Jessica’s Fab Slow-Cooker, cook it over-night, Breakfast Casserole

I love frittatas. Mmmmmm, so good. But work. In the morning. When I don't function so well. I've done things like melt the handle of my best pan in the morning making frittatas. I like breakfast casseroles too.  A little less work and still yummy. But I have to use my oven and my oven is the modern day wood stove for house heating. In south eastern Texas. Like we need more heat. Plus it's still that whole having to function in the morning thing.   I really just want to wake up with breakfast done.  This explains why cereal is a hit.

Enter the slow cooker.  I love my Crock-Pot, a wedding gift still going strong 14 years later. It was really just a matter of time before we figured something out with the Crock-Pot love, the frittatas/egg casserole affection, and me not being a morning person.  Waking up with a hot breakfast that is delicious and ready to go is better than any pampering option I can think of because it pretty much means more sleep.  I like sleep.


I tried this first. Meh, it was ok. I liked certain things about it. Like how fast it was to make and then I woke up with it done. Or would have had I remembered to turn it ON before going to bed. Oh, shut-up. How often do you turn something on to cook before going to bed? Yeah, I'd laugh at me too. The next time I did remember and it was ok, not great but something I'd make again, which I did but totally changed. Because I never, ever cook the same thing exactly the same way twice. Even if the first time I didn't actually cook it.


So then I read this but didn't make it. After all, it has bell peppers in it and I wouldn't eat it let-alone expect my kids to. But it had some good ideas which I borrowed later. I've also borrowed from this and this. And I've done spin-offs on this too. Yum. Breakfast in the Crock-Pot. I love the Year of Slowcooking blog and Stephanie is a culinary genius figuring out how to make masterpieces that tickle the tongue but don't take a lot of time and best of all, use the slow-cookers. Isn't she just grand?! If I met her, I'm pretty sure I'd swoon.


Anyway, they were all yummy but not as good as a frittata so I was still on the hunt. I found Crock-Pot's Slow Cooker Recipes for All Occasions at my local thrift store for $2 and tucked inside was a very promising recipe for a breakfast bake. I made it and it was well received by the family but still not exactly what I was looking for. So after a lot of tweaking, I've come up with this. Which is still so-not a frittata but it is close on the yummy scale.


This baby cooks over night. For real. How great is that? Sorry, no picture. Well, there are pictures but they have absolutely nothing to do with this post or the recipe. They do have everything to do with the new Hipstamatic app I've got on my phone. Love it, I'm having so much fun.

I used my 3 quart Crock-Pot. Please note, I cook a lot by feel so some of these measurements are approximate. Which pretty much means I have no idea...

15 large eggs (This quantity is solid, I know it was a dozen + 3)
1/2 Cup milk (give or take?)
1 1/2 Cups sliced or chopped sausage (or whatever looks good to you)
2 green onions, chopped
One loaf of crusty or artisan bread (not sandwich bread), torn up of cubed (maybe 4 cups?)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil (or more, I really like basil)
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder (who really knows, I really like garlic too)
3 cups fresh baby spinach leaves
1 cup sharp shredded cheddar cheese
shortening

Grease inside of slow-cooker insert. Non-stick sprays don't work as well, I have found.

Whisk together eggs, milk and dried spices. Alternating ingredients, layer bread, spinach, sausage, onions and some of the egg mixture over the dry layers. Repeat, layering until an inch from the top of the insert. Egg mixture will not be that visible.

Turn slower-cooker to low and cook for 6-8 hours. I usually make mine after the kids go to bed and turn it on to cook around 10pm. (If it cooks a little long it is usually ok though the sides can get a little dark.) We love this, it is a hit. In fact, I'm getting hungry and now that this finally posted I'm going to go eat some of the leftovers.  Which reminds me, it keeps well so you can eat left overs for lunch or breakfast for a few days.

This recipe could feed about 6 adults which it makes it grand for brunches or having left overs.  You can halve the recipe, if you do be sure that your slow cooker is at least half full to cook properly and if need be use a smaller cooker.

Variations: I’ve made this several times. Sometimes I add sun-dried tomatoes and feta or blue cheese crumbles and omit the salt. Our grocery store often has day old artisan breads which I buy and freeze, these are perfect for this recipe. We love the potato rosemary bread in this casserole as well as the focaccia style breads and three cheese breads. Pretty much anything savory though the ones with nuts and seeds don’t really work so well. I have also omitted bread and used cubed potatoes instead which is also really yummy. Sometimes I add mushrooms but shrooms in the Crock-Pot can be kind of... odd. So I usually saute them and since that creates an extra step and an extra dish it really doesn't happen that often. Though if I'm going to do it then I go ahead and saute fresh garlic too and ditch the powdered stuff. I never put white or yellow onions in, I think they are gross for breakfast but that's just a personal issue. Oh yeah, and don't do this with turkey sausage, I've tried that and it forgets that it is supposed to have a flavor. Or color.  Really kind of nasty. 

Brought to you by the color orange: Butternut Squash Lasagna

Dinner. I like food.


I'm not sure how this happens but every once in a while it seems like everything in a certain meal or the main course of all the meals for a day end up being the same color. Today our menu was brought to you by the color orange and by the color yellow, green made a guest appearance as usual though. Breakfast: egg sandwiches; Lunch: carrot and daikon radish salad; Dinner: butternut squash lasagna; Snack: clementine. The only way it could have been more perfect would have been to have a golden delicious apple for another snack. Oh, but I am having popcorn as I type this for a late night snack! That has some yellow/orange in it. Cool.

Anyway, I checked out several recipes for butternut squash and other similar recipes and created my own. I've made it before and the recipe I'm writing down now is a based more on the last one I made and not this one as I had to change it based on what I had available and time constraints.

Ingredients:

Enough lasagna noodles for a 9x13 pan, cooked (I like whole wheat)

White pasta sauce (my favorite is my own creamy pesto sauce), 24oz or so.

1 medium butternut squash, seeded and sliced and lightly roasted

1 16oz container of ricotta cheese

16oz of mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 cup walnuts, chopped

fistful of fresh basil leaves

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tablespoons brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste


Run squash through the food processor, mix squash and chopped nuts together with basil and oregano in large bowl. Set aside.

Mix ricotta cheese, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt and pepper in small bowl.

Starting with a thin layer of sauce, alternate layering the lasagna noodles, cheese mixture, squash mixture, and the shredded cheese topping it all with shredded cheese and extra nuts if desired.

Bake for 45 minutes, if possible, test the squash for tenderness.

Substitutes this time due to time and what I had on hand: Ritoni pasta (whole wheat) instead of lasagna. Jarred alfredo/three cheese pasta sauce (not as good, I think but time was short), dried basil instead of fresh, so sad. Please pardon the phone pics, I need new batteries for the better camera.

Pumpkin Soup

This blog isn't actually supposed to be all about France and eventually, well until we live there anyway, I will run out of things to write specifically about France. That and I promise there are other aspects of our lives. Like food. Last week I mentioned two different meals we had on Facebook and got asked for the recipes. I thought I'd go ahead and share them here.

In honor of the cooler weather gracing Houston and the holiday spirit, Jeremy and I made pumpkin soup. (By the way, I had amazing pumpkin soup in France when we went out to celebrate our friend Steve's birthday, it was ah-mazing with chunks of roasted chestnuts in it and other magical properties I couldn't imagine.) For well over a year now I've been in love with the recipes from this blog. We have made a wide variety of her recipes and have been inspired to create some of our own as well with mostly great success. Hint- it is really hard to screw up crock-pot cooking, not impossible but really hard. Anyway, we took inspiration from Stephanie's Jamiacan Pumpkin Soup for our festive meal. I didn't use fresh pumpkin, just plain pumpkin from a can and I tripled the amount of pumpkin called for (I wanted it to be really pumpkiny), added about 2 cups of water and two potatoes. I can't ever follow a recipe exactly, particularly if I've made it before. Oh yeah, I went ahead and added cinnamon too but I couldn't tell you how much, I just shook some in. Everything went into the crock-pot (I used my big 6 quart) and cooked on low all day, 7 hours give or take. I ran into a hitch when I couldn't find the bottom of my blender when it came time to puree it so I improvised and used the hand mixer. This was woefully inadequate and led to me wishing (loudly) that Santa would bring me a submersible hand blender. I said this a lot, hopefully he got the memo. So our smooth, creamy pumpkin soup was more like chunky pumpkin stew but that didn't stop us. For the girls I drizzled some honey and a touch of cream on top of their soup and then, because I knew the chunks would not be appreciated, I added a squirt of whipped cream on top of that garnished with chopped walnuts. They claimed they loved it. Personally, I skipped the cream and just had a touch of honey and nuts on top of mine. I loved it. The chunks weren't too bad though I think I would have liked it better smooth but it was warming, filling and very tasty. I like the combination of sweet and savory in this soup, it works very well and of course you can skip the sweet if you don't like the idea by just not adding honey on top. If I were serving this for a dinner party, I would have bought a large pumpkin, scooped out the inside and served the soup in that. I would have also run out and invested in a submersible hand blender.

Black Bean and spinach Humus- Serious Iron on a chip

I don't know what it takes for a dip to be called "humus," if it has to be made with chick-peas, if tahini is required or if any mashed bean of sorts will do.

Not that I care. I call this black bean humus anyway. We are always looking for a way to get more iron in all of us, particularly Helena and so I turned to two of my favorite sources of iron: spinach and black beans. I'll write out the basics of the recipe (if you can call it that) and then share some of the variations I've made as well.

- 2 15 oz cans of black beans, rinsed
- 4 cups or so of fresh baby spinach (or more, I've used almost an entire 10oz container before)
- 2 garlic cloves or garlic powder, minced
- 1/2 tbsp chili powder
- 3 tbsp water
- salt and pepper to taste
- half a bunch of fresh parsley or 1 tbsp dried
- 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp tahini

Whiz beans in food processor gradually adding water. When beans are pretty smooth begin to add spinach one cup at a time. Add garlic, chili powder, parsley and salt and pepper. Serve with toasted bread, toasted tortillias, tortillia chips, carrot and celery sticks or whatever else strikes your fancy. I should warn you though, this stuff looks like poop. I played that up to the girls and they giggled with their first bites. The gross factor does wear off, I promise and as I type this up I decorated in black bean dip handprint smears by Evangeline and the other girls are around me nibbling on toast pieces dipped in this very thing... well, a variation of it.

The more economical version would be to soak and cook dry beans, divid them into freezer containers by 15 oz (or whatever unit works for you) and just pull those out as you need them. Significant savings.

Variations:

omit the tahini add basil and oregano and double the olive oil.

omit the tahini, olive oil and parsley double the chili powder, add half an avecado (optional, I didn't have one today so I skipped this part) and through in half a bunch of cilantro. A pinch of cyanne is also really good in this one but the girls won't eat that.

In reality I'm not convinced the olive oil is neccessary, I rarely put it in any more.

This has turned out to be a hit with the family, we enjoy it at least once a week and it has been known to be considered a meal a time or two because I consider it a better option than PB&J. It's fast, easy, the kids help and it's extremely high in iron, fiber, protien and just all around goodness. If you give it a try, let me know how yours turns out and any variations you come up with.

Coconut Curry Chicken in the crock-pot

Ok, yesterday I was "complaining" about how good my house smelled while dinner was cooking and was asked to share the recipe. I know, what a thing to suffer, yummy smells from the kitchen. But there are two reasons why this was so difficult: 1.) it was a chicken dish and I've pretty much gone to being a vegetarian/vegan so it was pure torture to smell that good and 2.) it was a crock-pot recipe and it cooked ALL. DAY. LONG! I kept telling myself that I would make a tofu version of this recipe but didn't realize I actually did have extra firm tofu in the fridge to do so. Next time I will. Because I caved this time, fell off the proverbial wagon.

So, without further ado, the recipe I made yesterday...

It was loosely based on the Rachel Ray crock-pot Thai Coconut Curry Chicken recipe on the crock-pot lady's A Year of CrockPotting blog. One of the best blogs ever. Reading the recipe again, ok, it was very losely based on this one. I have made this one before, following it exactly. Once. Because I only ever follow a recipe exactly, once. If that. So never mind, here's my version!

- Frozen Chicken
- Two cans coconut milk, you could use light but it tastes better if you use the thick stuff.
- 1 Tbsp Hot Curry Paste
- 3 Tbsp brown sugar
- 4 medium potatoes
- 2 sweet potatoes or yams
- 1 large onion or two little ones
- 1 red pepper
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp fresh minced ginger, more if using dried.
- 1 C frozen peas
dash of salt and pepper

I used a 6 quart crock-pot.

Throw the chicken in the crock-pot frozen or fresh doesn't really matter but if it's frozen be sure you give it enough time to cook through. I think I used 5 breasts because that's what I had in the freezer, it was 1.79 lbs according to the label. You could use more or less and legs and thighs work well too, I know because I've used them.

Chop and add all the veggies but the peas. Add garlic, salt, pepper, brown sugar and ginger, I've also used a lot of ginger cut into long thin strips in this recipe if I'm going to be able to cook it a long time (on low rather than high) but my ginger was nasty so I had to opt for the powdered variety this time. Pour in one can of coconut milk, if you want a lot of the sauce like we do then fill that can with water and add that as well. Lastly, add curry paste which I think it could use more but my kids won't eat it then so Jeremy and I add more later but be careful if you do that, it's easy to over-do curry paste. Stir all the top ingredients (leave the chicken alone at the bottom), cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 but I have to tell you, it tastes so much better cooked on low and the chicken is melt in your mouth tender.

Thirty minutes before serving add the peas and the second can of coconut milk. This way the peas stay nice and bright green with a firm texture. If you add them too soon they turn kind of gray and mushy which I don't like at all but if that's your thing then go for it. This would also be a good time to start your rice if you're serving it over sticky/Jasmine rice. It's also great with couscous which takes a lot less time than the rice.

I serve straight from the stoneware of the crockpot but before I put it on the table I fish out the chicken and cut it up into chunks for easier serving and we eat less that way I've noticed.

This is a favorite dish of my family, we eat it as often as we can. It's easy and feeds the 6 of us with significant left overs which always makes me happy. That, and that there are only two cooking dishes dirty from this counting the rice pot and the crock-pot. Next time I really have to try to make one with tofu so I can eat guilt-free. But this time I enjoyed it and my guilt vanished by the second bite.

Enjoy!

Cabbage and Sausage Stew

I'm going to write about dinner again. It was a good dinner, deserves a blog post. I'm even going to attempt to write the recipe out.

Since our trip we've been rather scarce on groceries and I've been putting it off but push came to shove and I had to go yesterday. Picked up a few things with the crew and planned a couple of meals. This one was in my head and I decided to give it a try today.

Ingredients:

Half a head of cabbage (I used the other half for col-slaw)
3 medium/large potatoes
4 carrots
1 turkey kielbasa style sausage, sliced
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
4 bay leaves
2 tsp oregano
2 cups vegetable broth

I had decided we were having a vegetarian week to kind of cleanse ourselves from the trip, obviously fell off that wagon.

So I threw all the veggies in the crockpot first. Tip: put potatoes in first- cabbage doesn't need to be on the bottom but potatoes and carrots sure do. Throw those veggies in and then the sausage and remaining ingredients. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. I did high for 4 hours because I started late but it worked perfectly though I really had to resist the urge to open the lid and stir but it was worth it.

This was a hit, I mean a really, really big hit. The girls devoured it, Evangeline ate everything but the sausage but only because I didn't give her any, Jessi said it was really good and added her hot sauce (the girl likes her hot sauce) and the real sign was when Jeremy said we could have it once a week. I will be making this again though I doubt it will be next week. However, I do love my crockpot. Which reminds me, I need to make a breakfast casserole in it before heading to bed. I love my crock-pot. I want another one, or two, or 4.