The Thanksgiving Slow Cooker Experiment

My housemates & I host friends and family for Thanksgiving every year. This year we had 15 people or so. Most people bring something, but we prepare a lot of food at the house. 

Last year, once the turkey came out of the oven, we started a game of four-dimensional Tetris to get the rest of the dishes done. This year, I opted out of that & decided to utilize slow cookers instead. I own 3 slow cookers, & I borrowed 2 more. 

I searched for recipes on Pinterest and decided on garlic Parmesan mashed potatoes, non-dairy mashed potatoes, cheesy scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, and chocolate cake. 

I laid out almost everything the night before: 

And I may or may not have created a spreadsheet to figure out which dishes went into which slow cooker at what time. In the morning, was time to get to work. 

I got too busy with the cooking & forgot to take more pictures during the process. 

And I totally forgot to take pictures of the finished dishes. Everything turned out at least ok. The mashed potatoes will need to be kept on warm during serving. The green bean casserole was pretty indistinguishable from having been done in the oven. The scalloped potatoes & the chocolate cake were awesome. 

Pinterest to the rescue

 I have 4 (so far) Pinterest boards related to food & cooking.

I know pinning things isn't the same as actually making them, but the organization makes me feel like I'm making progress.


http://www.pinterest.com/ohjoyofjoys/general-food-drink/

http://www.pinterest.com/ohjoyofjoys/healthy-eating/

http://www.pinterest.com/ohjoyofjoys/cooking/

http://www.pinterest.com/ohjoyofjoys/crockpot/

Scratch That

I've been thinking about foods I want to try to make from scratch. 

Hummus

Protein bars

Bread

Granola

In fact, I'm debating investing in a breadmaker. 

Meal Planning

I've done a lot of research around healthy  meals for slow cookers, freezing & storing, meals, bulk cooking, etc. I'm working on a sustainable plan that fits my diet, schedule, & budget. So far, I'm hoping to create at least 2 dinners & 3 lunches per week every weekend, as well as doing as much chopping of vegetables & measuring out snacks as possible.

I've chosen as my first recipes a white bean chicken chili & some enchiladas. I'm also hoping to find a good spinach lasagna recipe with good make ahead or storage prospects. 

Here are some of the resources I'm using:

http://skinnyms.com/10-skinny-weightwatchers-entrees-5-points-or-less/
http://wwcrockmeals.webs.com/

http://www.slenderkitchen.com/healthy-crock-pot-recipes/#

Re-Boot

Well, 2013 was quite the year. I'll be creating a lot of separate posts on these topics later.

• I was diagnosed with diabetes in January (both expected and unexpected) so I started making big changes. 
• I adopted a lower-carb diet (not entirely) and lowered my intake of refined sugar by a lot. 
• I joined Weight Watchers in April 2013. I lost about 20 pounds pretty quickly, but I've stalled a bit since then. 
• My housemates & I signed up for a bi-weekly veggie & fruit box delivery. 
• I bought a second crock-pot.

My current goals mostly revolve around learning to cook more healthy dishes that I enjoy.  I want to master at least 3 this year. I'm focusing on Weight Watcher's recipes, and if they're for the crockpot, so much the better. The plan (or at least part of it) is to get a group together to try new recipes.

Also, I lost an aunt last month, and in her honor, I am determined to bake a sweet potato pie from scratch, by myself.

I made a whole chicken!

That's a first for me. It was precipitated by whole chickens being on sale for a ridiculous $.39/lb. I put it in the crock pot, of course. I also used carrots & potatoes and half a soup mix packet. Next time I'm going to use the whole packet. Also, it would have benefitted from an onion. I used onion powder & garlic powder & a little cayenne pepper. Overall it was good, but I like really bold flavors for chicken, so I want it stronger for next time.


I'm also planning to use the leftovers for chicken & rice, and make stock for a 3rd dish. Whole chickens are cheap and versatile, so yay!

August 2009 Restaurant Week

For this Restaurant Week, I did two lunches and one dinner.

Lunch 1: Bobby Van's Steakhouse.
I love steak. And I can't seem to cook it the way I like it, so I enjoy getting a good steak at a restaurant. But for some reason at the last minute I decided to order the salmon. I can't say I regret it, because it was delicious. It was served with a roasted red pepper risotto that was absolutely incredible.

Lunch 2: Bobby Van's Grill.
Yes, I just did this in February. Yes, it was that good. This time around wasn't quite as good, but still great. Better salad & better dessert than Bobby Van's Steakhouse, by the way. I had a flank steak with sweet potato puree.

Dinner: Ruth's Chris Steak House
Yes, again. I do need to be more adventurous next time. But it was delicious, as usual. I added a side of sweet potato casserole.

Since last time

Since my last post, I got laid off. So, blogging fell down the priority list. I haven't stopped cooking though. I've mastered the crockpot pot roast & started making variations on things. Most recently, I did a cross between the pot roast & the chicken & dumplings; instead of beef, I dumped chicken breast (tenders actually) vegetables (mushrooms, mixed peppers & carrots) in a crockpot with cream of asparagus soup. I served it over rice. I'll experiment with the seasonings a bit, but overall I'd call it a success.

Restaurant Week

I went out for Restaurant Week 3 times, and the theme was steak, steak, and more steak.

I had lunch at Bobby Van's Grill. The salad wasn't remarkable, but you don't go to Bobby Van's for the salad. The entree was a flank steak on top of a portabello mushroom topped with gorgonzola cheese and served with garlic mashed potatoes. I was a bit skeptical of the gorgonzola, because it's such a strong cheese. It was absolutely delicious; I want to marry that steak. Also, orange-cranberry cheesecake, which again, made me skeptical but was fantastic.

A couple of days later, I had dinner at Ruth's Chris. Petit filet with mashed potatoes: simple and completely awesome. Sadly, our waiter wasn't so great, but that's the only time I've experienced that at Ruth's Chris.

I ended the week with dinner at Cafe' Atlantico. I wasn't a big fan of the conch fritters; they were tasty, but I didn't enjoy the consistency. For my entree, I had yet another steak - this time a marinated skirt steak. I was less enthused about the accompanying mlanga puree and malanga chips, but overall it was really delicious.

So it was probably my best Restauant Week; I had 3 meals - 3 steaks - which were all fantastic. In the past, I've never been able to avoid at least one mediocre (if not bad) experience. But this year, I got 3 wins.

Success: Chicken & Dumplings

I made the chicken & dumplings recipe from the crockpot lady! It was easy & delicious. I wasn't thinking though, because I should have halved the recipe. I had chicken & dumplings for a week & a half before I had to throw the rest out. I wish I'd had space in my freezer to freeze half the batch. Also, for my taste, the ratio of chicken to dumplings was a little high. So I'll use a little less chicken next time.

For the record, I used cream of celery for the base & my frozen vegetables were a blend of peas, carrots, green beans & corn. I also added some garlic - because I put garlic in just about everything. Oh and I'll use a bit more salt & pepper next time also.

Success!

Drat.

Last night's attempt at dinner was made of fail. It wasn't even edible. The good news is, the only thing I really wasted was about a pound of ground turkey.

I had planned to make Hamburger Helper, but changed my mind mid-way through & started throwing other seasonings and stuff into the pan. It did not go well.

DC Restaurant Week

It's back! Feb. 16 - 22.
http://www.washington.org/restaurantwk/

(I know I owe a more substantial post, and it's coming. I just have to sit down & write it.)

No news

I have nothing to share because I haven't been to the grocery store. But, last night, I was commissioned to make someone a pie. That should be entertaining.

I made Christmas dinner!

I'm quite pleased with myself. I made Christmas dinner for myself and a friend.

I roasted a turkey breast - a first for me. Because I wanted to be able to focus my attention on the turkey, I used boxes/cans for pretty much everything else. I saw it as a "pick your battles" kind of thing. My sides were: stuffing (Stove Top Savory Herb), mac & cheese (Kraft), mashed potatoes (Idaho, from a box), mashed sweet potatoes (Betty Crocker), sour cream & chive scalloped potatoes (Betty Crocker), green bean casserole, and spinach (from a can). I also had cranberry sauce and gravy from cans.

Now, you may be thinking, "But Joy, I thought you said there were only two of you!" Yes, I went overboard.

I found this package of "soup greens" at the grocery store. It had a small amount of several vegetables (carrots, celery, leeks, parsnips, turnips, onion) plus some parsely & dill. So I put all that in the pan with the turkey with a little bit of chicken broth. I also rubbed the whole turkey with butter & then used a little salt, pepper & poultry seasoning.

After handling the turkey, it was mostly an exercise in project management. I subsituted chicken broth for water in the stuffing and vegetable broth for water in the mashed potatoes. I also pressed a couple cloves of garlic into the mashed potatoes.

I only made the spinach because I felt guilty about all the carbs, but it was totally unnecessary. Neither of us ate very much of it, but we'd had quite a lot of vegetables with dinner the night before and in the omelets that morning.

It came out very well overall. I managed to get everything finished at almost the exact same time.

I learned that I could make dinner for 6 if I wanted, because that's how much food there was. I think I gained enough confidence to actually attempt roasting a whole bird.

However, I don't think I'll make that much food for 2 people ever again. My dinner companion doesn't have a microwave, so I ended up with all the leftovers. After a feat of spacial engineering to get all the food into my refrigerator, I'll be eating Christmas dinner into the new year.

Follow up on the Root Vegetables

Well, I definitely didn't cut them up small enough. Also, they originally came out a little bland. I toasted some pine nuts & threw those in; that seemed to help. Next time, I'm going to include sweet potatoes & some onion.

Root Vegetables!

Inspired by this post from the Crockpot Lady, I bought a heap of root vegetables at the Farmer's Market this weekend: Turnips, Parsnip, potatoes & carrots. I didn't see any rutabaga.

I peeled them & cut them up & tossed them in the crockpot last night with some olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, sage & thyme. I taste tested a carrot this morning, and I think it came out ok. But I think I may have left some of the chunks too big. We'll see.

Organizing, pt. 2

I completed the organization of the cabinet (boxes of potatoes, rice, stuffing, pasta). That also gave way to my meal planning for the next few days.

I decided it would be easier to simply eat everything in my freezer than organize it.

In other news, I've decided I simply *must* try out this Chicken & Dumplings recipe from the Crockpot Lady.

I organized my kitchen! Sort of...

I realized that one major problem in my kitchen was the lack of organization. I'd stopped rotating my food when I wasn't so "stocked up" but then I started stocking up on things again. So I just purged my kitchen of some expired canned goods, as well as donating some "I don't remember why I bought this" items to a local food bank.

In order to accomplish this, I had to take every can out of my cupboard and off my shelves to turn my kitchen floor in to a sea of canned goods. Sorting, purging and then re-shelving actually took almost a whole weekend (not uninterrupted). But now almost all of my food is stored in an orderly fashion. I ignored one shelf which houses my boxed items: Stove Top, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Betty Crocker Potatoes, Minute Rice, etc. That's for this weekend.

I also cleaned out my freezer, but not my refrigerator. That's also for this weekend.

Success: Chili

I made a huge pot of chili this weekend.

I used 2.5 lbs. of ground turkey, one can each of light red kidney beans, dark red kidney beans & white kidney beans, onion, 4 kinds of peppers and 2 of those chili seasoning packets (one hot, one mild).  I also added chili powder & garlic when I browned the meat.  It was (and still is) really good chili.  Hooray.

The one downside, I did spend too much at the grocery store when I went to get the turkey, peppers & onions.  Despite the fact that I just made good progress in bringing my pantry down to the appropriate size, I couldn't resist all the Thanksgiving sales and I just added a bunch of stuff back.  Ah well, more cooking to do.

Two Things

1) A few nights ago, in an effort to start cleaning my kitchen, I decided to clear out my pantry a little bit.  I decided I wouldn't buy any food, except missing ingredients (like ground turkey for the chili) until my pantry was reduced to a normal level for a single person with a small kitchen. (Currently, my pantry items are stacked too high on shelves, and in a corner of my kitchen floor.)

So on Wednesday, I made a boxed-item carb-fest: Kraft Mac & Cheese, Stove Top stuffing & Betty Crocker Au Gratin Potatoes.  I also opened a can of spinach and have been eating a lot of fruit at lunch this week.  Not the healthiest set of meals, but this is temporary.  Anyway, I noticed all these "meal ideas" on the backs of the boxes, so next week I'm going to start trying those.

2) This makes my arteries clog & harden just looking at the pictures.  Don't get me wrong: I love bacon.  I love bacon a lot.  But I have a hard time with the concept of the Turducken as is, wrapping each of the three birds in bacon...  How does the inside of the turkey not just turn into one big pile of bacon grease?  Happy Thanksgiving.