Roasting garlic in the oven is easy, but using a slow cooker is good for large batches if you don’t have the time to “babysit” it. Also, it’s much more forgiving and won’t burn as easily as it does in the oven. Roasted garlic is such a versatile, flavor-boosting...
In my hunt for a respectable grain-free tortilla, I mostly found glorified crepes and thin, flat omelets. I wanted a tortilla with a more substantial texture, one with some bite—more like a regular tortilla. After tinkering with some alternative flours and eggs, I...
Here’s a side dish that would be great as a potluck offering or as part of a holiday meal in order to free up some precious stove space. These sweet carrots make great baby food, too. My youngest ate these nearly every day for a week, and I was glad to have something...
One of my favorite ways to eat beets is roasted and finished with a vinaigrette. I used the components of a lemon-Dijon dressing to flavor the beets as they cooked, resulting in tangy, mustardy, tender fuchsia bites. These would make a great winter side dish,...
I have never been very excited about traditional shepherd’s pie, so I decided to make a spunkier version with some Spanish influence—spicy chorizo, piquillo peppers, and saffron-scented sweet potatoes with a hint of orange. It all blends together beautifully, and it...
The benefit of using a slow cooker for sloppy joes is its portability (potlucks!) and the ease of keeping food warm. Eating sloppy joes paleo-style with a couple of lettuce leaves gives “sloppy” a whole new meaning. We’ve branched out into making sloppy joe salads...
This recipe won the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission’s Blogger Recipe Contest (Kid-Friendly Category) several years ago! I created it with my two daughters, who were about two and four years old at the time. They loved assembling their own packets. These would...
Here’s another take on tender shredded beef. I guess you could say it’s a knockoff of the barbacoa beef served at the Chipotle Mexican Grill, a popular restaurant in North America and some parts of Europe. It’s spicy, but not too spicy, and the herbs and spices give...
The first time I had beef short ribs, they were prepared in a manner similar to this. These deep Asian flavors mixed with the spicy, cool bite from the slaw is still my favorite way to eat them. If your short ribs aren’t so meaty, throw in a couple of extra ribs so...
I’ve always loved stuffed peppers. I made them several times when my husband and I were first married, but it wasn’t until around year five that Steve admitted he doesn’t like cooked peppers. I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed that he didn’t tell me sooner or touched...
Wrapping a drumstick in prosciutto is a great technique—it’s as if the drumstick is getting a big, salty hug. The butternut squash below gets basted by prosciutto-spiked chicken juices. There’s some serious flavor sharing going on in this slow cooker. I don’t usually...
Every slow-cooking repertoire needs a good shredded BBQ chicken recipe—and this is mine. I love the addition of fresh, sweet pineapple and how it mingles perfectly with the tart, smoky Balsamic BBQ Sauce. Making barbecue sauce from scratch is incredibly easy, and a...