Crock Pot Recipes

Sounds terrific! Awaiting your report on the finished result, too, ehBeth.
I might give this one a go, too. (When the weather's a bit cooler, though.)

One question, if I may? "Garden cocktail" is a fruit/veg juice?

Garden cocktail's a veg juice, primarily tomato. I just learned from wiki that it's made in the U.S., but sold only in Canada.

I was downstairs looking at the shelves, trying to figure out what needed to be used and would work with chicken/bean/veggie stew.

good stuff, i use that or the v8 low sodium in the little cans if they're on sale

Thanks, ehBeth.
Do you think the same quantity of a good commercial tomato puree could be a reasonable substitute? Or better to stick to a similar type of juice?

I used the Garden Cocktail because of the mixture of veggies and spices already in there. You could use straight tomato juice (is that what you mean by puree?), but you'd have to add more herbs/spices.

Right, gotcha, ehBeth. Thanks.
I'll see what I can find along similar lines.

I'm quite curious to find out how this will be tonight once the black-eyed peas have finished cooking. The rest of it was already quite tasty last night.

I'm still eating the spaghetti sauce I made over the weekend in the crock pot. I'm looking to change up the recipe but here's what I use (quantities are eyeballed so:

Ground Beef
Italian Sausage
Onion
Garlic
Oregano
Basil
Black Pepper
Black Olives
Mushrooms
Bit of honey
Tomato Paste
Diced Tomatoes
Tomato Sauce
Dried Tomatoes
Olive Oil

I use those ingredients and cook for about 4 hours in a crockpot, when I use fresh tomatoes I like to do it all night. This has been my favorite food all my life, and is pretty much the only thing I go out of my way to cook well (I don't tend to cook much). When I make it I make a crockpot full and eat it till it's gone.

The Girl doesn't like ground beef (and blames Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall music video for ruining it for her) so I'd like any help I can get to convert it into a meatball sauce. The problem I have with that concept is that the meat provides a lot of the taste, and I generally sauté the meats with the olive oil, garlic and onions. I don't know how I can get that juice out of meatballs and I can't imagine the sauce being good without all that juice from sautéing the meat with the olive oil and spices.

I'd also like to experiment with bacon in the sauce, and wonder if anyone has tried that and has any tips.

I'm in a quandary re this, in that most meatball recipes seem to have the meatballs be made and cooked separately and then put in a tomato sauce for, say, ten minutes -- in the few recipes I just looked up. (I'm lazy re making meatballs.)

But it looks like you're interested in a slow cooked sauce, which a typical Bolognese sauce is - they can be cooked for hours at slow simmer.

And the only bolognese I make is Marcella Hazan's, since I like it. Takes a long time though fairly simple, involves cooking meat in some milk, a wine reduction (I forget in which order, which is probably important, then adding tomatoes, bla bla, and cooking that at mere simmer for at least four hours. ) Anyway, not really what you're looking for, as the meat is ground and the sauce isn't very tomatoey. But I think a lot of other people's bolognese ragu sauces are both slow cooked and tomatoey. and perhaps some of them use meatballs.

Will look around and be back.


Amending -

When you cook the meatballs separately, there is a juice left with them, and that could go in the sauce...
what I don't know is if there is a way to do it with meatballs first, transfer that to crock pot, add tomatoes et all, and then let it simmer away. And if you did, would the meatballs be sorta deadish.

Another thought before the recipe hunt,
when I make regular old pasta sauce, I tend to start with onions, garlic, maybe a carrot for sugar that I remove later, add canned tomatoes, maybe wine, and sometime before the end, squeeze out italian sausage from the casing in "sausage balls". Maybe you could do that without first cooking the meatballs - which I'm sure people do to brown them on the outside and cook through on the inside. But I'm not sure if browning meat is necessary - there are arguments about that by different experts.

Found a maybe useful craig claiborne recipe that mentions pouring off the fat from the meatball skillit but then adding 1/2 cup water and scraping of any bits clinging to the pan - and adding that to the tomato sauce.

Have to go to store, but will type that out when I get back if you're interested.I might be able to find it online, along with his meatball recipe.

I changed my mind on Craig Claiborne and am over to Marcella's meatballs and tomato sauce - I'll put on the recipe if you like, can't find it online, but will say that she makes the meatballs, finds a skillet big enough to hold them, pours in vegetable oil until 1/4 inch deep, turns heat to medium high, and slips in the meat balls when the oil is quite hot. Slips as opposed to dropping them. Browns them on all sides.
Turns off the heat, takes of fat floating at surface with a spoon, then adds chopped tomatoes, bit of salt (she uses non canned), turns over meatballs so coated, covers pan, and cooks about 25 minutes.

So, another one that doesn't do meatballs with a long cooked ragu.

I think I get the idea that the meat balls are usually first cooked separately and shouldn't be simmering with the sauce during the whole crockpot slow cook - only the last part.

hi people