Do I have 365 days of crock pot cooking in me?
I am a Culinary Institute of America graduate from many years back and I must confess I never cooked anything in a crock pot. Not ever. Unless you have been living off line, you know that crock pot dinners are all the rage online and especially on Pinterest. My boys love to tease me for gawking on Pinterest... "yellow shades of egg yolk" or "Outdoor Storage lockers Painted in Shades of Grey" Or " Hey Mom Pin This!"
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| Dinner In An Instant... Not Really |
So I endeavored to cook something every day in the crock pot. Well, I have a full time job as most of you know, and then after I get my kids off to school I go to my part time job which has a schedule of seven days a week 360 days a year. My father refers to the restaurant as 365 days of slave labor, but actually we take New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day and Christmas off. That being said I cannot begin to fathom blogging or detailing every recipe. My solution to the time crunch will be to chronicle the best of the week. That will give me 52 outstanding crock pot recipes with honorable mentions and white ribbons stamped "certificate of participation" to the failures and near misses. I do realize this makes me somewhat of a crack pot, but it simply gives my husband and my children more material for future sarcastic jabs against me. So I began carting my sexy, sleek black and silver, $40.00 crock pot back and forth from home to work and even out to the beach house for a two day break.
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| Only 3 clams= 1 Cup Chowda' |
Plugged in and ready to cook, the first notable experiment was an all day project. I woke at dawn to forage in Cape Cod Bay for about three dozen chowder clams. The tide waits for no man or crock pot, so dig while the digging is good. Campbell and I raked the dead low eel grass tide line fighting off the mammoth sized crabs and spider crabs. Each scrape of the rake produced a clam and sometimes two. We stuffed the giants into backpacks used for this task since 1974. I kid you not vintage ,sea worn, hand me down, multipurpose ,repurposed backpacks are making a come back on the fashion runways of Europe, and I know where you can find two. On the way back to the beach through the throngs of vacationing tourists we carried only three clams in our hands and when asked by the family from Ohio " how many didya get?" we replied " Not so many left out there these days." in hopes that they would not make the trek to our sweet spot.
The chowder begins by boiling the white and purple bivalves open in a pan from the 1950s used just for this task. The heat steams the clams open and then you can scrape out the muscle. Being a retired surgeon, Campbell has to go one better and remove the abductor muscle from each clam. For this chowder we diced the cooled clams, but when the boys were little we had to grind them with a meat grinder from the 1940s because there is a collection of them on the kitchen counter and inquiring little minds need to know what you do with those silver dragons. Thus creating my all time favorite photo that I would post on Pinterest and they would never know because they won't look there and everyone else on there would go awww he's so cute.
My Chowder Recipe For The Crock Pot
18-24 Quahogs Steamed open and prepared A La Campbell
Reserve the liquid
4 Slices Bacon rendered crispy saved for later
1 Medium Onion diced
3 Stalks Celery diced
2 Medium Chef Potatoes peeled and diced
1 1/2 Cups Half and Half
1 1/2 Cups Heavy Cream
1Cup Reserved Clam Juice
1Tbl. Black Pepper Ground
2Teas. Sea Salt
1 Bay Leaf
Chopped Fresh Thyme and Fresh Parsley
I used my Bed Bath and Beyond 6 quart Crock Pot that ironically had wedding wrapping paper on and was restocked after being returned by a former bride. Did she get two? Did she not want one or know how to cook? Did she call off the wedding?
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| Mmmm, Mmmm Fresh |
In a sautee pan brown the bacon and remove it to a paper towel for garnish later. Sautee your onion and celery in the bacon fat to impart the flavor. Add everything else except for the clams and fresh herbs and bacon to the crock pot. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.... or not* (see below) About 30 minutes before service add the clams and let them come to temperature. Serve the chowda' in cups with crumbled bacon and chopped fresh herbs for garnish.
We left the house for some Cape Cod adventures while our chowder Crocked? Potted? What is the verb for food cooking in a crock pot? Wandering around Welfleet Harbor and poking through a used bookstore looking for summer reading book club books, time wandered off. The natural light on Cape Cod is intoxicating and whether people watching or inspecting the rise and fall of the endless tides, time sails by.
HACKED
Special Bulletin: Warning: Warning: The blog was left on the computer screen and the Husband has stepped to the keyboard. Ok so lets be honest here...I supported the Crock Pot thing but in the
back of my head I am thinking 365 days, I don't think so. But as the norm with guys, I was wrong, again. I can honestly say there has been nothing out of that Crock Pot that I haven't enjoyed. Predictably for me, the sugar addict, it was the blueberry coffee cake out on Cape Cod (She did tell you the Crock travels with us like our 4th kid). Feel free to fire that one up again before the 365 days ends. If that is allowed of course. Love you!! Small children can now safely return to the room.
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| Aforementioned coffee cake from hacker husband |
By the time we returned from the afternoon of leisure which is also known by my staff as my vacation; all 36 hours of it, the crock pot had gone overtime* and the creamy white chowder base was a separated, ugly mess of curds and whey gone way overboard. I frantically surfed the web for interesting help factoids on how to repair my failed cream soup only to find one helpful suggestion to throw it out and start all over. That wisecracking helpful webbie does not know, or has not read that I come from an extremely frugal and penny conscious childhood only to be recreating the same thrifty home environment on overdrive, so throw it out is not in this hoarder's vocabulary. I settled on the tip that suggested I warm some heavy cream in a sautee pan and whisk the offending broken mass into the warm cream a little bit at a time until it comes back together. I was able to achieve success with this hint.
My experience with clam chowder in a crock pot has led me to the one conclusion that it is simpler to just make it in a soup pot on top of the stove and turn it off before you leave the house. A point my mother made to me the minute I announced I was about to make chowder in a crock pot. I have never been one to live by the old adage that mother knows best, because in my home it is my way is the only way simply because I am the Queen Bee.
Hey Mom, Pin this!
Bee El
