Beef Daube

As you may recall from the note at the bottom of my Crock-Baked Beets and Pollo Colorado post, I got married on August 20.  (In fact, you can read about Gourmet PhD's adventures in New England food due to being in the Boston-area for my wedding and having delayed flights on the way back on her food blog.)  Obviously, I not only didn't get any reading for exams done during the two weeks surrounding the wedding, I also didn't have a chance to update my blog.  Now I'm back and I have a backlog of posts to make.

Speaking of food blogs and websites, I was very excited to recently discover the Crock Pot Girls who have a Facebook page and a web page (that is a bit under construction).  They facilitate recipe sharing for slow cooking, so I'm very excited to start exploring their site.

Anyway, one of the great things about crock pot cooking is that almost any regular soup recipe can be adapted for the crock pot.  You may remember that I did this back when I made the chicken tagine.  So, back in the beginning of May (May 3, to be exact) I did just it again.  Basically, my roommate and I had some white wine that had been in the fridge for too long and could really only be cooked with at that point.  So, I pulled out my Joy of Cooking and checked the index for things that could be made with white wine.  What I found, and decided to adapt for the crock pot, was a "Beef Stew with Mustard, Herbs, and White Wine (Beef Daube)."  The Joy of Cooking explains that "the word daube comes from daubiere, the French word for a covered casserole.  This is a refreshing change from the heavier flavors that we associate with beef stew."

Although I generally followed the recipe, I was kind of free adapting it for my own tastes.  The recipe as listed in the Joy of Cooking only has beef, tomatoes, and onions in the stew (not counting spices, of course).  I added celery and carrots to make it a little more stew-like for my taste.  I'll include my recipe at the end of this post.

You can follow the pictures from the top of my post to see how I made this stew.  I covered the beef with seasoned flour and then browned it on all sides before adding it to the crock pot.  With the beef, I added the veggies and spices: onion, celery, carrots, garlic, dried parsley, dried thyme, dried marjoram, a bay leaf, and dried celery flakes.  I added the wine and Dijon mustard to the frying pan I had cooked the beef in and mixed that together before adding it to the crock pot.  Then I turned it on to LOW and cooked it for the whole day.  I'd recommend 6-8 hours, or at least until the beef is cooked.

This is what the stew looked like when it was finished cooking.

Unfortunately, because it's been so long since I made this recipe, I don't remember how many servings I got!  My guess would be 6-8 servings, since most of the soups that I've made in that crock pot have turned out to have that many, so I'll estimate the cost and the calories based on that estimate. Depending on how big of a serving you serve, this could be 510 to 382 calories (510 for six servings, 382 for eight).  With a salad, this could be a full meal.  Even adding a piece of bread or a small roll to it wouldn't really kill you calorie-wise (and force you to actually get out of your window-less graduate student office to go to the gym).

In terms of cost, the good thing about this recipe is that a lot of the ingredients, especially the spices, mustard, and olive oil, are things that you'll normally have on hand in your kitchen.  I actually only purchased the beef, onions, and celery flakes for this recipe, making it only cost me only from about $1.15-$1.50 per serving.  Obviously, if you had to buy everything, it would cost a lot more, especially in the cost of purchasing the spices. I'd estimate in that case the cost would be about $5.75-7.60 per serving (of course, assuming, that you're buying a cheap bottle of wine to cook with).  So, ultimately, I'd say that this is a good, cheap and pretty healthy recipe if you have some white wine that needs to be used up.

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Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
approx. 1 tsp. salt
approx. 1/4 tsp. black pepper
approx. 1/2 tsp. paprika
2 lbs. beef stew meet
olive oil
16-oz can diced tomatoes with juice
2 medium onions, sliced
2-3 carrots, chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
1 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried celery flakes
3 cups dry white wine
2 tbsp. Dijon mustard

Directions:
Mix the flour, salt, pepper, and paprika together in a bowl.  Coat the pieces of beef stew meat with the flour mixture.
Heat 2-3 tbsp. of olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add the beef to the olive oil in batches and brown on all sides.  Remove the beef from the frying pan and place in crock pot.  Add the tomatoes, onions, carrots, celery, and the remaining spices to the crock pot.
Pour off most, but not all, of the fat from the frying pan.  Add the white wine and bring it to a boil, scraping the leftover bits of meat from the bottom of the pan.  Reduce the heat to simmer.  Add the Dijon mustard and whisk to blend.  Pour this mixture into the crock pot and stir everything to combine.
Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours, until the beef is cooked through.

Easiest Black Bean and Brown Rice Chili

I've been meaning to sit down and write this post for several days now, but after spending the whole day reading for exams, the last thing I want to do is sit down at my computer and do anything that my brain has to be involved in.  Hence today I decided the thing to do is to update the blog before I start doing my reading.

Anyway, one of my absolute favorite things to make in the crock pot is chili.  And, honestly, like soups, chili is just a natural crock pot food.  The Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook has a whole chapter dedicated to chili, so I've been going through and trying the different varieties.  On April 5 of this year, I tried the "Easiest Black Bean and Brown Rice Chili."  This chili is a vegetarian chili that was initially created when one of the authors was cooking with kids.  The description says: "There are no onions to chop, nothing to saute, and it is indeed easy enough for kids to make."  When I read that for the first time, my mind substituted "and a perfect recipe for the grad student to make on the way out the door in the morning" for the phrase about kids.  I had also received a request for vegetarian chili recipes that I totally dropped the ball on before, but this is the first of two vegetarian chili recipes that I tried during the spring semester.

So this recipe could not get any easier.  Everything just gets thrown in to the crock pot: black beans (canned), tomatoes (canned), brown rice (uncooked), and one chipotle chile (canned, but not one can, just one chile cut into small pieces).  The recipe actually has a warning about the one chile instead of one can: you will get absurdly spicy chili if you add a whole can of these.  The spices added to these few items are onion powder, garlic powder, ground cumin, and dried oregano.  And really, as I said before, this recipe could not get any easier.  After throwing everything together, you stir it all and then turn it on low for six to eight hours, which also makes it good for the grad student who has to be at school all day.

This is the chili after being stirred.

And this is what it looked like after cooking.

The cookbook recommends serving the chili with a spoonful of plain yogurt or to eat it as a burrito (wrapped in a tortilla).  I tried it with the yogurt, but I wasn't such a fan of that.  The chili itself is good, but I'd rather have it with traditional chili toppings like cheese and sour cream.  Now, the recipe says that it serves four, but I'm pretty sure that I got at least six servings out of it (unfortunately, I didn't write down exactly how many servings I got and I can't remember back to April).  So, without the yogurt, it would be around 205 calories per serving (and even if you did bigger servings, the four servings the recipe says it makes only comes out to 309 calories per serving).  The yogurt, especially if you get the plain nonfat yogurt, only adds about 30 calories per serving.  This recipe will not add to your waistline when you're stuck in the library and can't get across campus to the gym!

Now, this recipe was awesome for me cost-wise because I normally have some black beans and canned tomatoes hanging around the house and all of those spices are ones that I normally have too so the only things I bought were the chiles and the yogurt.  So I spent less than 80 cents per serving!  If you had to buy everything, including all the spices, I'd estimate that it would be about $3.45 per serving.  However, since people normally have such spices on hand (right?), it's actually about $1.45 per serving.  Seriously: this recipe will help stretch your stipend!

Updates: Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal and Broccoli Soup

This week I'm visiting my sister in the DC area (and I should note here that both my brother and my sister own crock pots, thanks to gifts from me) so I don't have any of my blogging stuff with me to write a full post.  So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to write an update on two of the recipes I posted about earlier, but tried again.

Now, if you remember from my recent Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal post, I said that the oatmeal cooks overnight on low.  However, there is an alternate way to make it and because I had been out at a concert the night before I wanted to make it, I had to try this alternate way earlier this week.  Instead of cooking it on low overnight, I cooked it on high for just two hours (the recipe says 2-3 hours).  As you can see from the image on the left, the oatmeal came out much less mushy than the overnight version.  The apples tasted fresher.  Overall, I liked it this way too.  However, the water that got absorbed in the overnight version was still very liquidy in this version.

Now, because the water wasn't absorbed completely, the oatmeal, when served, was a little bit watery.  It was still tasty, however, and ultimately I'd recommend either way, depending on what texture you want your oatmeal to be.  Ultimately, I think I'm going to stick with the overnight version when I make this in the future.

The other recipe I "tried" again was the Broccoli Soup with Garlic and Olive Oil.  If you recall from that post, I made the soup twice, once with chicken broth and once with vegetable broth.  Because I was going out of town after I made the version with vegetable broth, I ended up freezing some of the soup so it wouldn't go bad... and then I forgot about it until I moved into my new apartment and moved all my frozen food from one freezer to the next.  You may also recall from that post that I said that you could either mash up the soup or use an immersion blender and I commented that I wanted to try it with the immersion blender.  So, one day for lunch I pulled the soup out of the freezer and heated it up, using the immersion blender while reheating it.

Honestly, I liked the soup much better as a pureed soup than just the broccoli chunks in the broth.  So, my recommendation on this one is: buy an immersion blender.  You can get one from Cuisinart on Amazon for under $30 or splurge and get the one with the whisk and chopper attachments, which is the one that we received as a gift.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

So, back in February, when I posted about the French Split Pea Soup, one of my colleagues commented to me, "What about American split pea soup?"  I took this as a challenge and looked through my cookbooks to find what could be considered an American split pea soup.  In the Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook, I found Vegetarian Split Pea Soup and made it on March 1.  Now, the reason I considered this "American," is that according to the description in the cookbook, this recipe is similar to that of Pea Soup Andersen's, a restaurant in the middle of California which does have really good pea soup!

As you can see from the above image, the good thing about this recipe for the grad student is that you can do a lot of the prep work the night before.  I chopped the shallots, carrots, and celery the night before and so only had to throw in the split peas and the spices in the morning before heading off to school.  As you can (somewhat) see from the image on the right, the spices include a bay leaf, thyme, sage, and salt (which I probably didn't put in, but it was a long time ago so it's hard to remember!).  The good thing about this recipe as well for the grad student is that you just use water so you don't have to spend any extra money on chicken or vegetable broth.  You then just stir everything together and cook it for 12-15 hours, which is really good if you're going to have a long day at school.

This is what the soup looked like before I turned it on.

And this is what it looked like after cooking on low for 12-15 hours.

After the soup is done cooking, you remove the bay leaf and puree the soup.  I used my roommate's food processor at the time, but it was awkward and messy to switch the soup from the crock pot to the food processor and back.  I highly recommend an immersion blender (which I do have now, so future pureed soups will be done that way).  You serve the soup with a little bit of cayenne pepper on top.  The cookbook suggests serving it with warm bread or croutons, but I opted not to do this.  Now, I didn't really like this recipe.  It was too watery and there wasn't enough flavor, not thick like split pea soup should be.  So, sorry Kyle, but the French win on this one.

I ended up adding a piece of the pork from my French Split Pea Soup adventure to this and cooking it overnight.  This cooked off the water a bit and the pork added more flavor.  Now, it is very true that perhaps if I had added the salt originally, my results would have been different.  But honestly, I think my evaluation is that I prefer the non-vegetarian version better.  Apologies to all my vegetarian friends.  However, if anyone would like to try the recipe with the salt added, let me know and I'll send it to you and you can either comment with your results or let me know and I'll do an "update" post (or, if you want to write a guest post, I'll be happy to include it here).

So, ultimately, I think that because I recooked the soup, it messed up how many servings I should have gotten out of it.  The recipe says that it makes four to six servings, but I think I only got 4 out of it: one which I ate as the vegetarian  version and then three more that I ate after adding the pork.  But, look at that picture to the left: doesn't that look more thick and yummy than the watery version that I added the ham to above (sorry that the color is a little off in the picture, I was using my cell phone)?  Well, I think so.  I guess my final analysis is that this recipe wasn't that great and I probably won't bother trying to make it again, especially since I have several other split pea soup recipes that I can try.

So, for the sake of recipe analysis, let's pretend like I didn't add the pork so I'll estimate that you'd get about five servings out of this.  Each serving is less than 175 calories (so to make it a meal, you might actually want to have some bread with it, and a salad).  In terms of cost per serving, we already had bay leaves, sage, and cayenne pepper, so my cost per serving, had I followed the recipe in the end, would have only been about $1.72 per serving.  If you had to get all the spices, your costs would increase dramatically (to about $3.50 per serving), but in theory these are spices that you have on hand from previous recipes and such so it's not that expensive to make at all.

Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal

My Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook has a whole chapter titled "From the Porridge Pot."  Back in February, I thought it'd be fun to try out one of the recipes for oatmeal.  Although this is a breakfast item, so different from the other things I review (in that, you won't get a week's worth of dinners out of it), but I actually loved this so much that I was thinking about making it again this week!  I wanted to make this oatmeal, the "Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal," because I had an apple that needed to be used.  The recipe actually says that you can use either an apple or a pear so I actually ended up making this twice because my roommate had a pear that needed to be used.  (All of the pictures in this post, however, are from my initial attempt.)

I used one side of the dual crock pot to make this one because it says that you should use a "small round" slow cooker.  Plus, the recipe says that it only serves 2, so I figured that it would cook better in the smaller pot.  The recipe is pretty easy.  It calls for "old-fashioned rolled oats" or "think-cut rolled oats."  Instead, I found "oven toasted, old fashioned oats" in the grocery store.  You add some brown sugar and cinnamon.  The recipe calls for a "pinch of salt" and then some unsalted butter, but when do I ever buy unsalted butter?  Instead, I just ignored the salt and used salted butter.

Finally, you add the chopped apple or pear.  For the liquid, the recipe says that you should use either water or a combination of water and apple juice.  I'm not sure what the difference in taste with the apple juice-water combo would be because I just used water.  But, what do you expect?  I'm a grad student.  And I know that apple juice is pretty cheap, but what am I going to then do with a whole thing of apple juice?  Ultimately, I decided to save money and just use water.

Now, all of this preparation was done at night before I went to bed and I woke up in the morning to piping hot oatmeal!  (It cooks on low for 7 to 9 hours, so... overnight.)  Now, when I told my fiance that I wanted to make this again, he noted that it might actually be quicker to just make oatmeal in the morning.  And sure, the oats only take about 5 minutes to cook on the stove.  But, it wouldn't be the same.  Sure, you can add brown sugar and cinnamon to your oatmeal after its cooked, but you won't get the fresh fruit blended in in the same way as you do with the crock pot (though the recipe does give you the option to add the fruit in the last 30 minutes of cooking if you prefer it to be fresher and less blended... I liked it blended).

Now, the recipe says that it serves two, but I honestly don't know what kind of appetite they think these two people have in the morning.  I got four servings out of it and although I was initially worried about leftovers (which is why I shared it with my roommate each time), I just zapped them in the microwave and added some skim milk and it was quick and tasty.  A fresher take on instant oatmeal perhaps?  And it's pretty decent for a breakfast.  The serving size I used is about 155 calories, whether you use the pear or the apple.  With half a cup of skim milk, that puts it around 200 calories... a decent start to the morning.  And since the oatmeal was mushy and sticks together, adding the skim milk really made it a bit nicer in my mind.  In terms of cost, I can't image that this would cost much more than $1.00 per serving for anyone.  Most of the items, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter, are things that you have around the house already (at least I did, though since we just moved, I will have to go out and get brown sugar to make it again).  I just bought the oats, which were only around $3.00 and apples are especially cheap, normally around $1.99/lb or less for the various kinds at my grocery store.

Overall: yummy and cheap.  I'd recommend oatmeal in the crock pot to anyone, especially seeing as I'm planning to make this one again.