Your servant, ma'am

Every time I allow my Crock Pot to make dinner I wonder why I do not grant it permission more often.

It is like having a servant in the house!

You walk in and there is this aroma of your dinner cooking. Every time I do this, which as I said is not often enough, I always manage not to be thinking about it when I walk in the door. Then that aroma hits you.

Today it is Black Bean Soup. I used this basic recipe out of the 400 Calorie Fix diet cookbook. Diet cookbooks by the way have great recipes, in my (extensive) experience. They knock themselves out to impress you. The South Beach Diet cookbooks are excellent.

Anyway, this Spicy Black Bean Soup, to use its formal name, pretty much has you toss together dried beans (2 cups) chopped up onion, carrots or whatever, and a cup of salsa, plus then you cover it with water. I waited until I came back home to add the salsa because I had not soaked the beans as the recipe asked, and I was afraid that with salt they would not soften correctly.

After tossing in the salsa I spiced it up according to another recipe I love, Caribbean Black Bean Soup out of the Vegetarian Times cookbook. I threw in cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper and -- the piece de resistance -- a quarter cup of dark rum.

Ah!!

"Your servant, ma'am." That is the Crock Pot speaking!

The black bean soup is cousin to the white bean soup I wrote about a while ago. My friend Ryan made that white bean soup! That made my day.

Today  it was rather disorienting, because I had time to play the piano and work on my book and whatnot. Clearly I must explore and exploit the Crock Pot more often.

It is not often you find a Crock Pot recipe that is just excellent as I have kvetched before. We will have to make an index of recipes that work.

When you find one, it makes your day!

The cookbook I couldn't resist

Since I have started tidying up my house I have been trying not to bring too many things in. Cookbooks specifically. I have so many! Even if I do use them, there are just so many.

However.

There was a cookbook the other day at Goodwill that had to be bought!

It was the Better Homes and Gardens Slow Cooker Cookbook. I got it out from the library once before and remembered it to be worthwhile. It was less loony than a lot of these slow cooker cookbooks that always ask you to dirty 12 skillets sauteing this and that and finally you deglaze the pots and then put it all into the Crock Pot where it cooks for two hours.

Fie on those recipes. Fie!

This book seems better. There are a lot of recipes that do not require any sauteing. Which, fine, I like to saute, and I understand the science behind it, but the people who routinely insist on that in Crock Pot recipes do not understand the Crock Pot. There is an art to using the Crock Pot. I am not saying you can just chuck everything into it. But you have to come up with recipes that capitalize on its strengths, not things you could do more easily on the stove.

You have to be a Crock Pot virtuoso! The way Pennario was to the piano.

Already I made the Ratatouille Soup with Beans. It is kind of a white bean soup and probably I could have come up with it on my own. But it turned out great and I appreciate the recipe.

Perhaps I will be like "Julie and Julia." But instead of cooking my way through Julia Child's "The Art of French Cooking" I will cook my way through "Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes."

A sure recipe for a best seller!

Crock-down

When I am through with my book on Leonard Pennario I might just have to write a Crock Pot cookbook.

It is so hard to find decent Crock Pot recipes!

Just now I was preparing to put a chicken in the crock. A whole chicken, from Tops, 88 cents a pound, that I am cooking up for my mom. I wanted to have a little fun, do something distinctive with it, not just put it in the pot and pour wine over it, whatever.

I looked on the Internet but most cooking Web logs drive me crazy. The pictures are yuchy ...

... and the writers are too wordy. 


Ha, ha! Bitchin' in the kitchen. Monday mornings are for griping!

The Crock Pot cookbooks I have are pathetic too. This one book I have is typical. It comes from Britain which, a lot of cookbooks with beautiful pictures come from Britain. And often they have great recipes too. People tell you British food is bad but that is wrong. It is great.

The trouble is, though, this Crock Pot cookbook is so fussy it is useless. I keep wanting to throw it out or tear it up.


On the cover it says: "Over 200 one-pot dishes for no-fuss preparation.."


Ha, ha!


What a crock!


(Sorry, I could not help that.) 


The writer -- her name is Catherine Atkinson, I name names -- almost always starts by making you brown something in a skillet on the stove. Next you have to transfer whatever you were cooking into a bowl, and brown something else. Then you de-glaze the pan, then add other stuff, then cook until it is reduced, or whatever.

Finally you transfer it all laboriously to the Crock Pot and it cooks, say, on high for one hour and then on low for two hours.

What in the world, you know?

How does this make my life easier?

Obviously whoever wrote this book does not understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Crock Pot.

Long story short, finally I settled on this, kind of a basic spice rub, nothing special.

But at least I am cooking.

Finally!

Planet Crockpot

Who cares if it's cold out? I've got my Crock Pot to keep me warm.

You remember, the Crock Pot with a timer that I found for $15. It is my friend!

Today I did a lamb roast in it. This is one of those leg of lamb roasts I got at Albrecht Discount at Easter time and froze. I got it out of the freezer and cooked it in the crock in zinfandel wine, as per Cooking Light. I did this recipe once before. I wrote, "Mom liked this."

So tomorrow I am going to bring some over to my mom.

I browned the lamb as the recipe suggested, and I deglazed the pot. But still, it was easy. More time to spend on Leonard Pennario. 

And this is just the opening act for tomorrow which will be Crockpot Squid!

After that ... hmmm. I have some eggplant so mayhap I will do Eggplant Lasagna. That is a good Crock Pot item. If anyone has any good recipes please send them along.

Perhaps I can keep this going all week!

Gross!

Whilst scouring the Internet for a recipe worthy to christen my new Crock Pot, I am reminded over and over of the old wisdom:

Food Web loggers, ahem.

Leave the food photography to the pros!

I am not normally elitist. For instance I hate when a recipe is described as "restaurant style." Aren't restaurants supposed to be imitating home cooking? I also hate the term "home cook." I am trying to talk myself out of that but have not been able to.

However. Pictures are a different matter.

God knows I am not squeamish when it comes to food. I love to eat! It is one thing that brought me and Leonard Pennario together.

But the pro food photographers -- haha, it is early in the day and that almost came out "phood fotographers" -- have gifts that we normal people with our pocket digital cameras do not. Face it.

I have been guilty of amateur food photography too, God knows. So has Howard. Sometimes if dinner looks especially good Howard takes a picture of it. Which cheers me and flatters me, but then the picture goes on line and, ahem, something is lost in translation.

Today I resolve, I take no more pictures of food. I could not believe the pictures I found online on other people's Web logs in just five minutes of searching for chicken and cauliflower curry in a Crock Pot. This shot at the top is just the beginning.

Is this a plate or a Petri dish?

Photographing a half-empty dish does not improve things.

This dish should have stayed an ancient Chinese secret.

Bone appetit!

Two sage pieces of kitchen advice:

Stand facing the stove (from "The Joy of Cooking") ... and ...

Step away from the camera!

The timer is ticking

An amazing thing has happened to my cooking capabilities. I was able to score a Crock Pot with a timer!

I am excited about this!! I have wanted one of these for a while. I found this one second hand for $15. It looks just like this one ....

... only it is white, not black. Which is fine with me. As Michael Jackson sang, it don't matter if you're black or white. Wow, looking at the Web log from which I stole this picture, I see that these things normally cost $40. "A bargain," writes the Web logger. An even bigger bargain for $15!

This Crock Pot I acquired does not look as if it was ever used. It is pristine in a way that your Crock Pots never are after you have used them. Unless the person who had this one is the greatest scourer in the world.

You can set it for four, eight, 10 or 12 hours. I have not used it yet but I have been admiring it and plugging it in and pushing its buttons. This is funny, if you have ever explored Goodwill's Small Electrics department, they tape on these hilarious notes. All in capital letters, it says: "THIS IS 'FINAL SALE.' THIS ITEM WAS TESTED BY PLUGING IT IN..."

After reading that word "pluging" I just cannot go any further.

I love that too much!

Now I must needs find a good project with which to christen the crock. I would like to find something that would have been off limits to me before because I would not be there when the dish finished cooking.

Perhaps this lasagna.