Crock pot ideas/Recipie

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Well, the sweetpotato/butternut soup was a big hit. Everyone loved it. The immersion blender stick worked GREAT, and I stopped blending just at the point where there wer a few nice little chunks of potato still here and there in the soup. A few chunks are nice. I had plenty left over after 6 people ate it as a dinner. I love sweet potatoes too.

I just threw some stuff in at noon today to start a lentil soup dinner.
First I cooked a few cut up bacon strips in a pan until crisp, and then added some leftover chopped ham and 1/2 chopped onion and 1/2 chopped red pepper and some garlic to the bacon- I browned this mess all together, then threw it in the crockpot along with:
1 pound of cleaned dry lentils
1 large carrot chopped
6 cups water
3 chicken bouillion cubes
salt & pepper
a few shakes of cumin (sorry Suzie!)

I'll leave it on low for about 6 hours and check after about 4 hours to see if it needs more water.
This was a really easy one for me, because the ham was from someones potluck a few nights ago that I took home, and the chopped onion and red pepper were already chopped as previous topping for the sweet potato soup, and I always keep some cut pieces of bacon in the freezer to use like this, and then toss in a pan frozen and the bacon separates and cooks up quickly. What I do is i'll buy a package of sliced bacon and with a big knife just cut it into thirds or fourths right without even taking it out of the package. Then I put each 3rd or 4th into a small ziplock bag (don't bother separating the strips at all). Then I put the smaller bags into one larger ziplock bage and keep it in the freezer for when I need some bacon pieces in beans or something but don't need a whole package of bacon. It's very handy, you just put the frozen chunk in your skillet and it starts cooking and separating into little mini bacon strips.

I guess I'm really lucky in that my DH loves having soup or stew for dinner as often as possible! Salad gives me indigestion, so this is such a good way for me to get my vegetables.

[Brandi]

I am glad my dh likes soup too. If you are on a budget you can stretch soup a long way. And it is such a great thing when you have left overs. I have a rotissari on my bbq. I like to do my chicken on that have it for dinner one night make soup out of it the next night. For some reason rotissari chicken is really good in soup.

[RedCanny]

...GOOP!...

Paigette, thank you for sharing your GOOP! recipe. DH and I tried it yesterday- very yummy, and simple to make!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I have been loving and using my 5 quart crockpot SO much that I ordered a 3 quart one as well! All the recipes seem to call for either a large or a small pot, so I figure it's good to use a compatible sized one. I got rid of some old cast iron frying pans (kept my iron dutch oven though) and an old electric skillet and an electric eggbeater and a blender....all of which i NEVER use...so I would have new room in my kitchen cabinets for my 2 slow cookers and my immersion stick blender! Yay for good changes!

But no crock-potting tonight. We'll have the last of the sweet potato soup (made in my slow cooker a few nights ago), and a nice DUCK roasted in the oven!

[HappyAnika]

This thread makes me want to get out my crock pot and start experimenting . . .

Lisa I was reading your complaints about some of the recipes calling for everything in a can. A couple of years ago DH and I were going on vacation, 10 days camping in various national parks, and we wanted some new ideas for stuff to make for dinner. DH got a book from the library on "camping food", it was from the 1960's and most recipes called for things we'd never even heard of (I'm 30, he's 32), like canned beef Do they even still make that? Bleck. Canned onions?? Needless to say we didn't make any of the recipes.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Everything in the 60's was processed to death. If you read recipes from then, they call for lots of Velveeta, frozen veggies, canned spinach and canned mushrooms (God forbid you would have to slice a few mushrooms!)...canned fried onion sticks, more Velveeta, canned chicken, little canned Vienna Mystery sausages, condensed "cream of What the...?" soup, russian dressing, grape jelly, jello, mashed corn flakes topping, dried onion flakes, mashed potato flakes, garlic POWDER....very few ingredients were fresh for some reason (and I think women are way more busy today than they were then). For those with gourmet taste, there was always Fondue Night (croutons artfully dipped in yet more bubbling hot Velveeta)....

[Deborajen]

Here's an unusual crock pot recipe a friend gave me:

Crock Pot Enchiladas

Brown 2 lbs beef with green chilies (small can - chopped, or a couple of chopped Anaheim chilies) and chopped onion

1 pkg round corn tortillas - Take each tortilla and smother it in Cream of Mushroom soup and layer the bottom of crock pot

Then layer of meat mixture

Then layer of shredded cheese (I use Monterrey Jack and Cheddar - 10 ozs.)

Continue layers finishing with a tortilla

Pour 1 small jar thick and chunky salsa on top

Cook on high 1 hour (or low 3 hours) - (Do not stir!)



Deb

[Brandi]

made two crock pot recipes this week because of this thread.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Hey I'm so proud of myself too- today I made some GREAT beans, and I made up the recipe!
Here's what I did:

/////Black beans with eggplant & cilantro/////
Chop one whole onion, 1/2 a red pepper, and some garlic and brown well in a skillet with some olive oil. Put into a 4-6 qt crockpot.
Peel and cut a smallish eggplant into chunks and brown that well in a little olive oil in the skillet too. Put in crockpot.
Add to the crockpot:
3 cans black bleans, drained
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 T molasses
5 T brown sugar
2 T balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup ketchup
salt/pepper seasoning to taste

Cover and cook on low in slow cooker for about 5 hours. Make some rice to serve on the side. During last minutes of cooking, rinse a big bunch of fresh cilantro, then cut up leafy part with a scissors and stir into beans. Let beans cook 15 more minutes, then serve over or next to rice.

It was really GOOD! I especially liked the eggplant in it.

[Brandi]

I have a wonderful stainless steel Crock Pot that is digital and that switches to the warming setting after the cooking cycle is gone. It came with a cookbook that had this recipe in it. It makes fantastic leftovers and is great served with rice or couscous. And it's totally vegan!

Creole Black Beans
3 15 oz. cans black beans, drained
1 1/2 cup onions, chopped
1 cup green pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 t. dried thyme
1 1/2 t. dried oregano
1 1/2 t. white pepper
1/4 t. black pepper
1/4 cayenne pepper
1 vegetable bouillon cube
5 bay leaves
1 cup water

Combine ingredients in the slow cooker. Cover; cook on Low for 8 hours or on High for 4 hours. Remove bay leaves before serving and serve over cooked rice.

Yum!

I made these yesterday and they were soooooo good! I made them and had spicy pork loin chops ,and spinich. My dh and i were in heaven. Highly recommended recipe!!!!

[doc]

Ooooh. I can't wait to try some of these recipes. I will admit to using cream of "what the...." soup when I cook in my crock pot. Otherwise it's all fresh. I'm going to try the creole beans first. I am so lucky my 8 and 10 year old love dinners of beans and rice (usually served with a salad).

[Trek420]

Knotts famous chicken stew recipe

Step 1) roast a chicken or pick up roasted chicken ie: at Costco we got one at Berkeley Bowl.
Step 2) enjoy roast chicken with whatever you enjoy roast chicken with, beer, chocolate...

Step 3) take remainder of roast chicken and toss it in crock pot. You have the option of removing the skin. I left it on...then skimmed the crock pot goodness. More flavor that way and still removes the fat. Don't worry about prep, the chicken will simply fall apart.

toss in
1 whole onion diced
lots of carrots diced
1 whole bunch of celery diced small
think it was about 2 potatoes cut up
about 4-5 or so large brown mushrooms cleaned, cut up
1 Bay Leaf (don't tell anyone, it was from Samuel P Taylor State Park)
add water near top of contents, not over
walk the dog, let the dog out, turn crock pot on, leave for work.

come home to yummy chicken stew goodness

Note I have a ginormous crock pot (hey, it was on sale!) so will be freezing this. I have been told that the 'tatoes don't freeze well but on thawing will just result in a thicker stew like a cream of chicken soup type thang.

[maillotpois]

So you/Knot use the bones and all to make a stock - how do you then pick the bones out? That's what turned me from putting the entire carcass in, but I'd be interested to hear what you do with it.

I do the whole prepared chicken re-cooked in crock pot thing, having gotten the idea from Knot. But what I do is strip the edible parts off the chicken and throw them in the pot with onion, broth, potato, carrot, spices. Then I will put in some coucous at the end. That way I don't have to worry about picking the bones out of the bowl.

[MyLitespeed]

When I get in a real cooking mood, I use all three of my Crockpot's, I have something cooking in the oven (usually lasagna) and have a couple of skillets going with black bean & rice and a recipe for barley mulligan. I try and cook enough for an entire month and then freeze it all. My husband has gotten really picky about what he will eat, so usually I get to enjoy my cooking all to myself. It's not that I'm a horrible cook, he just has a VERY sensitive stomach. He usually ends up eating chicken and veggies.

[7rider]

So you/Knot use the bones and all to make a stock - how do you then pick the bones out? That's what turned me from putting the entire carcass in, but I'd be interested to hear what you do with it.

I do the whole prepared chicken re-cooked in crock pot thing, having gotten the idea from Knot. But what I do is strip the edible parts off the chicken and throw them in the pot with onion, broth, potato, carrot, spices. Then I will put in some coucous at the end. That way I don't have to worry about picking the bones out of the bowl.

I have sort of a multi-step process.
I have a carcass from a 12-pound turkey in my freezer, destined for the crockpot (a 3 qt one - I hope it all fits) sometime soon.
Step 1. cook down the carcass with onion, carrot, celery, bayleaf (from a jar, sigh) and S&P in the crock pot.
Step 2: strain the broth, pick the meat and save from the pile of rubble which is discarded, use fresh carrots, onion, celery for the soup, throwing in wild rice, white rice, egg noodles, or whatever I think of at the moment.
It's time consuming I guess, but I can't figure out another way to not have bones and the thought of "re-using" the veges kind of freaks me out.