hopeful

Eeee, gads...I can't believe it has been an entire month since I've posted. There are several draft posts that just didn't get finished, and an ever growing list of things I want to post about...but alas, time moves quickly in this new chapter for our family. I have definitely been cooking a lot less (our new motto is "We can't be out of food, we still have eggs") but in many ways enjoying the cooking I do a whole lot more.

Anyway, enough of that. I'm back with a delicious slow cooker recipe for creamy tomato soup. The temperature outside literally dropped forty degrees between Saturday and today; we were doing yard work in short sleeves then, and it is now hovering right around freezing. When I made my grocery list last week and asked Finn if there was anything he wanted me to make, he replied, "Homemade soup and homemade bread." He got his wish for Sunday dinner (and, before we started to eat, reminded us to thank him for the great idea...), and I'm happy to share this with you today. It is a family favorite. I highly recommend throwing down the extra change for good quality canned tomatoes; I love the Muir Glen Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes.

I'll be back soon with a fantastic advent calendar I've been working on as well as a few retrospective Halloween costume details. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Creamy Tomato Soup
From More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow

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NOTE: This serves 4-6. My family of 4 ate almost all of it for dinner. If you want leftovers, it doubles beautifully.

2 14 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 cup broth (the recipe calls for beef, I used vegetarian)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 14 oz. can evaporated milk (to add later)
2 tbsp.  butter (to add later)

In a blender or food processor, puree tomatoes and onions then add to slow cooker OR if you have an immersion blender, do it right in the slow cooker.

Add broth, brown sugar, basil, Worcestershire, and cocoa powder. Stir. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 3 to 4. Stir in the milk and butter at the end. Cover and cook on high for fifteen minutes or until the butter melts and the soup is hot.

Enjoy!

Yesterday we made the obligatory visit to our local apple orchard to find out just "How Tall This Fall" our kids are, to take a wagon ride behind a big green tractor, and to stock up on apple cider donuts, a treat of which I honestly cannot get enough. Sadly, the U-Pick portion of the orchard was not available, but that didn't stop us from buying a peck of apples in the store that someone else picked.



                
I woke up this morning with applesauce on my mind. I used Stephanie O'Dea's crock pot recipe, in part because I didn't much feel like being tied to the house on this beautiful day. The only thing wrong with this recipe is that it just doesn't make enough - I tripled it, and I still only got about a quart of applesauce. Fortunately, it's easy enough to repeat as needed. I hope you enjoy it.

The rest of the apples went to a German Apple Pie, which we will enjoy on this eve of October. Finn and I made some seasonal decorations for the windows, and there are vegetables roasting in the oven for dinner. Oh fall, how I love thee.



Slow Cooker Applesauce
Adapted from crockpot365.com

4 large apples, peeled, cored and cut into quarters
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 T. brown sugar
1/4 cup water

Place the quartered apples into the crock pot. Sprinkle with remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low 4-6 hours. When the apples are super tender, mash with a potato masher or fork.

* Note: I tripled the recipe with no ill effect. I let mine cook the full 6 hours and then left it to cool for an hour before stirring it up.

I've been trying to grocery shop every other week instead of every week; no reason, really, except that I'm constantly tweaking my grocery habits to find what works best for our family so I thought I'd give this a shot. There are definite upsides to less frequent shopping - it makes me plan very carefully, it means one less big trip to the store with two kids in tow - but there are downsides as well. Case in point: when I made the grocery list, it was cool and rainy and rather March-like, so I planned for lots of soups...and for the last few days it has been in the lower eighties, sunny, and warm. Really, nothing says spring like a steaming bowl of Baked Potato Soup, right?

Weather aside, this soup was absolutely delicious. How can you go wrong with a recipe that, as a final step, instructs you to throw in two blocks of cream cheese? This is another slow cooker recipe - I promise to get back to "fast" cooking one of these days, I'm just loving my new cookbook!

The recipe is included in full at crockpot365. I used vegetarian bouillon instead of chicken broth, regular salt instead of seasoned, and reduced fat cream cheese with no ill effect. For toppings, I served chopped scallions, crumbled bacon, and sour cream.


I used my friend Maggie's recipe for bread bowls - so good, so easy, and so much fun for the kids! Her recipe is here (along with another yummy-sounding soup recipe).



Enjoy!

This is something I have always wanted to try, and if I had known how easy it was going to be, I would have tried it a long time ago. The ingredients couldn't be any simpler, the steps are very straightforward, and the end result is absolutely marvelous. I came across the recipe in Stephanie O'Dea's Make It Fast, Cook It Slow (it is also included in More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow, which I like even better) - but you can also find it on her website, A Year of Slow Cooking.

O'Dea recommends making this on a day when you are going to be around, as there are different steps to follow throughout the day. I started it at 8:30 am and put it in the fridge to drain around 9:30 pm. When we woke up this morning, we had a huge bowl of the thickest, richest yogurt imaginable.

A vertical spoon!

The recipe is included in full here. A few things to note:

- After the eight hour stretch, the yogurt is ready to eat.  If, however, you follow the suggestion to drain the yogurt, you end up with Greek-style yogurt, as thick as sour cream. This is mentioned in the notes if you read all the way through the recipe, but I'll detail it again here. Line a strainer with a few paper coffee filter and set it over a big bowl. Pour the entire contents of the slow cooker into the strainer and stick it in the fridge for a couple of hours. This separates the whey, which can then be discarded.

- I used full fat Vitamin D milk. From what I read on the website, you can use lower fat milk but then you might need to thicken it up with gelatin. Your call.

- The yogurt lasts for 7-10 days in the fridge, and you get a lot of it, so prepare for lots of smoothies. And the cost effectiveness is pretty startling, as detailed on O'Dea's site:

• One 6-pack of yo-baby is $6.50 (24 ounces) 
• One gallon of almost totally organic milk is $3.00 (128 ounces) 
• One gallon of yobaby would be $34.67 or 10 times what it cost you to make it, more or less.

So go make a batch this weekend, and throw together some granola while you are at it!


Enjoy!

Mmmm....smoothie! (cup design can be found here)

In my last post, I shared a little bit about how my family celebrates Mongolian New Year, or Tsagaan Sar. I didn't include too much information about the food, or the fact that my amazing husband pinched over fifty meat dumplings (buuz) in the days leading up to the event, or the fact that my kids devoured the dumplings like they were Mongolian children. I also didn't include this slow cooker rice pudding recipe.

Disclaimer: Rice pudding is not typically served at Tsagaan Sar. There is, however, a kind of rice porridge (called "sootei bodah," or "rice with milk") that is sometimes served. I first incorporated this kicked-up recipe into our Tsagaan Sar festivities last year, and I vow to never again celebrate the holiday without it...it is that crazy good. So rich, so creamy, so easy...and so worth sharing with all of you.

This is a great recipe for a dinner party, because you can make it in advance, dish it into the serving bowls, then chill it and have it ready to go at dessert time. It's also absolutely delicious warm out of the slow cooker, which is similarly easy for last minute serving. Although it is a slow cooker recipe, it's actually quite fast, with about three hours total cooking time.

Sadly, I failed to take a photo of the pudding before we ate every last drop. Instead I'll share this pretty shot of our Tsagaan Sar table.


Vanilla Rice Pudding

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2/3 cup Arborio rice (the kind you use for risotto), rinsed and drained
1 13 oz. can evaporated milk
6 cups whole milk
1 1/4 cups sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 tsp cinnamon
whipped cream or fresh fruit (optional), for serving

1 - Coat the slow cooker insert with cooking spray. Combine the rice and evaporated milk in the cooker.

2 - In a large heavy saucepan over medium high heat, combine the whole milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Heat until bubbles appear around the edges to dissolve the sugar.

3 - Pour the hot milk into the cooker and stir with a whisk. Cover and cook on low until the milk is absorbed and the custard is set, about 2 1/2 hours.While cooking, the milk will be gently bubbling.

4 - In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, and cinnamon. Add about 1/4 cup of the hot pudding to the egg mixture and beat well to prevent curdling. Slowly pour the mixture into the pudding in the cooker, stirring constantly until well combined. Cover and cook on low for 30 minutes more.

5 - Serve warm or spoon into small dishes, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate to eat cold. Top with whipped cream and fresh fruit, as desired.

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with my slow cooker. There was no slow cooker included among my wedding shower haul; in fact I did not own one until about a year ago, so I'm kind of late coming to the game. The thing is, I love the idea of the slow cooker, and for the past year I've been checking out slow cooker cookbooks from the library, reading blogs, searching online for recipes, and trying desperately to make it work for our family.  I constantly find something that sounds like it will be really good, but four times out of five, it ends up overcooked. I almost feel like my slow cooker is a bit too good; I always follow the lesser recommended time, but more often than not my dinner is mush. So I've still got some experimenting to do.

On the cookbook front, I'll take a moment to highly recommend Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: it's from Stephanie O'Dea of crockpot365 and is chock full of good stuff. I particularly like the chatty tone and the inclusion of personal comments and occasionally snarky reflections with each recipe. So if you haven't seen it, and you are interested in upping your crock pot game, check it out.

This recipe, however, comes from the old stalwart Fix It and Forget It. Not my favorite cookbook, admittedly, but I occasionally find a few gems. This recipe was super easy, the chicken remained very tender (I have more luck with dark meat in the slow cooker than with white meat, as a general rule), and the flavor was nice. The potatoes were a little soft, but it actually worked in this recipe. I served it over rice with mango pickle, plain yogurt, and grocery-store naan. Yum.

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry
Makes: 6 servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 - 10 hours

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1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, quartered
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks, about 2 cups
1 apple, chopped
2 tbsp. curry powder
1 14 1/2 oz can chicken broth
1 medium onion, chopped

1. Place all ingredients in slow cooker. Mix together gently.

2. Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours or on high 5 hours, or until chicken is tender but not dry.

3. Season with salt and pepper. Serve over hot cooked rice.