4 posts tagged “crockpot”
It's not often that my husband requests a meal. Typically, I ask him what he feels like eating the following week and 95% of the time the answer is "I don't care" or "Let me think about it" and he never does. (The other 5% of the time, he asks for chicken marsala.)
So when Tom actually gave me a suggestion for once, I had to make it. Sure, he picked lasagna, one of the more fattening and annoying to assemble things on the planet. But still, it was a suggestion and we hadn't had lasagna in a really long time. It sounded good to me, too.
To lighten the lasagna up a bit, I used 95% lean ground sirloin for the meatsauce (sort of counteracted by my use of supah-fatty sausage but that's OK), low fat ricotta, low fat mozzarella and whole wheat lasagna noodles. We had this with some sauteed spinach (extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice).
Elly's Lasagna
1 lb. lasagna noodles
1 (15 oz) container Ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
parsley, to taste
ground pepper, to taste
1 batch meatsauce (recipe follows)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Preheat oven to 350.
Boil lasagna noodles in salted water until al dente.
In a small mixing bowl, mix together ricotta, romano, beaten egg, black pepper and parsley.
Spray a little oil over a large baking dish. Spread a thin layer of meatsauce over the bottom and then layer the lasagna as desired, alternating noodles/ricotta/meatsauce. End with a thin layer of meatsauce.
Top with mozzarella cheese.
Cover with aluminum foil. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 10.
Meatsauce
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 lb. ground sausage or 2 Italian sausage links, casings removed
1/2 can (3 oz) tomato paste
1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 cup beef broth
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
oregano, to taste
basil, to taste
parsley, to taste
salt (a tsp or so, to taste) and pepper
In a large saute pan, heat the oil. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant.
Add the sausage and ground beef, crumbling and browning. Drain.
Add the remaning ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
Simmer covered (or uncovered, for a slightly thicker sauce) for an hour or longer.
I actually found out we were going to our friends' for lunch, so I ended up doing everything up until the simmering part and then throwing it in the crockpot on low until I was ready to assemble the lasagna later. I knew I wouldn't want to do all that work after getting home from lunch. This is the first time I have done meatsauce in the crockpot and it turned out wonderfully.
If you make 8 slices (and they are definitely good sized), this comes out to about 500 calories and 20g fat per slice which really isn't THAT bad for lasagna. It would be a lot less fat without the use of sausage but 1. my husband loves sausage so I had to include at least a little and 2. sausage was buy one get one free at the grocery store. Those BOGOs always get me!
I could not get a good picture of one piece to save my life. Aren't the first couple slices always the sloppiest?
I was looking at Nikki's carnitas the other day and they looked really delicious. But, between our oven, which leaks heat from the sides because the thing will just not shut properly, and the 92 degree weather we were experiencing, I wasn't much in the mood to keep the oven on for five or six hours.
I decided to take the recipe and modify it to the crockpot. I make something extremely similar to this with chicken every once in a while. It's so easy to get together and it's ready for tacos/burritos/over rice/etc. when you get home.
I used:
- 2 lb. pork roast
- cumin
- oregano
- chili powder
- cayenne powder
- salt and pepper
- 5 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
- 1 cup tomatillo salsa
- 1 onion, diced
- a little oil
- cilantro (optional)
- cooking spray
Spray the bowl of the crockpot with some cooking oil.
Cook the diced onions in the oil until they are translucent. Add the tomatillo salsa in and stir to combine.
Meanwhile, season the roast. Season liberally with salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano and cayenne (well not too liberally with that if you don't like spicier foods :) on both sides. On the top, cut 5 slits or Xs into the roast and insert the whole cloves of garlic in the slits.
Sear the roast to brown on all sides befre putting it into the crockpot. Pour tomatillo mixture over the roast.
Cook on low for about 8 hours or on high for, I would guess about 4. Shred the meat with two forks and continue to cook for about 30 minutes with the lid off, to thicken the salsa a bit. Remove the garlic cloves and stir in the cilantro.
Use to fill tacos/burritos/enchiladas or just eat with some beans and rice.
We went with burritos filled with some Mexican flavored brown rice, sour cream, black beans and cheese. I used reduced fat items for the toppings and low carb burrito wraps. Once I accidentally bought low carb tortillas and they were one of the most vile things I had put in my mouth. This time I accidentally bought them AGAIN but was too lazy (and cheap) to replace them with regular whole wheat ones. Well, I have to say these were actually good--Tumaro's multigrain wraps. They have 12g of fiber, too!
I haven't forgotten about cooking, I've just forgotten about the blog. Luckily, I have a million things to do around the house today and, since I am looking for a reason to procrastinate, I remembered I haven't visited the old Vox site in a while. So, here I am, typing away in an office that needs a MAJOR cleaning.
At any rate, I made a nice dinner last night for two friends who recently celebrated birthdays. Unfortunately, I only remembered to take a picture of the very first thing to come out of the oven (stuffed mushrooms). Doh! So, last night we had:
- Stuffed mushrooms
- Goat cheese-marinara bake with garlic crostini
- French Onion soup
- Filet of beef bourguignon with mashed garlic redskins and roasted asparagus
- Chocolate lava cakes
Stuffed Mushrooms
I have made these a few times and everyone always loves them. The best part (for me) is that there is no crab in there since I am not a seafood kinda gal. And who doesn't love bacon?
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
5 slices bacon
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
10 oz. fresh spinach
1/3 c. heavy cream
12-16 large stuffing mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
1. Preheat oven to 400 and grease a cookie or baking sheet (or just use a silpat)
2. Cook bacon, drain, and crumble. Set aside.
3. Remove stems from mushrooms. Arrange caps in baking dish and finely chop stems.
4. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in saucepan over medium heat and add onion. Cook 2-3 minutes before adding garlic and spinach. Cook spinach down and make sure garlic and onion are tender.
5. Mix in bacon, chopped stems, and cream. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat. Mix in cheese, salt, and pepper.
6. Stuff mushroom caps generously with mixture. Drizzle 2 tablespoons melted butter over. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Goat cheese-marinara crostini
Probably one of the easiest things ever to make, and one of the best. Pat a log of goat cheese until it is slightly flat, and put in a small, shallow baking dish. Pour homemade or your favorite jarred pasta sauce around the sides of the cheese, coming just up to the cheese (but not covering it). Bake at 325 for about 20 minutes or until it starts getting bubbly. During the last 10 minutes, toss in a baking sheet with some slices of French bread that you have brushed with extra virgin olive oil so they become nice and toasty. Once the crostini are out of the oven, rub them with a fresh head of garlic.
French Onion Soup
I have made a creamy onion soup before, but never a plain old onion soup. I looked at a couple recipes and each seemed as though it was missing something, so I made up my own and it was delicious! The other good thing was that I was able to make this earlier in the day and refrigerate it until it was ready to reheat and pop in the oven. The added bonus, of course, is that soups always taste better after they have been resting for a bit.
This makes about 6 bowls of soup (I used the standard oven-proof bowls so I could melt the cheese on top).
7 medium yellow onions, sliced
6 tablespoons unsalted butter (I only keep unsalted in my fridge)
4 thyme springs, leaves stripped
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup dry sherry
4 cups beef stock
2 cups chicken stock
French bread croutons (did the same thing I did for the crostini, above)
Gruyere - 2 cups shredded or 6 slices
In a large pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onions, bay leaf, and thyme leaves and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions begin to turn golden brown--about 25-30 minutes.
Add the sherry and cook until it is almost evaporated and onions turn brown, about 15 minutes.
Add the beef and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Ladle the soup into the oven-proof bowls. Top with a French bread crouton and a handful (or slice) of the gruyere. Bake at 450* until cheese is bubbly and starts to turn brown, about 8-10 minutes.
Filet of Beef Bourguignon
I used Ina Garten's recipe. It was great, primarily because it uses such a great cut of beef ("the Cadillac of meats" as the butcher called it). It was tender and flavorful. The only problem I had is that there it too little sauce. Between the deglazing and simmering of vegetables the sauce reduces quite a bit so I would probably 1.5x the liquid if I were to make this again.
I served this with some mashed garlic redskins [boiled the redskins until cooked, drained. To to the warm pot, added some butter (to melt) and some roasted garlic. Re re-added potatoes and mashed. Added salt, pepper, and a little parmesan cheese] and roasted asparagus.
Chocolate Molten Cakes
I used Dave Lieberman's recipe (sidenote: I *puffy heart* Dave) but did half semi sweet and half bittersweet chocolate. I undercooked them a little (because I was so afraid of OVERcooking them) but they were still yummy. And, it's pretty much a given Iwill never make a perfect dessert since I don't like to bake.
PHEW. So, onto (or back to?) last week. Well, I don't really remember when we had these meals, but over the past week or two we have eaten...
Italian beef sandwiches
For "crockpot Friday," I just put a 2.5 lb. beef chuck roast in the crockpot after searing it a little. I heated up some beef broth (I would say to use about 1/2 cup for every pound of meat) and to that I added: 3 cloves minced garlic; 1 tablespoon oregano; 1 tablespoon basil; 1/2 tsp black pepper; 1 bay leaf, 1 tablespoon dried minced onion; 1 tablespoon parsley and a little salt. Poured that over the roast, cooked it on low all day while I was at work.
When I came home, I shredded the beef and let it continue to cook on low, uncovered (to thicken up/reduce the juices a tad) for about another hour.
I know the traditional way to serve these is with peppers, but I prefer a pepper cheese instead. So, I toasted up some sub rolls that I made into garlic rolls by adding a little butter, garlic and a spray of EVOO, and added cheese the last minute they were toasting.
Chicken with mushrooms, prosciutto, and cream sauce over egg noodles and with peas. Honestly, even ith modifications, I thought this was kinda "eh" at best. I think in general I am not a huge fan of sauces made with sour cream (despite loving sour cream) but I thought I would give it a whirl because we had leftover sour cream.
Beef Stew
This is one of those dishes I love experimenting with, be it changing up the ingredients, or cooking it in a crockpot versus an oven. The recipe below can easily be put in the oven instead of a crockpot. I just like the ease of the crockpot, and that I don't have to be home while it cooks. While this takes a lot more prep than a normal slowcooker meal, if I am making this on a weekday where I have to be at work, I do all the prep (vegetable cutting, etc) the night before. If you like a more tomato-y stew, you could throw in a can of diced tomatoes. I used to make this without tomato paste but realized even adding a tbsp or two really added some depth of flavor, so I do that, now.
If you make this in the oven, cook it in a covered dutch oven at 275-300* for about 2 hours. Stir the frozen peas in at the end, the same way you would for the crockpot version.
2 pounds cubed beef stew meat
4 cups red wine, divided
4 cloves garlic, minced, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2-3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1.5 cup sliced carrots
1.5 cup sliced celery
4-5 potatoes, cut in fourths or eighths depending on size
1/2 cup frozen peas
8 oz. sliced mushrooms, stems removed and cut in half
2 bay leaves (or 1, if it's bigger)
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
1.5 tsp. dried thyme
1.5 tsp. dried rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon butter
2 small or 1 medium onion, sliced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1. Place meat, 2 cloves garlic, and 3 and 1/2 cup red wine in a container. Refrigerate for a couple hours, or overnight.
2. In a large plastic bag, combine flour, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper. In batches, add meat and shake to coat.
3. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add stew meat, and cook until evenly browned on the outside. Cook in batches if necessary so as not to crowd the meat.
4. Place the potatoes, carrots, celery and mushrooms on the bottom of the crockpot. Top witb browned meat, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper.
5. In the same skillet, melt butter and saute onions until softened. Add the tomato paste and cook off a bit and stir in garlic until fragrant.
6. Pour remaining 1/2 cup red wine and beef broth into the skillet, deglazing the pan and scraping the brown bits. Reduce slightly before pouring the mixture into the crockpot.
7. Cook on low for 7-9 hours or if I am home I like cooking on high for one hour and then on low for 5 or 6
8. When done, stir in peas
Damn, Gina! I think that finally gets up up to speed.
I really don't like cooking on Fridays. For the longest time I kept planning Friday dinners, only to decide around 4pm that I had NO desire to cook, and we'd end up ordering in, pushing our meal back a day and ruining my weekend meals (I usually make things that take longer on the weekend). So, now, on Fridays we either eat out, Tom makes tacos, or I use the crockpot so I have minimal work. This is one of the easiest things to throw together in the morning: shredded chicken, to be used for tostados/tacos/just plain eating.
Basically, spray the crockpot with a little oil. Place a couple chicken breasts, a can of beans (your choice, I like black and I drain/rinse them), a 12 oz. jar of salsa (I used verde here), and some herbs/spices. I use salt, pepper, a few dashes of hot sauce, oregano, garlic powder, chili powder and cumin. Let is cook on low while you are at work. When you get home, stir the pot a little and the chicken will shred effortlessly. I usually cook it an additional 30 minutes or so after it's shredded, with the lid off, so it can absorb more of the flavors and thicken up a bit.
Tonight I decided to make some Spanish rice and this was actually my first time making it. I cheated and used *gasp* minute brown rice because, again, I am lazy on Fridays. I just heated up some oil, added a few tablespoons of diced onions and cooked them for about 2 minutes before adding a tablespoon of tomato paste and a clove of minced garlic. After cooking 30-40 seconds or so, I added the rice to toast a couple minutes. Then I added chicken broth, chili powder, and cumin. Turned out pretty well.
We ate the chicken on corn tortillas (sprayed a little oil on them and baked them in the oven) with all the toppings: reduced fat cheese, reduced fat sour cream, tomatoes, lettuce, a little extra salsa.
