Crock Pot Wednesdays with Debbie

Debbie, thank you for inviting me to join in Crock Pot Wednesday this week! I decided to take you up on it. :-) Please head over to Debbie's blog to view many more delicious recipes that will entice you to dig out that slow cooker!

I'll get this out of the way first... cough I rarely use my slow cooker cough cough ....I know, I know! Slow cookers were made for busy stay at home moms just like me! Moms who homeschool, moms who don't, moms who run the Mommy Taxi service, moms with babies, moms with older kids, moms who work inside and outside the home. Yes, I know all this.

What we have failed to take into account is the lack of mouthwateringly succulent vegetarian slow cooker recipes. Maybe it's just me, but aside from the usual chilis and soups, there just isn't much out there for us herbivores.

A couple of years ago, while perusing one of my favorite places in Barnes & Noble (the vegetarian/vegan cookbook section), I spotted a cookbook I'd never seen before, Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson. SCORE!

Admittedly, I've only tried a few of the recipes. Some are fantastic, and others.....eh, so-so. Today, I'm sharing one of my favorites from the book. This is the perfect dish for Fall. It's also one entree I missed terribly after becoming a vegetarian at age 14. I even crave it intensely at times, so.......

Let me introduce [cue drumroll]

Slow-Fashioned Potpie with Biscuit Crust

Adapted from: Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker

3 tbs. grapeseed oil

1 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped (I loooove Vidalia)

2 large carrots, chopped

1 large celery, chopped

1 cup plus 2 tbs. all-purpose flour

1 large all-purpose potato, peeled and diced

2 - 15 oz. cans organic chickpeas, drained and rinsed (organic beans are best because beans tend to be riddled with pesticides)

1/2 cup frozen peas (or more, if you like peas)

3/4 cup vegetable broth or mock chicken broth

1 tbs soy sauce or tamari

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp dried savory

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp baking powder (non aluminum is best - I like Rumford Brand)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup milk (soy, rice, cow's, hemp...whatever floats your boat)

Heat 1 tbs of the oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery, cover, and cook until softened. It takes about 5 minutes.

Transfer that mixture to a lightly oiled 3-1/2 - 4 qt. slow cooker. Stir in 2 tbs of the flour. Add the potato, chickpeas, and peas. Stir in the broth, soy sauce, thyme, and savory; then season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours (I've also done it on high for 2-1/2 hours).

About 1 hour before you're ready to serve, make the crust: In a large bowl, combine the remaining 1 cup of flour, baking powder, soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. Quickly stir in the milk and the remaining 2 tbs of oil until just blended.

Spoon the biscuit topping over the surface (homey style) of the simmering veggies. Turn the heat setting to high, cover, and cook until the crust is cooked through, an additional hour. Serve the potpie within 10-15 minutes after the crust is finished cooking for best taste results.

Now, the potpie is super easy, and it definitely satisfies my craving. Is it as good as the Seitan potpie I make entirely from scratch (homemade whole wheat pie crust, homemade chick-mmmmm gravy, homemade seitan, homemade veggies ahem--well, you get my meaning)? No, it's not, but it's fab in a pinch!

Enjoy!

An Apple a Day...

We've all heard the old saying, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." I do believe that to be true. I also know that cold cereal is just not sufficient for my girls. They could eat an entire box in one sitting, with fruit and toast, and still be hungry an hour later. This is why I make hot cereal, granola, pancakes, or scrambled tofu burritos on a regular basis. I also love quinoa for breakfast. Not only is it extremely delicious all spiced up and tossed with dried cranberries and toasted walnuts, but it's full of protein too!

About 3 weeks ago, I added a new dish to our breakfast repertoire. MckMama would probably refer to it as "woodland creature food at its finest!"

I call it Fruit and Nut Cereal. This is one of those recipes I saw somewhere once, and it has taken on a life of it's own through adaptations and adjustments. This is how I made it today:

2 pink lady apples (unpeeled), cored and chopped into small, relatively thin pieces

2 large bananas, slices cut into little half moons

1/2-1 cup dried fruit of choice (today I used raisins, but dried cranberries are lovely too)

a couple of handfuls of unsweetened shredded coconut

1 cup of nuts, un-toasted, chopped into bits in a mini food processor (today I used raw almonds and cashews) You will want the nuts to be in very small pieces, but not necessarily powdery, if that makes sense.

1-2 tbs ground flax seed

1-2 tbs pure (or homemade) maple syrup

Drizzle of lemon juice or orange juice to prevent the fruit from browning and add Vit. C for increased iron absorption

(Wheat germ, toasted or un-toasted, would be really good too, but I'm currently out.)

Mix everything together, serve in a cereal bowl topped with milk of choice.

The girls adore this cereal. It's delicious, nutritious, and keeps them satisfied for hours! This amount easily filled up the four of us, with a little leftover. It's amazing how one bowl of something like this will satisfy their tummies far better than, say, four bowls of Cheerios or Puffins!

I made up for it with Thanksgiving

Well, breakfast may have been "terrible" the other day, but I made up for it with Thanksgiving.  

It was a quiet day with just us.  Mark's mom had to work, and my family was in ND.  We had no place to be, no plans at all, in fact.  

Except, that I planned to make a Thanksgiving feast all by myself.  

My morning began at 5:30 am with starting the bread in the bread machine.  Then I got the cranberry-walnut stuffing/dressing going in the slow cooker.  

Moving on to the homemade seitan roast.  Oops!  Forgot to buy more onion powder at the store.  Oh well, I'll just chop an onion, saute it a bit, and grind it up in the Magic Bullet with the rest of the wet ingredients.  No problem (and, it wasn't!).  

Time to cut, scrape, peel and chop a butternut squash or two for the butternut squash casserole.  (The recipe is for a sweet potato pie casserole, but I was out of sweet potatoes, so I replaced with the squash).  I won't even miss the pumpkin pie after eating this!  (Mark sort of boycotts orange vegetables, not consciously necessarily.  It just seems as though he doesn't like anything edible that color, unless it's some sort of pepper.)

Making the cranberry sauce.  So easy, and I've always wanted to try the variation with apple cider in place of the water.  Yummy!

Got the apple crisp in the oven, and now it's time to watch a little football before I start the mashed potatoes.  Whew!  My.  Feet.  Are.  Sore!

Gravy is done.  Had to make my own fake "chicken" seasoning though.  And, I'm dangerously low on coarse kosher salt (my salt of choice most of the time).  A small squirt of Bragg Liquid Aminos (unfermented soy sauce) did the trick.  Perfect! 

Okay, potatoes are peeled and boiling. 

Oh wait...it's possible I should change out of my pajamas too.  (Hey, I've been just a wee bit busy this morning!)

Time to smash the potatoes and add in the sour cream and cream cheese.  Dee-lish!  

And, it's eating time!

It took 8 hours to prepare it all and about 20 minutes to eat, but that's okay.  It was a fun, relaxed day.  No one was rushing, the girls played happily.  The Detroit Lions were slaughtered, and I don't have to cook anything for the next couple of days.  Sabbath lunch will be leftovers with Mark's family!  YIPPEE!  

Mark's comment was that this was the first Thanksgiving he can remember where he didn't have turkey at all.  It was also my first Almost Vegan Thanksgiving.  I did use real butter in some of the recipes (it was cheaper than buying all that Earth Balance), and we had ice cream with our apple crisp, but I did have vegan caramel sauce to top it with.

Hope you all had a wonderful day as well.