Just because it’s Fall or Winter doesn’t mean you can’t have that barbecue taste once in a while. Two ways to accomplish that is to cook meat with barbecue sauce in the over or broiler or take out your crock-pot and let it do it’s magic.
A crock-pot pork barbecue is one of the easy dishes you could make in the weekends by starting it early in the morning, leave it to cook for hours so you could spend some quality time with the family. Watch movies, read boks or play some board games while dinner is cooking in the …read more

This stew is so amazing that you won’t care that it takes awhile to make! The preparation time can be cut down considerably by doing once a week food preparation, but even if you have to chop and cook everything same day, this recipe makes a stew worth waiting for. I usually cook and simmer mine in a large stock pot, but you can brown and cook the first few ingredients in a skillet, and then dump them into a crock pot to slow cook all day.

Beef Burgundy Stew
1-1/2 lb stew beef, floured
Olive oil
1/2 t thyme
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay …read more

Cooking Light has a special feature on their website with the recipes for seven amazing reader-tested slow cooked dishes.  I’m particularly looking forward to trying the recipe for the Char Siu Pork, shown below.

Char siu is a Chinese version of barbecue. Serve with sticky or long-grain white rice and a steamed or stir-fried medley of bell peppers, carrots, snow peas, sliced baby corn, and water chestnuts.
Yield
8 servings (serving size: 3 ounces pork and 1/4 cup sauce)
Ingredients
* 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
* 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
* 3 tablespoons ketchup
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 2 …read more

Delicious delicious vindaloo sauce! The spicy tomato sauce described below can be used with chicken, pork, and lamb as well as with vegetables. We particularly love it with just vegetables, though, and as one of our vegetarian meals for the week, we don’t even miss the meat!If you do decide to add meat to the dish, you can add a cinnamon stick
If you’ve done once a week food preparation, this meal will go together really quickly, but it needs to simmer for a long time in a crock pot to be its best. It’s a great make-ahead …read more

Here’s a super-easy Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) recipe that you can throw in the crock pot this morning and eat tonight, or that you can prepare really easily and freeze for future meals. To make this for a freezer meal, pre-cook the tenderloin in a minimal amount of water in your crock.
Slow Cooked Pork Tenderloin
1 – 2 lb pork tenderloin
2 – 3 c apple juice or cider
1 – 2 c cranberry sauce
Sesame seeds (optional, to add before serving)
To make as a freezer meal, combine the pre-cooked tenderloin with the juice and sauce in a freezer container and freeze. …read more

This recipe appeared in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Eating Well magazine. The original recipe was written to serve 4, so I’m not sure why the online version was cut to 2. No matter, you can double this recipe and end up with the right proportions; just add a little more cornstarch.
I chose to use a leg cut instead of ground lamb, so I pre-cooked it for several hours in my crock pot. The meat fell apart and the little fat there was peeled right off by the time I was ready to assemble the stew. …read more

This is a great beef stew to have for Rosh Hashanah, when everything is to be round and/or sweet to start off the new year right. Shallots, thyme, butternut squash, and cranberries all help to make this a savory but slightly sweet stew. We like it anytime during the fall and winter.  So I thought I’d make it tonight to celebrate the first full day of Hanukkah!
Cooked in a crock pot, you’ve got a couple of alternatives for preparation: stew the squash for a long time and it will break down like tzimmes, making the broth thick and …read more

I had the opportunity to sample some pretty tasty meatballs recently, as did some of the members of my official taste testers, The Grill Team. The Italian style meatballs from Mama Lucia were good in texture and taste, easy to prepare, and were missing some ingredients like MSG that I sometimes have problems with in prepared foods.
These meatballs are fully cooked, so they can be ready fast if needed. However, I chose to put them into some tomato sauce and let them simmer in my crock pot for awhile. Everyone loved them. Honestly, I like …read more

A spicy lamb dish that tastes great with other Indian dishes, or with some milder sides if you’re afraid it will be overload for your family. You can vary the amount of spices used to suit your own tastes, and you can also serve it with additional plain yogurt to cool it down if desired. Basmati rice or naan flatbread makes a great accompaniment, and we also had stir-fried mixed peppers (mild orange and yellow, and a few hot).
I simplified the traditional cooking methods somewhat and used my crock pot. By the end of the day, the lamb was amazingly …read more

Not that polenta isn’t served in other parts of the country, but it is as common as pasta in the north. And it is amazingly versatile as well. Basic polenta is a snap to make and can be dressed up or dressed down in an infinite number of ways. It can be served with a rich tomato sauce, with or without veggies, sprinkled with parmesan, loaded with meats and onions, topped with tapenade, on and on and on! It makes a great basis for a vegetarian meal, a main dish, or a side dish.
In larger …read more