Carrot Soup

Well, you aren't going to believe it, but it's another crock pot recipe.

Carrot soup seemed like the perfect thing for Meatless Monday.  And while I generally complain about crock pot recipes, this one from Family Circle didn't worry me.  My tired refrain is always too wet, too mushy but this is soup.  It's supposed to be wet and mushy, right?  No, I had bigger worries.  Mainly that I was gearing up to serve a large bowl of orange liquid to my picky 3-year-old.

He loves raw carrots and sometimes he'll enjoy cooked ones.  And he loves soup.  But carrot soup?  Hmmm.

Carrot Soup

1 medium onion, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 lbs carrots, peeled trimmed and cut into 3-inch pieces
1 box (32-oz) vegetable broth
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp heavy cream
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp instant potato granules (for a thicker soup, if desired)

1. Scatter onion and garlic over bottom of slow cooker bowl.  Top with carrots.  Add vegetable broth and two cups of water.

2. Cover slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 6 hours or LOW for 8 hours.

3.  Uncover and stir in brown sugar, ginger and heavy cream, salt and instant potato granules, if using.  With a blender, an immersion blender or food processor, carefully puree until desired consistency is reached.

4. Transfer soup to bowls.  If desired, garnish with cashews and/or fresh cilantro.

The Verdict:  And the critic I feared most took a giant temper tantrum moments before dinner and never ate.  Sigh.

So let's move onto the verdict from the adult diners who ate between moments of familial insanity.  My husband and I both liked the soup, however, the blog will go on as we haven't blessed this the only food we'll eat for the rest of our lives.  In fact, while it was good, it wasn't great.  It lacked something.  More ginger for extra zing?  A little cumin for some kick?  More cream to smooth out the texture?  Not sure.  It was just a little too safe for my liking. 

I am definitely no expert on vegan cooking, but it's my guess that this dish could go vegan quite easily.  In lieu of the cream, a substitution of coconut milk or silken tofu could be added.  And shazam, no animal products.

This makes a pretty large portion of soup.  You can read this to mean that we'll be eating it again for dinner this week and the little guy will have to give his two cents eventually.  I'm thinking about selling it as bunny soup or something equally silly.  He's pretty sharp though; the fatuous food monikers don't really work with him.  We'll just have to wait and see. 

Tuscan Summer Stew

If any of you are regular readers of my blog, you know about my relationship with my slow cooker.  So many people sing the praises of their crock pot: they can't live without it, it's so convenient, food is so juicy from it, etc. 

I try.  I try so hard to be a disciple of crock pottery, but again and again, I fail to feel the love.  What seems like 9 times out of 10 the recipe turns out too wet, or too stringy, or too gloppy, or just...yucky.  The apogee of irritation was the time I had not one but two slow cookers going, making a big batch of coq au vin.  It was delicious, but not because of the slow cooker.  It was for the 90,000,000 steps I had to take afterward to turn chicken soup into classic French stew. 

So when I saw this recipe for Tuscan Summer Stew with its happy little green beans and succulent chunks of sausage, my heart fell when I learned it was a crock pot recipe.  Should I even bother?  Will this turn into another gloppy pot o' water?  Could I try to use the basic recipe idea and make it in a Dutch oven?  Damn you, Family Circle* magazine, August 2011 issue!Oh, the indecision was killing me.  (OK, it really wasn't.) 

(* And yes, I now have a subscription to Family Circle.  A second child has seriously cramped my cool factor.)

In the end, I decided to dig out my adversary and see what happened.

Tuscan Summer Stew

Stew
1 package (20 oz) sweet Italian turkey sausage
1/2 lb green beans, trimmed and cut into 2" pieces
2 lbs tomatoes, cored, seeded and cut into 1" chunks
1  tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
2 ears corn, kernels cut from cob (2 cups)
1 tbsp instant polenta
   Fresh basil to garnish (optional)

Polenta
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup polenta
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

1.  For the stew: Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add sausages and brown on all sides, 4 minutes.  Transfer to a slow cooker.

2.  Top sausages with green beans, tomatoes, and chopped rosemary.  Whisk balsamic together with 3/4 cup water.  Pour into slow cooker.  Cover and cook on HIGH for 6 hours or LOW for 8 hours.

3.  For the polenta:  Just before slow cooker is finished, bring 2 cups water and the salt to a boil.  While whisking, add 1 cup instant polenta in a steady stream.  Continue to cook, whisking, for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese.

4.  Uncover slow cooker.  Carefully remove sausage to cutting board.  Stir corn kernels and 1 tablespoon instant polenta into slow cooker.  Cover.  Slice sausages and stir into stew.  Serve stew over polenta; garnish with fresh basil, if desired.

The Verdict:  Hold onto your hats, folks, because you aren't going to believe what I have to say. 

I liked this recipe.  I liked it a lot.

When the cook time was nearly over, I dutifully cooked the polenta as well as added the tablespoon into the crock pot.  At that moment, I was rather skeptical because, per the usual, the contents were very soupy.  But the added corn and polenta seemed to thicken it just enough, and in this instance, the broth was a wonderful accompaniment to the cooked polenta. 

I am a big fan of balsamic vinegar.  I love the syrupy bite that it brings to foods.  I was clueless as to what white balsamic vinegar is, though, and didn't really care to investigate the matter beyond a quick Google search.  White balsamic vinegar, apparently, is milder and (not surprising) is a lighter color than its cousin, therefore not staining foods.  I'm going to surmise that it means the difference is slight.  If you, like me, have the holy cow gigantic jug of balsamic vinegar from Trader Joes, don't feel the need to run out and buy white balsamic vinegar just for this recipe. 

If I were to make this again, I would definitely reduce the cook times.  They seemed a bit long and, after actually making it, really was.  Your fresh green beans lose their crispness and the sausages that you "carefully remove" don't really need a trip to the cutting board as they fall apart with the nudge of a spoon.  I don't think it ruined the recipe, but it would have been more pleasant if it were a little less soft. 

Speaking of the sausage, this recipe could easily be made vegetarian by using a soy sausage or even leaving the sausage out all together and adding a little fennel seed and sage. 

But before I can stamp this as a success, I do have to give voice to the other members of my family who ate this as well.  My three-year-old has changed very little in the past three months of my absence.  While he ate every speck of sausage on his plate and even ate a wandering tomato bite, the polenta was met with disdain.  His first good natured bite was quickly spit out.  The second, which I nearly lost my breath with arguments and begging, also joined the first bite as he let it slide off his tongue and back into his plate.  My poor husband probably wanted to do the same with his polenta, but of course, he ate an hour after us.  Polenta, my friends, is not a good sit-and-wait food.  It becomes a gelatinous mass that does nothing for the food it is accompanying it.  Perhaps my husband just really didn't like the dish, but I feel like the cold polenta really biased his review.  He told me he'd give it three out of five stars.   

Kinaymans, yet was shot down by the male contingent of eaters.  Bummer.

Crock Pot Coq au Vin

Before the birth of my newest child, I spent a great deal of time cooking and freezing food.  If you follow this blog you already know this.  I have a good recipe for coq au vin, as well as a new one from a Good Housekeeping cookbook that's cooked in a crock pot.  It was a giant cooking conundrum.  I know and love my recipe for coq au vin, but thought that since it is slow-cooked in the oven, wouldn't a crock pot work just as well or better?  My gut told me not to fool with the French and use a Dutch oven.  But laziness overruled and I decided to go with the crock pot recipe instead.

Crock Pot Coq au Vin

3 slices bacon, cut crosswise into 3/4-inch pieces
1 package (10-oz) mushrooms, cut in half
2 cups frozen pearl onions
1 cut-up chicken (4 lbs) skin removed from all pieces except wings
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup dry red wine
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 bay leaf
3/4 cup chicken broth

1.  In a 12-inch nonstick skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until browned.  With slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels to drain; set aside.

2.  Meanwhile, in a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine mushrooms and frozen pearl onions; set aside.

3.  Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.  In skillet with bacon fat, cook chicken (in 2 batches, if necessary) over medium-high heat until browned, 10 minutes.  Place chicken over vegetables in slow cooker.

4.  Discard drippings from skillet.  Reduce heat to medium; add onion and carrot, and cook 2 minutes or until onion softens, stirring frequently.  Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute.  Add wine, tomato paste, and bay leaf; heat to boiling, stirring to dissolve tomato paste.  Pour wine mixture and broth over low setting 8 hours or on high setting 4 hours.

5.  To serve, discard bay leaf.  With large spoon, transfer chicken and sauce to deep platter; sprinkle with bacon.

The Verdict:  Damn it!  I hate crock pots!

The funniest part of this story is that I made a double batch.  And, of course, all that chicken didn't fit in my crock pot so I borrowed a second one from my friend across the hall.  So I've got dueling crock pots going in my kitchen, taking up half my counter space.  Now, the reason I was so hesitant to use the crock pot in the first place was because it turns to a giant vat of liquid.  Coq au vin is not supposed to be a broth-based soup.  So I prepared myself: I did research and learned that to reduce liquid you should put your crock pot on high for the last hour and cook with the lid off. 

Did it work?  Of course not!

This means that I'm standing in front of my stove, covered in sweat, while ladling cup after cup of liquid into roux to form a sauce.  Which was so convenient. 

After making the sauce, the finished product was delicious.  Lots of flavors with nice, moist chicken.  But unless you're willing to create the sauce "by hand," I wouldn't try this recipe.  Or use it and cook it in the oven instead.  While the crock pot allows you to leave the house, it also doesn't make real coq au vin, which kind of defeats the purpose.

We have a giant bag of this left in the freezer and I'm looking forward to digging into it.  But I'll certainly think about my loathing for crock pots the entire time I eat it.  Harumph.

Crock Pot Chicken Pasta

Wow.  Now that I'm nearing the end of this pregnancy, I'm really relying on the crock pot.  But don't get it twisted; I'm not singing its praises.  I'm still not sure how much I love his device.  Still, it makes an easy, hot meal that I don't have to mess around too much with. 

So that's why I decided to give this chicken pasta recipe a try.  It's again from Fix-It and Forget-It, Our Best Slow Cooker Recipes 2010 which claimed that this was a "kid-friendly" meal.  That didn't hurt when choosing it, though of course my son's current pickiness isn't easily quelled by a label. 

Chicken Pasta

1 1/2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large zucchini, diced
1-oz envelope chicken gravy mix
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp evaporated milk or whipping cream
1 large tomato, chopped
4 cups cooked macaroni
8 oz smoked Gouda cheese, shredded

1.  Place chicken in slow cooker.

2.  Add zucchini, gravy mix, and water.  Stir.

3.  Cover and cook on high 1 hour and then on low 4 hours.

4.  Add milk and tomato.  Cover and cook on low 20 minutes more.

5.  Stir in pasta.  Top with cheese.  Serve immediately.

The Verdict:  Reminds me of tuna noodle casserole.  And before you clap your hands in glee that I'm telling you it's a comfort food, let me tell you about tuna noodle casserole.

My mom used to make it about twice a year.  And quite a few times I talked them into letting me watch The Brady Bunch reruns on tuna noodle night.  While the Brady's doled out advice like, "Mom always said, don't play ball in the house!" I would surreptitiously scrape my plate behind the couch because my dog wouldn't eat the stuff.

So when I took my first bite or two and thought of tuna noodle casserole, I knew I'd hate it.  And a few bites more confirmed it.  My son hated it, too.  My husband thought it was fine, but this is the guy who, when we first started dating, told me over the phone he was eating his dinner of cereal and milk powder.  He's come a long way, baby.

I'm not saying you wouldn't like it.  I'll bet it really does have a homey, comfort food appeal to some people.  For me, something about the grittiness of the chicken and the gravy, the creaminess of the the cream and the hot macaroni just doesn't do it for me.  All together, it makes me...want to scrape it behind my couch.  But since I'm the one who'd have to clean it up, I probably won't.  I just won't make it again.

Hearty Alphabet Soup

Since our son is finally getting into eating soup, I wanted to find another recipe for a good and easy one.  This seemed like it might do the trick.  Not only does it get cooked in the crockpot, eliminating slaving over the stove, but it's very few ingredients.  Two of them are chunks of beef and alphabet pasta.  I figured that might be a hit.  This is another recipe from Fix-It and Forget-It, Our Best Slow Cooker Recipes 2010.

Hearty Alphabet Soup

1/2 lb beef stew meat or round steak, cubed
14 1/2-oz can stewed tomatoes
8-oz can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1.25-oz envelope dry onion soup mix
10-oz package frozen vegetables, partially thawed
1/2 cup uncooked alphabet noodles

1.  Combine meat, tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, and soup mix in slow cooked.

2.  Cover and cook on high 1 hour and then on low 4 to 6 hours.  Turn heat to high.

3.  Stir in vegetables and noodles.  Add more water if mixture is too dry and thick.

4.  Cover and cook on high 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

The Verdict:  I wasn't mad about it, but my husband and son liked it a lot.

Honestly, I should have added more water and less pasta.  But I was trying to make it more stew-like.  Don't try that trick; instead, it feels grainy in your mouth.  Yuck.  Other than my own faux pas, the soup was fine.  I don't think that it was rockets and fireworks, but I suppose not every meal needs to be.  Especially when it's alphabet soup.  I can't ever recall anyone going on and on enthusiastically about a bowl of alphabet soup they ate the other day, do you?

My son thought it was pretty great.  And suprisingly, the little guy who hates green stuff was so absorbed in eating meat and spotting letters, he didn't comment at all about vegetables.  I did pick out large and obvious green beans for his serving; otherwise, he happily ate bites with corn, carrots and peas. 

I served it with whole wheat toast.  A bread on the side is a must with this dish.

Apricot Stuffing and Chicken

Time to dig out the old crockpot again.  I've mentioned in a couple of previous posts that I'm looking for easier recipes now that I'm getting ridiculously pregnant and don't want to spend as much time in the kitchen and generally the slow cooker heeds the call.  And where I'm not a giant fan of "cream of dinner", I was kind of excited to try this recipe out as it calls for four...count 'em...four ingredients, none of them being a cream of something soup.  I found this dish from Fix-It and Forget-It, Our Best Slow Cooker Recipes 2010.

Apricot Stuffing and Chicken

6-oz pkg. cornbread stuffing mix
1/2 cup butter, divided
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
6- to 8-oz jar apricot preserves

1.  In a mixing bowl, make stuffing using 4 tbsp butter and amount of water called for in package instructions.

2.  Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces.  Place in bottom of slow cooker.  Spoon stuffing over top.

3.  In microwave or on stovetop, melt remaining 4 tbsp butter with preserves.  Pour over stuffing.

4.  Cover and cook on high 3 hours or cook on high 1 hour and then on low 2 hours or until chicken is tender.

The Verdict:  I think my cat could make this recipe it's so easy, but it's so good you'd never believe it was so stupidly simple.

There's a recipe that I recently posted for creamy chicken and stuffing casserole that's very similar.  It's a bit of an old standby, but I do believe it's been pushed out of the roster by this new recipe.  The combination of cornbread stuffing, sweet apricot preserves, and tender chicken is just awesome.  Just sweet enough without rendering the chicken a sugary mess.  Perfect.

I did run into a conundrum while making the stuffing.  The recipe tells you to make the stuffing as directed on the package, and the package that I used (Pepperidge Farms) called for an additional two ingredients: diced onion and chopped celery.  Zut alors.  This means that my four ingredient recipe would then become a 6 ingredient recipe.  And is that what they meant by following the package directions?  It's rather weird that I'm sometimes so literal as I consider myself to be pretty creative.  So as usual, I suggest you do whatever you want to do.  I added the onions and celery and am very happy that I did.  The stuffing was "let's have seconds" good.

Yes, that's a good way to put it.  Let's have seconds.  In fact, let's make two more crockpots of this concoction and have have thirds.

Creamy Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

My family is currently down for the count.  If you're a regular reader, you might have noticed that I haven't posted for a while.  I am nearly eight months pregnant and dealing with all kinds of musculoskeletal fun and my husband has the flu.  The toddler is a wizard at plastic food preparation, but reminds us all as we delight in his dishes, "Mommy, Daddy, don't weally eat it, it's just patend."  Therefore, we can't count on his Iron Chef abilities.

So I dug into the freezer this week and we ate the frozen lasagna I'd made extra a couple of weeks ago.  I also made the Southwest Cheese & Pasta recipe from months back, which we all love and takes minutes to prepare.  There wasn't much kitchen creativity happening this week.  In fact, my menu planning over the weekend included all recipes that are easy to prepare.  This following recipe for Creamy Chicken & Stuffing Casserole is one of them.  It's a cream of dinner, generally something I hate, but I like this one.  Can't remember where this recipe comes from; I've been making it for a long time now.

Creamy Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

1 pkg (6 oz.) chicken-flavored stuffing mix

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (5-6 oz each), cut into cubes

2 zucchini, cut into ½” pieces

8 oz mushrooms, sliced

1 green pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 can (10.75 oz) reduced-fat cream of chicken soup

1.  Combine stuffing mix (and seasoning packet, if included) with 1/2 cup water until just moistened in a large bowl.  Set aside.

2.  Mix chicken, zucchini, mushrooms, bell pepper, and onion in another large bowl.  Stir in soup.  Transfer half of the chicken-vegetable mixture in a 4-quart or larger slow cooker.  Spoon half of the reserved stuffing on top.  Repeat layers.

3.  Cover.  Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours or on high 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until vegetables are tender.

The Verdict:  As the cook, I love this recipe because it's deliriously easy and quite tasty to boot.  My husband thinks it's pretty good.  The toddler thinks it's rubbish, but will eat the chicken.

My son is driving me crazy with his current dislike of 99% of vegetables.  It's really ironic, as I went out of my way when he was an infant to introduce him to a plethora of foods.  I made them myself and spiced them quite liberally.  By that rationale, he should be a super-foodie, but no. 

Anyway, I love stuffing but we never eat it.  This is a quick way to enjoy it, as well as to eat a bunch of vegetables (if you aren't 2 1/2).  And aside from chopping the vegetables, you can't find a quicker recipe.  This recipe is fantastic for potlucks.

Cream Cheese Chicken

It's another attempt at crockpot cuisine--with a can of soup to boot.  I've had the recipe for a while and I'm not really sure where it came from.  So I figured it was as good a time as any to give it a go.  According to the directions, the dish can be frozen when cooled in a gallon freezer bag. 

Cream Cheese Chicken

1 frying chicken, cut up (or use 3 lbs boneless, skinless breasts)

2 tbsp melted butter

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp (1 package) dry Italian salad dressing

1 can condensed chicken soup

8 oz. cream cheese cut into cubes (low-fat is fine)

1 tbsp onion minced or 1 small shallot, minced

Brush chicken with melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place in a crockpot and sprinkle Italian dressing mix over all.  Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours.  About 45 minutes before done, mix soup, cream cheese, and onion in a small saucepan.  Cook until smooth.  Pour over chicken.  Cover and cook remaining time.

Serve with rice, pasta, or potatoes

The Verdict:  Awesome taste, but if you're feeding a small child, go with the boneless skinless breasts.

Instead of a cut up fryer, I used breasts and whole chicken legs.  Toward the end of the cooking, the moisture of the chicken and the heat of the crockpot cause the "meat just falls off the bone" phenomenon.  This would be great if the bones the meat were falling off were huge--not things like tiny ribs.  In fear of the little one choking (or maybe even one of us big ones), I spent a good 15 minutes picking out the bones and adding the meat back into the crockpot.  That was annoying. 

Other than the bone issue, I am pleasantly surprised to be able to report that this recipe--despite its canned soup and dry dressing--was delicious.  The Italian seasoning is perfect and the sauce that the soup and cream cheese mixed with the juices of the chicken was creamy without being goopy and very tasty.  We really liked it served over mashed potatoes.

Where this is a freezable meal, I think I just might make a batch or two to keep in the freezer for a quick meal.  Well, who woulda thunk I'd give my seal of approval to a "cream of dinner"?  Julia Child would probably roll over in her grave, but for what it is, it was tasty.

Cozy Cabin Casserole

I recently loaded up on cookbooks and cooking magazines at one of my favorite local haunts.  This included the best of 2010 slow-cooker recipes from Fix-It and Forget-It.  When I got it home I was chagrined to learn that there were tons of dishes featuring "cream of" soups.  I can only name a handful of recipes I like that feature canned soup.  Maybe I've catapulted into being a true food snob, but I just feel like "cream of dinner" is a gyp.

But I marched forward, reading through the recipes and dutifully cutting out those that looked appealing.  One of them was this recipe: Cozy Cabin Casserole.  Since round steak is so cheap, it's nice to have recipes on hand that enhance the tough cut.   I opened up my cans and got slow-cookin'.

Cozy Cabin Casserole

1 lb. lean round steak
2.2-oz. envelope dry beefy onion soup mix
10 3/4-oz can cream of mushroom soup
10 3/4-oz can cream of celery soup
1/2 cup sour cream

1. Layer first 4 ingredients in slow cooker.

2. Cover and cook on high for 1 hour and then on low 4 to 6 hours or until meat is tender.

3.  Stir in sour cream 10 minutes before serving.

The Verdict:  Well, there were many thoughts on this dish...

My son liked it just fine.  He saw meat on his plate as well as potatoes.  (I served it with diced potatoes and onions sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with smoked paprika.)  As our son eats like a middle-aged American man, there were no complaints from him.

My husband said that eating this dish was like a "food adventure."  The sauce was "creamy and wet" and the meat was easy to bite into but "oddly dry" as you began to chew it.  The flavor combinations were strange but there was still something about it he liked.

My first impression was, "Well, I believe this is what prison food looks like."  Brownish, glossy, gloppy.  And the flavor combinations were odd.  Sweet?  Savory?  Sour?  In a subsequent serving as leftovers, I learned that I liked scrambling the meat (which fell apart like hamburger) and putting it over the potatoes.  Well, not liked it as in, "Yum, we're eating this again tomorrow night!" liked.  It was better.

Nope.  This won't be made again anytime soon.  And I'm nervous for Fix-It and Forget-It if they're touting this as one of their "best slow-cooker recipes."  Let's just hope I chose the dud.

Slow Cooker Baked Beans

I was very worried about dinner last night. In addition to beans in the slow cooker, we were to have spiced apple chicken sausage. I don't have a problem with baked beans and sausage, but after my toddler's proclamations of "Me no like sausage! Me no like beans!" at dinner last night, I thought we were in for a fight. I had eight hours in which to mentally prepare.


Slow Cooker Baked Beans

1 (16-oz) package dried navy beans
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried mustard
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 lb bacon

1. Rinse and sort beans. In a large saucepan, cover with water 2 inches above beans; let soak for 8 hours. Drain, reserving liquid. Bring beans to a boil in soaking liquid; reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour. Drain beans, reserving liquid.

2. Stir together onion, molasses, ketchup, brown sugar, salt, dry mustard, and pepper. Cut each bacon strip into 3 pieces. Place beans, bacon, and molasses mixture in a slow cooker, and cook on high for 1 hour. Reduce heat to low and cook 8 hours or until beans are tender, adding reserved bean liquid if necessary.

The Verdict: Whatever nasty things I've said about my crock pot in the past, I'll take back because it's an imperative tool to creating these fantastic beans. Oh, and Picky Cookie Monster shoved his father's hand away when he tried to feed him chicken sausage and said, "Me eat my beans. I eat just beans."

When I first put this recipe together, I was nonplussed as to how this pink, watery concoction would magically transform into baked beans. Baked beans are gooey and almost brick red. These beans were sickly pale and swimming in ketchup water. I also didn't think the ingredient amounts were going to cut it for any flavor. But having faith in the adorable Paula Deen, where this recipe originates, I patiently checked on bean progress all day.

I'm glad I did.

They were every bit as tasty, ooey-gooey, and dark caramelized bean and molasses mixture as I remember my mother's baked beans as being. In fact, the recipe says that it makes 6 to 8 servings--or it makes two servings for your husband and son and one big-ass serving for yourself. No, I didn't eat the entire crock. But I could have.

I did find that I used all of the reserved bean liquid. This was slightly annoying as the whole point of crock pot cooking is not having to babysit your food. Perhaps I'll start by using half of the liquid when I turn the temperature down to low the next time I make it. (I know my aunt's recipe calls for 8 cups of water from the get-go.) I'll let you know...because there will definitely be a next time!

By the way, I just hooked up my camera to upload my bean pictures and discovered they weren't there! Wah! I'm not sure what happened and I apologize for the lack of picture.