What I've Been Slow Cooking

I have been slow cooking.

Daily.

Baby #3 is due to arrive this upcoming January, and we all couldn't be more thrilled.

Now that the all-day-every-single-day-why-won't-it-let-up-seriously-why-won't-it sickness has practically subsided life can get back to normal around here.


I should have put the word normal in quotes.

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Make it Fast, Cook it Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking

Make it Fast, Cook it Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking contains 338 tried-and-true slow cooker recipes.

The book is the best of the best of my "Year of Slow Cooking"----these are recipes that have been tested in my own home kitchen using my own slow cookers, and have been tasted by my own (sometimes picky) family. The recipes have also been tested by home cooks from around the world, with their notes and results documented under each recipe on the website.

The book is set up the same way as the blog, with detailed instructions and a short "verdict." To keep the price of the book down, and to include as many recipes as possible, I have opted to not include photos.

I don't like cooking before I cook, and prefer to not brown meat on the stove top before throwing it into the pot. Many people prefer to pre-brown meat---they like the color and texture this step provides. Whether or not you pre-brown meat is a personal choice, and unless I've specifically included pre-browning in the instructions, assume that the meat has gone in raw (sometimes frozen!) and undoctored.

We are a gluten free family. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, and rye. Oats are off limits, too, unless they are from a specified gluten-free source. Everything in the book has been made completely gluten-free. If you do not need to worry about gluten, feel free to ignore my notes or file them away in case you ever need to cook for someone with a gluten intolerance. As always, read labels carefully on your own since manufacturers have been known to switch ingredients without notice.

If you'd like to learn more about going gluten free, I recommend the following websites:
Sure Foods Living
Gluten Free Easily
The W.H.O.L.E. Gang (whole healthy organic living everyday)
Karina's Kitchen, Recipes from a Gluten Free Goddess
Elana's Pantry

Because we live with allergies, and because I'm a crazy Californian, I try to balance the amount of fat, sodium, and processed foods our family ingests. I'm certainly not a purist, and definitely enjoy a good dose of Velveeta now and then, but the recipes I've included in this book are not your typical "cover with cream-of-whatever soup" slow cooker fare.

Thank you so much for your support, it means so very much.

Any questions? Email me directly at crockpotlady AT gmail DOT com.

xoxo steph

updated 12/21/09: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow is on the New York Times Best-Seller List (12/27 edition) for Advice/How-To, paperback.
WOW. Thank you so much for all of your love, support, and interest.

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Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup Recipe

During my call for recipes, I got emails from Jennifer, Jenny, Jenny Y., Julie, and Charlotte asking if I had made a baked potato soup in the slow cooker. I had not. I did make a potato-leek soup last year, but that's not really the same thing. It's definitely healthier, though!

Panera bakery evidently has a very good baked potato soup, but I've never stepped foot into a Panera, so I hadn't had their soup as a reference. So I googled it, and found a copycat recipe on RecipeZaar and adapted it to fit our family.

We all really liked this soup---the kids ate a ton, and we have a bunch leftover. I made a big batch so we'd have leftovers in the freezer. I'd guess this serves 10.

The Ingredients.

--5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced in 1 to 2-inch chunks
--1 teeny onion, diced
--4 cloves garlic, minced
--1 teaspoon seasoned salt
--1/2 teaspoon black pepper
--1/2 teaspoon red pepper
--2 quarts chicken broth
--2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, to add at the end
--crumbled bacon and green onion or chives as garnish (optional)

The Directions.

Use a 6 quart or larger slow cooker. Peel and dice the potatoes, and put them into the stoneware. Add onion and garlic. Sprinkle in the seasonings, and pour in the broth. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4. The potatoes should be fork-tender. You can use a potato masher to mash the potatoes in the soup, or a hand-held immersible blender. I suppose you can also leave the potatoes in chunks, if you really wanted, but I wanted a smooth soup.

After smashing the potatoes, crumble in both packages of cream cheese, and put the lid back on. Cook on high for about 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is completely dissolved. Stir a few times during the 30 minutes.

Garnish with crumbled bacon, green onion or chives, and I'd assume cheddar cheese would be just delightful.

The Verdict.

When I first started hanging out on the internet, I was surprised at how much bacon talk there was. Everywhere I turned (clicked), it seemed there was somebody else going on and on and on some more about their love for bacon. Since I don't eat pork, I really didn't get it, and just figured it was a weird internet thing.

But yesterday I figured out the secret to really good turkey bacon. Fry it in a ton of butter. Now I think I might sort of get it. Although I'm not terribly pleased with how messy it is....

anyhow, this is a fantastic soup, and the bacon on top really seals the deal. My kids both ate a bowl when it was first finished around 4pm, and another later in the evening.

We're going to have BLT's with the leftover bacon for lunch. or maybe breakfast. I'm excited.

other great soups:

Jamaican Pumpkin
Thai Coconut
Corn Chowder
Harvest Stew
French Onion

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Slow Cooker Turkey Tetrazzini Recipe

Sharon emailed me last week and said that she had a hanker'n for some Turkey Tetrazzini a la Slow Cooker. I didn't know that I had a hanker'n until I read her email and the recipes she linked for me to look at.
But I did. I seemed to have had a hanker'n. She sent links to Epicurious, AllRecipes, and Food Network.

After reading through the recipes, I wrote one of my own to work with the slow cooker. It worked, eventually. I at first didn't include enough pasta, so my tetrazzini was more like wallpaper paste than a creamy pasta dish. This was easily fixed, however, and the end result was a nice comforting meal we enjoyed on an unseasonably chilly night.

Thank you, Sharon!

The Ingredients.

1 (16-ounce package) dry spaghetti noodles (maybe divided. Please read the entire recipe and decide for yourself how you'd like to proceed!) I used brown rice noodles from TJ's.
1-2 pounds turkey breast tenders, cut in small chunks
5 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 small onion, diced
1 (14.5-ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 (8-ounce) block cream cheese, chunked
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
2 cups chicken broth (check for gluten!)
salt to taste at the table

The Directions.

Use a 5-6 quart slow cooker, and spray the inside well with cooking spray.

What I did: I initially used a half-package of spaghetti noodles, and broke them in half, and laid them on the bottom of the stoneware. I then layered the other ingredients on top, in the order I typed up above. But! after cooking on low for 3 hours, I noticed that the noodles pretty much disappeared, so I cooked the remainder of the package on the stovetop in heavily salted water (super-heavily salted, the top of the container fell off!) until barely al dente, then stirred the drained pasta into the slow cooker.

I then cooked on low for only one more hour, then clicked it to warm for another 3. The turkey was fully cooked, the noodles were perfect, but the onion that I didn't cut fine enough had still a bit of a crunch.

The Verdict.

So. My dilemma is in deciding if it would have been better to put the entire package of pasta into the machine and then layer the ingredients in and cook on low for 3-5 hours (not high!) or if it is better to leave all the pasta out, and just cook it on the stove, then mix it in.
Or, do what I did.
I just don't know.

I do know that this worked, but it certainly wasn't a very hands-off meal. And we ate it, even the leftovers for lunch the next day (the onion was soft by then!)

other pasta dishes that work well:

traditional lasagna
buffalo chicken lasagna
macaroni and cheese
ziti

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