Slow cooker beef stew

To make the best use of a weekend, we like to use the slow cooker.  Chopping vegetables at the same time as breakfast, means that there is only one lot of clearing away.

Today we had a tasty beef stew from Denim and Dots.  Adding mashed sweet potatoes and an extra vegetable took only 10 minutes, so it was quick to get everyone to the table to eat.

Coconut Curry Pork

Tonight we had coconut curry pork from Kelly's Paleo Challenge- an ideal meal for a weekend, as you can put it into the slowcooker after breakfast and only have to come back in time to prepare some vegetables.

This time we just used a one kilo piece of pork sholuder from Aldi, but in the past we have had large joints from Tesco.  With a large joint, I double the sauce but when bagging it up after cooking,  I keep the meat and sauce seperate.  I shred the pork after cooking, and any meat left after the meal is either frozen in meal size bags, or kept for salads.

[Edit - the original blog that this recipe came from has been taken down, so I will try to load my recipe here]

Paleo chilli

We went to Ikea today.  The breakfast is quite an acceptable choice.  There is bacon, egg, tomato - good; sausage OKish; beans and hash browns - not so good. There was also the option of having a portion of mushrooms for 25p.  In fact, because they have just put up the price of the set meal from 99p to £1.50, for a couple of weeks the 6 piece breakfast is free on a Family card, so we only paid for the mushrooms!

Unfortunately, it was hard to find a suitable lunch.  Salmon and spinach lasagne, fish and chips, and mushroom pancakes were some of the options.  We decided the the meatballs were probably a semi-safe choice.  Having refused the potato with them, we had the side order of peas included in the price, and there were certainly plenty of meatballs.

Dinner tonight was Spicy pineapple chilli from Civilised Caveman. We have had to 'anglicise' this, as I don't know if we can buy fire roasted tomatoes, but I just replace them with another tin of tomatoes.  You can cook it in the slow cooker as well. The first time we had this, the spice level was fine, but the last time my son complained on facebook that I was trying to kill him as it was so spicy.  I can only assume that the first time the chilli was from a spice jar from the supermarket, and since then we have being using a 'bulk bag' which is stronger.  I reduced the chilli by half again, but he still only ate about a quarter.  Try again next time!

Slow cooker chicken in a quick cooker!

As we didn't know whether my sister-in-law would be staying over after the family celebrations, we had a planned a chicken casserole for 6 that could be cooked in the slowcooker.  A few weeks ago, Lidl had a promotion on large packets of meat, and I had got a pork joint, a beef joint and 1 kilo packet of chicken breasts.  However, as the slowcooker had been used for sweet potatoes and not washed, this didn't happen.  It got to 5.30pm and we still hadn't started dinner.

As we had all the ingredients for the chicken casserole ready, it was best to make it, but obviously it needed some changes for the oven rather than the slowcooker.

It was honey, apricot and raisin chicken, which has allspice in which made the chicken black and slightly spicy on the outside.  I added about three times the suggested water and chopped the chicken into chunks, so it cooked in about 45 minutes.  We also didn't use the cornflour as that seemed unnecessary.

Very tasty and we will try it again, next time in the slowcooker.

Honey Apricot and Raisin Chicken
Serves 6

6 (6-oz.) boneless skinless chicken breast halves
2 teaspoons ground allspice
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup honey
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/3 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water

In a large zipper-topped plastic bag, combine chicken with allspice, garlic, salt and pepper; seal bag and shake well to coat chicken. Place chicken in a crock cooker; add onion, apricots and raisins. In a small bowl, whisk together honey, vinegar and broth; add to the crock cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or until chicken is tender and cooked through. In a cup, combine cornstarch and water; stir into crock cooker. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Feeding visitors!

Tuesday 1 January 2013

We start our food diary on a challenging day with a houseful of guests!

We have been following a primal/paleo diet since the summer, which has mainly meant reducing the amount of sugar that the boys eat and ensuring that we all eat a paleo/primal meal together in the evening.

My husband's family get together  for New Year, sometimes just for the day if New Year is mid week and sometimes for longer, if New Year falls on the weekend.   This year various members of the family had to work both New Year's Eve and 2nd January, we could only meet up for the day.  As they are spread between Kent and Devon, our house was felt to be half way.

Traditionally we would have gone out for a meal, but as it is 14 miles to a suitable restaurant, that would have taken out a lot of time from a short day, so we decided that it would be better to feed everyone here.  This meant that we could 'control' what was offered and worked out the easiest way to prepare it.

We choose to have pork cooked in the slow cooker - honey, ginger, apple shredded pork as this could be cooked overnight honey, ginger, apple, shredded pork and sweet potatoes as suggested by Sarah from Everyday Paleo

We had to choose puddings that would be acceptable for both us, as well as our visitors that would normally eat a large amount of sugar.  So we choose chocolate mousse from Everyday Paleo  and apple crumble using tinned apple from Liesel at Home

I think that on the whole our visitors did enjoy the meal.  The mousse was quite rich, and the crumble had a texture that was unusual to those were use to a flour/oat mixture.  The one who was not impressed was our nephew who only seemed to eat white bread (brought specially) and tomato ketchup!