Slow cooker Archives - Page 2 of 3

Mini Chicken Tostadas Recipe (vegetarian adaptable)

You guys know I love watching football. However, I’m not such a fan that I’ll watch just any game with teams that I don’t care much about. So unfortunately for me, this has been a very boring season. All the teams I root for didn’t make the playoffs. And even the teams I root against didn’t make the playoffs, so I really had very little excitement this year. But I still love having friends over on Sundays and I always have fun making tasty nibbles for everyone to enjoy during the games. All is not lost.

Since the Super Bowl is coming up, I know many of you will be hosting friends and family at your house or will be invited somewhere. Now is the perfect time to figure out a few fun, easy and delicious game-day recipes.

We always have a few people over for the Super Bowl – nothing big because otherwise my husband can’t “concentrate” (on the game, not in general.) I usually keep a big pot of chili (see these recipes for vegetable chili, Southwestern turkey and black bean chili, and veggie-sweet potato chili) on the stove with a topping bar on the kitchen island and some cornbread. I also will have either a taco bar or a baked potato bar as well. It’s all easy, can be prepped in advance and I think most people like to customize their own meal.

You must try these mini chicken tostadas! My kids go crazy for them. A tostada is a fried, whole tortilla topped with variety of goodies – shredded chicken or beef, refried beans, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, really whatever you would put on a taco. I find tostadas a bit awkward to eat, but these mini ones are much less messy and they are still customizable.

I like to bake my own tortillas to make chips, but only when I have time. I’ll give you directions for how to make your own baked mini tortilla rounds for this recipe, but if you’re having a crowd, I would probably just go get the round, organic tortilla chips from Trader Joe’s or elsewhere. Maybe less healthful than baking your own, but much easier if you have a lot of other things to do. Make some chicken taco meat the day before either in the oven or the slow cooker and you’ve got a very easy crowd-pleaser!

The way I like to make these is to put a pinch of chicken and cheese on each tortilla round and bake them for a few minutes or until the cheese melts a little and the chicken is warmed through. But, if you make your chicken the same day and it’s still warm when you put it on the chip, it’s up to you if you still want to pop them in the oven. Then just top them however you like. I also make these vegetarian with refried beans instead of chicken. Either way, they’ll be a winner!

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Mini Chicken Tostadas

Author: Pamela

Serves: makes 18, but the recipe can easily be multiplied to make more

Ingredients

6 6-inch soft corn tortillas
unrefined olive oil for brushing tortillas
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken taco meat (click here for a slow cooker and oven version) or use 1 -2 cans of refried beans for a vegetarian version
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese (or Monterey Jack or cheddar)
Additional toppings: guacamole, salsa, sour cream, chopped fresh cilantro, sliced scallions

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (if you have an aluminum or nonstick pan.)
Brush both sides of each tortilla with a little olive oil. With a 2 ½-inch cookie cutter, try to cut 3 rounds from each tortilla. You can bake the scraps to make crispy bits to top a salad or soup.
Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown. They will crisp up as they cool. These can be made the day before and kept in a covered container at room temperature. Or, instead of making baked rounds, buy round tortilla chips.
When ready to serve, preheat oven once again to 375 degrees. Put a pinch of chicken and a pinch of cheese on each. Bake until chicken is warmed through. Top with desired accompaniments.

Slow cooker apple pie steel cut oats recipe (stovetop version, too!)

I feel like whining. Nooooo, I don’t waaaaaaant school to start tomorrow. I have to wake up so eaaaarrrrrly. Ugggh. And lunnnnnnches. Ok. I’m done. Thanks for listening.

I think making breakfast, lunch and dinner during the school year is hard. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a competition on a Food Network show. Minutes to spare. Limited ingredients. Tough judges. The pressure! The fact is that I cannot wing it when school starts. To feed my family and myself real food as much as possible, I need a plan. I have one child leaving at 6:35 am, another at 7:20 am and my youngest leaves at 8:00 am. To all of you who can pull together breakfast, lunch and dinner without so much as a list, I am in awe of you. I consider myself a culinary quasi-professional and I cannot wake up on a Monday morning and open the fridge and say, “Hmmmm. What should I make today?” It stresses me out just thinking about doing that.

Every Sunday night for 18 years, I have planned my meals for the week and I shop accordingly. And every year I do one new thing to help me get a little better organized because every year my family seems to throw me a new challenge. This year I think I’m going to do a breakfast schedule so I don’t have to think so much about that meal when I’m making my list.

Monday: oatmeal or warm whole grain porridge (muesli in the warmer months)

Tuesday: breakfast quesadilla or burrito

Wednesday: pancakes or waffles (homemade, silly)

Thursday: muffins, quick breads, or French toast or maybe oatmeal again

Friday: frittata or rice bake to use up leftover cooked vegetables from the week

I will always have homemade granola in the pantry, yogurt and nut butters in the fridge, stuff to make smoothies, and fresh fruit on the counter. If one of the kids doesn’t want what I’ve made that day and chooses to make his or her own breakfast, ~~I’ll believe it when I see it~~ that would be lovely. Here’s a previous post with more breakfast ideas.

I’ve been making this slow cooker oatmeal for the last year and I couldn’t wait for it to be apple season again so I could share it with you. We all love it! Love! It tastes like you stirred apple pie filling into your oats. I like steel cut oats because they are so hearty and they take a little longer for your body to digest than rolled oats, so you get a longer-lasting energy. There’s nothing wrong with making plain and simple oats for breakfast and setting out a bunch of delicious toppings, but this is so easy and it’s ready when you come into the kitchen in the morning. Nothing else you need to do. We love it as is, but if you don’t like raisins, you can leave them out. But I encourage you to try it with the raisins because they plump up so beautifully and add a little extra sweetness to the oats. You can also add more sweetener than I do, but again, try this as is because you can always add extra sweetener later.

If you don’t have a slow cooker, I have a post in the archives for stovetop overnight steel cut oats. You bring everything up to a boil on the stovetop the night before, cover and turn off the heat. I repeat, turn off the heat. In the morning, just warm through and your oats will be perfect in a few minutes. I don’t see why you couldn’t do this with this recipe. And of course, you can do this the traditional way on the stovetop as well. Just dump everything into the pot and cook. No excuses on this one!!

I wish all of you an excellent beginning of school!

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Slow Cooker Apple Pie Steel Cut Oats

Author: Pamela

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 cup steel cut oats (use certified gluten-free oats for GF oatmeal)
4 cups water
2 apples, peeled, cored, & cut into bite size pieces
2 Tablespoons maple syrup (you can use any sweetener you want)
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of salt
¼ cup raisins

Instructions

Place the steel cut oats, water, apples, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and raisins into a slow cooker and cook on LOW heat for 5 hours. Actually, anywhere between 4 and 6 hours is fine. Most slow cookers have an automatic “WARM” setting so after it cooks, it will stay warm until you’re ready for it.
Stir well to combine before serving. I like to finish my oatmeal with a little homemade almond milk to thin it out a little. Yum!

Notes

I know it's tempting to leave the peel on the apples, but after they cook, the apples get soft and the peel stays tough. Not so fun to eat! To make this on the stovetop, see the last paragraph above.

apples cinnamon maple syrup nutmeg steel cut oats

Slow Cooker Pulled Barbecued Chicken

You’ve heard of Meatless Mondays and Taco Tuesdays, but in this house we’ve had “Slow Cooker Thursdays” for the last two months. It doesn’t have the same ring as the other two, but it has made my life way easier. Mr. Picky had baseball games every Thursday (and Sunday) since March and they were conveniently scheduled at dinnertime. Scrunchy face. Picture hubby and me sitting at a little league game until 7:00 or 7:30 (gotta love extra innings!) while my daughters were texting me from home “We r starving! When r u coming home? Can we eat without u?” Then of course I actually had to assemble dinner in record time once I finally returned home. That happened once, until I figured out that Thursdays would have to be “Slow Cooker Night” unless I wanted to let the girls eat acai bowls for dinner (because that’s about all they would take the time to make even when “starving”) or allow Mr. Picky to eat hot dogs or microwaved canned chili on top of Fritos from the snack stand at the field. Um, no.

I work really hard to make sure we eat together every night. It’s actually more important to me than what we eat. I’ve always said that breakfast might be the most important meal of the day from a nutritional perspective, but dinner is the most important from an emotional perspective. However, getting the five of us at the table at a reasonable time for dinner can be a challenge, especially during Little League season. And no matter how hard I tried to get Mr. Picky to find baseball boring, he just wouldn’t see it my way. So if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and that’s where I found myself every single blessed Thursday night. Deciding to make something in the slow cooker on Thursdays was my ticket to freedom so I wasn’t stressed out every time a player was walked or someone got a hit, both of which keep the game going on and on and on.

When I first started using this slow cooker in December, so many people asked me for good slow cooker recipes. I was honestly surprised since one quick search on Foodily turned up thousands. But as I’ve experimented, I have realized what everyone else already knows — that not every slow cooker recipe is a good one, and certainly not a healthful one. Never said I was a quick learner!

I recently invested in the book, “Slow Cooker Revolution” by America’s Test Kitchen and it looks promising. I tried their recipe for barbecued chicken and we all loved it! I have been experimenting with making my own barbecue sauce and I’m super close to posting it, but not quite. I did use one of my homemade BBQ sauce experiments and the chicken turned out super tender and flavorful. We had it the first night on cracked wheat buns with homemade cole slaw — super delicious. And the next day I put it into quesadillas for the girls’ lunch. They asked for it again the day after that, but sadly it was all gone.

I thought to share this recipe with you this week for a possible Father’s Day menu item or for a July 4th party. It’s also a good time to remind you why grilled animal protein isn’t that good for you. Check out an earlier post on that here. Slow cooking with low heat cuts way down on carcinogens from forming. It’s a win-win! Even though Little League is over, my slow cooker is staying and so is this chicken!

5.0 from 2 reviews

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Slow Cooker Pulled Barbecued Chicken

Author: Pamela, adapted from "Slow Cooker Revolution"

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat
1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat (or use all thighs)
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
¼ teaspoon ground chipotle powder or cayenne
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ cups barbecue sauce

Instructions

Place chicken pieces in the slow cooker.
Mix together chili powder, paprika, chipotle powder, salt and pepper and rub all over chicken.
Pour ½ cup barbecue sauce over chicken and toss to coat. Cover and cook until chicken is tender 4-6 hours on LOW. (5 hours worked great for me.) The slow cooker can also go to the WARM setting if you are not ready to eat the chicken after cooking 4-6 hours.
Transfer chicken to a large bowl and allow to cool slightly. With two forks, shred meat into bite size pieces, but not too fine.
Pour the liquid that remains in the slow cooker into a fat separator (or leave the liquid in the slow cooker and try to skim the fat off the top with a large spoon.)
Heat the remaining 1 cup of barbecue sauce in a small saucepan until hot. Toss shredded chicken with hot barbecue sauce and 1 cup of braising liquid. You’ll have extra liquid if you need it. Serve warm either by itself or on toasted whole grain buns or in a quesadilla.

barbecue sauce chicken chili powder ground chipotle paprika

Mixed berry cobbler recipe (slow cooker version, too!)

Do you know the difference between a crisp, a cobbler, a slump, a grunt and a brown betty? I hear the terms used interchangeably, when of course, they’re not the same at all. A cobbler has a biscuit topping, a crisp has a crunchy oat and sugar topping, a slump/grunt is like a cobbler, but it is finished on the stovetop so that the biscuits are steamed, rather than browned, and a brown betty is topped with buttered bread crumbs. Just so we’re all on the same page. And just so you don’t go ordering a cobbler at a restaurant thinking you are getting something with a buttery, crunchy, oat topping only to be served a bowl of cooked fruit with a biscuit on top. I hate when that happens.

Not that a cobbler is bad. Oh no, friends. Cobblers are very, very good. Especially when strawberries are in season and they are about as luscious as can be. When strawberries debut at our local farmer’s markets, I feel like a bear coming out of hibernation, like I’m taking a breath of fresh air. It’s spring! Weeeee! I can finally tell Mr. Picky, “Yes, it’s finally strawberry season!” I swear I have been buying strawberries lately like they’re never coming back. They’re in the kids’ lunches several times a week, in breakfast smoothies and acai bowls and chopped into pancakes. I even did a crazy thing and added a little bit of chia seed and water to some mashed up strawberries and let it thicken into a raw jam/spread. I thought it was really good. Then I smeared some in between two slices of whole grain bread and made a stuffed strawberry French toast, if you will. Really tasty!

I was feeling spunky last weekend and thought I would surprise everyone with a special dessert, which I knew had to have strawberries in it. So I started pulling together my favorite cobbler with strawberries as well as whatever berries I had in the freezer. I had this moment of genius when I thought, I bet I could do this in a slow cooker! I bet no one in the world has ever done a cobbler in a slow cooker. I am going to revolutionize the food world with this brilliant idea! Of course, one quick search on Foodily and I saw that 20 other people/websites already came up with that same idea. I hate when that happens. Grumpy face. Although one of the recipes called for a can of apple pie filling and a box of yellow cake mix. I mean, is that even a recipe? That is such a gross idea. Don’t even think about trying it.

Why would you when you can have this wholesome, fresh, clean and YUMMY cobbler for just a little more effort? I have two versions here, one baked in the oven and the other in the slow cooker. The oven cobbler has a much prettier presentation, with the classic, nicely browned “cobbled” texture on top and baked in a dish you can actually bring to the table. But it’s nice to know you can can use your slow cooker for more than just shredded meat. I was thinking it would be great for the summer so you don’t have to turn your oven on to make a fruit dessert. The look wasn’t quite as lovely since I spread the dough on the bottom of the insert and laid the fruit on top. I wanted the fruit to stay intact and not get cooked into a pot of mush. Which it did not.

Either way, the ingredients stay the same for both. I have used whole spelt flour, whole wheat pastry and white whole wheat all with success. I know that you can use gluten-free flour like Kind Arthur with a little added xanthan gum and achieve an equally tasty result. If you’ve made cobbler before, you might think my recipe doesn’t have enough sweetener. But I promise, give this a go and you’ll be surprised how much you enjoy tasting the actual fruit and not just sugar. Of course, a little ice cream on top doesn’t taste bad. Or, I look forward to leftovers the next morning with a dollop of sheep’s yogurt. Unless someone ate it all and left me none when I couldn’t stop dreaming about it all night. Ooooh, I hate when that happens!

5.0 from 1 reviews

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Mixed Berry Cobbler

Author: Pamela

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

6 cups mixed fresh berries, or frozen, thawed
¼ cup coconut palm sugar organic cane sugar or brown sugar
3 Tablespoons flour, such as spelt or your favorite GF flour such as rice flour
1 teaspoon lemon zest, not packed
1 ½ cups whole spelt flour, whole whet pastry, white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour OR King Arthur Multi-purpose GF Flour + 1 tsp. xanthan gum
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup OR organic cane sugar (if you use maple syrup, add to buttermilk; if you use sugar, add to flour)
¼ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
6 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter or organic Earth Balance, cut in small pieces + more for greasing baking dish
¾ cup buttermilk (or unsweetened non-dairy milk + 1 Tbs. apple cider vinegar)
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter or organic Earth Balance, melted or 1 Tablespoon buttermilk*
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9–or 10-inch square shallow baking dish or pie plate.
In a medium bowl, gently toss the berries with 3 Tbs. flour, ¼ cup sugar and zest. Transfer berries into the prepared pan. Set aside and reserve the bowl.
To make the cobbler topping, blend the 1 ½ cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, 2 Tbs. sugar (if using), salt and butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender or pulse in a food processor just until most of the mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer to the same bowl used to mix the berries and stir in the buttermilk and maple syrup (if using) until well combined.
Using your fingertips, rub the buttermilk mixture until it begins to clump together. Take a heaping spoonful of dough and place it on top of the berries. Don’t cover the berries completely. Brush with melted butter or buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar, if desired. Place the dish on a baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes or until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden and cooked through.

Notes

*For a golden glaze, brush the biscuits with melted butter. For a more brown crust, brush them with buttermilk.

You can use either maple syrup or cane sugar (not both) in the cobbler topping. Pick one sweetener! Please read the directions carefully since the maple syrup is added with the buttermilk and the cane sugar is added to the dry ingredients.

To increase the recipe to serve 12, multiply all ingredients by 1 ½ and use a 13 x 9–inch baking dish. Bake for an additional 5 minutes.

To Make in the Slow Cooker:
Follow all directions for cobbler in the oven except dollop the cobbler topping on the bottom of the slow cooker insert and pour the fruit mixture on top. Cover and cook on LOW for 1 ½ to 2 hours, or until biscuit mixture is cooked through. The time will depend on how wide your slow cooker is.

blackberries blueberries butter coconut sugar lemon zest maple syrup strawberries

Slow cooker white bean soup with sausage and collard greens recipe (stovetop version, too)

I know so many of you are fighting cold weather and stuffy noses, so I thought I would share with you a new favorite soup in our house. My friend and student Lynette gave me the recipe because it has been popular with her family. Nothing beats a warm and hearty bowl of soup when you’re not feeling 100% and this one is particularly fantastic since you place everything into a slow cooker in the morning and it’s ready by dinnertime (also great when you’re not feeling 100%.)

People in my classes have been begging me for more slow cooker recipes, especially the dump-and-start kind. If you don’t have a slow cooker, do not fear. I will give you directions for a stovetop version. Whereas I normally prefer to saute aromatic vegetables before using them in a soup or stew since it adds more flavor, in this recipe the extra step doesn’t make much difference. Lucky us! Although the original recipe doesn’t call for it, I prefer to soak my beans to neutralize the phytic acid, a hard-to-digest anti-nutritient. Soaking is optional though, as the slow cooker will easily cook the beans to a creamy softness without soaking.

This was a perfect entree soup for dinner paired with corn muffins and a green salad. More importantly, all my kids, including the picky one, just loved it. I know some people can’t get into the idea of “just” soup for dinner. But I promise this is a hearty one. Beans are loaded with protein and fiber which both help keep you full for longer. There is also a small amount of sausage in the soup (I used chicken sausage) which you can omit if you’re vegetarian or vegan or use your favorite vegan sausage to add a little smokiness to the soup. For a more affordable dish, you can use a small ham hock for flavor instead of the sausage.

In my opinion everything is better, more alkalizing and more nutritious with dark leafy greens. I hope you are finding new and delicious ways to incorporate this food group into your diet. Kale seems to be the “it” leafy green of the moment, that it’s nice to see another leafy green in a recipe. Collard greens are used in this soup, but I’m sure cabbage or kale would be equally delicious here. This recipe is a keeper no matter how you make it!

5.0 from 1 reviews

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Slow Cooker White Bean Soup with Sausage and Collard Greens

Author: adapted from my friend Lynette who adapted it from Real Simple Magazine

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 pound dried beans (such as cannellini or great Northern), picked through for stones or debris, soaked* for at least 6 hours in cold water and drained
½ pound andouille sausage links, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise (I used a 12-ounce package of Applegate Farms chicken apple sausage)
1 large onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 sprigs fresh thyme
8 cups low-sodium or unsalted chicken or vegetable broth, preferably homemade
1 bunch collard greens, stems discarded and leaves cut into-bite-size pieces (about 8 cups)
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar
sea salt and black pepper to taste (salt will vary based on what stock or sausage you use)
unrefined olive oil for drizzling (optional)

Instructions

In a 4-6 quart slow cooker (mine is a 6.5 quart and it turned out great), combine the beans, sausage, onion, celery, and thyme. Add the broth and stir to combine.
Cover and cook until the beans are tender, on LOW for 7 to 8 hours or HIGH for 4-5 hours.
minutes before serving, remove and discard the thyme sprigs and add the collard greens. Cover and cook until the greens are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.
Drizzle with olive oil, if desired.

Notes

*You don’t have to soak the beans if you don’t have time, but it makes them more digestible. You do need to soak them for the stovetop version.

For a stovetop version, sauté onions and celery in 2 Tablespoons olive oil. Add soaked, dried beans, sausage, thyme and stock. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook covered until beans are tender, bout 60-90 minutes. Add greens and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Stir in vinegar and season with salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil if desired.

celery collard greens chicken stock onions sausage thyme white beans

Slow cooker whole chicken and stock recipe

Daughter #2 asked me the other day if I was “ever going to put that thing away?” She was referring to my slow cooker, of course. Not that Daughter #2 is complaining since she’s the first one to the dinner table every night and has always been the easiest one to cook for. But she had a point. That slow cooker has has become part of the family!

But I wasn’t about to shelve my new baby so soon. Just when I thought cooking a whole chicken couldn’t get any easier, I decided to put my Easy No-Fail Roast Chicken method to the test in…the slow cooker. Believe me, I don’t normally mess with the easiest, most popular dinners in my repertoire. But roasting a whole chicken is something that needs to be started well before I get home some days and I need a back-up. That and I was on a roll and feeling lucky, so I figured this was going to work like everything else I’ve been trying. I decided to prep the chicken in basically the same way I do an oven-roasted chicken — rubbed on the inside and out with some kosher salt early on, stuffed with a bit of fresh thyme and some crushed garlic and cooked on a bed of onions. I usually add cut lemons to the cavity, but I was nervous that cooking the lemons for a long time would result in a bitter taste, so I left those out. The only other change I made was to rub the outside of the chicken with a little olive oil mixed with paprika so that the skin would get a little color and not be pale and unattractive.

The conclusion is that I think I should call this recipe “Easier than Easy No-Fail Roast Chicken and Still So Darn Good.” The chicken was predictably fall-off-the-bones. In fact, I had a hard time getting the chicken out of the slow cooker in one piece! My kids love super soft meat and my husband likes chicken that is beyond well done. I’ve made chicken once or twice a week for the last 17 1/2 years and he has asked me every single time if the chicken is cooked through. No comment on whether or not that is annoying since my husband occasionally reads my blog AND Valentine’s Day is coming up. Get my drift? My point is that this chicken satisfies everyone, including me since it takes all of 5 minutes to prep and you can do it 8 hours before you want to eat dinner. “Is this cooked through?” “Darling, it’s been cooking for 8 hours.”

So you all know I am completely obsessed with making homemade chicken stock. I swear, if teaching cooking classes and blogging doesn’t work out, I will go into the homemade stock-making business. The world must know the goodness of homemade stock somehow! So before I served this chicken to the family, I removed and reserved all the bones. I put the bones back in there with a chicken back I had in the freezer plus some stock veggies (onions, carrots, celery) and water and I made chicken stock overnight. It was delicious. And because there was no skin and foam and such, it turned out to be such a clear stock with minimal fat. It’s crazy not to try this! (Sorry I don’t have photos. It was too dark in my kitchen and the images didn’t turn out well.)

Cooking a whole chicken in a slow cooker opens up so many possibilities for what you can do with the meat. You don’t have to cut the chicken into traditional breast, thigh, drumstick pieces. You can use the meat just as you would rotisserie chicken meat and heaven knows there have been more articles on what to do with rotisserie chicken meat than how to get your baby to sleep through the night. Just to remind — chicken soup, enchiladas, tacos, pot pie, sandwiches, salads and so on. For those of you who do not have a slow cooker and feel excluded, please revisit the Easy No Fail Roast Chicken Recipe. I still love you and I will put away the slow cooker and come back to you. Eventually. Wink, wink.

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Slow Cooker Whole Chicken and Stock

Author: Pamela

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 whole roasting chicken, about 4-5 pounds (save the neck for stock)
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4-5 cloves garlic, crushed
½ bunch fresh thyme or a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 Tablespoons unrefined olive oil
1-2 teaspoons paprika
1 brown onion, peeled and sliced into thick slices
For the stock:
Some additional bony chicken pieces if you have them, such as backs, necks, wings and/or feet, up to 2 pounds
2 brown onions, cut into large pieces
3 carrots, cut into large chunks
3 celery stalks, cut into large chunks
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
water (amount depends on size of your slow cooker)

Instructions

When you get home from the market, unwrap the chicken and remove any giblets from the cavity. Save the neck for stock.
Take a heaping tablespoon of kosher salt and rub it around the inside of the cavity. Any remaining salt on your hands can be rubbed on the outside of the chicken. Rewrap the chicken and refrigerate until ready to cook. This can be done up to two days in advance.
The day you are making the chicken, remove it from the wrapping and sprinkle a few pinches of black pepper, as well as the garlic and thyme in the cavity of the chicken.
Truss the chicken by tying the legs together. Rub the outside of the chicken with olive oil and paprika.
Place the onion slices on the bottom of the slow cooker insert and place the chicken on top of the onions. You do not need any liquid, I promise. Cover and cook on LOW for 7- 8 hours or HIGH 4-5 hours.
Serve with the cooked onions and pan juices, if desired.

Notes

Leave whatever you didn’t use in the slow cooker (juices and onions).
Remove all the bones from the entire chicken and place in the slow cooker with any additional chicken parts you have, including the neck from the chicken you just cooked. Add vegetables, vinegar, and enough water to come up to about an inch from the top.
Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours or overnight. My slow cooker automatically goes to WARM mode after 8 hours.
Strain and use immediately if you don’t see too much fat at the top or cool slightly and refrigerate. When cold, skim and discard any fat from the top. Stock can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 3 months.

chicken garlic kosher salt olive oil onions paprika

Slow cooker vegetarian chili with sweet potatoes (stovetop version, too!)

As I type this, my slow cooker has been on for 36 hours straight. Is that allowed? I am officially obsessed and I completely understand why you all have been too while I was under a little rock. Wow! I made this awesome sweet potato chili the other night, then washed out the insert and put in some beef bones to make beef stock while I slept. Then the next morning strained the beef stock and made a grass-fed beef brisket with veggies that I turned into a delicious sauce for pasta. I’m on fire!

Are you gearing up for Super Bowl Sunday? I love football, so I am always excited for the big day. What I’d really like to know though, is why does everyone make chili for the Super Bowl? Or a lot of Tex-Mex food? I take that back. My family in NY will be eating sausage and peppers and a baked pasta of some sort. Maybe it’s just Southern California, but everyone I know is ripening their avocados for guacamole to go on top of their tacos or nachos or what have you. Just curious since I am one of these people too and I’m not quite sure how I got to be.

I do try and mix it up a little every year, but somehow chili makes it onto the menu in some way. I have been alternating between Vegetable Chili (my favorite) and Deer Valley Turkey and Black Bean Chili, which I serve alongside a baked potato bar, corn bread and Mexican Chopped Salad which I have a feeling doesn’t resemble anything you’d get in Mexico but sure is the perfect salad to go along with everything else Tex-Mex-y. I’m in a bit of a conundrum this year with only two days to go until Super Bowl Sunday because I have no menu yet! There are too many things I would love to make, including this fabulous chili as well as Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos or even this terrific-looking vegetarian tortilla soup recipe I spotted on Foodily. Alas, I have a mere one slow cooker.

Fear not, good people. I will share with you how to make this recipe on the stove in case you either do not have a slow cooker (yet) or you only have one slow cooker and you are planning on making my slow cooker chicken tacos. I like to have a good balance of different food groups even on Super Bowl Sunday so that it’s not just chips and animal protein all day long. Personally, I think chili is an easy dish to do vegetarian. All those beans are super high in fiber and protein so they’re really filling and it’s the spices that make everything taste delicious, not the meat. This chili is really interesting because it includes a bit of sweet potato, one of my most favorite foods. There’s a touch of cinnamon and cocoa powder which you can’t really taste, but pairs great with the chili powder. I didn’t add any leafy greens, but in retrospect I think a few chopped leaves of chard, spinach or kale would have been a nice addition at the end. This Super Bowl I’m rooting for you to eat something healthful!

5.0 from 4 reviews

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Slow Cooker Vegetarian Chili with Sweet Potatoes

Author: Pamela, adapted from CookieandKate.com who adapted it from Real Simple, both via Foodily

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons unrefined olive oil (or skip this if you don’t want to pre-saute vegetables)
1 red onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 sweet red bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, diced (remove seeds to make it less hot or use half or omit altogether)
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 Tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1-2 teaspoons sea salt (depending on salt in tomatoes)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 28-ounce container chopped or diced tomatoes with the juice (I prefer to use Pomi from a box or tomatoes in glass jars to avoid the inevitable BPA in canned tomatoes.)
1 ½ cups cooked black beans or 1 15-ounce can, drained and rinsed (click here to learn how to cook beans from scratch, otherwise Eden Organics doesn't use BPA in their cans)
1 ½ cups cooked kidney beans or 1 15-ounce can, drained and rinsed
2 medium sweet potatoes, about 1 pound total, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 cup water (use 2 cups water if cooking this on the stove)

Instructions

Omit this step if you cannot bear to pre-cook anything when using a slow cooker. I like to sauté my vegetables because I think it adds more flavor, but feel free to dump everything (omit the oil) into the slow cooker and press “start.” Otherwise, heat oil in a large skillet (if not using a slow cooker, sauté in a large pot) over medium heat. Add onion, peppers and garlic and sauté until onions are tender and translucent, about 6 minutes.
Add spices, salt and pepper and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. If your tomatoes are unsalted, use 2 teaspoons salt.
Add tomatoes and their liquid and cook for another minute or two.
Pour the onion and pepper mixture into a 4-6 quart slow cooker. Stir in beans, sweet potato and 1 cup water. (If cooking on the stove, add remaining ingredients to the pot plus 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook until sweet potatoes are tender and everything is nice and thick, about 1 hour.)
Cover and cook until sweet potatoes are tender and the chili has thickened, on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours.
Taste for salt and pepper. Serve with desired toppings such as tortilla chips, diced avocado, chopped cilantro, and sour cream.

Notes

I have also served this with cooked quinoa and millet, which was delicious. Also, I think adding some chopped fresh leafy greens about 10 minutes before serving would be very nice, too. Swiss chard, spinach and kale would all work well.

beans bell peppers chili powder cumin jalapeno onions sweet potato tomatoes

Slow cooker chicken tacos recipe

You have all waited patiently while my life changed with the arrival of my new slow cooker. Apparently, I am very late to this party. I had no idea there was this whole huge world of slow cooker devotees. There are even websites devoted to only slow cooker recipes. I could wallow in self pity right now, knowing that all these years I could have been starting my dinner first thing in the morning and then return at 6:00 pm to a fully cooked meal. I could think about all the fall apart tender meats I missed out on or the flavorful soups and stews that could have been. But who can be down when you’re in love? Not me, friends. Because I am in LOVE with my new slow cooker.

I use the words “slow cooker” instead of Crock Pot because Crock Pot is a brand which I don’t have. But for all intents and purposes, they are used in the same way. If you don’t have a slow cooker, I am not trying to sell you one here and I will provide directions in this recipe for how to make these tacos without one. But seriously people, this machine rocks. I don’t know what took me so long to get one. I think part of my resistance was that I don’t have any room in my kitchen to store it. I still don’t, but I did give away a box of Disney DVD’s in the garage to make space for it. (Shhhhhh!) I also never had a job where I left early in the morning and didn’t return until 6:00 pm to a house of hungry human beings. Until now.

The irony is that I bought my sister a slow cooker a few years ago when she had her second baby because she does have a job like that. She has been raving about it ever since! A few months ago, I gave my other sister the same slow cooker when she moved into a new house and I think she just started playing around with it. But I’ve used mine a few times a week since mid-December and I’m hooked.

Listen, no one needs a slow cooker, but here is why I love mine:

–if you spend a little time before you leave for the day, your slow cooker will make dinner and keep it warm for you until dinnertime;

–slow cookers cook at low heat for longer time. Lower heat prevents nutrient loss. Also, cooking above 350 degrees (which a slow cooker does NOT) can create AGE’s (advanced glycation end products) which are very inflammatory to the body and considered carcinogenic (ugh.) Yup, you heard that right. Preparing food in a slow cooker is better for your health!

–slow cooking can be very beneficial to tougher, leaner cuts of meat by breaking down the muscle and creating a very soft, tender meat;

–you can leave it unattended for up to 12 hours without overcooking your food or worrying about burning your kitchen down.

Again, I am new to slow cookers, and although I have learned a lot just by trail and error, I am no expert. But so far, I’ve noticed that I prefer the recipes that ask you to brown meat or saute vegetables before adding them to the slow cooker. You get much better flavor that way. Yes, I realize you’re getting another pan dirty, but it’s worth it and you’re getting it over with in advance. Also, I’ve made many non-slow cooker recipes in the slow cooker and just reduced the liquid a bit since there’s almost no evaporation happening and a lot of condensation.

The recipe I’m posting today is a super easy one which I made on Sunday. This is truly a measure, dump and press start recipe. I used two different kind of chicken parts to see how they would both turn out and I’ll tell you the truth — although my family much prefers white meat, no one could tell what was what. Both the thigh and breast meat were super fork-tender. I personally think thighs have more flavor, but that’s just me. Everyone L-O-V-E-D these! I set up a taco bar with lots of toppings so they could just help themselves so I could sit on the couch with a cozy blanket and the new issue of Bon Appetit while watching the football game. Bliss. Slow cooker + Me = Together Forever!

Any slow cooker love stories out there? I want to know it all — how and when you met, how you keep the passion alive, recipes for success, etc!

5.0 from 1 reviews

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Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos

Author: Pamela, adapted from Martha Stewart Living

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts and/or thighs (I used 2 breasts and 3 thighs.)
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground chipotle powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
black pepper to taste
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
½ cup prepared tomato salsa (I used pico de gallo.) + more for serving
suggested accompaniments: corn tortillas, guacamole, salsa, shredded lettuce, cilantro-lime slaw

Instructions

Place the chicken in slow cooker and sprinkle with chili powder, cumin, chipotle powder, salt and pepper. Add garlic and salsa and rub around to combine. Cover; cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6-8 hours.
Either shred the chicken with 2 forks right in the slow cooker or transfer to a plate to shred. Moisten chicken with cooking juices and serve with desired tortillas/taco shells and toppings. You could even serve the chicken over rice with salsa and diced avocados.

Notes

Leftovers are great in a quesadilla!

Oven method: preheat oven to 350 degrees. In step 1, place all ingredients (except accompaniments) in a 5-quart Dutch oven or ovenproof pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add 2 cups water or chicken stock. Cover and bake until chicken is fork-tender, about 2 hours. Proceed with step 2.

chicken chili powder chipotle powder cumin garlic salsa