Braciola

I found a recipe for Braciola on a forum I'm on. It involves flank steak, Mozzarella and Provolone cheese, Prosciutto, Italian seasoning, tomatoes, garlic, onions and carrots. It's supposed to involve celery (but I don't like it) and mushrooms (which I forgot). It's also supposed to involve a food processor and pasta, but I don't have the former, and didn't feel like the latter. Oh, and I don't have any pre-made Italian seasoning, but I do have herbes de Provence, so I substituted.

One is supposed to pound out the steak so it's about 1/2" thick (I didn't quite make it there, and next time I should use something heavier than the end of my quite lightweight rolling pin), line it with the cheeses, the Prosciutto, the seasoning, roll it up, tie it up, brown it, and put it in the crock pot. One then sautes the vegetables, then puts them in a food processor with whole canned tomatoes, which is then added to the pot and the whole thing cooked on low for 8 or 10 hours. I used pre-chopped canned tomatoes, and didn't really mix the veggies with the tomatoes before adding it all to the pot.

It came out quite tasty. The best bits are the bits with the seasoning in it. I added a touch of salt, but didn't need to have - the cheese and Prosciutto probably supplied enough. Also, when making rolled steak things, don't cover the entire surface - leave a margin on the side being rolled toward.

Apples

Apple Butter, part one.

I used this recipe. Plus a touch of nutmeg.

5 1/2 lb of apples is a lot of apples.

It also turns out that 5.5 lb minus about half an apple fits in my crockpot. Approximately. If it's supposed to be 5.5 lb before peeling and coring, and not after.

It is too late to start twelve hours worth of cooking tonight, so I will refrigerate the apples and start it in the morning. If I wake up early enough to do the one-hour-on-high thing, anyway...

Pre-resolution use

This blog was triggered by this crockpot attempt. so I figured I may as well blog it.

Cock-A-Leekie soup.  Apparently, this means chicken + leeks in liquid. This was made on Monday night.

• A couple pounds of chicken thighs
  
  The chicken thighs I bought turned out to have not been deboned. Deboning chicken thighs was not entertaining. I did remove the skin as well, which wasn't bad. The chicken got cut up in pieces
• 2 leeks
  
  Washed and cut up fairly thin, it turns out that 2 leeks fill up the bottom third or so of the crockpot.
• 4 or 5 (relatively wimpy) carrots.
  
  More wouldn't be bad.
• Chicken broth
  
  I also used some beef broth to get the liquid to barely get to the top of the food. Could have used a little less, since things cooked down and there was extra liquid at the end.
• Salt
  
  More flavor would be better. I added the salt at the same time as the barley so as not to oversalt. Salt level was fine.
• Barley
  
  Lightly rinsed, then thrown in about 3 hours prior to end of cooking

Cooked on high for 2 hours, then low for about 6 or 7. Other than being a little bland, it tastes fine. Add lots of herbs and/or spices next attempt.