Slow cooking through February

I continued to use my slow cooker a lot in February and found some more good recipes, not so many duds.

  • Baked beans. I had forgotten this one in my first post I think, but it was actually the first thing I made at all. Served it with some yummy corn muffins and it was well devoured by Jordi and me.
  • Baked spinach and cheese noodles. This was a tremendous fail, just icky and overcooked. Do not try this.
  • Tofu in peanut sauce. This had a good flavor, but it was very dry and thick. Making this again I’d need to add more liquid into the sauce, it was almost as thick as regular peanut butter. But the flavor was right on, so some broth to thin it out would have been tasty.
  • Chili. We generally like our chili without tomatoes and made very thick so that I can just make chili cheese nachos with it. But we liked this recipe a lot too, so it was great to have a new version to add that’s different. Don’t forget the extra toppings!
  • Potato soup. This was a bit thick and I think it had all too much pepper in it, Jordi thought it was fine. But otherwise it was a good basic soup. I’d water it down a bit more next time and I’m basically finding that either my pepper is too fresh, or I just don’t pepper my foods like other people are inclined to do, I wait until the end to add salt and pepper now.
  • Split pea soup. This was yummy with a different flavor than I’m used to for split pea soup, it tried to imitate the idea of having a ham bone in it while being vegetarian, so it used some sugar and spices. We liked it and had it with grilled cheese.
  • Thai tofu vegetable curry. We liked this one again, fairly mild taste and a nice entry entree for me into Thai cooking which I don’t do much of. Next time I need to cut the yam pieces smaller so they cook faster.
  • Lentil tortellini soup. We really liked this, Josie was a big fan considering there is pasta in it. She may have even snuck a few lentils in along with it. We had it with some homemade bread.
  • Squash stew. This was kindly recommended by Bhuvana and it was delicious, slightly sweet from the squash which completely melted into the broth for a really unique and different kind of soup.
  • Wonderful Lentils. We liked this, it made a ton. I would cook the onion on the stove first next time, it was a little crunchy. I somehow totally screwed up the spice shopping for this recipe and didn’t have most of them, so I added in a little adobo seasoning. It reminded me of hamburger helper except with lentils, guess that’s the salt and garlic powder I added! Oh and I certainly did not put in reduced fat cheese, just the regular stuff.
  • Minestrone soup. This was a standard soup that came out ok, nothing amazing.

I also made this Red Lentil soup which a mom had made for me after Celia was born. It is delicious, but it’s not in the slow cooker although I’m sure it could be converted. All in all it was a month with a lot of soup, given how cold it is outside! Not too many abject failures and some really good keepers. Please do share more if you’ve got ideas!

One Response to “Slow cooking through February”

  1. Pipita Says:

    Jordi – Traductor.
    A mi me encantan las lentejas y todos los granos. Son muy sencillas de preparar. El alino casero de cebolla, ajo y pimenton rojo, le puedes agregar ajoporro. Primero sofries hasta dorar la cebolla, luego el ajo, luego el ajoporro y por ultimo el pimenton. Si comes tocineta (yo la uso de turkey) tambien sofrita. Quedan divinas. Igual te va para los otros Granos.

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