Chicken Soup

So last weekend whole young chickens went on sale at the super market -- $.69 a pound. I bought two. One will be made in my crockpot later, but Thursday I made chicken soup with the first.

5.5 lb chicken
4 onion
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic
2 dashes thyme
2.5 T + 1 t salt
5 chopped carrots
5 stalks celery
4 eggs
2 cups flour

I put the chicken into the freezer when I first bought it, so Tuesday night I took it out to defrost. Unfortunately when I went I pulled it out, it was still partly frozen. I ran some cold water on it, but I was on a time limit today and needed to get it into the pot. There are innards placed inside the chicken that needed to be removed first. So I ran cold water into the cavity. When this wasn't going very quickly, I switched to warm water--I figured I was going to be immersing the whole thing in water soon and it wouldn't make too much of a difference. I finally (after ~5 minutes, it was mostly defrosted) got the innards loose and moved the rest of the chicken into the large stock pot I'm borrowing.

To the pot I added I coarsely chopped onion, 2 bay leaves, and ~8 quarts of water (I used a 3 quart pot filled most of the way 3 times to get water into the stock pot. I added hot water, but apparently, cold is best). I then looked at several recipes for boiling chicken and a few more for chicken soup and decided to add a couple of cloves of garlic and some thyme. Many recipes suggested rosemary, but I didn't have any when I started. I then put the pot on high until it started to boil.

After it boiled, I reduced the heat to medium low, and then fiddled with the temperature until a simmer was maintained. I also added a lid to the pot at this point.  Once I was satisfied that it was simmering, I actually went grocery shopping. This means that I added rosemary (which I had been meaning to get) about an hour into it simmering. About an hour and a half in, I poked at the chicken with a fork. The fork went in easily, but the chicken had been floating one direction for a while. I flipped it over and waited another 20 minutes. I then used my colander to fish out the chicken. I placed the colander over a bowl and stuck it in the fridge to cool. I left the new chicken stock on the stove as I was planing on reheating it later.

Thus began a three and a half hour wait. The time limit I mentioned was because I had meetings during most of this time. Thus a shorter wait would probably be fine; the point is to let the chicken cook enough to deal with. After I got back, the stock was still uncomfortably hot to touch, so my judgement about leaving it out was probably good. There was also waaayy to much stock. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to add everything else, so I removed 8 cups into a pitcher. The pitcher went into the fridge. When it cools, I'll freeze it in two cup portions for use in recipes.

The chicken was also cool all the way through. I started to take the chicken off the bone, then realized that I was using frozen vegetables and they should probably defrost. So I removed the chopped carrots from my freezer and added two packages (5 chopped carrots). I also took out the celery and chopped it up. It was really hard to chop, so I ran it under some water for a while. This made it easier to cut through, but it was still very cold to my hand. I chopped up 3 small onions, and added them and the celery to the stock. I then turned the heat on to low. After that I finished removing the chicken from the bone. It was fairly easy and the chicken had in fact, cooked through.

When I was done with the chicken, I went to make nokedli, which are like little dumplings. I used the recipe here: http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/hungariannoodlesdumplings/r/nokedli.htm although I only used 3/2 cups water. (I also added the ingredients in the wrong order). Instead of adding these to boiling water, I turned the heat up on the soup to bring it to a boil. I scooped the mixture onto a flat cheese grater and let if fall though. Even though I had added less water than the recipe called for, I think that it ended up a bit too liquidy. This meant that the pieces were smaller than nokedli should be. However, it cooked properly. I then added the chicken, let it cook for a couple more minutes, and then turned off the heat.

I scooped out a bowl and tasted--fantastic. I then added a bunch of cheddar cheese to it. It was fantastic. I then waited for it to cool. I froze a few portions, but most of it headed to a potluck. 

Lasagna

So a couple of weeks ago I picked up a 3.5 quart crockpot. I actually made the bell peppers and tomatoes in this, but the celebration of getting it was this lasagna (which I made last Sunday).

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/slow-cooker-spinach-and-ricotta-lasagna-with-romaine-salad-00000000052378/index.html

The recipe for just lasagna uses the first six ingredients. My grocery only had creamed frozen spinach, so I used that and hoped it wouldn't matter too much (I mean, really, you're adding it to lots of cheese, so the cream part shouldn't make a difference). I also selected a garlic and basil flavored marinara sauce.

So making this was straightforward. Mixed the cheese and spinach, and the pasta sauce and water in different bowls. Added sauce, then noodles, then sauce, then spinach, then mozzarella and repeated. The recipe is meant for a slightly larger crockpot, but with enough breaking the noodles formed a single layer fairly well. The spinach mixture was a bit difficult to spread which resulted in the layers of sauce mixing. This was annoying, but not really a problem. When I got to adding the last noodles, mozzarella, Parmesan and marinara sauce, it seemed like I didn't have enough sauce left. I worried a bit that I had been using too much, but eventually convinced myself that I hadn't. But still, the noodles were not completely covered. As they cook in the pot, I mixed a bit of extra water in to make sure that they would be fine. I then sprinkled over the last of the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.

This got left alone on low for 4 hours. I then shared it for dinner with a friend. It was very good. It was a bit difficult to get out of the crockpot. After I removed the first piece, cutting more seemed to push some of the filling out into the gap. However, this simply meant that we ate a bit more filling. It was so good that we both had two pieces.

After this I took advantage of the removable crock, and just stuck the whole thing in the fridge. I meant to portion it out later, but ended up just taking pieces from the crock as I went. It was much easier to cut pieces out when it had cooled. It seemed pretty uniform in height, so it might be that I had imagined it was spilling filling when I was cutting it hot. I was also happy to put off some of the dishes to a day when I wasn't really cooking.

Lasagna is great because it reheats beautifully. It was also good cold on the day that I brought it in for lunch and couldn't get to a microwave.  It was also nice because I know that spinach is good for me, and it was cooked into tasty cheese. 

Stuffed Tomatos

Partially because of the stuffed pepper, I made stuffed tomatoes yesterday. I used the recipe from: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/crockpot-stuffed-tomatoes-recipe.html

When I went to the store to find on-the-vine tomatoes, they all looked exceedingly soft and overripe. I figured that cooking would intensify this. So I went with slightly larger tomatoes (I don't remember the exact type, but they were larger than the on-the-vine and smaller than the hot house). I thus used 

3 tomatoes

2 t dried basil

1 chopped clove of garlic

riccota and cream cheese

Because the tomatoes I used were larger, I used the total amount of cheese recommended for 5 tomatoes. I used roughly half riccota and half cream cheese. 

I chopped up the garlic and measured basil into the bowl. I then got ready to cut up the tomatoes. I used a paring knife to cut off the tops. This was a lot easier on the tomatoes than it had been with the bell peppers. On the first, I tried to cut out the innards. This quickly ran into problems trying to avoid cutting up the outside. I got a spoon out and removed the rest. For the second, I cut up the inside a bit before moving to the spoon. On the third, I tried just using the spoon on the inside, but it was too tough. I ended up using the knife to at least get cuts started around the top. I didn't make as big of a mess as I expected, but it probably helped to be working over a bowl while hold the tomato angled downward. I gathered the innards in said bowl as I worked. When I was done, I put them in the fridge to be one of my vegetables for tomorrow. 

I then measured out the cream cheese and riccota into the bowl with basil and garlic. I used the back side of a spoon to mush this all together. The basil was helpful in showing how well things were getting mixed together. Then I divided the cheese mixture roughly into thirds and used it to stuff the three tomatoes. There was still some space in the tomatoes when I was done, but, based on the size of the tomatoes, I figured that it was probably for the best. I added 1/4 cup of water into my slow cooker, then added the tomatoes. I set on low for 2 and 1/2 hours. They were fairly hot when I took them out, but they were delicious. It probably helps that I love cheese, tomatoes, and garlic (I don't have strong feelings about basil). The cheeses I used seemed fairly bland, but with the taste of tomato, basil, and garlic, it worked fairly well. I ended up eating 1 and 1/2 of them and saving the rest. Here's hoping that they reheat well as lunch today.  

Stuffed Peppers

Last Friday I decided that I should make stuffed peppers. I had almost talked myself out of it by the end of the weekend, because, as I've mentioned, I'm not a big fan of green pepper. Then as I was looking through the weekly circular for my grocery store, I saw that green peppers were on sale. Thus, I decided I should go through with it. 

I got this recipe from the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook so I'm not going to include amounts for ingredients. The recipe is the third one on page 124. It includes: ground beef, onion, rice, eggs, milk, ketchup, salt, pepper, bell peppers (and hot sauce, which I omitted). 

I didn't have all of the ingredients on hand, so I needed to go to the store. I got the rice going in my rice cooker and went to pick up the peppers and ground beef. When I got back the rice was ready, but I wasn't so I left it on warm. I set the hamburger to brown. Then I capped and cored the peppers. I started out trying to cut the tops like I would a pumpkin, but the irregular heights and small diameter made turns difficult. I switched to making several cuts that overlapped. On the first pepper I tried using the knife to cut out some of the white inner part. This resulting in cutting part of the outside, so I switched to using my hand. The hamburger wasn't quite done, so I went ahead and chopped the onion. I forgot to rinse it so it made my eyes water pretty badly. Fortunately, I was able to take a break to deal with the hamburger. I put some water over the onions in an attempt to reduce the fumes before going to turn off the hamburger. I then added the hamburger and rice to a medium sized bowl. I then made a brief attempt at chopping the onion more finely (I was going for a rough approximation to rice-sized), before adding it to the bowl as well. I beat the egg into a measuring cup (less dishes) and added it, milk, ketchup, salt, and pepper to the bowl. 

I had been planning on mixing these together by hand, but, at some point during all this, I had cut my hand. I ended up using the rice paddle to mix everything instead. I sprayed my crock pot with cooking spray, stuffed the peppers with the mix and put them into the crock pot. I was surprised at how well the amount of stuffing worked for my peppers--using all of the stuffing resulted in slight overflow for the peppers. The mixture also looked and smelled a lot better than I had anticipated. When I finished I was looking forward to eating the peppers, which isn't something I normally say about green bell peppers. The recipe has times for low and high. I went with high because I was doing this at lunch and wanted the peppers to be ready for dinner. 

I know that I use my crock pot a lot, but most of the recipes could probably be adapted for other mediums. I still haven't gotten over the fact that I can do some prep work, walk away for hours, and come back to delicious food. It has also been fairly convenient for my schedule. 

Anyway, as the day went on this started smelling more like bell peppers. When I went to take them out, I noticed that the nonstick spray had mostly gathered in the bottom of the crock. One of the peppers had burned onto the side and that's the one that I chose for tonight (less pepper without the stuck stuff). Happily, the bell pepper had lost its strong flavor. The insides were delicious. Even though the pepper fell apart so that it would have been easy to eat around, I ate all of the pepper. I'm not sure that this would normally constitute a whole dinner, but with it and two glasses of milk I ended up reasonably full. 

15 bean soup

This week I decided to make 15 bean soup. I used the recipes at http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1648,134176-250196,00.html , http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/04/crockpot-16-bean-soup-recipe.html , http://southernfood.about.com/od/crockpotsoup/r/bl58c12.htm as guidelines, but then kinda did my own thing. Also, even though, I didn't label this vegetarian, the only meat stuff is the chicken stock which could easily be replaced with vegetable stock or water.

Ingredients:
1/2 package 15 bean soup mix
2.5 carrots, thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
2 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
2 dashes each of basil, oregano, garlic powder
1 dash onion powder
water

So I bought the beans in the morning which means that I didn't have time to let them soak overnight. Instead I vaguely followed the directions for "quick soak" on the package. This calls for you to bring to boil, then simmer for 60-90 minutes. Since I planned on cooking for 10 or so hours, I did the simmer part for about 30 minutes instead. This is also important because there are kidney beans in the mix, and they need to be boiled for a bit before they are safe to eat.

While the beans were simmering, I added a the carrots (mine were sliced and frozen a while ago), celery (also frozen but I needed to chop), and onion. I was going to add a full onion until I realized that I had half an onion in the fridge. I decided it would be better to use that than a full onion, particularly as I am using half the mix and the recipes call for one onion for the full mix. I then added the chicken stock (read: water and granules). The union of the recipes called for the basil and oregano and bay leaf, which sounded good, so I added some. Some of the recipes called for garlic, but I didn't want to chop any at the time so I went with garlic powder. While putting away the other spices, I saw my new onion powder and decided to add it. I was only going to add one dash anyway, but it poured out a lot in that one dash, so that there is probably more of that than the others. So, oops, but I like onions enough that it should be ok.

After 30 minutes of simmering the beans, I drained, rinsed, and added to the slow cooker (2 quart). The water had turned black, so I was very happy not to have skipped this soaking step. I then added enough water to cover the beans and a bit more (I filled to about an inch from the top). I stirred everything together, then I set to low for 10 hours.

I had this for dinner tonight. Despite the added spices, it was fairly bland. However this wasn't bad. It meant that I could taste the difference between some of the different beans. The differences were subtle enough that I might have missed them with more flavor. Also, I noticed that the carrots had pretty much fallen apart. I don't know if the cook time, freezing, or combination of these is to blame, but as I was still getting vegetables, I was fine with this as well.

Edit:  Most recipes call for salt with the beans, but it's one of those things I tend to forget about. So, when I last reheated some of this, I added salt. It turns out this was exactly what it was missing. The flavor was a lot more intense and it tasted better overall.

Fried Rice Kinda

I was looking over the "A Year of Slow Cooking" blog yesterday to try to figure out recipes for later this week that include vegetables. One of the recipes I saw was for fried rice--in the crock pot. Since I was planning on making fried rice anyway I decided to give it a try. My reasoning included 1) curiosity, 2) it's hot outside, and 3) my wok rusts and I don't know how to fix it and didn't really want to deal with it.

Thus I made the recipe here:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/05/crockpot-fried-rice-recipe.html

I even mostly left it alone. I used a sweet onion (because that's what I have), went heavy on the soy sauce (I like it), and substituted lemon juice for Worcestershire sauce (because it's what I have and I know lemon juice works in fried rice). I also doubled the amount of egg. My meat was cut up chicken and my vegetables came from a mixed bag of frozen vegetables.

I actually had the chicken specifically for the fried rice, so that it wasn't left over. I had cut up and frozen it a while before. Since the recipe calls for cooked meat, I browned the chicken in the skillet before combining it with the other ingredients in my crock pot. The ingredients all fit, filling my crock pot between 1/2 and 2/3 full as per the recommendation. Since I wasn't stir frying the rice, I crumbled it up into pieces when I added it. I also beat the eggs before I added them. Then I put on the lid, put in on low, and walked away for 3.5 hours. By which I really mean, I waited 1.75 hours, stirred, replaced the lid, and ignored until the total time was up (going on the long side to make up for lifting the lid).

This turned out fairly well. I think I prefer the taste of making it in a wok, but the convenience was hard to beat. I prefer the eggs to not be mixed into the rice (easier in a wok) and I personally do not like so much pepper in my fried rice (although I've had some of a friends that had more, so this definitely depends on personal taste). It also stuck to the sides of my slow cooker, which is a bit hard to clean. I prevented some of this by stirring, but I think it would help to kind of use the butter to coat the inside a bit more. While this might not sound like a lot of good things, it turned out better than I expected (and not just because of low expectations). I am happy to have leftovers for lunch for the next few days. Overall, I think the second sentence of this paragraph sums things up fairly well. 

Red Beans and Rice

Yesterday, I made red beans and rice starting with the recipe at:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/authentic-no-shortcuts-louisiana-red-beans-and-rice/detail.aspx

I modified the ingredients too much for it to be practical to not just list them, but I'll find some other way of making you give traffic to the recipe above (namely cook times and temperatures). I used:

½ pound dried red beans, soaked overnight

4 cups water

4 teaspoons chicken bullion

½ pound andouille sausage, sliced into rounds

1 medium sweet onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

½ teaspoon Creole seasoning

a bit less than 2 teaspoons dried basil

2 cups cooked rice

This is kinda like a halving of the recipe. I didn't use the ham hock because there really isn't space in my slow cooker. The bell pepper could also cause space problems, but I also don't really like them and didn't have one when I started cooking. I also didn't add the optional jalapeno. I also don't have fresh basil, and based on online searches, this amount of dried is roughly the equivalent to (or maybe a bit extra than) the amount of fresh for a half portion. The reduction in the amount of water is recommend by several people in the comments. I believe that I got the idea for using chicken broth the same way, but this is the second time I've made this and I don't really remember. The comments include other suggestions as well and are worth looking over. 

So I placed the beans, water, and chicken bullion in the crock pot. I then heated the sausage as described. I then realized that I hadn't really prepared much, so after moving the sausage to the crock pot, I turned off the burner. I then cut up the garlic and onion, turned the skillet back on, and heated until browned. The skillet had retained enough heat to start to brown the onions without me turning on the heat, which was kinda interesting. While heating I added the spices to the crock pot. I then transferred the garlic and onions to the crock pot. This was made difficult by the fact that my skillet is cast iron and large and I have trouble supporting it one handed. Thus I used two hands to hold the skillet and shook in most of the garlic and onions before fishing out the rest with a spatula. I stirred the mixture so that the spices weren't just floating on top (although they were all on top at the end anyway) then covered the crock pot and cooked as specified.

When this was about forty minutes from done, I added rice and water into my small rice cooker to make the four cups of rice. It finished with 10 minutes to go, so I let it sit on the warm setting. When the red beans and rice was supposed to be done, I opened it and it was a bit more liquidly than I wanted. I added the two cups of rice and then let it keep heating uncovered for about 5 minutes. Adding the rice nearly filled my slow cooker (1-2mm from the brim of 2 quart crock pot) so it is definitely good that I didn't use all the ingredients. I then stirred well and served. 

The last time I made this the spices were on the strong side for the first serving. This time they weren't. I'm guessing that this was because of the stirring, so this supports my floating spices causing the problem. Depending on the level of spice in the later bowls, I might increase the amounts in the future. I also like the idea of adding more sausage for the amount of everything else, however I don't think it is really feasible with the size of my slow cooker. It might work if I combined the rice and beans in a larger container, but I probably won't actually do this. 

When I was done eating I let everything cook for a while, then divided into two portions. One went into the fridge for dinners later this week, the other into the freezer for a bit later. The extra 2 cups of rice went into the fridge to make fried rice for lunches this week.