Hi everyone,
I will peruse the slow cooker threads as well, but my question is rather specific.
A new school year is about to begin here in NY, and I have asked my husband to handle dinner on Wednesdays every week. He works from home on that day, so I am thinking of making a binder of slow cooker recipes for him so that he can throw ingredients in a slow cooker either at the beginning of the day or lunchtime, and then have dinner ready by 6 with a simple salad/cut up veggies on the side.
Parameters: no beef/pork. We are trying to keep red meat to once a week and that’s usually on the weekend. Chicken in any form, turkey in any form, and any beans are good. I avoid tomatoes so nothing too tomato forward (a little is ok). Recipes need to be very easy to follow and with simple instructions, and I’d say minimal chopping or ingredient prep. I have a few to get him started, but I’m curious to know what you all have up your sleeves too.
Thinking -
NYT chicken tacos (already a favorite in our house)
Hearty soups
Bean stews
…?
For the garlic mojo, on a weekend just roast up a head or two of garlic, add a little lime juice, and then store in the freezer with the oil it roasted in until you or your husband is ready to make the recipe.
You could sub turkey bacon for the bacon or use smoked chicken sausages (or leave out the meat entirely - I’d add some chipotle or smoked paprika to add that element to it though).
Thank you so much! My daughter would love the lasagna soup especially! And the pulled bbq chicken I’ve definitely done before and we loved it so thanks for the reminder!!
Whatever you do, do NOT be tempted by Alton Brown’s slow cooker lasagna recipe! Even HE shits all over the recipe. We saw him on tour a couple of years ago, and he said it’s the lowest rated recipe on Food Network’s website, and he’s amazed that people still try it.
I hope some of them are helpful! For the tinga one, I just noticed they didn’t give the slow cooker directions, just that it could be used. For that, I’d have it go in the cooker for 6 hours on low (I very rarely ever use the high setting anyway).
If your husband is not confident with chopping veggies, that stuff (along with spices, etc.) can be done and portioned out on a weekend (kiddos can help) if that works for your schedules at all. Then he can just pull on the day of. Just bundle everything up into its own meal kit.
For ALL recipes you find, note that newer slow cookers/crockpots cook at a higher heat than ones from the 1970s and '80s did. Can’t recall when (maybe the late 1990s or early 2000s?), but there was an FDA-required change in the cooking temp required to avoid “potential bacterial growth” (although no one ever died from it, IIRC). The older crock-pots tended to simmer at around 198 degrees, while newer models may reach 212 degrees. So if a recipe calls for 8 hours of cooking time on LOW? Check it at 6 hours if you have a newer model.
ETA: I used to have a link to the Hartford Courant where a reader had written in in 2000 asking if temps on crockpots had increased. In speaking with a manufacturer, it had. I had to Google it, and found a blurb/article about “SLOW COOKER CHANGE” - September 2000:
"A reader e-mailed the Food desk to comment on a recipe story about crock-pots — or slow cookers, as they are now called — that appeared in the Food section last Wednesday. This man finds that his new crock-pot, a 6-quart Hamilton Beach model, takes less time to cook than his original cooker by the same company.
Through some research, he found that his old model had a temperature setting of 140 degrees for low. The new model is 180 degrees at low. He says food reaches the boiling point in about 4 to 5 hours.
A call to Hamilton Beach Proctor-Silex in Glen Allen, VA., confirmed that the new pots have a higher temperature on low. The change was made to prevent any food contamination and ensure that foods cook to the proper temperature.
Crock-pot cooks should consult the manual that accompanies the cooker and adjust recipes they find elsewhere accordingly. As our e-mailer points out, he has found that a 4-pound pot roast, cooked in his new pot, “is over-done after six hours on low.” He compared his experience with the recipe for flank steak with gravy, published in the crock-pot story, which listed cooking times as 8 to 10 hours on “low.” This recipe was taken from an older crock-pot cookbook, whose recipes were developed for the older models."
Thank you! I think we’ll start really basic and he’ll get more confident. And i don’t want to make it sound like I’m being condescending - I’m really not- the man is the smartest and most competent person I know in many other arenas , he just hasn’t really had the chance to flex his muscles in the kitchen. This mom needs a break one day a week, though, so he will get to flex those muscles now! Lol
Yeah, I have seen that information around as well. I got my Rival slow cooker as a present from one of my grandmothers in 1997 for my first apartment. It usually gets the job done on low for most things in 6 hours (I think once for oxtail or beef cheek I needed to go 8-9 hours). One time I had a black bean recipe that just hadn’t budged even after 12 hours (live and learn). But, it’s like any other piece of kitchen equipment in that you need to get a sense of how the one you own, versus the recipe writer, behaves. They are all going to be a little different from brand to brand (and model year to model year).
You are so smart to do this. Heaven forfend you should ever get sick or injured and need to be out of the kitchen for a stretch. Now he will be able to feed you and himself.
I still have the original blue flower Rival Crockpot that I think I got sometime in the early 1980s - so one of the older ones that actually slow cooks. LOL Good for overnight chicken stock, although with it being so old, I probably shouldn’t go to sleep with it still on low. I also have a smaller, 1 qt., and it cooks at a higher heat, but I haven’t used that in a gazillion years. And yes, all of them behave differently, depending on what’s in them.
