Slow Cookin'... sort of

Been a bit since an out and out food post… here it is:

Some may remember that I had a gift card from Amazon, and it began to burn a (figurative) hole in my pocket, and I was kind of torn on how to “burn” it (card, not pocket).  And you might also recall I was going back and forth between a deep fryer and slow cooker.  After a bit of introspection, and fielding comments like: “you’re not coating MY counter with grease!!”, the cooker got the nod.  Naturally snobby me first thought of All Clad, but some research on the net revealed a lot of reports about unreliable, cracking inserts, and so forth.   Pans okay, electronics not so much.  So, after a visit to Amazon (with added cash of course), the mystery of logistics worked and within two days this was on my porch

 

And after wading through miracles of modern packaging, pieces and parts that looked like a slow cooker began to appear

 

And weeding out the packing materiel (with some assembly required), there it was in all its gleaming glory

 

Okay, fine, now what?  Well, I found a recipe for “Senate Bean Soup”, a time honored classic dish that was made for a slow cooker.   Same snobby old me had kind of looked down my classical nose at slow cooker technology for a long time (I had a Rival hot pot that was a nightmare to use and clean).  But with recent (?) advances like removable insert, the ability to sear or steam in the same vessel, timers, and so on sort of made them more attractive to me.  I had the vision of just throwing some stuff in there, set the knob, walk away for five hours and Voila!.... here’s dinner. 

So I set out to prepare the soup as my trial run.  Piece of cake, right? how hard can soup be? Well, since we don’t have ham hocks in the fridge, nor a bag o’navy beans (although there could be one in the deep dark recesses of the pantry, with expiration date of 1997, who knows?) a trip to the store was required.  Okay, ingredients assembled, ready to throw them in.  Hold your horses sparky, not so fast!  First step:  “soak the beans overnight”; okay check.  Dice (various measures of) celery, carrots, onions… sauté until soft, add garlic and cook until fragrant.   So a few boards, knives, and pans later we had

 

FINALLY, add meat and dump in slow cooker

 

Set the dials, and push "start"...

 

And so after a dedicated trip to the market, an overnight, and an hour or so of prep then you can proceed  to "slow cooking".. (leaving said pans and assorted tools to clean).

Well, I must admit the final product pretty much offset the work, it was very good soup.  And it will remain very good soup, as the recipe turns out enough to feed a starving army.  Guess that is what freezers are for.  So I am happy with the thing, have a little more perspective on its use and potential and will have another go…  Braised Short Ribs are calling me..

 

A quick musical note:

 

I'm sure most of the "hip" (another dating term, eh?) readers know that the Grammy Awards were presented earlier in the week.  At some point I ran across a list of the nominees.  I am happy/sad(?) to report I had no idea who these people were... time has passed me by, plus the music (excuse me) is stupid..

 

A better note

 

Did you happen to see any of the Westminster Dog Show (in between the State of the Union and the Indiana/OSU basket ball game) earlier in the week?  It is always so fascinating.  The dogs are fun to watch, but it's those darn "handlers" that are the real show.  The pooches are groomed to the nines, but who dresses their handlers?  Don't they have mirrors?  Some people are just not meant to trot around a ring.  Nuff said there.   I'm sure you note that one of the techniques they use to show off the little pups is the use of "treats".  Remember that commercial (beer?) where you could read the dogs thoughts, and it was "Sausage!  Sausage!  Sausage!".  Kind of like that.  But did you see that most of the humans on the end of leash keep the treats in their mouths????  Yikes!  something very wrong there.  Anyway quite the spectacle.. did you like the best in show?

 

Places

Things seem to be moving fast with the local restaurants, so we need to talk about that real soon.  Speaking of local stuff, I have put together my second piece for the tourism people, which can be found on their web site.  Long time readers will relate to the topic.

Enough for today, and if you see this today (Valentine’s Day) don’t forget to do something.  Like have a bowl of bean soup..

 

DFD