Sauerkraut, Winter Squash and Posole

No, I did not put all those ingredients in the crock pot together. But I have to catch up on the last couple times the slow cooker made it's appearance on our table.


3.9.11

We had an abundance of sauerkraut at our house (probably not an issue at many other people's homes) but I turned to the slow cooker to find a recipe to liven up our options. I made Tempeh Choucroute Garnie. I don't know the history of this dish, but it had tempeh, vegetarian sausage links and potatoes seasoned with caraway seeds and juniper berries. It turned out pretty good.


2.23.11

To make my Three Sisters Baked Beans I adapted a regular recipe to use in the slow cooker. The three sisters refer to a Native American garden where beans, corn and squash are grown together--the corn provides structure for the beans to grow, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil and the squash spread out along the ground to provide shade and keep weeds from growing. In my dish, I used pintos (cooked from dry in the slow cooker), posole and butternut squash along with adobe sauce for a little bit of spice. Adjusting to the slow cooker just meant added a bit more water to keep everything moist for 6 hours of cooking on low. The squash totally melted away into the beans and posole and I would definitely make this recipe again! The picture really doesn't do it justice.