Crock-Pot Chowder For Busy Days

I have mixed feelings about my crock pot. Sometimes I absolutely love it; sometimes I hate it. The love part comes in when I know I have a busy day ahead and won't feel up to dealing with dinner. That's when it's good to toss a bunch of odds and ends into its great abyss, set the cover in place, and turn it on to do its thing while being ignored by me.

The hate part comes about because after a while everything begins to taste the same. That's when I relegate the vessel to the large cupboard that sits on my back porch. It's been residing there nearly two years now.

But then the rain rolled in and decided to stay. I wanted soup, but figured I wouldn't feel like going to all the trouble at the end of the day and began thinking of a way I could indulge my senses without having to spend much time in the kitchen. It was then that the light came on. Crock pot something. So I brought the unwieldy appliance into the house, cleaned it all up, and set about throwing things into it that I thought might go together. Nobody was more surprised than I was that the resultant chowder actually tasted great.

Next time you want dinner without much work, give this recipe a try. Let me know if it works for you. I want to warn you in advance that this soup isn't the prettiest one on the block. But it sure tastes great. Happy Slurping!

CORN, BEAN, & COLLARD CHOWDER

Place into the crock pot:

2 cups of frozen corn

1 can of any favorite bean, undrained

1/2 cup diced onion

1 diced Anaheim chili or chili of your choice

1 medium potato, peeled and diced

1 cup frozen collard greens

1 cup soy milk

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup of quinoa, millet, amaranth, or grain of choice

1 Tbs. poultry seasoning
2 garlic cloves, minced

Few drops of your favorite hot sauce

2 Tbs. agave nectar

Salt and pepper to taste

Turn the crock pot to low and ignore it until you get hungry. I served this tummy-filling chowder with biscuits, but any bread of choice will be good for sopping up the last bits of juice. Serves 4

Happy Slurping!

Buttercup Squash

Buttercup Squash is a boxy, squat, dark green, solid looking vegetable. But it's light. (This one was anyway, maybe some are heavier, maybe it depends on what kind of a rain year we are having.) I didn't get a picture of it before I cut it in half, sorry. You can see from the pictures below that the flesh is not thick. So when I cut this Buttercup in half and dug out the seeds, it presented me with two bowls. What should I do with these two bowls?

This is what I did. I looked around, in the pantry, in the refrigerator, in the fruit bowl. I checked my spices. I was determined to go savory, not sweet. I didn't want the maple syrup/ brown sugar and butter squash of my past. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

A drizzle of Olive Oil in each pumpkin bowl (1 Tablespoon each)

Followed by a generous shake of salt, pepper and cinnamon.

I had a small package of chili pepper that comes with pizza when it's delivered and divided it between the bowls.

I chopped up 4 small apples - about 3 cups and about 1/2 cup of walnuts and stirred them together before spooning them into the squash halves. 

Cover with aluminum foil and put into the oven for 30 minutes.

Then uncover for the remaining 30 minutes. 

So Pretty.

YUM

You could use pears instead of apples. You could add celery, onion or cranberries. You could change the spices. It's a dish the lends itself to experimentation. 

To take advantage of the oven heat, I also roasted 2 head of garlic at the same time and served them alongside the squash. It was a very nice compliment to the natural subtle sweetness of the squash.