Greetings foodies!
Geez, it's been a long time- too long. But- I am back and hoping to post more regularly! I have been enjoying lots of good food lately between the holidays, hubby being on winter break from school and taking a week off from work Christmas week and not going anywhere. It's been heavenly. We’ve had time to cook things from scratch, go to the store and actually browse instead of dashing madly through the aisles, and drink some really great wine.
Over our winter break, we opened a bottle of wine that we shipped back from our California trip in May. It was 2006 Lone Madrone Zinfadel. Absolutely delicious. Although, those Paso Robles Zin’s will knock your socks off with their alcohol content. I think the content on the zin was 14.8 %. Wowzer! You would think that the high alcohol would take away from the fruit, but they are such great wine makers out there, that they somehow manage to get away with it.
Ok, getting back on track...
I am here today to talk to you about an invention that was sent straight from the heavens of cooking for busy folks like me. The crock pot! Who out there has a crock pot and loves it? I got my crock pot as an engagement gift from a dear friend of Chris' mom's. I didn’t grow up with crock pot meals, so when I received it I had no idea what a marvelous invention it was. There is absolutely nothing better than coming home from a long day at work, and having your meal ready for you and smelling up the house with lovely savory scents. An added bonus is the lack of cleanup from a crock pot meal. Oh, I could go on and on.
In the check out lane right after Christmas I saw a cooking magazine devoted entirely to Crock Pots. I have seen these before, but this one I was eyeing was way more food savvy than most. (Think recipes for Lamb and spinach stew, not chicken and dumplings.)
I tried my first recipe out of it a few weeks back- a Hungarian Beef Stew. Let me be honest with you, pretty much any recipe that I see that is either A.) Greek or B.) Hungarian, I will try.
The entire prep of this meal took me about 15 minutes which was spent chopping cabbage, carrots and onion. I will show you the recipe and then tell you how I changed it:
1 ¼ lb. beef chuck for stew
1 lb. carrots, sliced
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
3 cups thinly sliced cabbage
2 cups water, or ½ cup red wine plus 1 ½ cups water
1 can (6oz.) tomato paste
1 envelope onion- mushroom soup mix
1 Tbsp. Paprika
1 Tsp. Caraway Seeds
1 cup Reduced Fat Sour Cream
Serve with : Egg Noodles
- Mix all ingredients except sour cream in slow cooker
- Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours or until tender. Turn off cooker and stir in sour cream until well blended. Serve over egg noodles.
First thing I have to say is- “Holy smokes! A POUND of carrots?” I think that’s a bit much even for bugs bunny. I pulled the carrot content way back, and just added as much carrots as I thought looked right. I also didn’t have tomato paste, so I used a large can of plain tomato sauce and ½ cup water. I didn’t add red wine. I know what you’re thinking…the girl that loves her wine and can go on forever about it didn’t put it in a recipe that called for it? What is the world coming to? Let me explain, I have cooked with red wine in beef crock pot recipes, and in my humble opinion, it gets too rich, greasy and heavy. So, I left it out and saved that wine for drinking later.
I added all the other ingredients listed (minus caraway seeds) and set that bad boy to cook just before I walked out the door for work. When I came home, I was greeted by a delightful scent bubbling away in the pot. Dinner was delicious and we both agreed this was a keeper. The sour cream that was stirred in at the end definitely gave it that Hungarian touch and reminded me of paprikash.
The next dish I’m planning on trying out of the magazine is a Cranberry-Chipotle Turkey.I will let you know how that one works out. In the meantime, I hope I’ve encouraged you to dust off that crock pot for an upcoming meal.
Cheers and happy cooking,
Rosie
