December 1, 2005

Prairie Fare: Slow Cooking for Fast-paced Lives

By Julie Garden-Robinson, Food and Nutrition Specialist
NDSU Extension Service

I had a bit of a dilemma the other day. I was invited to a potluck dinner party starting at 6 p.m. on a weeknight. I was to bring a main dish to serve eight adults.

That didn’t seem too hard. After all, I spend my days talking, reading and writing about food and nutrition. I should be able to come up with a recipe.

Time was the issue. How was I to get an eight-serving meat dish to a party to serve at 6 p.m. when I get home after 5:30 p.m.?

I had a few options. I could take the day off and cook. No, that didn’t work, but it was tempting.

I could pick up something at the deli on the way home. I could fib and talk about the long hours I spent preparing the food. No, lying doesn’t set a good example for my kids. They’d tell on me anyway.

I could have set the timer on my oven. No, that wouldn’t be a safe thing to do. I leave for work at 7:30 a.m., so the food would spend hours at room temperature in the oven prior to cooking.

In the end, it was my slow cooker to the rescue. I put together a bean casserole that cooked all day as I worked. At 5:30, it was ready to whisk to the party.

Slow cookers have been around for three decades, helping solve millions of dinner dilemmas. They’ve changed over the years from the 1970s burnt orange or harvest gold appliances to models with removable crockery inserts. Now some slow cookers are programmable, some are oval or stainless steel.

Slow cookers often are called “crock pots” but that title actually is the trademarked name of appliances manufactured by Rival Inc. There are several companies that manufacture slow cookers and an abundance of published slow cooker recipes in cookbooks and on the Internet.

Unfortunately, not all the published recipes meet the safety advice offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service. Here are some food safety tips to cook slowly when life moves quickly:

• Always defrost meat or poultry in the refrigerator or microwave before putting it in a slow cooker. Make foods with a high-moisture content, such as chili, soup, stew or spaghetti sauce.
• Cut the food into chunks or small pieces to ensure thorough cooking. Don’t use the slow cooker for large pieces, such as a roast or whole chicken, because the food will cook so slowly it could remain in the “danger zone” too long. This is the temperature range where bacteria grow well and could produce toxins that won’t be inactivated by cooking.
• Fill the cooker no less than half full and no more than two-thirds full. Vegetables cook slower than meat and poultry in a slow cooker, so if using them, put vegetables in first, at the bottom and around the sides. Then add meat and cover the food with liquid, such as broth, water or barbecue sauce.
• Keep the cover in place to ensure proper heating.
• Don’t refrigerate the leftovers in the slow cooker. Place the food in shallow pans and refrigerate within two hours of the time the cooking is finished. For buffet or potlucks, the food will remain safe as long as the temperature remains at 140 degrees in the slow cooker.

Here’s a tasty bean dish that works well in a 4-quart slow cooker. It just might solve a future potluck dilemma.

Slow Cooker Barbecued Beans

1 lb. ground turkey or extra lean beef
1 1/2 c. chopped onion
1 16-oz. can baked beans, undrained
1 16-oz. can of kidney beans, drained
1 c. ketchup
4 tsp. prepared mustard (or to taste)
2 tsp. cider vinegar
1/4 tsp. salt (optional)

Brown the meat with onions in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Drain any excess fat. Spray slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook on low for six to eight hours or on high for two hours.

Makes eight servings. Each serving has about 325 calories, 5 grams of fat, 53 grams of carbohydrate and 7 grams of fiber.

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Source: Julie Garden-Robinson, (701) 231-7187, jgardenr@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Editor: Rich Mattern, (701) 231-6136, richard.mattern@ndsu.nodak.edu

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