Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

I’d be lying if I didn’t say the past two weeks have been a bit of a challenge. It all started out with me taking a spill while ice skating with my daughter. I truly thought I just jammed my shoulder, but an x-ray two days later confirmed a break. Broke the neck of the humerus clean through, I did. The next day, my husband went in for hernia surgery (a double!) then a week after that Mohs surgery to remove cancer from his nose. Thank God for generous friends to donate their time (and cooking!) while we got back on our feet, so to speak.

I’m just in a sling (no surgery required) but I’m basically one-armed (again). Once I felt stable enough to heft out the crock pot with one hand, I was able to throw this meal together. Many thanks to my friend Mollie at The Frugal Hausfrau for the inspiration! Since I have no ability to chop anything fresh, much of this came from cans or frozen bags, but feel free to substitute with fresh. The Trader Joe’s potatoes were seasoned with oregano and thyme, so if you add fresh potatoes, add in about a 1/2 teaspoon of each of those with them.

Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

1 pound boneless skinless chicken (breast or thighs)
1 14.5 ounce can stewed tomatoes with liquid
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with liquid
1 cup frozen lima beans
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 cup frozen roasted potatoes with bell pepper and onion (I used Trader Joe’s)
2 cups homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 or 4 shakes Tobasco sauce
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons spicy barbecue sauce (I used Stubb’s Spicy)

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker, and stir to combine. Cook on low 8 hours or high 4 to 6, depending on your cooker. When done, shred chicken with a fork in the pot, then serve.

p.s. This is my third fracture of the body in as many years. My friends are recommending a body bubble wrap. 😉

p.s.s. We are headed to Austin and thereabouts for a 10-day vacation for a visit with family and friends, and heading smack dab into South by Southwest (SXSW), the county’s largest film and music festival. What better way to spend time while recuperating?

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Soup/Stew Recipes for the Winter!

I know, I know, I missed a weekend post. I went back to work full-time on Thursday after my 4-week physical therapy stint, then wanted to get Christmas up over the weekend! So my house is fully-decorated now, and got to enjoy setting it up with snow-flurries on the outside and Christmas music on my iPhone to put me in the mood.

Another thing that puts me in the winter/holiday mood is lots of big bowls of steaming, comforting soup or stew. Following is a compilation of some of those over the years. Click on the link above the photo for the recipe and a handy dandy printable PDF! Enjoy!

Classic French Onion Soup

Classic French Onion Soup

Turkey, Lentil, and Mixed Brown Rice Soup

Turkey Lentil and Mixed Brown Rice Soup

Chicken Dumpling Casserole

Chicken Dumpling Casserole

White Bean and Sausage Crock Pot Soup

White Bean and Sausage Crock Pot Soup

Chicken Chile Verde Posole

Chicken Chile Verde Posole

Broccoli Cheddar Soup with Crab

Broccoli Cheddar Soup with Crab

One-Pot Lasagna Soup

One-Pot Lasagna Soup

Turkey Posole

Turkey Chipotle Posole

Chicken Fideo Soup (Mexican Chicken Noodle Soup)

Chicken Fideo Soup

Potato, Leek, and Broccoli Soup with Pancetta Bread Crumbs

Potato Leek and Broccoli Soup with Pancetta Bread Crumbs

Bloody Mary Beef Stew

Bloody Mary Beef Stew

 

White Bean and Sausage Crock Pot Soup

White Bean and Sausage Crock Pot Soup

I made this soup a few weeks ago when the weather was dreadful and snowy. Then spring leapt out of nowhere and trees and flowers began budding and birds were singing their little hearts out. But alas, winter appears to be keeping its grip as a cold front will make it’s way down this week. We can only hope the fragile buds and flowers will hang on through it.

If it’s still a bit chilly in your neck of the woods, here’s a warming, hearty soup to tide you over until spring hits your area.

White Bean and Sausage Crock Pot Soup

2 cups dried Navy Beans, soaked overnight (or 2 cans white beans)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 cup chopped carrots
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
Pinch of dried thyme, crushed
1 teaspoon dried parsley
5 cups homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes, or 12 cherry tomatoes
7 ounces Turkey Sausage (1/2 link), sliced
Shredded Parmesan cheese, for serving

Drain and rinse the beans (either dried or canned) and add to the slow cooker. Toss everything else except the cheese into the pot, then set on low for 8 to 10 hours or high on 5-6 hours, That’s it! Serve with shredded Parmesan cheese, and crusty bread.

White Bean and Sausage Crock Pot Soup

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Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

I don’t have any prep photos of this recipe, because I was almost certain we would be ordering pizza after we tasted this. I couldn’t be MORE WRONG! It was simply amazing!! I was so astounded that I did snap a shot of my bowl of it (sans the flour tortilla for dipping, because I was still so non-plussed how great this tasted.) Then for grins I took a shot of my hubby’s interpretation of how this should be eaten.

I was going through the freezer and found a half a tube of Mexican ground chorizo sausage and decided to do something with it.  I also had two gallon bags of frozen tomatoes from our last harvest and I had to use at least SOME of them soon. I had made brined pork chops the night before, which were a total failure, I tell you. Hardly anyone touched the pork, so you won’t get any info on that except for my brining shot of it, sigh. I will not make THAT recipe again. Kitchn website, you failed me this time…

Here I am brining pork, all fanchy schmancy. Little did I know….

I threw caution to the wind, and stuck the frozen chorizo, peeled frozen tomatoes, and almost a pound of the failed pork (cut up) into the crock pot, thinking if I just cook the hell out of something it might be decent. In went some chicken broth, potatoes, onions, spices and such. Just whatever sounded good. Then covered it up and cooked it all day long, hoping it wouldn’t be a last-minute pizza night.

I almost feel like I painted a masterpiece with this. Almost. This was INCREDIBLY delicious! My daughter and I couldn’t stop warming up more tortillas to slop up every last morsel of goodness. We also stirred in some cheddar cheese into the bowls, for garnish. My husband, on the other hand, made rolled up cheese quesadillas/burrito type things, stuck some of the mixture inside, and then slathered them over with more stew and mounds of sour cream. Mounds, I tell you. A little odd, but I let him do it. It’s his mouth.

Rolled Quesadillas with Chorizo Stew ~ or something like that. I really don’t know what to call this.

You may adapt however you like, because it’s not like I followed any semblance of a recipe to start with. (p.s. it is the ground chorizo that makes this recipe and sets it apart from my other Carne Guisada recipe, so at least don’t skip that ingredient!)

Hints: Whenever a recipe calls for a small amount of tomato paste or chipotle chiles, I freeze the rest (labeled) for later use. Just nuke for a tad and take what you need and refreeze. Yes, I got mine out of the freezer for this.

Now on to the (sort of) recipe!

Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

Chorizo-Based Carne Guisada

1 pound of pork, cooked or uncooked, cut into small pieces
7 ounces ground Mexican pork chorizo, uncooked
2 cups diced tomatoes, frozen, from a can, fresh, whatever
1 medium potato, any kind, unpeeled, washed and diced
1/2 cup chicken broth, homemade or low-sodium, or water
1/2 cup chopped onion, any kind (I used red)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon of sauce from a can of Adobo Chipotle peppers
Juice from 1/2 small lime (maybe a couple of teaspoons?)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon Ancho chile powder (or any other kind)
Large pinch of cumin powder
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
Handful of fresh cilantro, chopped (plus more for garnish if you want)
Warmed flour tortilla, for slopping up
Grated cheddar cheese, for garnish
Mounds of sour cream, for garnish (or not)

Prep your pork and veggies and such, throw them all in a crock pot, give it a good stir to mix, and cook on low about 8 to 10 hours or high on 4 to 6 hours. Give it another good stir at the end. That’s it! Serve with garnishes. Easy, huh?

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Incredible Carne Guisada!

This is a reblog from a couple of years ago, but it is definitely one worth sharing again. (Plus it gave me a chance to add the handy-dandy printable PDF of the recipe at the bottom.) I assembled the ingredients early this morning before heading out to watch Sunday morning football and have some grub at a local sports bar. The house is smelling wonderful and I can’t wait to dig into it later this evening. I hope all my readers had a wonderful Christmas and will have a safe and enjoyable New Year!

Incredible Carne Guisada

This dish is SERIOUSLY amazing!!! Using a subjective adjective in my blog title along with an exclamation point already breaks a couple of my self-imposed posting rules. And there I just broke two more with capital letters and a triple exclamation point in the first sentence. But I can’t help it. This Carne Guisada is Just. That. Good. We are talking lick your bowl good. We are talking Get Outta Here that good. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this!

So now that I got all that off my chest, it’s time to start talking about the dish itself. I wanted Mexican food the other day, but wanted something different — something I’d never made before. So I went to my near and dear cookbook The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain, who always draws me into her recipes with her stories and photos that make everything in there look so gosh-darned good. This particular recipe caught my eye, and is the basis for what I ended up with. It’s a stew-like dish, served with soft tortillas, or you can dip into it with tortilla chips like an appetizer. I mixed it up quite a bit from hers but she provided me the foundation from which to build on. That sounded very scholarly. The recipe and food is not, I guarantee! I really wish I had doubled this batch, because there was not near enough leftover for my liking. I wanted more, more, more the next day for my lunch.

Carne Guisada
Adapted from Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan

1 1/2 pounds cut of beef roast or steak, any kind, cut into 1-inch cubes
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
Flour to dust over beef, about a tablespoon or so
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half a yellow and half a red)
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded and diced small
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, any kind, chopped
1 bay leaf
Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dark beer, or sub with more chicken broth
Flour tortillas, warmed before serving
More cilantro, for serving

Hot and Mild Peppers and Onions

I had a rather large, lonely New York Sirloin steak in the freezer, which I deboned to get a pound of meat, and a meager 1/2 pound of boneless beef ribs in the freezer, so used those too. The recipe called for beef chuck or bottom round, but it’s all beef and you cook the heck out of it so the cut is unimportant. Season the beef cubes with Mrs. Dash (or salt) and pepper, then lightly dust all around with flour. Heat the oil in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet to medium-high heat, then add the beef, in batches. You don’t want to crowd it or it won’t brown properly. Cook until it’s browned on all sides. Transfer each batch to a crock pot and set on high heat. Reduce the skillet heat to medium and add the chopped onions, peppers, garlic and spices. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, just a few minutes or so, as you don’t want to burn it. Add a skosh more oil, if needed.

Carne Guisada Ready for Liquids

Now add the mixture to the beef in the crock pot, then the tomatoes, potatoes (adding some potato was pretty outlandish, but hey, it worked!), bay leaf, and chopped cilantro. Pour in the chicken broth and beer, if using. The darkest beer I had in the house at the time was an amber ale, but you can sub with chicken broth if you don’t have any. (Yes, I did drink the rest of the beer bottle. Waste not, want not!) Cover and cook on high for three or four hours, then reduce to low for a couple of more hours, or until ready to eat. If you started this prep earlier in the day, then you can cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The longer the better. When it’s time to eat, warm up those tortillas in a hot skillet, add a mess of the Carne Guisada to a bowl, then start digging in, slathering and slopping up all the yummy juices with the tortillas. You won’t be disappointed. And of course go back for seconds and thirds. I did.

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Carne Guisada

Braised Pork & Cider Stew

Braised Pork and Cider Stew

This is usually cooked in an oven-proof Dutch oven started on the stove, then placed in the oven for a couple of hours, but mine is still in storage. So I did the next best thing and used the crock pot! Yes, it is slow cooker season. I made this the past weekend, but only just now getting around to posting it.

I really enjoyed the tartness of the cider and it added an entire new level of taste to your standard braised stew. My daughter really liked this, and the husband said he enjoyed the different taste of the stew, then suddenly announced that he no longer likes pork anymore. What??? I think it has to do with the quarter side of beef we just stocked up in our chest freezer. Nonetheless, I’m sticking with this recipe, as I do like the variation from your standard beef stew. The rubbed sage with the apple cider is a winner! Trust me, it is delicious!

Braised Pork & Cider Stew

1.25 pounds pork loin
Ground black pepper, to taste
Mrs. Dash seasoning, or salt, to taste
Flour, for dusting
3 tablespoons olive or grapeseed oil, divided
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
2 sticks of celery, rough chopped
1/2 large sweet onion, rough chopped
8 to 10 baby carrots
1/2 teaspoon rubbed dried sage
1 pint homemade jarred tomatoes, or 1 can diced
2 cups apple cider

Prepping the Pork Loin

Generously season the pork loin with pepper and Mrs. Dash, or salt. Cut the pork into bite-sized pieces, then dust with flour.

Searing the Pork in Batches

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add two tablespoons of the oil. Sear the pork (in batches if needed) until browned on all sides. Remove and add to the crock pot.

Prepping/Sauteing the Veggies

Add one more tablespoon of oil to the skillet, then add all the chopped veggies. Sprinkle with the rubbed sage and additional ground black pepper. Cook the vegetables for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove and add to the crock pot.

Stew in the Crock Pot Ready to Cook

Now add the tomatoes (crushing if jarred) and apple cider to the crock pot and stir all the ingredients to combine. Cook for low on 8 to 10 hours, or on high for 4 to 6 hours. Serve with a thick crusty bread for mopping up all the wonderful juices!

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Crock Pot Creamy Navy Bean and Ham Soup

Crock Pot Creamy Navy Bean and Ham Soup

We are in the stages of meltdown after a long, cold, and snowy week. Nothing on the scale of the Great Lake Effect snowstorm in New York, but we had enough snow, ice, and snow, thank you very much. What better way to soothe your cold bones than a nice, big bowl of creamy navy bean soup?

I’ve made huge batches of this soup before using a large ham bone, but this version is scaled down. To lend to the creamy factor, I roughly chopped all the veggies in my Ninja food processor. If you have good memory, I used to have a gray one. I now own a red one because the “dishwasher safe” base on my gray one warped from being washed on the bottom rack of the dishwasher, apparently too close to the heating element. I now hand wash my Ninja. I recommend the same if you own one.

I used homemade ham broth for this recipe, as my husband cooked up a large batch of it before our transition to our temporary home. If you don’t have any ham broth, low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth will work just as well, although you may have to taste for the addition of salt.

Crock Pot Creamy Navy Bean and Ham Soup

1 pound dried navy beans
1/2 medium onion
6-8 baby carrots
2 stalks celery
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
Ground black pepper, to taste
Salt to taste, if needed
4 to 5 cups ham broth
1 to 2 cups diced cooked ham
About 1 cup diced tomatoes

Rinse and sort the dried navy beans, then soak overnight in a pot covered an inch over with water.  The next day, reserve 4 cups of the soaked navy beans, and freeze the rest of the beans in a resealable freezer bag for future use. Add the beans to a 3-quart crock pot.

Soaked Beans with the Holy Trinity2

Add the onion, carrots and celery to a food processor, and pulse several times until roughly chopped. (I had to do this in batches.) Scrape the veggies into the crock pot, then add the garlic, seasonings, ham broth, and ham. Cook on low 8 to 10 hours or on high 4 to 5 hours.

Assembled Soup Ready to Cook

About an hour before serving, remove about two cups of the beans and vegetables and puree until smooth in a food processor or blender, then return to the crock pot.

Pureed Soup in my RED Ninja!

Now add the diced tomatoes and cook for the last hour until ready to serve. (I almost forgot this step and took my final photo before adding the tomatoes! I thawed, peeled and chopped some of my tomatoes from the freezer.) Mmmm, mmm, good!

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Crock Pot Asian Beef Stew

Crock Pot Asian Beef Stew

I had every intention of adding some mint and Thai basil to this close to the end, but got busy with work, and next thing you know I’m taking photos with a hungry family in waiting and even forgot to use it as garnish. But nonetheless, it was very tasty and just enough spice and seasonings to make this a great twist on your average slow cooker beef stew. Oh, and I also forgot the minced ginger in the sauce, dang it! I’m sure it would have been a nice addition.

You can throw this together in no time, and have it in the slow cooker in less than 1o minutes, then forget about it the rest of the day! (OK maybe you’ll have to think about it if you want to add some fresh herbs at the end, oh, and cook the rice…)

Asian Beef Stew Ingredients Ready to Cook

Crock Pot Asian Beef Stew

1 pound chuck roast (or other beef cut)
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup homemade or low-sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon Sambal Oelek (Thai chili paste)
1 teaspoon minced ginger (FORGOT!)
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 to 1 red bell pepper, chopped
Baby carrots (enough for each serving)
Cooked rice, for serving
Fresh mint, Thai basil, or cilantro, for garnish (FORGOT!)

Crock Pot Asian Beef Stew with Side of Edamame

Season the beef with ground black pepper and place in bottom of a 3-quart crock pot. In a 2-cup measuring cup (or bowl), mix the beef broth, Hoisin suace, soy sauce, Thai chili paste, ginger (if you remember) and set aside. Chop up the onions and peppers and add them to the slow cooker along with the baby carrots. Pour the sauce over everything and cook on low 8 to 10 hours or on high 4 to 6 hours. Serve with cooked rice (we cooked ours in beef broth for more flavor), and a vegetable of choice. We served with steamed edamame pods.

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Fuss-Free Spicy Pork and Kale in a Crock Pot

Spicy Pork and Kale

I had a few pieces of frozen pork that had to be used stat, as they were starting to look slightly freezer-burnt around the edges. Then I had this HUGE bunch of organic kale I picked up the other day, for reasons still unknown to me this day. I must have had something in mind, but it never came back to me. Armed with those two ingredients, I thought about making my Spicy Pork and Kale Soup, but decided I needed to try out something new. After countless interwebz searches, I finally settled on a combination of flavors I thought would work together.

Kale Bunch

About halfway through the cooking time my daughter said the kitchen smelled really good, so I was hopeful! And thankfully, it turned out delicious! It was spicy, tangy, filling, and made for a great meal for the fam after we spent a good part of the day cleaning out our junk room to make into a bedroom for a foreign exchange student we are hosting in February. (As well as painting my daughter’s bedroom a new color, which I had no part in. That was a father-daughter project for the day.) We served this over a bed of brown rice sided with thick slices of French Bread to sop up the juices. Yummy!

Spicy Pork and Kale Ready to Cook

Spicy Pork and Kale in a Crock Pot

1 1/2 pounds thick boneless pork loin chops
Sweet Hungarian paprika
Ground black pepper
1 large bunch of kale
2 pints homemade canned tomatoes and liquid, chopped, or two cans of diced low-sodium tomatoes, with liquid
2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Cooked brown or white rice, for serving

Season the pork generously with paprika and black pepper. Add to a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker. Tear the kale off the stems into bite-size pieces and add to the crock pot. It fills up almost the entire crock pot, but don’t worry, it all cooks down. For my homemade pints of tomatoes, I just used a knife to chop them up straight in the jar. Pour the chopped or canned diced tomatoes over all, then sprinkle the Balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and crushed red pepper flakes over the kale.

Cook on high 4 to 6 hours or on low 8 to 10 hours. When ready to serve, shred the pork with two forks in the crock pot and give it a good stir. Serve over cooked brown or white rice, with bread for sopping up the juices. Minimal ingredients, fuss-free, huge taste!

Spicy Pork and Kale

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French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese

French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese

First off, Happy New Year 2014! Here I am in my third year of food blogging, and loving it! Yes, I soaked my Black-Eyed Peas last night, and will be cooking them up today for dinner. I cannot start out the New Year without a big mess o’ black-eyed peas. But my recipe today is the classic take on French Onion Soup, with a couple of changes. For one, I didn’t have any Gruyere cheese, but I did have a big hunk of Brie cheese. I had a slight “argument” the other night with a friend of mine who said you can’t shred Brie cheese as it’s too soft, but I have pictures as proof! You just need to have it chilled really good.

Grated Brie Cheese ~ See, You Can Really Grate Brie Cheese!

The other change I made was to simmer it in my Crock Pot instead of over the stove, because, I’m all about easy! There are a few things I would change about this recipe next time I make it. For one, I would use ALL beef broth instead of a combination of chicken and beef broth. I think I would prefer the richness of all beef broth. Next, I would use a really dry wine instead of the sweet white wine I used (because that is all I had at the time). The caramelization of the onions already adds sweetness, and the sweet white made it a tad too sweet for me. I tempered that by adding some salt to my bowl and topping with some Parmesan cheese in addition to the Brie.

Next time I’d also splurge on some Gruyere cheese. The Brie was nice, but a bit too mellow. And last, the recipe I based this on said to use four to six medium onions. After four onions I deemed I had enough, but I really think I should have used five and maybe even six instead. But still, all in all a decent recipe, and I loved using the oven to caramelize the onions instead of sweating and stirring constantly on the stove. It worked out great!

French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese
Adapted from Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, French Onion Soup

4 to 6 medium yellow onions, sliced thin
1 stick of butter
1 cup of white wine (preferably dry)
4 cups each homemade or low sodium chicken and beef broth (or all beef!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 splashes of Worcestershire sauce
Thick slices of French baguette bread
Butter for bread
Grated Brie or Gruyere cheese, for topping
Additional Parmesan for topping
Salt to taste, if needed

French Onion Soup Ingredients

I forgot the butter in my ingredients photo! But it’s not hard to forget once you start cooking. Start out by peeling then slicing your onions thin. It helps to have a really sharp knife. I’m not a great slicer of even thicknesses, but it all works out.

Slicing the Onions

Next, add the butter to a large soup pot or dutch oven and melt it. After I took this shot of the elusive butter, doesn’t it look like the butter is melting over the planet earth from space? No? I’m very strange in that way.

Melting the Butter ~ On Planet Earth!

Next, begin preheating your oven to 400 degrees. Meanwhile, add that big mess of sliced onions to the melted butter, stir around to coat, then cover and cook over medium heat, covered, for 20 minutes. Here they are after coated in the butter. It looked like plenty of onions to me at that point!

Pot of Sliced Onions

After giving a good stir after 20 minutes, add the covered pot to the 400-degree oven, cracking the lid a bit to help the browning. Since the lid to my pot was round, I had a hard time getting it to crack properly. After 30 minutes, I deemed cracking the lid was useless so uncovered it completely at that point, so you might want to too, if you have a round pot you are using. I gave them another good stir, then cooked for about 45 minutes more or so, stirring occasionally, until they were nice and brown.

Caramelized Onions

Once your onions are all nice and brown and caramelized, take the pot out of the oven and put it over the stove top over medium heat. Add the cup of wine, then deglaze the pot, including scraping all the brown stuff off from the edges. Cook for about five more minutes until the wine reduces about half. Add the chicken and beef broths (or all beef), plus the two splashes of Worcestershire sauce and garlic.

Pouring in the Broth

At this point you can either simmer it for about 45 minutes on the stove top, or do like me and pour it into your slow cooker and keep it on warm until ready to eat. I made this during the daytime, so opted for the crock pot method, as it was way early to eat at that point. Plus, as I said, I like easy, and getting the main bulk of dinner out of the way early is good in my book!

Soup Simmering in Crock Pot

About 10 minutes before you are ready to eat, slice up the French bread baguette (enough for topping individual ramekins for the amount of people you are feeding), then butter them.

Buttering the Baguette

Put them on a rack in the oven on broil, until browned and crispy. Ooh these look delish!

Toasted Baguette Slices

Now ladle some soup into individual ramekins, top with baguette slices to fit, then top with the cheese(es). Broil for several minutes until melted and browned. Remove (carefully!) from oven, and serve immediately. This is a great basis for a good French Onion Soup with about half the fuss, so if you take my suggestions and prepare this the suggested way, it’s sure to please! For the printable recipe, scroll down below and click on the PDF link image. Happy New Year!

French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese

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