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Crockity (slow-cooker)
bowen
How you doin'?Registered User regular
How you doin'?Registered User regular
So I've got a crockpot now, I'm looking for some recipes I can use to eat a little bit more healthy and not resort to "oh hey I'm tired and it's 7:00 let me go grab a pizza." Does anyone have any good crockpot recipes?
Can I just take normal recipes and be like "cook 8 hours" instead of their specific cooking instructions?
Also I don't want to spend a fortune on meat or anything, and the crockpot I have is relatively small (like 5 lb chicken small). Looks like most of the recipes included serve 4 people so that's good for leftovers, but I don't want recipes that serve like 10 people or anything.
Any help is appreciated guys and gals.
Can I just take normal recipes and be like "cook 8 hours" instead of their specific cooking instructions?
Also I don't want to spend a fortune on meat or anything, and the crockpot I have is relatively small (like 5 lb chicken small). Looks like most of the recipes included serve 4 people so that's good for leftovers, but I don't want recipes that serve like 10 people or anything.
Any help is appreciated guys and gals.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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As for the whole cooking normal things, that doesn't quite work. Slow cooking is a moist cooking method, so anything that needs to be dry or crunchy won't work so well in a slow cooker.
I never finish anyth
I typically hound Food Network's site for recipes, this is a pretty good pot roast.
I suggest having it on low, putting half a cup of water in, and a small 4 lb or so roast in. Add some pepper (couple dashes), a dash of salt, and 2-3 cubed potatoes and some chopped carrots. Cook for 8 hours on low, and you'll have a fine simple meal. Make sure the roast is thawed first...
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Put a chicken in the crock pot (sans neck and innards). Season (salt and pepper or really any way you want). Set on low for 6-8 hours. Eat. (Nope, didn't forget liquid, you don't need any.)
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Chicken Taco Soup
This sounds odd, but it's SO GOOD.
1lb chicken cut into 1 inch cubes (I usually make this after I make a whole chicken to use the leftovers)
1 onion (again, lazy. I use the dried chopped onions from the spice aisle)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can black beans
...1 can red kidney beans
1 can rotel (If you don't have this in your area, it's chopped tomatoes and peppers)
1 package taco seasoning
1 package ranch dressing seasoning
Cook the chicken and onion. Put everything else in (don't drain the cans) and add 1 can of water. Heat and eat!
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Northern Bean soup
2 (15.5 ounce) cans great northern beans, rinsed (you can soak your own beans ... but I'm lazy)
2 medium carrots, diced ( I recommend just one carrot)
1 small onion, chopped ( I also halve the onion amount)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 1/4 cups water (You can use broth if you want)
1 1/2 cups cubed fully cooked ham (I use sweet Italian sausage, cut out of the casing and fried)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Mash one can of beans; set aside. In a large saucepan, saute the carrots and onion in butter. Stir in the water, ham, seasonings and whole and mashed beans; cook over medium heat until heated through. (These are stovetop directions but you can definitely put everything in a crock pot. I'd double the recipe for the crock pot though)
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Meatloaf
1 pound Breakfast Sausage Roll
1 pound ground beef
1 cup ketchup, divided
1 (1.25 ounce) envelope dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
2 eggs
1. In large bowl, combine sausage, beef, 1/2 cup ketchup, soup mix, bread crumbs and eggs. When well combined, shape into loaf to fit your slow cooker (round or oval). Place into slow cooker.
2. Cover and cook on low heat 4-6 hours. Spread remaining 1/2 cup ketchup on top of meatloaf 30 minutes before serving. Cover and continue cooking on low heat for 30 minutes.
I have a ton of crock pot recipies
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1 Boston Butt (whatever size will fit)
1 Onion
1 Bottle BBQ sauce
Rough chop the onion and throw it in the bottom of the crock pot. Lay the pork on top of it. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or until you can do the next step, which is... Take 2 forks. Shred meat (you can discard the fatty sections here). Set aside. Empty the crock pot, reserving a cup or two of the liquid. Put the meat back in the crock pot. Add bbq sauce. Add cooking liquid. Stir. Cook for an hour or so more (on low if possible, less time on high). Serving suggestion: On rolls with coleslaw.
1lb ground beef
1 14.5oz can of diced tomatoes
1 16oz can of kidney beans
1 packet chili flavoring
Drain the can of beans. Put everything in the pot. Cook it on low for eight hours. Presto.
Since this is a really simple chili it works great as a springboard for adding whatever you like. I usually use more beef because I like a meaty chili. You can add whatever spices you like, a can of beer, brown sugar, rice, black beans, chopped onions, corn, an apple (cut it in half first), barbeque sauce, worcestershire sauce, or whatever else sounds good. You can replace the ground beef with cubed beef, pork, or chicken.
Set it up in the morning (or the night before - throw everything in a big bowl in the fridge and dump it in the crock pot before you leave for work), and when you come home your house will smell awesome and you'll have a kickass meal.
Also, remember that if you put something in on high, it'll probably be done in around four or five hours, so if you want to cook something all day while you're gone set it to low.
can you make mass chili and freeze it later? does that work well?
Yep. Get a pack or two of these for $3.50
and you can freeze it in meal sized portions. Thaw one, nuke it for a few minutes at 50%, stir, then a few minutes at 100%, and you're good. Making a huge batch and freezing it for later is a lot cheaper than making only enough for one or two meals.
For lentil Soup:
Red Lentils
Celery
Onions
Carrots
Parsnips
Bay and Parsley
Stock (usually the vegetable and bacon as above)
For Scotch Broth (there are so many variations on this and everyone will tell you there's is "traditional" or "correct"):
Pearl Barley
Dried Peas
Onions
Leeks
Carrots
Swede
Bay
Stock
Mideastern Spareribs
3 lbs. ribs
2 Tbsp instant minced onion (or 2 teaspoons onion powder)
1 tsp crushed red pepper
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp garlic powder
½ cup water
1 ½ cups barbecue sauce
Combine onion, red pepper, cinnamon, and garlic powder. Rub mixture into ribs. Place in slow cooker and pour water around ribs. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours. Remove ribs from slow cooker. Drain and discard liquid. Return ribs to slow cooker and pour barbecue sauce over them. Cover and cook on low 1 hour.
Prima Dona Chili
2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 (14.5 ounce) cans Italian-style diced tomatoes
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
Brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic until the onion is clear. Place the ground beef mixture in your slow cooker. Add the remaining ingredients. (Just dump them in.) Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
I never finish anyth
Recipe to follow sometime tomorrow night assuming this won't destroy my crockpot.
I never finish anyth
stick a pork tenderloin and a bottle of good rootbeer on low for a while
when done tear it and add some good bbq sauce
I did this with a pork tenderloin as well only I soaked it overnight in dark spiced rum. Splashed some bitters on it add more rum into the pot and would regularly roll the pork over to make sure as much of the pork was soaking up the rum.
Spices I used All-spice(lot's of this stuff) Nutmeg(moderate) Cloves(not that much) and Cinnamon(a little bit more then the cloves) no onions cause fucking hate them. Could of added BBQ sauce near the end but some people were being whiny bitches about not being sure if they would like the sauce or not so I just dumped some sauce in a dished added the above spices mixed it all up and zapped it in the microwave for 15 seconds.
Everyone at the table said it was the best pulled pork they ever had(even the Mormons)
Pork shoulder is great for the crockpot. Find a large piece of pork and throw it in the slow cooker. Cover with root beer and let simmer until it's cooked through. A thermometer helps to figure out when it's done...but you can also just cook it a long time.
After that evacuate the meat from the crock pot and shred it. Add a bottle of BBQ sauce and enjoy on some dinner rolls or anything else you have around. Or just eat it by itself...its really good.
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As a note, I just use all beer and skip the beef broth. I don't like using beef broth because it has so much damn salt in it.
Ingredients:
6 cups water
1 cube chicken bouillon
1 pound dried black-eyed peas, sorted and rinsed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
1 jalapeno chile, seeded and minced
8 ounces diced ham
4 slices bacon, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
salt, to taste
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions:
Pour the water into a slow cooker, add the bouillon cube, and stir to dissolve. Combine the black-eyed peas, onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, ham, bacon, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, and pepper; stir to blend. Cover the slow cooker and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours until the beans are tender.
Ah, this almost exactly the recipe that I use, except without the butter and flour, and bay leaf instead of oregano. But I find the meat is even better if you brown the outside on the stovetop before putting it in the slowcooker, because it locks in the juices and makes it even more juicy and tender.
Edit: oh, and the beef stew recipe also freezes well if you're like me and get bored of eating the same thing for several days in a row.
Take one whole chicken.
Put chicken in crockpot.
Pour half a bottle of italian dressing on it.
Cook on low for 8 hours.
Generally the chicken is so tender that I need to be careful it doesn't fall apart when I take it out of the pot.
And I'll second the boston butt/pork shoulder recipe from earlier. Actually made one over the weekend.
We just stick the shoulder in the pot, dump BBQ sauce on it and cook on low for 4-6 hours. Then we use forks to shred/remove fat and put it back in. Cook on low for another 4-6 hours.
We have a vinegar-base BBQ sauce that we use most times, so we will also make up a brown sugar rub and cover the shoulder in that.
I don't think it's a problem you deal with. The idea of slow cooking is that meat is supposed to get so tender that it falls off the bone.
Step 2.) Tie plastic grocery bags around oven mits (have someone assist you)
Step 3.) Reach into the crock pot and place one hand under the front of the chicken, and one hand under the rear
Step 4.) Gently lift entire chicken straight up
Step 5.) Place gingerly onto a plate
Step 6.) Marvel
Ingredients:
3 medium yellow onions (if they're larger, use just 2) diced
About 2 cups of chopped mushrooms (I usually have lots of the "regular" white kind, and some other kind, like mini portobellos, or shiitake -- if using the latter, remove the stalks)
One whole head of garlic, finely chopped
5-6 long celery stalks, chopped
1 can of crushed tomatoes with added purée (I use Pastene brand)
1-2 tall cans of tomato sauce -- you can go for the kind that already has some roasted garlic and/or herbs, as long as you don't go for the kind that's allegedly ready to be used as-is on pasta.
about 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) of Spicy Italian Sausage. That's the only meat I use, instead of ground beef or pork or whatever. Gives it lots of flavor.
Herbs and spices:
Salt (I used kosher salt in my last batch... more on that later)
Pepper (it'll have more flavor if you grind it yourself)
Cloves (again, grind it yourself)
Allspice (also better if you grind it yourself)
Curry powder
Tumeric / Curcuma (same thing, depends on who you're speaking to)
Basil (I used dried basil, but fresh would also be good, I think)
Oregano (ditto)
Parsley (ditto)
Thyme
Rosemary
Chili powder
Paprika
Crushed chilies or cayenne pepper (or both, depending on your taste -- skip if you don't like the burn -- the other spices are already going to make this a little hot, anyway.)
1- Sauté the onions until they're transparent, and are starting to caramelize a little. Throw the result into the crock pot.
2- Sauté the mushrooms and celery as well. You'll know the mushrooms are ready when they get darker and shrunken. As for the celery, don't worry too much, but this step will help you make sure that it'll be soft in the sauce, later -- otherwise you'd end up with hard celery chunks. When the mushrooms and celery are about half-done, add the garlic. Be careful not to burn the garlic, otherwise you'll get a bitter flavor out of it. Throw the result in the crock pot.
3- Cook the sausage meat, making sure to break it apart as much as possible while you're cooking it. You want it to be as broken apart as ground beef would be. Throw the result into the crock pot. Hint: if you want to reduce your fat intake, drain the meat before throwing into the pot -- but you'll be losing some flavor, as well.
4- Grind your spices (I use a small electric coffee grinder that works really well). Last time I made this, I also put my coarse kosher salt into the grinder, and got a nice, powdery spice mix.
5- Add the ground spices, and all your other spices and herbs. I didn't provide any exact measurements, because I always go by eye. 2 times out of the last 4, the result was just right, and the other 2 times, I was too careful about the spices, didn't put enough, and the result just wasn't "pungent" enough for my taste.
6- Pour in the ground tomatoes and the tomato sauce.
7- Mix thoroughly
At this point, it's usually about bedtime, so I take the ceramic part of the crock pot (with the cover on) and put that in the fridge. The following morning, I just take it out of the fridge, put it in the crock pot's other half, and turn it on low (set for 9 hours). If you're making the recipe in the morning, aiming for supper, then you can skip the fridge part.
My crock pot switches to "Keep warm" when it's done cooking. I expect most other crock pots are like that, so you don't have to worry if you get home late.
One final note: this is even better after you freeze it (in suitable portions) and then reheat it, for later use. Tends to concentrate the flavors, and thicken the sauce. Otherwise, I find the sauce is a little too liquid for my taste, when used straight out of the crock pot.
For the spices, if you're not worried about it being too hot for you, aim for about a tablespoon of most spices (teaspoon for the cloves and the allspice, more for the salt and pepper, and the parsley, basil and oregano.) After your first batch, you'll have a better idea of what to increase and what to reduce, for the next batch.
If you really can't stand a sauce that's significantly hot, don't use crushed chilies or cayenne, use fewer cloves and allspice, less curry powder (or use a milder curry powder) and less chili powder, and replace the sausage with mild italian sausage, or just ground beef, pork, or whatever other ground meat you want to use. But you'll get something that's not quite as flavorful (many of those spices bring a lot of flavor, along with the burn.)
In particular, what really makes a difference with most other spaghetti sauces I've had, over the years, are the cloves and the allspice. It's what I miss when I'm not having my own spaghetti sauce or my mother's.
Also, with the right tools, the preparation part (before starting the crock pot) can be over in less than 90 minutes. I use a gadget that looks like a cube, where I just place the onion on top, and then push down with the other half of the tool, and the onion goes through the thing, comes out all chopped-up and ready to use. Still have to peel, first, but it works, which is more than I can say about my first and only attempt with a Slap Chop (avoid at all costs.)
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1 can tomato soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1.5-2 pounds stew beef
2-3 potatoes, cubed
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, cubed
1 small package of sliced mushrooms (I think it's about a half a pound)
3/4-1 pound of carrots (usually I use baby carrots so I don't have to peel/cut them)
1/2 pound frozen peas
1/2 pound frozen green beans
1/2 pound frozen corn
All you do is layer it in the crock pot and cook it on low for 8-10 hours. Make sure the soup is on the bottom so as it heats up it works its way through all of the other ingredients. You can add other vegetables as well if you want, celery and bell peppers are both pretty good, this is just the way my Grandma makes it.
Nah, you don't really need that much liquid.
One crock cookbook I have actually says at the beginning to only put the liquid in as required by the recipe and to not think extra liquid is required.
I actually did some chicken once where I added no liquid.
It was just two cans of beans, some sausage and a couple of chicken breasts.
And with the pork shoulders I do, after cooking for 6-8 hours and shredding all the meat is generally submerged. It may start out as an iceberg of pork, but by the end it's a pile of shredded meat simmering in BBQ goodness.
The shredding is key. When we were first experimenting with the crock, we didn't shred the shoulder. It didn't come out nearly as well
This is pretty much what I do.
As a result, I have chili for lunch at work a lot.
(Not always, there's other things I make too though!)
Also, that's one of the recipes that doesn't work as well for me in the slow cooker. My normal chili recipe calls for a lot of beer, and in the crock pot it wasn't reduced at all, really, making the chili less tasty.