Maple-Almond Granola with Cranberries and Dates

2.7.10
I found my notes from a few months ago when I tried out the granola recipe. I had a cold that week, so they don't totally make sense, but here goes. Some almonds were definitely kinda burnt. It didn't really taste burnt, but some of the sliced almonds were really hard & made a "scary cracking noise against my teeth." The book doesn't really tell you how often to stir, but I think it would have been better to stir every 15 minutes. I tried to do that, but didn't want to get out from under the blanket on the couch, so sometimes it was more like 25-30. I was going for crunchy though because lots of other efforts in the oven have been more chewy.

My housemates & I tried to figure out if it was cheaper to make our own granola then buy it from the bulk bins at the grocery store. So far it seems to be cheaper to buy it even with getting a 25 lb bag of oats from the natural food distributor. Mostly because maple syrup is so expensive. But I want to make it and have it be a good deal, so I will have to experiment on sweetener - honey, agave nectar, molasses.

Indian Cauliflower and Kidney Bean Stew with Coconut Milk

4.26.10
My sister prepped & made this dish for our dinner. It was perfect comfort food after a tiring Monday at work and a trip to the gym. My husband came home and immediately said "It smells good in here" before he had even shut the garage door. We ate it over brown rice and used a whole can of coconut milk instead of just one 1 cup 'cause -- why wouldn't you? Didn't drain the tomatoes either. It was pretty sweet from the cardamom & allspice, but the savory spices & beans & variety of veggies evened it out. You can totally add a larger amount of potatoes & cauliflower if you have a 6-quart cooker and add in the extra liquid. Then you'll have more leftovers!

Something that came up over dinner - the crockpot smell. First you smell the dish you are making and then there is always the underlying same smell, not sure what it smells like. It kinda made me think of my mom cooking potroast in her slow cooker back in the day. But it doesn't quite smell like meat, just hours & hours of cooking. We'll see if it keeps coming up.

Veggie Stock

4.1.10
It was going to be a cold & rainy week and I had been saving some some random veggie stalks to make into veggie stock, so I started to throw some items into the pot.

1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, quartered
1 large carrot, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 bunch swiss chard stems, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch beet green stems, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch carrot tops, leafy parts only, torn into 1-inch pieces
2 fennel stalks, feathery parts only
1/3 c parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled and crushed
1/2 tsp celery seed
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
8 c water
2 tsp soy sauce or braggs
1 tsp salt

Drizzle olive oil into slowcooker. Add veggies & spices. Pour in water. Add soy sauce & salt. Cover & cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Let cool for a little while. I then used a sieve to squeeze the juices out of the cooked veggies. This didn't really get me a ton of extra liquid, but I bet it was some of the strongest and didn't really take me very long, so might as well try it. I left the carrot & onion chunks in the pot and used a stick blender to blend it all up. I ended up with over nine cups of broth. I had enough to make lentil soup for dinner the next night, cook up a giant pot of potato broccoli soup to share with my friends who just had a baby and freeze some for the next rainy week. And it was super yummy!

Perfect Hominy White Bean Chili

1.15.10
Hominy is always a strange bean/corn/veggie to me. Although it got really soft after cooking all day long, this dish wasn't all that great. It was super easy to get together, was spicy, but just okay. Maybe it needed more cilantro. Or cheese on top. It called for white beans, but it might be better with kidneys.

Lentil Soup with Ribbons of Kale

1.12.10
This was the first recipe I tried out from my new vegetarian slow cooker cookbook. It was turning into a pretty rainy January and it was time for soup. This recipe needed the basic soup veggies -onion, celery, carrot - to be cooked before starting the pot, so I chopped the veggies the night before. I thought that you would just be able to throw everything right in to the crockpot and press start, but sometime you have to pre-cook. It's not really a big deal, just have to be ready to use the stove in the morning. This soup was definitely worth it - very filling and went well with garlic bread.

Slow Cookin It - an intro

The crockpot was one of the last gifts to arrive. It was a few weeks, maybe a month or so after the wedding when it appeared on the front steps. I'd almost forgotten that it was on our list. And after seeing how big was and that it didn't have a timer you could set in advance, I was almost disappointed we gotten it. ALMOST.

Then my family came to town for the holidays and we went to Pt Reyes for a day hike and came home to a hot pot of red beans and rice. No waiting around for dinner to cook. No prepping. While maybe some guacamole prepping, but that's it. All we had to do was set the table. There was enough to fill the 10 hungry hikers. And it was pretty good. It was one of the only vegetarian recipes in the small cookbook that came in the box from crockpot. But that soon changed.

I ordered Robin Robertson's Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. I had borrowed her Vegan Planet cookbook from a friend and loved the few recipes I had tried. It's been a long time since I got a new book and immediately read through the introduction and then continued to look over each section & recipe. I guess I was excited. Her book in hand, along with a few other slow cooker recipes and a little bit of experimenting, my house was going to venture in slow cooking.