Anyone with both a brain and a soul surely has a love/hate relationship with lolcats. The brain part of me can’t help but cringe a little at the slapdash approach to grammar and spelling (note to cats: the English language uses letter ‘z’ a lot more rarely than you seem to think.)

But then there’s that dratted soul: the marshmallow-creamy center of me that dissolves into a puddle. And that puddle says “Awwwwwwwwwwww.” I reluctantly have to confess that I occasionally speak for my own cats in locat-ese (ex: “Can I haz tuna risotto?”)

Which brings me to today’s post: the balance of the love/hate relationship has swiftly tilted to the love side like a fat kid on a seesaw. I have uncovered a crock-pot lolcat! Oh frabjous day!

Thanks to icanhascheezburger.com for the brilliance.

If the brain side of you is still struggling with what your opinion on lolcats should be, read the Wikipedia entry on the pop culture phenom:  It has 25 footnotes, a “history” subsection, and is considerable longer than the entry on the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, for better or worse.

The everything bagel: mysterious origins? (niznoz/Creative Commons)

Who knew that the bagel with multiple toppings –AKA the everything bagel– is a source of such controversy? At least, the credit for its invention is.

David Gussin, a New Yorker who worked in a bakery in 1980, claims he invented the everything bagel in a burst of inspiration while sweeping out the oven, reported the New Yorker. One day, when cleaning out the charred pieces that had fallen off the bagels –poppy seeds, sesame seeds, salt, etc.– he had an idea.

He made a suggestion to his boss: ‘Hey, Charlie, instead of throwing them away, put this on a bagel and call it the “everything.”‘ Apparently Charlie complied, because Gussin says customers went crazy for ordering it, and a legend was born.

Or was it?

Not true, says marketing guru Seth Godin via his blog, remembering baking everything bagels in the bagel factory where he worked back in 1977. He also says that the seed-sweeping story is “crazy” –that the oven sweepings would be too incinerated to use to top a bagel.

Gussin persists anyway, and has added a line to his website that says “It was the late 1970’s, possibly early 80’s,” moving up the date a bit and building in some flexibility. He’s upset at Godin’s suggestion: “[The bagel] brings smiles to people’s faces. It doesn’t deserve controversy. It’s a nice thing.”

As for me, I’m on the side of an Internet commenter who asked: “Are we really to believe that the world waited until 1977 for the invention of the everything bagel? Somebody’s grandfather in Warsaw is going to be getting a phone call soon.”

The everything bagel is most likely a case of what is known in the trademark world as “simultaneous invention,” that is, something that more than one person came up with around the same time. How could anyone working in a bagel bakery not think of combining the toppings?

It’s like making a suicide at the soda fountain. How many gajillions of twelve-year-old boys can claim they invented that?

Smoked salmon in a cream cheese-y, garlicky sauce.

The everything bagel, regardless of how many people invented it, was my inspiration for this creamy pasta sauce. It has everything I love about bagels: cream cheese, smoked salmon and plenty of garlic, for starters.

Make it even more everything bagel-like by adding more of your favorite bagel toppings. I used poppy seeds, but feel free to add a dusting of sesame seeds, sea salt, or extra bits of roasted garlic.

Slow Cooker Everything Bagel Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese, cut into small pieces (regular or reduced fat)
4 oz. smoked salmon, flaked
2 cloves garlic, minced
Ground black pepper
1-2 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. poppy seeds

Directions: Combine first six ingredients in the crock of your slow cooker, stir well, and cook on high for one hour or low for two hours. (For this recipe I used my Rival 1.5 quart mini, which does not have settings. It’s either on or off. It was ready and bubbly hot after about one hour.)

Serve over cooked pasta of your choice; sprinkle with poppy seeds.

If you or someone you know came up with an everything bagel pasta sauce before me, call the New Yorker. We can have a big ol’ Internet feud and rack up some page views.

I dont know what a grossissant does, but if it's for pecs, I'll take two. (moncarton/Creative Commons)

If you’re part of the legion of Crock Tease fans (How many is a legion, exactly? Give or take a mob?), you might have noticed that the site has been a little inactive lately. Then again, as trusty fans, you might have been too busy scrapbooking your favorite photos of me, sending me scads of jewelry, or writing acrostic poems that spell out C-R-O-C-K T-E-A-S-E.

The truth is, I haven’t taken a break by choice. A few months ago, while working my bookstore day job, I strained my pectoral muscle –an injury I have since discovered is common to weight lifting enthusiasts. I thought that fact was sort of funny, until I realized I am a weight lifter of sorts. Books and crock-pots are dang heavy!

And if that book happens to be The Complete Works of Shakespeare with Annotations, and the crock-pot is full to the top of beans that have soaked up a billlion times their weight in liquid, they’re ding dang heavy.

So, for the last couple of months I’ve done very little cooking (and even less going to work.) I get physical therapy three times a week from a skilled torture artist who hooks me up with bizarre electrode devices and presses blocks of ice to my delicate skin for what seems like hours, while I whine and complain and wonder which Batman villain she most resembles.

The good news is: the torture is working. I’m making progress, and I’ve even started cooking a little, with the fiancé doing the heavy lifting. He even stirred cake batter for me (bowl on his lap, watching Glee) to save my sensitive pec.

I’ll be posting some saved-up goodies soon, and plan to slow cook some holiday dishes. In the meantime, keep the fan mail coming.

P.S. Notice the new Scuttlebutt category? This is where you can find site news, food ramblings, and other non-recipe hoop-de-doo. Plus, how fun is it to say Scuttlebutt?

Slow cooker fresh corn with chili and lime.

Can you do magic with a slow cooker?

After a recent day of slow cooking, I spent the evening watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer with the fiance. It must have been a Willow-heavy episode, because I dreamed that I was using my crock-pot to do spells. I was adding a bit of this and a dash of that –salt, pepper, eye of newt– as if it were a magical cauldron. (Maybe Rival should market an electric cauldron…? Tap into that Wicca market.)

While I may not actually do spells with my slow cooker, some of the things you can make with one seem a little bit like magic. For example, cooking potatoes in foil without adding a drop of water, just like baking them in an oven, but without the risk of drying out.

I’ve seen some other uses that are nothing short of amazing, from making homemade yogurt to steaming hot towels for a spa night. Even the crock-pot recipes that are tried-and-true still surprise me every time. I lift the lid at the end of cooking time and find tender, juicy beans where I deposited a pile of dried ones.

Must be magic, or at least some kind of voodoo.

The latest bit of slow cooker alchemy to enchant me is the transformation of everyday ears of corn into hot, sweet perfection without using a single drop of water. Like the crock-pot baked potatoes, the fresh corn has enough moisture on its own to stay nice and juicy once it’s sealed into the pot.

Seasoned with chili powder and lime juice and dripping with butter, this is corn at its absolute best. It will be all you can do to keep from saying “Ta-daaa” when you lift the lid.

A side dish that steals the show.

Slow Cooker Corn on the Cob with Chili and Lime Recipe

Ingredients:

4-6 ears of fresh corn, husked (or as many as you can fit in the crock)
1/4 stick of butter or margarine
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 tsp chili powder
Salt
1 fresh lime, cut into wedges

Directions: Place each piece of corn on a piece of aluminum foil. Slather each ear of corn with the butter and cilantro (the butter will make the cilantro adhere to the corn). Sprinkle with chili powder and salt. Squeeze about 1 wedge of lime juice all over each ear. Wrap each ear of corn in foil and place in the crock of your slow cooker.

Say “Alakazam.” Cook on high for 2 hours. Do not add water. Unwrap and enjoy.

You can serve the corn with additional lime wedges as a garnish. Eye of newt optional.

Red velvet cake scraps make a bread pudding that ought to be illegal.

“This is insane!” I said as I spooned the ingredients into the slow cooker.

And it was. Taking one dessert and using it as the first ingredient in another dessert is an exercise in excess. It’s so decadent it’s almost a perversion. As I said: insane. And I stand by that assessment.

I’m happy to report that insanity tastes so very good.

I was inspired to make this bread pudding when I learned that a local bakery, Magpies, sells boxes of cake scraps for just a few bucks. They have parts leftover from cutting cakes into shapes or shearing off the tops before frosting. The cake pieces are buttery-rich even on their own.

Bread puddings are said to be a cinch in the crock-pot, slow cooking in the moist heat like the famous steamed British puddings. When I saw a box of red velvet cake scraps for sale at Magpies, inspiration struck like a big, fat, sugary bolt of lightning.

I researched several bread pudding recipes before creating this one, which reduces the liquid in most recipes since we’re making it in the moisture-rich crock-pot biosphere, and it also has much less sugar (when you start with red velvet cake, you can presume a certain level of sweetness.)

The resulting cake-based bread pudding is invitingly warm, sweet, and a trollop-y dark red. You often hear desserts described as sinful. Well, this one is a bad, bad girl.

Tastes good before you're even halfway there.

Slow Cooker Red Velvet Cake Bread Pudding Recipe

Ingredients:

6 cups red velvet cake, unfrosted, cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups milk or cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup white chocolate chips or chunks

Directions: Place cake cubes in the crock of your slow cooker. In a separate bowl, whisk together cream, vanilla, eggs and sugar. Pour mixture over red velvet cake. Sprinkle in white chocolate chips and stir slightly to combine.

Cook on high 2-3 hours. (You can try cooking it more slowly at your own risk. With dishes involving raw eggs, I always use the high setting to cook them at a safe temperature.)

Serve British-style with fresh cream poured over the top, or red-blooded American-style with Cool Whip. Whichever you choose, serve it while it’s warm.

This makes a tremendous batch. You’ll be glad.

Big, fat, bursting-at-the-seams burrito --and this is just half of it.

Ever notice how you can eat more Tex-Mex food than seems like it ought to be possible? Sometimes it dawns on you that you went through three refills of the tortilla chip basket at El Lardo’s before the entrees even arrived. And, not that it counts as real food, but how many –and be honest– Taco Bell Value Menu items can you eat before you actually feel full?

And correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s twice that when no one’s watching, right?

The reason those foods leave you so unsatisfied is because they lack substance. The two tablespoons of tasteless filling in a take-out taco that’s plumped up with watery iceberg lettuce is no value; I don’t care which part of the menu it’s on.

One of the genius things about a real, homemade burrito is the fact that it’s ultra-quick food, and if it’s done right, it’s mucho filling. Just one of these hefty babies, and I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.

A full half cup of slow cooked black beans packs a wallop of fiber: 7 1/2 grams, which is as much as two apples. (Which would you rather eat?)

Grilling these overstuffed burritos on a griddle with non-stick spray makes them crunchy on the outside and lets the cheese melt into a gooey perfection. It’s like a cross between a burrito and a quesadilla. A burritodilla, if you will. Or maybe a quesadita?

I can’t think of a better use for your leftover slow-cooked refried beans, other than eating a just-cooked bowl on their own, of course.

Eat two. I dare you.

Grilled Overstuffed Black Bean Burrito Recipe

Ingredients:

6 large-sized tortillas (10″)
3 cups slow-cooked refried black beans, hot from the slow cooker or reheated
1 1/2cups shredded cheese (I used a 2% milk Mexican blend)
1/4 cup raw red onion, minced very fine
1 small bunch cilantro, chopped

Directions: Place 1/2 cup of refried black beans just below the middle of each tortilla. Top with cheese, onions, and cilantro. Fold in sides and then roll up tortillas, tucking in the ingredients tightly as you go. Coat a griddle or large skillet with non-stick spray and cook each burrito a few minutes on each side until golden brown, pressing down slightly with a spatula. Serves 6.

If you don’t have a griddle large enough to cook all or several of your burritos at once, wrap the cooked ones in foil to keep them warm while you cook the others. Serve with all the usual suspects: sour cream or thick Greek yogurt, sliced avocado, salsa, hot peppers. These also reheat like a dream in the microwave.

For whom does the Taco Bell toll? Not me.

Slow-cooked black beans are mashed in their cooking liquid right in the crock-pot.

Beans are often overlooked as a gourmet food, or is it just me? That attitude could be the result of my Appalachian upbringing. Where I come from, especially during my childhood, beans were “poor people food.” When money was tight, a big pot of pinto beans could be made to last for days on end, until you couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore.

Or maybe it was all the schoolyard ribbing about beans. Admitting to eating beans was akin to saying you were covered in cooties and your family worships Beelzebub as far as eight-year-olds are concerned, and the ostracism was severe.

Not to mention that when kids recited the rhyme that begins “Beans, beans, good for the heart,” they weren’t touting cardiovascular health.

Whatever the cause, I was a latecomer to the intentional consumption of beans, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of carrying the bean-lovers’ card. Sometimes those who come late to the party are the ones who have the most fun.

Slow cooking black beans, then mashing them right in the slow cooker in the liquid they cooked in seems to impart an almost sweet taste. Even without the literal refrying, the texture is thick and the taste is rich.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to pre-soak. You can if you want to, and reduce your cooking time, but the best thing about a long cook time is being able to slow cook the beans while you go to work, shop, or sleep off a hangover.

The “pre-soaking beans is necessary to decrease gas” thing is overhyped. Yes, some people are more susceptible than others to the musical quality of legumes, but most people who eat lots of veggies and fiber regularly won’t see any significant difference in pre-soaked or non-pre-soaked. I promise!

Rick Bayless agrees with me, and so do Mexican cooks. You won’t catch anyone in Mexico pre-soaking beans, unless they happened to learn their cooking skills in America. Stop pre-soaking. Let your beans cook long and slow in the crock-pot.

No need to pre-soak. Put the dried beans right in your slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Refried Black Beans Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb. dried black beans, rinsed and sorted
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1 tsp. cumin
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (omit to decrease spiciness –you can let guests control their heat with sauce or peppers later)
Salt and pepper to taste (omit salt if using canned broth)
6 cups water or vegetable broth

Directions: Combine all ingredients in crock of slow cooker and cook on high 6-8 hours, or until beans are soft. Resist the temptation to lift the lid to peek or stir until beans have reached the low side of the cooking time range. After checking for doneness, leave covered as much as possible.

When beans are cooked through, use a ladle to remove excess liquid from the beans and set aside. Use a potato masher (or a clean can) to mash the beans to the desired consistency, using some of the reserved liquid as needed.

You can serve the beans immediately, or save in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. You can reheat the beans in a skillet with nonstick spray or olive oil as you need them, or quick-zap burritos for emergency meals.

The best way to eat these? Straight out of the bowl. They’re that good. And I’m not afraid to tell it to a schoolyard full of eight-year-olds.

Hey, kids! I eat beans! And I like ‘em. (Then I’ll duck, lest I feel the old familiar dodge ball sting.)

Kale bruschetta gives leftover greens a higher purpose.

Why do leftovers have such a bad reputation? Well, it could be the sloppy way they get reheated, for one. Microwaving isn’t a cooking technique that does any food a favor, with the exception of, perhaps, frozen Hot Pockets (which aren’t very good straight out of the package.)

Even when home cooks attempt to whip up leftovers into something else, it’s often a something else that wouldn’t sound too tempting even if it weren’t made with yesterday’s dinner: hashes, casseroles, anything with the word surprise tacked on. (How much of a surprise can it be when you already had it for dinner yesterday?)

It doesn’t help that a lot of  leftovers may have been left over for a reason. If a meatloaf was only mediocre to begin with, meatloaf hash has nowhere to go but down.

That’s why it’s so exciting to launch a new category on Crock Tease just for using up your crock-pot leftovers. The Not-So-Sloppy Seconds recipes are just as good or even better than the recipes that inspire them, and you’ll want to slow cook up some of the original Crock Tease recipes to have leftovers on purpose for making them.

Slow Cooker Flowering Kale is the base recipe for this distinctly un-run-of-the-mill bruschetta. It combines the peppery bite of kale with a bit of aged Manchego. You’ve heard of the Man of La Mancha? Well, this is the cheese of La Mancha, and its rustic taste blends nicely with the slow-cooked kale.

If you don’t have, or can’t find, Manchego cheese, substitute fresh Parmesan, Romano, Pecorino, or Asiago. (If you can’t find any of those, then stop buying your groceries from the gas station or slap your cheesemonger –whichever applies.)

Bruschetta with Slow-Cooked Kale and Manchego Cheese Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup of slow-cooked kale , warmed (either reheated or straight out of the slow cooker if you just made it)
1-2 oz Manchego cheese, grated
1 loaf of crusty bread, sliced
Extra virgin olive oil
Optional: Fresh minced garlic and balsamic vinegar

Directions: Brush each slice of bread with olive oil on both sides. Heat a griddle on top of the stove and grill the bread a few minutes until light brown on bottom, then flip over and top with a few pieces of kale and a sprinkling of Manchego cheese. Grill until cheese is melted, covering with a lid if necessary.

You may wish to add extra garlic and a few drops of balsamic vinegar to taste to your kale before topping, depending on how much seasoning you used in slow-cooking the kale.

See? Leftovers can be even better than the first round. Aren’t you glad it isn’t kale loaf?

Shirred, poached, or twurbled, the eggs are cooked just right.

There are so many words for cooking methods, it dizzies the mind. We steam, stew, coddle, sear, and roast. We do so many ‘B’ things, it could be a tongue-twister: Barbara boiled, brined, basted, breaded, browned and baked a blackened bird. We even use some verbs for cooking that seem to have no place in the kitchen, such as plank and sweat.

The one cooking term that has caused me the most recent befuddlement is shirr. I always try to use the correct term for my slow cooker recipes, which leads to some difficulty. Baked potatoes aren’t technically baked in the crock-pot, so what are they? Steamed potatoes doesn’t sound so lip-smacking (even though the result is divine.) The best fall-back is often to just call a dish slow-cooked.

When I decided to try poaching eggs in the crock-pot, I checked first to make sure poached would be the right term. Eggs are usually poached directly in water, but sometimes in a poaching device that allows them to steam. Turns out, some folks think the second way isn’t technically poaching, but steaming.

Shirred eggs, on the other hand, are cooked in ramekins with a slosh of cream and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs, and I wanted to slow cook my fresh eggs in ramekins. However, most definitions of shirr seem to specify baking. But here’s where it gets weird: the definition specifies that to shirr means to bake eggs.

That is, eggs specifically. Think about that for just a second. When you bake an egg, it gets its own word for baking. We don’t make shirred tuna casserole or shirred Alaska. This makes my head hurt. Why does one food gets its own word for being baked in the oven? Why don’t we call the process of baking potatoes shmootzing? Why don’t we twurble a pan of ziti? Who makes this stuff up?

Back to the eggs. You can call them poached if you want to, and the result is the same. The heat from the steam cooks them perfectly and keeps them from drying out, so you don’t need the cream, which is usually added for just that purpose. You can, however, use a spoonful of pesto, olive tapenade, salsa, sundried tomatoes, or whatever floats your breakfast boat.

Do be certain to cook these on high and add boiling water at the beginning. This raises the temperature quickly when you replace the lid, making sure that the eggs are cooked safely.

Slow Cooker Poached Eggs with Pesto Recipe

Ingredients:

2 fresh eggs per ramekin (most average slow cookers will hold about four ramekins)
1 tsp pesto per ramekin
Fresh black pepper
2-3 cups boiling water

Directions: Spray ramekins with non-stick spray and crack two fresh eggs into each. Swirl a teaspoon or so of pesto into each dish and top generously with black pepper. Place ramekins into the crock of your slow cooker and carefully pour boiling water around the dishes. Make sure the ramekins are submerged at least a third of the way into boiling water. If not, add more. Cook on high 30 minutes to one hour, depending on how well you want the eggs cooked. (1 hour will result in the centers being cooked through. Half an hour allows for a runnier yolk.) Slide eggs gently out of ramekins to serve, or serve in the dish after cooling slightly (ramekins will be hot.)

Serve with toasted French bread. What the heck, let’s call it shirred French bread.

The kale turns darker after slow cooking, but still retains some of its purple tint.

It’s not everyday you cook a lawn ornament. It’s been centuries since anyone actually spit-roasted a flamingo, and most other yard decorations would resist any type of cooking method imaginable. Spaghetti and gazing balls, anyone? What about a ragout of concrete St. Francis? Does anyone know what oven temperature to use for two-frogs-on-a-loveseat?

Nope, ornamental cabbage is the only lawn decor I’ve ever heard of that makes a good meal. That’s because those ornamental cabbages you see lining the lawns of the Ladies’ Horticultural Society members’ homes are masquerading under an alias. Their real name is kale.

Even the core looks pretty.

Ornamental kale is every bit as edible as regular ol’ kale (they’re not trying to trick you  by putting it in the produce section.) It’s not only a tasty variety of leafy greens, but it’s spectacularly beautiful to cook and work with. The purple flowering kale I bought may have been cheap, but it could practically be a work of art.

I’m considering using a head of kale as a wedding bouquet –it’s that lovely. It reminds me of some kind of exotic sea creature, like an anemone, with its mass of purple stems like undulating tentacles.

Kale leaves, ready for the slow cooker.

In the South, most greens are cooked with a chunk of pork fat or a smoked turkey wing, and that’s dandy. All greens taste better with a bit of seasoning. But, try cooking a pot of kale in your slow cooker with Mediterranean-style seasonings and you may never look back. Olive oil, balsamic, and some fresh garlic are really all that’s needed to bring the kale to the height of its flavor.

Some may find kale to be too bitter, and it is one of the more bitter types of greens. For those who enjoy a peppery bite, though, they’ll enjoy the pleasant pungency. A quick blanching before tossing in the crock-pot removes the harshness of the bitter taste, leaving just enough to add a kick.

Blanching the kale leaves before tossing in the crock-pot.

Slow Cooker Flowering Kale Recipe

Ingredients:

2 bunches kale
1/2 large red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and ground pepper to taste
Dash red pepper flakes
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups vegetable broth

Directions: Bring a pot of salted water to boiling and add kale. Boil for 3-6 minutes, just until wilted to reduce bitterness. Drain and cool. Tear leaves into bite-sized bits, being careful to remove the thickest part of the stem. Combine kale and other ingredients in the crock of your slow cooker. Cook on low for 4-6 hours or more, or cook on high for 2-3 hours or more. Longer cooking makes the kale more tender.

Serve kale as side dish with any Southern-style or Mediterranean-style meal. And stay tuned, because you’ll love what I did with the leftovers.

Tip: Buy your own kale, no matter how tempting old lady Wanklestein’s looks in her front yard. The old biddy’s got the cops and the neighborhood association on speed dial.