Category Archives: Make It Fast, Cook It Slow

By Stephanie O’Dea

Enchilada Casserole

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One of the things I really like about this blog is when someone tries a recipe out of a book that I’ve cooked from and recommends it to me. So it was with this recipe.

I had originally skipped by this dish when I first browsed through the book. I figured I wouldn’t like it for several reasons, the main one being that the corn tortillas would probably turn to mush and make the whole dish soggy and mushy. And I wasn’t far off the mark. However, it turns out that mushy corn tortillas aren’t half bad.

Basically, this is just layers of enchilada ingredients. You start with a layer of corn tortillas, topped with a layer of rotisserie chicken in canned enchilada sauce. Then you layer on black beans, sliced black olives and cheese. Then repeat two or three times. The whole thing is baked in the slow cooker, on low, for about 4  hours.

The corn tortillas did dissolve, but instead of being mushy, they thickened the dish. The first night it was a little soupy, but on the second and third day, it continued to thicken up. The flavors melded together very nicely and just got better every day.

Thanks, Linda, for the recommendation!

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/01/crockpot-enchilada-casserole-recipe.html

Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole

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Watching this dish cook was sort of like watching an alien egg grow. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. I was skeptical about cooking eggs in the slow cooker, but it seemed to do the job.

You start off by spreading a package of frozen hash browns in the bottom of the slow cooker. O’Dea doesn’t specify frozen or thawed, but as my hash browns were frozen in one big lump, I couldn’t spread them around so much. So I ended up thawing them in the microwave just a bit. Next, you whisk together a whole bunch of eggs with milk, salt and pepper, shredded cheese, diced onion, diced bell pepper and some sort of diced meat. I used ham. This mixture gets poured over the hashbrowns. The whole thing gets cooked for 6 to 8 hours on low, or 3 to 4 hours on high.

I hated this dish. Bryan manfully ate about half of what I put on his plate before he gave up and trashed the rest. The only word I can think of to describe this dish is wet. Don’t get me wrong, everything was cooked, it was just wet. Oh, and bland as well. Okay, there’s two words to describe it.

In an effort to salvage the leftovers, I tried frying them in some olive oil. This helped with the wetness, some, but they were still really, really bland. I kept adding salt, then pepper and finally drowned the whole thing in salsa. At that point, all I could taste was wet salsa. Not pretty.

In reading through the comments left on O’Dea’s blog about this dish, it seems other people had problems with it being wet (but, to be fair, there were a lot of people who really liked the dish). I did end up with a lot of extra liquid floating around the top of my slow cooker, so I soaked it up with paper towels and then cooked the casserole for another 30 minutes or so with the lid off. Also, my hashbrowns were still partly frozen, so that could have been a factor.

If anybody tries it, let me know if you had the same problems I did.

Here’s the recipe on O’Dea’s blog:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/crockpot-hash-brown-breakfast-casserole.html

This is the last recipe out of this cookbook. As Bryan said a few days ago, he’s ready for food that isn’t so soft. I have mixed feelings about Make It Fast, Cook It Slow. The garlic baked potatoes and the cajun turkey breast recipes were really good, and probably my favorite out of the bunch. But there were some real bombs as well. Orange honey tofu, anyone?

Honey and Orange Tofu

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You start off this dish by frying cubes of cornstarch-tossed tofu in butter. Once the tofu develops a bit of a crust, you put it in the slow cooker, then pour in a sauce made of orange juice, soy sauce, garlic and honey. Then you top everything off with broccoli florets and cook it, on low, for 3 to 5 hours.

When I took the lid off my slow cooker 3 hours after starting this dish, I was greeted by gray broccoli and chewy tofu in a tasteless, congealed sauce. I’m still agoggle at how a dish made from such flavorful ingredients (okay, maybe not the tofu but orange juice! soy sauce! garlic!) could turn out so, so wrong. I dumped the entire dish into the trash and made some frozen garlic chicken pasta from a store that rhymes with “bostco.”

Just thinking about this dish makes me want to gag a little bit.

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/04/crockpot-honey-and-orange-tofu-recipe.html

Cajun Roasted Turkey Breast

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I love cooking turkey breasts. With only two of us in the house, a full turkey is too much; we get tired of eating turkey long before we run out. A breast is just the right size. We get a couple of suppers from the meat, plus a few days of sandwiches. So this recipe was one of the first that I marked.

You start by taking a 3- to 4-pound turkey breast (O’Dea never specifies that the meat should be thawed, but I thawed mine in the fridge for a couple of days), rub it with seasonings and then cook the meat in the slow cooker for 6 to 8 hours on low, or 4 to 5 hours on high. In this particular case, O’Dea uses a mix of cajun spices, but just about any combination of spices is going to work here. I found the cajun spices added a little heat to the turkey, which was a nice change from regular roasted turkeys.

Once the turkey was done, I made a gravy from the liquid in the slow cooker. The meat was moist enough that it didn’t need the gravy, but turkey leftovers always seem to be a bit dry, so I wanted to have the gravy on hand.

Here’s the recipe from O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/06/cajun-roasted-turkey-breast-crockpot.html

Brown Sugar Chicken

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Who can resist a recipe nicknamed candy chicken? Add a vegetable and it’s like having your dessert built right in.

So, brown sugar chicken. It’s pretty much what it sounds like. You slow cook chicken thighs (I used skinless, boneless frozen thighs) in a mixture of brown sugar, garlic, soy sauce, white wine vinegar and lemon-lime soda.

Why the soda? I have no idea; I didn’t taste it in the final product and suspect you could easily leave it out or substitute something less sugary.

This dish really couldn’t be easier. I didn’t even bother to thaw out the chicken thighs. I just chucked everything in the slow cooker and let it go. Six or so hours later, I had chicken that was so tender it shredded at the slightest touch. The sauce was sweet, but vinegary.

Before I made this dish, I read through the comments left by other readers and made some changes. First of all, I cut the brown sugar by a third. The original recipe uses 1 full cup, but some readers said the dish was too sweet. I used about 2/3 of a cup of brown sugar. I also threw in some red pepper flakes for some heat. As the chicken neared the done stage, I mixed some cornstarch (roughly 3 teaspoons) with a bit of cold water and added that to the pot to thicken the liquid up a bit. And finally, I added carrots to the pot about midway through the cooking time.

We ate this over brown rice and had leftovers the next day. The dish improved overnight, and I found myself wishing I had more leftovers.

Here’s the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/crockpot-brown-sugar-chicken-recipe.html

Fish with Pesto

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So, I apparently didn’t take any pictures of this fish dish. But I’m sure you can imagine it. White fish with green stuff smeared across the top.

Once again, I used mahi mahi, but unlike the parmesan fish dish, I defrosted the mahi mahi before cooking it. I ended up with a lot less liquid, and the pesto pretty much stayed on top of the fish. It tasted okay. Honestly, I think using the same concept and roasting or grilling the fish is the way to go.

Here’s the recipe from O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/09/crockpot-fillet-of-sole-with-pesto.html

Roasted Cabbage and Potatoes

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These smelled yummy as they were cooking, but the final product was just okay. For me, these veggies were an excuse to consume massive amounts of sour cream.

It wasn’t pretty.

The dish is pretty simple. You cut a small green cabbage into wedges and toss it with chunked potatoes, garlic, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. The lot gets slow cooked until the potatoes are tender, which in my slow cooker took about 6 hours on low.

The vinegar flavor didn’t really come through, so if you like vinegar, I’d up the amount. Also, I wouldn’t core the cabbage wedges as my wedges fell completely apart. I ended up fishing out bits of cabbage from the potatoes.

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/03/roasted-cabbage-and-potatoes-in.html

Stuffed Peppers

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We had mixed reviews on this dish. I really liked it, but Bryan didn’t. He thought it was bland and kinda boring. I added a lot of salt and pepper to mine and thought it was quite tasty.

You take ground turkey and mix it with some cooked rice, onion, fire-roasted tomatoes, worcestershire sauce, ketchup and pepper and then stuff 6 bell peppers with the mixture. Those peppers then slow cook for three to four hours on high or six to eight hours on low. One thing I thought was odd was the recipe didn’t call for any salt. And it desperately needs salt. And more pepper. My mixture only stuffed five peppers, but then I could only fit five peppers in my crockpot, so I guess it was all good.

Note: In reading other people’s reviews of this dish, many of them said that they used uncooked rice and it came out just fine. I wish I had read these review first, because my peppers released a lot of liquid and made everything very watery. I suspect that using uncooked rice will help soak up this excess liquid.

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/05/crockpot-stuffed-pepper-recipe.html

Parmesan Tilapia

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No pictures of this dish because, although it was tasty, it was ugly. White fish with white sauce on white rice? Nope, not happening.

O’Dea says that even people who don’t like fish will like this recipe. I believe her. You begin by mixing mayonnaise, shredded parmesan cheese, garlic, lemon juice and salt and pepper together. Then you slather this mixture over tilapia fillets. I used mahi mahi (because that is what I had in the freezer), and I liked the thicker pieces of fish. The fish fillets are then wrapped in tinfoil and cooked on low for three to four hours.

O’Dea doesn’t specify whether or not the fish was to be thawed. I took a chance and used the fish straight out of the freezer, and that was probably a mistake. My fish released a lot of water and really watered down the sauce. It was still good, but it didn’t really stick to the fish. I plan on making this again, but I’ll use thawed fish fillets, not frozen. Also, the sauce was really lemony. That wasn’t a problem for us, but if you like just a little lemon with your fish (as opposed to a little fish with your lemon), I’d cut down on the lemon juice a bit.

Here’s the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/02/foil-packet-tilapia-crockpot-recipe.html.

Garlic Baked Potatoes

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So when I told Bryan that I was making baked potatoes in the slow cooker, he laughed at me. I was a little skeptical myself, because, come on, baked potatoes in the slow cooker? Why not just microwave them?

I’m still not convinced that just baking potatoes in a slow cooker is the easiest way to go, but I gotta say, these potatoes were fantastic! They were garlicky, smoky and moist, not the least bit dry. And any excuse I have for eating tons of sour cream is a big hit with me.

You start off by cutting the potatoes almost all the way through, about every inch. Into those cuts, you put thin slices of garlic. Salt, pepper, olive oil and butter are sprinkled and poured on the potatoes. Then, slow cook the spuds until tender. In my slow cooker, that took about 4 hours.

Baked potatoes. Slow cooker. Who woulda thought?

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/05/crockpot-garlic-baked-potatoes.html