Slow Cooker - Curly Creamy Meaty Pasta

It seems we might be trying a bunch more slow cooker recipes, judging this school year's schedule.

For this one we first prepared 1 lb. of curlicue pasta and stuck it into the fridge.

Then we tossed the following into the slow cooker: 2 lb. stew beef, dried oregano, dried basil, salt, pepper, 1 quart of vegetable broth, 3 tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce, 2 minced cloves of garlic, and 1 tablespoon of mustard.

Then we mixed roughly 4 tablespoons of flour with a bit of water and added it as well. We turned the pot on low for 8+ hours and went about our day.

When we came home we looked into the pot, added the pasta and 1 cup of sour cream, set the table, and ate. Yummo!

Pork Chops, Beans, and Mashers

We tried this fun and easy recipe for a dinner with pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Best part about it was that we got to use our new aquisition, a battle tested cast iron skillet.

First we got the veggies prepped. So we peeled and chopped 3 pounds of yellow potatoes, placed them in a pot, covered them with water and added a teaspoon or so of salt.

We also washed and trimmed 1 pound of green beans.

Next we took 4 pork chops with bones and smothered them with mustard and Demerara sugar.

We also poured 2 cups of veggie broth into a pot and added a couple of rosemary sprigs.

Now every thing was ready to turn on the stove. For real for real. We started all four burners and turned the oven to 350F. In one pot we got water to boil, in another the potatoes, in a third the broth. On the fourth burner we placed that cat iron skillet, got it nice and hot, added olive oil, and placed the pork chops in it. We seared the meat from both sides. For maybe ten minutes or so.

Then we shoved the skillet, meat and all, into the oven for another ten minutes.

When the water was boiling we added the beans for just about 6 minutes.

Shortly before dinner we added 2 tablespoons of butter, salt, and pepper to the broth. We also added the juices from the skillet and

put it all through a sieve for a sauce.

The only thing left were the potatoes. We drained them and mashed them up with more butter, heavy cream, salt, and a couple handfuls of Parmesan to taste. That was it: Green beans, mashed potatoes, sauce and pork chops

Oooooh yes. Goodness on a plate. A good mouthful of heartwarming comfort.

Big British Meatballs

We took a stab at Jamie Oliver's "Big British Meatballs" from his new cookbook Comfort Food. And comfort food it was.

Lena was all over this and declared it the best Sunday dinner ever. She started by plucking the leaves of 2 sticks of rosemary.

Then she cut up 1 1/2 big onions. (The recipe asks for 2, but we truly believe that these North Carolina onions are just humongous).

We looked for Worcestshire Sauce and

started frying up the onions in a little olive oil.

Lena added 2 tablespoons of the sauce and a splash of water. We cooked it all for 20 minutes.

Then we let the onions cool and spiked them up with a little salt and pepper.

Lena got 1 pound of ground beef and 1 pound of ground pork in a bowl.

Then we whizzed up a few slices of stale bread in a food processor and

added a handful of breadcrumbs and the onions to the beef.

Lena mixed it all up and 

formed

16

equally sized

meatballs.

Next we cut up 3 oz of cheddar cheese into 16 chunks.

Then Lena pushed little holes into the meat balls and 

stuck the cheese into their centers.

Yum. We popped them into the fridge.

(Lena said to make sure to write in the blog that you want to make nice big holes in the meatballs with two fingers and just let the cheese fall in. So there. Consider it written.)

Meanwhile, for the gravy, we fried up 7 oz of more ground beef in a little olive oil.

While the meat was browning we sliced up about a 3/4 onion and the leaves of 2 more sticks of rosemary.

We added them to the meat and cooked them for about five minutes.

Next we rummaged for an Indian Pale Ale, a veggie broth cube (we couldn't find a decent beef bullion that wasn't full of ingredients we couldn't decipher), English Mustard (Well honestly, we had no idea what exactly English Mustard was. We grabbed one that was  called "Sir Kensington", which sounded English enough, but turned out to have a French flag emblazoned on it.), blueberry jam (It was supposed to be black currant jam; we tried, but couldn't find any.), flour, and malt vinegar.

Lena added the broth cube and 3/4 cups of the beer to the meat and gave the rest to Papa for good luck.

We let it all cook in for a while and then added the rest.

2 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon jam, 2 teaspoons mustard, and 2 tablespoons vinegar. Then we added 3 cups of water and let the whole kit and kaboodle simmer for 30 minutes. Next we turned the oven to 475F and placed into it an empty roasting pan to warm up.

When the oven was ready we added the meatballs over a drizzle of olive oil, leaving some space around each.

After 20 minutes in the oven we smothered them in our gravy and put the gooey goodness back in for another 5 minutes.

In the meantime we prepped for our favorite mashed potatoes by peeling and chopping up a bunch of potatoes.

We covered them with water and cooked them with a little salt.

When they were soft we chucked in a few pieces of butter, some grated nutmeg, and a good bit of heavy cream.

Lena mashed it all up.

To round up the affair we also sliced a handful of carrots, cooked them in butter and salt until they started to get soft, caramelized them with a little sugar, and finsihed it all off with a bit of ground coriander seeds.

Bam! Look at it. Absolute delicious scrumptiousness. It doesn't get much better than this when you are asking for a little snug comfort. Thank you Jamie Oliver.