Slow Cookin' Collective

If you've read this blog before you'd know that I'm in love with my slow cooker! I am continuously trying + looking for new slow cooker recipes + I welcome you all to share your favorites with me! Just comment below! :) Anyways thought I'd put together this collective post of slow cooker friendly recipes you can find right here on BSOM...Enjoy!!

Chili

Beef Stew

This picture doesn't do this stew justice!

Corn + Potato Chowder

As I mentioned I welcome you all to share YOUR favorite slow cooker recipes!

So come on fess up...

What's your favorite slow cooker recipe?!

Comment below or shoot me over an email to bicoastalstateofmind@gmail.com! <3

 I would love to hear from you and maybe even feature your recipe right here on BSOM if you're up to it! :)

Slow Cookin' | Chili

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I LOVE my slow cooker! It just makes life so much easier, and the meals are delicious!! I decided to try to make chili, one of my favorites, in the slow cooker this time. I've made it plenty times before and it really wasn't that much different cooking it in the slow cooker vs. a pan, (at least the recipe I went by) except that the spices and sauce do have longer of an opportunity to really marinate without having to supervise it.

 The recipe I used for this chili was kind of a combination of recipes that I had seen online. I just kind of picked and chose different amounts for the ingredients/method from a few different recipes to come up with this one. I served homemade cornbread alongside the chili (which I of course topped with cheese!) 

I won't post the cornbread recipe I used as you can find it on a box of Alber's Cornmeal mix. But you can find a pretty tasty recipe for cornbread right here on BSOM!! Nelli posted this recipe for Banana Flax Corn muffins last Fall...check it! (I didn't have all the ingredients which is why I opted for the box recipe)  But without further ado...the chili recipe! :)

Chili: Slow Cooker Edition
Prep Time: 10 mins or so
Cook Time: 5-6 Hours (Low) 3-4 Hours (High)

Whatcha Need:
* 1 lb. Ground Beef
* 1/2 C. Onion, finely chopped
* 1 Clove garlic, finely chopped
* 1 Can (15 oz) Tomato sauce
* 1 Can (16 oz) Kidney beans
* 1 1/2-2 T. Chili Powder
* 1/4 t. Cumin
* 1/2 t. Red pepper flakes
* 1/4 t. S + P
* 1/2 C. Water

Method: 
- Cook ground beef + onion, drain + add to slow cooker
- Add remaining ingredients
- Slow cook at desired temp...Enjoy!

Tip(s) I have for this recipe:
** I used a 28 oz can of tomato sauce contradictory to what the recipe called for, if you are using the a 15 oz can I suggest using less water.
** We had leftovers for a couple of days and as leftovers can get boring you can opt to top your chili with cheese one night, or serve it on top of some hot dogs another night just to keep it interesting.

Healthy Modification: Now I don't claim to be a health guru, but as promised I will try to add any modifications I can think of in order to make any recipe I post somewhat "healthier." One potential little modification one could make would be to use lean ground turkey instead of ground beef. That's the only thing I could really think of to modify this one. Oh and you could maybe add a can of corn to get some veggies in there, and it would mix it up a bit.

My Verdict: Delicious recipe, definitely will be adding this bad boy to the recipe book!

Until next friends...Cheers!!

|Links|  P.S. We are looking for some foodies out there who have some recipes they'd like to share for a future food feature!! See our Contact page for more info!

Slow Cookin' | Corn & Potato Chowder

Dinner is served!

As I mentioned a few blogs back, I've been trying to mix it up in the kitchen by making new dishes I've eaten a thousand times before but had never made myself. This was the case with the corn dogs, as it was the case with this next recipe I'd like to share with you...Potato + Corn Chowder! Although it (had) been unseasonably warm in California lately, it is still winter time which means it is still hot soup season (although I really do love a good bowl of soup anytime of the year). I had never made this recipe before or any soups prior to this one particular night but you bet I did have success making my first homemade soup!

I think I told you all before but my boyfriend's grandma had gotten him and I a slow cooker for Christmas which I'm soo in love with!! Makes my life so much easier, and the meals we've been making in it are delicious!! Of course this is the route I wanted to go to make my soup and so it was a slow cooker recipe that I found. Mind you I found this recipe a couple of weeks ago, and have been wanting to make this soup since. When I wrote this recipe down those few weeks back I spaced out and totally forgot to write down where I had found this bad boy, so I'm not sure which site to credit, my apologies. Okay let's get down to business...

I've been putting this bad boy to work!

This recipe is meant for a 7 quart slow cooker, so you may have to adjust it a bit depending on the size of your slow cooker. I have a 6 quart slow cooker so I adjusted the recipe by basically eyein' all of my ingredients as I added them to the slow cooker, keeping the quantities of this recipe in mind. As I did eyeball everything I can't tell you exactly how much of each ingredient I put in, so I'm just going to give you the recipe as I originally found it.

Corn + Potato Chowder: Slow Cooker Edition

Prep Time:  
30-40 mins would be my guess.
 This is somewhat of a labor intensive recipe as
all soup recipes usually are.

Cook Time:  
Low for 10 hours or High for 6 hours

Whatcha Need

- 8 oz. Bacon, cooked + crumbled 
 I typically buy real high quality bacon, but as I was just going to crumble it into this soup
I didn't think it was necessary to buy the highest quality bacon. Don't get me wrong I still got good bacon but I just wasn't as particular as I usually am. On another note if it was up to me I wouldn't even have the bacon involved as I love just veggies, but I compromised, and it was delicious!

 - 2 1/2 lb. Russet Potatoes (about 5 medium sized potatoes), diced not peeled
 I used white potatoes instead of the russet potatoes because I prefer the taste.

- 8 C. (2 lbs) Kernel corn
I used a bag of white sweet frozen corn instead of the typical yellow corn. This did make my soup a tad on the sweeter side, but that's just my personal preference. I suggest you use yellow corn if you're going for more of a traditional chowder.

- 1 Sweet yellow onion (medium), finely chopped
I suggest cutting this last to spare your eyes! 

- 1 C. Celery, finely chopped
- 6 Garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 4 C. Chicken stock
- 2 C. 1/2 & 1/2 or Heavy cream
- Salt + Peppa, lots!


Method

-Get yo ingredients ready! This step is going to take a minute. 

-I cooked my bacon first so it would have time to cool before I crumbled it.

-Next it's time for the fun part, the washin', the cuttin', the pealin' (if  you + carrots as I did)  you get my drift.

-Add all your ingredients, except the cream, to your slow cooker. Cook at either temperature/time listed above.

By the end of your cook time your soup will look like this, with most of the broth soaked up.

-The last 15 minutes of your cook time is when you're going to (possibly) puree your soup in a blender. Let me tell ya about this step. I started to puree a little bit of my soup, about a 1/2 cup, in the blender to see if I liked the texture/consistency, turns out I did not like either at all. I did add the little bit of soup I had pureed to the rest of the soup which turned out great! I would definitely puree 1/2 cup or so of the soup and add it again as I liked how the chowder was soupy but it didn't all look like baby food or something and still had some bigger pieces of veggies in it which I really liked. 

-Once you've either pureed some or all of your soup from the crock pot you're going to want to put the soup back in the crock pot and add the 1/2 & 1/2 or heavy cream. 

 

-Continue cooking uncovered about 15 minutes.

-Serve up and enjoy!!

I served corn bread alongside the soup which was super good, but I know not everyone out there is a corn fanatic so a good sour dough baguette would be fine too. There was a lot of leftovers as this soup recipe will give you a rather large batch. I know leftovers tend to get boring when you're on about day 4 which is why I suggest topping this soup with sour cream or cheese, maybe even some bacon, just to mix it up a little. 

 Healthy Modification: As promised I will try to add any modifications I can think of in order to make any recipe I post somewhat "healthier." Being that this is mostly a veggie filled soup it's already on the healthier side. One modification that may sway it a little farther towards that direction is to maybe use low fat/fat free half & half/heavy cream or you could cut the bacon out.
 

My Verdict: Soup turned out delicious! I really liked this recipe and will be making it again, but next time I'm recruiting help with the prep part of this venture! There was just a ton of veggies to cut up! But it was definitely all worth it in the end! :)

Until next time friends...Cheers!! 

P.S. We are looking for some foodies out there who have some recipes they'd like to share for future food features!! See our Contact page for more info!! :)

Stewy Goodnesss.

This picture doesn't do this
stew justice! 

Happy December friends! Cold weather, Christmas, New Years..and my birthday month! Gotta say I love December! :) With the cold weather comes hearty warm dinners one of my personal favorites being Beef Stew. Although I've grown up eating it, and have always loved it I've never made it myself until today, and boy did it turned out wonderfully! A few months back my step dad had a cow butchered, which lead to my boyfriend and I coming into about 200 or so lbs of organic, grass fed beef. With this has come a variety of beef cuts, many of which I had never cooked before which included stew meat.

I kind of got thrown into making the beef stew so I didn't have a written recipe that I found online or anything, but I have had beef stew my entire life, and I had experience on my hand as my boyfriend's grandma happened to be here when the beef stew adventure came up.

The stew meat was frozen when this all started and was put into a pot as is with some water. Unfortunately I don't own a crock pot so I just used a regular old pot and let the meat simmer on low for about 4 hours or so. I added water about 3 hours in, as advised by my boyfriend's grandma, and at the 4 hour mark we added Beef Stew Seasoning Mix, potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms (which I had never had in stew before).

Growing up the beef stew I always ate had smaller pieces of potatoes as they had disintegrated as the stew cooked. I thought this how every stew was until I learned a valuable piece of information from my boyfriend's grandma. Always used white or red potatoes as they are waxier and don't break down like Russet potatoes do. I saw the light! She had also suggested the mushrooms, which as I mentioned I never had in stew before, but they were a great addition to this stew!! Super happy with how delicious the stew turned out, especially the meat! I've never cooked meat that was as tender as the stew meat turned out so it was quite a nice surprise! Even my picky eater boyfriend who hates stew loved how it turned out! It was so easy to put together too, and I loved how I didn't have to stand over it while it cooked! I just went about my day as dinner took care of itself..can't ask for better than that! :)

Until next time..cheers!!! ;)

UPDATE 2/10/13: As I do own a slow cooker now, I thought I would update this post with an actual recipe for how I make my stew in the slow cooker (which is pretty much the same method as the above post, but I just use a slow cooker now instead of a pot). I'm not going to go into details regarding amounts of these ingredients, as I just kind of winged to be honest. Plus your stew seasoning can give you a better idea regarding quantities.

Noonie's Stewy Goodness: Slow Cooker Edition
Prep Time: 10 mins or so
Cook Time: 8 Hours (Low) 5 Hours (High)
Or until beef is tender.

Whatcha Need:
* Stew Meat of your choice
(I always use beef)
* Potatos
* Carrots
* Mushrooms
* Stew Seasoning Mix
(I always use McCormick's)
* Just enough water to cover the top of your ingredients

Method:
- Place stew meat at the bottom of your slow cooker
- Mix a little water with the stew seasoning, pour seasoning mix and the rest of the water into the slow cooker
- Pile everything else on top, cover and let it be
- Last but not least...enjoy!! :)