2011.05.19 - Minestrone Soup, Secret Dessert

The crockpot world tour continues.  Another week, another slow cooked dish.  Until summer produce arrives, which makes for the ultimate quick and easy dinners, my version of quick and easy is set it and forget it.

This week was a simple soup with bread and cheese, and a secret dessert.

Minestrone Soup

Healthy!  Delicious!  This was so much better that my usual minestrone from a can that I want to make sure I have a stash of this soup in the freezer at all times.  No more canned soup for me.  I think the tomato paste was really they key to making the soup taste rich and not watery.  It was mainly dumping cans into the crockpot and chopping a few things -- super easy. 

I accompanied it with rosemary bread and a cheddar/gruyere "melange" cheese from Trader Joe's.  The cheese was really great -- best of both worlds.  Everyone loved it, I think it will become one of my default cheeses for entertaining in the future.

Modifications: This soup makes a LOT.  I filled my crockpot almost to the brim with the initial set of ingredients, so I could only add in the zucchini for the last hour of cooking.  I left out the cabbage, green beans, and pasta.  The soup was still delicious without those, and I think I actually prefer making pasta-less soups.  The pasta soaks up too much liquid for eating soup as leftovers.  I also omitted the garlic, per usual. 

Secret Dessert

I've been doing a small amount of recipe testing for Jeanne's gluten free holiday baking book.  I can't share the details, but it is a delicious buttery rich cake that's definitely a keeper.

2011.05.12 - Crockpot BBQ Pork

Back after a two week hiatus due to a new job and a family wedding!  Since I am no longer unemployed, I can no longer choose meals that take all day to make.  I eased back into things with a crockpot meal -- one of the easiest ways to get food on the table with very little work.

Crockpot BBQ Pork

This is hardly even a recipe -- some pork, soda, pre-made BBQ sauce, salt, and garlic powder in the crockpot for 8+ hours. I used Stubb's Honey Pecan BBQ sauce, which was pretty good. This wasn't my favorite pulled pork recipe -- that award still goes to this one.

I served it with baked beans from a can (gasp!) and some cucumber sticks.  Nothing fancy here.  Hopefully as I get more acclimated to having a job again, I will try things a little more on my usual grandiose scale for dinner.