Slow cooker meals are a great time saver for the busy body and also a great way to not have to do dishes.  Before you try any of our fix’-em and forget’-em  slow cooker meals, look over these helpful hints.

1. Prep the Night Before, and all you’ll have to do in the morning is toss your ingredients into the bowl and flip the switch.
2. Place root vegetables in the bottom of the slow-cooker bowl, then top with chicken and or meat pieces.  This way the vegetables will be covered by enough stock or sauce to keep them tender – and the meat will be insulated from over cooking.
3. The slow-cooker’s long-simmer method tends to dissipate the flavor of dried herbs so be sure to adjust the seasoning at the end of the cooking process.  If you have fresh herbs, you can also toss those in at the end.
4. Resist the urge to remove the lid off the cooker and stir the ingredients.  Especially in the initial stages of warming – the pot will lose a lot of valuable heat.
5. During long hours of cooking, milk, sour cream, cheese and heavy cream tend to break down and curdle.  For best results stir these ingredients just before serving.
6. Browning chicken or meat before slow-cooking is not necessary.  But if you have the time, caramelizing the meat will add a richer flavor.  I like to avoid using ground meat or poultry in the cooker as I find it turns to mush.
7. Never fill the bowl to the brim – if you do bubbling can occur and make a huge mess.  I like to leave at least 2 inches from the top.
8. If the recipe produces more sauce than you want, you can simply remove the meat or chicken from the bowl at the end of cooking time and set aside – covering with foil.  Turn the slow-cooker on to high and place the lid back on.  Bring to a boil for 10-15 minutes and let the sauce reduce.
9. To make clean up easier, try the bowl liners that I mentioned about with the pulled pork recipe.  Just be careful to move all the food before lifting the liner.

Slow-cooker Recipes

• How To Prepare Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork

• Apricot Pork Pasta with Feta

• Ice In Africa

• Melt In Your Mouth Slow Cooker Beef

• Crockpot Chicken Curry with Patak’s Sauce (all phases)

Be sure to give these tips a walk through and try some of the above recipes.  If you have any slow cooker recipes and would like to be featured on zesty, please email me and we will work together on sharing your recipe.  I hope you have a great Friday and a super weekend and just a reminder that I will be blogging from California next week but everything should stay on track.

Take care

zesty

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You know me and my love for pork.  It is one of my favorite meats to eat.  I am pretty open to a wide variety of foods including vegan and vegetarian meals, fish, chicken, beef and lamb but when it comes right down to it, I loved PULLED PORK.

Pork shoulder blade roast is often known as a cheap cut of meat.  But when slow-cooked for hours in a sweet and tangy sauce, it becomes meltingly tender and is sure to make everyone smile.  If you have a day to cook this meat, at the end of the day you will be rewarded.

Tinker around with the sauce to your liking and add more heat if you so desire.  The basis of this sauce is sweet with a little bite.

Ingredients

• 4 lb Pork Shoulder
• 1 Medium Onion ( Cut in Half )
• 1/2 Cup Ketchup
• 1/3 Cup Cider Vinegar
• 1/4 Cup Brown sugar
• 1/4 Cup Tomato paste
• 2 Tbsp.  Sweet paprika
• 2 Tbsp.  Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tbsp. Yellow mustard
• 1 1/2 Tsp. Salt
• 1 1/2 Tsp. Black pepper
• 1/2 Tsp. Red pepper flakes
• Dash of hot sauce

Method

1. In a slow cooker pot, stir ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar, tomato paste, paprika, Worcestershire, mustard, salt and pepper until combined.  Add pork to sauce mixture and turn to coat well with sauce.  Add the chopped onion on the side.
2. Cover slow cooker with lid and cook pork mixture on the low setting for 8-10 hours.
3. With tongs, transfer the pork to a large bowl.  Turn the setting on the slow cooker to high; cover and heat sauce to boil until it thickens and reduces slightly
4. While sauce boils, with two forks, pull pork into shreds.  Return shredded pork in the sauce to combine.  Cover slow cooker and heat through on high setting if necessary.
5. Spoon mixture on top of your favorite bun and top with your favorite coleslaw ( I went with an Asian slaw that I noticed over at Danica’s Daily – I just ran out of slaw before I took the pictures )

Zesty Tip: To make easier cleanup, supermarkets now carry slow cooker liners ( they fit both oval and round pots).  Just be careful to remove food before lifting the liner – it may break if you don’t.

I was fortunate enough to have some beans leftover from the Olde Fashion baked beans that went very well with the sandwich.  We are getting some rain here today so hopefully some of the snow will melt.  I can do without the snow but at least the temperatures are warming up for my sensitive skin.

Have a wonderful Wednesday and try this pork!

Take care

zesty

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Happy Tuesday!  I wanted to share with everyone an amazing roast beef that I cooked the other day.  Talk about tender!  When I got home and walked in the kitchen I was smiling from ear to ear – can you really beat the slow cooker for beef?  I braised this piece of meat for 10 hours on low in the slow cooker while at the office.  I prepped the meat around 7:00am just after breakfast and set the dial to low and let it go…

To go alongside the beef, I cooked some jasmine rice with roasted tomatoes and mushrooms.

Overall the meal was quite tasty and very tender.  So tender in fact that it was almost falling apart.

Ingredients

• 1 beef roast (about 4lbs)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 12 button mushrooms
• 6 large cherry tomatoes
• 1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Dried thyme

Method

It does not really get any easier than this.

1. In a large pan set to medium high brown meat with olive oil and sear on all sides until carmelized
2. Place meat in slow cooker (trim or remove any extra fat off the meat).
3. Add mushrooms, garlic and tomatoes.
4. Add salt and pepper.
5. Add wine and chicken stock.
6. Toss in the dried thyme.
7. Cover and set on to LOW.
8. Cook for at least 8 hours.
9. Remove meat and vegetables and transfer sauce to pan.
10. Bring sauce to a boil and reduce.
11. Add 1 tbsp. cornstarch to 2 tbsp. Cold Water and mix in a bowl.
12. Add mixture to sauce pan.
13. Bring to a boil and let thicken.
14. Carve meat , drizzle with sauce.



15. ENJOY!

Zesty Tip: When cooking with a slow cooker, it is really important not too add too much liquid as the covered lid will generate enough steam.  After the food is cooked, transfer the sauce to a pan and create a delicious gravy.

Question of the day:  What is your favorite protein? I am so flexible that I will eat almost anything but I do have to say… I am definitely a red meat lover.  I would love to hear your favorite.

Have a great Tuesday.

Take care

zesty

Download my Free Recipe Book: Simply Zesty

Our society has forced alot of us to eat on the run or have very little time to prepare meals.  Whether your in the corporate world, busy parents with kids or just plain busy – having tips to prepare healthy quick meals is a big help.  I put together a few simple ways to be effective and cost efficient that you can try when preparing your next meal.

1. Prepare Food Immediately from the Grocery Store

Whether your chopping green peppers for stir fry or seeding and slicing a cantalope – Doing this right way and storing in ziploc bags can save you valuable time during meal preparation and also allows you to make healhier choices when you have a huge munch on.

2. Make a weekly meal plan

Check family members’ schedules before deciding which nights to cook. To increase family involvement, ask everyone to pick and schedule one family meal a week. Having a plan also makes writing shopping and “to do” lists easier.

3. Cook once, eat twice

Double favorite recipes, freezing extra servings in easy-to-thaw portions. Freeze extra cooked chicken breasts for quick salads, quesadillas, enchiladas, and soup.

4. Streamline shopping

Keep a running grocery list of items needed by category, such as breads, meats, and produce to reduce “emergency” trips for missing ingredients.

5. Get children involved in making dinner

Besides benefiting from the obvious creative aspects of cooking and the boost to their self-esteem, there are the more practical bonuses of developing math skills and learning how to eat well. Also if they are helping you with meal time – then you are not being distracted and things will move quicker.

6. Time is money

Take help where you can get it. “Sometimes it’s worth the added cents to choose raw deveined shrimp over shrimp you have to clean, or chicken cutlets over the breasts you would have to trim and split,” I also uses canned foods, such as beans, tomatoes and stocks, because of the time savings in certain situations.

7. Plug in the Slow Cooker

Although it might seem like a contradiction, slow cookers actually make quick work of getting a meal on the table. Just toss the ingredients in the cooker in the morning, and dinner is ready when you get home.

8. Keep your pantry stocked

The pantry being the building blocks of fast meals: basics such as pastas, rice, broths, stocks, canned tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, and canned beans.

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