1 meaty ham bone roughly 2lbs (leave out for vegetarian)
3 cups peeled diced potatoes
3 cups diced celery (if you are out of celery but have celery seed that’s fine but 1 cup = 1tsp seed)
2 cups diced carrot
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp pepper
8 cups water or ham stock
Instructions:
You may want to clean the peas. If you want to speed up the cook time soak the peas overnight in water.
Chop veggies. Add ham bone with water into slow cooker and set for 4 hrs on high or 8 hrs on low. Add veggies to slow cooker. Add seasoning to slow cooker and stir. Occasionally stir soup. Ready when the peas no longer hold their structure. Pull bone from soup and make sure meat from bone is in bite sized pieces.
Nutrition estimated
1 bowl has roughly 234 calories, 50g carbs, 1g fat, 18.4 protein
This estimate does not include ham content as I was having a hard time finding ham bone w meat info.
Gluten-free, low carb w modifications, dairy free w modifications
Ingredients:
1lbs left over pulled pork
1 1/2 cups of chopped onion
2tsp salt
2 tsp ground coriander
4 tsp ground cumin
6 Tbsp chili powder
4 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 ounce chocolate (leave out for dairy free)
2 cans (28 ounces each) Tomato Sauce
1 can (15.5 ounces) kidney beans rinsed
4 cups beef broth
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp red pepper
4 bay leaves
Instructions:
Thaw leftover pulled pork. I know many of you are screaming left over pulled pork? Just cook so much you can’t finish it and freeze some.
Chop onion, mince garlic, & chop up chocolate.
Rinse kidney beans.
Put everything in a largish slow cooker
Cook on low for 4 hrs.
Take out bat leaves before serving.
For low carb leave out kidney beans and use a very dark chocolate. Tomato is a bit high in carbs so it may still be to high carb for some diets. Decide for yourself.
Nutrition: (I put all the ingredients to a nutrition app so your mileage may very)
Taco bars can fit so many diets by how you dress them. Skip the shell and make it a salad, skip the cheese and sour cream and it’s dairy free, go corn shell instead of flour and it’s gluten-free. This makes a great party food.
Note: these are American tacos not Mexican tacos. They both have their own merits and share some ingredients. I recognize that these bare little to no resemblance to the street tacos many of us love.
6 golden potatoes roughly 3” sized (leave out for low carb)
12 ish baby carrots
1/2 small white onion
Spices: 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp salt
Instructions:
Cut up stew beef into bite sized pieces. (Ours store cuts them into biggish pieces to large for stew/soup)
Brown beef in a skillet. It’ll add a smidge of flavor to the beef and keep it from looking grey when boiled in the broth. (You can skip browning it and it won’t change things a lot).
Dice potatoes into bite sized pieces of roughly equal size. Don’t measure them or anything. If you want this to be lo wish carb leave out the potato.
Dice baby carrots into bite size Pieces of roughly equal size. You could use regular sized carrots but will have to peel them.
Dice onion into bite size pieces of roughly equal size.
Adjust spices based on what you like. Keep in mind some broth/stock has salt and adjust accordingly.
Put everything into a slow cooker and set on high for 4 hrs or low for 6-8 hrs. If you’re home stir it sometimes but you don’t need to. (The benefit of a slow cooker is you set it and walk away).
Rough Nutritional info: (6 servings)
Calories 296, fat 9.6g, carbs 30.9g, protein 22g, iron 10.1%
Modified for low carb: calories 186, fat 9.4g, carbs 4.9g, protein 19g, iron 10.1%
Green onion, tortillas chips, sour cream, and/or bacon bits for garnish
Instructions:
Do all the prep of dicing veggies and cutting up bacon.
I used a Dutch oven but feel free to do it in a large pot or slow cooker. If you use a large pot keep a close eye on it so nothing burns to the edges. (Milk does that)
Cook bacon, when it’s brown, toss the onion in. Cook onion until it’s translucent. Add in carrot & celery and coat it w the bacon grease.
(If you are doing the veg option skip the bacon, melt the butter in the pan, add the onions, cook until translucent, and add in celery + carrots. )
Add in the stock/broth and deglaze the bottom of the pan. This is just making sure you stir in the brown stuff from the bacon that is sticking to the bottom. It gets the tasty bacon in it.
Add milk, heavy cream, salt, & pepper. Know that at this point everything is cooked so it’s fine to taste. But you really wanna heat the milk and cream for awhile. It changes the flavor. Plus, this one is a hot soup.
Add in corn. Frozen, canned, fresh off the cob. Use whatever you have. If you use canned i’d drain them and rinse. We get several dozen ears of corn once a yr and process it so we can have close to fresh corn all yr. it’s a tiring day and I don’t expect everyone to do it but I like having it.
About 15-30 min before you pull the soup off the stove add in potatoes to get hot. If you use fresh potatoes I’d add them right after the corn but I like canned potatoes cause lazy. Canned ones are almost done being cooked cause of the canning process.
Thank you to natashaskitchen.com thechunkychef.com foodandwine.com simplyrecipes.com whose recipes I read to put together what I liked and avoid what I didn’t.
2 or 3 boiled & cubed chicken or ham or leave it out
Frozen peas
1 1/2 cups shredded mixed cheeses
Salt and pepper to taste
Instruction:
Take pre cooked chicken out of freezer and defrost (I precook chicken whenever I buy it because it is cheaper to buy 6-8 chicken breasts than 2-3. I boil it, cube it, divide it into per meal sizes, & freeze it.)
If you don’t have pre cooked chicken feel free to either leave it out or cook some. If you want a vegetarian meal leave out the chicken & use veg broth.
In a large pan melt the 3 tablespoons of butter. Add in the onion and cook until translucent. When butter is melted, & onions are ready, add the rice to the pan. Toast the rice. It will still be hard at this point and that’s as it should be.
Start adding chicken or vegetable broth 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time. stir constantly until you can part the rice and almost no liquid oozes out. Add until the rice is just about done. Add salt and pepper sometime during this slow adding of broth.
When you are adding the last bit of broth add the chicken and peas so they heat. When the liquid is cooked off and the chicken and peas are hot/warm take it off the heat.
(I use peas because they cook fast and easy. If you don’t want peas feel free to leave out or add a different veggie but if using something else you might need to pre cook them.) (you could add cubes of ham, or some other meat product (nothing to greasy) or leave it out all together).
Add the cheese and stir until melted in. Notice I didn’t specify what kind. That’s because it barely matters. Basically if you can shred it you can use it. Probably not great to use goat cheese or feta but I haven’t tried it maybe it’s awesome. Risotto purists say you can’t use pre shredded cheese but I have done this with pre shredded cheddar and Parmesan cheese and was just as happy as when I hand shredded it.
Celery (enough to cover the bottom of your slow cooker)
One onion
Water
5 ish carrots full size or 1 cup baby carrots
1.5 lbs potatoes of your choice (or whatever fits
1-2 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Line the bottom of your slow cooker with celery stalks like a raft
Put the roast on top of celery w the fat cap side up. It is important to get a roast with fat marbled throughout.
Put some water in the bottom. Do not put enough that it is touching the roast. You don’t want to boil the meat. You just want to keep the veg that is touching the sides from burning.
Add seasonings. Do not replace dried garlic w fresh. It will burn and make things gross. If you need a low sodium diet leave off the salt.
Cut carrots and place them around the roast if using baby carrots. If you are using big carrots move this step up and add the carrots as part of the raft. Do not put to many carrots in or you may end up with a very carrot flavored roast.
Cut potatoes to a reasonable and consistent size. If you get russet potatoes you will want to peel them too. Add around the roast.
Cut up one onion and place on top. I’d avoid red onions for this usage.
I have a slow cooker w a probe and cook it on slow until it reaches 165F on low. I know some people like their roast rarer and if that’s you just lower the temp. Cook roast for roughly 6-8 hrs on low or 4-8 on high although a roast cooked on high will probably be tougher and better suited to be turned into stew later. (Psst if you find your roast is tougher than you’d like don’t toss it but turn it into tomorrow’s stew. ;))
Inspired by:
Probably Betty crocker. My mom cooks a lot w Betty Crocker but I wanted to do mine without soup mix so it’s been modified.
*non of the veggies are vegetarian cause they were cooked w the meat.
Gluten free, dairy free, (possible vegan w substitution)
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1.5 tsp/3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup pack dark brown sugar
1/4 cup low sodium gf tamari sauce
2tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp dried ground ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp black pepper
Sliced green onion & sesame seeds to taste
Instant rice
Substitutionoptions:
Impossible beef can used in place of beef to make this vegan/vegetarian.
You can use an equal amount of soy if you are not gf.
Red pepper flakes can be increased or diminished to change heat level.
You can use other types or rice. I’d suggest the most likely change to be brown rice. I want this to be a super quick meal so I use instant but big bags of bulk rice are cheaper.
Instructions:
Brown ground beef in a pan until cooked through.
Mix garlic, brown sugar, tamari, sesame seed oil, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, and pepper.
Add to cooked beef in pan.
Take off heat. Add to rice. Add green pepper and sesame seeds.
