Welcome to Fantasyland

[swan_tower]

Cooking is not high up on my list of things I love to do, so it's taken me until now to follow up on the slow cooker suggestions you all gave me a while ago.

On the joint recommendation of sarcastibich and amysun, my first attempt was your average beef stew: cow, potatoes, celery, carrots, onion, garlic, some corn just for variety. It worked, more or less: needed more seasoning, either flour or thinner-cut potatoes to thicken the liquid, and I'm curious to try it with tomatoes in, but on the whole, a success.

What was definitely a success? Walking in from karate to the warm and wondrous smell of food ready to be eaten RIGHT NOW. Dear Mom and Dad: thank you for the slow cooker; it is exactly what we needed.

I think my next experiment will be kendokamel's suggestion of the chicken-red wine-veggie thing, since it will use up the rest of my onion, celery, and carrots, and I like the idea of being able to chuck couscous into the pot right at the end. It will mean waiting five minutes or so before we can eat, but that can be while kniedzw hangs up our gi and I get out the silverware. (Why yes, I am ravenous after karate. How could you tell?)

Bit by bit, I'm beginning to actually cook, for values of "cooking" that don't mean "chuck pre-made thing into oven/microwave/skillet."

Comments

[gollumgollum.livejournal.com]

Cornstarch to thicken the liquid, not flour, i would think; and it's something you can add in right at the end and just give a couple minutes to thicken and warm up. kniedzw could probably tell you better than i could, and figure out how much cornstarch you needed.

But mmmm, slow cooker. I really need to give mine a try. I just can't imagine making dinner--or doing much of anything remotely coordinated or complicated--in the mornings before work.

[sarcastibich.livejournal.com]

she beat me to it: corn starch.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

kniedzw was the one who suggested flour, actually -- but I'll keep cornstarch in mind.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank Carol and Keith, not us (although I did give her the idea).

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Right! My memory's a sieve.

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

Agree with the corn starch.

Any chance you could post a link to the "chicken-red wine-veggie thing"?

I use my slow cooker all the time. Let me know if you're interested in very simple recipes for chicken & white beans (includes carrots & celery; very simple) or beef in red wine (simplest recipe ever!).

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Check out the comments in the post I linked above.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who decided to try using her slow cooker more often. So, since she was having all sorts of trouble with edible recipes, I used my prodigious google-fu, and found this: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

It's the blog for a family who decided to use their crockpot every day in 2008. There are the recipes, and she talks about which recipes were really good, which so so, and which to avoid. So far my friend has really enjoyed several of the recipes, and found the blog useful.

Good luck with the crock pot cuisine!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen that link -- it's definitely on my list of things to follow through on.

another slow-cooker meal

[pathseeker42.livejournal.com]

Although the "Fix it and Forget it" cookbook is definitely hit-and-miss recipe-wise, here's a Brunswick Stew that Ben and I really like:

1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into pieces.
2 potatoes, sliced
10 3/4 oz can tomato soup
16 oz can diced (or stewed) tomatoes
10 oz frozen corn
10 oz frozen peas (or lima beans)
3 Tbsp. onion flakes
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Throw it all in the pot together. Cook on high for 2 hours then low for two hours.

Re: another slow-cooker meal

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Sounds tasty! I'm especially in favor of things-with-potatoes, since my ideal post-karate meal involves protein, veggies, and carbohydrates all in one.