Once the calendar reads November, most of us are ready for comforting stews and meals prepared in our slow-cookers-as much for the savory flavor as the saving of time in the kitchen during this busy season.
Our first stew is a winner. Make sure to add the rice as the recipe suggests so that it doesn't absorb all of the liquid; if you add it too soon, the rice will soak up the liquid, although the results will still be delicious. We serve this meal with a simple salad and baked apples for dessert.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
This next menu features our rendition of the fish stew we had in the South of France. We start with an orange and watercress salad and end our meal with oatmeal cookie and ice cream sandwiches. The secrets of this stew recipe are the freshness of the fish and making use of the shells from the shellfish to flavor the soup. Once you have made the pureed stock you can relax, as putting the meal together is a snap. Bon appetite!
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Although recipes for stuffed cabbage leaves are usually Swedish or Hungarian in origin, this recipe gets its roots in our own Midwest in my mother's kitchen. And she was Irish. Such is the mystery of the origin of recipes. She made her recipe on top of the stove, but since I've written a cookbook devoted to slow-cooker recipes, I decided to adapt her recipe for the Crock-Pot® which develops the little cabbage packets' full flavor. You can be away all day, coming home to a delicious, wholesome meal that's almost ready to serve. To keep the calories low so one could splurge a little with a heart-warming dessert, I used ground turkey breast in the cabbage rolls, instead of the customary ground beef or ground pork With the stuffed cabbage leaves, we suggest a salad of baby spinach with a hot garlic dressing. For dessert, offer still-warm-from-the-oven Old-Fashioned Bread Pudding with Dried Cherries, an adaptation of the recipes in our popular Joslin Diabetes Quick and Easy Cookbook (Fireside/Simon & Schuster). The pudding can bake and still have a few minutes to cool while you're having the first part of the meal.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Most everybody loves a good pot roast. With everyone back into cold-weather cooking, we're seeing tied boneless chuck roasts on deep-savings sales, sometimes buy one, get one free-to tuck into the freezer. You'll need to trim off some fat before you start. Once that's done and you've assembled a few vegetables, the whole meal can go into a Crock-Pot® slow-cooker for another day away from the kitchen. At supper time, quickly cook and mash some potatoes, assemble our lively Endive, Watercress, and Apple Salad, and you're done. For dessert, take advantage of the many varieties of seedless grapes at the market-black, red, and green. We like to mix the colors and bring the bowl to the table to eat out of hand while we linger over coffee and after-dinner conversation.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
