Crock Pot Recipes? Or stove top Stews?

Chicken breast, one can of cream of mushroom soup, one can of cheese soup, salt, pepper, bag of frozen mixed vegetables, potato.

Also, favorite chili recipe, from Bride and Groom, First & Forever Cookbook (yeah, wedding present - lots of good recipes) -

1 TBSP grease or oil

Heat in large heavy stockpot

2 Medium yellow onions chopped
3 TBSPS Chopped garlic

Cook in oil until tender

3 TBSPS Chili powder
2 TBSPS Paprika
1 TBSP Cumin
2 TSPS Dried Oregano

Dump all this into the onions and garlic and mix it up (note:
you might want to prepare the meat first to dump in quickly
once this is all mixed up, or it might burn.)

1 LB Ground beef chuck, crumbled
1 LB Italian sausage, removed from casing, crumbled
1 TSP Kosher salt

Add to mix, increase heat to medium high, cook the meat, stirring frequently (8-10 mins)

2 28 Oz Cans crushed tomatoes
1 15 Oz Can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 15 Oz can bbq baked beans (I like black beans, instead)
1 TSP Kosher salt
1 TBSP Minced canned chipotle chilies in adobo sauce

Throw it all in, stir it all up and reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for an hour.

Dude. I totally realize why I'm single. I can't cook for shit. Good thing I have other assets. wink, wink.

Doesn't help with the crock pot, but I need to lend you my copy of Casserole Crazy by Emily Farris (until very recently Brooklyn resident and blogger). There are some seriously good recipes in here.

http://www.amazon.com/Casserole-Crazy-Stuff-Your-Oven/dp/1557885354/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235334161&sr=1-1

Anastasia Beaverhausen wrote: I can't cook for shit.

This is why most people buy crock pots.

Carmen wrote: boneless skinless chicken boobs
...
lowfat or fat free
...
diet friendly
...
cornstarch to thicken it up

NOOOOOOOOO!

Can you brown something in a crock pot?
(I don't have one, but The Minnesotan is threatening, claiming it would be great for slow cooking pork shoulder for carnitas.)

In other midwestern cookery news, I once made spaghetti and meat balls from scratch in a no-kitchen cabin in Wisconsin, using only an electric frying pan. I thought I was a genius. The in-laws were impressed, if a little confused.

Subject: crock pot

You definitely have to brown things over on a stove before putting into receipes in a crock pot. It seals in the juices.

I have a great inexpensive and easy receipe for stuffed red peppers:
1/2 to 3/4 lb hamburger meat
one medium sized onion chopped into smaller pieces
2 cloves fresh garlic chopped
1 cup chopped fresh tomatos
Italian seasonings
parsley- either fresh or dried. If fresh use 1 small handful chopped
pepper and salt to taste (sorry guys, I don't measure, just estimate
amounts to taste)
1 1/2 cups of crushed tomatos or same amount of spaghetti sauce
Mushrooms optional- can be sliced and added to meat mixture when browning
4 large red peppers (must be round enough to stuff & stand upright)
2 cups of cooked rice- can be white or brown (and leftovers work well)

Brown meat with onions and garlic (and mushrooms.) . Season with Italian seasoning, parsley, salt and pepper. Just shake across the top of the meat once to cover lightly for each seasoning with a heartier hand with the Italian seasoning. Remove the grease and add the chopped tomatos and sauce or crushed tomatos (Allow to simmer on low while preparing the red peppers.) Cut the tops off of the peppers straight across the top and set aside. Remove the red pepper portion from stem and chop into small pieces adding to the simmering meat mixture. Clean and wash peppers and stand them in the crock pot. Set aside about 1 1/2 cups of meat mixture. Add the rice and mix together.

Fill each pepper with the mixture. Layer the top of each one with extra meat mix first, and any small amount of leftover meat/rice mixture can be put on bottom, then cover with either spaghetti sauce or tomato sauce so the bottom of crock pot is also covered. One last quick shake with Italian seasoning and either put on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4 hours.

To make this vegetarian, eliminate meat and sautee veggies in olive oil and proceed with receipe. This can also be made on a stove, but cooked for 45 minutes on low-med. and covered.

It's a hearty, homecooked dinner waiting for you to enjoy.

Good luck.

Well. You learn something new each day.
Thanks Carnivore.

camaysar wrote: From Wikipedia:

"The browning reactions which occur when meat is roasted or seared have often been referred to as Maillard reaction browning. However, lean meat contains very few, if any, reducing sugars. Furthermore, red meat undergoes more extensive browning than does white meat. The browning reactions in lean meat are most likely due to the breakdown of the tetrapyrrole rings of the muscle protein, myoglobin. Thus, the browning of meat is technically not a Maillard browning since it does not involve the reaction with a reducing sugar."

If you go to the entire article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction you may have to be a brainiac to understand it (I had trouble with the chemical stuff). The above seems to make a distinction between lean meat and fatty meat.

Very interesting! Hoist by my own petard. #-o

However, the browning reaction is still about creating flavor, not about sealing in juices.

Yeah. I think there may also be 2 different things going on here, and I still think the Maillard reaction is involved.

When the red meat turns brown, like in this picture, i think the myoglobin is breaking down as described by the article.


However, if you take it to the next level, and get this kind of brown on it, I think that's the Maillard reaction.

Carnivore wrote: However, if you take it to the next level, and get this kind of brown on it, I think that's the Maillard reaction.

So reducing sugars have been formed at this stage, and replace the protein (myaglobin) in the reaction? It seems that the Maillard reaction requires sugar to be the bona fide, card-carrying Maillard reaction.

The wikipedia article mentions that low moisture levels are usually reached (as in pic 2) by the time the minimum temp for the M reaction (300+ F) is reached, as the water produced by cooking has evaporated. But that still may not make this a M reaction (cf. sugar).

In other news, a crock pot appeared at my house and we made bitchin' pulled pork in it.

Pork shoulder, cider vinegar, vinegar hot sauce, salt and pepper, onions, garlic, beer.
Lid on gadget, gadget on Low, go to sleep.
Wake up to an amazing smell. Pull the pork out of the pot and shred it up with two big forks. Blender the pot juice, and cook it down or adjust the seasoning if you want.
The potato roll people have branched out to slider rolls, which is a perfect vehicle for the pulled pork. Make some slaw and make your friends happy.

(Love the illustrated browning talk above.)

Do people make congee or jambalaya in a crock pot? I know folks who use their rice cookers for that, and it looks like the only difference is temp, crock insert instead of metal insert.

Carnivore wrote:
Remember the limitations of wiki! I don't accept that lean meat doesn't contain reducing sugars. Skeletal muscle has glycogen in it, which breaks down to glucose, a reducing sugar.

Right you are, Carnivore. As I understand Wiki, even George Bush could make a contribution to the Maillard article (though he does indeed have deep barbecue experience), or an article on brain surgery or whatever.

Re: glycogen and glucose, I recall from a recent online college biology course (Edison) that during aerobic respiration, glycogen breaks down to glucose to provide energy (ATP?? It's a bit foggy and I already sold the textbook). So cooking also will break down glycogen to glucose? Or some of the lean meat already contains glucose from glycogen that had been broken down during aerobic respiration that took place as the terrified animal was being led to slaughter? Does the conversion take place in the muscle itself?

I know it sounds like I don't have a life, but it's interesting! You, however, shouldn't shouldn't be saddled with the job of being my biochemistry mentor... thanks for the interesting posts! We dorky nerds like to be spurred to investigation.

I believe that heat can degrade glycogen non-enzymatically, although I don't have a reference for you.

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, you might enjoy these books:

On Food and Cooking (I actually have a previous edition of this one)

The Science of Cooking

You can also read some of the second one online here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=oGq4v4e7rG8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0