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Slow cooker is so very under rated. I am a fan.

I have a slow cooker, but can never get motivated to use it on days I work.....which would be my primary reason for using it. Handling raw meat and chopping veggies at 05:30 is a nope for this lazy bitch.

I do love using my LeCrueset dutch oven for a slow cooked oven pot roast. Noms.
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I made a pan of stuffed mushrooms and that's what the wife and I ate for dinner.

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I love hors d'oeuvres for dinner! My old roomie (and BFF ) and I used to splurge on a semi-decent bottle or two of wine and the fixins for "party food" and would have carpet picnics while watching our Blockbuster foreign film finds.

(Dating myself much? VHS, baby!)
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Tonight I made Tavern Bread.
1 Cup of unbleached flour
2 Cups of whole wheat flour
1/2 Teaspoon of salt
2 Teaspoons of baking powder
1 to 2 Cups of buttermilk
1 Cup of cheddar cheese
1 Cup of summer sausage
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sift the flours together with salt and baking powder in a mixing
bowl. Add the meat and cheese and mix together. Make a well in the flour and add buttermilk
slowly while mixing. Making sure that the dough is moist pat into a loaf and place into a oiled
cast iron skillet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the bread has risen then lower heat to 375
degrees and bake for another 30 to 35 minutes or until done.
http://nvg.org.au/documents/other/vikingrecipes.pdf


Cray, do you think this recipe would work with cooked and drained breakfast sausage? The sagey flavor sounds like a good pairing with the tang of the buttermilk and cheddar.....

Also, I am going to make your chicken stew this week, I think.....while the temps are still arctic.
 
Cray, do you think this recipe would work with cooked and drained breakfast sausage? The sagey flavor sounds like a good pairing with the tang of the buttermilk and cheddar.....
Sure, I would think it would work fine, but just to let you know, this "bread" is dense, very dense.
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Handling raw meat and chopping veggies at 05:30 is a nope for this lazy bitch.
That can actually be done the night before and placed in the refrigerator, so the only thing you have to do is blob it into the slow cooker in the morning and the press the "On" button :)
 
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I made black eyed peas last night, along with the other traditional southern bullshit my Mom used to always insist on for good luck in the new year. :)

They tasted a lot better than they looked... lol. Hard to really make peas and rice look very appealing. Bf made cast iron cornbread, and I made cabbage (because I don't cook greens). Served on paper plates because fuck it, we wanted to get back to screwing each other over in Uno!


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I love pulled pork in the slow cooker ... Pork, onions, and a can of root beer ... and just walk away ... so easy they shouldn't even call it cooking.
We do that quite often with rabbit. It's easy and delicious. It falls apart just like pork does. I have a sister that has had several pet rabbits and refused to eat rabbit at our house. One time we made pulled rabbit and pulled pork so she didn't have to eat the rabbit. She decided to try it anyway and couldn't tell the difference between them.
 
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[doublepost=1515628350,1515118871][/doublepost]Tonight is fish tacos with jalepeno cole slaw.

Will post pics if I can, but recovering from some flu-like malady so I might just chomp and crawl into bed.

But, food porn IS the best sort! ;)
 
So, I've been re-reading Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series and during the eastern Europe (and northern plains of the US) scenes they mention people eating borscht. I've never had borscht before so I decided to make some last week using this on-line recipe. It was very good. I still had the basic ingredients left over (beets and savor cabbage) and thought I should make another batch, but my groceries are low and I decided to use just what I had on hand to make, sort of like what Ukrainians would have done.
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Homemade Borscht the tradional way (whatever you have laying around). This was surprisingly good.
1 Sweet onion (sauteed)
3 medium Beets (grated)
1/2 Savoy cabbage (finely shredded)
3 medium carrots (dice)
4 red raddish (diced)
1 pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast (dice)
a splash of Balsamic vinegar
a splash of red wine
a quart of water
teaspoon of Marjoram
1/8 cup of Dill weed
1 Bayleaf
salt and pepper to taste

Just slowly cook everything down until all is tender. Using an immersion blender, I believe, gives a nice texture. Once done add a dollop of sour cream to each bowl right before serving.
 
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IHandling raw meat and chopping veggies at 05:30 is a nope for this lazy bitch.
.
Prepare the ingredients the night before. You'd probably have a skillet out anyway so you can quickly brown some ingredients. Pull out of the fridge in the morning. Your daughter can do the prep.

I have a 1.5 qt crockpot. Everyday, I make beans, soups, stock, or barley etc. I call it my kitchen work pony. So handy. :)
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I like borscht with beef stock more than chicken. I never put much meat in it.
I also like to make roasted barley and set aside. Make any kind or veggie soup including cabbage. Microwave the beets separately and dice. Add the beets at the end to heat through. Serve over a big scoop of barley. That way the barley is still chewy and nutty. And the beets don't color everything in the soup.
Beets are really under appreciated.
 
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I like borscht with beef stock more than chicken. I never put much meat in it.
I also like to make roasted barley and set aside. Make any kind or veggie.
The first batch I made with the on-line recipe (link) I did use stew beef and beef stock (instead of chicken breast and water), it was quite good. Is the roasted barley for the borscht?
 
Prepare the ingredients the night before. Pull out of the fridge in the morning. Your daughter can do the prep.
I had one once with a removable crock. I could assemble dinner in the crock the night before and put it in the refrigerator then put the crock in the cooker the next morning on my way out the door.

--Al
 
I understand, I didn't believe borscht would be any good either. Boy, was I wrong. Its surprisingly tasty.


I've had borscht in restaurants but never tried to make it. I remember more of a petite dice for the vegetables than a puree....and definitely the rich, beefy stock, although I don't recall any actual meat in it.

Of course it was years ago and I am sure there are many variations!

Looks delish, @Craygor !


Sunday dinner at Casa Knot is whole roast chicken with mojo criollo, roasted asparagus and fingerling potatoes (with a splash of the mojo) and cilantro rice!

¡Que bueno!

Will post (sideways) pictures later!!
 
definitely the rich, beefy stock, although I don't recall any actual meat in it.
variations is right! My sort of SIL is from Lithuania and never puts meat in it, she almost always uses beef bullion, also mushroom bullion which her family sends her from Lithuania, because no one makes mushroom bullion right in the USA! (It's good stuff.)
The reason she uses bullion is because in Soviet Lithuania, not much meat, so everyone used lots of bullion.

Is the roasted barley for the borscht?
Sorry Craygor, I didn't finish the post but have now.
Barley and beets is a magic combination. I love the nuttiness of barley so don't cook it in soups but add cooked barley at serving time. The barley water is an elixir of its own. Make tea with it, or add it to soup. You can serve borscht over barley or brown rice, or buckwheat.
I love to make what I call "earth soup" meaning veggies which grow close to or in the ground: Beets, carrots, potatoes, parsnips, dried and or fresh mushrooms, any brassica. Then serve with any nutty grain.
 
I had one once with a removable crock. I could assemble dinner in the crock the night before and put it in the refrigerator then put the crock in the cooker the next morning on my way out the door.

--Al


I'm so glad you said that! I have that kind of crock pot, and I always kind of wondered if you could do that, but I wasn't sure how much it would add to the cook time. It heats pretty slow and low, and I was afraid it would take too long to heat the ceramic up from cold and actually start cooking the food (and whether it would allow bacteria to flourish in that 'not cold anymore but not yet hot' interim.
 
I ordered a subscription food box for this week. I figured I could learn to cook some stuff that I haven't tried before, and I wouldn't have to buy a bunch of expensive new spices and ingredients that I might not want to ever use again.

This was my first attempt, a Mediterranean flavored meatball and orzo stew with spinach. It was pretty good! Definitely different from the usual Tuesday fare.

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Does anyone have an air fryer? I'm always wanting fried chicken but don't want to clean up the greasy mess. Of course, healthy is a plus as well. There's a huge price range, and it looks like one with a decent capacity is going to be over $100.
 
Does anyone have an air fryer? I'm always wanting fried chicken but don't want to clean up the greasy mess. Of course, healthy is a plus as well. There's a huge price range, and it looks like one with a decent capacity is going to be over $100.
I have one and I cook a lot in it. It’s so great. I paid around $250 for mine. It’s a Phillips brand. No mess at all and the meats are not greasy.
 
I'm an unapologetic geeky person. I love watching my Star Wars movies (in fact, in 1978 when I was 14 I took my bicycle to the nearby drive-in to watch the original), I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Issac Asimov novels and I loved playing the original AD&D, and I still love all those things. Though, I wasn't a big fan of the "Lord of Rings" books, the movies really were amazing to me. Recently I started baking and wondered if there wasn't a recipe for Elvish Lembac Way Bread, After much searching and finding a bunch of silly recipes, mostly they were just butter cookies, I discovered a recipe a Tolkien researcher found in the private Tolkien library back in the 1970s, a recipe that Tolkien himself made for Elvish Lambic Way Bread.
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Though they don't have Elven magical properties that allows "a small bite to sustain a grown man a whole day", they are still quite tasty. If you are interested in the recipe, here's the link. http://www.pabular.com/recipe/79012/lembas-elvish-waybread
 
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