Friday, August 14, 2015

summer cooking and a giveaway

In this hot, muggy weather, I have to make an effort to have good food on hand, ready to eat in almost no time. Otherwise, I fear my healthy diet could deteriorate into nothing but gatorade and potato stix.

I try to cook two or more things at once - minimizing the amount of heat added to the kitchen, and making enough "ready to eat" food to last for several meals and snacks. This week, for example, I put a layer of bacon in a pyrex baking dish, covered it completely with chicken thighs, and added a layer of bacon on top. Then I took a picture:

Probably my first photograph of bacon.
I rarely buy it. Seemed like kind of an event.

I covered the dish for baking in a slow oven. And since the oven was going to be on, it was a good time to fetch in a great big gorgeous straightneck squash - the Very First Harvest from the Very Raised Bed! - slice it the long way and clean out the seeds and core, then put it in a second covered pyrex baking dish with a little water to gently cook the squash without drying it out.

I know why I photographed the squash.
It's beautiful.

All week I've been eating moist, flavorful chicken with little shreds of bacon, along with a variety of "sides"...yellow squash, farro, sauted mushrooms, etc. When I see really fresh mushrooms at the grocery store I buy a package, eat some raw and cook the rest all at once, to add to meals for several days.

I love mushrooms.
I really ought to grow them.
Do any readers grow their own mushrooms?
Please advise!
And, oh, did I mention my first yellow crescent beans of the season? Grown from seeds I saved from last years plants! I wish I had taken a "before" picture but these beans were lightly steamed and in this dish with a little bacony chicken less than 15 minutes after being carried in from the garden.

 Yum.


Of course, another way to cook without generating a lot of heat or using a lot of energy - and to cook in multiple-meal quantities if desired - is to use a crockpot or slow cooker. I find them pretty darned useful. And I think slow cookers are popular both within and outside the US - correct me if I'm wrong about that! - so that's why I'm going to do a little cookbook giveaway:


This is Stephanie O'Dea's first cookbook - I think she has written four now! - and you can Left-Click to embiggen her description below, or here's a link to the Amazon page. But since I know it is important to many people, I just want to point out right now that all the recipes in the book are Gluten Free.


Would you like to put your name in the hat for a shiny new copy of this book? Easy peasy! Leave a comment on this blog post telling me one thing you like to make in a slow cooker. (If you haven't used a slow cooker before, please share a tip for cooking multiple things in the oven, or any other food-related way to save energy - we can use more ideas!)

I will do a random drawing at noon on Monday, the 24th, and will post the winner's name on the blog that night. Please check back. The winner will have three days to contact me with mailing information; if I don't hear back by Thursday night, I will draw another name on Friday.

Anyone, anywhere is very welcome to enter.
Feel free to share the giveaway.
Good luck!
~~~~~

26 comments:

  1. RMan would love the bacon / chicken / bacon dish...

    (Please - don't enter me in the competition - I don't have a slow cooker and wouldn't buy one - our solar setup wouldn't allow for it's use (during the cloudy days / night especially.)

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    1. With a solar cooker (and the climate to make it a feasible option) you don't need a slow cooker - you've gone one better :)

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  2. My favorite thing to cook in my slow cooker is split pea soup. I'd love to win a copy of this book. :-)

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  3. I love my slow cooker, but I don't use it as often as I should -- mostly because I too often resort to my equivalent of potato stix and gaterade. One of my favorite recipes uses a ton of veggies and beans and taco and ranch seasoning, which I buy from Penzey's to avoid added sugar and preservatives. It's good as a soup, or in tortillas, or on rice or pasta -- one of my favorite go-to meals, so I try to keep leftovers in the freezer in individual portions.

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  4. Great cooking and veggie photos
    I like to use the stove very early in the morning during hot weather.
    In the slow cooker, I make vegetable broth to use in soup bases during the winter months.
    Great giveaway!

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  5. It is a tie as to my favorite slow cooker recipe. Pot roast or salsa chicken. Both are yummy!! I am looking to expand my crock pot recipes so I can use it more.

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    1. Well, if you win the drawing, you'll have hundreds of recipes to try...good luck :)

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  6. I love to make chicken pot pie in the crock pot! Tomorrow I'm actually making pork chops and apples (with cinnamon and brown sugar) - yummy!

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    1. Those pork chops sound delicious! I would like to have supper at your house, then we could all go for dessert at Leigh's. Right, Leigh? ;)

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  7. Wow, does that ever look tasty. I love my crock pot and actually do some double cooking with it because I have a steamer pot that fits exactly on top of it. So I can cook a roast in the crock pot and steam a veggie right on top! My DIL makes desserts in hers. Our fav is a chocolate peanut butter fudge cake.

    I love mushrooms too but have never tried to grow them. The kits are pricey and I'm afraid of a fail. Not sure if that's a good reason, but I'm kinda stuck there in my rationalizing.

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    1. Please tell me you have the recipe for that cake, Please, please, please! Because I have never made a cake in the crockpot and, well, you know, scientific curiosity and all. ;)

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  8. Not interested in the book but I did try to raise mushrooms inmy basement years ago with limited success. I used a kit from burpees. IIRC. Got maybe three v. expensive mushrooms!

    My son and I when he was very young, created a solar cooker in the backyard. I must blog about that and it's unintended consequences!

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    1. I've looked into buying spore plugs and a special drill bit, which sounds like it could be more productive than a kit but also probably even more expensive. Also, I checked in with a woman who was raising shrooms VERY successfully a few years ago. When I asked how it was going she said they had never had a year anything like as good as that first one! Pausing to ponder.

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  9. Its dammit, not Android error of grammar there. Three tries to convince it that there's no ' in the word I was saying!

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  10. We usually use our slow cooker to
    1) make broth from chicken or ham bones (cook overnight)
    2) make shredded beef - roast with onions and just a few spices; once it's cooked you pull apart with a fork and serve on buns
    3) rice pudding (http://kidscooking.about.com/od/desserts/r/rice-pudding.htm)
    Our regular sized one broke a few months ago. Hubby recently bought another to replace it but turns out that one is small (1 1/2 quarts?). He was able to fit a roast in to feed the 3 of us, but just barely. We also have an XL slow cooker that we barely use - except in the winter to make hot spiced apple cider.

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    1. I really need to start making broth! And rice pudding in the crockpot is one of my favorites, but I haven't made it in ages. Thanks for the reminder. Maybe today.
      When you're cooking something less than 3/4 the volume of the crock, did you ever try putting a smaller container - I use pyrex - inside the huge crockpot? It works really well - like a little oven within an oven, and the crock stays clean. Actually, rice pudding is one of the things I've made that way. And come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I learned that tip from Steph O'Dea, several years ago :)

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  11. Oh wow I'd love to get into crockpot cooking! I've never used one, but my tip for cooking multiple things in the oven is to put the stuff that needs to cook longer in the back, and the stuff that cooks faster in the front. It might sound obvious, but a lot of people don't think about this :'^) Also set multiple timer (a smartphone is handy for this) timers are life saving.

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    1. Those are both excellent tips - thanks for posting!

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  12. Quinn, a few days ago my large slow cooker was used to make beans and ham. Someone gave me green garden beans, it took me an hour to ready them and let them cook for hours and hours. Then I made buttermilk cornbread using buttermilk from churning last week...it was all delicious!
    Your tip to use a glass dish inside the slow cooker...brilliant! Never thought of that and if I had, would have been concerned of breakage.
    I'm not very adventurous when using my slow cooker; so keep posting lovely recipes!

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    1. Me, too, Sandra - at first I was worried about the Pyrex resting directly on the bottom of the crock, so I made four little tinfoil balls and used them as spacers for the Pyrex. Next time, I just put the Pyrex right on the bottom of the crock, with no ill effects. Makes the giant tag-sale crockpot a lot more functional!

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  13. Well drat. If you happen to get a mysterious comment from me about a pattern on ravelry, please ignore. My finger stuttered. As I was saying (and yes, I was saying something profound about slow cooking...hah)....we use our slow cooker for a lot of soups and stews and also a few desserts. Our favourite recipe (when we could actually afford to buy a roast of beef) was to throw the roast in the cooker; add a large can of apple juice; some chopped onions, potatoes & carrots. Cook. Makes absolutely divine gravy!!).

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    1. That sounds so good! I'll be trying that one, thanks!

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  14. My favorite slow cooker meal is beef stew

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    1. That's one of my favorites, too, John! And chili con carne. Yum.

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