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. 

Macaroni and Cheese

Last Thursday, I made macaroni and cheese from this recipe:

http://www.howtocookeverything.tv/recipe.php%3Fnid=27.html

I used non-fat milk and rotini pasta. For the cheeses I had medium cheddar for the larger amount and Romano for the smaller amount. For this I bought preshredded cheddar because it's not that much more expensive and I hate grating cheese.

I only have two sauce pans and they aren't very big, so making this was interesting. To cook the pasta I had to divide it between this pans. I then left it in the colander after draining it so that I wouldn't have even more dishes to clean up. I heated the milk in the bigger pan, then made the flour-butter mixture in the smaller. I added the milk into the flour-butter mix, using a fork to mix (I don't yet have a whisk). Then I added the cheese to finish the sauce. This is when I started preheating the oven—I didn't want to stand in front of it while I made the cheese sauce. Next, I added the pasta back into the large pot. Then I dumped the pasta sauce, Romano cheese, and a good amount of salt and pepper. I put that in the oven, then came to write up my procedure. Luckily, when I looked over the ingredients, I realized that I had forgotten the bread crumbs, so I opened the oven back up and dumped a good amount on. I didn't really measure the Romano cheese, salt, pepper, or bread crumbs, but I know from past experience that this is a fairly forgiving recipe. This is also good because I was fairly hungry and munched on the pasta as I was working on the later steps.

Last time I made this it was terribly hot in my apartment, so I cut a lot of corners. Last time I didn't really wait for the butter-flour mix to brown. This time I got closer (it was at least turning some color). I also hadn't waited for the cheese to melt into the sauce. It turned out fine, but I noticed that the sauce was a lot thicker and overall better looking this time. Last time I also didn't mix together the last ingredients. Instead I put the pasta into the pan, the poured/sprinkled over the sauce, cheese, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs. It was nicer to have the flavor spread out more, particularly having the Romano cheese spread out.

I would also like to again thank the person who shared this recipe with me. He is the one who recommended using Romano cheese as a substitute for Parmesan and going overboard with breadcrumbs. As a heads up, he also warned me that this really isn't the same without the bay leaves.  

Breakfast Burritos

I bought a bunch of eggs to make fried rice, but it has been too hot for me to want to make any. This puts my eggs close to their (well actually past) best by date. I've heard that eggs aren't really supposed to go bad, but a brief online search still recommended use between 3-5 weeks after their package date. Thus, after checking to make sure that the eggs still sunk when placed in water, I decided to make breakfast burritos.

8 eggs
9 link sausages
1/2 bag frozen hash browns (about 1 lb)
butter, salt, pepper
5 tortillas
1 cup shredded cheese

1. Scramble eggs with butter, salt, pepper.
2. Brown sausage.
3. Cook hash browns according to directions.
4. Heat tortillas.
5. Divide ingredients evenly between tortillas and wrap.


I only have one skillet right now, and it's really too hot to stand in front of for long periods of time, so I did my preparation in stages, putting things aside in the fridge until I was ready for them. The amounts here come from what was in my fridge. I had eight eggs and the package of sausages came with nine. I used half a bag of cube hash browns because I hope to use more later as a substitute for cubed potatoes in forgiving recipes.

This was my first time cooking sausage that was not not come browned. I put them in a skillet and cooked on medium-high until they were brown. I checked online and it is recommended to cook on lower heat so that the skins don't burst and the sausage stays juicy. The skin did burst some when I cooked them, but hopefully this won't be too much of an issue. I wanted some of the sausage grease to cook the hash browns in, so I was happy to get that. It was also kinda interesting to hear the sausages whistle as they cooked.

From past experience these should reheat well in the microwave and freeze well if desired. I'm planning on having them for lunch this week, so I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and stuck them in the fridge.

Edit: These have reheated well, but they are pretty bland. Most of the flavor comes from the sausage and I think they are suffering a bit from having their skins burst. This should have been obvious, but I'm not always great at thinking ahead. For more flavor, I would recommend adding spices/onion/garlic to the scrambled eggs, or ketchup/salsa to the mix for more flavor. 

Turkey Chilli

So I've been wanting to try ground turkey for a while and I had a half can of diced tomatoes so I decided to try making chilli. Yesterday I got Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook. It contains a bunch of chili recipes, which I used to get an idea of proportions of the spices and cooking times. Most of the amounts for ingredients varied by a factor of two and so did the cooking times, so I decided to wing it.

1 lb ground turkey
2 cans kidney beans
1/2 a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 medium sweet onion
1 large clove garlic
2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
dash paprika

1. Brown ground turkey, then drain. Chop onion. Dice garlic.
2. Combine all ingredients including liquid from cans in slow cooker (2 quart). Stir gently.
3. Cook on low for 7 hours.

While the recipes in the book mostly don't contain cumin or paprika, several online recipes I looked at did and I liked the idea. I also tasted the chili powder to see how spicy it was. It has fairly good flavor (its the local store brand) and not much heat so I went with the high side of amounts. I almost forgot garlic and didn't want to fuss with pealing it, which is why I only used one clove. In addition, when adding ingredients my slow cooker was mostly full before I added the second can of kidney beans, but I wanted a larger proportion of beans than one can could provide.

Kidney beans contain a toxin that requires they be brought to a full boil in the cooking process. They can be used in a slow cooker, but they need to be boiled for ten minutes first, so I decided it would be simpler to go with cans. This also means that everything but the onions and garlic was already cooked which gives a lot of leniency in the cook time. However, if adjusting the cook time, keep in mind that vegetables do take a long time to cook in the slow cooker. On the other hand, my slow cooker was filled more than 3/4 of the way full (2/3 full is recommended) which increases the cook time, so I was already went with the longer side. I also lifted the lid a few times to stir the chili and make sure the onions were mixed through. Lifting the lid is supposed to increase the cooking time by about 30 minutes per time when cooking on low, so its something else to keep in mind.

I had some of the chili with some shredded cheese on top. It decent, but not particularly flavorful. There goes my theory about intensifying the flavors too much. And this time I did mix things fairly well, so that most of the spice was in the liquid. Since I took from the top to eat, it's possible that there will be more flavor in later bowls. As it was, most of what I could taste was the cheese. Not that I really object to the taste of cheese, but if the future bowls are similar, I will probably double the amount of spices when I make this again.

Edit: This has been much better in subsequent bowls. The turkey is still kinda bland, but the spices are a lot more reasonable. I will still likely increase the amount in the future, but not by as much as I originally thought. I will also almost certainly use hamburger instead of ground turkey.

Lentil Soup

I have heard a lot of good things about lentils, so I decided to make lentil soup. I used the recipe from here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Recipes/story?id=7039586

When I was first reading the ingredient list I was really excited. I thought that everything would easily fit into my crock pot. Then I realized that the amount of liquid alone would fill mine without the other stuff. I thus went with roughly halving the recipe.

Thus I used:
2 chopped carrots
2 chopped ribs of celery
1 small chopped onion
1 large and 1 small clove of garlic
1/2 of a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
3/2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

In addition I halved the amount of liquid and used half vegetable stock and half water. I also used half the amount of salt, pepper, thyme, and lentils.

I knew that I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this in the morning, so I cut the celery, onions, and carrots the night before. I also coarsely cut the garlic and then crushed it with the flat side of a knife. I then put these together in gladware overnight.

In the morning I added the first six ingredients to my crock pot. I then rinsed the lentils and added them and the thyme. I set the crock pot to low and left it alone for 10 hours. I then added the salt pepper and balsamic vinegar and waited 10 more minutes before eating. (I forgot to halve the balsamic vinegar from the original recipe, but it isn't something I really mind).

This was pretty good. I wasn't entirely sure how I would feel about the cooked tomatoes, but I ended up enjoying them. I haven't entirely decided what I think about the taste of the lentils themselves; its not bad, but it is different. Kind of similar to some type of bean, but I can't decide which. I'll have time to do that as I still have more than a quart and a half of soup.

One thing I've noticed about the slow cooker is how intense the spices seem to get, particularly for the first batch. I didn't add that much thyme, but I could definitely taste the spice. One possibility is that the long cook time strengthens the flavor. This explanation is supported by some of my reading. However, the spices float, so it's also possible that I just got a large amount in my portion today. I made red beans and rice (and will again soon), and the first bowl was a lot spicier than the rest. This might be the second effect, and it might be that I got used to the spice, so I'm curious to see how my perception of the level of spice varies in future servings. 

Pulled Pork

Pork roast was on sale this week so I got a 3.25 pound pork roast. On Saturday I started preparing it. The general recipe I used comes from http://genxfinance.com/crock-pot-bbq-pulled-pork-recipe-for-under-15-easy-and-frugal/

I used a
couple of small onions (the ones I have are less than 3" in diameter)
3 cloves of garlic
Weber's Smokey Mesquite Seasoning
3.25 lb pork roast

I haven't yet found liquid smoke and I forgot to add salt and pepper. I do have Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce which I will use on some of the pork.

I assembled the ingredients as per the given recipe. I really like that the onions and garlic are coarsely cut because chopping onions tend to make my eyes burn. I kept in my 2 quart slow cooker for 9 hours. I mostly used low. Because my crock pot was overfull I turned it up to high for about an hour to speed cooking. The recipe comments that a 7lb pork shoulder fits nicely in a 6.5 quart crock pot. It is a tight fit to put about more than 3lbs in my 2 quart crock pot, but the lid fits. I have also made this recipe with a 4lb pork shoulder and it managed to (barely) fit in my crock pot.  When I was done cooking I fished out the meat and put it in a covered bowl in the fridge. The idea was to let it cool and then pull it apart the next day.

Instead I didn't get around to this second step until this evening (Tuesday). As a reward for delaying, the meat had collected a layer of gelatin near the bottom of the bowl.  I used a second bowl and 'trimmed' the meat by pushing off the fat and gelatin before transferring the lean meat to the second bowl. The fat separates readily to a bit of pressure. A couple of forks then made easy work of the meat. I didn't add BBQ sauce yet as I don't want it on all of the meat. I separated it into four portions. One went into the fridge to make in quesadillas for lunches for later this week. The other three portions went into freezer bags for later use.

As I said I have used the recipe before using pork shoulder. I would second the ease of pulling out the bone. It was a bit harder to separate the cartilage from the bone, but it was still pretty easy to do with my hands. I added about half a bottle of BBQ sauce to it and brought it to a potluck. The recipe warns to be careful reheating so that the sauce doesn't burn so I reheated it part way on the oven warm setting. However as people were pretty hungry, we ended up eating it cold.

Although it was a bit more of a hassle to deal with the bone in pork shoulder, when I do this next I will probably use one again. While the pork shoulder I bought still had some skin that I cut off before cooking, the extra work was minimal. The pork roast felt a lot more fatty to the touch and I like leaner meat so I think that it is worth the work.

Hummus

Written Saturday, July 17, 2011

I decided earlier this week that I needed to get a food processor. I had some excellent humus and wanted to make my own. It also is recommended for making black bean soup. Yesterday while walking to my car, I stumbled upon a box with free kitchen supplies. While most of them were in pretty bad shape, I did find colander and a small food processor. So when I went grocery shopping I picked up some dried chickpeas and tahini to make humus. However, when I got back to my apartment and tested the food processor, I found it didn't work. I was a bit sad, but none of the ingredients go bad quickly, so I decided to wait. This morning I went out to look at garage sales. I was luckily able to find a food processor (about five cups with a shredder and slicer thing) for $3!

When I got home I started soaking the chickpeas. A cup dried makes about three cups cooked. From what I found online, a 15oz can is approximately 1.5 cups. Most recipes I found call for one or two such cans. However, one of the recipes said that hummus only really keeps for about 3 days in the fridge, or a month frozen. So I decided to make 3 cups, but then to make a smaller recipe and freeze the other 1.5 cups for later. I let them soak for a bit more than 6 hours and then drained them (in my new colander :)) and the added water to cook them. For this I brought them to a boil then simmered for about an hour. Cooking suggestions vary from 40 minutes to two hours, but I was in a bit of a rush so I stayed on the shorter side.

I mostly followed the recipe found here: http://mideastfood.about.com/od/appetizerssnacks/r/hummusbitahini.htm

Specifically, I used
1.5 cups chickpeas
some liquid from simmering chickpeas
juice from 2 lemons
1.5 tablespoons tahini
3 minced cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt

I simply placed the above ingredients in the food processor (maybe 1/4 cup of the liquid). I ran it for about a minute, then opened it. It was still pretty solid and I thought it needed more liquid, so I added more (to between 1/2 and 1 cup total). I then continued to run the food processor for another couple of minutes.

I ended up with pretty liquidy humus. I didn't have pita bread so I had some with a carrot. Even though it seemed liquidy, it stuck to the carrot pretty well. I then put the rest in gladware and put it in the fridge for later. Also, although it was good, it didn't seem quite right. One possibility is that I may have misread the recipe in not adding olive oil in the hummus as well as in a well when done (which I also didn't do), but I'll likely mix some in over the next couple of days. Another was that the texture of too liquidy with some still larger chunks was strange to me. In the future I will probably run the food processor longer, I hadn't wanted to this time because it was so loud. I also dumped out the rest of the liquid without thinking of the next time I make this (with the now freezing chickpeas), so I'll probably have to use water or or find another recipe that doesn't call for it.