Kick Back with a Slow Cooker!
The best thing about a slow-cooker meal is that you don’t have to cook. Maybe a little blitzing in the blender, a little searing, but the slow cooker does most of the work. And since January is National Slow Cooking Month, we thought we’d bring you a month’s worth of comforting, crowd-pleasing recipes to try!
Number2Pencil.com’s Chicken Burrito Bowl has officially gone viral. With almost 600,000 downloads to date, this creative combo can be served naked or wrapped in tortillas, with a dollop of guacamole!
Even if you’re not a vegetarian, this meatless chili from the Food Network sounds good enough for meat lovers to eat! With couscous, cilantro, and four kinds of beans, every serving is low-fat, protein packed and if you like cheese, topped with Monterey Jack!
Because red wine makes everything better (just ask Peter Clemenza, The Godfather’s right hand hitman), we like Country Living’s beef stew. Using thyme, Dijon mustard, lotsa garlic, and one cup (more or less) of dry red wine in your slow cooker does the trick. Of course, you don’t HAVE to use a pot roast for stew meat, but it does taste great!
Gumbo’s always good in the winter and Tammilee Tillson’s blog has an easy slow cooker recipe has optional hot serrano, habanero or scotch bonnet peppers, depending on your threshold of tolerance for spicy. With smoked sausage, shrimp and chicken, it’s guaranteed to expose your inner Cajun!
Damn Delicious has a slow cooker Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Potatoes recipe that’s easy if you overlook searing bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs first. You could probably skip that and just get skinned and boneless, but Chungah Rhee swears by the former for flavor. Your choice. Don’t miss her Chicken and Corn Chowder – looks equally delish.
Even More Slow-Cooker Recipes
Delish.com, that Hearst Communications phenom, tests thousands of recipes, menus, shortcuts and meal ideas, and here are a few slow cooker recipes that made our mouths water!
For comfort food with fiber try the Chili Mac n’ Cheese with ground beef, kidney beans, fusilli pasta, Monterey Jack and Cheddar (and a few other ingredients). Yum.
Pretend you’re the Barefoot Contessa and you can pull off this Porchetta with Green Beans – a super simple Italian pork roast in the slow cooker, with rosemary, fennel seeds and garlic.
Or sleep in a little later tomorrow by prepping Cincyshopper.com’s breakfast casserole in your slow cooker with hash browns, peppers, cheese, bacon and eggs, TONIGHT!
For a low-carb alternative, 365DaysofCrockpot.com has this breakfast casserole with sausage, eggs, cheese plus cauliflower, mushrooms and leeks.
And finally, for a sweet breakfast, IcanCookThat.org brings you Slow Cooker Apple French Toast with Nutella and caramelized bananas. Pretty tempting!
Crystal Valley in Castle Rock
A different kind of temptation awaits you in the master-planned community of Crystal Valley, just minutes away from all the attractions of Castle Rock. Featuring ranch and two-story models, the newest floor plans by Richmond American Homes are priced from the $300s.
