It's mostly for the convenience of walking away from it, or for when it's too hot to turn on the oven.

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I just made a meal in the crockpot the other night: onion & red bell pepper and garlic in the bottom, then crumbled Italian sausage (we used hot), then chicken breasts. Some oregano, rosemary, and white wine. It was pretty good, but don't cook it too long. The recipe said 5-7 hours, and we pushed it a bit so the chicken was a bit dry. You want to use thicker breasts, I think. We had it over spaghetti, and threw some broccoli in there, too. Pretty good and easy because there's no browning required, so it's a "dump soup" kind of recipe (from www.savingdinner.com , which is generally my sanity savor, except when she goes bonkers with the low fat nonsense).

Joanna G. Hurley

"Civilization means food and literature all round." -Aldous Huxley

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I seem to remember Alton Brown doing oatmeal in a crock pot on an episode of Good Eats. Just prepare it at night and the oatmeal's all set in the morning.
This would be particularly useful with those oatmeals which are coarse ground rather than mashed into flakes and which normally require overnight soaking and then slow cooking. The flavors in these oatmeals are way beyond the blandness of ordinary porridge oats.

Edit: Here's a curious bit of information I picked up at the Oxford [Food] Symposium this weekend. Oats, unlike other grains, inhibit the absorption of dietary fat. At least one paper on the Scottish diet has suggested that the quantum leap in Scottish ill health related to massive fried food consumption has been caused by the fact that the Scots no longer start their day with porridge!

I thought I remembered reading this somewhere, and have been looking for it. Excellent info.

A current standard in our house whenever we have overnight guests is to get the Irish Steel-cut Oats going in the crockpot the night before so that we have a nice creamy breakfast all ready the next morning.

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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