Slow Cooker Pinto Bean & Chorizo Stew

Pinto beans and chorizo? Yes please! My recipe is mostly based on this one from AllRecipes.com, but as usual, I had to adapt it to work with ingredients that can be purchased easily in the UK. For example, I had to figure out what "ranch style beans" were, and add the spices mentioned in this recipe to my stew. This is a very tasty, rich stew. Try it!


Slow Cooker Pinto Bean & Chorizo Stew


Serves: 4 - 6
Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Evidently, I forgot to photograph my ingredients
before I emptied the pinto bean cans.

Cooking Time: 5 - 7 hours on High, 9 - 10 on Low


Ingredients


2 slices of bacon, or 2 tablespoons of bacon powder
3 (300g) cans of pinto beans 
1 chorizo sausage, chopped
1 (500g) carton of passata
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of cider vinegar
2 tablespoons of pickled jalapeno peppers
2 tablespoons of white sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of paprika
2 teaspoons of crushed red chilli flakes
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
1 green pepper, chopped
4 spring onions, chopped


Directions


1. Unless you have an awesome fiancé who happened to make bacon powder a couple of days prior to you cooking this meal, you'll need to fry the bacon in a frying pan or skillet until evenly browned. Let it cool, then crumble the bacon. 
2. Drain and rinse pinto beans and place in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add the all of the rest of ingredients, except the green pepper and spring onion, and mix together.

3. If the passata doesn't completely cover the ingredients, fill one of the pinto bean cans with water and add to the slow cooker. Then stir everything together and cook on High for 5 - 7 hours or on Low for 9 - 10 hours.

4. About five minutes before serving, stir in the green pepper and spring onions. 

5. Serve on top of warm flour tortillas.

— Rachel

Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Either I was a deprived child, or chicken pot pie simply isn't popular in the UK. I'd heard of it several times in American novels, but up until I stumbled across this recipe on Stephanie O'Dea's blog, I hadn't been able to find a recipe that appealed to me. In fact, the first chicken pot pie recipe I found was in a Debbie Macomber novel and featured canned chicken, which did not appeal to me in the slightest.


I'm glad I wasn't put off by the ingredients in the original recipe as my version turned out really well. I've made it twice so far and it's definitely becoming a family favourite.


Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie


Serves: 4 - 6
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 3 - 5 hours on High or 6 - 7 on Low

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts, chopped into chunks
1 cup of peeled, chopped carrots (or approx. three medium sized carrots)
1 (326g) can of sweetcorn
1 cup of frozen peas (or fill the empty sweetcorn can with peas to get approx. 1 cup)
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
1 teaspoon of celery seed
1 onion, chopped (we prefer red onions)
2 cans of Bachelor's Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup (MUST be condensed)
A couple of tablespoons of milk (to add to the cans of soup and squish around to get the dregs of the soup out as condensed soup is pretty stodgy and sticks to the can)


Directions
1. Preheat slow cooker. Chop up (and peel, where necessary) chicken, carrots and onion.
2. Add chicken to slow cooker, then add all of the vegetables and herbs.

As you can see, we chose to add brussell sprouts to ours.
Also, while the red onion gives the pie a good colour at this stage,
it loses its colour in the cooking process. 

3. Add soup and stir well until everything is covered with the soup. Don't worry of the soup looks thick to begin with, it'll thin out during the cooking process.

Yum. Appetising? Not so much at this stage.

We topped ours with biscuit, which may be unfamiliar to British readers. It's hard to describe, but basically came out as a mixture between scone and bread in this recipe. I used this recipe to make my biscuits topping, but altered it slightly as I found the milk made it too watery. You may choose to top your pie with mashed potatoes or pastry, but I do recommend trying it with biscuit. It's worth the work.


Biscuit Topping Ingredients
2 cups (250g) of plain (all-purpose) flour

1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of white (granulated) sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup (70g) of margarine
3/4 cup (180ml) of milk


Biscuit Topping Directions


1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
2. Cut the margarine into the mixture until it resembles coarse meal.
3. Gradually stir in the milk until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.


And now, back to our original chicken pot pie instructions...


4. Spread the biscuit dough on top of the pie as best you can, attempting to cover as much of the contents as possible.

I love how a random pea somehow escaped
and made on to the top of the  biscuit topping.

5. Cook on High for 3 - 5 hours or on Low for 6 - 7. Because of the topping, this recipe is impossible to add to or adjust while it's cooking, although I would occasionally lift the lid to check on how the biscuit mixture was cooking and spot some soup bubbling up the sides.


Suggested Variations:

- Add 10 brussell sprouts with the ends chopped off
- Add 1/2 cup of white wine

— Rachel

Slow Cooker Taco Soup

I've been intrigued with the idea of Taco Soup ever since I came across this recipe a few months back. As far as I know, this isn't a meal typically served in Britain, even in Mexican restaurants. So when I decided to start using our slow cooker more at the start of this year, I christened this adventure by attempting my very first Taco Soup. 

Stephanie O'Dea's recipe calls for packets of taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix, neither of which you can buy easily in British supermarkets, but thankfully the internet was able to tell me what spices and herbs these packets normally contain. 

To be honest, I should really have started out my slow cooking adventure with a recipe I could follow step by step, but my take on Taco Soup ended up being a massive hit. I made a slightly larger version of this (more mince and sweetcorn) for a group of friends, and a smaller one (only one can of each type of bean) for my parents and brother, as their slow cooker is much smaller than ours. 

Slow Cooker Taco Soup

Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 20 - 30 minutes
Cook Time: 3 - 5 hours on High, or 6 - 7 on Low

Ingredients

The picture above is from the time I added extra
ingredients to feed seven hungry students,
so there's an extra can of corn. Fresh
ingredients not pictured!

2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
3 bird's eye chillies, chopped
1 (400g) pack of minced beef
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes
2 teaspoon dried chives
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
1 teaspoon celery seed
a few sprigs of fresh parsley, chopped
2 (410g) cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 (300g) cans of pinto beans, drained and rinsed
2 (400g) cans of chopped tomatoes
1 (326g) can of sweetcorn
1 can of cold water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat slow cooker. Fry the chopped garlic, onion and chillies in oil until they start to brown. Add the mince and cook until completely brown. 

2. Add mince mixture to slow cooker. Sprinkle all of the spices and herbs on top of the mince mixture, including salt and pepper.

3. Drain and rinse all of the beans using a sieve and place in the slow cooker. Add the entire contents of the tomato and corn cans. Fill one of the cans with cold tap water and add to mixture. Then add balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.

4. Stir contents of slow cooker until mixed through evenly.

5. Cook for 3 - 5 hours on High or 6 - 7 on Low.

6. Serve topped with grated mozzarella cheese, sour cream, guacamole and tortilla chips. Use the tortilla chips as scoops/spoons and eat with your fingers!

Suggested Variations

- Make this veggie-friendly by not using mince and adding more beans or corn. The beans and sweetcorn make this a fairly substantial meal anyway, so the mince isn't entirely necessary.

- Substitute fresh or dried herbs wherever is easiest for you. We happen to have a parsley plant in our house so that's what we used, but dried parsley would work fine as well.

- If you're not fond of heat, reduce the amount of chillies and chilli flakes used. We're used to hot food in our house and honestly didn't think this had any heat to it, but that's just us. 
- Substitute haricot or cannellini beans if unable to find pinto beans in your local supermarket. Haricot works best as a substitute but cannellini isn't too different. The second time we made this I tried to only buy ingredients at Aldi and Tesco and neither of them stock pinto beans so I had to experiment to see what I could use instead.


— Rachel