What A Crock

Deadline Extended!

2006-06-05T08:28:00.000-05:00

Because of construction in the Marmot household, we're extending the deadline for recipes. So you now have until June 30 to think up something brilliant. Or, at least steal something from your grandmother.

E-mail entries to me at amcsholtyATgmail.com.

CONTEST!

2006-05-17T08:47:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I know. I've been way too quiet here lately. I promise I've been doing REALLY important stuff like holding down a paying job and volunteer work. No, I'm not making that up.

But I decided it's your turn. I'm challenging all my local blogger friends to turn in their best Slow Cooker recipe. At a later date we'll have a party to taste all the entries. The winner will get a big fat blue ribbon and our undying admiration.

But hey, we'll get to have a party: The First Annual Blogger Crock Pot Competition.

All entries will be posted here on the site so our out of town visitors can try them out.

Please have your entries emailed to me by May 31, at which point I'll announce the party date.

Email your recipes to me at amcsholtyATgmail.com

Spaghetti Sauce

2006-04-21T09:59:00.000-05:00

We're all about ease and versatility here at What A Crock and Spaghetti Sauce is all about both of those things too. Not just for spaghetti noodles, the sauce can be used for ziti and lasagna as well. And, of course, the best way to make your sauce is right in the ol' slow cooker.

Amy's Favorite Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients:
1 28 oz can tomato sauce
2 15 oz cans diced tomatoes with basil and oregano
1 large can of tomato paste
1 pound ground beef, or Italian sausage browned
1 teaspoons freeze dried basil
1 teaspoon freeze dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Add tomato sauce, tomato paste and diced tomatoes to your slow cooker. Brown ground beef or sausage and add to the pot. If desired, you can also dice an onion and sautee to add to the mix. Cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or HIGH 3 to 4 hours. Add the basil and oregano during the last 15 minutes of cooking for peak flavor.

Serve with spaghetti noodles, crusty bread and a salad. This recipe will make a lot of sauce so you'll have enough to freeze for future use.

Enjoy!

Backyard Brats and Easy Chicken

2006-04-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

Spring time means grill time, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's time to put the slow cooker away. Nothing is better than a slow cooked brat that is then grilled to carmelize its outside.

Backyard Brats

Ingredients:
1 package of five, uncooked bratwurst
1 15 oz can of sauerkraut (I use Bush's Bavarian variety)
1 onion, sliced
1 bottle of light colored ale (I use Boulevard Brewing Pale Ale)

Instructions:
Put all the ingredients in your slow cooker and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours, or HIGH 3 to 4 hours. When finished, remove brats and brown them on your grill or in a hot skillet. Serve on hot dog buns with spicy mustard and the kraut, onion mixture.

For those days when you're just too bloody busy to think, nothing is better than a dish with ingredients that can just be tossed in and forgotten until dinnertime. We found the following recipe on About.com and dressed it up a bit.

Easy Crockpot Chicken With Noodles

Ingredients:
1 to 1 1/2 lbs. chicken, boneless breasts or thighs
1/4 cup white wine
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
A couple of sprigs fresh rosemary
Dash thyme
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup flour
12 oz. cooked noodles, prepared according to package directions
Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions:
Place chicken in crock pot. Mix wine and soup, add garlic and onion powder. Pour mixture over chicken and sprinkle with rosemary and thyme. Cover and cook on LOW 6 to 8 hours, or HIGH 3 to 4 hours. Before serving, mix sour cream with flour, stir mixture into chicken and juices. Heat for 30 minutes on LOW. Serve chicken and gravy with hot cooked noodles.

TIP: Use fresh herbs and fresh ground pepper for brightest flavor.

More Chicken in a Pot and Sweet and Sour Pork

2006-04-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the silence gang, we've been a bit under the weather.

Chicken in a Pot

John inspired us to mess around with the Chicken in a Pot dish as well. Again, this is one of those dishes that's great to throw together when you need to feed a crowd, want leftovers or are just feeling plain lazy. It's truly one you can just throw together.

The Marmot's Chicken in a Pot

Ingredients:

1 3 to 4 lb. whole chicken (preferably the kind that isn't full of yicky solution)
1 onion halved and sliced
2 carrots, sliced
2 ribs of celery sliced
3 to 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/2 cup white wine
2 tablespoons (roughly) fresh rosemary
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Arrange onions, garlic, celery and carrots in bottom of pot. Clean off chicken, making sure there aren't any pesky giblets lurking in the body cavity and place on top of vegetables. Pour white wine over chicken. Pluck rosemary leaves and drop over chicken, salt and pepper liberally. Cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or HIGH for 4 to 5 hours.

Sweet and Sour Pork

Granny sent us a Food Network recipe for Sweet and Sour Pork to try out and boy was it yummy. Not to mention, it was a great way to renew my tastebuds after my cold.

Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Pork
Copyright, 2005, Robin Miller, All rights reserved

Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 4 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:
3 cups cubed peeled potatoes (Idaho or Yukon gold)
1 cup chopped onion
3 pound pork roast, trimmed
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup water 1/2 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Salt

Directions:
Arrange potatoes and onion in bottom of slow cooker. Place pork on top of potatoes and onion. Spread garlic all over pork. In a medium bowl, whisk together water, ketchup, vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, mustard, black pepper and salt. Pour mixture over pork. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours. Slice pork crosswise into thin slices and serve 12 ounces for this meal. Serve with all of potatoes, onions, and sauce.

Episode#: RM0102 Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved

Tips, Review and Experiment

2006-03-25T15:38:00.000-06:00

Update!

We tried the Macaroni and Cheese experiment out and it turned out great. We'd love to hear if y'all try it and have similar results .

Tips

We can all agree that clean up is the worst part of any meal. You work hard to prepare an excellent meal, enjoy it and then face the dish carnage. As Alton Brown says, organization will set you free.

Do all of your prep work prior to starting any dish. Line your slow cooker with Reynolds handy liners. Once you've finished loading everything up into the pot, wash all of your prep dishes and any pans you've used to cook any ingredients that needed cooking.

All of those clean dishes mean much less work for you after dinner is over. Just toss that liner in the trash and wait for the slow cooker to cool down enough to put it away. Life is good.

Review

We tried a pasta and chickpea dish from CD Kitchen this week. The recipe is as follows:

Pasta Shells With Chickpeas

Ingredients:
28 oz. crushed tomatoes
19 oz. canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Italian herb seasoning
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
6 fresh basil leaves, finely snipped
12 oz. medium pasta shells, prepared according to package directions
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
Combine the tomatoes, chickpeas, garlic, sugar, seasoning, vinegar in an electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours to make the sauce. During the last hour, cook the shells separately, and drain them; keep warm. Stir the basil into the sauce and serve it over the pasta. Top each serving with the grated parmesan.

The dish was quite tasty and very easy. This is a great meal for those of you needing a meatless main dish for Fridays. My one quibble with it was the use of 19 oz. of chickpeas. Chickpeas are sold in cans of 15 or 28 oz, which means you wind up wasting some of your chickpeas. We aren't big on waste here. We suggest a salad with chickpeas as the garnish.

Experiment

Springfield Public Schools used to serve Macaroni and Cheese with Smokey Joes. There was something utterly comforting about that dish, even for school food. Rachel Ray makes a version of the dish with beer, mustard and ketchup involved that is also quite tasty.

The problem is, both are dishes that involve a lot of sauteeing, chopping and dirty dishes. Not only that, but they also tie up the oven. The rub there is we want to make a pie for dessert and need the oven.

What to do? Get creative and pull out the slow cooker. There are a number of good recipes for Macaroni and Cheese for the slow cooker, however most of them are very basic. The following is our version, dressed up with those extra goodies.

Amy's Mac -n- Cheese for the Crock Pot

Ingredients:

12 oz. package of macaroni prepared according to package directions(we use cavatapi because it holds onto the sauce best)
2 eggs, beaten
12 oz. can of evaporated milk
12 oz. of regular milk
16 oz. of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Splash of Pale Ale (or regular beer)
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
2 teaspoons ketchup
1 small onion, diced and sauteed in 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil
14 oz. Lil Smokies

Directions:
Let noodles cool slightly and then combine all ingredients in your slow cooker. Stir well. Cook 3 to 3 1/2 hours on LOW.

We'll let you know how this little experiment turns out!

Necessity and/or Boredom Are the Mother of Invention

2006-03-20T09:05:00.000-06:00

Just a note on the chicko dish ... since I am a chemist at heart, and lived in New Orleans for awhile ... I tend to add lots of other spices to my stuff... I did the chicken to a deep brown stir fry to caramalize it ... along with black pepper and cajun pepper to season .... and then in the pot I added a bunch of garlic (because I like garlic) the basil, some rosemary, thyme and some poultry seasoning (because I like sage too) ... it turned out great .... -John Stone

These are the comments I love to see...even if John did make fun of the grits. A recipe is only a guide, it isnt some set in stone code for how food gets prepared. Many of the recipes I find I tinker with heavily. Ill find an ingredient in the recipe either myself, or one of my family, doesnt like and look to substitute something else.

Take, for example, the following recipe I found on AllRecipes.com:

Slow Cooker Mediterranean Stew Submitted by: Lisa Bromfield
"A nice hearty stew that is wicked easy."
Original recipe yield: 10 servings.
Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Hours
Ready In: 10 Hours 30 Minutes
Servings: 10

INGREDIENTS: 1 butternut squash - peeled, seeded, and cubed 2 cups cubed eggplant, with peel 2 cups cubed zucchini 1 (10 ounce) package frozen okra, thawed 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce 1 cup chopped onion 1 ripe tomato, chopped 1 carrot, sliced thin 1/2 cup vegetable broth 1/3 cup raisins 1 clove garlic, chopped 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon paprika

DIRECTIONS: In a slow cooker, combine butternut squash, eggplant, zucchini, okra, tomato sauce, onion, tomato, carrot, broth, raisins, and garlic. Season with cumin, turmeric, red pepper, cinnamon, and paprika. Cover, and cook on Low for 8 to 10 hours, or until vegetables are tender.

Here's how I tinkered with this dish:

The spice ingredients at the end of the ingredients list put together make basic curry, and I love curry. I can add up those amounts and simply add in the equitable amount of curry and save myself a lot of measuring.
Further, in my opinion, thats not NEARLY enough curry. Ive changed the amount to a full tablespoon. Curry is a spice that goes stale within two months of purchase. When you purchase a jar, figure on making several curry dishes over that period of time so you get your moneys worth.

I also read the reviews of this recipe on AllRecipes.com. One of the biggest complaints was the dish got soggy and wasn't flavorful enough. I solved the flavor issue by adding a tablespoon of curry, but there was just no getting around the sogginess issue. The dish tasted fine, but the texture did leave something to be desired and this is likely one I'll not use again.

I was truly disappointed about this dish in that I was hoping to post a meatless main dish as I know some of you are in the midst of Lent and are looking for Friday meals. But fear not, I have a chick pea dish up my sleeve for later in the week and will post a review of that recipe. In the meantime, if any of you have some great meatless main dishes please share them, I love hearing from y'all.

Stretch Meal: Chicken In A Pot

2006-03-17T08:29:00.000-06:00

One of the most handy recipes that came in the Crock Pot instruction book is "Chicken In A Pot." The dish is easy to make, feeds a crowd or provides ample leftovers.

What? There are recipes in my Crock Pot instruction book?
Yep. And some of them are quite tasty.

But I LOST my instruction book?

Oh Good Christmas. Below is the recipe, along with a side dish recipe suggestion, AND a recipe for what to do with leftovers.

Chicken In A Pot (From the Rival Crock Pot Instruction Book)

2 carrots, sliced
2 onions sliced
2 stalks celery, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 whole broiler/fryer chicken, 3 to 4 lbs.
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup water, chicken broth or white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried basil

Put carrots, onion and celery in bottom of stoneware. Place whole chicken on top of vegetables. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and add liquid over top. Sprink basil over top. Cover and cook on LOW: 8 to 10 hours (HIGH: 3 1/2 to 5 hours, using 1 cup of water). Remove chicken and vegetables with spatula.

I like to serve this recipe with Smoked Gouda Cheese Grits as a side dish. I'm going to give you a recipe for two, but you can easily double or triple the amount.

Smoked Gouda Cheese Grits

6 tablespoons quick grits
1 cup water
1 cup milk
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons butter
3.5 oz. Smoked Gouda cheese, grated (Half a round of Baby Smoked Gouda sold in most supermarkets)

Bring water and milk to a boil and add grits and salt. Cover and cook for five to seven minutes. Stir in butter and cheese until both melt.

So you've finished dinner and you realize you've got a gross buttload of leftover chicken. That, my friends, is a happy thing. With your leftover chicken you can do a number of things, but being it's springtime, how about a recipe for Tropical Chicken Salad?

Tropical Chicken Salad

2 cups cooked chicken (I use white meat and if you want to make this when you've not made chicken in a pot, the canned chicken from the grocery works just as well.)
1/4 to 1/2 cup mayonaise
Half an onion, diced
2.5 oz. slivered almonds
1 small can of shredded pineapple, drained

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir to incorporate. Let sit in the refrigerator for at least two hours before serving. Serve on toasted multi-grain bread.

To quote Granny, YUM.

Crock O' Stuff

2006-03-12T10:12:00.000-06:00

Welcome to What A Crock! We celebrate the slow cooker here. In our busy lives, it's nice to come home to a slow cooked meal, even if we didn't have to go to much effort to make it. The aim of this site is to provide cooks with recipes and resources to use one of the most versatile tools in the kitchen.

The author of this site owns three slow cookers: two four quart cookers and a one quart cooker. The larger cookers are used for whole chickens, vats of chili and other large quantity dishes that can be made in advance and left-overs stored for the rest of the week. The smaller unit is useful for smaller meals or for making and keeping dips warm.

Each week, we'll post a recipe and any other useful information we've gleaned. Comments and suggestions are welcomed! This project isn't just the author's, it's for all of us who love our slow cookers.

Let's get crocking! Here's our first recipe:

Amy's Black Bean Chili

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef or ground turkey, browned and drained
1 onion diced and sauteed in meat drippings
4 to six cloves of garlic minced
1 28 oz. can tomato sauce
2 14 oz. cans Del Monte chili ready diced tomatoes
1 12 oz. bottle Heinz Chili Sauce
2/3 cup regular beer ( a light colored ale, don't use dark beer)
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons Tabasco Chipotle Sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine garlic, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chili sauce, beer, chili powder, cumin, chipotle sauce, salt and pepper in 3 to 4 qt. slow cooker. Brown meat and drain, reserving some of the fat in the pan to saute onions. Saute onions. Add meat to slow cooker with sauteed onions and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for 3 to 4 hours.

Serves 8.