At the risk of branding myself as a shameful homebody, I'm plunging ahead with more posts about food. My programmable oval 5.5-quart Rival Crock-Pot, which I bought for just $25 at Target several months ago, as been sitting in its box in a corner of my kitchen for a long time. Until last night, when I opened it, determined to cross another thing off my 2009 List of To-Do's. I have never cooked anything with a slow cooker in my life.
There seem to be schools of thought when it comes to slow-cooker cooking. One sees slow-cookers as time- and labor-saving devices you can just "set and forget" in the morning, so it will cook all day and be ready for you when you get home from work. Most traditional slow-cooker cookbooks seem to use a lot of packaged/processed foods like canned soups.
The other sees the huge potential of the slow-cooker as a gourmet instrument, adding complexity and flavor as it slow-cooks for hours at a time. I fall into this category, as I can certainly appreciate what slow-cooking at low temperatures does to pork and beef. This, in my mind, translates directly into mouth-watering delectable chilis, stews, and braised meats.
I bought the Not Your Mother's Slow-Cooker Cookbook from Costco yesterday. I read a lot of (negative) reviews about both the cookbook and the slow-cooker, and realized a lot of people simply don't follow established best practices when it comes to slow-cookers, and then complain about the shoddy results of their own ineptitude. Things like:
- A slow-cooker should always be filled between 1/2 and 3/4 capacity (so food doesn't burn on the one hand, and has room to "expand" on the other). So if your pot is bigger, you have to make more food. Duh--you wouldn't cook a tiny amount of food in a big stockpot either.
- How you layer things in the pot makes a difference, because of the way heat is distributed. The recipe I tried said to put potatoes and carrots on the bottom, and meat on top.
- The idea of "set it and forget it" is limited. But doesn't it make sense that you should check on it a couple times in the beginning or towards the end, to make sure things are coming together and the flavors are right? It's okay to open it up and stir things around (I also found that stirring took care of the "wateryness" I found in the morning--anyone who understands thickening agents like potatoes should know that!)
Anyway, the first thing I made was a recipe called Mom's Beef Stew because I had almost all the ingredients on hand and it was the perfect thing for a rainy President's Day weekend. The recipe called for great nutritious things like Yukon Gold potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, peas and beef chuck. Flavor came from paprika, soy sauce, wine vinegar, salt and pepper. The only adjustments I made were:
- Added garlic. The recipe didn't call for it and I thought that was strange, but went along with it. In the morning I tasted it and knew it was missing something. So I threw in about 3-4 cloves' worth of crushed garlic and it fixed the flavor problem.
- Used fresh green peas ($1.49 at 99 Ranch) instead of frozen. So much better!
- Added 3 small diced vine-ripe tomatoes instead of tomato paste
- Used chicken stock instead of beef, because that's all I had
Things I would do differently next time:
- Brown the onions instead of the beef before putting into slow cooker. Either way you get that nice caramelized flavor, but my beef came out less tender than I wanted it, prolly because I cooked it too much on the skillet.
- Add LOTS of garlic, at the beginning
It was enough for a large meal for 2, plus tons of leftovers for freezing!
