Remembrance: Slow Cooker Pork and White Bean Stew with Apples and Cranberries

It's the part of February that I hate: the intermediate space between the holidays (even if we're counting the Hallmark holiday of Valentine's Day) and spring, when the days stretch out mostly grey and interminable.  It's a space of the year which is full of remembrances of loss for me.  And it's often full of random winter storms these days, which bring wintry weather, but not enough to go sledding; just enough to make driving hazardous.  My son and I have been reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I've been admiring the pioneering spirit that got the Ingalls family through those interminably dark days.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of my father's death.  It's sort of an odd coincidence that he lost his battle with cancer in February; after all, he loved Valentine's Day (which, for him, was an excuse to buy chocolate ... the romance of Hallmark was lost on him), and blustery Sunday afternoons sleeping or watching Spanish TV in in his well-worn leather recliner.  I've never visited his grave; grieving is different for everyone, and for me, the kitchen is a more useful place to remember and celebrate the lives of loved ones lost than the cemetery.

My father was an eater of winter foods.  Roasts, hearty stews, potatoes.  And great quantities of bread.  I'm not sure if it had to do with the region of Spain where he was born (despite the fact that he spent such a significant part of his life in the warmer climate of Florida and the Carribbean), or if it was just his preference for hearty fare, but we knew better than to feed him a meal that would make him demand, "where's the meat?"

I've been following a nearly vegan diet lately.  Not because I want to be vegan, necessarily, but because I want to make more mindful choices about my food, and a vegan diet makes me more mindful.  I've removed almost all of the dairy (very little cheese, no yogurt), cut way back on refined sugars (almost no baked goods or chocolate), minimized carbohydrates (almost no bread or rice or pasta), and consumed only marginal amounts of meat.  I've been eating more vegetables, and hummus, and nuts, and legumes.  I can almost imagine what my father would say about this.  Something, no doubt, along the lines of what he told me when I informed him--old world Catholic that he was--that I was going to be married by a Unitarian minister; food was, after all, a little religious for him, despite his insistence that we "eat to live, not live to eat."

But my husband and my son are decidedly not vegan, and I still have to cook for them, too.  And when I'm cooking hearty winter stews in the kitchen, I'm remembering my father.  Who would nod with sage approval, watching me throw something like this together, even though he wouldn't agree about the beans.

Slow Cooker Pork and White Bean Stew with Apples and Cranberries

2 leeks, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
2 pork tenderloins, 1 lb. each, cut into 1" cubes
2 15 oz. cans cannellini beans
4 apples, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 - 3 c.broth (your choice)
2 T. apple cider vinegar
1/2 c. dried cranberries (no sugar)
2 t. dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Add everything to your slow cooker; make sure that the pork is just covered by the broth.  Cook on low for 7 hours.  Remove cover and boil on high for 15-20 minutes or until the stew is a bit thickened.

Change, and Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

Each month, my good friend and fabulous blogger Kathy Benson, who writes (among other places!) at Bereaved and Blessed hosts a blog hop and writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday.   The Time Warp invites us to revisit an old post from our blog, and think about where we are now, how our thoughts about the post may have changed from its original writing.  This month, during the season of resolutions and goal-setting, Kathy directs us to find an old blog entry about change:

The new year is often a time for new beginnings and changes in our lives. Choose a post from your archives in which you wrote about change. Maybe you wrote about a change that you chose to make or one that happened without warning or intention. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose the post that you did and what has happened in your life since.

Read more: http://bereavedandblessed.com/2013/1/time-warp-tuesday-change/

From the very beginning this blog has been all about and my attempts to cope with change (half-baked is, by nature, something in process), but the one that its feeling most important for me these days is a post I'd written back in 2011, in which I submit my letter of resignation.

I had struggled for months, composing that letter in my head, as conditions became untenable for me at work.  I worried about what it would mean to give up a 12 year career, in which I had won accolades from my supervisors and earned the respect of literally hundreds of people.  I worried whether I'd ever be employed again.  Leaving my job was both a change I initiated and something that happened without much warning.

I chose this post because I've needed to remind myself, especially lately, about how proud I felt, taking that step into the unknown, risking my career to maintain my sanity and integrity.  As busy stay-at-home-parent life took over, and as the economy continued to lag, the job opportunities evaporated.  Now, nearly two years since my daughter was born, and over a year and a half since I left my job, I'm still not employed outside the home.  I've questioned my decision to resign more times than I can count.  I've questioned my credentials, my intelligence, the fabulousness of my resume, my network.  It's hard going some days.

But sometimes even when we initiate change, life takes us in directions that we didn't anticipate.  We create the catalyst, we set things in motion, but there's a world out there to contend with, much of which is beyond our control.  Our choice is to find acceptance, to be more like water, flowing with change, rather than trying to work against it.

And, like cooking sometimes, change is slow.  I need to keep reminding myself that worthwhile changes can take time. 

The first time I read through this recipe I was a little reluctant to try it.  After all, isn't the whole point of the slow cooker to minimize your cooking time, rather than requiring that you essentially cook something twice?

But for someone who doesn't eat all that much meat, I have to say: cooking the chicken this way made it practically melt in your mouth.  Slow and steady for the win.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
based on the original at tasty kitchen

9 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 T. coriander
1 T. cumin
1 t. kosher salt
1 c. yogurt
4 T. butter
 for the sauce
4 T. butter
1 large onion, peeled/diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. kosher salt
3 T. garam masala
2-3" piece fresh ginger, peeled/grated
4 c. crushed tomatoes
2 t. agave nectar
2 t. cornstarch
1-½ c. evaporated milk (or cream)
cilantro (optional for garnish)

Cut the chicken into 1" pieces, place them into a bowl, and sprinkle with with spices. Stir in the yogurt to coat the chicken thoroughly. Cover lightly and let sit for 10 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

Melt 1 T. butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Brown the chicken in four batches, using one tablespoon of butter with each batch, and transfer the browned chicken to the slow cooker.

For the sauce, melt 4 T. butter over medium high heat. Add the onions, garlic, and salt, and stir. Saute until the onions just begin to brown around the edges.

Stir in the garam masala and ginger and cook about 1 minute before raising the heat to high and adding the crushed tomatoes and agave. Scrape the caramelized bits from the bottom of the pan, and bring to a boil. Pour the sauce into the slow-cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 5 hours, or until the chicken is so tender that it falls apart on your fork.

Use a fork or whisk to stir the cornstarch into the evaporated milk until smooth. Pour into the slow-cooker and stir gently until the color is even.  Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbly around the edges; the original recipe suggested that you re-cover the slow cooker, but I found it worked better without re-covering (perhaps because I used evaporated milk).

Serve with rice (tasty kitchen suggested rice with peas), and whatever else you like!

Working Mama: Crockpot Southern Greens with a Kick

I can't remember exactly how the conversation started.  We were eating dinner together, my kids and I; S. was at an important dinner meeting for work.  Maybe my son had asked about S.'s recent spate of late nights.

"But you don't work," he objected.  "You just hang around here all day with N."

Hello, what?

"VERY interesting," I said, trying not to reveal that he had pushed my biggest button.  "That is one of the things that not even adults agree about.  You've hit on a very sophisticated conversation.  So: changing diapers, making meals, making snacks, entertaining your sister, teaching her things ... none of that is work?"

"Nope," he said, confidently, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

"Well then how do you define work?" I asked.

"Something you get paid to do," he replied.

"Huh," I said.  "So when you rake leaves in the back yard, is that work?"

"Nope."

"How about when we ask you to make your bed?"

"Nope."

"Let me tell you something, Buster," I said, looking him square in the eye, "taking care of your sister during the day is quite possibly the hardest job I've ever had.  And I've worked for some pretty challenging people."  I paused.  "So tell me this: what if I took N. to day care, and the person there did all of the things for her during the day that I do, and the only difference is that she gets paid.   Is that work?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well," I said, thoughtfully.  "I guess if what I do isn't work, if it's just for fun, and it's not hard, and it doesn't have value, then it won't matter if I stop, right?"

He looked at me quizzically.

"I mean, I'm not going to bother to bus your plate.  Or run your bath tonight.  Or do laundry."

"Whoopeee," he said, running into the living room, full of six year old glee, "no bath!"

I ran N's bath, and collected her from her booster seat.  About two minutes later, my son came back into the kitchen, hopping around, with his shirt stuck on his head.

"Moooooooom," he called from under the folds of striped fabric, "help me, I'm stuuuuck."

"I'm not working," I said, amused that he was clearly going to take a bath anyway.  "And I have to go tend to your sister."

Horrified silence.  "But Mom, I'm stuck."

"You'll have to get yourself out.  I love you, and I'm happy to help you, but I'm on strike until you recognize that I work."  I make like I am going to head into the bathroom, where N. is calling for me and drinking the bathwater.  sigh.

A beat.  He calls after me.

"On strike?  There's no such thing as being on strike."

"Sure there is.  When you don't like your working conditions, you can strike to request better ones."

"You can't go on strike."

"Well, I'm not helping you take your shirt off."

I can see him chewing his lip, from under his shirt.  Then: "okay, OKAY, you're WORKING."

"Right," I said, removing the entangled button from its hole.  "And don't you forget it."

Southern Greens with a Kick
I made these with the new tsunami of kale and chard coming in our CSA share these days.  Or rather, my crockpot made them.  Because I wasn't working, right?  Right.

2 bunches greens (collards, kale, mustard or turnip)
1 large sweet onion, sliced
1 T. olive oil
4 -5 garlic cloves, pressed
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded, minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 turkey leg, or 2 ham hocks, or for a vegetarian version, use a T. or so of Spanish smoked paprika/pimenton and salt more liberally
2 -3 cups water
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar

Tear the greens into large pieces, wash under running water to clean well, drain.  Preheat a heavy skillet with olive oil, add sliced onion and garlic; cook stirring frequently until onions begin to lightly brown, add minced jalapeño peppers.

Place the cooked onions in the bottom of the crockpot, add the drained greens, pimentor or turkey leg or ham hock, crushed red pepper and water. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours or until greens are tender. Remove meat from bones, discarding bone and fat. Shred the meat and return to pot, mixing well; adjust salt and pepper to taste. Top each serving of the greens with balsamic vinegar to taste.

Cats, Bags, and Vegetarian NoNoodle Lasagne

Well, it's done.  Cat's out of the bag.  Everyone knows; I told my boss, and then I made it facebook-official.  It's just easier that way; though I've read a lot of posts lately about how ecstatic facebook posts are less-than-welcome news for my fellow ALI community members, I weighed the options, and decided to go for it.  And then, I was doing a training for about 100 students this afternoon, and one of them asked me about a course I regularly teach in the spring, so I told them, too.  What the hell, I thought.  When I think about what I've done, it's a little scary ... if things don't work out now, there are a lot of people who know, and would have to be told otherwise.  But there would be a lot of people who'd know anyway, if they saw me on the street.

My boss was spectacularly supportive, said that she saw my name on her calendar, and was hoping that was what I was coming to see her about.  Told me that we'd figure out a way to help me take the time I needed, even if we needed to hire an extra hand for some of the work that I could parcel out (me: um, with a 96 million dollar budget gap for the year? really?).  I have a long list of things that need to get done in the spring: there are lots of moving parts, some of which could be done by someone else, all of which need some sort of central brain for coordination.  But it's good that she thinks this is possible, and she even said I should entertain the idea of spending as much time at home over the summer as possible.  She wants me to talk with her boss (which I'd planned to do anyway, since he's the one with decision-making power over the unit), but said I should ask for what I need.  A flexible work schedule for five months would be a dream.  Of course, she's a faculty member, so she can imagine things like that.

Then again, what she didn't say to me today, and what I happen to know from a "grapevine" conversation I had yesterday, is that she's leaving in January.  Leaving her position, and leaving the country for an exchange.  Which is lovely for her, but also means that I'm talking with a lame-duck boss, and that I'll be greeting the new person who starts in that position with a half-assed presence in my office.  Nothing like making a great first impression.

But I can't worry about that now.  Right now, I've got a bean doing some serious back flips in utero.  And plenty of work to keep me busy as the semester starts, and a husband who is out of town for the week, and an almost-four-year old who has been mischievous as all get-out lately and a huge pain to get out the door by 7:15am, and laundry to do, and dinner to cook, and cupcakes to make for the two new neighbors on our block.

Technically, I made this dish last week, but it's an opportune moment to share it with you, because it uses more eggplant (4 pounds of which arrived this week in our CSA share), and you could use homemade tomato sauce if you're drowning in tomatoes and are so inclined, and it's one of those things you can throw together when you have about a billion other things to worry about, and it doesn't heat up your kitchen if you're still in the middle of summer, like we are here.  I was anti-crock pot for a long time, until I discovered that you could do things with it other than what my mother did with it when I was growing up--things that didn't involve meat that came out like shoe leather.  Things with ... horrors ... VEGETABLES.

Enjoy!

No-Noodle Vegetable Lasagna
adapted from Stephanie O'Dea's Year of Slow Cooking

1 26 oz jar tomato sauce 

1 small container of ricotta cheese (I recycled the plastic already. 10 oz? 12 oz?) 

12 slices of mozzarella cheese 

1 c. shredded mozzarella
1 c. shredded parmesan

1 large eggplant, sliced 1/4" thick

3 zucchini, sliced 1/4" thick

1 lb. sliced mushrooms

bag of baby spinach 

2 T. warm water

In the bottom of your crockpot, pour about 1/4 cup of tomato sauce. Layer squash and eggplant to cover the bottom. Smear about a third of your ricotta cheese on top. Add a handful of baby spinach and mushrooms, and a few slices of mozzarella cheese. Cover with a thin layer of tomato sauce. Continue layering the ingredients until your crockpot is full, and you have run out of ingredients. Top with the end of the pasta sauce and the shredded cheese. Eat any remaining ingredients.  Put 2 tablespoons of warm water into the empty pasta sauce jar, cover, and shake. Pour the remaining sauce on top of everything.
Cover your crockpot and cook on low for 5-8 hours. I usually leave it on for 6, but then it stays on the warm setting for the rest of the day.

Moroccan Vegetable Stew

It sounds like winter here right now. The house is almost silent; outside I hear the occasional tinkling of chimes as the wind blows, but there are few people outside, and the whole world seems still. Ian is napping; he and I went to another birthday party this morning, but this one was much saner than some of the previous weekends (they had ten children at Eyes of the Wild, where the children can see and touch the animals) ... so I'm not feeling like I need to sleep it off.

And dinner is making itself.

Well, not quite. The vegetable prep does take some time, but I've become a convert to the instrument of torture from my mother's generation, the crockpot. No longer does using a slow cooker mean cooking every last bit of moisture and flavor out of a perfectly good piece of brisket, or leaving a pot of salt and fat bubbling away all day so that you can heap it onto some rice at dinner time.

This stew is pretty healthy, and hearty, and you can substitute the vegetables for the ones you like best. It might not be as Moroccan then, but I'm sure no one will tell. I'm still nursing a cold, so I'm not going to the gym today (despite my recent descent into sugar overload ... too many snow days = too many cookies); I was thinking that maybe a bowl of this for dinner would balance out the baking frenzy.

I cook the spices and chop the vegetables the night before, refrigerate in the crock overnight, then start it in the morning. The boys like to eat it with couscous. It makes a lot, so be prepared to eat it for a few nights, or invite some friends over!

Moroccan Vegetable Stew

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed with the side of a knife
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 cups vegetable or chicken broth
4 carrots (12 oz. total), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch lengths
2 1/2 cups diced peeled eggplant or sweet potato or butternut squash
2 1/2 cups sliced (1/2 in. thick) zucchini or green beans
2 cups cauliflower florets
1 cup diced onion (about 5 oz.)
2 cans (14 1/2 oz. each) stewed tomatoes
2 cans (15 oz.) garbanzos, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins
1 cup chopped toasted almonds
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

Pour olive oil into a small frying pan over medium-low heat. Add garlic and spices and cook, stirring often until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes, being careful not to scorch the garlic. Scrape the mixture into a slow-cooker (at least 5 qt.).

Add broth, carrots, eggplant, zucchini, cauliflower, onion, stewed tomatoes (with juices), garbanzos, currants, almonds, and salt, and stir to combine.

Cover slow-cooker and cook on high until vegetables are tender to bite and flavors are blended, 8 to 9 hours.

Ladle about 3 cups of the vegetable mixture into a blender. Holding lid down with a towel and taking care to avoid steam, whirl until smooth. (Or use a stick blender and just purée that puppy right in the crock.) Return purée to slow-cooker and stir to blend. Serve with couscous and (if you like) a dollop of yogurt.

Snow Day: Two Bean Vegetarian Chili

There are precious few quiet weekends in our house, these days. Between work, and the seemingly endless string of birthday parties (Ian is much more popular, at age three, than I ever was), and laundry, and youth group, and a thousand other random commitments, sometimes I worry that we rush more on the weekends than we do on weekday mornings. On a particularly busy weekend, Ian once said to me, "Mommy, sit with me and have a conversation and watch the rainbows." How sage, at the ripe old age of three.

In a way, I was glad to see the storm coming this weekend. It meant that we'd be stuck inside, watching the snow fall, nowhere to go. And when it finally came, it was everything I'd hoped. We spent the morning playing outside, making snow angels and digging in the pristine white with sticks, making groundhog holes. We baked cookies. We squashed and molded Playdoh. And all the while, I made chili, which will feed us for a few nights this week. And no, we did not go to or host a Superbowl party this weekend; the chili was all for us.

The particularly cool thing about this dish is that it's vegan, and everyone loves it anyway. (Sometimes, actually I think Ian would rather eat vegetarian.) Veggie chili is almost a no-brainer. So I can feel like I'm being successful in my attempts to eat more ethically, a quest that was the result of two particularly moving conversations with a farmer friend of mine and a former biology teacher turned stay-at-home-mom this past summer, about treating all living things with dignity (not that I'm anti-meat, mind you; I'm just anti-meat that has had to live its life in crowded quarters, shot full of antibiotics, and treated like it's already being measured in pounds). And it's full of fiber and protein, and low in fat and calories, because of the bulghur, which just seems to give the dish more body.

The other cool thing about it is that it works well in a crockpot, when I don't feel like working very hard at cooking, and when watching the rainbows is more important.

Two Bean Vegetarian Chili

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded, chopped
3 large jalapeño chilies, seeded, minced (about 4 1/2 tablespoons)
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with added puree
3 cups water
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed, drained
2 15-ounce cans kidney beans, rinsed, drained
1/2 cup bulgur
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, red bell pepper, and jalapeños and sauté until onion and carrots are almost tender, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, 3 cups water, beans, bulgur, white wine vinegar, garlic, and spices. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-high and cook, uncovered, until bulgur is tender and mixture thickens, stirring often, about 20 minutes. Ladle chili into bowls and serve.

OR ... put everything in your crockpot and turn in on low for six hours.