two hundred and thirteen

My husband grew up in an Italian-American family, therefore, like all other Italian-Americans, he loves meatballs.  It's genetic, I think.  He doesn’t care if they’re served alone, with pasta, or on a salad, so long as they’re served, period.  I know I’ve said that I love it when he makes requests for meals, but meatballs are just one of those things that can be a huge pain to make in bulk.   First you have to mix the meat with a ton of filler to make sure the balls don’t crumble, then you have to brown every last one of them in a skillet before transferring them to a giant vat of simmering sauce (or “gravy” as folks ‘round these parts call it.)  In the grand scheme of things, they’re really not all that difficult, but they never fail to take up a large chunk of one’s day given that, ideally, meatballs will spend several hours simmering on the stove top.  And don’t even get me started on the mess that the sauce creates all over my stove, counters, walls, hair, you name it!

The sauce’s super staining powers are almost enough to make me give up making meatballs for good, but I would feel kind of evil if I denied my husband one of his favorite foods just because it’s messy.  So, the other week, I decided to experiment with meatballs in the slow cooker, and you know what?   Even though the slow cooked meatballs go straight into the slow cooker without being browned, they taste even better than the stovetop version.  Cleanup is done in a blink of an eye, especially if your slow cooker’s lid and insert are dishwasher safe!  And, best of all, you can start them in the morning, go about your day, and forget about them until dinnertime.  That’s right, meatballs: you’ve officially joined the ranks of weekday foods.

one hundred and ninety-one

Ever since I got a slow cooker back in November, I have been completely obsessed with slow cookerizing some of my favorite Dutch oven recipes.  Goodbye burned bottoms, hello dinner being "finished" at 9 in the morning!  I am so enamored by my slow cooker, in fact, that I have spent a fair amount of time looking for slow cooker specific recipes.

Once I got over the fact that most of them are what I like to call "can heavy," I was struck by how many of the recipes claim to be easy to throw together before work in the morning--something I never fail to remind myself when I spend 45 minutes browning meat and cleaning and chopping vegetables in order to prepare them for their day in the slow cooker.  It wasn't until this weekend when I was freezing meat destined for slow cooker beef stew, however, that I realized the solution to busy morning prep work had been staring me in the face all along.

Oh yeah... You can freeze that!  (Or not.  This recipe is flexible like that.)

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

2 pounds stew beef

4 large red potatoes, scrubbed and cubed

3 large carrots, peeled and chopped

1 large onion, diced

3 cups green beans, chopped*

4 cloves garlic, minced

splash of vegetable oil

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp dark balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

pepper

1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup beef stock

1/2 cup red wine (I used merlot)

additional salt and pepper, to taste

*If you want the green beans to look nice and bright in your bowl, you can use frozen green beans. Instead of adding them at the beginning, just mix them into your slow cooker an hour before serving; it also helps them maintain their texture.  Yum!

Freezer Directions:

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Add the potatoes, carrots, onions, and green beans, then boil for 3-5 minutes.  Drain and then immediately transfer to a large bowl of ice water.  Drain and then drizzle with vegetable oil or spray with nonstick cooking spray, then transfer veggies to two quart sized bags (gallon sized bags can be too big for the slow cooker) and freeze until ready to use, or up to one month.

Mix the beef, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper in a large bowl.  Transfer the meat to two more quart sized bags and freeze until ready to use, or up to one month.

About ten hours before dinner, empty the contents of the bags into the slow cooker.  Add the bay leaves, beef stock, and wine.  Cover and cook on high for 8 hours.  Before serving, fish out the bay leaves.  Add additional salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar to taste, if desired.

No-Freeze Directions:

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the beef with a small amount of vegetable oil for about five minutes.  Add all of the ingredients to the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on high for 6 hours.  Before serving, fish out the bay leaves.  Add additional salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar to taste, if desired.

one hundred and forty-seven

I was born in Cocoa Beach, Florida, the land of rockets, drunks, and awesome Cuban food.  Every weekend after church with my grandparents, I went to breakfast at a restaurant called Roberto's.  As a young child, I ordered grits or pancakes or something equally mundane and hard to mess up.  When I got a little older, I started going to church at 11 instead of 8.  On top of giving me an extra two hours of sleep, the later service afforded me the opportunity to learn that Roberto's had a life beyond breakfast food.

Since I was not very knowledgeable about Cuban food, I would often pick something that sounded interesting and hope for the best.  More than a few times, this led to disappointment when I was presented with bits of the animal that are best used for pet food--and rice and beans, of course.  Once I was presented with a Cuban sandwich, however, my roulette style of ordering was quickly abandoned.  After a couple of months, I stopped having to order.  Life was good.

Suddenly, I found myself uprooted to South Carolina where there was no Cuban food to be found.  Disappointed, I willed myself to forget about the ambrosia of sandwiches--and I did.  A few years later, out of the blue, my mother came home from work with a Cuban sandwich, which I eyed suspiciously.  "Where did you get this?" I asked.  "Publix.  Wanna split it?"  She heated it up in the oven and I sullenly ate half of my half of the not-very-good sandwich.  When I was finished, I put the leftovers in the fridge to eat later.

Later came and went, and I was starving.  I padded to the kitchen and pulled out the cold sandwich and began to eat.  And that's the story of how I discovered my favorite sandwich: the cold Cuban.

I live in New Jersey now, the land of no Publix supermarkets and not very delicious Cuban restaurants, so I don't get my favorite sandwich very often.  Every now and then, however, cravings take over and lead to me buying a pork loin and making one at home, but my dislike of touching pork limited these cravings.  That is, until I discovered that I can make the pork in a slow cooker.  Now I'm passing the curse of that knowledge on to you!  Enjoy!

one hundred and forty-two

I've had my slow cooker for a little over two weeks now, which has been just enough time to fall in love with the contraption--and immediately fall into a state of confusion at the number of slow cooker recipes that rely on cream of whatever soup, or packaged soup mix, or soup seasoning, or... soup.  I was getting ready to give up and just throw everything into the slow cooker and call it a day, but then out of nowhere three words popped into my head: Home Ec 101 (shush, the 101 is hyphenated).  My go-to recipe index came to the rescue and I was able to get my roast on as planned.

Despite years of being one of Heather's squealing fangirls, I have a weakness: I can't follow a recipe.  Not even from a source I love and recommend.  No matter how good it may taste, no matter how classic it may be, there is not a single chef or cook that is safe from my modifications.  Most of the time, I would rely on my memory of the flavors of the finished product, rather than taking the 30 seconds to note any changes to the original recipe.

When others would ask for my recipes, I would direct them to the one that had inspired me, and would then sheepishly listen to the laments of my friends' failed attempts at "my" lime cookies, "my" roasted chicken, or "my" tortillas.  I would try to explain what changes I had made, but by that point it was always too late and the response would invariably be a short, "I'll just wait until next time you make it."

Now that I have a blog, however, I never fail to cook with a notebook at hand.  I taste, season, note, taste, season, note, until I'm almost too full for dinner (note that I said almost).  Why all of this strife?  Why not just post links to recipes and then say, "Add some rosemary and balsamic as needed?"  One word, my friends: content.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast with Gravy

Adapted from Home Ec 101's Wine Braised Pot Roast, this slow cooker recipe is super simple and super tasty--and the leftovers make awesome French dip sandwiches or stew!  Add some carrots and potatoes and you have a one pot meal!  The smell is almost unbearably delicious, so I recommend this meal for a busy weekend when you and your family won't be tempted to spend all day standing in the kitchen staring at your CrockPot.  (Not that I speak from experience.)

1 3-5 lb. roast (I used bottom round)

2 tsp kosher salt

fresh pepper, to taste

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 sweet onions, sliced

6 cloves of garlic, smashed

6 oz. red wine (I used a mini bottle of merlot)

2 bay leaves

2 tsp dried rosemary, crumbled

1-10.5 oz. can beef consummé

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar 

4 large carrots, cut into medallions (optional)

2 lbs. red skinned potatoes, cubed (optional)

3 tbsp corn starch mixed with 3 tbsp cold water (for gravy)

Trim any silver skin or fat from the roast.  Season the roast with salt and pepper.

In a large pan over medium-high heat, melt the butter and olive oil.  Once the butter begins to bubble, place the roast into the pan, then wiggle it a bit to keep it from sticking.  Cook for three minutes, or until brown, then flip the roast.  Repeat the browning process on all sides, then transfer the roast into your slow cooker.

Reduce the pan's heat to medium, then add the onions and garlic.  Cook, stirring frequently, for about 15 minutes, or until the onions have caramelized.  Reduce the heat to medium-low if the onions are starting to brown too quickly.

Once the onions and garlic have caramelized, push them off to the side of the pan.  Add the wine to deglaze.  Remove the pan from the heat and dump the onions over the pot roast in the slow cooker.

Add the bay leaves, rosemary, beef consumme, Worcestershire, and vinegar to the slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low for about 10 hours.  For a one pot meal, add the carrots and potatoes after about 3 hours and continue to cook over low.

Remove the roast from the slow cooker and allow to rest, covered, on a cutting board.

If you added them, use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables.  Discard the bay leaves.

Turn the slow cooker onto high.  Whisk in the corn starch slurry and cook gravy until thickened, about 10 minutes.  Taste, then season as desired.

Serves 6-8.