Eating In – Baked Potatoes

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Posted on May 21, 2015

Baked potatoes are one of my favourite meals. They are probably best wrapped in alfoil and cooked in the coals of an open fire but that is generally not practical so we compromise with what we have. It is uneconomical to turn on a conventional oven to bake 2 potatoes and for many years I cooked them in the microwave. While they are not strictly baked it made it reasonably quick and easy meal for a family.

In the last couple of years I read about cooking baked potatoes in the slow cooker. According to the article, you simply wash and dry and potatoes, rub them with a little bit of oil and put them in the slowcooker on High for 4 hours. It just seemed too easy but I decided to give it a go as I had nothing to lose – except maybe 2 potatoes. When I took them out they were cooked to perfection and were even crispy-skinned on the bottom – just like the ones you can buy from the baked potato carts in the street!

Since then I have tweaked the recipe slightly and add a spicy coating. Black pepper, herb salt, cumin and chilli (just a pinch of each) into a bowl and a teaspoon of flaxseed meal. I use this because it is gluten-free and it has some nutritional value. You could just use plain flour (either wheat or gluten-free) if you prefer.

Rub the potatoes lightly with oil then roll in the spice mixture and place in the slow cooker. No other oil or liquid is needed. I find that 4 hours is perfect for medium-sized potatoes but if you have larger ones you may want to extend the cooking time by another 30 minutes.

I serve these filled with refried beans and topped with a dollop of plain yoghurt and grated cheese. Coleslaw is a favourite addition and usually some fried mushrooms. Alternatively, you could fill with a bolognaise mixture or even tuna for variety. Some salad on the side makes a complete meal.

Cooking Up a Storm

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Posted on May 17, 2015

I didn’t sew today (or this week) but today I cooked. More specifically I cooked this afternoon and evening as I went shopping this morning.

Last night I cooked pumpkin with vegetable stock in the slowcooker. This afternoon I cooked potatoes, fried some onion and added the pumpkin mixture. This made 7 large serves of soup. I had one for dinner and here are the others ready to go in the freezer.

With the remainder of the pumpkin I sliced it up, brushed with a mixture of oil and balsamic vinegar and roasted it. I will use the roasted pumpkin slices on pizzas for dinner on Tuesday night. Two trays ready to go in the oven.

Once the pumpkin mixture was finished in the slow cooker I cooked the chickpeas which had been soaking over night to make hummus.

The next thing into the slow cooker was honey soy chicken. 8 chicken thigh fillets, 3 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce. Once the chicken was cooked I removed the pieces with a slotted spoon and poured the juice into a small saucepan and thickened it with arrowroot. 4 serves ready to freeze.

After the chicken was done I washed the slow cooker then added kidney beans to make refried beans which you can find in this blog post.

I make my own gluten-free pizza bases and normally make enough for 6 bases and freeze them. There were none in the freezer so it was time to make another batch. Here is the dough divided into pieces. The first 2 bases were already in the oven by the time I took the photo.

Here are 6 pre-cooked bases ready to be bagged and frozen. I use opened out cereal packets to separate things that I am freezing. The dividers can be washed and re-used many times.

I picked lemons and made lemon cordial. You can read more about it here.

I also made more butter mixture and 8 serves of chilli con carne (no photo) as well as dividing up the meat which I bought and packing it into the freezer.

Cooking and preparing meals is a never-ending task but it is good to have a few meals and ingredients prepared to make the job a bit easier each evening.

Slow Living – February

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Posted on March 3, 2013

This is my second month of joining in the monthly round-up at Slow Living Essentials and already I seem to be struggling with what to write. A couple of things seems to have conspired against me – it is a short month – is it really the end of the month already? and the weather! Since the dry spell broke on the Australia Day weekend (26th January) it has rained almost constantly which limits our activities somewhat

Here are the Slow Living categories:

{Nourish} With the onset of some cooler weather with the rain it was an ideal time to pull out the slow cooker.

I made a batch of pumpkin soup and and beef casserole.

{Prepare} We had an excellent crop of figs.

As well as eating lots of them fresh from the tree, I was able to dry some. This was very successful so I am hoping to have enough to do again next year.

{Reduce} This is always a hard one as we do this each and every day. I turned a singlet of mine that was too short into one for Miss O.

{Green} The weather has brought out the mould but I am keeping things clean and smelling fresh with the use of clove oil. You can read a previous post here.

{Grow} The warm, dry beginning to the summer meant that we had about 8 mangoes on our small tree. We planted it about 4 years ago and this is the first time it has fruited. I suspect that it is generally too cool for them here but this year’s crop has made it worthwhile. They are some of the best mangoes I have tasted and the flesh is as smooth as anything with no sign of stringiness.

Last weekend we had a rare fine day so we bought and planted some vegetable seedlings. They have more than doubled in size in a week.

{Create} Since my sewing machine has returned from being serviced I have got quite a bit of sewing done. I am working through my stash of fabric as well as some pieces I have been given. Here are some of the results.

Winter and summer pyjama bottoms.

A new lining in my skirt.

{Discover} I don’t think I have read anything this month but in a different vein I did discover some fabric to be used when I was sorting out my stash.

{Enhance} We gave away the used fencing wire via Freecycle. I also shared some of the many self-sown cucumber seedlings with neighbours, work colleagues, blogging friends and also on Freecycle.

It is a shame that I did not take some photos of them. Not so much for the seedlings but the innovative packaging. I used some excess egg cartons that I had been given and each seedling and its soil was packed in a space in the carton.

An internet friend sent me some fabric and I used some of it to make a dress suitable for an 18 month old. I will send it to her for her granddaughter who was born last week.

{Enjoy} We travelled to Melbourne and spent a weekend with our daughter who moved there recently. We saw her new home, sampled food at some local establishments and shopped.

I bought this dress to wear to a wedding in a few weeks. I just need to finalise accessories.

The slow living this month has been heavily weighted towards sewing and I guess that is not entirely unexpected with being stuck indoors due to the weather.

Now I am off to check out some of the slow living blogs.

Til next month………..