How-To's Day: Crock-pot Tips and a Chili Recipe

Have you ever found yourself spending a packed afternoon in town, running kids back and forth to various lessons and appointments, only to come home with a car full of hungry people and no easy, healthy remedy for dinner?  In these situations, the crock-pot is a wonderful invention, as I'm sure many would agree, and makes setting up a meal hours in advance very easy.  Most soup and stew recipes can be adapted to spending all day in a slow-cooker, so just throw something together in the morning, set your cooker to go, and forget about it until dinnertime. Sounds simple, right?  That's because it is.  We just have a couple of suggestions to make it that much easier on you:

1. If your recipe calls for potatoes, cut them up and par-cook them in the microwave to ensure that they are soft when it's time to serve.
2. Use a slow-cooker liner (available at the grocery store) for every crock-pot meal to minimize scrubbing that big heavy bowl.  Those liners are very durable and hold up well even against metal spoons.  An added boon to using a liner is that it makes it much easier to package your left-overs by simply lifting the liner out of the crock-pot (assuming it's not punctured) and pouring its contents into a jar or other container.

Most people already have a few favorite crock-pot recipes, but just in case, here's one of ours:

Chili Con Carne y Legumbres (chili with meat and vegetables)
Serves 6

Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground beef or turkey
2 medium onions, chopped
1 (15oz.) can kidney beans, drained
2 (15oz.) cans chopped tomatoes
1 (8oz.) can tomato paste
1 red bell pepper, chopped
vegetables of choice (see notes)
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 cup cooking wine

Directions:
Brown meat in a pan with the onion and garlic.  Throw all ingredients into crock-pot. Cover and cook for 6-8 hours on low.  Serve hot over baked potatoes, rice, or corn chips.

Notes:
We like our chili spicy and full of garlic and vegetables, but not everybody does.  If that's too much garlic for your taste, cut it in half.  Cayenne is pretty hot, so if you're not that brave, just omit it and use 1/2 tsp. of black pepper.  For the veggie content, we do not recommend broccoli, cauliflower, or cabbage as they have a strange consistency in chili, but leafy greens such as spinach or kale are easy and almost unnoticeable.  Chopped roots of any kind (carrots, turnips, beets, parsnips, etc.) work well, too, as well as shredded zucchini.  Essentially, just do what you feel and enjoy!