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Hot Chili from a newbie
Hello, I noticed this community on one of my friend's journals and decided that it must be a wonderful place. I've been watching for a few days and snagging recipes, and seeing as I made my chili up tonight for the next few days' dinner I figure I'd share it with you.

2 lbs of lean ground beef browned and drained
1 large onion or two small coursely chopped or quartered and split
2 bell peppers (I used red and green, but yellow or orange are nice too) coarsely chopped.
1 jalapeno sliced, seeds in (because we like it hot)
If you like it really hot, add one hot banana (cubanelle) pepper too.
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 cans of tomato sauce
1 can of red kidney beans
1 bottle of Heinz Chili sauce
1/2 pound of white mushrooms sliced
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
Dried chili peppers to taste
2 tbsp of chili powder
1 tsp of onion powder
1 tsp of celery salt
Pepper to taste

Sometimes I throw in a can of kernel corn as well if there is one in the cupboard.

On medium or low all day (depending on what your "day" length is) and it's perfect, serve with texas toast, garlic bread, or dinner rolls. It's also nice over rice or nachos. This recipe has evolved in my house over the years because i was tired of chili that tasted like spaghetti sauce with kidney beans and chili powder. The flavour is hot and tangy, and it has a chunky consistency. In the crock pot the flavours soak through everything, and it's yummy. Enjoy!

I might emote, but I think the loudness would mayhaps be inappropriate for the public forum. Or polite conversation. So, I think I will avoid doing so. That is all.

yep.

bean soup UPDATE
wanted to have some soup tomorrow... so:

i bag of 16 bean mix from the grocery store
1 chopped onion
2 potatoes chopped
1 portabella mushroom, sliced
3 (more like 2) carrots
4 bouilion cubes (chicken)

wash beans
throw it all in a pot
we will see how it urns out tomorrow, but i PLAN to serve it with some steamed spinach and some noodles or something.....

yes, its lacking in spices right now.
i prefer my soups BLAND so i can season them up to go with different stuff ....
after all, if i am going to serve it over rice, with cheese? different seasoning than by itself in a bowl
however i am almost certain to toss some small amount of seasoning in before morning.

EDiT: yes, most people would add garlic, sadly i am allergic to it.
Vegan? this could easily be vegan with more vegetables and without the chicken bouillion

UPDATE: as of his morning its thick, dark brown, and smells great. i actually think i will have some plain in a bowl for breakfast (peas porridge hot...) and possibly an added bunch of greens.

my sniff and nibble test says that for plain soup, no cheese or other stuff, i want to add a pepper mix (probably Mrs Dash) and a bit of paprika.

This is going to be removed from the crock pot and put in containers in the fridge as a "quick food base" for the next few days.... it will mostly be used as a side dish, or an ingredient, but its nice to know i have some on hand to heat up fast as plain soup.

Santa Fe Chicken
I made this for dinner tonight, along with some white rice and sour cream. It turned out wonderfully, so I figured I would share. I'll definitely be making it again!

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken
Courtesy Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes

Serves 8 / Points: 4.25 ww points

* 24 oz (1 1/2) lbs chicken breast
* 14.4 oz can diced tomatoes with mild green chile peppers
* 15 oz can black beans
* 8 oz frozen corn (I used canned, it worked just as well)
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
* 14.4 oz can fat free chicken broth
* 3 scallions, chopped
* 1 tsp garlic powder (I added extra before serving)
* 1 tsp onion powder (I added extra before serving)
* 1 tsp cumin
* 1 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)
* salt to taste

Combine chicken broth, beans, corn, tomatoes, cilantro, scallions, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, cayenne pepper and salt in the crock pot. Season chicken breast with salt and lay on top. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Adjust salt and seasoning. Serve over rice (extra pts).

I added some shredded sharp cheddar to each serving, along with a blob of sour cream. Yum! If you're not a rice fan, this would also go well with warmed tortillas, or on top of a baked potato. Taste-wise, it's a lot like chicken tortilla soup, but more hearty. Enjoy!

Pain Perdu
Does anyone have a tried and true recipe for a really custardy pain perdu? I had a craving for it last night & made some baked french toast, but it didn't come out right. The leftovers are rock hard & I have them soaking in milk.
I usually think of regular french toast as something really yummy when it's hot, but that I choke on when it starts to cool & get tough. Is thicker bread the secret? I thought it might come out better if I did it in the crockpot.

Lots of Rice?
I love this community -- you've given me some seriously great advice. So now that my Mother has a question I can't answer, I'm passing it on to you: can we do a big batch of rice in a crock pot? We're going to be doing chinese food for about nine people, so we figure we need 9-10 cups of cooked rice. We're really not up for buying a rice cooker (since it would be used only about once every two years, and there is no more space in the cupboards for rarely used appliances), but we've got options when it comes to crocks (2, 4, or 6 qts); we'd even be happy enough to make it on the stove and store it in the crock to keep warm, if that's the only way to do this. I know it's possible to do smaller quantities of rice this way, but I haven't seen anyone post about doing so much, and I'm a little worried about how long before dinner we'll need to put it in.

( The rest of the proposed menu is under here for the curious... )

Boneless Pork Loin Center Cut Roast in my freezer... Recipe??
Looking for a crock pot recipe for the above item in my freezer. Although I think something with sweet potatoes or apples or fruit glazes would be good... my husband is not in the mood for a recipe with any sweet/sugary stuff. So please share any non-sweet recipe you have!

Crock pot chicken experiment
I made chicken in the crock for dinner tonight - my son's request for his birthday dinner. I did my usual thing - put some cut up carrots and onions in the crock and set a whole chicken on top. But I thought it seemed a bit boring - same old, same old, you know. So I cut up an apple, stuffed half of it inside the chicken (it was a BIG apple) and put the rest around it. (This turned out to be a VERY good idea because when stuffing the apple into the chicken, I discovered I'd forgotten to take out the giblet package... OOPS!)

Then I rubbed the chicken with some lemon juice and a bit of olive oil, and then I sprinkled paprika liberally over the whole thing. I added a cup or so of water and a chicken stock cube (since I'm temporarily out of homemade) and cooked on low for about 8 hours or so.

I served it with a salad, noodles, and crusty french bread. Somehow the apple and lemon juice really perked up the chicken. And the paprika gave the skin a nice reddish brown color and some extra flavor. My husband said the chicken tasted even nicer than usual, and my mom-in-law (who isn't really a huge chicken lover) even had seconds! In fact, there is very little in the way of leftovers (which is both good and bad - I was rather counting on having enough leftover chicken and noodles to make a casserole for dinner tomorrow, darn it!)

thedivinerpg is a brand new panfandom RPG with a twist you've never seen before. We just opened this November 1st and we are looking for a cast of characters from the Moulin Rouge fandom to come join us for some otherworldly fun.

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[If this sort of post isn't welcome here I completely understand, just politely let me know and I'll be more than happy to take down the post. :D]

Angeles Crest Highway is still closed from the Station Fire. That kinda bums me out. So, my drive this weekend was Mulholland again. *shrug*

Italian Beef Sandwiches
Italian Beef (slightly adapted from a recipe found online)

Ingredients:
3 c water
1 t black pepper
1 t oregano
1 t dried basil
1 t onion salt (this is the only salt I used in this recipe)
1 t dried parsley
1 t garlic powder
1 bay leaf
1 (.7 oz) pkg dry Italian salad dressing mix
1 3-to-4# rump roast (I used a sirloin tip roast)
Italian sub rolls

Will make 6-8 servings.

Combine water, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, onion salt, parsley, garlic powder, bay leaf and salad dressing mix in a saucepan. Stir well and bring to a boil.

Place roast in crock pot, and pour mixture over roast.

Cover and cook on LOW for 12 hours (I went 13 hours). Remove bay leaf and shred meat. Turn off crock pot, recover and let stand for 1 hour. Serve Italian beef on Italian sub rolls and top with sauteed peppers if desired. Use the Au Jus as you wish: dip the sub, soak the sub, spoon some onto the sub, or eat the sandwich 'dry'.

Yum.

Not the most healthy of dishes, but I cooked mine overnight, refrigerated it in the morning, so when I got home from work, the fat had all hardened on the top and I was able to remove almost all of it. Plus I added no salt beyond the onion salt and what may have been in the Italian dressing mix, to help keep the sodium levels down.

It was pretty tasty. The Italian dressing mix gave it a kick other It. beef recipes I've tried didn't have.

pineapple jam followup
Okay.

I put
3 chunked pinapples
1 lemons (sliced with the skin)
1 epic fuckton of sugar (like 3 cups?)

on low at about 11 last night.

I check now, at about 8 am (9 hrs later) and it's definitely starting to liquefy. there are a lot of dessicated looking chunks floating on the surface, and underneath that is a thin, brown syrup of tartly sweet nectar. At this point I added:

a few shakes of ginger
1 1/2 cups sugar
and some chopped pineapple mint

It's now chilling for what I imagine will be about 7 hrs.

Questions for the comm:
1. Should I add pectin? I'm okay with it not being the jelliest of jams, but wasn't sure if pectin speed the process along.

2. How much longer will this take? There's definitely still a lot of mass in the crock -- my understanding is that jamming in the crock involved a LOT of reduction... is it done done when it looks less "full"?

3. Should I make a vent or something to let the steam escape? Maybe that's why it's still so liquidy.

Recipe modification suggestion
Last weekend I made ~~crack~~crock pot jambalaya. This is my 2nd or 3rd time making it, and each time has been a little different. The recipe calls for 1lb of boneless skinless chicken breast, 1lb of andouille sausage, and 1lb of cooked and peeled shrimp (added at the end, obviously). The first time I made it, I didn't like how the shrimp made the leftovers taste (I'm not a big fan of fish, but love shrimp, but the taste about ruined the leftovers for me). I'm also learning that I'm not a big fan of andouille sausage. SO, this time, when I made it, I used the chicken, smoked turkey sausage (similar to kielbasa), and sweet italian sausage. It turned out really good, but the chicken breast came out incredibly dry.

My thought, and I'm hoping to get some justification here, is that next time, I'll use chicken thighs because there's a bit more fat in it, and would dry out less. Am I right in this thinking?

Pork Stew With Apple Juice
Pork Stew with Apple Juice

2 pounds lean pork shoulder, cut in 1-inch cubes
2 to 3 cups cubed potatoes, about 2 1/2 to 3 pounds
2 large carrots, sliced about 1/2-inch thick
1 cup coarsely chopped onions
1 large tart apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
2 cups apple juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.
Cover and cook on LOW heat for 9 to 11 hours, or on HIGH for 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours.
Serves 6 to 8.

Crock Pot philosophy?
Hello, I'm a relative newbie to slow-cooker cooking, but so far, so good, and I think this is a great community. After work today, I'm looking forward to coming home and being greeted by an 8-hour-on-low chicken-veggie soup. :)

Does it seem like it defeats the spirit of slow-cooker "set it and forget it" cooking by having recipes that ask you to put what you're cooking on "high" for 3-4 hrs, then do something to it, then come back and set it on "low"? I thought the whole point was not to have middle steps?

Also, speaking of "high" and "low" settings, is the "low" setting ever unsafe, food-bacteria-wise? I've only ever used "low" so far in my limited experience, and haven't had any problems, but I was just wondering. Are there set instances/certain recipes/certain foods that would require a higher temperature setting?

Thanks in advance! :)

"'It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.'"

Malachi Constant in Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan

I went to bed last night at 11:15. I thought I was tired enough. Oh, was I wrong. Woke up again at 1:45. Then again at 5 am. Then again with my alarm, which I then pressed snooze on 3 times because I was finally tired. Gar.

Today I screwed up a little on a deferred compensation issue. Damnit. I don't like it when I screw up. It makes me want to hand responsibility back and go back to just pulling research and writing, rather than having the responsibility of communicating. I am, after all, a second year associate doing work that would normally fall on, I don't know, at least a 15 year attorney. In 13 years I might just be a badass, but right now I'm still learning, and it's a pain.

Blargh.

My shoulders hurt again. Massage please?

Converting recipe: Chicken in sour cream
Any tips for whether it would be possible to make this recipe in the slow cooker, and how long I would cook it for?

( Recipe transcribed behind the cut )

Carmellized Onions and Lingua in the Crockpot
First of all, I have to thank

kestrel127 for her awesome carmellized onions recipe, it worked beautifully, and I followed your advice and divided the onions in a silicone cupcake pan and froze them for individual onion cubes.

Over the weekend I made a beef tongue for tacos in the crockpot. I HIGHLY recommend this. My tongue was frozen, so it took a really long time, it was in the crockpot for about two days. All I did was put the tongue in with enough water to cover, and a ton of garlic and onion powder. I left it on the "keep warm" function, because as I understand, you don't want tongue to boil before you have it peeled and sliced. My keep warm function keeps it at a food safe temperature, so I wasn't worried about food safety. I left it in overnight, then all day. The next night (after about 24 hours) I peeled the tongue and sliced it up very thinly and put it back in the crockpot on warm overnight. The next day I shredded it up and seasoned it with the stuff from a chili kit, and put it on low for another 8 hours. It was meltingly tender, and very very delicious. This was my first time eating tongue, and I was kind of squicked while eating it (I have a thing about offal) but it was truly very good.

Nifty Crock Tricks
This isn't really a recipe, more a tip. One thing I love is chicken casserole. And one thing I hate is shredding chicken. Problem solved! Last night I put the raw chicken breasts in the Crock, put on the lid and stowed it in the fridge. This morning, added water to cover and put it on low for 8 hours. Viola! The breasts were fall apart tender. Easy, peasy mac and cheesy ... err ... chicken casseroley!

Current Mood: accomplished

First Post!

This is my first post here, and I don't have much to say other than I made General Tso's chicken in the crockpot this morning. I used a packet of flavoring (I'm a grad student, what can I say!) and added some flour, some soy sauce, veggies, a little bit of oil and of course, cubed chicken. The meal turned out great, but it cooked much faster than I anticipated. Without being home to constantly stir it, there are a few crunchy chunks of flour that were never quite dissolved... and the sauce thickened up too much for my taste, but other than that it was really delicious.

The packet instructions required some frying and mixing, but I just skipped all those steps and threw the ingredients in the crock pot., because I really do believe you can make anything in the crockpot. Actually, I've always sort of imagined my crock pot much like the futuristic microwave thing in the Fifth Element, that Leeloo pulls a whole turkey out of, after just throwing some powder into a bowl and pushing a button. REALLY! Next time I make this, I won't let it cook so long, and I'll post a picture.

I also just wanted to say that this community is great! I joined after being bored at work (no one comes to the library during Nebraska Football games!) and doing a search for 'crock pots'. This community is just such an inspiration! So far I've made the applesauce, and the "Vegetarian curing sweet and sour brisket "(I made it with meatballs instead). Really, its nice to know there are people out there as OBSESSED with crock pots as I am.

I went to the Penguins vs Ducks game last night. It was awesome. Em and Rafi got us great seats. It sucks that Em wasn't able to make it, but I'm glad Eleanor could come. Definitely a good time.

Work is busy again. Even leaving early yesterday billed almost 8 hours, and today's busy again. Calls and meetings all day long.

In other news, I'm thinking about getting disability insurance (in exchange for $100 a month, if I get damaged so I can't work, they pay me $50k a year until forever). The weird part is that they want to have a doctor look at me first. Seems like standard operating procedure in ways, but still a bit odd. Anyone have experience with that? I didn't have to do it for my life insurance, but that's through work anyway. *shrug* I guess that's part of growing up or something--having to start going to the doctor.

That's all for now. Time for more work and another meeting, then another phone call, then more writing and more phone calls.

RIP crockpot
( we hardly knew ye )

Current Mood: cranky

I have a large (6 qt I believe) crock that has been one of my favorite kitchen accessories for years. I recently read on this community that it is safe to set a pyrex baking dish inside the crock to cook smaller amounts, and was excited to try it out since I'm often only cooking for 2. I tried once last week, and it worked wonderfully. Yesterday I tried again, using the very same pyrex dish inside my crock. When my dinner was done, I found that the pyrex dish was stuck inside my crock! I'm not sure how this happened. I've tried prying it out, and there is just enough room under the dish to get my fingers underneath to try lifting it out, but it will not budge. Has this happened to anyone else? Any ideas on how to get this dish out of my crock? I rely heavily on the convenience of crock pot cooking, and can't afford to buy a new one right now!

*EDIT* All fixed! Heated the crock up for about 10 minutes and was able to pry out the pyrex dish. Thanks for the help, you guys are great!

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