Happy Accident...With a Dash of Prevarication

It's hard to get fancy with cooking when you only have one arm to work with...so my crockpots have been doing the "heavy lifting" this past week. My family, for the most part, is fairly tolerant about meals (Danny being the lesser part, usually). Today's effort was a little bit of a gamble. I had the leftover ham bone from Sunday's awesome ham, and I wanted to make soup with it. Usually I would use it to make lentil soup - everyone in my family will eat it - Nathan especially seems to love it. Well, my lentil soup recipe calls for some chopped onion and carrots. Chopping vegetables isn't on my current list of activities. So I tried something different.

Beanland Soup with Ham

2-3 cups "Beanland" mix, rinsed (I picked it up in the bulk section of Winco - it doesn't seem to really have beans in it - it did have a couple of varieties of lentils, split peas, rice, barley, and maybe two or three other things)
8-10 cups of water (you can add more later on if it looks too thick)
4 chicken bouillon cubes
small handful dehydrated onion
seasoning - I used rosemary, thyme, parsley and a little pepper

Dump it all in a crockpot and cook for 4 or 5 hours.


I wouldn't bother to post this recipe except that Daniel ate 3 bowls of it. One of those AFTER I admitted to the onions and he figured out there were split peas in it. The hardest thing about making this (for me) was unwrapping the stinking bouillon cubes.

Dinner in Five...

Step one: break your arm. Either one will do.
Step two: ask husband to "come here for just a sec...I need a little help" (batting eyelashes is optional at this point - with your arm broken it's practically unnecessary)

Ingredients:
6 lb. bone-in ham
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup real maple syrup
juice from two cans pineapple (or 2 cups pineapple juice)

Have husband place the ham, flat side down, in a large crockpot. Rub in the brown sugar, pour on syrup then juice. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Come home from 4 hours of church to an awesome aroma. Baste the ham once or twice after 4 hours. This was another great recipe from "a year of crockpotting" blog.

I just so happened to have the real maple syrup on hand (we are happy to use Mrs. Butterworth's imitation syrup on our waffles, but NOT on the Thanksgiving turkey - this syrup was left over from that meal). Very, very easy meal. It took about 5 minutes to put together and 5 hours to cook. The ham cut like butter. Nice. And from now on I can have Steve make ham.

Slow Cooker Saturday

One of the things I love about Tamale Pie is how forgiving it is. I found a recipe for Tamale Pie made in a crockpot on the "year of crockpotting" blog. This is my variation of it. When Alex asked me what I was making for dinner I told him "tamale pie - it's another one of those Mexican dishes that uses the pretty much the same ingredients - just in a different order". He said "Peasant food".

So here's my version. This time. It will be different next time.

Filling:

1 lb. ground beef - cooked and drained (I put a little garlic salt on it while it was cooking)
1 can black beans - drained and rinsed
1 can corn - drained
1 can diced tomatoes (you could puree them if kids don't like the texture)
1 small can diced green chilies
1 T chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
diced onion to taste (I like fresh, but used dehydrated because I can't chop onions with my arm in a cast)
1/2-1 cup shredded cheddar/jack cheese

Dump all of the above in a crockpot. I used my 1981 crockpot - I think it holds about 4 quarts. Stir well.

I was going to use a homemade cornmeal topping, but oops...no cornmeal. I made up 2 cups of Marie Callendar's cornbread mix with 1 cup water and dumped that on top (after lightly packing down the filling).

I covered and cooked for a little less than 2 hours on high, at which point I propped the lid slightly open with a chopstick so that the moisture could vent. I continued cooking for a total cooking time of 2 hours 45 minutes. The cornbread was cooked all the way through and we ate it up.

Judging:

Alex - 8.5 - "it's good." (he had thirds)

Steve - 7.0 - "it's edible and I'd have it again" (he had seconds - but admits that tamale pie isn't really a favorite of his anyway)

Me - 9.5 for execution, 7.0 for taste. I liked how easy this was - and how food storage friendly. I do like a good tamale pie but this one was a bit so-so as far as taste. I think I would doctor it up a little next time - fresh onions, diced green peppers, maybe some olives....I would also use my homemade cornmeal crust. Oh yeah, I'll be making this again.

Dueling Crockpots

I was talking to Sherri this morning and she said that when she told someone that she owned 2 crockpots they were surprised. "What do you need 2 crockpots for?"

I have two words for her: Dinner. Dessert.

Theoretically I could cook a 5 course meal with the crockpots that I own. In my own defense, they are all different sizes except the two pictured above...and I MIGHT get rid of my old one on the right. If it doesn't perform tonight, out it goes.

Sooo....what's for dinner? I'm making a variation on the Six Can Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe that I found through Suzanne. I'm calling mine "taco soup". I left out the chicken and substituted in a pound of ground beef that I had precooked with taco seasoning. With tortilla chips and optional cheese it pretty much makes a whole meal.

I made a double batch of soup. I plan on freezing the leftovers....but not in the door of the freezer.

Dessert (or rather FHE treat) is going to be brownies - and whatever Steve brings home to top them with. Knowing Steve, and believe me - I do, it will be ice cream. I found the idea on the crockpotting blog (see sidebar), but what really convinced me was this video.