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Mondays will suck this semester. Long long long day - 6 straight hours of class, with only 10 minute breaks inbetween. But, I soldier forth in the academic frey!! My classes seem interesting, although one of my TA's is kind of iffy - he conducted the entire class without actuallying giving us the assignment criteria sheet and was acting like we
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What kind of squashes did you get? Butternut squash and apple squash you can roast to yummy goodness. Cut open, drizzle a bit of oil and salt, roast till caramelized. You can either eat the roasted version directly, some people dare to commit sacrilege and add sugar/honey on top of that, some hardworking people used the roasted version to make creamy butternut squash soup.
Slow cooker whoo! Great for stews, soups, and cooking delicious, delicious meat. Meeeeeaaaaaat. Just chuck everything into the slow cooker and it does the work for you.
Oh, here's a recipe! You can either do this in the slow cooker or in a pot. If pot, best to soak the beans a couple of hours until they plump up, or you can just add the couple of hours to the boiling/simmering time. Y' know. If you want the house to be warm.
Soup!
Navy/white beans (a few handfuls, preferably pre-soaked)
Brown rice (has fiber! You can go with white, I suppose)
Chicken stock / Water + chicken bouillion
Onions / garlic
Potatoes/ miscellaneous vegetables
Put first four items in pot and boil! Last item(s) can be added later when the beans & rice have plumped out a bit (add them too early and they'll be mushy by the time it's done. Which I actually like. But others don't. Oh well). Season to preference. Optional: add milk/buttermilk near end to make creamier. To thicken the soup: take a bit of the stock, let it cool, add a spoonful of flour, mix it up, then return to pot.
Foooooood!
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I got a spaghetti squash and an acorn squash. They come with recipies, which mostly say: cut in half, bake upside down till squishy.
Everyone says you can just toss meat into the slow cooker, but there are so many different recipies! Add some water, fill with water, no water - I never know what to do! And the soup recipe - how long do I soak the beans? how much rice? How much liquid?
COOKING IS HARD
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Just remember with a slow cooker, you'll end up with more liquid than you start out with, because of long cook time and condensation and stuff. So depending on how much liquid you want to end up with, use that as a guide on how much to start with. No liquid if you want nary but slight gravy/sauce at the end, some liquid if you want it like a stew or chilli, more liquid if you want a soup.
So, for the beans! Basically, when you buy dried/bulk beans from the store, you'll notice they're hard and a bit wrinkled from dehydration. Soaking them hydrates them, and you can see the plump difference. If you're getting beans from a can, I'm assuming they're already hydrated and don't need pre-soaking (but get fresh! Avoid things in cans! ;) ). Different beans need different pre-soaking times, so the failsafe guide is always "soak overnight," but honestly you don't need that long for these. Prolly a couple of hours. You could soak 'em in the morning, then cook with 'em for dinner.
(Note: all this pre-soaking biz won't matter if you're using a slow-cooker, obviously.)
Amount of rice = how much you want to eat. Some people like a lot of rice/starch in their soup, some don't, so I don't know how much you like rice. You can substitute it for potatoes if you like. Let's say half as much rice as beans? Once you've gotten the hang of the soup, you can adjust according to how much you like eating a particular ingredient. :)
Also, since this is a soup, plenty of liquid! Um, start with maybe a finger's length of liquid from the top of the ingredients in the pot? Adjust accordingly when you taste and season later on.
Sorry that this sounds all vague. I will try and post more cooking tips and general guidelines to help! :)
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