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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Jodi’s Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken

Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken

This meal is so easy even this one-handed cook pulled it off handily. (I crack myself up.) 😀

My wonderful blog friend Jodi at The Creative Life in Between posted yet another mouth-watering dish for me to steal. I followed her recipe except cut it in half and used smoked paprika in place of the optional smokey paprika chipotle.

Dried Oregano and Honey Garlic Sauce

I thought I was out of dried oregano so snipped some fresh and dried it in the toaster oven first, but then found my last year’s dried batch — not in the empty and clearly labeled oregano jar — but in a Mrs. Dash container labeled in Sharpee with my husband’s printing. Go figure.

We served ours over rice and garnished with additional sesame seeds and snipped green onion (I demonstrate my prowess with that task below).

Snipping Green Onion Wearing Traction Device

This is a spicy, slightly sweet explosion of flavor! The daughter went back for seconds and had the leftovers the next day. My husband ate a large sub just a few hours earlier and didn’t have any. Hiss loss!

Please pop on over to Jodi’s place to find a handy-dandy printable recipe here —> Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken.

Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken

Lipstick on a Pig Texas Chicken Spaghetti

Lipstick on a Pig Texas Chicken Spaghetti

Some dishes are just not photogenic. I made this dish last week and the family just gobbled it up and it got raves all the way around. So when I went to take a final “plating shot” I scattered some cilantro over the top of it and thought, “you know, this is just like putting lipstick on a pig.” HA! But mind you, this slow cooker dish is just the ticket for a bowl full of creamy, cheesy, chicken-noodley goodness. You will be licking that bowl clean! (And even better, this recipe is completely versatile!)

WARNING: Unpleasant food photos ahead. Really, there is nothing very appetizing to look at while making this dish. But the taste…! And yes, I am making fun of my photography, because sometimes it just works out that way. 😉

Lipstick on a Pig Texas Chicken Spaghetti

1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast (mine was 12 ounces, and frozen!)
Salt or Mrs. Dash and ground pepper, to taste
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup diced tomatoes (canned or otherwise, with liquid)
1 roasted Hatch chile, peeled, seeded, and diced (or sub with 2 tablespoons of canned diced green chiles)
2 1/2 cups homemade chicken stock (or sub low-sodium store-bought broth)
4 ounces spaghetti noodles, uncooked
2 ounces cream cheese
1 1/2 cups grated cheese, any kind (I used half Gruyere and half sharp cheddar)
1 teaspoon New Mexico chile powder (or regular)
1 teaspoon lime juice
Cilantro, for garnish (the lipstick on the pig!)

Season the chicken breast with salt or Mrs. Dash and pepper, to taste, then add to the crockpot. I actually added mine in frozen, no need to defrost — really!

Peeled and Seeded Roasted Hatch Chile Pepper ~ Hmmm, how exciting.

Chop up the onion and peel and dice that roasted pepper. Wait, you don’t have a roasted Hatch chile pepper sitting around? Canned is fine.

Veggies and Chicken ~ Can’t see the raw chicken? You don’t want to. Trust me.

Toss in the onions, tomatoes, chiles and chicken stock/broth. (And I used turkey stock, see how I am?) Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.

Remove chicken breast and cover with foil until cool enough to handle. Shred the chicken with a fork and add back to the crockpot.

Shredding the Chicken ~ Hey, let’s take a really close up shot of the shredded chicken so you can even see the tomato bits stuck to it!

Grate your cheeses. No, don’t grate the cream cheese.

Grated Cheeses ~ Finally, something tolerable to view. But it’s just cheese.

Break the uncooked noodles in half and add to the pot along with with the cheeses, chile powder and lime juice.

Adding the Dried Spaghetti ~ Really Kathryn? That’s just ick.

Stir around as best you can, then cover and cook for another half hour to an hour until the noodles are done. Give it one final stir to incorporate well, then serve in bowls garnished with lipstick, um, cilantro. 😀

Texas Chicken Spaghetti ~ Because putting a really old crockpot in the background with half-spent cilantro makes it look better, right?

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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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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 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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Banana Pepper Pot Roast

Banana Pepper Pot Roast

Quick, easy, tangy— AND it just melts in your mouth! I lifted the idea for this dish over at Lemony Thyme, one of my new favorite foodie sites to visit. Not only are her recipes fantastic, she take wonderful photographs. Her version uses pepperoncini peppers, but I only happened to have a jar of pickled banana peppers on hand. While these peppers are similar in appearance and taste, they are different peppers. The pepperoncinis are a bit spicier, while the banana peppers are a bit sweeter. Either one you use will work just fine. I also added minced garlic instead of powder, and threw in some sliced onions at the last minute. Six ingredients, five minutes prep. Go on, what are you waiting for???

Banana Pepper Pot Roast
adapted from Pepperoncini Pot Roast by Lemony Thyme

1 1/2 pound chuck roast
Ground black pepper
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb blend
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 8-ounce jar banana or pepperoncini peppers
1/2 large onion, sliced

Seasoned Pot Roast

Season the roast generously with the black pepper and Mrs. Dash, or salt if you prefer. Rub the minced garlic evenly around the roast. Place the roast in a 3-quart crock pot, and dump the entire jar of peppers, liquid included, over the roast. Place the sliced onions on top.

Roast with Peppers and Onions Ready to Cook

(I forgot the onion until after one hour of cooking, but with the long cooking time that didn’t matter.) Cover, and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. We served this with mashed Yukon Gold potatoes and steamed fresh broccoli. We all went back for seconds! (Oh and I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of the final dish until we had already decimated about half of it!)

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