Easy Slow Cooker Beef Stew

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There is nothing earth-shattering or revelatory about beef stew in the fall, is there? The ingredients in my version are as one would expect—big chunks of vegetables, potatoes, beefy morsels and a thick, rich braising gravy—yet this is exactly the kind of comforting, satisfying, rib-sticking classic fall food I’ve been dreaming about since the temperatures first began to drop. So, even though I expect you may have your own recipe for beef stew, I’m going to share mine visually, just to make you hungry and ready to celebrate the season in comfort (you’re welcome).

Under less busy life circumstances, I might have made this one-pot stew right on the stovetop in our enamel-coated Dutch oven. But when I’m upside down with my day job, busy with home updates and wrangling our pets, I really appreciate the versatility of our slow cooker. Ours has extra options, including a setting for browning meat, so I was able to get this done without shifting ingredients from one pot to another. If your slow cooker has more simple settings, just brown the meat first in a skillet on the stove and transfer it to your slow cooker when it’s ready to braise.

I selected grass-fed, locally raised beef for my stew. It’s easier on my digestive system than conventional beef, and we feel strongly about supporting local suppliers. Choose the best beef you can find, and a cut that is mostly lean, but with some marbling for flavor. I tossed the beef chunks with a few generous pinches of kosher salt and let them rest 15 minutes while I prepped my other ingredients and got my slow cooker up to speed.

For no special reason, I decided that I would use fancy onions for my beef stew. I chose cippolini onions, which are small and squatty—kind of like miniature vidalias—and they need to be peeled before cooking. This was easy to do, with a quick bath in simmering water, then a shock in an ice bath. For the sake of uniformity, I cut my other vegetables to match the size of the cippolinis. If you wish, use a large sweet or yellow onion, cut into large chunks. 

Browning the meat encourages more flavor because of something called the Maillard reaction, and if you want to geek out on food science, you could read this article to understand what that’s all about, or you could simply trust the process and brown the meat (your taste buds will thank you). When the oil in my slow cooker was ready, I added the salted meat a few pieces at a time to avoid a sudden temperature drop and turned them frequently to ensure even browning.

As soon as the meat was browned, I added a pat of butter and a few cloves of chopped garlic. A dusting of flour coated the meat and set the stage for gentle thickening, and then I splashed in about 1/4 cup of dry red wine. This adds depth of flavor to braising liquid, but if you don’t care for wine in food, you could substitute a splash of red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar for a similar effect.

This is the time to transfer the browned meat to the slow cooker if your appliance only has heat settings, and it helps to have the cooker set on high heat setting when you do so. Add two cups of broth to the meat and stir it around until it begins to thicken slightly. Add the cut-up vegetables and cippolini onions, then add enough additional broth to just cover the cooker ingredients. Drop the temperature to low setting, add a couple of bay leaves into the stew, cover it and let it simmer for about six hours.

By that time, the beef will be very tender and the vegetables will be soft to the bite. If you like your stew a little thicker, a corn starch slurry will do the trick without giving an off taste. Turn the cooker heat back up to high and remove the bay leaves. Whisk together corn starch with equal amount of very cold water until smooth, and drizzle a stream of the slurry into the stew. When the braising liquid reaches a gentle boil, it will thicken to perfection.

We served our beef stew with some homemade, warm-from-the-oven dinner rolls. Now, aren’t you glad it’s autumn? What comfort food have you been craving?

Easy Slow Cooker Beef Stew

  • Servings: About 8
  • Difficulty: average
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There's an easy way to enjoy an all-day stew without giving it all-day attention. Grab your slow cooker and let's get cooking!


Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 pounds grass fed stewing beef, or chuck roast cut into pieces
  • 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 to 5 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
  • 1 Tbsp. salted butter
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup dry red wine
  • 4 cups low-sodium beef broth, divided
  • 7 oz. cippolini onions, blanched for easy peeling
  • 2 cups fresh carrot chunks
  • 2 cups Yukon gold potato chunks (skin-on is OK)
  • 1 cup chopped celery, ribs removed
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 dried bay leaves
  • 2 Tbsp. corn starch blended with 2 Tbsp. ice water (optional, for additional thickening)

Directions

  1. Blot stewing meat (or chunks) dry with paper towels. Sprinkle with one heaping teaspoon kosher salt and black pepper to taste. Rest meat at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
  2. Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet, Dutch oven or slow cooker (if yours has a browning function). Brown meat on all sides over medium heat. Add garlic and cook about 2 minutes, taking care to avoid burning it. Sprinkle flour over meat and garlic, and toss until it appears absorbed onto the browned meat.
  3. Pour wine over meat and quickly toss, scraping up any browned bits from the surface of the pot. The wine should thicken quickly, creating a sticky coating all over the meat. Transfer the meat (if using a separate pot) to the slow cooker on high setting.
  4. Add 2 cups of the beef broth and stir meat around until the broth begins to thicken slightly. Add onions, carrots, potatoes and celery and toss to combine. Add remaining broth and stir. Place bay leaves and thyme sprigs on top of the stew mixture. Reduce slow cooker to low setting and cook for about 6 hours, until beef pieces and vegetables are tender.
  5. If desired, stir in corn starch slurry during the last 30 minutes of cooking time (use high heat). Serve with crusty rolls to sop up all the delicious gravy!

Slow Cooker Cuban-style Pork

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Between my husband and me, there is exactly zero percent Hispanic heritage—yet somehow, the foods of Hispanic cultures fall squarely into the “favorites” category for both of us, and it has been this way for all of our adult lives. For me, the passion for Hispanic flavors started much earlier, during my younger childhood when I lived with my mother in southern Colorado, where at least half the kids I went to school with were of Mexican descent. Their moms made the best food.

Les, who grew up in New York, was surrounded by the foods of seemingly every culture except Mexican, though other Hispanic flavors were obviously present in the Puerto Rican-populated areas of the city. He remembers his section of Queens, famed for being among the most multicultural in the world, was the first to create “fusion” foods, but alas, he says, he never ate at “La Casa Wong.” His first experience of addictive Spanish-influenced foods didn’t come until he spent a few young adult years in southern California, but even then, he didn’t get the full effect because those restaurants were mostly chains.

Today, thanks to our collective passion for cooking and adventurous approach to food, we are enjoying more than our fair share of all the world’s flavors, including those of cultures we have yet to visit.

Over the past few months, the 2014 movie Chef, with Jon Favreau leading a tremendous all-star cast, has been in hot rotation on our streaming service. Les and I both saw this movie in the theater when it was released (a good year before we started dating), but we still can’t resist watching it every time it appears in our program lineup. We love it, not only because it’s a compelling story of a talented chef who walks away from an unfulfilling restaurant job to start a food truck, but also for the joyful Latin music, the sweet relationship that develops through teachable moments with his adorable, mop-headed son, and the fantastic food that results from his commitment to doing food right and making it from the heart. If you haven’t seen this film, we highly recommend it.

The main food that always gets us drooling when we watch Chef is the Cuban pork, and the most authentic version would be slow roasted in the oven, as sous chef Martin prepares it in the film. But this is my version of it, done the easy way in a slow cooker. The key to exceptional flavor and texture is low-and-slow cooking and (of course) the marinade. My first taste of this mouthwatering, slow-roasted meat was in Key West, and rumor has it that was most likely the origin of the dish. But let’s not go down any rabbit holes of debate about that, because there’s cooking to be done!

Start with a pork shoulder, and for the best flavor, get one with the bone in. Trim off some of the excess fat, but don’t take it all off because there’s a world of flavor in it, and it will help protect the meat from drying out during cooking; you can easily skim it off the braising liquid later if you so choose. Rinse the shoulder to rid it of any bone shards, pat it dry with paper towels and give it a dose of salt and pepper on all sides. If your shoulder is very large, cut several slits all over the meat and insert smashed cloves of garlic into them. Mine was only three and a half pounds, so the marinade was enough to flavor it all the way through.

The marinade for this pork is called mojo, not like getting your mojo back or Mr. Mojo Risin’, but Spanish “j,” pronounced as an “h.” Try it with me: “mo-ho.”. The marinade begins with the juice of oranges and limes. For truly authentic mojo marinade, you’d use only Seville oranges, which are sour compared to typical navel oranges, but they aren’t easy to come by in the States, so a combination of navel oranges and limes is a common substitute. I kept a few of the spent orange wedges after juicing, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

Already smelling fine over here!

You need a lot of fresh garlic for a mojo marinade. Smash the cloves first, and then peel and mince them up so the flavor permeates every pore of the pork shoulder. That’s an important thing to know about garlic; the smaller the bits, the more pungent the flavor. Cumin is traditional, and I like to use whole seeds, slightly toasted in a dry skillet and then crushed to a powder in a mortar and pestle. This fragrance on its own puts me in a state of near-euphoria. Oregano adds an herbal note, and I couldn’t decide between regular and Mexican, which is earthier with a slight note of anise, so I used half of each.

Here’s where the marinade begins to transform.

A pinch of sugar is decidedly not traditional, but we put a pinch of sugar in every damn thing here in the South. I like it for balance, but don’t go overboard. Season the mixture with salt and black pepper, of course, and whisk in a few generous glugs of extra virgin olive oil to finish the marinade. Time to cook!

Here’s where I used the spent orange pieces, along with some onion wedges; they were a bed for the pork shoulder in my slow cooker, allowing the mojo marinade full access to the meat’s surface. I poured about a third of the marinade over the shoulder, then turned it over and poured another third, reserving the last portion of marinade mixture to pour over the roast at serving time. Set the cooker on high for 45 minutes to bring it up to cruising speed, and then knock it down to low and walk away for five hours.

Low and slow makes it a winner!

Did you get that? You don’t want to cook it on high setting for five hours, or you’ll end up with tough, overcooked shoulder. The high setting is just to bring the temperature up more quickly, and then the cooking should all happen on low setting. Very important.

I had a busy afternoon, so I wrapped up my work emails, did a load of laundry and went out for a pedicure during this time, and having the freedom to tackle my to-do list reminded me how much I still love using a slow cooker on occasion. When I came home, the house already smelled amazing. I flipped the pork shoulder over for a final hour of cooking, and went about the business of making some jalapeno-simmered black beans.

I cut half of a sweet onion into crescent slivers, and diced up a fresh jalapeno from our post-summer garden, leaving most of the seeds behind. I sautéed those in olive oil, along with a touch of ground cumin, then added two cans of rinsed black beans. Salt and pepper, and a splash or two of the Cuban-style pork braising liquid and we had a perfect, if not authentic, side dish for our delectable pork.

Test doneness of the pork by inserting a fork and twisting lightly. If it shreds easily, it’s ready! We enjoyed the meat on its own that first night, and tried our best a couple of nights later to make Cubano sandwiches, just like Chef Carl Casper and his crew. The bread wasn’t quite right, but it was still pretty darn delicious. 🙂

We made our Cubanos “Tampa style,” with a slice of Genoa salami.
My next challenge will be learning to make the right bread!

Slow Cooker Cuban-style Pork

  • Servings: About 8
  • Difficulty: average
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My version of this Cuban classic has all the right flavors, and it was super easy to make in my slow cooker.


Ingredients

  • 4 lb. bone-in pork shoulder (sometimes called Boston Butt)
  • 2 navel oranges, wedged and juiced (reserve a few of the spent wedges)
  • Juice of 4 limes
  • About 2 Tbsp. crushed and minced garlic
  • 2 tsp. cumin seed, toasted and ground
  • 1 tsp. sugar (not authentic, but a touch helps balance the citrus)
  • 2 tsp. black pepper (mine was half smoked)
  • 1 Tbsp. dried oregano (I used half regular, half Mexican)
  • About 1/4 cup EVOO, whisked in
  • About 1 Tbsp. kosher salt
  • 1/2 large onion, cut into wedges (used as base in slow cooker)

Directions

  1. Rinse shoulder and wipe dry with paper towels. Salt and pepper both sides and let rest at room temp while you prep the marinade.
  2. Combine the citrus juices, garlic, cumin, sugar, pepper and oregano in a glass measuring cup. Whisk in olive oil and season with salt according to your taste (somewhere between 2 and 3 teaspoons is good).
  3. Place onion chunks and spent orange peels in the bottom of the slow cooker and place the shoulder on top. Pour in about 1/3 of the mojo, then turn the shoulder over and pour in another 1/3, reserving the rest for serving over the tender, shredded pork.
  4. Use the cooker’s high setting for about 45 minutes to get the heat going, then reduce to low setting and cook for 5 hours.
  5. Use tongs to turn shoulder over and continue to cook on low setting for another hour. Transfer shoulder to a glass dish and use forks to shred the meat. Stir the braising liquid and ladle some of it onto the shredded pork. Pour the reserved marinade mixture onto the pork as well. The freshness of the uncooked marinade brightens up the flavors of the tender pork.
  6. Strain the solids from the slow cooker, and keep the remaining liquid for packing the leftover meat. It will retain moisture better in the fridge this way.

Serve pork with jalapeno black beans and, if desired, white rice.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 medium onion, sliced into crescent shapes
  • 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1 small jalapeno, seeded and minced
  • A few pinches kosher salt and several twists ground black pepper
  • 2 15 oz. cans black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1/4 cup vegetable broth or Cuban-style pork braising liquid

Directions

  1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Toss onions and cumin until fragrant, then add jalapeno and season with salt and pepper.
  2. When onions begin to caramelize, reduce heat and add black beans. Add broth or braising liquid and cover to simmer until heated through.

Turning Les’s Chili into “Kitchen-less” Chili

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The first dish I cooked from scratch happened in fall 1981, my first semester out of college, living in Southern California. It was sometime after the appearance of the annual TV Guide Season Preview edition. We all of a certain age remember those, right?

This thick edition featured previews of all the new shows, updates on returning shows and, seasoned amid all that, some unique features. The 1981 edition had a clip-out thing with the actor Vic Tayback, in all his “Alice” glory (rolled-up white hat, white t-shirt), sharing the recipe for Mel’s chili. Curious thing is that I didn’t watch “Alice.” Ever. But I wanted to make that chili, and it came out great. Of course, at the tender age of 22, saying something came out great means it was edible.

Vic Tayback as Mel Sharples. Gruff, but likable. And everyone loved his chili.

My chili has grown considerably in depth of ingredients and flavor over the years, and I no longer need to refer back to Mel’s recipe as I did for at least 10 years, but the baseline recipe still has some “Mel” in it. Namely, I still typically use some type of ground meat, onions, garlic, tomato paste and red kidney beans. I remember my very first modification, probably the second time I made the chili, was adding diced green peppers. Diced red pepper followed shortly after.

Soon enough, my chili became the regular main dish at the annual Gura household Super Bowl party, and I tried to do something different with it just about every year. So, among the additions (which sometimes also required deletions), were diced tomatoes (I now use Rotel hot diced tomatoes), roasted garlic, cocoa powder, various types of chili powders and seasonings rather than the packets of chili seasoning the recipe called for, canned green chiles, and diced jalapeno. A breakthrough ingredient some 15 years ago (I think I have to credit chef Steven Raichlen for this) was dark beer, as substitute for the water needed with the tomato paste. I’ve used ground bison. Used ground venison. Used smoked brisket (that might have been my best chili ever, Super Bowl party 2017).

Now comes a new challenge. Making chili without a kitchen, which became my mission one recent weekend while Terrie was taking a trip to West Virginia to buy colorful new Fiesta dishes for our soon-be-be completed kitchen. Fortunately, in our current state of kitchen-lessness, Terrie and I have two useful things for making chili. A multi-purpose slow cooker and a toaster oven; the former was the star of the day for the new batch.

I’m not going to bore you all with the details. Suffice to say, while I roasted a bulb of garlic in the toaster oven, I diced up peppers and onions and lined up the other key ingredients (Guinness Foreign Extra Stout was the beer). I browned the bison in the slow cooker and flavored it with a taco skillet sauce, then removed the bison to sauté the vegetables. Eventually, everything went back  into the slow cooker and I left it on low for 2½ hours. With the jalapeno pepper flakes and ground chipotle that I added, this chili came out, to quote Jim Carrey in Masked, “ssssmokin!”

Ingredients (makes about 8 portions)

Counter space and lighting is even worse in the dining room than in the old kitchen, but I like to get “mise en place!” Everything ready, including a frosty beer for myself.

1 pound ground bison* (notes below)

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 each green and red peppers, diced

1 medium jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 bulb garlic

1 can Rotel diced tomatoes (I used the “hot” variety)*

2 small cans of chopped green chiles*

1 10-ounce can tomato paste

1 12-ounce beer*

1 packet Frontera brand taco skillet sauce (you will need less than half the packet)

2 cans red pinto beans (for this I used dark red; normally I mix dark and light red beans), drained

1-2 Tbsp. ground chipotle*

A pinch or two of dried jalapeno flakes

1 Tbsp. cocoa powder

Salt and pepper

Tools

Slow cooker and toaster oven for cooking*

Toppings/Extras

Shredded cheese*

Sour cream

Scallions

Tortilla chips

Notes

  • Bison can be substituted with ground beef, ground turkey or other favored protein; chili also works great with different kinds of stewed or smoked meats cut into small chunks.
  • Rotel makes three varieties of diced tomatoes; use whichever suits your heat preference.
  • I used Ortega’s fire-roasted, mild chopped green chiles for this batch, but any will do.
  • I like to use a dark beer; for this batch it was Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, which Terrie thought was too bold but it was the only bottle of dark beer in the “downstairs” fridge.
  • Ground chipotle can be substituted with other types of seasoning such as ancho chili powder or a seasoning packet mix or a combination of seasonings, all based on heat preference and desired flavor profile. And another thought on seasoning: add in whatever you like on a given day. Chili never comes out exactly the same, at least in our kitchen. And that’s OK.
  • If you don’t have a multipurpose slow cooker, you could brown the beef and sauté the vegetables in a fry pan, then add all other ingredients into a cast-iron pot.
  • Needless to say, garlic can be roasted in a regular oven. Unless you’re remodeling your kitchen.
  • I like to use a block of cheese rather than pre-shredded. Because this batch came out spicy, I used a Colby-jack blend. If your chili’s heat factor is low, Trader Joe’s makes a habanero pepper jack that works great and you can make your own bowl as spicy as you want.

Instructions

  • I browned the ground bison then tossed it in the taco skillet sauce before removing it from the cooker.
  • I like to have large chunks of pepper and onion in my chili. They hit the slow cooker next for a quick saute.
  • My version of chili is thick, rich and meaty.
  1. Pre-heat toaster oven to 400° F. Cut off head of garlic bulb, drizzle with olive oil and wrap in foil. Cook 1 to 1½ hours until the bulb is soft and golden brown.
  2. Brown ground bison in multipurpose slow cooker on brown setting, adding in small batches to avoid steaming. After initial browning, add skillet sauce to coat bison, then remove from slow cooker.
  3. Add olive oil and sauté the vegetables about 5 minutes until soft and translucent.
  4. Change setting to slow cook on low, return ground bison to the slow cooker, and then add in Rotel diced tomatoes, beer and tomato paste. Add seasonings. Mix all ingredients well. If mixture appears too thin, gradually add more tomato paste; if too thick, add water.
  5. After cooking about 90 minutes, add kidney beans and heat through.
Les’s Slow Cooker (Kitchen-less) ChiliPrint it!
In Terrie’s new Fiesta ware, the leftover chili looks like a party in a bowl.

Slow Cooker Elk Meatloaf

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First of all, our kitchen remodel is going well overall. We are beginning to realize our dreams as it relates to having more storage, counter space and lighting. The quartz countertop was installed successfully last week, though they rattled something loose on a couple of the drawers which will require adjustment. I am already excited about this five-foot long stretch of counter space, which will likely become my husband’s primary spot for prepping when we work together in the kitchen. Everything about our new plan is designed to give us more freedom to be in there at the same time, without bumping fannies or otherwise getting in each other’s way. We especially can’t wait for Thanksgiving in this new kitchen!

Our microwave will be housed in the open cabinet above this counter, and the base cabinet is a pull-out trash/recycling station.

There have been a few snags, of course, many of which I suspect could have been avoided, but what do I know? As I write this, an electrician is spending a second full day working to achieve our wishes for under-cabinet plug molds and lighting, a tricky proposition because some of the old outlets and junction boxes were capped off and covered by new cabinets before these guys had a chance to do their “rough-in.” While they have wrestled with that, I’ve been holed up in our home office with our nervous-about-noises dog, Nilla, listening to the soothing intonations of Melody Gardot. If you have never heard of her, it’s time you did. Click play on the video below and you will understand at once why I play her music during high-stress situations. Go ahead and subscribe to her YouTube channel while you’re at it—you can thank me later.

One of the hardest things for me to endure amid the ruckus of this remodel is not anxiety for the renovation itself—our general contractor has been very responsive to our concerns—but mainly for not having enough time to keep my usual schedule of posting here on Comfort du Jour. I had more than a dozen completed recipes in archive that I wanted to share with you during this time, but I haven’t had time to write them up, send them to Les (my talented copy editor/husband), edit and caption the photos, format the whole thing on WordPress and hit “publish.” Whew. A lot goes into maintaining my blog, and I love every second of it, though I have not had enough consecutive seconds lately to manage it all. Unexpectedly, I have appreciated these two days of electrical work for giving me a bit of time to catch up. And breathe.

When I originally sat down to contemplate how to cook without a kitchen, I expected we would make a lot of soup-and-sandwich meals, and that has been true to some degree. But I also wanted to stretch myself to explore other methods of cooking, and this recipe is one of the resulting meals. My shopping list recently included ground beef, as I wanted to try making meatloaf in the multi-purpose slow cooker, otherwise known as my new best friend. But then, right next to the packaged grass-fed beef I was reaching for, this caught my eye, and I thought, “why not?”

Elk is naturally lean, and similar in flavor to beef but richer. It is not a strong flavor, as venison or lamb.

A few years ago, I tasted elk for the first time in a restaurant burger, and I found it delicious—similar to beef but richer and more flavorful. Elk is a very lean meat (91%, as noted on the package I bought), but I had a few ideas in mind for keeping the meatloaf moist and they all worked together perfectly. First, I used a more generous glug of olive oil than usual to sauté my onions on the “browning” feature of the slow cooker. Some chunky sautéed mushrooms created pockets of moisture throughout the mixture. The egg I used as a binder also added moisture, thanks to the natural fats in the yolk. Finally, the glaze on top helped protect the surface from drying out during baking, which is true for an oven meatloaf as well.

I can’t say for sure that meatloaf would be successful in every kind of slow cooker, but I’ve seen some evidence on Pinterest to support that idea, and most of those recipes involve lining the cooker with foil and pressing a double batch of meatloaf mixture into the shape of the cooker insert. Our Cuisinart slow-cooker, which is quickly gaining major respect in my eyes, also has a “roast” feature that is said to function just like any oven, so I gave it a try. See for yourself how it turned out—looking so sexy on our fancy Chinet plates!

My elk meatloaf sliced beautifully, and we served it up with simple steamed green beans and homemade applesauce that Les had made a few days before…also in the slow cooker! 🙂

Ingredients

1 lb. lean ground elk (or any other ground meat with similar fat content)

1/3 cup panko crumbs

1/3 cup whole milk* (see notes)

4 Tbsp. olive or canola oil

1/2 large sweet or yellow onion, chopped

About 5 cremini mushrooms, cleaned and chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 tsp. fresh rosemary leaves, minced

1 large egg

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup bbq sauce, chili sauce or whatever you like as a meatloaf topper*

*Notes

I used whole milk to moisten the panko crumbs, but if you are dairy-sensitive, I have also had good luck using aquafaba, the liquid drained off a can of garbanzo beans. The purpose of the milk is to help convert the crumbs into a sticky binder to hold the meatloaf together, and the aquafaba is a fine stand-in.

My sauce for this meatloaf was left from the kielbasa bites I made from that crazy “Chopped” challenge. It was chili sauce mixed with grape jelly, so it had a tomato base with a bit of heat, onions and spices, plus the sweetness and stickiness of the jelly. I enjoyed the combination so much that I saved the sauce after we finished the kielbasa. And of course, now I want to re-create it, just not with three pounds of kielbasa.

Instructions

  • I kept the add-ins for my meatloaf simple, and chopped the mushrooms fairly large so they would hold moisture better.
  • The panko crumb and milk mixture is called a “panade” and it goes a long way toward binding a meatloaf mixture together.
  • I sauteed the onions first, then added the mushrooms and finally the garlic.
  • I cooked the onions and mushrooms until they were soft and golden in color.
  • OK, everyone into the pool! I mixed everything up with my hands, which explains why there is no picture for that step. 🙂
  • I always do this with meatloaf, and an hour in the fridge helps it keep its shape and structure during baking.
  • I used the plastic wrap to press a shallow “valley” in the surface of the meatloaf, to hold my glaze.
  • Cuisinart says the “roast” feature lets me use the cooker like an oven. This thing is winning me over!
  • Any kind of sauce can go on top, but I usually use a combination of tomato flavors with sweet, spicy and savory.
  • I “baked” the meatloaf for an hour, then the slow cooker switched to a warm setting, keeping it cozy until Les got home for dinner.
  1. In a bowl large enough for combining the full meatloaf mixture, moisten the panko crumbs in the milk. I usually eyeball the amounts, but it is approximately 1/3 cup of each. Give the mixture (called a “panade”) enough time to hydrate, then push it to one side of the bowl.
  2. Crumble the ground elk meat into the other side of the mixing bowl, so that blending with the other ingredients will not require a heavy hand.
  3. Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil over medium heat (this was 350° F on my slow cooker setting). Add onions and cook until softened. Add the rest of the oil, plus the mushrooms and garlic, and sauté until everything is golden and caramelized, but not so long that the mushrooms dry out. Turn off the slow cooker and transfer the mixture to a bowl to cool several minutes.
  4. Add the onion mixture to the bowl with the meat and panade. Add the egg and chopped rosemary, and season with salt and pepper. Combine everything as evenly as you can without mixing too heavily. My method is to plunge both hands into the bowl, twisting away from each other as if adjusting faucets or stereo knobs. It seems to get the job done quickly and it’s also a good way to work out any aggression you may have over your kitchen remodel. When the meat mixture is sufficiently blended, shape it into a log on a large piece of plastic wrap and twist the ends up like a sausage chub. Tuck it into the fridge (or a lunchbox with some ice packs, if you can’t sneak past the electricians that are taking for-freaking-ever) and let it chill for about an hour. I do this for any meatloaf because it seems to improve the structure and texture during baking. Plus, it gives me time to clean up my workspace before the next steps.
  5. Prepare your slow cooker if you’re using one, or preheat the oven to 350° F. The notes from Cuisinart suggested turning the insert rack upside down for roasting, and I laid down a piece of folded parchment paper to keep the meat from oozing through the mesh rack. Unwrap the meatloaf and place it on the parchment, tucking extra paper edges underneath.
  6. Spoon the sauce topper over the meatloaf. Bake on roast setting for one hour, then reduce temperature to keep warm until you’re ready to serve.
Slow Cooker Elk MeatloafPrint it!
It’s a winner!

Slow Cooker Turkey Chili Soup

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Can someone please explain to me how time works? Because it has only been nine days since my last post, but it feels like 29. Some of the days have been a blur, as we have had non-stop activity in the kitchen during the demolition of the old and especially the arrival and installation of the new. And then, other days it has been so quiet it seems that even the crickets are on vacation. This morning, I literally had to ask my husband, “what day is today?” because amid the ruckus, I couldn’t quite remember. Only one week down and at least five to go—oy, vey!

It would be premature at this point to show you the progress of our remodel, given that we don’t yet have a countertop and the floor is covered in protective cardboard and there is new and ongoing discussion about how much we can configure our backsplash for a couple of design features I’ve been desperate to have. Well, OK, maybe just a few quick photos, but I want to save some for the big reveal!

  • I am loving the tall pantry cabinet. No more fridge next to the wall!
  • Taz has been so curious, and she gave the new cabinets a thorough inspection!
  • The butcher block on my baking station has more overhang than usual, to accommodate my pasta machine.

There is much more to be done, and some of the details our contractor is working through are special enough to be considered “fussy,” so we are fine with some intermittent slowdowns. As far as we know, and barring any future catastrophes, things are still on track for us to be back in the kitchen by mid-November!

The biggest challenges have been exactly as expected—keeping the pets calm and cared for, which has been manageable so far because the weather is nice enough for our cat to chill outside (which she loves anyway) and our next-door neighbor has generously invited me and the dog over for some peace and quiet whenever things get wild over here. The other obvious challenge has been cooking without a kitchen, and today I’m sharing the first real, “cooked” recipe I’ve made since we started the remodel project. Breakfast doesn’t count because we are mainly just using the toaster. And until Friday of last week, we had relied on take-out and sandwiches for lunch and dinner. And (of course) cocktails for me, but that will be another post. 😉

Our first real meal could not have been more perfect for the fall season, and it also could not have been simpler to make, despite the fact that I did not have a stove, a microwave, a sink or a countertop. How did I pull it off?

It’s my multi-purpose friend, the slow cooker!

Say hello again to our multi-purpose slow cooker, the same one I used for our final “Chopped” challenge when Les tricked me into cooking all that kielbasa. The “browning” setting on this 7-in-1 appliance saved the day for my new adventure of “cooking without a kitchen.” I browned the ground turkey and onions, then added all the other ingredients, switched it to the slow cook setting, and let it simmer until Les walked in the door at the end of his workday. I was so excited to have actually cooked, and there was something very comforting about having the aromas of that chili soup filling the house. We needed a good, home-cooked meal at the end of such a crazy, noisy week. And, because it all came together in one pot, even the cleanup was easy.

This original recipe is one of my favorites, and it conjures warm and fuzzy memories for me. A few years ago, on a gloomy February day during another crazy time in my life, I’d scrambled through the cabinets for something to make that did not require a trip to the grocery store. I didn’t have a whole can of tomatoes, but I did have a small can of salsa, plus some roasted green chiles, half a bag of frozen corn, a can of beans and a carton of chicken broth. When I settled in with a bowl of this delicious concoction, which is not quite chili and not quite soup, I loved it so much, I took time to write it all down, and I’m glad I did because it was just right for such a crazy time as this. And there’s another benefit to it—easy leftovers!

Of course, you don’t need to have a special slow cooker to make it. Feel free to use a soup pot or Dutch oven. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ll do next time—you know, when I have a shiny new kitchen!

If I had an oven this week, I would have made a batch of cornbread to accompany this tasty chili soup!

Ingredients

3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 small sweet onion, chopped

1 lb. ground turkey (or turkey breast, if you prefer leaner meat)

3-4 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. sweet Spanish paprika

1/2 tsp. ancho chile powder

Salt and pepper

3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

4 cups chicken broth (this is equal to 1 large carton)

7 oz. can roasted green chiles, chopped

1 small can Herdez salsa (about 8 oz.)

1 1/2 cups frozen roasted corn

1 can black beans, drained

Tortilla chips for serving

Instructions

  • Sauté the onions until soft, then brown the ground turkey in batches.
  • Break up the meat with your fingers as you add it, so that it browns evenly.
  • Cumin, sweet paprika and ancho chile powder give this chili-soup a nice flavor without overwhelming heat.
  • A sprinkling of all-purpose flour over the turkey cooked in oil will lend some thickening power.
  • Add a large can of diced green chiles. These are mild but offer a lot of flavor.
  • Add a whole carton of chicken broth or stock. Take note of the sodium on the label, so you can adjust your seasonings accordingly.
  • It looks pretty bland so far, but the flavors will come alive after a long simmer.
  • A press of a button switched the setting to slow cook. I’m learning to love this appliance!
  • The chili soup already has more color and depth after the simmer, and the corn will add roasted flavor and a bit of sweetness.
  • Be sure to drain and rinse the black beans, so you don’t get the cloudy liquid from the can in the pot.
  • Any kind of salsa will work in this chili soup, so you can make it as hot or mild as you like.
  • It’s not quite chili, and not quite soup. It’s delicious!
  1. Add olive oil to the slow cooker (or pot), on a medium heat setting. Saute the onions until they are soft and translucent, then push them to the outside of the pot.
  2. Add the ground turkey, about half at a time, breaking it up into bits with your fingers as you go. When you brown ground meat, it’s a good idea to cook a small amount at a time to maintain a steady heat. Otherwise, the meat will just steam. When all the turkey is browned, add the chopped garlic and the spices, plus salt and pepper, and cook about one minute until the garlic is fragrant.
  3. Sprinkle the flour over the ground meat mixture and stir it around to evenly coat all the meat. It should seem a little dry on the surface of the meat; add a touch more flour if needed to get this appearance. Cook the mixture two minutes, add the green chiles and cook two more minutes.
  4. Add the chicken broth to the pot all at once. Stir gently to mix the broth with the roux-covered meat mixture and cook until it reaches a slight boil, then reduce the heat and simmer about one hour. At this point, I switched the slow cooker setting from “browning,” which is essentially the same as cooking on a stove top, to “high slow cook.”
  5.  Add the roasted corn, black beans and salsa and stir to combine. Adjust seasonings to taste. Simmer on low setting for two hours or more, until you’re ready to serve.

For our first “cooking without a kitchen” meal, I served this comforting turkey chili soup with tortilla chips, but it’s really delicious with a fresh batch of skillet cornbread.

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DIY Corned Beef—Done!

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It has been a fun week of St. Patrick’s Day-themed food prep at our house. As I’ve chopped and cooked, hustling from one recipe to another and digging into the history of the foods associated with Ireland, I’ve felt an almost spiritual connection to the Irish people. Theirs is a rich and layered culture, and my background music of choice, the Springsteen album Live in Dublin, gave me additional inspiration. Here’s a taste, for your listening pleasure as you tag along for the rest of my corned beef adventure.

It has been a deliciously rich week, too. We’ve shared these tasty recipes, including two versions of mashed potatoes, a no-yeast bread, a no-bake dessert and some bangin’ sausages. By the time we finish the leftovers, I expect I will have sweet Irish butter flowing through my veins. Wow!

The Irish food party started last week, when I detailed our adventures with making our own corned beef. Whether or not you jumped on the DIY wagon with us, I thought you may appreciate seeing the end result. As mentioned, we avoid meats processed with nitrates and nitrites, so I certainly do not go out of my way to find or use them in our homemade version of this St. Patrick’s Day classic. The ingredients we do use to brine our grass-fed brisket—kosher salt, pickling spices, brown sugar, Irish ale, celery juice and sauerkraut brine—add layers of flavor, and we don’t care about the pinkish color the added nitrates would have otherwise lent.

Let’s pick up where we left off, from the point of pouring the brine over the briskets and sending them to the refrigerator for a nice, long nap. I noted that we would finally make good on our goal of making pastrami from one of the briskets, and we have done that (I’ll share it tomorrow), but corned beef is the guest of honor this week, and the post-brine process is very simple. I turned the briskets each day to help them brine evenly, and the corned beef got an extra day’s soak on Sunday—a total of eight days, which is about right for a nearly 6-pound hunk of meat. I rinsed it thoroughly, nestled it into the slow cooker on top of celery and onion chunks, and sprinkled it with about half a bottle of fresh pickling spices. We have done corned beef nearly the same way for several years, so I decided to try a twist that I saw in my news feed, though I cannot for the life of me remember the source. Anyway, the suggestion was to use white wine in the brining liquid. This makes perfect sense to me, given that I use wine to roast so many other meats, so I tried it. This will become a new standard for us.

This may well be the best batch of homemade corned beef we have ever made. The meat is perfectly tender and easy to slice, and the flavors are richly entwined with every fiber of the meat. The flavor is richer and more complex than any store-bought corned beef I’ve had, and my husband, Les, suggested that it rivaled the delicious corned beef we enjoyed a few years ago at Katz’s delicatessen in New York!

Instructions

  • After eight days in the flavorful brine, our brisket is ready to be cooked. You can cook it stovetop, or follow my lead and use the slow cooker.
  • I don’t intend to serve the onions and celery, and I’ve only used enough to keep the brisket off the bottom of the slow cooker.
  • My brisket is longer than the slow cooker, so I’ve tucked one end under to make it fit.
  • I’ve talked to several people this week who had trouble finding the pickling spice. Isn’t it strange, how the pandemic has interrupted the supply chain for such specific things? Anyway, I sprinkled half the bottle over the brisket.
  • Secret weapon: dry white wine! I found this tip online and it makes sense. I used 1/2 cup of pinot grigio, plus enough water to cover the brisket.
  • Despite my efforts to keep the brisket submerged, it kept floating up! No worries, I turned it over and it came out completely tender.
  • Corned beef, meet your BFF, cabbage and carrots. I boiled them in a couple of ladles of the brisket’s cooking broth.
  • It always startles me to see how much a brisket shrinks when you cook it. This corned beef is not pink like the grocery store version, but it packs a ton of terrific flavor!
  • I cut this point piece along the fat line, to remove it from the “flat” part of the brisket (see next slide).
  • These two pieces are sometimes sold individually at the meat counter. Both are delicious as corned beef.
  • For best results, and a tender bite, you want to pay attention to the “grain” of the meat and cut against it. Here, my knife is pointed along the same direction as the meat fibers. These slices would be tough.
  • Here, my knife is angled to cut across the meat fibers, and my thin slices will be tender and easy to eat.
  • Even without the added nitrates, there is a slight pink color to my corned beef. It’s completely moist and tender, and so yummy!
  • Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

  1. Remove brisket from brine and brush away as much of the picking spice mixture as possible. Discard the brine, and I’d recommend that you pour it through a colander to strain out the seeds, berries, bay leaves, and chunky solids that might otherwise clog your kitchen drain.
  2. Rinse the brisket. Cut up a whole yellow onion and a few stalks of celery. Scatter the aromatic vegetables into the bottom of a large pot or slow cooker. Place the brisket, fat side-up, on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle about half a bottle of fresh pickling spices over the brisket.
  3. Pour in 1/2 cup dry white wine, and enough water into the pot to completely cover the meat. Bring pot to a slight boil, then reduce heat and simmer about one hour per pound of meat, until brisket is desired tenderness.
  4. Carefully remove brisket from the cooking liquid and rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes before cutting.
  5. If you are cooking cabbage and carrots to accompany the corned beef, but them on to boil now, and use the brisket braising liquid to echo the corned beef flavors.
  6. Slice brisket against the grain—opposite the direction of the meat fibers.
  7. You’ll find that the corned beef slices particularly well after chilling. To reheat slices of corned beef, place slices in a steamer basket over simmering water. Or, strain more of the braising liquid into a jar and keep it in the fridge for steaming the leftovers. Why waste that flavor? 🙂
You don’t have to be Irish to love it!

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Brunswick Stew

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After 30-plus years in the Southeast, I’ve come to appreciate many of the traditions, especially the ones related to food. There’s a particularly tasty tradition that occurs here in the fall, when churches, civic groups and Boy Scout troops set up giant, outdoor cast-iron kettles for their Brunswick stew fundraisers. They sign up volunteers, who take turns stirring the simplest of ingredients into a delicious aromatic stew, and folks arrive in droves to enjoy it by the bowl, and to take home quarts for freezing. It’s tradition and it’s delicious.

If you look into some of the old-time church cookbooks, you’d likely find Brunswick stew recipes that begin with fresh-caught rabbits or even squirrels, but (thankfully) my introduction to this homey, comforting soup was a chicken version, and that’s what I’m sharing today.

Brunswick stew is one of those comfort foods that tastes rich and hearty, but checks in on the low end of the fat-and-calories scale. Feel free to swap in other vegetables that suit your fancy—it’s what folks do in different parts of the South and depending on where you are, you might find potatoes, green beans or carrots in the bowl.

You can roast your own chicken if you’d like (overnight in the slow cooker makes amazing broth at the same time), but to keep it quick and simple, I’m using a rotisserie chicken this time, plus packaged broth, a few simple fresh and frozen vegetables, and a can of tomatoes. Whip up some corn muffins while it simmers, and dinner is served.

Can you taste the comfort?

Ingredients

First, the essentials. This is a Southern classic comfort food, so the “holy trinity” of peppers, onions and celery is the foundation of the recipe. Any color bell pepper is fine for Brunswick stew, but I personally find the red and orange bells to be a bit on the sweet side, so I’m using a green bell.

Okra came to the Americas from Africa in the 1600s, and it remains a staple of Southern cooking. You’ll find it in many Cajun and Creole recipes in Louisiana, and it’s not unusual to see it breaded and fried, or even pickled, which I love in a Southern-style potato salad or on deviled eggs. The pectin in okra gives it some thickening power when it’s cooked in liquid, but some people are turned off by the slightly slimy texture. Two things can minimize this: don’t overcook it (for this recipe, it’s added at the end), and cook it in combination with tomatoes, which is what’s happening in this Brunswick stew.

If you make this stew in the late summer or fall, of course you would want to use fresh corn, lima beans and okra.

  • For this recipe, I like the trinity to be a bit on the chunky side.
  • Did I mention that okra is rich in folate, B vitamins and fiber?

1 deli roasted chicken, dark and white meat shredded* (see notes)

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

4 stalks celery, trimmed and chopped

1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

3 large cloves garlic, chopped

15 oz. can diced tomatoes

2 quarts chicken or vegetable broth

1 bay leaf

2 cups frozen corn

2 cups frozen lima beans

2 cups frozen sliced okra

1/4 cup BBQ sauce

2 to 3 Tbsp. tomato paste

A few shakes hot sauce (optional, Frank’s RedHot or Texas Pete recommended)

Salt and pepper, of course

*Notes

If you prefer to roast your own chicken, more power to you! If you have time to work ahead, you might also want to make your own stock. Or you could make your own stock from the frame of the rotisserie chicken. After de-boning and shredding the meat, toss the bones and skin into a pot with cut-up onions, celery, carrots and just enough water to cover it all. Simmer a few hours then strain out the solids, and you’d have a great alternative to the packaged broth (or, at least, some of it).

Instructions

If the pictures here seem to defy the ingredient amounts listed, there’s good reason for it—on this particular day, I only had half a rotisserie chicken, so I halved the entire recipe. The ratios are the same, and this stew is so satisfying and delicious, I’m already regretting that I didn’t run to the store for another chicken!

  • Sauteing the vegetables isn’t absolutely necessary, but I always do it. If you’re making the stew in a slow cooker, feel free to add them as they are.
  • Tomatoes can take over this dish, so I keep the ratio fairly low, with only one can in a batch, and I boost their flavor with a little tomato paste.
  • The best Brunswick stew I’ve ever made included an overnight slow-cooked chicken stock, but packaged chicken or vegetable broth works just fine, and it’s easy!
  • If your pantry includes canned corn or lima beans, they are perfectly welcome in this stew, but I’d recommend taking note of the sodium content and adjust your seasoning accordingly.
  • Any BBQ sauce you like is appropriate. this time, I used a bottled steak sauce that we find a little too sweet for steak. It was perfect!
  • The okra goes in at the end, and it will act as a slight thickener for the stew. Simmer just until the bright green begins to fade.
  • Brunswick stew is packed with nutrients, fiber and goodness. This is real, down-home Southern comfort food!
  1. Place a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Swirl in olive oil. Sauté onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic until vegetables are soft and onions are translucent. Season with salt and pepper.
  2. Stir in tomatoes, tomato paste, shredded chicken and broth. Add bay leaf, reduce heat and simmer up to an hour.
  3. Add frozen corn and lima beans, but reserve frozen okra until about 20 minutes before serving, to prevent the okra from breaking down too much. Give it a taste and add salt and pepper to your preference.
  4. Stir in BBQ sauce (and hot sauce, if using), and add the okra to the pot. When the bright green color of the okra begins to fade a bit, it’s ready to serve!

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Bean & Bacon Soup

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Nothing makes me crave soup more than a snow day, or as is usually the case in North Carolina, an “ice day.” Like much of the U.S., we have been under threat of severe winter weather this week, and it finally arrived overnight in the shape of freezing rain. Bleh. Rather than stare out the window at the ice accumulating on the trees behind our home (beautiful, but dangerous), I’ve decided that I will make soup, and I am thankful once again to be cooking with gas. Power outages be damned, we will have a comforting bowl of something to eat. I wish I had a pot large enough to feed all of Texas this week.

Soup is a very forgiving meal, allowing you to use whatever you already have in the fridge and pantry, and this one is very true to that. A few cans of beans, some stock from a carton, basic vegetables and thick-sliced bacon comes together to create hearty, soul-warming goodness.

Ingredients

A few slices of thick-cut bacon, cubed (measuring about 1½ cups)

1 medium onion, chopped

3 ribs celery, chopped

Several carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)

Salt and pepper

3 cans (15 oz.) white beans (cannellini, great northern or navy)

1 carton low-sodium vegetable broth

2 Tbsp. tomato paste

1 or 2 bay leaves

Instructions

  • The bacon was hand cut at a local butcher counter, and the slices are very thick, which is recommended for this soup recipe.
  • I cut the bacon into cubes about the size of sugar cubes. It’s OK that some pieces are mostly fat; it will render to add tons of flavor.
  • Carrot, onion and celery are central ingredients to many soup recipes. They lend flavor, texture and aroma.
  • Even the drained off fat from this bacon is delicious! My grandmother always had a bacon fat jar, and would use it in place of oil or butter for pan-frying foods.
  • Saute the veggies until slightly softened and aromatic. Season with salt and pepper, of course.
  • Chicken broth would be fine, but my low sodium veggie broth is a standby for flavorful soups.
  • Tomato paste adds a touch of tangy flavor and richer color. And I always add a bay leaf to a simmering pot of soup.
  • The flavors will all come together after simmering on the stove or in the slow cooker.
  • I get a lot of mileage out of my immersion blender. Puree the soup to desired consistency. I love to have some beans and texture remaining.
  • Stir the crispy bacon pieces into the soup and simmer again until the bacon is softened.
  • The soup is thick, rich and flavorful. Perfect on a cold winter night!
  1. Heat a medium-size soup pot over medium heat. Toss the bacon cubes in the pot until all edges are crispy and fat is mostly rendered. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined bowl and drain off excess grease, keeping about two tablespoons of it in the pot. You’ll return the bacon to the soup after it is simmered and pureed.
  2. Add the mirepoix (onion-celery-carrot) to the pot and season with salt and pepper. Sauté until onions are translucent and carrots are just tender.
  3. Drain and rinse the canned beans and add them to the pot. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. Add vegetable broth, tomato paste and bay leaves. Stir to combine and bring soup to a low boil, then reduce heat, cover pot and simmer an hour or two.
  5. Remove bay leaves and puree some of the soup, using an immersion blender, regular blender or food processor. If the power is out and you’re cooking in the dark, use a potato masher. Blend as much or as little as you like; for me, this is usually about 2/3 smooth with chunks of bean and vegetable throughout.
  6. Return crisped bacon to the pot and continue to simmer about an hour, until bacon is softened and its smoky flavor has infused the soup.

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Barbacoa

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You have heard of the concept of a “bucket list,” tracking the experiences you want to have during your lifetime? Well, rather than making commitment to go skydiving or backpack through Europe (no thanks to either for me), I’ve narrowed down my bucket list to focus on foods. Cooking is a joyful adventure for me, but I am prone to become overwhelmed with too many new ideas in a way that, ironically, puts me in a cooking rut. What better way, I thought, to expand my culinary knowledge and have the satisfaction of accomplishment, than to put my wish list foods on a schedule? I wrote about this in October, when I finally tackled pierogi, the delicious potato and spinach-filled dumplings that were easier to make than I expected. Today, I’m making good on a promise from that post. I’ve moved barbacoa to the “done” column.

Despite having spent at least half of my growing-up years in southern Colorado, where I lived part-time with my mom, I had never heard of barbacoa until the Chipotle chain of restaurants popped up in my current city. Most of the “Mexican” food I knew was the standard Americanized fare, which is odd, given the demographics in Colorado. Who doesn’t love fajitas and burritos and such? But there are so many more interesting Mexican foods, and this is undeniably one of them. Barbacoa is beef, but it’s not the same as steak, as you might have in fajitas. It is rich and savory, tender and spicy, and super-versatile as a filling for a variety of casual dishes. And you know what I learned this week? It is ridiculously simple to make.

You need a good-size (preferably grass-fed) chuck roast, which is essentially the same thing you would use to make a pot roast. It’s full of marbling, which renders down into the most succulent texture in a slow cooker. Add a few spices or Mexican rub of some sort, onions and garlic, some hot peppers if you’d like, and just enough liquid with some smoky and acidic tones to tenderize and give balance to the meat. Put it in the slow cooker and wait for the magic.

For my husband, Les, and me, this mouthwatering magic could not come at a better time. The Super Bowl is just days away, and in a normal year, that would put our kitchen skills into preparation overdrive for the arrival of guests at our annual big game party. As strange as it was to have only the two of us at the table for Thanksgiving, it will be even weirder to not have a houseful for the Super Bowl. We are making the best of this pandemic reality the same way we did for Thanksgiving—by trying out a few new foods. Les will no doubt make his pimiento cheese and—spoiler alert—his amazing smoky guacamole. I may not be able to resist whipping up at least a half dozen deviled eggs and maybe a batch of hummus to snack on. But our main dish item for this year’s scaled-down celebration is this barbacoa. Delicious. Done.

Ingredients

  • I got lucky and found grass-fed chuck roast. This one weighed in at about 3.5 pounds.
  • This company kept popping up in Les’s Facebook feed, and we couldn’t help ourselves.
  • The other add-ins are pretty simple, including onions, garlic and peppers, plus the liquid seasonings from the fridge.

3-4 lb. beef chuck roast

Kosher salt and black pepper

2 Tbsp. smoky pepper BBQ rub* (see notes)

2 Tbsp. oil (olive, canola or avocado are all good here)

1 medium onion

5 cloves garlic

1/2 fresh poblano pepper*

1/2 red jalapeno*

1 small can mild chopped green chiles

2 Tbsp. Worcestershire

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp. chipotle puree with adobo*

2 tsp. liquid smoke

Juice of 1 lime

About 1/2 cup water or beef broth

2 dried bay leaves

*Notes

An ideal smoky BBQ rub for this dish would include some type of smoked pepper (ancho or chipotle, for example), some garlic, onion and herbs. The main thing I recommend when choosing a pre-made rub is to pay attention to the sodium content. Ingredients are listed in order of their ratio, so if salt is listed early, the blend has a lot of it. Les and I recently ordered some fantastic blends from a company called Flatiron Pepper Company. I respect the fact that they do not include salt in their blends—it means I have more control of the sodium that goes into my dishes, and I’m also not paying a premium for a cheap ingredient. If you want to make your own rub, you might try my “Fire & Brimstone” seasoning, which is detailed in this week’s post for Tex-Mex Stuffed Sweet Potatoes.

We enjoy spicy foods at our house, and I used a couple of fresh peppers that we already had on hand. Poblanos have some mild heat, but primarily a smoky flavor. Red jalapeno is hotter. Use what you’re comfortable with, or leave them out altogether in favor of an extra onion. This is what’s great about cooking at home—you get exactly what you like. 😊

For the chipotle puree, we dump a can of chipotles with adobo directly into the food processor. The result is a thick, smoky sauce that has heat but also some fruitiness and a big dose of smoke. It keeps well in the fridge for several weeks and is a good addition to any type of Mexican dish or chili.

Instructions

As always, I’ll get you started with a visual walk-through of how I made it. You’ll find written instructions below, and keep scrolling for a downloadable PDF for your recipe files.

  • Cut into chunks about the size of baseballs, and keep some of the fat which adds depth and flavor to the meat.
  • Toss the beef chunks in oil and bbq rub until all sides are coated, cover and let it rest at room temperature for about an hour.
  • Our slow cooker has a “brown/saute” feature, so I seared my beef chunks directly in it, fat side down to quick-start the rendering. A cast-iron skillet would well for this also.
  • Turn the meat to get a good sear on every side.
  • The browning on the meat adds a lot of depth to the flavor of barbacoa. When all sides are browned, add the other ingredients and begin the slow cooking.
  • The worcestershire-lime juice-chipotle mixture gets poured in around the meat, Also pour in 1/2 cup water or broth.
  • I use bay leaves for any kind of slow cooking, for another layer of flavor. Tuck them in so they are immersed in the liquid.
  • Night-night, barbacoa! We put the cover on the slow cooker and let it cook on low setting while we slept.
  • Good morning, barbacoa!! We turned the meat pieces over and gave them another hour or so to fully tenderize every bit of the meat.
  • The fat has practically melted during slow cooking, and it’s easy to shred the meat apart by pulling with two forks.
  • Transfer the meat chunks to a separate dish for easier shredding. We couldn’t stop ourselves from nibbling as we worked. It’s so good!
  • Transfer the shredded meat back into the flavorful liquid, and keep warm until ready to serve.
  • If you’re planning to use the meat on a different day, transfer it to a covered dish, along with the juices, and reheat in a saucepan or in the slow cooker again, depending on the amount you’ll use.
  1. Cut the chuck roast into equal, baseball-sized chunks. Sprinkle them all over with kosher salt and black pepper (unless your spice blend already has both).
  2. Combine the BBQ rub and oil in a large bowl. Toss the roast chunks in the oil until all sides are evenly covered. Cover the bowl and rest it at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, or up to an hour.
  3. Chop up the onion, garlic and any fresh peppers you are using, and set them aside, along with the canned green chiles.
  4. In a measuring cup, combine the remaining ingredients and whisk until blended.
  5. Heat a large pot or skillet over medium-high heat. Drizzle a small amount of oil into the pot and add the roast chunks, a few at a time to avoid crowding the pan. Remember that a quick drop in temperature will prevent good searing. Turn the pieces over when the bottom is browned, and continue this until all sides are browned. Our slow cooker has a browning feature, so I was able to do this directly. A cast-iron skillet would be perfect for this, if your slow cooker has a ceramic crock. Transfer the meat chunks to the slow cooker when they are browned all over.
  6. Scatter the onions, garlic, peppers and green chiles over the top of the meat.
  7. Pour the liquid ingredients into the cooker. If you used a separate skillet for browning, you may first want to swirl some of the liquid into it to deglaze and gather up all the tasty browned bits, so that you don’t miss any of that fabulous flavor.
  8. Tuck the bay leaves down into the liquid. Cover and cook on low setting for about 10 hours. We set this up at bedtime and woke up to the most amazing aromas.
  9. When the meat is nice and tender, remove it with tongs to a cutting board or glass baking dish and shred it. We found that undisturbed overnight cooking left the submerged bottom of the meat chunks tender, but the exposed parts were still firm. We simply turned the meat over and gave it another hour or so. To shred the meat, use two forks to pull it apart in opposite directions.
  10. Return the shredded meat to the flavorful liquid and keep it warm until ready to serve. If you plan to serve it later, refrigerate the meat and liquid together, and re-heat the amount for your recipe in a saucepan over low heat, or return it to the slow cooker if you plan to serve the whole amount.
  • There’s so much flavor in the barbacoa, we kept the taco toppings fresh and super simple.
  • What a tasty, colorful handheld dinner. With rice, black beans, bell peppers and guac.

Barbacoa is so good as a filling for street-style tacos, with fresh crunchy radishes and cilantro, plus a squeeze of lime. Or wrap it up in a larger flour tortilla with rice and peppers. Or serve it in a bowl with black beans, rice, lettuce, avocado and pico de gallo or salsa. If you’re like me, you probably won’t be able to resist having “just one more taste” straight from the slow cooker.

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Midwinter Minestrone

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Cold weather and shorter days gettin’ you down? Me, too. We’ve had a few close calls this season for snow or wintry mix, but not much has materialized here in the South, though we’ve had our share of cold, dreary days and nights. My friends and family around New York and Boston have seen far more than their share of winter this week, thanks to the Nor’easter that dropped a foot or more of snow. And Punxsutawney Phil, the jumbo rodent in charge of this whole thing, saw his shadow (or perhaps felt the snowflakes falling against his fat cheeks) this morning, and declared “six more weeks of winter.” The bottom line is that winter is getting old; we are all tired of it. What we need is some warm and nourishing comfort food.

I finally pulled out our 7-quart cast-iron Dutch oven and made a huge batch of this soup that never fails to chase away my midwinter blues—a steaming hot bowl of Italian flavor that is chock-full of fresh, nutritious vegetables, spicy Italian sausage, creamy beans and petite pasta. This is the kind of food that warms you from the inside, whether you’re dining at the table or curled up with a soft blanket on the sofa while eating your minestrone from a pottery mug and binging on Netflix. Whatever comfort looks like for you, this soup has it covered.

Minestrone is Italian, obviously, so I’ve seasoned it with my own “Mamma Mia” blend of herbs and spices. This seasoning blend was born more than a decade ago when I participated in a “reverse offering” experiment at church. We were given $20 and challenged to double (or more) that money for charitable donation. The effort was intended to show how we could use our own talents to make a difference in the world. I bought a bunch of bulk spices, turned them into blends and packaged them into baby food jars (which I found for free on Craigslist) with little fabric-wrapped tops for individual sale. The end of the story is that my $20 turned into almost $60 (a fine return), and I still have several of my blends in regular rotation today. Mamma Mia seasoning contains dried oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram and ground fennel seed, plus garlic and crushed red pepper. It’s zesty, herbal and a little bit spicy, and just the right punch of flavor in this minestrone.

Nothing says “comfort” better than a bowl of nourishing soup, and I hope you’ll find it just right for stuck-at-home days, snow days, waiting for snow days, sick of the snow days and—well, pretty much all the days.

Who says comfort food can’t be good for you? This soup has so much going on nutritionally.

This recipe makes about 4 quarts. You will need a large soup pot, slow cooker or Dutch oven to hold all the ingredients, but the recipe can easily be halved for a more manageable batch. This soup also freezes well, so you can pack some away for another gloomy day.

Ingredients from the pantry

Choose low-sodium, organic ingredients as much as possible. The spice blend in the jar is my own Mamma Mia seasoning.

Extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper (of course)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 Tbsp. fresh chopped garlic

1 carton low-sodium vegetable broth

1 carton low-sodium chicken broth* (see notes)

28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes in tomato puree (San Marzano preferred)

15 oz. can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed (cannellini)

15 oz. can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 tsp. Mamma Mia Seasoning blend (see the end of the post for ingredients, or substitute another salt-free Italian seasoning + a few hearty shakes crushed red pepper flakes)

2 cups dry ditalini (or other petite shaped pasta, such as small elbows or mini farfalle)

Ingredients from the fridge

It looks like we are eating the rainbow with this soup!

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup each green and red bell peppers, chopped

1/2 bulb fennel, sliced and chopped*

8 oz. cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

1 fat handful kale leaves, chopped small*

1 handful fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley, cleaned and finely chopped for garnish at serving

1 or 2 lbs. bulk hot Italian sausage* (optional, see notes)

*Notes

Minestrone is perfectly adaptable for a vegetarian, or even vegan, option. Simply swap more vegetable broth for the chicken broth and skip the sausage in favor of additional beans. For texture and interest, I’d recommend a can of garbanzo beans in place of the meat.

Fennel provides a real Italian flavor to minestrone, and the flavor is echoed in my Mamma Mia seasoning, which includes ground fennel seed. It has a crunchy texture that is similar to celery, and a slight licorice flavor that blends well with the other ingredients. Use only the white bulb part of the vegetable (see the slides for more description).

Any type of kale can be used in minestrone. Lacinato kale is commonly used in Italian cooking, but I used curly kale. If you prefer, you could also substitute about 1 1/2 cups finely shredded and chopped green cabbage. These hearty greens add texture and fiber to the soup.

You decide how much sausage, if any, you use in this recipe. My batch included only 1 pound this time, and I used a chicken sausage that was labeled “hot Italian.” Turkey or pork sausage would also work or as mentioned above, you could omit the meat altogether for a vegan version.

Want to make this in a slow cooker? Go for it! The soup doesn’t need much attention other than occasional stirring or adding ingredients. After the initial cooking of sausage and veggies, simply dump everything into the slow cooker and let it go on high heat for several hours, or low heat overnight. It may help to give the kale a quick sauté before adding to the crock, given that it is much larger volume before cooking and most slow cookers recommend filling only 2/3 full.

Instructions

First, the pictures, or you can scroll down for written instructions and a downloadable PDF for your recipe files.

  • Looks like celery and bok choy had a baby, but fennel has a flavor all its own.
  • Cut the fennel crosswise, where the stems meet the bulb.
  • Cut the fennel bulb in half from stem to root, and then carve out the core in each half, then slice or chop the fennel as needed.
  • Fennel, bell pepper, celery, onion, carrots and garlic. Can you taste all these fresh, beautiful colors?
  • If you’re using sausage with a good bit of fat, you may not need oil at all. Here, I’ve used about 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (from Italy, of course).
  • Break up the sausage with a spoon or utensil as it cooks. You want smaller pieces so that you get a little bit in every bite.
  • Add the veggies all at once, and stir to combine.
  • Any Italian seasoning will serve you well. My Mamma Mia blend includes oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, garlic, fennel seed and crushed red pepper.
  • I added the mushrooms in batches. Add a bit of oil to the center of the pot if needed for browning them.
  • If you want to use a slow cooker to finish the recipe, transfer the mixture at this point, then squeeze the tomatoes into the blend.
  • With the tomatoes and broth added, it’s beginning to look like soup!
  • This is what I call a “fat handful” of kale. Remove the heavy pieces of stem as much as possible and chop before adding to the minestrone.
  • The kale will cook down considerably in the hot soup. Don’t be alarmed if it seems like a lot at first.
  • Minestrone gets a huge flavor boost from a rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Allow the rind to simmer in the soup.
  • After a few hours, the vegetables are tender and the flavors are nicely blended.
  • Rinse the canned beans, and season them with a pinch of salt before adding to the soup.
  • If you’re skipping sausage, add a third can of beans for texture and protein.
  • Any petite shape of pasta works great in minestrone. I’ve chosen ditalini, and I cook it separately and add to servings individually.
  • Soup’s on! 🙂
  1. In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, heat 4 Tbsp. olive oil over medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook until browned, breaking up larger pieces with a spoon or wooden utensil.
  2. Add chopped onions, carrots, celery, peppers, fennel and garlic. Stir and cook until vegetables soften, and the moisture released from them has mostly evaporated.
  3. Scatter Italian seasoning blend over the ingredients and stir to combine.
  4. Move the sausage and vegetables to the outer edges of the pot and drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil in the center. Toss in the mushrooms, half at a time, and gently toss them around to lightly brown them. If you’re using a slow cooker, transfer the mixture at the end of this step.
  5. Add the whole plum tomatoes, squeezing each thoroughly by hand directly into the pot. This will assist in breaking down the tomatoes for quicker cooking. Empty all puree into the pot as well.
  6. Add the vegetable and chicken broths and stir to combine. Heat soup to a low boiling point, then reduce heat to a simmer. This will take about 15 minutes.
  7. Stir in finely chopped kale and stir. Add piece of Parmesan rind and allow it to simmer with the soup for a few hours.
  8. Near the end of your expected cooking time, drain and rinse the canned beans. Season them with salt and pepper before adding them to the soup.
  9. Fill a large pot with water and cook the ditalini (or other petite pasta) to al dente texture. Drain pasta and add to the soup just before serving. Alternatively, drain the pasta, toss with a small amount of oil to prevent sticking, and transfer it to a separate bowl to be added to soup as it’s served. This will help you enjoy the soup several days later, without mushy noodles.
This soup is destroying my midwinter blahs!

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Mamma Mia Seasoning Blend

  • Crush the fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle, or use an electric spice grinder.
  • All the Italian flavors are present here, and you can adjust amounts of any ingredient to suit your taste.
  • This blend makes about 1/2 cup; store it in a sealed jar in a cool cabinet.

1 Tbsp. granulated garlic

1 Tbsp. dried minced garlic

1 Tbsp. dried Mediterranean oregano

1 Tbsp. dried basil leaves

1 Tbsp. fennel seed, crushed

2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

2 tsp. dried thyme leaves

1 tsp. dried marjoram leaves