Freezer stew

I've been trying to clean out our freezer, and I had about a pound of beef chuck roast and a pound of boneless lamb leg.  Not enough to do anything with on their own, but they made a really good stew together!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb beef chuck roast, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 lb leg of lamb, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 parsnip, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 5-6 large white mushrooms, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• Spices: dried basil, thyme, oregano; black pepper; seasoned salt
• 6 giant cloves of garlic, crushed in my garlic press
• 2-3 cups of chicken broth

I threw all this in the crockpot this morning and let it cook on low for 7 hours.  It came out really flavorful, the meat was perfectly tender and not dry at all!  Usually, I find my miscellaneous stews to be rather bland and uninspired with a taste that doesn't make me want to eat the leftovers, but this one was really good!  I think the secret ingredient was the Borsari seasoned salt.  We picked it up at Whole Foods a few weeks ago and so far it's made everything we've put it on amazing.

Crockpot jambalaya

A fairly quick crockpot soup/stew, from the CFSCC blog...

1. Chop 1 large onion and 1 bell pepper, and saute them with 3 minced cloves of garlic. Put this mixture in your crockpot.
2. Brown 2 chicken breasts, chop into chomp-sized bits, and add to the pot.  You'll also need to cook and chop up some sausage to add--this time, I used half a bag of the loose sausage from our pig.  I think it was about 2 sausages worth. (This sausage is so salty that I didn't add any other salt to the recipe! You may need to if your sausage is more...sedate.)
3. Add 4 c chicken broth, a can of diced tomatoes (I drained some of the liquid), and a tablespoon or so of Cajun seasoning (cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika).
4. Cook this on low for 4 hours.
5. Finally, add 1 lb of cooked shrimp (I bought raw ones and sauteed them), 1 c of spinach, and 1 head's worth of cauliflower rice.  Cook it long enough for the spinach to be droopy and everything to be hot--I think I did another hour or so, but you could put it on high instead.

It came out good!  Again I think I skimped on the seasonings and I feel like it needs one more flavor... I'm not sure what.  I'm going to have to compare some other jambalaya recipes.  Also, next time I'll use chicken thighs instead of breasts since I think they'll dry out less in the crockpot.

Pork spare ribs in the crockpotribs

Ingredients;

• 2 racks of pork spare ribs
• a can of diced tomatoes
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 chopped onion
• ~3/4 tablespoon anchovy paste
• ~1.5 tablespoon soy sauce
• ~2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• ~1/2 tsp green chile paste
• 1 tblsp tomato paste
• salt and pepper

I put all this in the crockpot for 8 hours on low.  The flavors came out pretty good!  However, it really didn't need to be in there for 8 hours. Maybe 4 or 6 next time! 

Slow cooker pork loin

I needed a crockpot dinner on Friday but all I could find without pulling the entire pig out of the freezer was a boneless pork loin.  Not ideal!  But I tried it anyway...

I rubbed it all over with salt and pepper, oregano, basil, and thyme.  Then I poked slits in it and inserted about 4 cloves of garlic cut up into chunks.  This went in the crockpot on a bed of onion slices and orange and white carrots.  I poured a mixture of chicken broth and balsamic vinegar over it, and cooked it on low for 6 hours (it was still a little frozen in the middle when it went in!).

This came out not too bad!  The flavors were good, and while it was dry it wasn't inedibly so.  It would probably be really good with a fattier cut of meat.