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.

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.)

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.

Risotto in a slow cooker? Prepare to faint.

Risotto is a simple rice dish at its most basic, but its elaborate cooking procedure requires nano-second timing and perpetual stirring that can wear out even an Incredible Hulk-sized bicep before the rice is even half-cooked.

That may be why restaurants pride themselves on their ability to turn out perfect risotti, and also why Hell’s Kitchen contestants have more trouble cooking a risotto than with any other single dish. While the chefs manage  perfectly-done Beef Wellingtons by the dozens and torch creme brulees shoulder-to-shoulder in the world’s most chaotic kitchen, it’s the rice that brings the contestants to their knees.

I’ve frequently joked that the dumpster behind the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant is probably mostly loaded with trash bags bursting with risotto, as I’ve seen chef Gordon Ramsay dump out pan after pan of the contestants’ poorly cooked rice dishes.

Rice can be tricky in the slow cooker too, but with just a little hands-on work –considerably less than with a traditional risotto, but more than some slow cooker recipes– you can turn out perfectly-textured rice. Part of the trick is to use converted rice (quick-cooking rice), which may irritate purists who insist on Arborio for risotto, but they’ll already be popping a vein that you’re using a crock-pot anyway.

Placate the snobbish by calling it something else: steamed rice should chill them out, but it’s an awfully mundane name for a dish that’s proof that epicurean results can come out of the slow cooker. You could also consider this a sort of sublime tuna casserole, elevated to its highest form.

Whatever you call it, prepare for a creamy-textured rice dish that’s a slow cooker quickie with just an hour of cook time.

Slow Cooker Risotto with Fresh Tuna and Basil Recipe

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp melted butter
2-3 green onions, chopped
3 cups very hot vegetable stock
1 cup uncooked converted rice
1/2 cup white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
1 lb. fresh tuna, cubed
1/4 cup snipped fresh basil

Directions: Combine butter, onions, stock, rice, wine and pepper in the crock of your slow cooker and stir. Cover and cook on high for 45 minutes. Remove lid and stir in tuna, then cook for an additional 15 minutes, or until tuna is just cooked. Turn off the slow cooker and let sit for five minutes. Remove lid and stir in basil. Fluff with a fork and serve immediately. Serves two.

Tuna risotto makes a light supper-in-a-bowl for two, or you can serve it to four as a starter or side dish.

Perhaps someday you’ll be a contestant on Hell’s Kitchen. I can’t wait to see the string of curses Chef Ramsay unleashes when you produce your crock-pot. But the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the risotto.

Slow cooking makes the sweet peppers deliciously tender.

What is it that makes us culinary types –or even just eating types– so fascinated with stuffing things inside of other things? From our turkeys to our donuts, we love the idea of food with a filling. In the fifties, it was cottage cheese spilling out of a tomato half at the diner. Today, it’s Paula Deen seeing how many creatures she can stuff inside of other creature’s cavities and calling it Turducken.

Ms. Deen has actually done nothing new. The stuffing of birds into other birds is a musty old tradition that reached comical proportions two hundred years ago as the extravagant rich tried to outdo one another. At one royal feast in France in the early 1800s, the guests enjoyed a combined total of 17 birds, stuffed inside one another and packed as tight as a clown car.

The Roti sans Pareil (Roast without Equal) consisted of a large bustard, into which were stuffed a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, a bunting, then a warbler. The tiny final songbird was stuffed with a single olive.

I suppose Paula Deen would call it a busturgoophenduckfowl-teacockploverwingquail-thrushlarkbuntingler (which is mighty fun to sound out slowly, especially the “cockplover” and “bun-tingler” parts.) Seeing as how a large number of these unlucky birds are on the endangered list, it would be best not to try and replicate it.

Instead, how about stuffing something a little more sane, like sweet peppers? The taste of the colorful peppers is less bitter and more sweet than green peppers, and in the slow cooker they become deliciously fork-tender. The couscous stuffing is a melange of subtle seasonings and crunchy nuts.

Serve as a vegetarian main course, or as an unexpected side with garlic roast chicken.

Couscous-stuffed peppers on the side with garlic-encrusted chicken.

Slow Cooker Stuffed Sweet Peppers Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups uncooked couscous
2 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1/4 cup cashews
1/4 cup golden raisins or currants
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 red, yellow and/or orange bell peppers

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except peppers in a large bowl and stir to combine. Parboil peppers for about 3 minutes to soften and let cool. Remove stems from peppers. Slice in half vertically and remove seeds and pith. Pare down edges of peppers if necessary to make them even, and save parings for garnish. Fill peppers with couscous mixture, packing it down with the back of a spoon to hold more couscous.

Fill crock of your slow cooker with 3/4 cup hot water, then arrange peppers in the bottom. Cover and cook 2-3 hours on high or 4-6 hours on low, until peppers are tender. Lift carefully with a large slotted spoon and serve.

Tips: You can skip the parboiling if you’d like to save a step before slow cooking, but softening the peppers first makes them easier to fill, as well as making them easier to arrange in the crockpot (the pliability helps them conform to any configuration).

This recipe will likely leave you with some extra couscous mixture, which is a good thing. You can serve it by itself to those who don’t like peppers, or save it for tomorrow’s leftovers. It’s pleasing on its own.

Next time you get the urge to stuff something, make it a pepper. Besides, where would you buy a bustard anyway?

Pile in the potatoes, then go away.

The question is: If you cook a potato in your slow cooker, can you still call it a baked potato? Wouldn’t it technically be a crocked potato, considering the lack of actual baking?

While I don’t see “crocked potatoes” catching on anytime soon, I predict that cooking your spuds in the crockpot will. Slow cooking your scrubbed, whole potatoes results in a perfect, moist, ready-to-be-topped tater that seems to be almost foolproof.

Another upshot of the slow cooker baked potato is that it seems impossible for it to overcook or dry out. I wouldn’t want to test it for 24 hours just for kicks, but I did leave my potatoes in the crockpot for a whole three hours longer than I intended while I shopped. I nervously cut one open, and was hit with a blast of steam from a perfect potato specimen.

The slow cooker is reknowned for holding in moisture, so I suspect that overcooking would be very hard to do, considering the amount of liquid in just one potato. Oven-baked potatoes, however? You probably know as well as I do that overcooking by even just a little gets you a rock-hard skin on the outside and a gummy potato on the inside.

Of course the fun part of baked, crocked, or whatever-you-want-to-call-them potatoes is getting to top them. It might work for Las Vegas waitresses, but when it comes to potatoes, nobody likes them topless.

I opted for ricotta cheese, and a spinach-Parmesan mixture I whipped up on the fly, while the fiance opened a can of chili. We both ate two, making a meal out of them, and were thrilled to have leftovers to fry up the next morning with peppers and onions. Make extra –it’s worth it.

Potato with light Ricotta and sauteed spinach, garlic, onion, Parmesan, and Mozzarella cheese.

Slow Cooker Baked Potatoes Recipe

Ingredients: As many potatoes as you can fit in your slow cooker. (I recommend at least 4 just for even heat distribution.)

Directions: Scrub potatoes and prick with a fork multiple times. Wrap in foil and pile in the crock of your slow cooker. Cook on low 8-10 hours or high 3-4 hours. Do not add any water. Seriously.

Topping Ideas:

• *Traditional: butter, sour cream, cheese, chives, and bacon crumbles.
• *Thick Greek yogurt, green onions, and kalamata olives.
• *Ricotta cheese and spinach.
• *Hot chili and shredded cheddar.
• *Tuna salad or baked beans (They love it in England. No joke.)
• *Chunky garden salsa.
• *Chopped fresh tomatoes or sauce and mozzarella cheese.

Have a favorite potato topping, from the weird to the wonderful? Leave a comment and share it with other crock teases.

Non-loaded Spanish rice, on the side with a chili relleno. (John Tannenberg, Creative Commons License)

Despite being a pretty inventive cook –I hardly ever make anything exactly the same way twice– it was ages before I even considered deviating from my mother’s way of making macaroni salad. To me, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, real mayo, and generous salt and pepper were the only way to make it. It’s still one of my favorite comfort foods, ice cold in a huge bowl, when I go to Mom’s house.

My sister took the Mom’s-way-is-the-only-way thing to an extreme when she decided to make cheesecake after moving out on her own. My mother made a cherry cheesecake pretty regularly, but my sister despised the cherries. She always gouged them out of the top and cast them aside.

When Heather bought the cherry pie filling to put on her own cheesecake, I questioned her motivation. “I thought you hated the cherries,” I said, puzzled. “I do,” she answered. “But I like picking them off.”

Old habits don’t just die hard. Sometimes they stubbornly refuse to die at all.

Cheesecake + cherries minus cherries = my sister's cherry cheesecake recipe. (Jetta Girl/Creative Commons)

Which brings me to Spanish rice. At my house growing up (where it usually came in a box, but that’s beside the point), it was a side dish. A simple, ordinary side dish that, in our mainstream American food household smacked slightly of the exotic. Like our ubiquitous cheese-sauced broccoli, canned peas, or instant mashed potatoes, it was distinctly a second-string accompaniment.

That’s why I was so surprised when I went looking for ideas for rice recipes and found so many food bloggers and commenters talking about Spanish rice being one of their favorite main dishes. Not only that, but in their families, they piled it high with toppings: sour cream, cheese, olives, chopped onions, chives. I was simply shocked, because it was completely unlike my growing-up experiences with Spanish rice.

I knew I had to try it. Not only did I want to experiment with moving my Spanish rice recipe from the skillet to the slow cooker, but it gave me an excuse to pile cheese on top of something.

This Spanish rice recipe calls for your favorite salsa, and that’s part of the beauty of it. That one, simple choice means you can customize it to your taste. Like spicy? Choose a spicy salsa. Tissue paper tongue? Go with mild. I like mine hot, but also super-chunky and tomato-ey. If you choose one that’s particularly chunky, you can get away with skipping the veggies in a pinch.

Adding toppings makes Spanish rice a hearty main dish. Who knew? Not the Robinson family.

Slow Cooker Loaded Spanish Rice Recipe

2 cups uncooked converted rice
2 cups water
2 cups your favorite salsa
1 medium pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 12 oz. bag sausage-style crumbles, thawed
Toppings of your choice: shredded cheese, sour cream, chopped raw onions, fresh cilantro, black olives, etc.

Directions: Spray crock of your slow cooker with non-stick spray. Combine all ingredients (except toppings) and stir. Cook covered on low for 6 hours or high for 3 hours. Add toppings if desired to make a main dish, or serve on the side with a Tex-Mex dinner.

Tips: Be sure you use a converted rice (like Uncle Ben’s), otherwise your cooking time will almost double. If you plan on being out for  a very long time, you can get away with plain white rice.

If you haven’t pre-thawed your crumbles, pack them into the slow cooker first and increase your cooking time by about 15 minutes. I usually put them straight into the fridge instead of the freezer and use them within a day.

Main dish Spanish rice may be old hat to your family, but I’m a new convert, and I’m singing its praises. No more Spanish rice on the side. This one belongs in your biggest bowl, enjoying its promotion.