Tag Archives: crock pot cooking

My Super Bowl Chili Recipe

Posted on February 4, 2013 by AnnieRie

Yesterday before sitting down to watch the Super Bowl, I put up a quick post without the recipe for my venison chili. This time it had less local items in it than I normally use, but I wanted to try these products out. I also have been trying different spice combinations and different textures for the chili. The first batch of chili I made in December when we got the venison delivered.

This time I put everything but the venison in the crock pot set for eight hours on low. I wanted to brown the venison in a pan on the stove with spices and add it halfway through the cooking. The venison is very finely ground and really almost disappeared in the earlier version. Venison is such a lean meat, I am learning how to treat it to get the best flavors.

I also played around with the ingredients. I used the last of a bag of sweet corn from the freezer as well as using a frozen jalapeno and grated carrot.

I started out with a can of Rotel diced tomatoes with cilantro and lime as a base. Added 12 ounces of tomato sauce from my freezer (made in August from my Amish tomatoes). Added one green pepper, bought at Roots. Added one large onion, diced, one of the last of my CSA sweet yellow onions. Put about six ounces of the sweet corn in, too.

Then, I got to grating, one small frozen carrot and one frozen blanched jalapeno.

The carrot adds that touch of sweetness. The jalapeno, grated, allows you to determine how much heat. A frozen jalapeno can be grated using the zester, and you can avoid all the seeds if you wish.

Use the tip of a knife to scrape all the jalapeno “zest” into the pot. I then added a large can of organic black beans with their liquid. My spices this time omitted cinnamon. I used chili powder, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne and white pepper. Lots of garlic powder this time. I also used cilantro. And, of course, salt to taste.

I let all of this cook for four hours. In order to thicken it up, I took out some liquid and mixed a tablespoon of corn starch in it,then returned it to the pot. This is what the pot looked like before I added the corn starch, and before I added the venison.

The venison went into a large pan to brown. A touch of grapeseed oil to keep it from sticking. Add garlic powder, salt and pepper while it is browning.

I strained it before adding it to limit the amount of fat in the crock pot. The chili when it was almost ready to serve looked like this.

My husband liked this version better than the first version in December. He specifically requested that I don’t use cumin or cinnamon, but keep it on the simpler side of spice.

But, he also suggested that I next time I should try using chipotle. After all, you can always tweak a good chili recipe.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Locavore, Real Food, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Eating Locally: The Big Game

Posted on February 3, 2013 by AnnieRie

Yep, Super Bowl Sunday. A local grazing meal. For my Eat Local Winter Challenge. Getting ready to watch the game. The venison chili is in the crock pot.

This is just a quick post of what we are serving. Details about the chili tomorrow. Besides the chili being mostly local (yes, the deer lived across the road from us), I am putting out some other local goodies to nosh on.

How about spicy sweet potato chips?

I baked quite a few chips to have sitting out while watching. As for the beer, it has to be Yuengling, from my husband’s home county in PA.

Dessert. Picked up at England Acres market today. Sugar cookies in Ravens colors.

Go Ravens! Off to watch the game.

hocofood@@@

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My Love-Hate Relationship with Snow

Posted on January 24, 2013 by AnnieRie

It is considerably colder outside today than it has been in quite a while. And, on top of all else, it has snowed about an inch. It’s about the same as it was the day after Christmas.

Just a dusting. Enough to delay the schools so the buses can safely navigate after they treat the roadways. I hate the dustings of snow in really cold weather, when the sun comes out. It doesn’t go away and it becomes black ice, treacherous to walk and drive on.

Since I don’t have to get up at oh dark thirty anymore (the proper military shorthand, and not that stupid movie title), it doesn’t bother me much when it snows. Usually it melts before you have to deal with it. Today, though, it is bitter cold. I can look at this as a good thing, as finally some of these nasty flu and cold germs will hopefully die. When it doesn’t get cold enough, the colds and flu bugs linger on.

Additionally, the nasty little bugs that thrive in our bushes and trees will vanish as well. Good things for my plants, and our friends’ vineyards.

I just wish I didn’t have to clean off the car to go out later. Yes, we have a garage. It is the home of the snow thrower, and the tractor. The shed has the materials for the radio tower in it. Bolts, masts, coax cable. Tower base. All those things in the place the tractor belongs.

As for the snow thrower, it has to occupy one space for the winter. You don’t want to be digging your way to the shed when this happens.

our welcome in winter

As I said, the snow is just a nuisance for a little while around here. Today it is sunny and lovely to see it sparkling. I do hope we don’t get more tomorrow though. I have things I want to get done.

Tonight we will make a cozy dinner, and try out a new grain for risotto. I will see how it goes and post about another notch in that 60@60 challenge.

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Posted in Howard County, Nature, Sixty@Sixty, Weather and tagged amateur radio, commentary, crock pot cooking, Howard County, nature, snow, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Three Meals, Locally Driven

Posted on January 22, 2013 by AnnieRie

Last year I thought that locally sourcing my food would be difficult. Little did I know that there were numerous sources year round in the Howard County area. Now, it is a cinch to eat locally, and reduce my dependence on long distance processed foods.

Monday was one of my now typical days here. Since I have a freezer and refrigerator full of local foods, meals contain a majority of items from “right up the road”.

Breakfast Monday. Local eggs from Breezy Willow Farm.

We seem to have rediscovered eggs after years of avoidance due to those scary cholesterol “studies”. Now, free range eggs are a joy one or two times a week.

As for lunch, we heated up the last of the pork BBQ from our visit to Breezy Willow Saturday.

Dinner, venison. Right across the highway, locally harvested venison. This is a rump roast.

We put it in the crock pot with root veggies, onions and some organic mushroom soup. Added some Mother Earth mushrooms just before it was finished.

The Canela bakery rosemary bread will be sopping up the gravy created by the veggies, and some of my stock from the freezer. What does it look like when it is done?

You can see the mushrooms, and the turnips. The sweet potatoes are melting into the gravy. The roast is peppery, tender and not gamey at all. I don’t get the gamey aversion. Dark meat has more flavor, due to muscle. Venison is lean, with lots of muscle, therefore it is “gamey”. It still was lovely.

Yes, the gravy looks a little orange because the sweet potatoes melted into it. I need to put them in much later than I did. To finish the localness of this meal, the wine is local as well.

Malbec and venison are supposed to be a good match. And, they are. We decanted this 2005 Breaux Cellar Selection wine, to let it breathe. Really a delicious wine. A lighter version of Malbec as these were young vines.

All day. Local food. Local wine. How I have changed in what I cook.

hocofood@@@

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Posted in Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Wine, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Covering All the Bases

Posted on January 1, 2013 by AnnieRie

New Year’s traditional food bases, that is. What do you eat for good luck? Prosperity? There are dozens of traditional foods, eaten for luck, or just because it’s something an ethnic group always does. Like our having pickled herring in our German dominant family. I don’t do pickled herring, so I threw out that tradition.

I did succumb to a few. The pork one, for instance. Pork is good luck because it is a fatty animal symbolizing wealth and prosperity. Plus, it roots forward, and that is a good thing. Don’t eat chicken on New Year’s. It scratches backwards to eat, and it is also a winged fowl, which means your good fortune could fly away.

I like researching the traditions, and following ones that fit our style of eating. Today I did make cabbage, greens, beans and pork in the crockpot.

The platter included smoked pork shank, butter beans, mustard greens, and I split a cabbage to steam on top of everything else. Added a bit of beef stock to give it a richness. Lightly seasoned. Garlic, salt, pepper and parsley. Six hours in the crockpot and it was warm, comforting and a good match for a local wine.

A very nice light cellar selection VA wine, from Breaux. It didn’t overwhelm anything, and was light and fruit forward.

We also started the day with a tradition. Bacon and eggs. Only I pared it down to one slice of bacon each, and I made Breezy Willow eggs. Check out the yolk on these eggs. I don’t know if eggs from a chicken are good luck, or bad, but the brunch was wonderful. Mostly local, too. Local bread and butter. Local eggs, and bacon from Boarman’s (source of the hog not known). It counts as my brunch dish for our winter eat local challenge.

Any traditions for the New Year at your place?

hocofood@@@

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Home for the Holidays

Posted on December 25, 2012 by AnnieRie

Loving the fact that we don’t have to travel on the holidays anymore. Getting up when we want, and having a leisurely breakfast. Watching the animals in the yard, and watching the snow melt. Hearing my neighbor’s children running around out in the last of the snow. Just one of the reasons we came here. Peace. Quiet. Doing what we want for the day.

A couple of Breezy Willow’s eggs, over easy. Served with Spring Mill honey wheat bread, and Trickling Springs butter. A nice cup of coffee. The view out the dining room window. Still snow on the ground.

What did you get for Christmas? We always pick one thing we want and go and get it. I wanted a new lasagna pan. He wanted a rotor (rotator) for his tower. Obviously, we feed our hobbies.

My new pan:

I think it is much better than his refurbished, newly painted, good as new, rotor. It came back the other day. Looks brand new.

I did put a flat iron steak in the crock pot, to cook all day and enjoy with an old wine, for dinner tonight. Rubbed with the dry rub mix that I put together as part of the gifts for my relatives.

The flat iron steak came from England Acres. And, all the veggies in the pot are CSA, so this will be a mostly local Christmas dinner. The dry rub came out nicely.

Garlic powder is predominant in my spice rubs. This one is for beef and venison. It also includes peppers, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, savory and just a small amount of salt. I think I am forgetting something, but since I just wing it with spice rubs, it comes out fine. The house does smell wonderful at the moment. Dessert tonight will be a few of my orange chocolate truffles I made. With the last of the wine, after dinner, while watching Santa Paws II. Does Christmas get any better?

hocofood@@@

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Posted in CSA, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food, Weather, West HoCo and tagged amateur radio, cooking, crock pot cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, holidays, local businesses, Locavore, real food, weather, West HoCo, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Venison Pot Roast

Posted on December 23, 2012 by AnnieRie

Lean Cuisine. Really lean cuisine. I always knew how lean venison is. And, how you can end up with tough dry meals if you don’t treat it right. Tonight I treated it right.

Made in the crock pot. Almost completely local. Greens, onions, turnips, carrots, all from the CSA. Stock I made a few weeks back.

Mushrooms and egg noodles from a trip to England Acres. Venison from a local hunter, at a farm across the way. The only thing not local in this meal was the condensed organic cream of mushroom soup I bought at the store. One of the newer soups from Pacific.

I just put it all in the crock pot and let it go, for 8 hours on high. I added the noodles the last two hours. Put a little water in it to cook the noodles better.

Served it all with a wonderful huge Virginia wine, the 2009 Hardscrabble designation from Linden.

hocofood@@@

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Leftovers

Posted on December 8, 2012 by AnnieRie

We seem to always have them. Some people love them, most are OK with them, and some don’t like them ever. While researching how to cook roasts from the venison we got, I spent some time at Backyard Grocery which is Susan’s blog from our SOLE food challenge. She has amazing recipes for venison. Like this onion tart made with leftover roast.

I used to be one of those Hating Leftovers type of cook, either pitching fuzzy little containers from the back of the fridge or eating more than we really wanted because we made too much, and didn’t want leftovers. I don’t know when that changed. Maybe having our kitchen in our old townhouse remodeled and getting a microwave convection oven. It changed me into someone who learned to love baking fresh fish. Once I could bake it without it drying out, I used that convection oven all the time. Neglecting the one in the stove below.

That’s why my crockpot is also my friend in the kitchen. The new one, just as simple as the one that died a while back. An 18 ounce package of ground venison joined with about a quart of tomato sauce, a can of organic black beans, a container of oven dried paste tomatoes, a white onion, 8 ounces of roasted sweet peppers from the freezer, one roasted jalapeno from the freezer stash, and a whole bunch of spices. I used cinnamon, garlic powder, chili powder, cilantro, salt, cayenne and smoked paprika. Added a tablespoon of honey and a few drops of sriracha. Let it go all day.

venison chili

Crockpot liners make clean up so easy. No caked on tomato sauce ring to scrub. I put items directly from the freezer into the pot. The tomato sauce, the peppers. No harder than opening that cardboard box from Marie Calender or Stouffer’s and nuking your leftovers. After all, they aren’t freshly made. They were cooked months ago and frozen. Same with that pizza. Warmed up leftovers.

I do get that people say they don’t like eating the same thing for days in a row. Neither do we. Which is why when I make some things in the crockpot I freeze a few. Like my turkey orzo soup.

turkey soup to freeze

Made with the turkey from Thanksgiving, this soup used up the drumsticks. We ate it once for dinner, once for lunch and this container became a freezer resident, to be taken out and heated up for lunch or dinner in the future.

One item indispensable to me these days is this industrial cling wrap from Costco. I use it in many ways. To cover plates in the microwave as it doesn’t rip apart like the other stuff. And, to individually wrap items like the huge hunk of tuna I got from Costco a while back.

industrial strength cling wrap

When I purchased the ahi last month, I came home and processed it into serving sizes, wrapped each dinner in its own plastic and placed them all in a large freezer bag. It prevents freezer burn, and I didn’t need to buy one of those super expensive vacuum sealers. I have had much success with this method. Just be sure to wrap securely and to also get as much air out of that outer bag.

Right now, I have a refrigerator with a few leftovers in it. I will be busy the next few days and the leftovers will be dinner in some sort of rotation. Tonight the last of the ham and bean soup, and Monday the venison chili. Sunday is my favorite cooking day and it is also my Eat Local challenge day, so I need to get creative with the latest veggies the CSA sent us. I will see what sort of goodies I can pick up today at Breezy Willow, at their farm store where I will be getting the last of the stocking stuffers for a gift exchange.

And, it is pink ribbon weekend at TLV. Time to get that tree, to take advantage of the donation to the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center from proceeds at the farm today and tomorrow.

See, so much to do to get ready for the holidays. Having leftovers makes my life easier. Without resorting to those prepackaged frozen foods from the store, or grabbing takeout. I definitely like this way of cooking. Besides, soups always taste better that second day.

bean soup

hocofood@@@

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Transformation

Posted on December 7, 2012 by AnnieRie

In one year. From a freezer full of grocery store items, and a pantry full of processed foods. It was one of my biggest resolutions last year. Start cooking real food. Use up the CSA. Support our local farmers and markets and small businesses as much as possible.

Now, the pantry has more staples and less packaged items. Most of it organic. The two freezers are full, with very few packaged items in them. Today I finally reached the point where the only meat in the freezer is locally sourced. All of it. From the local farms, and from grass fed and/or free range animals. It may cost a bit more, but we have learned to eat smaller portions and make the veggies on the plate more than half the plate.

Dinners like my husband’s birthday meal featured small filets, lots of green and red veggies, and it was truly filling and good for us, as well. Portioning out the meat and fish is the way I do it now.

Yesterday I added this to the freezer. Took us a while to inventory and it definitely filled the freezer in the kitchen.

Thirty seven pounds of venison. From the farm across the road. Our neighbor hunts over there, getting meat for us. We have the large garden, and supply them with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, etc. from our garden in the summer. He bow hunts to keep the doe population under control around here, for us and the other neighbors who farm and garden.

Today the crock pot has a lovely venison chili bubbling away in it. The only non local items in the pot are the organic black beans, the olive oil, spices and herbs. The tomatoes came from my garden. The onions, sweet peppers and jalapeno, all from the CSA.

venison black bean chili

I have two weeks left in the CSA, then a break for two and a half months. I will be using my foods from the freezer and hitting the Saturday and Sunday markets at the farms, and in Olney. I still need to get seafood and occasionally I will buy from Boarmans for cuts that I can’t get from the farmers, but I finally have decided to minimize my exposure to meats from animals given hormones and/or antibiotics.

Local farms that will have markets this winter.

Breezy Willow on Saturdays
TLV Tree Farm on Saturdays
Clarks Farm on Saturdays
England Acres on Saturday and Sunday

Olney will have an indoor market at the Sandy Spring Museum, beginning in January. Add them to the current year round markets, in Silver Spring, Tacoma Park and Dupont Circle. All of those are a drive from here, but an occasional visit to DC for Sunday brunch and some goodies is worth it.

I am keeping my local resources page up to date, as much as I can. We are so lucky here in Howard County to have fresh food, eggs, dairy, cheese, ice cream, meats, honey, and lots of local canned and frozen specialties, made by local farmers and local companies. Just because the markets have ended in Howard County doesn’t mean we can’t find sources for the winter.

hocofood@@@

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My Ultimate Comfort Food

Posted on November 3, 2012 by AnnieRie

Bean soup. Every fall I have this urge to make bean soup from scratch. Just like the soups I had as a child, and those lovely Navy bean soups at White Oak, the Pentagon and the Navy Yard.

my homemade crock pot bean soup

Bean soup made creamy without using milk or cream. Tonight it will be “what’s for dinner” and it is definitely not local, except for the ham and the base veggies. I started with a bag of Bob’s Red Mill cranberry beans.

I like these beans for many reasons. I know they aren’t traditional for Navy bean soup, but they are high in protein and potassium and I always have at least one bag of them in the pantry. I get mine at Roots or Davids Natural Market. You can sometimes find them elsewhere. I used the entire bag to make this soup.

I added a quart of Pacific Low Sodium Chicken Stock. I don’t have a quart of homemade stock at the moment, I need to make some, and when I don’t have homemade, this is a staple also in my pantry. I buy it in bulk at Costco.

The veggies in this dish are simple. A medium white onion, diced. One leek, cleaned and cut in pieces. Celery, cut from the entire head of celery in order to mix the leaves and the stalks (about the equivalent of three-four stalks of celery). I want the beans and the ham to be the dominant flavors here so I go easy on the veggies, and I added some oregano, thyme, and parsley, all dried, about 1/2 tbsp of each. I salt to taste, so can’t give an amount. A tsp of Emeril’s Essence, and a tsp of pepper.

The best part of this soup is the smoked ham steaks I bought from TLV Tree Farm a few weeks back. A pound of them. Three slices, two thick and one end with all the smoky goodness.

These ham steaks are lightly smoked, and are bone in. I cubed most of the meat, and definitely included the bone in the pot while cooking, as well as the fat edge.

removing the bone once the soup is done

To serve with the soup tonight, I will choose a big white wine, just don’t know which one. Either of these will work. The Linden 2009 Hardscrabble is a big Burgundian style chardonnay, and the Pearmund Old Vine is from the Meriwether plantings on their property. A bit more oaky than the Linden.

With the soup, I will be serving the olive and feta focaccia I bought at Glenwood Market from the Breadery. It will be heated in the oven on the pizza stone with a drizzle of lemon olive oil from St. Helena Olive Oil Co., my favorite source from Napa.

I may even remember to take pictures tonight, but dinner will be whenever we can squeeze it in, if the contesting husband of mine takes a break. Or, I may be giving him a bowl of soup down in his radio shack and having mine in front of the TV. I’ll just need to cut the focaccia in small strips. If I take pics, I will update my post later with them.

This soup made enough for at least three meals, maybe four, so Monday night will also be a soup night, and the rest will be frozen in a small container to heat up for lunches until it is gone. As for the way to make creamy soup without milk, use the blender. It is a little messy to do, and don’t overfill the blender with hot soup. I blend about a third of the soup, taking care to get mostly beans and avoid chunks of ham. It turns stock and beans into a creamy consistency, but leaving much of it chunky to show what is in it.