Taco Soup

from A Year of Slow Cooking

Ingredients:

2 cans of kindey beans (1 cup dried, soaked & cooked)

2 cans of pinto beans (1 cup dried, soaked & cooked)

2 cans of corn (3 cups frozen)

1 large can of diced tomatoes

1 small can tomatoes

1 packet taco seasoning

1 packet ranch dressing mix

1 lb browned ground turkey or hamburger (optional.)

shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips for embellishment (optional)

Directions:

Brown meat, if you are going to use it.
Drain fat and add beef to CrockPot.

Sprinkle seasoning packets on top of meat.

Drain and rinse the beans and add.

Add the corn and tomatoes.
Stir.

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.

This recipe for Taco Soup was super easy and pretty good. Many of the comments stated that the Ranch Dressing packet made the difference, but we couldn't really taste it, so I guess who knows what it would have tasted like without it! We actually couldn't really taste the taco seasoning either - until we added chips. I don't know if it was the salt from the chips or the crunch aspect, but then it tasted like tacos. Before that it was just chili.

Easy - Definitely.
Different - Yes.
Delicious - If you really like these ingredients, here's a new way to eat them. We would rather have regular tacos.

Anybody else have any recipes to post? I'd love to read about them!

Slow Cooker Short Rib Ragu

Ingredients
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
3 pounds boneless short ribs, cut into 3-inch pieces
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
1 large carrot, diced small
1 can (28 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes
2 sprigs oregano or rosemary

Directions
- Cut off extra fat and season ribs with salt, pepper and cajun seasoning. Broil for 5min on each side. Transfer ribs to a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker.
- Fry onions and carrots. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until vegetables are soft, 3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup juice from tomatoes, stirring and scraping up any browned bits from skillet with a wooden spoon.
- Transfer vegetables and liquid to slow cooker and add tomatoes, breaking them up as you go. Add herb sprigs (or dried herbs since I didn`t have sprigs); season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Cover and cook on high until meat is fork-tender, 6 hours.
- With a slotted spoon, remove herb sprigs and transfer meat to a cutting board. With a ladle or large spoon, skim fat from cooking liquid (you'll remove about 1 1/4 cups). With two forks, shred meat and return to cooking liquid. Serve immediately, or let cool in liquid and reheat over medium before serving.

Evalution

Husband: 8/10, would like to try regular ribs with bbq sauce, but liked that "the meat doesn't taste meaty, but has a good taste."
Kid: "Bone, more"
Me: The meat was falling off the bones and was super tasty. This is one of those recipes that takes some prep time (which could be done the night before, as mentioned by Michelle). Very yummy for my first time cooking ribs.

Recipe from http://www.marthastewart.com/332235/slow-cooker-short-rib-ragu and modified a little.

Chai

While looking for another CrockPot meal idea, I came across this recipe for a chai concentrate. In case you're not familiar with what that is, if you go to the tea aisle in the local grocery store, on the top shelf there are often large boxes that look like this:


At Walmart one box like the above costs $7.67. I don't know about you, but that doesn't work in my budget very well. But now we can make our own!

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp. minced ginger
  
• 1 cinnamon stick
  
• 8 whole cloves
  
• 2 heaping demitasse spoons powdered cardamon (or 15-20 green cardamon pods)
• 2 cap fulls non alcohol vanilla extract
  
• 2 dashes of nutmeg
  
• 2 heaping Tbsps sugar
  
• 1/2 cup honey
• 4 cups water
• 6 Bigelow Darjeeling Blend tea bags, or other black tea bag (I used English Breakfast)

Directions:

Put everything except the tea bags into the crock pot (recipe called for 1 1/2 qt. crock pot but I used my 5 1/2 qt. and it worked fine). Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 7-8 hours. After long simmer, if heat is not on high turn to high. Add tea bags. Let steep for 5-10 minutes. Remove tea bags and press with spoon to get all water out. Pour crock contents over strainer into 1 quart resealable beverage container. Add water to make 1 quart. This will get you what comes in the box pictured above. Serve (see below) or store in fridge.


To serve:

To make iced or hot Chai Latte, add equal parts concentrate to milk and serve over ice or heat in microwave or use conventional steamer. (We like it hot with a mix of skim and whole milk, but iced with just skim. We also tried it in a milkshake!)

Easy - yes
Different - yes
Delicious - absolutely

Recipe found at Vegetarian Slow Cooker

Rosemary Orange Beef Stew

Hello!

Here's a favorite recipe. I've made this one loads of times and it is so tasty! Sorry no pictures, but tonight I'm making BBQ Chicken and if that tastes good I'll post that one with photos. So please forgive me! :)

2 tbsp olive Oil (Divided)
2lbs stewing beef, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 onions, finely chopped
4 stalks of celery, diced
4 carrots, peeled and diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 2 tsp dried
1 tsp crack peppercorn
Grated zest and juice of one orange
2 red potatoes
3 cups beef stock
1.5 cups dry red wine or grape juice
2 tbsp Sherry vinegar

Persillade (optional) <

1 cup finely chopped parsley
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1. In a skillet, heat 1 tsp of the oil over med-high heat. Add beef, in batches and cook, stirring until browned, about 4 minutes mins per batch. Transfer to slow cooker stoneware.

2. Add remaining 1 tbsp of oil to the pan. Add onions, celery and carrots and cook, stirring until carrots are softened, about 7 minutes. Add garlic, rosemary, peppercorns, orange zest and cook, stirring for 1 min. Add potatoes and toss to coat. Add orange juice, beef sock and wine/juice and bring to a boil. Season to taste with salt, if using. Transfer to slow cooker. Stir well.

3. Cover and cook on Low for 8 hours and high for 4 hours until meat is tender.

4. Persillade: In bowl combine parsley, garlic and vinegar. Set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes to allow flavors to develop. Ladle stew onto plates and garnish with persillade, if using.

Enjoy!

Soy-Ginger Chicken

I have hardly ever used chicken in the slow-cooker in the past. When I was in university, my room mate's mom told me that chicken sits at room-temperature for too long in the slow-cooker, so there is a high risk of food poisoning. I guess I believed her, so I never tried it.  When looking for slow-cooker recipes for this challenge, however, I saw so many mouth-watering chicken recipes, I had to expand my repertoire and give one (actually two!) a try.  

I browsed through Martha Stewart's slow cooker recipes gallery (btw, if you ever need dinner ideas, check out her recipe galleries...pictures of food are so inspiring when you're hungry!) and found this recipe for Soy-Ginger Chicken.

(Martha's picture, not mine...sorry!)

I substituted/omitted a few ingredients so the recipe below is  with my modifications.   If you want Martha's version, check out the link above.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 2 T brown sugar
• 5 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 2" piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into strips
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• pepper, to taste
• 4 chicken drumsticks and 4 thighs, skin removed
• 3 medium carrots, sliced
• 1 T cornstarch

Directions:

1. 1.  Stir together soy sauce, garlic, sugar, and ginger, pepper, and vinegar in slow cooker
2. Add chicken and carrots, toss  to coat
3. Cover and cook on low for about 6 hours. I added my green onions half way through. (Reserve some green onions for a garnish)
4. Whisk cornstarch with 1 T water.  Ladle 1 cup of cooking liquid into measuring cup; whisk to combine.  Pour into a small saucepan, bring to a boil; cook until thickened (about a minute)
5. Turn off slow cooker and stir in cornstarch mixture
6. Serve on brown rice, and garnish with green onions.

Reaction:  

We really liked this recipe!  It's basically teriyaki chicken, and since we love teriyaki sauce, it was great.  It wasn't the most visually appealing meal-- everything in the slow cooker was soy-sauce-brown, but the garnish helped a little.  I cooked mine a bit long, and the chicken was falling off the bone, so there were a few random chicken bones in my slow cooker...but other than that, it was great.  Caleb had the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Char Siu Pork Roast

I began this challenge by googling `best slow-cooker recipes`, while led me to this recipe for Char Siu Pork Roast from Cooking Light. It got good reviews, was something different from typical barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, and I had almost all the ingredients in my fridge. So I went for it.


After the first meal of the Chinese-style barbecue pork, we did not know what to think. We ate it with stir-fry vegetables and rice, which is what most people recommended on the website. We had expected it to taste differently, causing us to really be thrown off.


Tonight we ate some of the leftovers in a tortilla with a broccoli slaw salad on the side (also recommended on the site). John really liked it. I thought it was much better but (sorry hubby), I don`t see myself making it again.

Easy - extremely
Different - yes
Delicious - undecided

Beef Stroganoff

I wanted to try some sort of recipe that uses beef - not ground (I'm trying to incorporate more meat in our meals now that we have Holly). I was attracted to how easy this recipe is... no sauteing before, etc, and it was something new for me.

Ingredients

1 lb. (450 g) cubed stewing beef

1 onion,chopped

1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms

1/2 cup 25%-less-sodium beef broth

1/2 cup (1/2 of 250-g tub) Herb & Garlic Cream Cheese Spread

1 Tbsp. flour

225 g egg noodles

PLACE meat, onions and mushrooms in slow cooker.

ADD broth; stir. Cover with lid. Cook on LOW 6 to 8 hours (or on HIGH 3 to 4 hours). Meanwhile, cooking noodles as directed on package, omitting salt, before ready to serve meat mixture.

DRAIN noodles. Mix cream cheese spread and flour. Add to meat mixture; stir until cream cheese is completely melted and mixture is well blended. Add noodles to meat mixture; toss to coat.

The result: It was okay. For adult tastes, I found it to be bland. And, of course, the cream cheese takes away from it being super healthy. But, Holly loved it and ate the beef, noodles, and mushrooms, plus it really was just so easy. So, I might make it again, or will at least try a different stroganoff recipe sometime. (Sorry for the blurry picture).