Magic Dinner, and That's No Crock

'Tis the season. . .

. . .when long-cooked dishes return to our tables and life gradually becomes more and more busy as the Holiday Juggernaut approacheth. Maybe you want the time to bake cookies for everyone you know. Or put up jars of the last tomatoes of the year. Or recreate that long-lost spun-sugar Titanic that you made as a final project in Pastry School (too bad the ants found the original one!) But dinner still needs to be made, friend.

Well, you probably know someone who brags all the time about their crock pot and you think "I want dinner to be magically ready when I come home from work, too. . ." But you have a small kitchen without the parking space to plunk down one of those overgrown hot plates. We cooks know that the most important Kitchen Real Estate is counter-space. . . especially adjacent to a sink and power outlet (wow!)

Don't worry about that office blowhard. Have you got a regular old soup pot with a decent lid? Do you have a working oven? Chances are very good that even a crappy apartment oven can handle 225 degrees for a few hours. . .

Congratulations! Welcome to Magic Dinner Prep School!

1. Select a protein (a roasting cut of meat or dry beans (or both) for example)
2. Select some vegetables and spices that will complement your protein.
3. Saute the veg in soup pot, add the spices. Build those flavors!*
4. Add protein plus enough water to bathe it nicely. (If using meat, water should come up the roast about halfway. If using dry beans, give them about 4 times their own volume of water, they will drink a lot.)
5. Bring to a simmer on the stove, remove from fire, put on the lid, move to the preheated 225 degree oven.
6. Go away, go to sleep, start a novel, turn on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. . .
7. If this is your first time working this way, check the pot every 2 hours to see the progress.
8. In 4 to 10 hours, return from wherever you were, lift the lid, adjust seasonings and enjoy.

"Duh!" you say?

Well, why aren't you doing this already?

Maybe you just can't get this kind of project together in the morning because you have to wake the spouse, feed the kids and leave for your own job? I understand.
Spiritual Masters would advise: "Obviate the problem." Chef would say: "Don't do it then."

Start the night before! Cook while you sleep! Then all you have to do in the morning is remove the pot from oven, lift the lid, cool it for awhile on the counter, and chuck it in the fridge. Hey, maybe slop a little stew into a container and take it to work for breakfast there or lunch. That could save you a little time, too, and give YOU a little something to show off at work.

"Do I want to taste your crock pot meatloaf? No thanks, but would you like a bite of my lunch?  I've got a braised lamb shank with mustard greens and butter beans."

*Here's where the soup pot kicks the crockpot's ass.  You can actually do a quick job of sweating vegetables and building a flavor foundation using your stove top.  When you follow a classic crock pot recipe that calls for throwing all raw items into the pot and turning it on, you don't get to make use of time-tested techniques that yield satisfying results.  Sure the crock is appealingly speedy, but it can yield appallingly mediocre food. Hey, if you get one for Christmas you can certainly find ways to make great food in a crockpot. But don't sweat it.

(DO sweat the vegetables, though. You won't regret it.)

Example Recipe That's In My Oven Right Now

1/2 pound Italian Sausage (that's all I had) 

1 Onion, diced small

3 cloves Garlic, chopped smallish

1 tsp Dry Rosemary ground into dust (from last year's rosemary bush that I killed by accident)

1 T Fennel Seeds

1 tsp Cumin seeds

1/4 of a Nutmeg, grated

1 bag of Split Green Peas (1#)

Heat the oven to 225. Heat the pot on the stove med-high heat. 

Brown the sausage, add the onion to the grease and sweat it until tender.

Add the garlic, cook 1 minute.

Add the spices, heat until fragrant.

Add the split peas and stir into the mix.

Add 4 pints of water and 1 T Salt.

Bring to a simmer, skim the foam, cover with lid, move to the oven.

Write blog post, fold 4 baskets laundry, go to sleep. Wake up in a house that smells delicious!

Namaste, all.

ST

Simple fare that's right on time.