Crockpot Cookin’
By Jenn | November 20, 2007
Megan’s post about a dinner of slow-cooked stew reminded me of my own crockpot, which mostly just gathers dust in my kitchen. I’ve used it once or twice, but found that it just kind of turned the vegetables into mush. And when all you’re eating is vegetables, mushy ones are no fun at all.
But I do still have high hopes for the crockpot concept, even without the meat– I dream of coming home from work and smelling the luciousness of a warm dinner pervading my home, which I didn’t even have to be present to create. So I just found this list of 10 vegetarian crockpot meals, barley casserole (vegan), sweet potato, lentil, and wild rice cholent (vegan), and these recipes from vegweb.com. Then there are two books: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker and 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes, of which I’m wondering if either, or both, are any good. Because while half of me dreams of successful crockpot cookin’, the other (evil-twin) half thinks that it just might always turn into a big vat of mush.
I have heard that, in order to have truly tasty and successful slow-cooker meals, it’s wise to take the extra steps of, say, sauteeing the onions and garlic (or what have you) in a pan to bring out the flavors before adding them to the crockpot. I totally understand and believe that this would give the taste of the food a huge boost but honestly, it kind of irks me to have to dirty (and then wash) a sautee pan. I think I equate “crockpot” with “hardly have to do any work in order to have a whole cooked meal.”
And of course, I’m debating the greenness of the whole slow-cooker thing in the first place. If it ambles along on “high” for 8 hours… what kind of power is that drawing? And is that better in the long run than the overpackaged takeout dinner it’s replacing, especially since I’d get multiple meals from that one block of power usage?
And oh my lord, talk about unnecessary plastic waste… have ya’ll seen these plastic crockpot liners? They’re made of nylon. Yummy yummy nylon! Because, um, you know, it’s hard to wash a ceramic pot? Or something?
Have any of ya’ll had success with vegetarian crockpot cooking? What are your tips and tricks, or must-avoids?
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Topics: Food |
I have Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker and in all honestly I don’t find the recipes to be that great. I’ve had success with their French Onion Soup recipe, but that’s about it…….
Good to know, thanks!!
Thanks for the links to the recipes. I like to use my slow cooker but tend to get stuck with what to make. I’ve read that leaving the slow cooker on is like leaving a light on for the day, much less energy used than leaving the oven on for that amount of time. And even better if you use green power like i do :)
I love reading your site btw :)
Aw, thanks! We love writing the site! :)
A crock pot if you aren’t opening it can be quite energy efficient, even the old ones. A pot of the stove (metal pot, with a single burner on) takes things like beans just as long to cook, but you have to keep adding water and keep heating it much more than the crock pot.
I usually make just soups in my crock pot- I also used to use them for dyeing yarn and fiber, but have to use the stove + very large canning pots now for that due to the volume of the goods I am now dyeing. When I cook a soup in a crock pot it does help to caramelize or roast the onion or leeks first to add a bit of flavor underlying the veggie soup. And make sure not to add salt and really acidic stuff until the end!
When I do soups I usually start with a base of an onion, several cloves of garlic (or leek if in season), a potato or celery root, a handful of lentils or other beans depending on how long I am going to cook it, and maybe a grain- rice, quinoa, or barley if I want a thicker soup. You could add a veggie broth, but I don’t really bother.
I might also add cheese rinds if I have them in my freezer (just leave them whole and fish it out before eating if necessary, the excess cheese still on it melts in to the soup)
Thanks so much for the tips! I’ll let you know how it goes.
ps- your yarns are *gorgeous*!!
You can actually get slow cookers that work without any power, other than initial heating, which would solve both the sauteeing onions/garlic first issue and also the using power by leaving it on all day issue.
Tiger cookers are the most common brand -
http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-4-5-Liter-thermal-Cooker-NFA-B450/dp/B00061O5KY
The girl who sits across from me at work has one and says it works like magic.
Wow, I’ve never heard of Thermal Cookers before… it’s a great idea! They are pricey but I’d expect that, since there’s no fancy parts to wear out, they’d last for many years…
There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those that understand binary and those that don’t.
I mean - there are 2 kinds of people in this world - crock potters and pressure cookerers. Anything you can do in your crock pot, I can do in my pressure cooker (amazing soups I make) and I don’t even need to plan in advance.
I’d be interested to see an energy analysis of pressure cookers vs crock pots. And, I sautee my onion, garlic, etc before adding water, beans, spices & other veggies.
I don’t know if I answered your question, but I do love talking about my pressure cooker…
Seems like I might need to ask ya’ll about pressure cookers… I haven’t had any experience with them but they sound amazing…
I’ve noticed that for various meals, overcooking is something to be careful of. My slow-cooker has a timer; if it didn’t, I would be using a separate timer such as what they sell for lights - turn the pot on, timer allows power for say 8 hours, cuts off power. That lets me cook when I’m gone more than 8 hours.
We prefer ultra-fast cooking at home - pressure cooker!.. :-) It saves tons of energy and time while preserving colours, vitamins and taste! Meat or beans cooked in 10 minutes! Most vegetables are done in about 6 minutes! Wonderful!..
Tefal (T-fal in USA) has very powerful and user friendly models, like (we have the same one).
I should look into this slow-cooking business, too. :-)
Ooops URL messed up! :-) But it still works!.. :-)
Did you really cook the cat?
All I’ll say is, we here at Tiny Choices are absolutely against false advertising.
You need a double-boiler for that cat. Her name is Godiva. LOL
You can start cooking something in an ordinary lidded pot at high heat and then leave it in a box full of hay, polysterene beads, blankets or whatever - something very insulating. It continues to cook for hours while using no fuel at all. Traditionally called a ‘haybox’.
I do find that crockpot cooking is good for preparing things like beans and large grains like barley as ingredients for assembling other meals.
It provides absolutely luscious results for these two things, while probably being not anywhere near as efficient energywise as my pressure cooker.
This is mostly because of the insulation factor.
I agree that most crock pots are constructed as cheaply as possible and with no insulation on the outside,, so they lose lots of heat. The only way to stop that is to cover them with an insulated box like a cooler.